Lords Sitting of 2 December 1890

QUEEN'S SPEECH—HER MAJESTY'S ANSWER TO THE ADDRESS.
THE LORD STEWARD OF THE HOUSEHOLD (The Earl of MOUNT-EDGCUMBE)reported Her Majesty's Answer to the Address as follows:—
"Your loyal and dutiful address has given great satisfaction. I feel well assured that you will give your earnest consideration to the measures that will be submitted to you, and that no efforts will be wanting on your part to promote by wise legislation the welfare of my people."
The Address and Answer ordered to be printed and published.

ROLL OF THE LORDS.
THE LORD CHANCELLORacquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had prepared and laid it on the Table; the same was ordered to be printed. (No. 9.)
INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS, &c., SITES BILL.— [H.L.] (No. 3.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY: The Bill to which I am going to ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading is practically a reprint of the Public Worship and Burial Sites Act, so that there is little room for criticism either for or against its wording. There are no less than five places in Anglesey which are claiming now to have intermediate schools; and throughout the rest of Wales the desire for their establishment is so great as to amount almost to a craze. A noble Lord who belonged to a former Government once said that the best support they got was unwilling support, and I am bound to say that the support which I give is rather unwilling, for though I bring the matter forward, it is not so much in accordance with my own feelings upon it as that I think the demand requires it. I, therefore, hope
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  as the Intermediate Schools Act has been passed that your Lordships will facilitate its operation. If your Lordships should pass this Bill, I think it would be desirable not to have to bring the matter forward again in reference to technical schools, and that you should allow those schools to be included as well as intermediate schools. And it is not only that technical schools should be considered, but I may remind your Lordships that the Borough of Salford is asking for the establishment of continuation schools, and threatening to bring in a Bill next year upon the subject. Probably those schools would be something like the intermediate schools in Wales. In order to include technical schools and some others, I have put in these words—
  "Sites for intermediate schools or other schools, sanctioned by Act of Parliament, receiving aid from the rates or from the Consolidated Fund."
  Those words, I think, will cover the technical schools or any others which the Legislature may sanction in future, and will not go beyond them. There is another point in this Bill which I should mention: I have included in it sites for market buildings. I do not mean thereby to affect market rights in any way; but there are many towns in England where there are no market rights, and which have no market buildings, and where covered market buildings are required. I do not think I need say anything more at present in explanation of the Bill. I hope your Lordships will read it a second time.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a"—(The Lord Stanley of Alderley.)
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY): My Lords, I think this is a new matter. From what I gathered from the description of my noble Friend of the Bill itself I see nothing in it to which I object at first sight, but I think it ought to be submitted before being passed into law to the machinery provided by the Committee presided over by the noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Herschell). The measure deals in some respects with a new principle; and I was a little alarmed as to the provisions for acquiring sites for market buildings. I do not know exactly how far that

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  might go, or what confusion it might not introduce. At all events, I think it is a Bill which your Lordships may fairly read a second time now, but I think it should be submitted to the Standing Committee.
  On Question, agreed to.
  Bill read 2a (according to Order).

HARES PRESERVATION BILL. [H.L.] (No. 4.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY: My Lords, this Bill is identical with the measure which your Lordships passed last year for the purpose of providing a close time for hares in England, Scotland, and Wales, with the exception of one verbal alteration which was made in another place substituting the word "section" for "clause." I ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to the Bill.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I think your Lordships may safely, and I trust the "other place," as the noble Lord has called it, may also pass this Bill; as we have already considered it, there will be no necessity, I believe, to refer this measure to a Standing Committee.
  Bill read 2a (according to Order), and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Monday next.

ARCHDEACONRY OF CORNWALL BILL. [H.L.] (No. 8.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE EARL OF MOUNT-EDGCUMBE: As this Bill has been several times passed through all its stages in this House, I will simply now move that it be read a second time.
  Bill read 2a (according to Order), and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Monday next.

THE PRICE OF BREAD IN ITALY.

  QUESTION—OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY,in rising to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he would obtain from
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  some of Her Majesty's Consuls in Italy Returns of the price of bread during the year preceding the increase of Import Duty on wheat in Italy, and during the present year, said: My Lords, Her Majesty's Consul at Leghorn reported some time ago that the duty on wheat in Italy had been raised from 30 fr. to 50 fr. a ton; that is equivalent to about 9s. a quarter, which is rather higher than the augmented duty in France. The same Consul also expressed most dismal forebodings as to the increase in the price of bread which he thought would ensue in Italy. Whether that is so or not can easily be proved if the noble Marquess will be so good as to obtain information from some of Her Majesty's Consuls in some of the principal towns in Italy as to the price of bread previously to the augmentation of duty, and later prices, as may be most convenient. I would ask my noble Friend to request the Consuls in particular at Turin, Genoa, Naples, and Leghorn to send him Reports. Those, I think, will be sufficient. If I can do so without appearing to belong to the Irredenta Party I would also ask for some Returns, if they can be obtained, from Trieste, as that is a great centre of the grain trade.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: We shall be very glad to furnish the noble Lord with all the information it is in our power to obtain. Instructions will be sent to some of the Consuls, as he suggests, on the subject; but I think, perhaps, the most convenient way for the noble Lord to obtain the information he desires is to move for a Return in the terms he thinks best, asking particulars, from the Consuls whose names he has mentioned.

THE SCALE OF PUNISHMENTS.

  QUESTION—OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD NORTON, in rising to ask Her Majesty's Government if they would introduce early this Session the Bill which they had had prepared two years ago to restore to the scale of punishments on the Statute Book the three years' term of penal servitude which was unfortunately omitted by the Act of 1879, so as to make a regularly ascending series of sentences to various kinds of imprisonment capable of adjustment to the gravity of offences,

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  and to fill up the gap which often leaves Magistrates and Judges to choose between a punishment too light or too severe for the case before them, said: My Lords, I have put this question to my noble and learned Friend sitting on the Woolsack in two Sessions, and I have been assured on both occasions that a Bill has been prepared. I know that a Bill has been prepared for this purpose, and I hope it will at last be forthcoming. Although it is a very short Bill, yet its importance I venture to say is in inverse ratio to its length. It cannot be opposed, for it has no possible ground of opposition in it from any part of this House, and though I know we have been called together for the purpose of considering special measures, this Bill could in no way impede their progress. The restoration of the middle term of our code of secondary punishments is called for by Magistrates, Judges, and especially by the Prison Commissioners connected with the Home Department. The gradations of imprisonment, and of its severer form called penal servitude, ought to be regulated in an ascending scale in proportion to the gravity of offences. The gap which now exists is simply owing to a mistake made in 1878, when a sudden panic arising from an increase of crime led the Committee who inquired into the subject to recommend the legislation which was passed in 1879, omitting this smaller term of penal servitude. The consequence is, that there is now a gap in the series of secondary punishments, which to a very great extent stultifies the administration of justice. If an offender deserves a severer punishment than two years' imprisonment, the Judges can sentence him to nothing short of five years' penal servitude; and in cases where offenders do not deserve so heavy a punishment they cannot be sentenced to anything more severe than two years' imprisonment. I know that, happily, crime is decreasing, owing to the advance of education and to reformatories, and still more to the Discharged Prisoners Aid Society. It seems to me a very great pity that there should be any impediment offered in the way of such improvement by a flaw in the administration of justice. I cannot understand why this Bill, which has been so long prepared, and to which no-
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  body anticipates the slightest opposition, should be any longer delayed. The effect of this imperfect code of punishments is obvious in the number of re-commitments of offenders who have received inadequate sentences, and in the frequent remissions of too long sentences, I hope your Lordships will be assured by my noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack that this Bill will at last be introduced this Session.
  LORD HERSCHELL: My Lords, I would support the appeal which has been made by my noble Friend opposite. It is connected with a matter to which I drew attention in the course of last Session, and is a point, I think, of very considerable importance, and upon which it is desirable that there should be no further delay. I think it has been clearly shown by the Prison Commissioners that the change has caused mischief. This gap in our list of punishments arose from a misapprehension, and they point out the mischievous consequences to which it has given rise. I cannot think there will be anything but a good result from its being rectified.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have received a communication from the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who has informed me not only that the Bill has been prepared, but that he is anxious it should be brought before your Lordships. There is, I think, a misapprehension in the mind of the noble Lord that the Bill refers only to the matter to which he has called attention. There are other matters also included in it. The Secretary of State is very desirous, as soon as the state of business will allow, to lay the Bill before the House.
  LORD HERSCHELL: I might ask my noble and learned Friend to consider whether, if the Bill includes matters which are likely to be of a controversial character, it might not be advisable to separate them from this other question, which might be allowed to stand and be dealt with by itself, leaving the other matters to be dealt with in a separate Bill.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I did not intend to intimate that the other matters in the Bill will be matters of controversy. I hope they will not. I meant that, owing to the change which will be thus made in the Criminal Law, it will be necessary to introduce other

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  matters, and it would be inconvenient to have two separate Bills on the subject. I only desired to point out to the noble Lord that he must not assume that this is the only provision in the Bill.

  DURATION OF SPEECHES IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to ascertain and limit the duration of Speeches in the House of Lords—Was presented by the Lord Denman; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Monday next. (No. 14.)
  House adjourned at five minutes before Five o'clock, to Thursday next, half-past Ten o'clock.