§ *THE UNDER - SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL,) Yorkshire, Cleveland, in moving the Second Reading, said that this Bill was not of a controversial character. It dealt with the case of persons discharged from prisons, reformatories, industrial schools and inebriate homes, who, owing to ill health or other causes, had to be sent to the workhouse. At present, when their place of settlement was unknown, they were sent to the workhouse of the union in which the prison or institution from which they were discharged was situated. The effect was that some unions became chargeable with many persons whom they ought not to be made to maintain. The Home Office had received representations on the subject in respect of persons released from the prisons at Parkhurst and Lin coin and many other places. The Wands-worth Union had had to supply relief last year to seventy-nine persons released from Wands worth Prison. The Bill proposed that, where the place of settlement of the discharged person was unknown, the union where he lived when the offence was committed should be charged with his relief; and, if that was not known, then the union in which the offence was committed. Where persons were too ill to be moved to the union chargeable, they were to be discharged to the nearest workhouse, but the expenses of their maintenance would 1292 be borne by the union chargeable under the Bill. It was now twenty-two years since the principle of this measure had been admitted to be sound by the Home Office. On more than one occasion Bills had been drafted to provide a remedy for the grievance. They had been sometimes introduced by priate Members, but had never made any progress. He hoped that Parliament would now pass this measure in order to remedy a grievance which was admitted on all hands.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
§ *MR. COCHRANEsaid a Bill similar to this was before the Home Office during, the last Unionist Administration, and, while it was regarded with benevolent feelings, no opportunity occurred for translating those feelings into definite action. He entirely agreed with what the hon. Gentleman had said. It was an intolerable hardship that persons who were discharged invalided from prisons should become chargeable on the local rates of the districts in which the prisons were situated.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Bill read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.