MOTION FOR A RETURN. (Hansard, 15 April 1872)

§ VISCOUNT MIDLETON

moved an Address for Return of the salaries and 1252 emoluments received by Clerks of the Peace in England and Wales, distinguishing between sums paid by the county treasurer and sums received in the shape of fees on an average of three years. The position of these officers was very anomalous. At present there was no uniformity in the mode of remunerating them. In some counties they were paid partly by salaries and partly by fees; in others—and he thought wisely—the whole fee fund had been commuted, and specific salaries were assigned to clerks of the peace. Some difficulty had arisen in more than one county in carrying out such an arrangement where the clerks of the peace were not fully consenting parties to it. The general progress of public feeling had been against the payment of any officials through the medium of fees. A Bill had been brought in this Session to remunerate the Attorney General and the Solicitor General by means of a salary in lieu of fees; and a measure had also been introduced to remunerate clerks of petty sessions in the same mode. In the county with which he was connected that reform had been effected some years ago; they paid all their clerks of petty sessions by salary, and the result of that experiment had been eminently satisfactory both to the county and to those gentlemen themselves. He wished to see some principle of that kind applied also to clerks of the peace; but before any sound basis of legislation could be laid it was necessary to ascertain what their present remuneration was. The only part of his Motion with respect to which he anticipated any difficulty was as regarded a return of the fees. He had heard it argued in Quarter Sessions that it would be unfair to make any alteration in the salaries of clerks of the peace, because the fees were not received actually from sources connected with the county, but from Her Majesty's Treasury. Even in cases where appointments to clerkships of the peace had been very recent indeed, if there was any difficulty in making out a triennial valuation of fees, there could not be any difficulty in arriving at some approximation which would enable them to get at the actual amount of the income. If his Motion were agreed to, he earnestly hoped that the Return would be laid on the Table on an early day.