§ SIR W. J. COLLINS (St. Pancras, W.)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that for the last six years the police have permitted temperance meetings to be held on Sunday mornings at the top of Park Street, Regent's Park, and that police permission has during the past month been asked for and refused for a continuance of such meetings, and whether, if on inquiry into the cause of such refusal he finds that no legitimate ground of complaint exists, he will cause the permission to be renewed.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) The permission of the police is not required for the holding of temperance meetings at the top of Park Street, Regent's Park, or elsewhere, and they would not intervene unless obstruction or annoyance were caused. Police action 50 in this instance has been limited to ceasing the issue of permits authorising the collecting of money at this spot, in consequence of complaints from residents. Discretion to grant or refuse permits for the collection of money is vested in the Commissioner, and I am not prepared to interfere with his exercise of that discretion.