PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION (No. 2) BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 21 May 1901)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (The Earl of HALSBURY)

My Lords, I rise for the purpose of presenting a Bill for the better prevention of corruption. It is a measure which deals with the same subject as that originally brought forward by the late Lord Russell of Killowen, which was followed by another brought in by the present Lord Chief Justice, Lord Alverstone. There is a general agreement that something should be done to check corruption, but that Bill went too far, and its arrangements were too complex. I could not, therefore, recommend the Government to accept that measure. Since last year, however, I have had full communication with my noble and learned friend, who is now satisfied that a much simpler and shorter form of legislation will achieve the desired object. The Bill which I present to your Lordships provides that— (1) If any person—(a) being an agent, corruptly and without the knowledge of his principal, accepts or obtains, or agrees to accept or attempts to obtain, from any person, for himself or for any other person, any gift or consideration as an inducement or reward for doing or forbearing to do any act in relation 740 to his principal's business, or for showing or forbearing to show favour or disfavour to any person in relation to his principal's business; or (b) corruptly gives or offers any such gift or consideration to any agent; or knowingly gives to any agent any receipt, account, or other document in respect of which the principal is interested, which contains any statement which is false or erroneous, or defective in any important particular, and which to his knowledge is intended to mislead the principal, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment with or without hard labour for a term not exceeding one year, or to a fine not exceeding £500. I believe that will effect, if not everything, at any rate a very great proportion of what is sought to be obtained by the more cumbrous, and, as I think, unworkable Bill which has been introduced in each of the last two sessions. It is a section which I and my noble friend the Lord Chief Justice are agreed will effect a very great improvement in the law. There are many trifling gifts, such as gifts to railway porters and the like, which were not within the ambit of the Bill, but the effort to keep them out produced a confused section which I confess I have not been able quite to understand. The object of the section is plain enough, but the language of it is such as to make it impossible to say that it would protect a person who made a gift to a railway porter from being liable to prosecution and a fine. That was felt to be a section which rendered the Bill ridiculous, and made it impossible to pass it, inasmuch as it was possible under that section for certain persons to take proceedings against anyone who had made a trifling gift of this character. One of the difficulties one has to deal with in a subject of this sort is the creation of a class of persons—I ought not to say creation, because I am sorry to say they exist in very considerable numbers already, but the creating for them of a new field of activity—I mean blackmailers. No one who is not concerned with the administration of justice has any idea of the extent to which that offence prevails. One reason for its not being so extensively known is that people have no conception of the degree to which a threat of proceedings will induce persons, owing to the timorous nature of mankind in respect to charges being made against them, to give way to the blackmailer, and, once they have become 741 victims, they struggle in vain against their persecutions. The Bill which I ask your Lordships to read a first time deals with that question. No one in his senses would suppose that it would be right to proceed in regard to such trifling sums as I have suggested, but the language of a statute if it is general must be applied, and we cannot avoid it directly. The mode in which this Bill tries to avoid such a possibility is by allowing no proceedings to be taken except with the consent of the Attorney General or Solicitor General. My noble and learned friend, whose long and distinguished career as Attorney General enables him to speak with authority on such a matter, has assured me that he is strongly of opinion that there will de no difficulty in asking the Attorney General to deal with such questions. The Bill contains only these two sections, and I believe that, if your Lordships are good enough to pass it, there may be a chance of something being done in this very necessary region of amendment of the law even before the present session closes.

§ LORD ALVERSTONE

It may be convenient that I should state at once the course I propose to take. Your Lordships will remember that, in moving the Second Reading of my Bill, I stated that I was extremely anxious that the subject should be taken up by His Majesty's Government, for I am well aware that such an alteration of the law ought not to be made except with the sanction and upon the authority of the Government of the day. As your Lordships know, I was not responsible for the drafting of the Bill. I do not by that observation mean to cast any reflection upon the very learned Gentleman who drafted it, and least of all upon my predecessor, the great Lord Russell of Killowen, or on Sir Edward Fry, who, no doubt, gave him great assistance. The Bill, as I introduced it, had the sanction of a Committee of your Lordships' House, and I believe that very great labour was bestowed upon it. But since it was read a second time I have received a great many communications, and criticisms of a friendly character have been addressed to me by men of business who are in no way opposed to the principle 742 of the Bill. As my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has pointed out, the Bill as drafted proceeded on these lines—that it dealt with, I may say, nearly every transaction in which commission is paid, a gift or a promise made, but attempted to exclude such transactions as have been referred to by the Lord Chancellor, but it was found exceedingly difficult to frame a clause of exemption so as to carry out exactly the object in view. By the courtesy of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, I have seen the draft of his Bill, and I am satisfied that a very large percentage of the transactions which it is desired to stop would be hit by the Bill. I recognise that it is most desirable, in connection with such an alteration of the law, to proceed with great care, and that upon a Bill framed as is that of my noble and learned friend it will be easier, if necessary, to engraft subordinate or supplementary provisions than to attempt in the first instance to make the Bill absolutely perfect. I do not wish it to be thought for a moment that I at all go back from the position that I am extremely desirous of seeing something done in this matter, and I recognise the fact that it is almost impossible to hope that such a Bill as I introduced would get through during the present session. I will, therefore, not ask your Lordships to go into Committee on my Bill, but I propose to keep it on the Paper, so that, if it should be thought desirable that supplementary provisions should be introduced into the Lord Chancellor's Bill, I may submit them to the House. I sincerely trust that the Bill, which my noble and learned friend asks your Lordships to read a first time, will be passed, because I am satisfied that some alteration of the law is imperatively demanded.