COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 28 July 1874)

§ 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 847 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.

§ LORD REDESDALE
said, 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.

§ LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY
supported 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 CHANCELLOR
said, 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 849 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 PENZANCE
said, 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.