Lords Sitting of 28 July 1874

MINUTES.
Sat First in Parliament—The Lord St. John of Bletso, after the death of his father.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Royal (late Indian) Ordnance Corps Compensation* (203).
Second Reading—Police Force Expenses* (199); Education Department Orders* (197).
Committee—Infanticide (184), negatived; Conveyancing and Land Transfer (Scotland) * (186–205).
Committee—Report—Civil Bill Courts (Ireland) * (146); Alderney Harbour* (196); Statute Law Revision (No. 2) * (147).
Report—Slaughterhouses, &c. * (191–204).
Third Reading—Intoxicating Liquors (Ireland) (No. 2) * (174), and passed.

ECCLESIASTICAL FEES.—QUESTION.
THE EARL OF SHAFTESBUEYsaid, he wished to put a Question to his noble Friend who represented the Home Office in their Lordships' House. On the 5th of May last he moved for certain Returns relating to ecclesiastical fees, and the purposes to which they were devoted. He regarded those Returns as of considerable importance, and was anxious for their production as soon as possible; but, though three months had elapsed since they were ordered, they were not yet forthcoming. He hoped the Home Office would give him its assistance in the matter, for he recollected that Returns
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moved for by him in 1871 were delayed until the end of the Session, and the result was that he was not able to bring forward a Bill which he had intended to found upon those Returns. He was very much afraid, therefore, that if pressure were not put on by the Home Office their Lordships would not have the Returns ordered on the 5th of May last at the beginning of the next Session, so that the statistics could be tabulated and the results made known. He wished to ask his noble Friend whether there was any hope of those Returns, and, if so, when they might be expected.
EARL BEAUCHAMPsaid, that on the 7th of May, letters were sent out from the Home Office requesting the Archbishops to take steps to have the Returns sent in. A few days ago a letter was received from the Secretary of the Archbishop of Canterbury stating that only very few answers had been sent by those who must be looked to for the Returns. He could assure the noble Earl that as far as it could do so the Home Office would take care that there was no unnecessary delay. The Returns asked for were very minute and elaborate, but one would have expected that in three months a great deal might have been done towards making them out. He had no doubt that the Question of the noble Earl would prove a useful reminder.

INFANTICIDE BILL.—(No. 184.)
(The Lord Colchester.)
INFANTICIDE BILL.—(No. 184.)

  COMMITTEE.
  Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
  LORD COLCHESTER, in moving that their Lordships go into Committee on the Bill, said, that though the Bill had been carefully sifted in the House of Commons, he understood that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack was of opinion that it required a further examination, which could not be given to it this Session. The objection to the Bill, raised by the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees was, that it made the crime of murdering an infant, under certain circumstances, a crime of a lesser degree than it was at present. But he did not think the noble Lord could sustain that objection on the face of a mass of evidence given by learned Judges and other learned personages before the

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  Commission on Capital Punishment to the effect that under the existing law it was next to impossible to procure a conviction for infanticide. Besides, the existing law was not abrogated, but as in the case of treason felony, an alternative course was afforded to the prosecution. They were, therefore, sacrificing justice for the sake of an idea, and the Commission in its Report recommended some such legislation as this. As some objection had been taken in the 3rd clause to the words—"If the mother of any child shall wilfully cause the death of such child during or immediately after its birth," he would be prepared to substitute for the word "wilfully" the words "unlawfully and maliciously." If the Government accepted the principle of the Bill he would be willing to withdraw the measure for the present Session; but if they did not he must take the sense of the House on it. He considered the present state of the law a solemn mockery.
  Moved, "That the House be now put into Committee."—(The Lord Colchester.)
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, he did not think the Amendment suggested by the noble Lord who had charge of the Bill would at all improve it. The best check to the commission of the crime of infanticide was the sense of its heinousness. Once Parliament by its legislation encouraged the idea that infanticide was not murder, that check would in a great degree be removed, and in some sense encouragement would be held out to its commission. What would people say if they saw the same punishment inflicted for the killing of a child as for the stealing of a pair of stockings? He should rather see a woman who had murdered her child acquitted because the jury did not wish that she should be put to death than have it declared by Act of Parliament that the wilful or the malicious killing of a child was not murder. It would be far better that all the murderesses in the country should be acquitted than that there should be such an Act. This being his decided opinion on the subject, he would move an Amendment that the House do resolve itself into a Committee on the Bill that day three months.
  An Amendment moved to leave out ("now") and at the end of the Motion to add ("this day three months.")—(The Chairman of Committees.)
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsupported the Amendment. He said that the statistics quoted by the noble Lord, who introduced this Bill, showing the difficulty of obtaining convictions for infanticide, were not of much weight, for at the period from which they were taken, all convictions were very rare owing to the prejudice then excited against capital punishment. It were better, he thought, that every murderess tried for infanticide should be acquitted, owing to an unwillingness of juries to convict in such cases, rather than that the sense of the enormity of the crime should be lessened in the minds of that class of women who were more likely to commit the crime; and the House was responsible for the Bills they might pass, but not for the verdicts of the juries.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he should regret that any opinion of his should be at variance with a recommendation of the Commission on Capital Punishment, but he had not had an opportunity of examining that part of the Report of the Commissioners which bore on this subject, and he desired to reserve his opinion on it till he had examined it. He must, however, say that the principle of the Bill appeared to him to be an extremely objectionable one, and it was one which, as at present advised, he could not recommend their Lordships to accept. It was a proposition which, if it were expressed in short and popular language, was one from which the moral sense of everybody would recoil. If it were stated in plain terms that the mother who murdered her child at, or soon after its birth, was not to be tried for murder, but for a felony which was to be punished with imprisonment only, such imprisonment not to exceed two years, with hard labour—if the Bill was expressed in that plain language, what would anyone say to it? It was called a "Bill to amend the law of Infanticide;"—but if anyone but the mother was guilty of the crime of killing a child, no one could doubt that, even after the passing of this Bill, he or she would be guilty of murder, and would be tried and punished for murder. If so, would not this be

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  giving a privilege—he regretted to use the term—to a mother to do against her own child what no one else could do without incurring the penalty of murder? If, as appeared to be the case, a difficulty in obtaining convictions for infanticide was experienced under the existing law, an amendment in the law might be necessary; but the Amendment now proposed was one which, as at present advised, he could not assent to, nor recommend to their Lordships.
  LORD PENZANCEsaid, that under the existing law extreme cases were provided for, for a count for concealing the birth was always put in the indictment, and of this, which was a misdemeanour, the jury might convict when they were not prepared to convict of the capital offence. He did not say that state of the law was perfect or not capable of amendment; but he concurred with his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack in thinking the Amendment proposed in the Bill extremely objectionable.
  LORD O'HAGAN, as one of the Royal Commissioners whose Report had been referred to in support of the Bill, said, that the conclusion arrived at by the Commissioners did not support it. The conclusion arrived at by the Commission was that, in cases where injuries had been maliciously inflicted by the mother within seven days after the birth of the child, which injuries resulted in the death of the child, there ought to be a conviction for murder; but the Commission held that, in cases where murder could be proved, there ought to be a conviction for murder, and in like manner a conviction for manslaughter where only manslaughter was proved, and of concealment of birth where the latter was what the indictment charged and what the evidence made out. It was quite true that verdicts of concealing the birth were now given by juries in cases where the evidence would warrant a conviction for the capital offence. This was done to avoid the infliction of capital punishment. Undoubtedly, it was a very evil thing when juries were induced to depart from truth and law; but by way of remedy for that, it would be a very serious thing for Parliament to say that murder was not murder, and ought not to be punished with the penalty of murder, whatever that penalty might be.
  On Question, That ("now") stand part of the Motion? Resolved in the Negative; and House to be in Committee on this day three months.

PAROCHIAL RECORDS (IRELAND).

  QUESTION.
  The EARL OF BELMOREasked the Lord Chancellor, Whether he can give any assurance that Her Majesty's Government will during the Recess take the matter of providing for the safe custody of the Parochial Records in Ireland into consideration, with a view to legislation early next Session?
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he would most willingly give his noble Friend the assurance he required. The documents referred to by the noble Earl were, in reality, national documents, and he held it to be one of the first duties of a Government to provide for their safe custody. Of that, he thought, there could not be a second opinion. The only cause of delay in the matter arose from the difficulty of deciding the best manner in which the documents could be securely deposited, consistently with ready accessibility, and from the consideration of the question how far the emoluments gained in the various parishes by the keeping of these records ought to be the subject of compensation, and from what source compensation was to be provided. The details were under the consideration of the Government, and he hoped that early next Session they would be prepared to deal with the subject.
  House adjourned at Six o'clock to Thursday next, a quarter before Four o'clock.