Lords Sitting of 2 September 1886

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Standing Orders Committee, nominated.
PUBLIC BILL—Second Reading—Women's Suffrage (12), negatived.
PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS—Second Reading—Local Government (Poor Law) (No. 7)*(169); Local Government (County Divisions)* (167); Local Government (Highways)* (168); Local Government (Gas)* (189); Local Government (No. 3)* (170); Local Government (No. 5)* (172); Local Government (No. 6)*(190); Pier and Harbour* (191); Tramways (No. 1)* (192).

NEW PEERS.
The Right Honourable Sir Richard Assheton Cross, G.C.B., having been created Viscount Cross of Broughton-in-Furness in the county Palatine of Lancaster—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
The Right Honourable Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, G.C.B., having been created Baron Stanley of Preston in the county Palatine of Lancaster—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Appointed: The Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, were named of the Committee:—

Ld. Privy Seal.

V. Eversley.

M. Winchester.

V. Oxenbridge.

M. Bath.

L. de Ros.

Ld. Chamberlain.

L. Clinton.

E. Devon.

L. Saye and Sele.

E. Lindsay.

L. Balfour of Burley.

E. Carnarvon.

L. Boyle.

E. Milltown.

L. Digby.

E. Belmore.

L. Thurlow.

E. Powis.

L. Hopetoun.

E. Verulam.

L. Foxford.

E. Morley.

L. Colchester.

E. Amherst.

L. Silchester.

E. Camperdown.

L. Kintore.

E. Ducie.

L. Sudeley.

E. Sydney.

L. Belper.

E. Wharncliffe.

L. Hartismere.

V. Hawarden.

L. Wolverton.

V. Hutchinson.

L. Sandhurst.

V. Hardinge.

L. Colville of Culross.

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE BILL.—(No. 12.)
(The Lord Denman.)

SECOND READING.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD DENMAN: It cannot be said this Session, and in your Lordships'

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House, that there is not time to discuss any subject which may be brought before your Lordships. My excuse for troubling you at the present time is this—that when the municipal franchise was extended to women this question came only three days before both Houses of Parliament, and then after both Houses were exhausted by the Irish Church Bill. My Lords, I believe there are those who would wish to see this Bill passed in "another place," and then brought to your Lordships with a sort of threat that your Lordships should follow the behests of those who had passed it. I believe that my motives are pure, and that common sense is on the side of this question being advanced. If it were not my misfortune to be so very old, I should not, perhaps, trespass as much as I do on your notice; but, my Lords, for the last five years I have tried to get this Bill passed, unhappily without success. The measure I now recommend to you is a most moderate one, being confined solely to female householders. I represent a lady who has built four or five cottages and who employs three or four labourers, all, no doubt, very intelligent people. She can only talk to these people and to her tenantry about their prospects, and can only tell them that she looks to them to exercise their privilege as voters— according to their consciences of course —for she can set them no example, and can give them no information that they may deem worthy of their consideration, because, from a political point of view, they look down upon a person who has no right to the franchise. At the time all the municipal officers of the country met together at the Mansion House, it was my duty to inquire, as I did of the Mayor of Sheffield, as to the working of the female franchise in connection with Municipal Corporation elections. He held that it was a very unjust thing that women were not admitted before, because if they were outside the municipality they were permitted to vote in relation to such matters as watching, and paving, and lighting; but if they happened to belong to a corporate town they were deprived of these votes. My Lords, two years ago I brought forward this question, and the late Earl Cairns wrote to me with regard to it on the 9th of July—a very eventful and trying period, for it preceded the time which
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put an end to all Business, because of the pressure put on Parliament in regard to the Representation of the People Bill. His Lordship wrote to me and said—
"I hear that your Women's Suffrage Bill stands for tomorrow. I take an interest in the question, and should he sorry if anything were to lead to its having an unfavourable reception in the House, but it stands before Lord Houghton's Marriage Bill, and the House will be impatient to come to a division on that Bill before dinner. Might I suggest for your consideration the desirability of postponing the Bill to the next open evening?"
My Lords, nothing there was said about the propriety of bringing the Bill before the House. The difficulty was only the amount of Business standing on the Paper which had to be disposed of before my Bill could be reached, which induced the noble Earl to suggest that I should wait for an open evening. Your Lordships well know that there was no open evening at that time, and I will only say on this point that I have waited for an open evening. I have succeeded in finding opportunities before, and I now avail myself of the present opportunity, for it cannot be contended that this is not an open evening. This is so completely a women's question that I cannot help thinking it ought to precede the question of marriage with a deceased wife's sister. Apropos of that, there was a long argument by Lord Bramwell in The Nineteenth Century on the subject not long ago, and it certainly seems to me that his Lordship's law is not very sound, because he says that if, before the passing of Lord Lyndhurst's Act, a man married again after going through the ceremony of marriage with his deceased wife's sister he ought to have been prosecuted for bigamy. If a man marries a deceased wife's sister and then deserts her he is one of the basest of mankind. The Bill I now propose I would recommend to your Lordships on religious grounds. I maintain that women are to be trusted with the franchise, because they are better than men. They read their Bible more assiduously, and are altogether better living persons. I have three widows, tenants, who hold houses and some little land, and I certainly think they ought not only to have the privilege of voting at municipal elections, but also of voting for our local Members of Parliament according to their appreciation of the characters of those Gentle-

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men. We have many examples in the East as well as at home of the virtues and mental capacities of the other sex; and history affords us many instances of gifted and illustrious women. Why should they not be permitted to vote? It is a great privilege to be able to vote; but I believe that if it were conferred upon women a chastening influence would be exerted upon those institutions which are the outcome of strong partizanship—the National League for instance —whilst the Women's Suffrage Association would be gradually superseded and dissolved. The women would join other Associations, where their influence for good would be greatly felt, especially in relation to those questions which more intimately concern their sex. Questions that they are specially interested in would receive greater attention, and would be more frequently brought before the constituencies by candidates, and more often brought before Parliament by Members. I am sure it is better that I should trouble your Lordships with this Bill than that you should sit here always doing nothing. I should be sorry to speculate too much on the matter; but I have no doubt, looking at the pledges which were given at the hustings during the General Election, that if this measure came before the other House it would be carried by a large majority, and surely it would be a gracious thing of your Lordships to disarm opposition, and to give the Bill at once a second reading. I have endeavoured to state my reasons for bringing forward the measure, and all I have to say is that if you pass the Bill now it may save your Lordships from having to listen to me again on the subject. I beg to move that it be now read a second time.
Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a"—(The Lord Denman.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HALSBURY):The Question that I shall have to put to your Lordships is—"That this Bill be now read a second time;" and as I have, unfortunately, to vote against that Question, I wish to say that the emphatic word is the word "now," because it would be impossible to say that it is desirable that the Bill should be introduced for discussion on the 2nd of September. At the same time, I cannot but sympathize very much with what
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the noble Lord has said, and I believe the proposal is one upon which your Lordships entertain different opinions. The only reason I address your Lordships at all is that I do not wish to be understood as being against the principle the noble Lord (Lord Denman) advocates. On the contrary, I think it extremely inconvenient that the Bill should be "now" read a second time.
On Question, resolved in the negative.

CRIME AND OUTRAGE (IRELAND)—THE RIOTS AT BELFAST—RETURN OF CASUALTIES.

  MOTION FOR RETURN.
  EARL DE LA WARE, said, that, in the absence of any official information relative to the recent riots in Belfast, he wished to ask the Government whether they would give a Return of the number of persons killed and wounded in the serious collisions which had taken place between the people and the police in the streets of that city? A Commission had been appointed to inquire into the subject of these riots; but they knew the time that usually elapsed before any Report of a Commission was placed before Parliament; and he hoped, therefore, that Her Majesty's Government would not find it inconvenient to lay the Return which he asked for upon the Table of the House at an early day. There was naturally a feeling that the use of firearms by the police in the streets of a town was somewhat questionable, and especially when the military were at hand, whose training and discipline rendered them more cool and less liable to momentary irritation. Though he should be most unwilling to make any remark which could be interpreted as casting the slightest censure upon such a body of men as the Irish Constabulary, yet he must add that if the accounts which had appeared in the public Press relative to the collisions which had unhappily occurred between the people and the police in the streets of Belfast were correct, the number of persons who had been killed and wounded was very considerable, and possibly larger than circumstances would seem to justify. Among the statements to which he referred there was one which seemed especially to require notice. It was to the effect that on one occasion during the

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  riots the Constabulary fired from their barracks in the town indiscriminately upon a crowd in the street, the consequence being that many innocent persons, including women and children, were killed or wounded. There was another statement to which he desired briefly to call attention. It was the Report of Dr. Foy, surgeon of the Whitworth Hospital, Dublin, prepared, as it seemed, for The Medical Press. In this Report it was stated—
  "The gunshot injuries were of two kinds, those produced by bullets, either from rifles or revolvers, and by buckshot. The bullet wounds were of the usual kind, and, in the majority of cases, terminated fatally. There is abundant evidence in the missiles found in the bodies of the unhappy victims to prove that the bullets used were what is known as 'regulation' size. The revolver wounds were, comparatively speaking, few in number, and, as a rule, did not prove fatal. Buckshot was very largely used; and perhaps I can best explain here that, as a missile, it has very little force.… The greater number of the fatal injuries were inflicted on the head and chest. These injuries, in many instances, resulted from buckshot wounds, the pellets finding an entrance into the brain by the eye, or when fired at very close distances possessing sufficient momentum to penetrate the bony wall.… In some cases the shot was fired so close to the person as to penetrate through several folds of clothing."
  He would not go further into the painful details in this Report, including the deaths of women and children. Among them was one of the mother of several little children standing at the door and lifting a child into the house. The mother was shot dead by a bullet fired from a height. Dr. Foy goes on to say—
  "It is a task of considerable difficulty to form a correct estimate of the number of injuries, as many of the cases went from one practitioner to another.… I have, however, taken pains to analyze all the details supplied to me, and I consider I speak with some accuracy when I give the total number treated as 582, while the number of deaths, as reported by the various gentlemen, may be taken as 34."
  He felt bound to say that this Report bore upon the face of it the desire to state the truth without bias or prejudice. He had only now to ask Her Majesty's Government, Whether the police in Ireland had a discretionary power of charging their carbines with buckshot instead of ball, and of using their firearms without the previous reading of the Riot Act by a civil magistrate; and, also, whether any officers in command
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  of troops had lately been invested with the authority of a civil magistrate?
  Moved, "That there be laid before this House Return of persons killed and wounded in the recent riots at Belfast."— (The Earl De La Warr.)
  EARL CADOGAN (LORD PRIVY SEAL)said that, with
  reference to the first part of the Notice of his noble Friend, he was sorry to say that at present the Government had a Return of 28 deaths as having occurred during the lamentable disturbances at Belfast; but with regard to the list of wounded for which his noble Friend asked, it would be impossible for the Government to provide such a Return. They had at present no means of ascertaining the exact number of wounded who had been admitted to the hospitals at Belfast, or of those who had been treated at their own homes. Under these circumstances, it was impossible that any Return which could be furnished by the Government at present would be in any way reliable. He might, however, remind his noble Friend that a Commission had been issued to inquire into the whole of the circumstances connected with these riots. That Commission suspended its sittings a short time ago; but it had now been strengthened by the addition of a fourth Member, and it was hoped that it would resume its labours before long. When the Commission had reported the Government would be in a better position to ascertain the whole of the facts respecting which his noble Friend asked for information. On the subject of firing upon the people by the police during these riots, he also must plead for some delay before information could be given by the Government. His noble Friend alluded to a Report which he had himself seen, and which had been published in the newspapers, by a private Commission which he understood was sent by the Loyal and Patriotic Union to report on the state of matters in Belfast. Without wishing in any way to impugn the veracity, the bona fides, or the accuracy of the statements contained in that Report, it would, he thought, be understood that it was impossible for the Government to accept statements made by a private Commission of that character in the same unreserved manner in which they would accept those made by the Commission, which, it was hoped, would report before long. The noble Earl

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  must, therefore, excuse him if he declined to enter into the discussion which he had raised on the question of the firing on the people by the police. One question which the noble Earl had asked he thought he could answer—namely, whether the use of buckshot or bullets was discretionary on the part of the police? The discretion in the matter lay not with the police themselves, but with the officers in command of the police, to whom was intrusted the duty of ordering with what charge the rifles should be fired.
  EARL DE LA WARRexplained that the Report referred to was made to The Medical Press, and did not come from the Loyal and Patriotic Union.
  Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
  House adjourned at a quarter before Five o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter past Four o'clock.