*THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, remarked that the Bill was a short one, and had passed the House of Commons without opposition. It applied to Parish Councils in Scotland consisting of burghal and landward members, and the object of the Bill was to alter the law as regarded the filling up of casual vacancies as they occurred in Councils so constituted. When a casual vacancy occurred, the burghal and landward members both voted to fill it up. The Bill would only permit the members of each section to vote in filling up a vacancy occurring in that section. The other day a vacancy occurred in a landward parish, but the burghal members outnumbering the others filled up the vacancy against the wishes of the landward members. It was to remedy a practical inconvenience of this sort that the Bill had been introduced.
*THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Lord BALFOUR)said he did not rise to offer any opposition to the Bill. It was no doubt true that it passed through all its stages in another place without Amendment, but he understood it was passed through rapidly at a time when it was unexpected to be reached, or notice of opposition to it would have been given. As far as the Government were concerned, lie could not consent to the first sub-section of the first clause of the Bill, and it would be his duty at a- subsequent stage to move that that sub-section be struck out of the Bill. In the instance of 386 inconvenience alluded to, the burgher members no doubt stretched their powers. The Landward Committee had distinct functions and interests separate from those represented by the burgher members, and, while it was reasonable that the Landward Committee should be filled up by landward members only, it was not reasonable that a vacancy among the burgher members should be filled up only by the burgher representatives. For this reason the burg-her representatives had no separate action apart from the Landward Committee as the Landward Committee had from the burgher representatives. As no practical inconvenience had occurred the other way, there was no cause for the change proposed in the first sub-section of the Bill. On the other hand, the Bill, if passed in the form in which it stood, would possibly cause grave inconvenience in 20 or 25 parishes in a way which, if the Amendment which he would be obliged to propose at a subsequent stage was resisted, he would explain more fully.
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHagreed that exceptional powers should not be given to the burgher members. If it was impossible to give reciprocal powers to the landward and burgher members, it was not desirable that any change should be made in the law at all. He did not oppose the Second Reading, but should the change proposed be brought forward in Committee he should oppose the future stages of the Bill.
Read 2a (according to Order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.