VAGRANCY BILL. (Hansard, 19 May 1909)

§ Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL

I beg the liberty, under the Ten Minutes Rule, to bring in a Bill to repeal the Vagrancy Act of 1824. I think the general opinion is that that Act ought to be repealed. The public conscience has been profoundly shocked—people would scarcely believe it is possible—by the fact that an old man of 65 was sentenced for begging to 12 months' imprisonment with hard labour with the accompaniment of 12 lashes. The method of punishment has not been prescribed. The lashes might be administered with a cat-o'-nine-tails, or a birch, or by a cane. That such a thing should occur at this time of day in a civilised country is scarcely credible. What I propose is simply to repeal the Vagrancy Act. It was an Act passed by the rich against the poor and the labouring classes in this country. The first Vagrancy Act was passed in 1821, but the very bad Parliament which passed it only allowed it to be a temporary measure, and passed it only for three years. It then became permanent under the Act of 1824, which I now ask to have repealed. If you look at the date at which it was passed you will realise the surrounding circumstances. It was passed at a time of profound agricultural depression, when vast numbers of people were out of work and were in distress, and the landlords were trying to maintain the profits which they had made during the Napoleonic wars and 417 wanted to do it at the expense of the people; and, accordingly, they passed this Act, which was a coercion Act for the oppression of the people. They were not only to suffer, but they were to be punished for complaining of their sufferings. Every real offence which is comprised in the Act is an offence under the Common Law, which may be proceeded against in the ordinary course. The specific offences which are subject to punishment under this Act are, first of all, begging. If a man begs he can be brought before a Petty Sessions Court and the Petty Sessions Court can then convict him of begging and can then send him on, keeping him in prison meantime, to the next Court of Quarter Sessions; and the Court of Quarter Sessions can inflict, without any evidence at all, without trial by jury, or any-other trial, without hearing the man, and merely taking the depositions of the Court below, the punishment of 12 months' imprisonment with hard labour and any amount of lashes, either public or private, and not only one flogging, but as many floggings as the magistrate wishes.

Another offence punishable under this Act, which shows the savage and vindictive nature of the measure, is that if anyone is found loitering, sleeping near a house in the air of Heaven, at night time, he can be brought up under the same Act and punished in the same way, his offence being the Scriptural offence of not having whereon to lay his head. These things are done in the light of the twentieth century. Then there are other offences, grave offences, against women and children—the atrocious offence of deserting wife and children; but that does not justify this punishment of the lads. It has been so held by very eminent authorities. Twenty years ago it was repealed so far as its flogging provisions were concerned by a second reading Bill in this House, which Bill, introduced by Mr. Milvain, proposed not to suppress, but to extend, flogging in certain cases, and repealed certain sections of the Vagrancy Act, because Mr. Milvain said that flogging should not be applied to such offences as that, though applicable to other offences under the common law. Similarly Mr. Wharton, who was a chairman of quarter sessions, moved a Bill to repeal this very Act, although he was in favour of flogging in other cases. He said that he could sentence to flogging for certain offences, such as indecent exposure, when he could not sentence to flogging for greater offences, such as outrages on women and 418 children. I have also got three or four Home Secretaries in my favour. The hon. Member for one of the divisions of Kent actually wrote down to the magistrates of Dorset, asking them not to inflict this sentence. Sir Ralph Littler said it was obsolete. The Prime Minister said that the punishment of flogging was greater than any other, and that it took all the sparks of humanity out of a man. I hope that I shall have the consent of the House to introduce this Bill, and express our condemnation of such penalties and our opinion that they should not be even passed on any man.