QUALIFICATION OK WOMEN (COUNTY AND TOWN COUNCILS) (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 22 July 1907)

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN
moved an Amendment to provide that a woman 1086 should not be qualified to be elected as convener of a county council or provost of a burgh. He explained that in the English Bill their Lordships decided that, although a woman was to be eligible to be elected to a county or borough council, she was not to be eligible to occupy the position of mayor of a borough or chairman of a county council. In Scotland the corresponding terms were provost of a burgh or convener of a county council. He begged to move.

LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL
said the Government could not accept the Amendment. He did not, however, contend, any more than did his noble friend the Lord President of the Council when a similar Amendment was moved to the English Bill, that this was a matter which was really vital to the Bill; but he asked their Lordships to consider whether this was not a question which might very properly and safely be left to the local bodies to settle for themselves. He did not suppose that if the Bill became law they would see a very large number of ladies elected to serve upon these local authorities. That, at all events, had not been their experience with regard to parish councils and school boards, and still less did he suppose that if their Lordships rejected this Amendment they were likely to see a very large number of lady provosts or lady conveners. The case was not exactly similar in Scotland, because he believed there was a feeling in favour of this latitude being allowed to local bodies on account of the several ladies who had presided over parish councils and school boards—notably the case of Miss Stevenson, in Edinburgh; and he asked their Lordships not to impose a restriction which he believed was totally unnecessary, and which might be found in practice to be of a very irritating nature.

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH
hoped the Committee would adopt the Amendment. The case for the acceptance of this limitation in regard to Scotland was a great deal stronger than 1087 the case, so far as he could learn it from the debate the other day, in regard to England. The noble Lord had mentioned the well-known case of an eminent lady who was chairwoman of a school board in Edinburgh. Unlike England the school boards remained in Scotland, and the case for putting ladies on county and town councils was not so strong as in England, for there were very few duties in the administration of which it could be said the assistance of ladies was necessary. He hoped that the very reasonable prohibition which was proposed in the Amendment would be accepted by their Lordships for Scotland as it had been in the case of England. If the noble Earl went to a division he would support him.

§ LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH
said their Lordships certainly accepted a similar proposal with regard to England, but he thought it was done a little hurriedly, and the majority in favour of that Amendment was relatively small. The argument which the noble Lord who had just sat down had addressed to their Lordships was not, he contended, relative to the Amendment. The noble Lord had said that because women could sit on school boards in Scotland there was no necessity for them to be qualified to sit on county and town councils. But that was an argument against the principle of the Bill. Their Lordships had read the Bill a second time, and the only question now was whether, if the majority of a county or town council wished to appoint a woman member as convener or provost, which was unlikely but was possible, she should be qualified to occupy that position. He thought Parliament should not grudgingly say that a council should be precluded from electing a woman of proved capacity to either of these positions. He hoped their Lordships would not be influenced by the precedent in the English Bill.

§ THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY
said he was not present when the division took place on a similar Amendment in the English Bill, but if he had been in the House he would have felt compelled to vote in favour of that Amendment, although he strongly supported giving women power to sit on these bodies. He knew of no reason why they should give 1088 to local bodies in Scotland this power which they denied to local bodies in England. Indeed, their Lordships would be stultifying themselves unless they supported Lord Camperdown's Amendment.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN
said this question was decided in the English Bill by sixty-one votes to forty-nine. He did not know that there was any great difference between women in Scotland and women in England, and if their Lordships were of opinion that it was better, on the whole, that women should not preside over county councils or borough councils in England, it was better also that they should not be conveners of county councils or provosts of burghs in Scotland. He did not wish to put it higher than that. It seemed to him that the argument was very much the same in the two cases. He thought the Committee would be arriving at a rather strange decision if, without stating exactly what the grounds were, they differentiated between the two countries, and reversed the decision formerly come to in regard to England.

§ THE EARL OF CREWE
My Lords, your Lordships remember, no doubt, what happened in regard to the English Bill. On that occasion, while expressing a preference, on behalf of the Government, for allowing ladies to hold these posts in the rare cases in which they are likely to be elected, we did not desire to make it appear anything like a cardinal point in the Bill. The noble Earl, Lord Camper-down, speaks of reversing that decision. Whether the decision is a reversal would entirely depend on whether the circumstances arc precisely the same in the two countries. We are given to understand that in Scotland the feeling in favour of retaining this provision in the Bill is stronger than we had any reason to suppose it was in England.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN
Can the noble Earl give us his reasons for that opinion?

§ THE EARL OF CREWE
I am not competent to speak from first-hand knowledge; but I suppose it is founded on what hon. Gentlemen in the other House who represent Scotland think is the opinion of their constituents.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN
They are not Scotsmen.

§ *THE EARL OF CREWE
In the circumstances we do not wish to put the House to the trouble of a division, and when the Question is put we shall say "Not Content," with the result, of course, of leaving my right hon. friend in another place a free hand in the matter.

*THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN
then moved the deletion of paragraph (b) of Clause 1— (b) if elected as chairman of a county council or provost of a burgh, by virtue of holding or having held that office be a justice of the peace or burgh magistrate, or be eligible for election, or for acting, as a burgh magistrate, or as a judge in any police court: Provided that where a woman is elected as provost of a burgh the number of bailies to be elected in the burgh shall while she holds office as provost be one more than the number otherwise fixed bylaw, and any additional bailie so elected shall hold office for the period prescribed by the law regulating the office of burgh magistrate or bailie, subject to the provision that he shall in no case continue to hold office after the woman has ceased to hold office as provost. This Amendment was consequential upon the Amendment which their Lordships had just agreed to, providing that a woman should not. be eligible for either of these positions.