§ If any person is guilty of an offence under this Act, he shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or to a fine not exceeding five hundred pounds, or to both such imprisonment and fine, or on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or to both such imprisonment and fine.
§ Amendments made:—
§ After the word "indictment" ["liable on conviction on indictment"] insert the words "or on summary conviction."
§ Leave out the words "two years" ["not exceeding two years"] and insert instead thereof the words "six months."
§ Leave out the word "five" ["five hundred pounds"] and insert instead thereof the word "two."
§ Leave out the words "or on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or to both such imprisonment and fine."—[Mr. Churchill.]
§ Mr. CHURCHILLI beg to move to insert the following new Sub-section at the end of the Clause:—"(2) Any person aggrieved by a summary conviction under this Act may, in England or Ireland, appeal to a court of quarter sessions, and in Scotland in like manner as in the case of a conviction under The Motor Car Act, 1903, as provided by Section 18 of that Act."
This Sub-section is intended to meet the views of those who are interested in aerial navigation, and who desire an opportunity of having their cases decided by a jury. It has been represented to me they would greatly prefer this to a bench of magistrates who might be inclined to look with 1031 undue severity on infringements of the Act, as they did in regard to offences in regard to motor car traffic. When I had the opportunity of discussing this matter with the hon. Member for the Fareham Division of Hampshire he impressed on me the desirability of giving this uniform right of appeal. We have thought it necessary and proper in regard to this measure to meet the views and opinions of hon. Gentlemen opposite. We have no wish to ask for as an agreed Bill what after all could not be agreeable to both sides, and we are very much indebted to the House for the courtesy and consideration with which they have allowed this measure to go through all its stages so very rapidly. I personally am very anxious to carry all parties and all sections of the House with me in this legislation, and in taking this opportunity of acknowledging the courtesy and consideration with which the Committee has discussed all these Amendments, I wish to say that the Government is earnestly anxious to facilitate by every means in its power the development of aerial navigation. We recognise the great importance and significance of this departure, and nothing in this Bill is devised to strike at or to censure those daring and intrepid persons who are at the peril of their lives from clay to day and week to week wresting the secrets of the navigation of the air from nature, and who are undoubtedly securing to this country some of the benefits which will accrue therefrom, I could not sit down without acknowledging the manner in which my Amendments have been received, and I trust that the methods which have been employed in this agitation will afford a very valuable precedent under which large bodies of noncontroversial measures may be dealt with. I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name.
§ Question, "That those words be there added" put, and agreed to.
§ Clause, as amended, added to the Bill.
§ Clause 4 (Short Title) added to the Bill.
§ Bill reported; as amended, considered; read the third time and passed.