§ LORD LYNDHURSTsaid, he wished to call the attention of his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack to certain Bills for the improvement of the Criminal Law which his noble and learned Friend had laid on the table a few days ago. He found that those Bills were not confined to the consolidation of the Criminal Law, but that they extended to its amendment. The noble and learned Lord, when he laid those Bills on the table, said he had not read them.
§ LORD LYNDHURSTcertainly understood his noble and learned Friend to have said so; but if his noble and learned Friend had read the Bills, then it became of still more consequence that he should call his attention to the subject. He found in looking at one of these Bills, that in one of the sections, the crime of wilfully setting fire to premises was to be punished with seven years' penal servitude; but in a section or two further on, he found that the attempt to set fire to premises—the attempt only—was to be punished with a sentence of fourteen years' penal servitude; and with this apparent inconsistency he thought it his duty to call the attention of his noble and learned Friend to the subject before the Bills were brought forward for a second reading, as he placed every confidence in the accuracy of his noble and learned Friend.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, if his noble and learned Friend had done him the favour, with his usual courtesy, to give him 565 notice of this question, he might have been prepared to give him an answer. As it was, the question came on him totally by surprise. But he could assure his noble and learned Friend that he had totally misunderstood what passed on a former occasion if he supposed that he had not read any of the Bills. What he then said was this, that infinite pains had been taken with the preparation of the Bills, which were intended not only to consolidate the statutes as they stood on the statute-book, but moreover tended to assimilate the law of Ireland with that of England. He stated that, he could not pledge himself that he had read every word of all the Bills, but that he had bestowed upon them great labour. He could inform his noble and learned Friend that he had spent hours and hours on the consideration of these Bills with Mr. Greaves, than whom there was not a more able and painstaking lawyer, and with Mr. Pigott, who represented Ireland. It might be that what his noble and learned Friend pointed out was an inconsistency, but that was no objection to the course he had himself suggested when the subject was last before them—that the Bills after being read a second time should be referred to a Select Committee. His noble and learned Friend would then have an opportunity of pointing out any inaccuracies he might have detected.
§ LORD LYNDHURSTread the clauses already alluded to, and said he should have thought his noble and learned Friend, who had spent so many hours in drawing the Bills, would have thanked him for pointing out to him an apparent inconsistency which he had discovered on first reading the Bills.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he was not prepared at that moment to explain what his noble and learned Friend had referred to, nor was it to be expected that he should. If his noble and learned Friend had done him the favour to have informed him that he should call his attention to the subject, he thought that, with the assistance of his learned Friend, Mr. Greaves, he should have been able to show his noble and learned Friend that he was entirely under a mistake.