THE EARL OF MILLTOWNsaid, he must ask permission to be allowed to make a personal explanation. Last Tuesday, when the House was considering the Bill for the Protection of Young Girls, he stated that the noble and learned Earl on the Front Bench (Earl Cairns) had no right to contend that the House was bound by the compromise arrived at by the Select Committee fixing the age of consent at 16; because he himself, on one occasion, voted in favour of an Amendment proposed in Committee by the noble Lord (Lord Mount Temple), to raise the age of consent from 16 to 17. He (the Earl of Milltown) was then contradicted by the noble and learned Earl; but he found, on reference to Hansard, that the noble and learned Earl did last year, when the Bill was then before the House, support that Amendment both by speech and vote, and that the Amendment was also supported by two other Members of the Select Committee, the Bishop of London and Lord Norton, making, with the Mover, no less than four Members of the Committee who had thrown the compromise to the winds.
§ EARL CAIRNSsaid, he had, on Tuesday last, understood the noble Earl who had just spoken (the Earl of Milltown) to refer to the Committee stage of the Bill in this, the present, Session; and he pointed out that when the noble Lord (Lord Mount Temple) proposed an Amendment to raise the age to 17 years, he (Earl Cairns) recommended its withdrawal, on the ground that the age of 16 had been fixed as a compromise, and should be accepted. The noble Earl was, however, quite correct in stating that when, last Session, the same noble Lord brought forward an Amendment with the same object, he (Earl Cairns) did support it.