§ MR. COOPER (Southwark, Bermondsey)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether His Majesty's Government recognise the class of political prisoners; whether the suffragists now imprisoned in Holloway were committed under 34 Edw. III., because they refused to find bail; if not, whether he will state the nature of their offence.
§ MR. GLADSTONEThe reply to the first Question is that His Majesty's Government is necessarily guided by the law, which does not recognise political motive as giving rise to any claim to special treatment in prison on the part of offenders against the ordinary law. As regards the second, I am advised by the chief magistrate that in requiring the suffragists to find sureties to keep the peace, the magistrates were acting under the general powers vested in them by virtue of their commission. These powers originated in part from the Statute of Edw. III., but the procedure for their exercise has been regulated by Parliament so recently as in the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879.
§ MR. COOPERIs it within the recollection of the right hon. Gentleman that he and the present Prime Minister and the Liberal Party went into the Division Lobby as a protest against the arrest and prosecution of the senior Member for the City of Cork on 1st July, 1889?
§ * MR. SPEAKERThat has nothing to do with this Question.
§ MR. COOPERI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether Mrs. and Miss Pankhurst, now imprisoned in Holloway Gaol, were deprived of exercise and put on bread and water because they spoke to one another when they met in the exercise yard.
§ MR. GLADSTONEMrs. and Miss Pankhurst were not put on bread and water. They were both awarded one day's confinement to cell for taking part in a disturbance in the exercise yard. I may add that I have received satisfactory reports of the health of both Mrs. and Miss Pankhurst, and that directions were given on Friday last that they should be allowed to exercise together in the hospital yard without any restrictions as to talking.
§ MR. BYLES (Salford, N.)Are these ladies wearing their own garments?
§ MR. GLADSTONEThey are now in the second division.
§ MR. LUPTON (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)Would it not be better for exercise if the right hon. Gentleman allowed them to walk outside the prison?
§ MR. COOPERIs it not a fact that Mrs. Pankhurst and Miss Pankhurst were put into solitary confinement for one day because the mother and daughter met one morning and spoke, and were reported for doing so by the wardress?
§ MR. GLADSTONEI am informed that there was an offence against the prison rules concerning talking.
§ MR. COOPERI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the suffragists now imprisoned in the second and third class at Holloway Gaol have been required to take exercise with women serving sentences for theft, drink, or soliciting; whether any of the suffragists have refused to exercise with criminals and have been deprived of exercise and placed on bread and water in a punishment 1042 cell; and whether, if the suffragists have been allowed to take exercise by themselves, he will state the terms of any instruction issued by the Prison Board to the prison authorities directing them not to require certain female prisoners not to take exercise with criminals.
§ MR. GLADSTONEThe suffragists now imprisoned at Holloway are in the second division. There are none in the third division. None of them has been required to take exercise with women serving sentences for theft or any other offences, nor have any of them been placed on bread and water, or confined in a punishment cell. The obligation to keep second division prisoners apart from other classes is imposed by the Prison Rules (Rule 232), and does not require any special instructions from the Prison Commissioners.