SECOND READING. (Hansard, 20 May 1884)

§ THE EARL OF DERBY
, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said: My Lords, the object of this Bill is to remove certain inconveniences which have been seriously felt from time to time in Colonial administration, and which are always liable to recur. Those inconveniences have arisen from the necessity of keeping men, who have been sentenced to imprisonment or to penal servitude in any Colony, within the limits of the Colony in which their trial has taken place? We therefore propose, in the Bill, to take power to remove a prisoner from any Colony to any other, or to bring him home; but subject to this Proviso—that the Colony from which he is sent and that to which he is sent must both concur, as well as the Secretary of State for the Colonies. The reason which makes this power desirable is two-fold. In the first place, small Colonies often have not suitable means for enforcing penal discipline, and cannot provide such means without undue expense. The extreme case is Heligoland, which has no gaol at all; and a man was lately sentenced there for manslaughter, who could not have been punished according to his sentence if there had not been an agreement under an Imperial Act between Heligoland and Gibraltar, in accordance to which he was transferred to Gibraltar. It is obvious that there is an economy in removing a prisoner from a small Colony, where there are no proper means of detention, rather than in supplying those means of detention in places where they may very seldom be wanted. Another reason is the inconvenience and danger to life, if strict penal discipline is to be enforced on European prisoners in tropical and unhealthy climates. If you are to deal with an English sailor imprisoned on the West Coast of Africa as you would at Portland, you would probably kill him—if his confinement has to be relaxed and mitigated, to avoid the danger from climate, it ceases in a great measure to be penal, and introduces irregularity in the discipline of the prison, if Natives 816 are also confined there. As proof that these difficulties are not theoretical only, in the last few weeks I have received an application from a Foreign Government, to remove a prisoner now undergoing his sentence on the West Coast on the ground of extreme danger to his life. It is provided in the Bill that criminal lunatics may be brought home in the same manner as other prisoners for treatment in England. The Bill is concurred in by all the Departments concerned, and the principle of it has been referred to the Colonies, and generally accepted there. There is already in force an Act by which one Colony may agree with another for the transfer of its prisoners, so that the theory is sanctioned; but that Act requires an Order in Council to make it operative, and that Order can only be obtained on Address by the Legislative Bodies of both the Colonies concerned—a proceeding obviously too cumbrous and dilatory for the general run of such cases. I mention this to show that we are not asking Parliament to sanction a new principle, but only to give greater facilities for bringing into operation a principle which is already sanctioned in previous Acts, but which cannot get acted upon in consequence of the defective machinery of the present law. I now beg to move the second reading.

§ VISCOUNT SIDMOUTH
asked how the Bill would affect prisoners sentenced by court martial?

§ THE EARL OF DERBY
asked that the question might be repeated when the Bill reached the Committee stage.

THE EARL OF CARNARVON
said, be saw no objection to the principle of the Bill, which might, however, require amendment in detail when it reached the Committee stage.