§ MR. KEIR HARDIE (Merthyr Tydvil)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the application made at Bow Street Police Court on Monday to have certain women political prisoners transferred from the second to the first division; whether he is aware that the magistrate stated that the Home Secretary was the proper person to apply to; and whether he will now exercise the powers he possesses, known as the prerogative of mercy, to have the ladies referred to treated as first-class misdemeanants.
§ *MR. HERBERT SAMUELMy right hon. friend has seen a newspaper report of the application which was made to the Court on behalf of these ladies. As he stated on a previous occasion, it would, in his opinion, be unconstitutional to use the power of the Crown to override, with regard to any class of prisoners, the discretion which has been expressly given to the Court by statute. In certain cases, where no order was made, he has 1212 drawn the attention of the committing magistrate to the matter, and has asked him to consider it; and as the result, the magistrate has directed the prisoners' removal to a higher division than that in which they had been placed. My right hon. friend was advised by the late Attorney-General that a magistrate had power to give such a direction subsequent to the prisoners' committal to prison. With regard to the ladies referred to in the Question, my right hon. friend has been advised that the remainder of Mrs. Drummond's sentence should be remitted upon medical grounds, and she has been discharged from prison. As to the other ladies who are being treated in the second division, he sees no reason which would justify him in communicating with the learned magistrate.
§ MR. KEIR HARDIEasked whether on the same day, in another Court, a similar application for transference from a lower to higher grade was granted by the magistrate, as he understood, on the recommendation of the Home Secretary; and why, if that could be done in one Court, it could be done in another.
§ *MR. HERBERT SAMUELThat is precisely the question I have answered.
§ *MR. REES (Montgomery Boroughs)May I ask whether equality before the law is not a bedrock principle of democratic rule?
§ *MR. KEIR HARDIEMay I ask whether equality before the law meant first-class treatment for Dr. Jameson and second class for these ladies who are also political offenders?
§ *MR. HERBERT SAMUELMy right hon. friend has explained more than once that the Jameson case was before the passing of the Prisons Act of 1898, which completely altered the situation by vesting discretion in this matter in the Court.
§ MR. LUPTON (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he has not complete discretion to discharge all these suffragist prisoners at once?
§ [No reply was given.]