CLAUSE 3.—(Penalty on Use of Old Barrels bearing Brand.) (Hansard, 25 June 1913)

§ Mr. BOOTH

I beg to move to leave out the Clause.

There was an Amendment down in the name of the hon. Member for Elgin Burghs which, while it does not quite meet my views, I was prepared, if cause were shown, to accept as a compromise, but as he has not moved that Amendment, because I understand the persuasive tongue of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill has induced him to withdraw it, I must ask the House to reject the Clause. The Clause has no necessary connection with any other Clause, and does not interfere with the machinery of the Bill. No other Clause need be amended if it is struck out. It deals with a special subject, and the marginal note is:— Penalty on use of old barrels bearing brand. The commonest thing is to use receptacles in which we have bought an article for any purpose we like. That applies to business premises as well as private houses. There is no reason whatever, if people buy a barrel which is branded, why they should not have the free use of their own property. This case actually tells them what they are to do with it afterwards. If you bought one of these old barrels which has had a mark affixed to it under this Bill, you could not use it afterwards even as a store for keeping herrings or any other fish, although you were keeping it on your own premises and did not intend to use it for any purpose other than as a store for your own use. I am not sympathetic, as the House knows, to Government inspectors going about and branding barrels for people, putting badges on articles and even upon boys and girls, as a good deal of the legislation now favoured in this House proposes. I detest 1164 that kind of thing. You will not build up a manly and independent nation on it. Here you are going further. You are actually telling people that when they have made a purchase you are going to pursue it still further and interfere with the purpose for which they use the old barrel. It, of course, will not be used very much in the ordinary way of business, but it will lend itself to unjust use. I will read the Clause:— If any person uses any old barrel bearing the mark affixed under this Act for the purpose of taking herrings or other fish therein, he shall, unless he can show that he had no intention to defraud, be liable to a penalty of £20. That is to say, that the onus of proof is put on the man to show that he is innocent. This principle is creeping into nearly every one of these Acts, which, I am sorry to say, strew the Notice Paper. The right hon. Gentleman himself has another Bill coming on in which this principle is enshrined and to a much more vicious degree, and I therefore should like to warn him. I believe he is still a Liberal. I believe he is still a Radical, and I do not suggest for a moment that he is not as keen in the cause of liberty as I am. But I want to ask him how he can justify putting the burden of proof upon people to show their innocence. It is against all the well-known principles of English law and jurisprudence, and I shall protest against it every time it is introduced, and by whatever Department. It falls upon the poor; it does not terrify the rich. The rich man can pay people to look after his law, and he can engage counsel to go into Court. The poor man is unacquainted with the procedure in Court and, in stating his case, gets nervous, and does not bring out the facts which would prove his innocence. We have seen that again and again when a poor person goes into a Police Court. He may be innocent, but he is nervous, and does not state his case to the best advantage. For one thing, they begin giving a preliminary account of the transaction. It is the habit of people in humble circumstances, in giving an explanation, to begin far away at the beginning. They will begin with the original purchase, and will point out how they did the business and give all the details. In the meantime, the paid lawyer and the paid inspector, who has been hunting them down, are interrupting and making them nervous, putting them off the thread of their argument and making them confused. It is a most 1165 unwise thing and dead against the public interest, and, I am sure, will increase the spirit of lawlessness which has now become so rampant if we go on legislating in this way. But if the people find that they are pitted against State officials with good education and good salary, laying traps for them, they will begin to have a wholesome contempt for all these proceedings and it breaks out in various ways. I am entitled to ask the House to be firm. I quite agree it is not in so bad a form as it, is in some other Acts. I spoke to a very distinguished legal Member of the House and discussed the Clause with him this afternoon, and the only defence he could make was that the principle which I object to is introduced in some other Bill in a much more vicious form than it is here. But that is no reason why we should pass it on this occasion. It appears again in the Bee Disease Bill, and that is one of the reasons why I will fight that Bill. It is a principle which I hate and detest.

§ Mr. RUNCIMAN

I quite appreciate the feeling of my hon. Friend (Mr. Booth), and perhaps lie will allow me to explain why the Clause was put in at all, and why it is necessary for the working of herring branding. It has been founded very largely on Scotch experience, and it is the case that although nearly all the branded herring goes abroad, occasionally a barrel finds its way back into this country and when a barrel comes back here bearing the brand, it would be open to any person to fill it with herring of very low quality, far below the requirements and the Regulations of the Scottish Fishery Board, and to send it away again, thereby committing a fraud upon our purchasers abroad and depreciating the value of the brand, which is of the greatest service to the Scottish fishing industry, and it would indeed tend to the mark itself becoming of less value. That is a case which has occasionally happened and the sole object of the Clause was to prevent the brand being used fraudulently. I understand that my hon. Friend has no objection to a man who uses a brand fraudulently being punished for it, but 1166 what he objects to is putting the onus of proof upon him. If he has a barrel in use on his premises he ought not to be declared, or thought, to be guilty unless it can be proved that he wished to use that barrel for the purpose of defrauding. My hon. Friend (Mr. Sutherland) has suggested the insertion of the words "for sale" after the word "therein." If those words had been inserted it would have been almost impossible ever to get a conviction, for the only way, I am told, in which you could prove that a barrel was being used for herring for sale would be actually to see the sale taking place or to know that some sale or contract note applied to that barrel, and conviction would be absolutely impossible. I believe there is another way of meeting my hon. Friend, and I would suggest that he might put an Amendment at the beginning of Clause 3, which I think would serve the purpose both of my hon. Friend (Mr. Booth) and my hon. Friend (Mr. Sutherland), to make it read "If any person fraudulently uses any old barrel bearing the mark affixed," and so on, and then we can, if necessary, omit the words "unless he can show that he has no intention to defraud." If the hon. Member will withdraw his Amendment, I will move to insert those words.