§ SIR MAURICE LEVY (Leicestershire, Longborough)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the fact that The Vaccination Act, 1907, was passed for the purpose of rendering it unnecessary for conscientious objectors to vaccination to attend at a police court, he will communicate with all benches of magistrates in the country and point out that any resolution passed by such magistrates requiring conscientious objectors to vaccination to attend at a police court to get their statutory declarations witnessed by justices of the peace is opposed to the spirit in which the Act was passed, seeing 469 that it was intended to prevent applicants laving to lose a day's work and to go, often some miles, to a court for the certificate; and whether he is aware that, among other benches, the Bolton and Hanley benches have passed the resolution previously referred to.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I think the "long title" of the Act correctly indicates its object, that is, to substitute a statutory declaration for the certificate previously required, and thereby to relieve an applicant from the necessity of convincing the justices that he has a conscientious objection. Several benches have passed a resolution to the effect that it is undesirable for justices to take these declarations except in open Court, on the ground, as I understand it, that generally speaking it is proper that justices should not transact magisterial business in their own houses, except in cases of urgency; though I was not aware that the Bolton and Hanley magistrates had done so. Such scruples seem to me to be unnecessary. A resolution cannot override the power of any justice to act individually by taking a declaration at his own house if he sees fit, and I think that few justices will wish to put poor persons unnecessarily to the expense and trouble of attending a distant Court by refusing to take their declarations. Moreover, a statutory declaration can be made before a Commissioner for Oaths, or other officer authorised for that purpose, as well as before a justice. In these circumstances I do not think that a circular of the kind suggested by my hon. friend is called for.