PUBLIC LIBRARIES BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 18 March 1901)

*LORD WINDSOR

My Lords, I shall trouble the House with very few words in moving the Second Reading of this Bill. I have introduced it in exactly the † The earliest reference to any kind of inquiry into the war is in observations of Lord Salisbury on the 30th January, 1900, reported in The Parliamentary Debates, Fourth Series, Vol. Ixxviii., pages 29–30. 212 same form as it left your Lordships' House last year, after passing all its stages. I do not mean that I have a right to suppose that every clause in the Bill is accepted, in all parts of the House, for I was warned last year by my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack that the clause dealing with the law of libel would probably have something more said about it. But I understand that the noble and learned Lord does not propose to raise any objection to the Second Reading of the Bill to-day. I will, therefore, reserve my defence of this clause till the Committee stage. It has been said that this Bill is the outcome of the efforts of amateur legislators, and that it is a trivial interference with the present Public Libraries Acts. I can assure your Lordships that I have better grounds than that for asking the House to pass the Second Reading of this Bill. The Bill has been framed by the Libraries Association and those interested in libraries, after communication with librarians and library authorities all over the United Kingdom, with the object of making the Libraries Act more practical and more workable.

At the present moment library authorities are able to make regulations, but they have no power to enforce them, and one of the objects of this Bill is to take a leaf out of the Public Libraries (Scotland) Act, 1887, and to enable library authorities in England and Ireland to make bye-laws which they can enforce. The Bill also effects another small improvement in the law with regard to museums under the Public Libraries Acts. At present it is possible for a museum to be provided under those Acts, and it is also possible for a museum to be provided by the adoption of the Museums and Gymnasiums Act, 1891. In some cases the museum has been provided under the Public Libraries Acts, and it often happens that the same district desires afterwards to provide a public library. They are then obliged to keep up both institutions by means of the limited rate allowed under the Public Libraries Acts. This Bill seeks to enable the district, after a museum has been provided under the Public Libraries Acts, to adopt the Museums and Gymnasiums Act, 1891, which shall apply to the museum as if it has been provided under 213 that Act. In that way the library rate is reduced so far as the museum is concerned, and is thereby able to be applied solely for the purpose of keeping up the public library.

I have received a communication from the Scottish Office requesting me to exclude Scotland from the Bill, but I have not been able to see my noble friend the Secretary for Scotland. If the noble Lord still thinks it necessary to cut out Scotland from the operations of the Bill, it can. of course, be done at a later stage; but I think it right to state that I have received letters from the library authorities of Perth, Dundee. Aberdeen, etc., very strongly approving of the Bill. I venture to hope that I shall be able to persuade the Secretary for Scotland that the Bill can be usefully applied to Scotland. I do not think it necessary to say anything further on the present occasion.