§ 84. Mr. SNOWDENasked the Home Secretary what action he has taken upon the conduct of the Tottenham Police Court magistrates, who on 15th June fined a young man named Eric Fox 60s. or twenty-eight days' imprisonment as an absentee under the Military Service Act, seeing that the officiating magistrates were the chairman of the local tribunal and the military representative on the tribunal who had refused and opposed Mr. Fox's claim for exemption, and why he was not allowed to undergo the punishment of twenty-eight days' imprisonment imposed by the Court, but was handed over to the military at once; if his attention has been called to the statement of Mr. Paul Taylor, a London police magistrate, that the legal course in such cases 'is to allow the prisoner to serve his imprisonment before handing him over to the military; and why in practically every one of the 1,167 cases of this nature the legal course has not been followed?
§ The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Herbert Samuel)I have not had time to obtain a report on this case, but on the facts stated in the question there appears to be no reason why the chairman of the local tribunal should not act as a justice in a case where the justices had no power to question or review the decision of the local tribunal. The punishment imposed was a fine, with imprisonment only in default of payment, and it would have been, in my opinion, wrong for the justices to send the defendant at once to prison instead of allowing the fine to be recovered from his pay in 289 the manner provided by law. I have not seen the statement attributed to Mr. Paul Taylor.