§ Order of the Day for receiving the Report of Amendments read.
§ Moved, "That the said Report be now received."—(The Lord Balfour.)
LORD DENMAN, in moving that the Report of Amendments be received that day six months, said, that the rejection of Lord Basing's Amendment for selection of County Councils out of magistrates only was a condemnation of Lord Lieutenants, who, especially in Derbyshire, had nominated Justices of the Peace without any bias as to Party. The noble Lord (Lord Balfour), who piloted the Bill so ably, admitted that they had conducted the financial business of each county with economy and ability; but it was proposed to transfer this important duty to a Council, the election for which—only partly admitting women—had to be registered in a most complicated manner, and the election would be far more disturbing than a General Parliamentary Election—a step which he wished to see put off until the new electors had a more thorough knowledge of the great questions of the day. When cloture was first proposed by another Government, he (Lord Denman), at a meeting to celebrate the return of a Conservative Member for South Derbyshire, held at Ashbourne, said he should look with great suspicion on any Bill from "another place" which might not have received orderly consideration; but this Bill was passed by suspension of the Standing Orders, in a late Sitting in the House of Commons, and hastened by the right hon. Gentleman the junior Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt), and read a first time in their Lordships' House on the same night. What was its origin? A talented M.P. had 61 said that, "whichever Party might be in Office, a Local Government Bill would be framed." But this Bill did not satisfy the Opposition, who wished to carry it much farther; and it was rumoured that a like Bill was to be proposed for Scotland, whilst the noble Lord the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Lord Randolph Churchill), as well as the right hon. Members for Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Birmingham, wished to adopt a similar Bill for Ireland; but their Lordships knew how much the views of the last two were distrusted in Ireland, whilst the noble Lord had not gained their confidence. The grant of part of the Probate Duty and of the Licensing Duties might he invalid through a change of Votes in Supply. The abandonment of the Licensing Authority disappointed the temperance advocates, and the withdrawal of the Compensation Clause took away the attempt to satisfy the licensed victuallers. The only place of distinction he (Lord Denman) had in the county was as Chairman of the Committee for conferring or rejecting new licences. He had attended all meetings where a quorum was requsite for 34 years. He had often gone 12 miles to Buxton and Chapel-en-le-Frith, and had often given up a day's hunting to do so. The noble Earl (the Earl of Carnarvon) had been told that his speech should have been against the second reading. The same was said as to the Irish Land Bill by the Earl of Derby—the advocate of Life Peerages—and of this Bill, of which he is to be the head. His Lordship said—"You should have voted against the second reading of a Bill confessedly a failure." He (Lord Denman) was sure that great confusion would arise if this Bill were to become law. The new elections were to begin in January, 1889, and business to commence not earlier than 1st of April. He could not hope to see the effect of this measure, for he ought to say, like Prospero—
Every third thought shall be my grave."—(Tempest, Act V., Scene I.")On third reading, passed by suspension of Standing Orders, it was said they were creating a rival power which no Local Government Board would be able to control.
§ Amendment moved, to leave out "now," and add at the end of the Motion, "this day six months."—(The Lord Denman.)
LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELLMy Lords, I do not rise to enter into any general discussion such as the Notice of the noble and learned Lord (Lord Denman) is framed to open, but to make one or two remarks upon the London Clauses which could not well be made at any former moment, so great was the desire on Monday to go at once into Committee, and then to get through all the work of the Committee in one evening. I desire merely to support the noble Earl on the Cross Benches (Earl Fortescue) who has twice spoken in the sense which I approve of. He ought not it seems to me to be alone. Beyond this House, indeed, he is not. Mr. Bowles, who has brought much ability to bear upon the subject, in an elaborate arraignment of the Bill contributed to The Fortnightly Review of April last, decidedly sustains him. Mr. Baumann, a Metropolitan Member, in The National Review of June, as regards the London Clauses, has unanswerably backed him. He has a yet more powerful supporter in the country. It is the most authoritative organ of the Party which the Government belong to, in an article intended to explain the Bill and recommend it. What is the language of The Quarterly Review in a recent number? Although I hardly ever read an extract, your Lordships ought, I think, to be possessed of it.
It would have been wiser to have postponed the Metropolitan portion of the Bill till another Session. The Bill is rural in its essence. The scheme for London government set out in the Bill would depend for its success on a healthy and influential public opinion which exists in country districts but does not exist in the Metropolis. The impossibility of getting more than a small percentage of voters to exercise the franchise, which has been demonstrated in a long order of various Metropolitan elections, proves that there is no such common interest in London government as would result in a strong and able County Council. But looking to the state of affairs which had been reached in this month, they might have been dropped without disadvantage. They are admittedly imperfect. And it is far better that London should wait a while for some more comprehensive and well-worked out system of government, than that valuable time should have been consumed in the discussion of temporary proposals, which must be amended in another Session.Such is the language of The Quarterly 63 Review, although so very far from hostile to the measure. For anything we know, it is an emanation of the Cabinet. For anything we know, it comes directly from the Minister. But we are not to fathom the anonymous. One thing is manifest. In the course of these discussions, no vindication of the London Clauses has been offered. The noble Lord who introduced the Bill with so much mastery of detail seemed to pass them over altogether. The noble Marquess did not say a word on their necessity or policy. No answer either was attempted to the speeches of the noble Earl on the Cross Benches. The ground I take is that London must be separately handled, and cannot be disposed of parenthetically. Opinion is exceedingly divided between the plan of an immense municipality like that presented by Sir William Harcourt and the plan of many corporations which was urged by Mr. S. Mill, by Mr. Buxton, and, I believe, by Mr. Torrens. The subject is one which merits long debate and long deliberation. The partizans of neither scheme ought to be contented with this precipitate arrangement. To create a London Council suddenly and blindly, while the mind of Parliament is not directed to that topic, would be a sacrifice of prudence. A London Council may always be a great political organization, full of menace and embarrassment to Cabinets and statesmen. Even the City was so in the last century, as you may see by merely glancing at contemporary pages. At this moment, unless I am wholly misinformed, every French Government is more or less engaged in a struggle with municipal authority in Paris. There are two or three grounds on which Her Majesty's Government might well accede to the omission of these clauses without the faintest loss of dignity. They form a specimen of tacking which the Government would have been certain to expose if it had come from any other quarter. It is much as if in some measure to reform one House of Parliament, a few sections to reconstruct the other had been surreptitiously injected. Again, when legislation has been active for more than 50 years, its material must be inevitably circumscribed. It is not expedient to consume by mixing in one Session the problems upon which two Sessions would be legitimately exercised. 64 In this very year the noble Marquess delivered an anathema against large and comprehensive measures, in which he pointed out with emphasis that separate enactments are more prudent. Indeed, on two questions—the adjustment of tithes and the alteration of this House—he has conspicuously acted on the view which he put forward. Why is it now to be abandoned? Does this Bill emerge from quarters independent of the Government? There has seldom been one more large, more comprehensive, more heterogeneous, or, therefore, less in accord with the principle the noble Marquess had laid down for his direction. If any defence is given, it is that the Metropolitan Board ought at once to be superseded. How do we know that a London Council suddenly created will be less corrupt or more effective. If the Metropolitan Board of Works has not turned out well, there cannot be too much deliberation in replacing it. It is not likely that for many months the Metropolitan Board of Works will be hurried into error. It is now under the vigilant control of the Press, the public, and the Chairman is thoroughly awakened. There is no tendency more common or less prudent than to be full of caution against evils which have recently appeared, and full of blindness as to those which may emerge from the securities adopted. On that point illustrations might be given from history and from private life, if I was not reluctant to detain your Lordships any longer. What I suggest is, that without any adverse vote Her Majesty's Government should from their own initiative eliminate these Clauses 40 to 45 inclusively—under the shelter of the friendly counsellor whose language I have brought before them. By such a course the Bill might be retarded, but if it is there will not be a national calamity. Delay will be no injury to them nor to the public.
§ On Question, that ("now") stand part of the Motion? Resolved in the Affirmative.
§ Amendments reported accordingly.
§ LORD THRINGwas understood to appeal to the Prime Minister to allow the matter as to the division of Suffolk to be an open question.
§ THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY)could not assent to this, as it might lead to a conflict between the two Houses.
§ Clause 2 (Composition and election of council and position of chairman).
§ EARL FORTESCUEMy Lords, having forborne, with a view to your Lordships' convenience, moving an Amendment in Committee, I venture to ask your kind indulgence for the few remarks with which I shall have to trouble you with regard to the Amendment which I have placed on the Notice Paper. On the advantages of the collection of votes given by the electors of voting papers instead of at polling booths, of sending the few collectors round to the many electors instead of the many electors to the few clerks at the polling booths, whether to vote by ballot or otherwise, I have long had strong convictions—indeed more than 30 years ago I wrote a private memorandum upon it for the then President of the Poor Law Board, who asked my leave to lay it before the House of Commons, and moved for it accordingly, as some Peer did soon after in this House. And, though I individually, after repeatedly risking my seat by opposing the ballot for Parliamentary elections, became a convert to it shortly after being called up to this House, I did so, retaining my preference for the system of voting long in use for the election of Guardians. But it should be remembered that the County Councils which the Bill creates are not at all analogous to the House of Commons. They will not decide the fate of Ministries. They are to be purely administrative, not legislative; and it is desirable, therefore, that the Councillors should be elected with a view to their businesslike rather than oratorical qualities, and that the votes for and against them should be given calmly, and under the influence of quiet conviction, not of political excitement. The ballot—according to an American statesman in The Contemporary Review, in 1880—has in the United States failed to suppress either intimidation or bribery. In England, as the Election trials after the Dissolution of 1880 proved, the ballot has not prevented, though it has much shielded, electoral corruption. The difficulty is, as it always has been, to get ordinary voters to vote without 66 payment; and that will, of course, be greater in the rural districts, where they have much further to go for that purpose than in urban districts, where the polling booths are comparatively close to the voters' houses. In the two last General Elections, a large proportion, doubtless of the newly-enfranchised electors, voted for the pleasure of exercising their new right twice within a year, and with exaggerated hopes of the happy result to themselves of doing so. The proportion voting then should therefore not be taken as probably normal. But, reverting to elections taking place under more ordinary conditions, we find that even in the larger boroughs, with their numerous polling booths, the proportion who did not take the trouble of voting was very large. There were contests in each of the 24 largest boroughs in Great Britain in 1874, when less than two-thirds of the electors in them voted. In 1880 there were contests again in 23 out of the 24, when only half could be got to vote in spite of the great exertions made and the great amount of money spent. Nor was this a new feature, for only 55 per cent of the electors were found to have voted at the General Election in 1852 in 12 very large boroughs. But there was an opportunity of testing the working of the two systems in connection with elections for local as distinguished from Parliamentary purposes, given at St. Pancras, in consequence of a legal mistake made by the Poor Law Commissioners, who erroneously thought themselves empowered to issue the same election order to that as to other parishes. An election by voting papers accordingly took place there in 1837, at which more than half the electors voted. Shortly after that, in consequence of a decision of the Courts, the elections there had to be conducted again under what was known as Hobhouse's Act, and under that a more than usually exciting contest took place in 1853. But only about one-seventh of the electors could be got to vote at it. In 1879, after the parish had been divided into wards, there were contests in four of them, when nearly half voted with voting papers. Mr. Rendle, a Medical Officer of Health, told the Committee of the House of Commons on the Metropolis Local Management Act, that he himself was elected as a vestryman by about 12 67 votes, but as a Guardian by voting papers by some 1,200 votes; and that that proportion was not at all unusual in his parish. I do not contend that under the voting paper system no voter is bribed or coerced into destroying or making void his voting paper, or into filling it up contrary to his convictions. I only maintain that a far greater number of electors being thus induced to vote, the general result of an election gives a much truer representation of the real, deliberate feeling of the whole body of electors than does going to the poll, whether publicly or under the ballot. Moreover, the abstention from voting is not that of the least desirable electors. Of course, the very best men take a part in elections from a sense of duty, religious or patriotic, or both. Then a certain number, placing a just value on their time—namely, a very small one, take a part in them from a love of the excitement, the conviviality, and the gossip attending them, to say nothing of any hope of possible personal future advantage. There is, however, a large number of men of good average industry and character who, caring much for their own interest and their families, cannot be persuaded—however decided their preference or however clear their convictions—to sacrifice for any public cause or any candidate by going to vote at a polling-place, the time and labour which they value so highly and know so well how to turn to good account. If the opinions of Committees of Inquiry are to be regarded, it should not be forgotten that one, of which Mr. John Stuart Mill was a Member, unanimously recommended the adoption of the system of voting by voting papers in use for the election of Poor Law Guardians, not as being without disadvantages, but as being on the whole the best. I have to thank your Lordships for the kind patience with which you have listened to my arguments in favour of an Amendment to which I am not sanguine enough to expect you to assent; and I will only repeat in this late stage of the Bill that, notwithstanding my objections to its mode of dealing with the Metropolis and with the mode of voting, I hail this measure as on the whole being not only comprehensive but satisfactory.
§ Amendment moved, in page 1, line 18, at the end of the line insert ("The 68 councillors shall be elected in like manner as guardians of the poor").—The Earl Fortescue.)
LORD BALFOURsaid, he must resist the Amendment, which was utterly inconsistent with the whole scheme of the Bill, and for all practical purposes, if it were insisted upon and inserted, the House might just as well have accepted the Motion of the noble Lord on the Cross Benches (Lord Denmam) and stopped the Bill. Therefore, he hoped at this stage the House would not accept the Amendment.
§ Amendment negatived.
§
On the Motion of Lord BALFOUR, the following new sub-section was inserted at the end of the clause:—
The county council may from time to time appoint a member of the council to be deputy chairman, to hold office during the term of office of the chairman, and, subject to any rules made from time to time by the county council, anything authorized or required to be done by, to, or before the chairman may be done by, to, or before such deputy chairman.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 9 (Powers as to police).
§
On the Motion of the Marquess of SALISBURY, Amendment made, in page 6, line 17, at end of line, by inserting—
Nothing in this Act shall affect the powers, duties, and liabilities of justices of the peace as conservators of the peace, or the obligation of the chief constable or other constables to obey their lawful orders given in that behalf.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 32 (Adjustment of financial relations between counties and boroughs).
§
On the Motion of the Lord BALFOUR, Amendment made, in page 24, line 13, after Sub-section (2), by inserting as a separate sub-section—
In the adjustment regard shall be had to the considerations that the county is not to be placed in any worse financial position by reason of the boroughs therein being constituted county boroughs, and that a county borough is not to be placed in a worse financial position than it would have been if it had remained part of the county.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 76 (Application of Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, to county councils and this Act).
§
On the Motion of the Lord BALFOUR, Amendment made, in page 69, line 14,
69
at the end of line, by inserting as a fresh sub-section after sub-section 13—
The quorum of the council shall be one-fourth of the whole number of the council, and one-fourth shall, for the purposes of this section, be substituted for one-third in paragraph ten of the second schedule to the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882.
'Ten days' shall be substituted for five days' in section thirty-four of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, as the time within which a person elected to a corporate office is to accept that office, and twelve months shall be substituted for six months in section thirty-nine of the said Act as the period of absence which disqualifies an alderman or councillor.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Further Amendments made.
§ Bill read 3a with the Amendments; further Amendments made; Bill passed and sent to the Commons.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he desired to say a few words on the passage of this great measure. He wished to say one word as to the intimate knowledge of the subject displayed by the noble Lord (Lord Balfour) who had charge of this complicated Bill, and the ability with which he had conducted it, and he was sure that the noble Lord would be ready to acknowledge that he had received valuable assistance from his noble Friends sitting behind him (Earl Granville). The Bill contained a very valuable principle for the country generally and for the Metropolis. He gathered from what the noble Marquess was reported to have said yesterday that he regarded this Bill as a final measure. If so, that would very much diminish his own satisfaction.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, that in using the word final he merely meant that it was final with respect to the matters with which it dealt. He did not mean that no supplementary provisions would be necessary. In fact, there was a whole branch of the subject which had been left out of the Bill on account of the impossibility of passing it, owing to the lapse of time.
LORD BALFOURthanked the noble Earl for the more than kind manner in which he had spoken of himself. He cordially concurred in the remark that he had had valuable assistance, not only from noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite, but from all sections of the House. He desired to add that he was quite certain that the Bill could not 70 have been dealt with by the House with the ease with which it had been were it not for the intimate knowledge of the subject shown and the excellent work done by the permanent officials of the Local Government Board, to whom also he wished to express his thanks for the services rendered to him.