Mr. POINTERasked if the right hon. Gentleman's attention has been drawn to the introduction in the Malta Legislative Council of an Ordinance Bill, the object of which is to amend certain articles in the criminal code, whereby contraventions or misdeameanours may be punished by hard labour instead of by imprisonment without hard labour as before; and whether, seeing that the punishment of hard labour carries with it the loss of franchise and that the official members of the council are in a permanent majority and can, therefore, always defeat the efforts of the unofficial elected members, he will refuse to sanction the ordinance which opens up the possibility of loss of franchise as the penalty for simple misdemeanours, instead of reserving that punishment for crimes classed as felonies?