HL Deb 01 August 1907 vol 179 cc1157-75

Order of the day for the Second Heading read.

LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL

My Lords, the objects of this Bill are two-fold—first of all, to introduce into Scotland the provisions of the English Vaccination Act, 1898, as regards conscientious objection; and, secondly, to incorporate the principles of the English Bill of this year which substitutes a statutory declaration for appearance before a magistrate. As regards the first of these points, I do not think there can be any doubt that the difference between the law of the two countries which at present exists constitutes a very grave anomaly; and, as an instance of how great that difference is, I would ask your Lordships to imagine the case of two neighbours on the border of Scotland and England, one living on each side of the border, both," we will say, with a recent addition to their family, and each with a conscientious objection to vaccination. What would happen if they did not wish to have the children vaccinated? The man living on the English side of the border could go before a magistrate, and if he was able to convince him that he conscientiously believed that such a course would be injurious to his child's health he could obtain relief; but the man living on the Scottish side of the border could obtain no such relief. If he did not have his child vaccinated he would be liable to prosecution, and to a fine or imprisonment, possibly for ten days. I think it would be very hard to persuade my Scottish friend that the law dealt fairly as between him and his neighbour.

I know that your Lordships do not as a rule like to be asked to legislate differently for the two countries, though it has occasionally been my duty to ask you to do so, sometimes successfully and sometimes unsuccessfully. I am glad that to-day I am not likely to be told, as I was told the other day, that I am asking the House to stultify itself, for here we have a Bill which seeks to extend to Scotland a principle which was applied to England nine years ago by noble Lords opposite when they were in office. It does not seem very much to ask that the principle should now be extended to Scotland. If it was just nine years ago in the case of England, it must be equally just to-day in the case of Scotland; and I must submit that it is an instalment of justice which is now considerably overdue. I do not wish to waste the time of the House by arguing so self-evident a proposition, and indeed it is not easy to see on what grounds it can be opposed.

I have made inquiries as to what are the grounds on which the opponents of this Bill rely, and so far I have only been able to find one. I have no doubt that the noble Lord who is to move the rejection of the Bill will supply us with others. But the only one which I have been able to find is that it is said that there has not been the same agitation in Scotland against compulsory vaccination as there had been in England when Mr. Chaplin's Bill was passed. I am sure that is not a ground which will appeal to your Lordships. I remember that not very long ago it was urged by a noble and learned Lord who sits on the other side of the House, but whom I do not see in his place at the moment, as a reason for rejecting the Qualification of Women (County and Borough Councils) Bill that such a course would be considered to be a concession to the riotous and noisy behaviour of certain women in the neighbourhood of the Houses of Parliament and elsewhere. I am glad to say your Lord ships did not endorse that view. But surely it would indeed be putting a premium on that form of political agitation if your Lordships were to say that you would not pass a Bill because its supporters had carried on their campaign in a quiet and orderly manner

. The number of those in Scotland who object to compulsory vaccination may not be so great as the number holding the same view in England, but their grievance is just as real and their claim to have it redressed just as strong. I think this grievance must have been recognised by the noble Lord opposite and his predecessor at the Scottish Office, for under their beneficent rule a system of administering the vaccination law was instituted which has been continued ever since. Under that system, when once a conviction has been obtained against a man for non-compliance with the Vaccination Act the majesty of the law is considered to have been vindicated, and he is not again prosecuted either in respect of that child or in respect of any other child whom he may refuse to have vaccinated. This relaxation, while it redeems the administration of the vaccination law from any suspicion of persecution, is at the same time, I think, a tacit admission that the law as it stands is a harsh one. and I think it constitutes a fair ground for asking that it shall be altered. Further, in spite of the almost illegal leniency with which parish councils have been allowed to administer the vaccination law in Scotland, the number of prosecutions has increased more or less steadily during the last ten years. I admit that even now the number is not very large. I will give your Lordships the figures. In 1896 there were thirty-two prosecutions, while in 1905 there were ninety-one. That figure, I admit, was an exceptionally high one, for in the preceding year the number was fifty-four, and for the year before that sixty-five, while the number last year was sixty-four; so that it may be fairly said that the prosecutions have doubled during the last ten years. I have explained the first of the objects of this Bill. The second object is the incorporation of the principle contained in the English Bill of this year. In this case I am afraid I cannot rely upon precedent, because though that Bill has been introduced in this House and is down for Second Reading this afternoon, it has not yet been discussed by your Lordships, and I do not know what view you take of it. I do not wish to trespass on the preserves of my noble friend Lord Allendale, who I believe is to move the Second Reading of that Bill, and I do not wish to detain your Lordships upon a matter which you will shortly hear presented to you much more ably by my noble friend. But it is necessary that I should say shortly what that principle is as it is included in this Bill. Perhaps the simplest way to explain the matter would be to remind your Lordships of what has been done in England. The conscientious - objector clause of the English Act of 1898 provides that no parent or other person shall be liable to any penalty under Sections 29 or 31 of the Act of 1867 if within four months of the birth of the child he satisfies two magistrates, or a stipendiary or metropolitan police magistrate, in petty sessions, that he conscientiously believes that vaccination would be prejudicial to the health of the child. The English Bill of this year provides that, instead of having to go before the magistrate and satisfy him that he has this conscientious objection, the person objecting may make a statutory declaration to that effect.

This declaration has to be made in accordance with the Statutory Declarations Act, 1835. Section 18 of that Act provides that a voluntary declaration may be made before a justice of the peace, notary public, or other officer of the law authorised to adminster an oath, so that it will no longer be necessary, if that law is passed, for a conscientious objector to go before a magistrate. But if he does elect to go before a magistrate he will go like any other member of the public who wishes to make a voluntary statutory declaration, and not as a prisoner who, in order to escape punishment, has to persuade the magistrate of what is passing in his (the prisoner's) mind—a feat which I would submit to the House is a practical impossibility unless the magistrate chooses to lend himself to the farce. That principle of statutory declaration is here embodied, so that it will be seen that what this Bill proposes to do is to take at one stride the step which was taken in England in 1898, and the one which it is proposed to take this year. I ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a." —(Lord Hamilton of Dalzell.)

*LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH

My Lords, I rise, in pursuance of the notice which I have given, to move that this Bill be read a second time this day three months. The speech to which we have just listened has not disappointed me in one respect, because I fully anticipated that the noble Lord and those who advise him would put most of their case upon the supposed analogy between England and Scotland, and would argue that because you have done a certain thing under certain circumstances in England therefore you are in duty bound to do the same thing for Scotland. The noble Lord at one period of his speech went so far as to characterise that as a self-evident proposition. It will be part of my case to-day to show, not only that it is not a self-evident proposition, but that there is not the slightest iota of foundation, in fact, for the suggestion that there is the smallest vestige of analogy between the circumstances of England and the circumstances as they exist in Scotland.

The second part of my case will be that there is no demand of any sort or kind for this particular proposition so far as the circumstances of Scotland are concerned, and I shall also, with the indulgence of the House, say a few words in criticism of the action of the Government as to the time and the method which they have chosen to bring forward this extraordinary proposition. I say that there is no analogy between the circumstances of England and those of Scotland. The law is different; the administration has been different; the results have been different; and the difficulties which have to be encountered have never been the same. It is perfectly true that discontent with the administration of the English Vaccination Acts culminated in a considerable agitation after the appointment, and, indeed, I think, after the Report of the Royal Commission, and under the circumstances as they then existed the Government of which I was a member passed the Act of 1898 to which allusion has been made. But the Government and those who advised them did not pass that Act because they liked it; they passed it because circumstances as they existed rendered it not only necessary, but wise and judicious.

So great was the discontent in England against compulsory vaccination at the time that large and important local authorities were practically in revolt, and you could not procure the due administration of the law, and in some parts of the country—I remember the circumstances well—something like 60 or 65 percent. of the children were all that were being vaccinated under the existing law. As a matter of fact you could not enforce the compulsory system, and accordingly, with the consent of both sides in Parliament, vaccination in England was made voluntary. But there never has been anything analogous to those circumstances in Scotland. I appeal in this instance to the Report of the Royal Commission, which was presided over by Lord Herschell, whose judicial capacity is acknowledged by both sides, and I venture to say that a more broad-minded individual never sat in this House, and anything to which he appended his name is entitled to the most serious consideration. The Royal Commission pointed out that the law of vaccination in Scotland was comprised in one statute and one statute only—that of 1863. That statute provided for the appointment of public vaccinators for the exercise of their function in accordance with the regulations to be issued from time to time by the Local Government Board. By Section 8 the duty was imposed upon all parents to have their children vaccinated by a regular medical practitioner within six months of the birth. As a matter of fact the English Acts provided for three months and not for six months, and a great deal of the evil that arose in England is attributed, in my opinion rightly, by the Commissioners to that difference in the law—a difference which has now been removed.

But paragraph 126 of the Report says that both the statute law and the method of administration differ widely. One difference is that a public authority can pay a private practitioner for vaccinating the children of those on whom he is in attendance. The great majority of vaccinations in Scotland are, in consequence, performed by private medical practitioners, and when the parish council issue an order to vaccinate a defaulter very many of them are now vaccinated in consequence of these notices. The Commissioners go on to say— The distinct feature of the Scottish system is that the operation is carried out in almost all cases at the home of the person concerned. As I am anxious to establish this point, not on my authority, but on the authority of the Commission, I will venture to quote verbatim two short paragraphs from the Commissioners' Report. Paragraph 518 is in these words— The Scottish vaccination law and its method of procedure discriminates in a manner unknown in this country between the cases in which the failure to procure vaccination was due to hostility to the practice on the part of the parent and those which resulted from neglect and indifference. In paragraph 524 they say— The aim of the Commission and their desire is to preclude the attempt to compel those who are honestly opposed to the practice to submit their children to vaccination, and, at the same time, leave the law to operate, as at present, to prevent children remaining un-vaccinated owing to the neglect or indifference of the parents. Those are true and weighty words, but that is the real distinction which you want to establish—the real distinction which every statesman desires to establish, and which I venture to suggest is better now ascertained by the Scottish practice as it exists than by the English practice as it was before or as it has been amended.

I will very briefly explain the actual state of the law in Scotland. The ruling sections are Sections 17 and 18 of the Act of 1863. Your Lordships will remember that there is the obligation to have children vaccinated before they are six months old. Section 17 of the Act lays the obligation upon the parent or custodian of the child to transmit within a certain time a certificate to the registrar, either of vaccination or of "unsusceptibility" to vaccination, or a medical certificate asking for the postponement of the process. If that certificate is not presented to the registrar within a certain time he sends a notice to the parent—not to the public authority but to the parent —and if the parent disobeys that notice he is liable to a small monetary penalty, not for not having the child vaccinated but for not having sent the particular notice to the registrar. If after six months the child is still not vaccinated the registrar reports the matter to the parish council. The parish council communicates with the parent and sends the public vaccinator to offer to vaccinate the child, and if that offer is refused the parish council may proceed, and ought to proceed, to prosecution. That is the system in Scotland.

Your Lordships will observe that there are two stages and two distinct notices, one demanding the certificate of vaccination or a reason for the operation's not being performed, and the second, after a lapse of six months, to prosecute. The result was that up to the time I left the Scottish Office, for a series of years 97 percent. of the children in Scotland who lived six months after their birth had been successfully vaccinated, the 3 per cent. unvaccinated including all the children lost sight of and those who were "unsusceptible" to vaccination. Through the agency of the parish councils we succeeded in vaccinating 97 percent., and during the whole of that time the agitation was going on in England, and everything was being done that could be done to stir up opposition to the law in Scotland; yet during the whole of the eight years that I had to do with the matter not a single local authority in Scotland refused to perform its duty.

Let us just see under what amount of pressure 97 percent. of the children were vaccinated. In 1903 there was 12,081 defaulters under the first of those sections I have indicated; in 1904 there were 12,200; in 1905, 12,660; and in 1906, 12,488. By the first of those two processes the public authorities succeeded in the first year in getting 7,300 vaccinated; in the second year, 7,350; in the third year, 6,900; and in the fourth year, 7,200; and that with an infinitesimal number of prosecutions. In 1904 there were altogether at both stages seventy-three prosecutions and sixty-eight convictions; in 1905, 104 prosecutions and eighty-three convictions; and in 1906, 109 prosecutions and 105 convictions. The noble Lord who moved the Second Reading of the Bill tried to make a point of the increasing number of prosecutions, but they are not increasing much more than in the ratio of the population; and surely if these really remarkable results are obtained by prosecuting on an average rather less than 100 people a year, it is not worth while making any change in the law.

The agitation, such as it is, against the law is concentrated in one or two places, and over the whole of Scotland I have never seen the slightest sign of discontent. The law has the support of the public, it is administered by local authorities which are popularly elected, and, so far as I can ascertain, the whole thing is working with perfect smoothness. I agree entirely with the statement in the Report of the Commission, The object which any one ought to have in view in this matter is, as the Commissioners say, to distinguish between honest opposition and mere carelessness and neglect. I desire to speak with respect and courtesy of those who do not believe in vaccination, though I am bound to say I do not think much of their intelligence or their power of weighing evidence. But that is not the question. There are a certain minority of people who are honestly opposed to the process. They say that vaccination is an interference with freedom, but so is almost every operation of government. It is an interference with the freedom of the Quaker to make him compulsorily subscribe to the payment of the military forces of the Crown, but we do not take note of his conscientious objection in the matter.

The very people who are most loud in condemnation of this interference with the freedom of the subject in the matter of vaccination are often those who are anxious to interfere with the freedom of adult people to get a glass of beer or a glass of something else if they want it. Therefore, to say that this is an untoward or wrong interference with the liberty of the subject is not an argument which will bear investigation. I venture to suggest that the true doctrine is, that in a matter of this kind it is important that the community should have the power to protect itself against one of the most malignant and loathsome diseases to which our poor flesh may fall a victim, and I say that if by the provisions of this Bill you weaken the security of the community or the possibility of its protect- ing itself you will do one of the worst things this House has ever been asked to do. I am willing to give every consideration to the conscientious objector, but I want to make sure that he is a conscientious objector, and not neglectful or a humbug.

The noble Lord was not correct in saying that I was responsible for the present system. I continued what was originated under the guidance of Sir George Trevelyan and Lord Lothian. It is perfectly true however, that for a long period of years it has been the consistent practice of the Local Government Board for Scotland to put every pressure they could on local authorities not to undertake second prosecutions, not to press for imprisonment in default of payment of fine, and so on. I venture to say that, after all, the best test of real sincerity is to take a man quietly and gently to the police court and fine him 2s. 6d., 5s. or 10s. as the case may be. I will not say it myself, but I am sure that some Englishmen who follow me in the debate will say that perhaps that monetary test is more likely to appeal to the Scottish conscience than anything else. I will accept the gibe in perfect good humour, and if the Scottish nature is such that it is more amenable to a fine of 2s. 6d. then I say let us take advantage of that and continue the good work which has been carried on.

It is nonsense to speak, as some agitators do speak, about a man being treated as a common criminal if he is summoned before a police magistrate. Any of us are liable to be summoned to a police court and ordered to pay a fine of 2s. 6d. or a similar sum for allowing a chimney to be on fire. I do not see that there is a vestige of moral disgrace in being taken to a police court and fined 2s. 6d. on an occasion of this kind, but I do say it is wrong to imprison a man for conscience sake. During the eight years of my administration of the Scottish Office there was not a single case of imprisonment for a breach of the vaccination laws; at any rate, I can honestly say that none was brought to my notice. I am afraid, however, that it is true that there recently has been one. A newspaper extract was sent to me a day or two ago recording the fact that a man in a humble rank of life had been sentenced to ten days imprisonment for not having his child vaccinated. I know nothing more than the bare fact; but I say-that for myself I cannot imagine a more regrettable circumstance. I cannot imagine anything which is more likely to stimulate agitation against the administration of the vaccination laws, and I believe there must have been some special circumstances, the whole facts of which we do not know.

I cannot conceal from myself that the real object of many of those who are getting up this agitation arises not so much from the fact that they themselves are conscientious objectors as that they desire to see vaccination abolished altogether. That fact was strikingly brought out in a speech which was made by one of a deputation which I received in April, 1903, on this subject of vaccination. The leading speaker at that deputation was the hon. secretary of the Anti-Vaccination League, and some kind friend had sent me beforehand some extracts from a speech which he had made on the subject. I found that the hon. secretary of this League had said— Perhaps I should not conclude without a parting remark with reference to the special grievance under which we labour in Scotland— the want of the conscience clause. Such a clause is a very fine thing to cry; the want of it is a glaring injustice, and we are justified in bitterly complaining on account of our treatment by Parliament. But, speaking for myself, I think the conscience clause is an insult. He went on to say— All the same we want a conscience clause for Scotland: but, more than that, we want the repeal of the Vaccination Acts for the whole of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Here you have the truth. You are asked for what they call an insult, but it is admitted that they want the repeal of the Vaccination Acts.

I pass to the third point I wish to press on the House. I have endeavoured to prove that there is no analogy between the circumstances of England and of Scotland. There is no agitation in Scotland against the Vaccination Acts. They are being administered with perfect success and with the practical consent of the whole population. There is no demand either on the part of the public or the parish councils for this proposal, and there has been, so far as I know, no public debate on the subject. I have not seen a single resolution passed by a public body in Scotland asking for this measure, and I do not believe the noble Lord and his advisers can produce a jot of expert opinion, either legal, official, or medical, in favour of this proposal. I have no right to ask what are the opinions of the officials of the Local Government Board, but I know what their views were when I was at the Scottish Office; and I venture to say that the noble Lord and his advisers are not dealing fairly with the House if they keep back from us what I am confident is the fact, that the skilled administrators of the law, the medical experts of the Local Government Board, are practically unanimous against this proposal.

But I do not think that either this House or the public in Scotland are being quite fairly treated in this matter. Why has this Bill been delayed till the 1st of August? During the debate on the Address the question of the administration of the English Acts was raised, and in that discussion one or two Scottish Members took part. One Member spoke against the administration of the Act and demanded a conscience clause for Scotland, while another — a supporter of His Majesty's Government—spoke on the other side, and the Secretary for Scotland before the conclusion of the debate promised to consider the matter. He has been considering it from February until the end of July. I venture to say that if there is any pressing demand for this alteration in the law it ought to have been tabled in such a form that Scotland could have expressed its opinion at an earlier period of the session. The procedure of the Government has been such as to prevent our even testing the question as to whether there is any demand, and if we to-night reject the Bill, with the certainty that it will be brought up again, we shall be doing a wiser thing than if we pass it. The principle of vaccination is to protect every one, and to make vaccination optional would strike at the very foundation of the safeguard. If your Lordships believe in vaccination and that it has proved a safeguard to the people of Scotland, as I certainly do, then it is your duty to reject this Bill. I repeat that the Government have not treated your Lordships nor the people of Scotland fairly in bringing forward this measure, which has not yet been to the other House, in August, and at a time when the people of Scotland, whom your Lordships might wish to consult upon it, are away on their holidays. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— To leave out the word ' now,' and to add at the end of the Motion the words ' this day three months.'"— (Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)

LORD TWEEDMOUTH

My Lords, my withers are certainly unwrung by having to speak a word or two on this Bill, and they will not be many; for I must confess to agreeing very much with the view of the noble Lord who has just sat down as to the folly of people who neglect the vaccination of their children. But the speech that my noble friend has just delivered was not a speech in opposition to this particular little Bill, but really a speech in favour of the repeal of the Act of 1898 passed by the Government of which the noble Lord was himself a member. The noble Lord says there is no analogy between England and Scotland. It is perfectly true that the inhabitants of Scotland have objected much less than those of England to compulsory vaccination; but it seems to me to be a hard thing that a man holding that view and able to obtain exemption in England should not be able to do so if he happens to reside in Scotland.

My noble friend says that there has been no demand for this legislation. That is not the information that comes to the Scottish Office. There have been considerable representations that men—a small number, I admit—do feel the present state of affairs in Scotland to be an injustice. My noble friend himself laid down what was the proper course to take in regard to these people in the year 1903, in the answer he gave to a deputation from the Anti-Vaccination League. Speaking on that occasion my noble friend said— He regarded the enforcement of a penalty in such a way as was done in Scotland as a perfectly fair, and, as he thought, the best, test of the sincerity of the conscientious objector. He would not be in favour of long sentences or of forcing people who had stood the test to a further prosecution." Is not that a curious alternative? Here you are to have the power of punishing, even by imprisonment, a man who objects to have his child vaccinated, and yet when he repeats the offence the noble Lord himself says it would be a monstrous thing to press him further. Is not that a ridiculous state of things to which to subject people with conscientious objections? This is, after all, a small matter. I do not think the Bill will be greatly made use of in Scotland,' but if there are a few people in that country who have conscientious objections they ought to have the same advantages as are enjoyed by the inhabitants of England.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

My Lords, I only desire to trouble your Lordships with one or two remarks with regard to this Bill. My noble friend did not give any answer to Lord Balfour as to why this Bill has been introduced so late as the 1st of August. Complaint has been made very frequently in your Lordships' House of the treatment of this House with reference to the introduction of Bills, and I think this is the most flagrant case I ever remember. This Bill might perfectly well have been introduced in the month of March. Has the Secretary for Scotland considered the matter? The noble Lord indicates that he has. At what period did he arrive at his final decision? At all events, he has arrived at that decision at a moment when it is impossible to obtain the opinions of those in Scotland upon it. If the measure had been introduced in March, or April, or May, at a time when it could have been submitted to the local authorities, then we should have known what Scottish opinion was; but at this moment it is impossible to arrive at what public opinion is on this matter.

The noble Lord who introduced the Bill did not say on what the Bill was founded, but the First Lord of the Admiralty told us that the Secretary for Scotland had had representations made to him. Can we be told what those representations were, or whom they were made by, because at present we have no authority whatever to show on whose advice the Bill is' based? Will the Government go so far as to say that it is based on the advice of the Local Government Board? It certainly is not based on the advice of the parish councils or the district councils. That is absolutely certain; and so far as the public Press of Scotland is concerned, I have never seen any notice whatever taken of this particular subject. There is less excuse for the introduction of this Bill at this late period than any Bill I remember. No one can say that this is a political question and that that was the reason why it was not dealt with earlier. It is a question of administration such as your Lordships are particularly able to express an opinion about, and such as certainly ought to be submitted to public opinion in Scotland.

With regard to the merits of the Bill, if there really are a large number of people who wish their children to be candidates for small-pox I do not know why this House should particularly object, provided always that they do not place other people in danger. But at the present time we have no proof at all that there is any public desire for this Bill in Scotland. I do not know whether the noble Lord intends to push his Amendment as far as absolutely dividing the House, but certainly at the present time it seems to me that the Bill is entirely uncalled for, and I should like to ask on whose advice it is founded.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD LOREBURN)

My Lords, I will not trespass on your Lordships' attention for more than two or three minutes. I have always thought that Scotland was the Cinderella of the United Kingdom, for we never get more than a second or third place in legislation, and I am afraid that in crowded sessions the second or third place leaves very little opportunity for anything being effected. The objection that this Bill is brought in late might be effective if your Lordships had not plenty of leisure to-day for the purpose of deciding it. If your Lordships were unable to get through your work it would be a very different thing. There have been many expressions of dissatisfaction, very naturally, that work has not been brought to this House. Now here is a Bill introduced in this House, and it is objected to because it is brought in late. I am not one of those who presume to decide where doctors differ, and I have always submitted to the vaccination laws on the ground of authority; but what I understood the noble Lord to desire were two things—first, that there should be as much vaccination in Scotland as possible; and, secondly, that we should pay the greatest respect to the opinion of Lord Herschell and the Royal Commission. On the first point, I believe the Act of 1898 to have been successful in producing more vaccination in England. Therefore the same thing would not produce harm, but good, in Scotland. The noble Lord cannot have considered the recommendation of the Royal Commission, because they support the application of this provision to Scotland as well as to England. In Paragraph 524 the Commissioners say— After careful consideration and much study of the subject, we have arrived at the conclusion that it would conduce to increase vaccination if a scheme could be devised which would preclude the attempt (so often a vain one) to compel those who are honestly opposed to the practice to submit their children to vaccination, and, at the same time, leave the law to operate, as at present, to prevent children remaining unvaccinated owing to the neglect or indifference of the parents. When vaccination was made optional there was more vaccination. The Royal Commissioners in the next paragraph say— We may give the following as examples of the methods which might be adopted. It might be provided that if a parent attended before the local authority and satisfied them that he entertained such an objection no proceedings should be taken against him;— that is the law in England; Or, again, a statutory declaration to that effect before anyone now authorised to take such declaration, or some other specified official or officials, might be made a bar to proceedings. That is exactly the proposal in this Bill. The next paragraph proceeds— It is in England that the point we have been. recently discussing is of most practical importance, but if our suggestion were adopted the change should, of course, be made in all parts of the United Kingdom. After all, this is a proposal based on the recommendations of the Royal Commission and brought forward by the Government on the evidence that they have that dissatisfaction exists in Scotland, and in the belief that the Bill will lead to an increase of vaccination.

*Lord BALFOUR of BURLEIGH

I beg the noble and learned Lord's pardon, but you cannot increase much beyond 97 per cent.

The LORD CHANCELLOR

You might get it almost universal. If the people of Scotland are led to believe that they are to be treated differently from the people of England, there will arise an unreasonable, irrational, and obstinate feeling against vaccination which does not now exist. I sincerely hope your Lordships will not inflict an injustice upon Scotland by rejecting the Bill.

*VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN

My Lords, I think the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has hardly done justice to the objection which has been raised by Lord Balfour and Lord Camperdown on the question of procedure. The objection, as I understood it, was not that your Lordships had not sufficient time to discuss this Bill. We have plenty of time. I wish we could expect as much time to discuss other Bills that will come up to us later. The objection was this, that a change, which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack and the First Lord of the Admiralty have stated as a change of importance in the vaccination law of Scotland, has been brought forward at an extremely late period of the session and that no time has been given to the people of Scotland to consider the Bill and express their opinion upon it. That is the grievance of which we complain, and it is a grievance which, if I may venture to say so, was not at all met by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. I suppose we shall not get any explanation of the reason which this induced this delay.

I now come to the merits of the Bill. I should be the last to suggest that it was a self-evident proposition, as I think the noble Lord who introduced the: Bill suggested, that Scottish and English law should be identical on any conceivable subject. I believe that would be a proposition which would command almost universal dissent on both sides of the border. If vaccination was now really compulsory in Scotland, or if my noble friend Lord Balfour had suggested that he desired to make it so, then I think the objection to this Bill on the ground of procedure would be far stronger than it is under present circumstances. What are those circumstances? We have in England a procedure, recommended by the Royal Commission, under which in the great majority of petty sessions an applicant for a certificate of exemption merely has to declare his conscientious objection to the vaccination of his child, and practically without any further trouble he is granted a certificate. It is proposed that instead of that procedure in future there shall be a mere statutory declaration to that effect made before a magistrate or any person qualified to receive it, and, so far as I know, that proposed alteration in the law has not been met with any serious objection on the part of English representatives in another place. The English Bill is on your Lordships' Paper to-night, and I see no notice of any objection to it.

It is proposed to introduce a similar system into Scotland. My noble friend Lord Balfour admits that the present system in Scotland is something akin to a farce. Surely it is a farce to summon a man for one offence, to fine him, and possibly even imprison him for that offence, and then to let him go scot free in respect of all the rest of his children, as well as that particular child. My noble friend says that the result is that 97 per cent. of the children in Scotland are vaccinated. The reason that this large percentage of children are vaccinated is that there is a great and almost universal opinion in Scotland in favour of vaccination, and the change in the law that is now proposed will not do away with that opinion in the least. It will remain, and, as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has suggested, it may be strengthened by this change. I believe it is clear that the change in the law in England, where there was great objection to compulsory vaccination, has had the effect of increasing vaccination.

My noble friend who has moved the rejection of this Bill has not stated that he is in favour of compulsory vaccination. On the contrary, he would object to repeated fines, and in all cases to imprisonment. He objects as strongly to imprisonment as any of your Lordships, and he regrets that there have been instances in Scotland where imprisonment has taken place. Further than that, my noble friend said a fine of 2s. 6d. or 10s. is a very small matter, and that Scotsmen, in spite of their traditional objection to the payment of money, do not very much object to it. I think we should consider these fines, small though they appear to us, in the light in which they may appear to the poorest of the community. Even a fine of 2s. 6d. may be felt to be a hardship by some person who knows that if he were in the same position in England he would be entitled to exemption. I am bound to say, differing as I do with the greatest regret from my noble friend, whose experience and knowledge of Scottish matters are infinitely greater than mine, and whose administration of Scottish affairs when he was entrusted with them was approved and praised by all, that having to vote on this Bill with regard to what are the merits of the case, I feel it impossible to go into the lobby with him against the Second Reading.

On Question, whether "now" shall stand part of the Motion, resolved in the affirmative; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Wednesday next.