§ [SECOND READING.]
§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF MAYOMy Lords, the Bill that I am asking your Lordships to read a second time to-day is to enable women to be elected and act as members of county councils and borough councils in Ireland. This Bill has passed through the House of Commons without dissent, and the only Amendments that were put in were drafting Amendments inserted in Standing Committee by the wish of the Irish Office. In 1907 a Bill was passed to enable women to sit on county and borough councils in England and Scotland, and we in Ireland now only ask for the same privileges to be extended to our womenkind. There is a proviso that if a woman is elected chairman of a county council or mayor of a borough she cannot sit as a justice of the peace. The same law 168 exists in England and Scotland. I hope the Bill will pass exactly as it stands and that no Amendments may be offered, otherwise there is not the smallest chance, as your Lordships can well imagine, of the Bill becoming law this session. I do not think there is anything more to explain. The Bill is only a short one containing two clauses. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.— (The Earl of Mayo.)
§ THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD ASHBY ST. LEDGERS)My Lords, the Irish Office take no objection to this Bill. As the noble Earl has explained, it is but an extension to Ireland of the provisions of the Act of 1907, which was, I believe, moved by Lord Crewe in this House. I understand that at the time the 1907 Bill was before the other House there was some idea of moving in Committee that it should extend to Ireland, but for some reason or other this was not done. I think it was regarded as little more than an oversight. As the noble Earl has said, there is in the Bill a provision that the rule that a man who is mayor of a borough or chairman of a county council should be ex officio a justice of the peace should not apply in the case of women. I may mention that the Bill does not touch the question of franchise at all. It merely enables a woman to be elected a member of a county or borough council, and the Irish Office see no objection whatever to its passage.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.