The Earl of Stradbrokemoved the consideration of the Amendments on the third reading of the Preservation of Game by Night Bill.
The Earl of Radnorobjected to the Motion, on the ground that the Amendments were different to those which had been determined upon at the last stage of the proceedings.
§ After some conversation on the point of form,
The Earl of Radnorrose and opposed the Bill. It had been said that the existing Act was inoperative, whereas he found that last year only, no less than 236 persons had been committed to gaol under it. Of these, 5 had been sentenced to 15 years, 8 to 10 years, and 31 to 7 years' transportation. Of the remainder, 20 were sentenced to 2 years, 39 to 1 year, and 68 to 6 months' imprisonment; the sentence of I was remitted, and 64 were acquitted. But his chief objection to the Bill was, that any three persons who were walking along the turnpike road, if one of them were armed, though it were only with a bludgeon, were liable to be apprehended on suspicion of poaching, and committed for trial to the assizes. Again, he objected to it, that by it all persons authorised in the existing Act—namely, all landowners, occupiers, and their servants, would have power to apprehend, not only on commons and unenclosed places, but on the high road also. He found that the number of commitments for poaching had increased since 1841 from 91 to 236. He thought that this was to be attributed to something more than the love of game. In fact the Report of the Poor Law Commissioners proved that it was to be attributed to the distressed state of the population. He was no encourager of poaching, but he certainly thought it could be best prevented, not by stringent enactments, but by removing the distress which drove people to it. For these reasons, therefore, and considering that the Bill had been hardly heard of before it was proposed for a third reading, he hoped their Lordships would refuse their assent to it.
§ Earl Fitzhardingethought that a good deal which had fallen from the noble Earl, instead of showing that the Bill ought not to pass, went to prove the necessity for it. The noble Earl had! spoken of the number of persons convicted under the Act 9th George IV.; but to make anything of that argument, he should have shown that those persons were unjustly convicted. The sole object of the present Bill was to make the existing Act operative on roads and places surrounding covers, where poachers now, through a defect in the law, carried on their practices unmolested. As to the statement that the Bill was not known to many noble Lords, that must be entirely their own fault, for some time had elapsed 147 since it came up from the House of Commons, where it was fully discussed, and it had been entered nearly two months on their Lordships' Paper. He had had some experience in these matters, and he could not agree with his noble Friend that distress was the cause of the increase or continuance of poaching. That was a false cry, and one which he denied in toto. So far as his own experience, which lay chiefly in his own county, went, he had found that it was not the industrious man in want of employment, who went out poaching, but idle, dissolute fellows who would not work, but who preferred to poach and frequent alehouses. He remembered a case which occurred on his own estate, where an excellent servant was murdered in cold blood, and others were maimed for life. This was done, not by persons in distress, but by dissolute persons, small farmers, who ought to have known better, and it was found that they had been sworn to secrecy by an attorney in the place, for which he was very properly transported. He could not, therefore, allow it to be said, that poachers were men driven to crime by distress, when he knew that they were the very worst class of the community.
Lord Broughamobjected to the slovenly manner in which the Bill was drawn, and said there was a material difference between the enacting parts and the preamble.
§ After some conversation with regard to the wording of a particular part of the Bill,
Lord Broughamrecommended that the discussion should be postponed, and the Bill printed for further consideration, as it had come up from the Commons in a very unintelligible state.
The Earl of Stradbrokeconsented to the adoption of this course, and the debate was accordingly adjourned to Monday.