SECOND READING. (Hansard, 25 April 1893)

*LORD VERNON

said, as their Lordships were aware, before a Bill with the same title as that to which he had to call their attention was enrolled in the Statute Book in 1887, police constables did not enjoy the same privileges as other citizens at Parliamentary elections, and their Lordships would, he was sure, agree that the Conservative Party, and those who specially interested themselves in extending the franchise to the police, deserved great credit for their efforts in that direction. The Bill, for which he was now asking a Second Reading, was only one step further in the same direction. It proposed to give police constables the right to vote at municipal, County Council, School Board, and all other elections, for which they had the same qualifica- 1120 tions as were required of any other citizens. It seemed almost incredible that in days gone by anyone should have been found to object to the police constable having the right to vote; and he could only imagine that such a restriction was imposed as a sop to timorous Tories, a species of politicians which, they might congratulate themselves, had now become almost as extinct as the dodo. Those who opposed the extension of the franchise to policemen said that as constables were custodians of the public peace they should not be allowed to take part in what might prove to be heated political contests in which they might be tempted to act as partisans. The Conservatives, by passing the Bill of 1887, with the full approval of the Liberals, had conclusively proved that they entertained none of the fears which actuated those who formerly deprived police constables of the right to vote, enjoyed by their fellow-countrymen. But this was not to be wondered at. It was a recognised desideratum of representative government that all the possible intelligence, virtue, and property of the nation should be enlisted to maintain its Institutions. Police constables are, at any rate, supposed to have more than an ordinary share of intelligence and virtue, and he should imagine that, as a body, they possessed their fair proportion of the nation's wealth. They were, as a rule, picked men—sober, honest, and of good character, and the public trusted the care of their lives and property to them. If at any time the exercise of the franchise induced them to fail in the performance of their duties as custodians of the peace, they were not fit to hold the position of trust they now enjoyed. He felt sure their Lordships would agree that it would be a great injustice even to insinuate that policemen would fail to do anything to shake the confidence of the public in this direction. If their Lordships, as legislators, even suggested the possibility of policemen abusing the right of exercising the franchise which others possessed, how could they hope that other people should feel security in the honesty and uprightness of the men who were appointed to watch over and protect their Jives and property? Every consideration by which groundless terrors might be removed added something to human happiness; and surely a dread anticipation 1121 of men voting for individuals because they happened to belong to Watch Committees which controlled their actions in the performance of their official duties was a groundless cause for alarm. Such an argument might apply with equal force to all people employed by Municipal Authorities, County Councils, or School Boards—all the employés of such Bodies voted for those who controlled them, or whom they wished to control them; and surely if officials and clerks were deemed competent to decide such questions without being unduly influenced by personal or Party interests, it might justly be said that policemen should have equal rights with their fellow-countrymen in that respect, and should not be placed in a lower category of citizenship. The great end of Government was to give every man his own; and the police constable might surely claim to have equal rights with others in regard to the power of voting. But they had not even suggested claiming the right to vote in local elections, and had suffered the disability patiently and uncomplainingly for half a century, knowing that any criminal or any man whom they arrested might taunt them by saying that policemen were not considered sufficiently honest to be trusted with a vote. He was, of course, in saying that, alluding to the time anterior to the extension of the franchise to them in 1887; and they might be taunted in the same way with regard to their power of voting at local elections at the present time. Their Lordships would agree that they ought to have, at any rate, as much confidence in policemen as in prospective or ex-criminals who might come out of prison and exercise the franchise, while the men who were trusted to protect the lives and property of the public from such individuals were not supposed to be sufficiently honest to do so. He was aware that it would be rather contrary to precedent for members of the Conservative Party to agree with a Bill initiated by the Liberals; but, at the same time, as this measure was only one step further in following the lead of the Conservative Party themselves, he considered the Opposition would get quite their fair share of the credit for having passed it. For that reason he trusted their Lordships would remove the exist- 1122 ing anomalous condition of things and that no opposition would be offered to the Bill by the Conservative Party. At first there was, he believed, a certain amount of opposition made to it in the other House by Members who had actually forwarded the interests and advocated the claims of the police when the franchise was extended to them in regard to Parliamentary elections, but hoped that would be now withdrawn. The police had held large meetings and had signed petitions on the subject, and they fully expected that the Party which had studied their interests on the former occasion in the House of Commons would not oppose them now in their Lordships' House. He begged to move that the Bill be read a second time.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, the speech of the noble Lord contains so many appeals to the Party to which I belong that I feel it-would hardly be courteous in me to allow the Bill to be read a second time without observation. The noble Lord said that policemen had been deprived of their votes by the fears of timorous Tories, and that the species of timorous Tory has disappeared; but I beg to assure him that the species of Tory has not disappeared, and I should say they are not more timorous than other people. But I demur entirely to the general tenour of the remarks of the noble Lord, which were to the effect that it was due to the Conservative Party that those who served under Government were excluded from the franchise. The exclusion of policemen from the franchise is only the survival of a principle which at one time extensively prevailed, that these who serve under Government should be excluded from the franchise; but I have a very distinct recollection from my knowledge of what was done at one time in the House of Commons that the removal of that restriction came from the other side. I quite agree with all the noble Lord has said about policemen, and I am not in the least afraid of the manner in which they will exercise their votes, but I can hardly join with him in the belief as to the taunts and opprobrium to which they have been exposed, because they 1123 were deprived of a vote. The noble Lord spoke of the inferior condition of policemen in this respect to the ex-criminal, who when he came out of prison could exercise the franchise, while the policeman could not. I will ask the noble Lord to remember that there is one small but estimable class of society which is entirely excluded from the Parliamentary vote, which has been so excluded for many centuries, and which has no prospect of obtaining it. Yet I doubt whether the noble Lord would say that that class is inferior to the ex-convict or policeman. That unfortunate class is represented by those who sit upon the Benches in your Lordships' House. Whatever opprobrium or sorrow or damage the policeman may have suffered in the past in regard to the franchise, it is nothing to that which rests upon the shoulders of the unfortunate beings who constitute your Lordships' House, and who are subject to the disability under which the noble Lord says the policeman frets so much.