§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
§ VISCOUNT CROSSMy Lords, this measure is a very short one, and has been brought up from the other House of Parliament. At the present moment if a Public Library is wanted a very cumbrous process of voting papers has to be gone through from all the inhabitants. That is a very expensive operation, and takes time. In other matters of this kind the system of voting papers has been done away with. In 1890 the proposal which I made was carried with regard to the Public Health Amendment Act; in 1891 the same proposal was carried with regard to the Museums and Gymnasiums Act; and all I want to do by this Bill is to enable the Urban Sanitary Authority by resolution and under certain safeguards which are contained 176 in the Bill, but with which I will not trouble your Lordships at present, to substitute that authority for the voting papers in existence now. Last year the whole of the Acts regarding Public Libraries were consolidated. A Committee sat in the other House of Parliament and went into the whole matter very carefully, and I am told that the Committee are entirely in favour of this amendment of the law, only as the Reference to them was to consolidate and not to amend, they would not allow an amendment to be put into the Bill of 1892. This measure has received the support of persons of all political views in the other House of Parliament, and I hope your Lordships will give it a Second Reading and that it will speedily become law.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a"—(The Viscount Cross.)
LORD MONKSWELLsaid the Local Government Board offered no objection to the proposals in this Bill, but possibly when it reached the Committee stage he might he instructed to move one or two Amendments, of which he would give the noble Viscount notice.
§ Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.