§ [SECOND READING.]
§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT HALDANE)My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of a Bill which is of great importance to the State. I have considered how I should best consult your Lordships' convenience. It has appeared to me unnecessary that I should go into the grounds, discussed throughout the country at great length, why it is that this measure is introduced. I think I can best assist your Lordships in forming a conclusion about it if I confine myself to an explanation of the character of the Bill, of its relations to the existing provision which the law makes for such cases, and to the mode in which the Bill proposes to preserve the liberty of the subject. As regards the first topic, without entering upon it I will only say this, that sociologists, jurists, philanthropists on the one hand, and statesmen on the other, are well aware that our civilisation in this country presents in this respect a mournful spectacle. There are diffused among our people many who are incapable of taking care of themselves, and who, without being in the technical language of the law either idiots or lunatics, are still so disabled by constitutional defects that they cannot be relied upon to live without supervision. The absence of that supervision has led to great evils, evils which I trust may be to some extent mitigated should your Lordships think fit to pass this Bill into law. Others of your Lordships will probably call attention to the, unhappily, enormous volume of evidence on the subject. I shall not enter into that.
What I intend to do is to tell your Lordships what this Bill proposes, and to that end it is necessary that I should remind you of the provision which the law of this land actually makes for these unfortunate people. Two classes were provided for at Common Law—in the first place, idiots, that is to say those who from their birth were wholly imbecile and who had no prospect of becoming normal; and, in the second place, lunatics, who in the theory of the law were people who had come under mental disability late in life or at least after the early stages were over, and who were in such a con- 1694 dition that there was at least a theoretical hope that they might be restored to sanity. For these two the Common Law of the land made provision, but it was provision of a peculiar character. The Sovereign was in early times interested in receiving services from his subjects who owned land, and when those services could not be rendered either by idiots or by lunatics it was natural that the Sovereign should, according to the standards of those days, take their land into his custody and manage it, and he did so, and I am afraid that the main interest of the Crown in those days was to get such revenue as would compensate for the loss of military and other service which the owner of the land might be expected to provide. In the case of idiots the Crown took charge of the idiot and particularly of the idiot's land, appropriating the revenue and recognising only the obligation to hand over the property after the invalid's death to his heirs.
In the case of the lunatic, who might recover, the obligation of the Crown was more strict. The Crown had to account for the management of the revenues of the lunatic's estate not only while the lunatic was alive, but to those who were to succeed. Consequently jurisdiction was devolved by the Crown to the Officer of State who had most machinery at his disposal for the management of the property. That was the Keeper of the Great Seal, the Lord Keeper it might be or the Lord Chancellor; and the Lord Chancellor, who was the head of the Court of Chancery and had the control of the legal machinery, soon devised means for managing the affairs of lunatics, and also to some extent of idiots, and for taking care of their property and guarding their persons. The jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor was broken into for a short time in the reign of Henry VIII, but it was afterwards restored, and in late years it was devolved in part to the Lords Justices who were appointed by Statute to assist the Lord Chancellor and exercise concurrent jurisdiction in the management of the property of lunatics. The term "lunatic" is of pretty wide extension, and in the eye of the Court of Chancery it extended to those who were found by inquisition to be non compos. All that large and extensive class of persons had their estates managed by the Lord Chancellor and the Lords Justices through the machinery which was at the disposition of the tribunal—that is to say, 1695 the Masters in Lunacy and the Lunacy Visitors. That goes on now, and it is not proposed by this Bill to affect that jurisdiction in the least.
But your Lordships will observe that that jurisdiction rests wholly on property. The Lord Chancellor's machinery is invoked for the purpose of taking care of the property and person of the lunatic. That obviously has no application to the class of person who is primarily in view in regard to this Bill. By degrees, by Act of Parliament, care was extended to the persons of those who had no property. Lunatics so found were placed under the supervision of the Lunacy Commissioners, a statutory body; and there was also an Act called the Idiots Act, passed I think in 1888, which enabled not only the same supervision to be extended to idiots technically so called, but gave power—I ask your Lordships to note this—to the parents and guardians of idiots to place them under supervision and detention very much analogous to what this Bill does. But the Bill of to-day provides safeguards which neither the Idiots Act nor the Lunacy Acts have ever provided for the custody of the persons of those who are committed to the care of the law. The Lunacy Commission supervised the houses of detention into which, under various Statutes, lunatics who had no property were placed, and in which idiots were placed; and the Lunacy Commissioners are to this extent under the Lord Chancellor, that the Lord Chancellor appoints them, and the Lord Chancellor, being the representative of the Sovereign, is concerned to see that justice and liberty are safeguarded, and has large powers of directing inquiries to be made by the Lunacy Commissioners into the character of anybody who is detained, powers which are exercised very constantly.
By Statute every person detained either in a lunatic asylum or in any private place of detention has the right to send a letter to the Lord Chancellor personally. I receive a good many such letters at my private residence. I read them all and consider them, and experience has taught me what to look for. Many of these letters are, of course, the mere production of lunatics, but all of them are considered, and wherever there is the least case of doubt I direct a special inquiry into the way in which the lunatic is being looked 1696 after and into the question whether he really is a lunatic. That I do through the Lunacy Commissioners of to-day. These powers are preserved in the Bill, and their exercise will form the subject of a special set of regulations which will be drawn up, should this Bill pass, and settled between the Home Office and myself.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYWill the noble and learned Viscount tell us the clause under which that is enacted?
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORIt is a clause towards the end of the Bill. I will find it later if the noble Marquess desires it. But he may take it from me that the powers of the Lord Chancellor are preserved, and that it is proposed by means of the regulations of which I speak to put them in such a form that not only will all the powers which exist to-day continue but other and additional safeguards will be set up. The Bill proceeds on the assumption that every safeguard which exists to-day is to continue to exist, and it proposes to add still further safeguards to which I will draw attention. The scope of the Bill, however, is much wider than the sweep of the law at the present time. The mentally defective person, of course, overlaps as a definition the lunatic and the idiot. The expression includes a variety of persons who are not wholly non compos, but who are quite unable to manage their own affairs and who fall into danger. The purpose of the Bill is to provide, at the expense of the parent or guardian of such person or of the local authorities, for the care of these people.
There will be a distinction between the two classes. As to persons who are under guardianship, the parent or guardian may petition and may obtain the direction which will entitle him to place the person in his charge under supervision. But there is another class of persons with whom the law comes into contact more directly. It may be that in a criminal case the Judge sees that the person against whom a verdict of guilty is given is really a person who is mentally defective and who ought not to be treated as a subject of punishment, or at any rate of punishment in the ordinary sense. Power will be given to the Court to order the detention of such person and the placing of him under supervision. Again there is the case of a child who is taken care of in one of the 1697 schools which, happily, now exist for the treatment of mentally defective children. When the school age—thirteen, say—comes to an end the child at present goes out into the world uncared for; but under this Bill it will be the duty of the local education committee to draw the attention of the proper judicial authority to the state of matters and provision will be made for the care of that child.
I think I have told your Lordships enough to justify my going straight to a brief exposition of the machinery of the Bill itself. It is based on the Report, made in 1908, of the Royal Commission on the Feeble Minded, and it is essentially a measure of care and protection. That is its guiding principle. The methods of supervision vary with the requirements of the particular kind of case, and they are such in the main as were laid down by the Royal Commission. The four categories of persons who come within the scope of the Bill are idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, and moral imbeciles. Lunatics at present are under the Lunacy Commissioners, but the Lunacy Commission is transferred to the Board of Control which is set up to exercise all the functions which the Lunacy Commission exercise at the present time, and therefore lunatics will be under the same control as the other persons to whom the Bill applies. The Lunacy Acts remain unrepealed. The difference made is this, that the Board of Control will take the place of the present Lunacy Commission by including the Lunacy Commission within its numbers.
The four classes to which I have referred have been very carefully defined. Much thought has been expended on the definition. The Royal College of Physicians furnished to the Royal Commission definitions which had been devised by a Committee of the College, and these were examined by the Commission and adopted as valuable and appeared in the Bill as it was brought in in 1912. They were subjected to protracted examination in Grand Committee in the other House last year and various improvements were made, notably by the addition of children, the purpose of all that being what I have stated—to make some provision for children who were still children but had passed beyond the limited school age which we have at the present time in this country. All persons coming within the four heads 1698 I have described are what are called defectives in the language of the Bill—that is to say, they include persons who have been defective from birth or from early age, and persons suffering from any defect due to congenital causes or failure in mental development.
There are two ways under this Bill in which defectives may be dealt with. First of all, there is the class of defectives who are now under the guardianship of their parents or other guardians. Acting voluntarily, those parents or guardians may do what they can do at present under the Idiots Act. That Act makes just the provision which this Bill makes in the case of these persons who are under guardianship. They can be placed under guardianship and detention in the same way as under the Idiots Act, but with certain improvements. There is the second category, that of persons who may be placed under guardianship or detention by order of a judicial authority, or it may be of a Court of Law, or it may be in certain cases by the Home Secretary. Suppose the Home Secretary becomes cognisant that in a prison, for instance, there is somebody who is mentally defective. He may not act of his own motion—that is carefully safeguarded—but he will put the machinery of the law into motion, and the person may be rescued from the category of a prisoner and placed among those who are mentally defective and be taken care of in that fashion. Now I come to the ways of dealing with the defective if the parent or guardian is the person who is acting. Then the invalid may be placed under control by the presentation of a statement setting out particulars as to his condition, which must be accompanied by two medical certificates, and one of those certificates must be given by a practitioner approved by the local authority. That is a greater safeguard than is provided in the Idiots Act, for there will now be two doctors instead of one and one of them must be a practitioner approved by the local authority; and if the defective is merely feeble minded the statement must be countersigned by a judicial authority. The compulsory method arises in the case of persons who have come into relation with the law either by coming before a Court or otherwise, and in that case the judicial authority may make the procedure apply on a proper petition and with proper safeguards, or the Court of 1699 Assize, or Quarter Sessions, or Court of Summary Jurisdiction may do it in the case of a defective who is proved to have committed a criminal offence, or the Secretary of State in the case of a defective person in a reformatory or a criminal lunatic. An order on a petition may be applied for by any relative or friend of the defective or by an officer of the local authority; but an order shall not be made without the consent in writing of the parent or guardian unless that consent is unreasonably withheld. I need not trouble your Lordships with the details of the procedure of the Courts and of the education authority Those are set out in the Bill quite fully.
Now, my Lords, I come to the duration of the guardianship or detention, as to which careful safeguards have been introduced. If a mental defect is established—not quite lunacy, but a condition which may be temporarily affecting the mind—the person so affected is to be placed under guardianship, but provision has been made for the case of an improvement in the mental condition of the defective; he is to be released, but only if there are available effective means for his care and supervision until he is completely cured. The Bill has very careful provisions designed to prevent improper or unnecessarily prolonged detention. To begin with, a defective under guardianship must be visited by the Board of Control and may at any time be discharged by a Commissioner. Then the Secretary of State is to make Regulations with respect to the release of defectives, which Regulations will have the force of the law and provide for the details of the immediate return of defectives to their families and freedom. There is also a provision for inspection, which may justify the further detention of the defective, whether at public or private expense. These provisions will form part of the Regulations of which I spoke, the reference to which is Clause 40 of the Bill.
Every order for guardianship or detention expires, unless continued, at the end of the first twelve months, and again at the end of the second twelve months, and thereafter every successive five years. That makes certain that there will be revision at the end of each period; but it does not confer such power as at the present time exists of releasing a defective. 1700 When a defective who is a minor is dealt with, it is provided that on his attaining the age of twenty-one a special inquiry is to be held into the whole circumstances of the case to see whether his further detention is justified or not. In voluntary cases the parent or guardian may take the defective home at any time unless the Board, after special inquiry, are satisfied that further detention is required in the interests of the patient. There are safeguards existing under the present Lunacy Acts, and as far as I can judge they are about as complete as it is possible to provide.
Then I must tell your Lordships something about the central authority—the Board of Control which is to administer the provisions of the Act. Your Lordships may ask why the whole control of the machinery of this new system was not handed over to the Lord Chancellor instead of being made over to the Secretary of State. For that there is a very good reason, a reason which I strongly endorse. The Lord Chancellor has no machinery for administration, at least not adequate machinery. His business is judicial; his business in cases of this kind is to look after the liberty of the subject; but this Bill sets up an entirely new administrative system, because, as your Lordships will find, it proposes to establish institutions and homes, and contribute funds from the State for the purpose, in which persons will be detained, and which will be administered some by the State and others by local authorities with contributions from the State. These homes and places of detention will have to be supervised and looked after and inspected, and it is not possible that the Lord Chancellor, with all his other duties, can be the administrator of the machinery required for so extensive a business. Therefore it is right that it should be under the Secretary of State for the Home Office whom this administration should go through. The central authority to be set up is a body which will be mainly, so far as administration is concerned, appointed by the Home Office; but so far as its legal members, of whom there are four, are concerned, these will be appointed by the Lord Chancellor and act with him in following out the policy of which I have spoken concerning matters of the liberty of the subject. There will be women on the Board, and the Board will be of a size 1701 and capacity which ought to fit it for the duties which are entrusted to it under the measure. But the Board of Control, or central authority, is not the only authority which deals with this matter. There are the local authorities, the county councils, or county borough councils, just as in the case of education matters—including women, of course—and these authorities will constitute committees which will be responsible for the local working of the Act. They will receive grants-in-aid, and their business will be to ascertain the number of defectives in their area and provide for their proper supervision, guardianship, or detention as circumstances may require. They will have considerable powers in respect of contributing towards the maintenance of defectives for whom they are under no obligation to provide.
With regard to the education side, the local authority for defectives does not take over these new classes and schools established under the Education Department, and we should rather recommend that that should be so. Previously the Board of Education had no machinery for such a purpose, but now a new medical class has been added to the Department, and the Board of Education has made immense strides in dealing with this subject since the time when the matter was considered by the Royal Commission in 1908, and we think that it would be a retrograde step not to let the education authorities, where the child is of school age, deal with the children in a defective school. Afterwards, when the Board of Education has no jurisdiction, the local authorities can deal with the matter and the children will go to the institutions with which the Bill deals. In the case of certain of the great centres—the metropolis, for instance, and Binningham—there are admirable institutions for the care of defectives which could not be better administered than they are at the present time, and with these we do not desire to interfere; but, of course, all the supervision and inspection for which this Bill provides will be available to supervise those institutions.
I think I have now told your Lordships generally the scheme of the Bill. It remains for me to deal with several points which are of importance. One is the kind of institutions where defectives will be dealt with. These fall under five heads. 1702 There are, first, State institutions which the Bill proposes to set up for the first time. The Treasury is going to find, to begin with, a sum of £50,000 a year, which we think will be sufficient for some time, but ultimately a little more money will be provided, very likely in two or three years. We could not spend more in the first two or three years until the system is got under way. Then, secondly, there will be certified institutions. There are institutions under the management of other people which will be certified as fit for the purpose, and will be carried on under strict supervision. Thirdly, there will be the workhouses, of which I have spoken, under the control of the Local Government Board. Fourthly, there are certified houses, where a private person takes charge of a single defective, it may be for profit. These will be under careful supervision. It is very often the case that a private home is the best for a mentally defective person whose relatives have means to look after him. That is an analogy with what exists at the present time. Finally there are homes which a benevolent person may set up for the care and maintenance of defectives, and these homes we look upon as a very useful additional provision for the care of defectives.
The State institutions will exist mainly for the purpose of the care and control of defectives of criminal and dangerous tendencies who will be sent there by the order of some Court, and the cost of these institutions will be wholly on the State. The certified institutions may receive contributions from local authorities, and others from private individuals. These will receive State subsidies—half the cost of the maintenance of defectives from the State, and the other half from the local authorities. Then there are certified defectives whom the local authority are not bound to maintain, but if nobody provides for these the local authority may do something. Then there are the uncertified defectives and voluntary inmates, who are not able to provide for themselves, to be considered. I have spoken of the private establishments to be certified by the Board, which are kept by private persons for their own profit. These institutions receive voluntary cases. The jurisdiction under the Idiots Act is repealed by this Bill, which is obviously better and provides better safeguards than that Act.
1703 So far as finance is concerned, the Exchequer contributions will take this form. Of course, the Exchequer will pay the whole of the expenses of the Board of Control and its officers. The officials on the Board of Control must be highly qualified persons and properly paid. Then there is the cost of establishing the State institutions for the purpose of keeping people of criminal or violent disposition; the cost of maintenance of defectives dealt with by an order of the Secretary of State; and half the expenses incurred by the local authorities in the execution of their functions. That will be about £150,000, and will increase in amount. Then there will be certain subsidies to societies undertaking provision for the care of defectives.
There are certain provisions in the Bill which I will just mention. One is the provision in Clause 17, which provides for the due consideration of a defective's religion. He is to be sent to an institution, where possible, of the religion to which he belongs, and his creed is to be borne in mind in considering the persons who are to have access to him. Then Clause 39 provides for the visitors of licensed houses appointed under the Lunacy Acts, 1890 to 1911. Clause 40 gives extensive powers to the Secretary of State to make Regulations as to the management of institutions for defectives. These Regulations are to be settled by him and by myself, and of course will come before Parliament. There is provision for the punishment of offences, which ought to be specially dealt with. Then the provisions of the Lunacy Acts will be applied to the guardianship of the property of these defectives. Broadly speaking, that is the Bill, Everything has been done which, so far as I can see, could be done to make provision for the due observance of the right of the liberty of the subject, consistent with the fact of his being mentally defective and in an institution under State supervision. In these circumstances I hope your Lordships will think that this Bill meets the criticisms which were pointed out in connection with the Bill when it was before Parliament last session. I think it has been very much to the advantage of this Bill that it has been so carefully considered; and it is for these reasons that I commend it to your Lordships' favourable consideration. I now move that the Bill be read a second time.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
1704§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMy Lords, His Majesty's Government are to be congratulated on dealing with this very important and difficult subject. I am sure that all of us feel, without any distinction of where we sit in your Lordships' House, the profound importance of this subject, and that these unfortunate defectives of the various categories to which the noble and learned Viscount has referred ought to be dealt with by new legislation. The case of these defectives moves our compassion when we think of their unfortunate position. It also leads us to reflect how important it is for the protection of other persons that they should be properly looked after. I use these general phrases in order that no one should think that in any criticisms I think it right to make on the Bill I am indifferent to the importance of the subject, or that I desire to call in question the propriety of legislation such as the noble and learned Viscount has moved. But, my Lords, we must reflect that it is a very difficult subject, and any one who listened to the noble and learned Viscount will realise that the Bill is of a very far-reaching character; that it is very- complicated and very detailed; and that it deals with delicate family relationships and matters with which your Lordships would wish to deal with the very greatest precautions. The noble and learned Viscount prided himself on having provided in the Bill much greater precautions than are to be found in some of the existing legislation. That may be. But your Lordships must remember that the scope of this Bill is far wider than that of existing legislation; it deals with persons who are by no means so distinctly and indubitably within the definitions with which the Bill is furnished, and therefore the operation of this Bill requires much greater precautions and safeguards than existing legislation does.
In such circumstances, how would your Lordships have imagined that the Government would have dealt with a subject of this kind? Would they or would they not have used every opportunity in their power so that this Bill might be properly drafted and properly discussed in both Houses of Parliament? I would ask your Lordships for a very few moments to reflect how this Bill has been brought before this House; how this Bill, dealing with these very delicate and difficult matters of the greatest importance, has been brought to the con- 1705 sideration of Parliament. Let me take, first of all, its history in another place. Very little was heard of it until it went to the Grand Committee. Well, a Grand Committee may be a satisfactory place for the discussion of these sort of Bills, but judging by the results I cannot say that I think the Grand Committee in this case has any great reason to congratulate itself upon its work. But the important thing is that no member of the public really knows what passes or happens in Grand Committee. There are no public reports; there are no means of our knowing what line was taken by this member or by that member of the Committee; no one knows what the Government does or thinks in carrying it through.
And when that Committee had reported and the Bill was submitted to the House of Commons, this is what happened there. I think, considering the importance and the nature of the Bill—I say it with all respect to the other House—the proceedings were little short of a scandal. This Bill was forced through the House of Commons upon the Report stage, forced through under the greatest pressure of the modern devices for shortening discussion in that House—all-night sittings, repeated closure, and what is known as the "kangaroo," on the vastest scale that it has ever been applied to any legislation. Your Lordships will hardly believe that twenty pages of this intricate Bill have never been discussed in the House of Commons at all. Twenty pages were by one—if I may use such a phrase—by one bound of the "kangaroo" added to the Bill, dealing with all sorts of intricate financial points, with Regulations, with everything that it is important should be properly revised by the representatives of the people. In the middle of the night when everybody was tired and weary these were added to the Bill without any consideration whatever by the representatives of the people. I do not know who were present. I believe very few of the Government were present, and hardly any of them took any part—no Law Officer appears to have taken any part—in those proceedings. No member of the Front Opposition Bench was apparently present. And that is the kind of way legislation is to be recommended to your Lordships' House under the authority and under the arrangements promoted by His Majesty's Government!And then it comes to your Lordships' 1706 House, to the Chamber of Revision—Heaven save the mark!Your Lordships will gaze upon the Chamber of Revision at the moment and will calculate how many members are likely to devote themselves to this Bill, which deals with the liberty of the subject, at this period in the session. On August 7 we have the Second Reading of the Bill, and in three days we shall have to go into Committee to prepare the intricate Amendments which ought undoubtedly to be inserted in the Bill. My Lords, the thing is an absolute farce. It is a disgrace to Parliament. And may I say it is a disgrace to His Majesty's Government.
May I call your Lordships' attention—I do not want to go into too much detail—to the sort of material which the House has to consider. You would have thought, at any rate, that the Government would have come to a clear idea of what they mean by a "defective." But that is not so. In the definition clause at the beginning of the Bill [Part 1, Clause 1] it is set out that a defective may be dealt with if, among other things, he requires control "for the protection of others." If he is in such a condition as that he may be dealt with and shut up in an institution, or put under guardianship or any of the other resources of the Bill; but as soon as he is there and a question arises as to whet her he ought to be let out again, then there is no question at all about the protection of others; the only consideration is what is good for the defective himself. So that a defective might be shut up one year because he was a danger to other persons, and the moment the case came up for revision he would have to be let out again because it would be in his own interests that he should be let out. That is the kind of way in which the Government have drawn the definition of a defective and how they propose that he should be dealt with.
Then I take another point. I take the judicial protection in the case of a defective who is shut up at the instance of a parent or guardian, and the judicial protection of a defective who is shut up at the instance of other persons under Clause 4 of the Bill. They may be the same person; the same individual might be dealt with under either of the two sets of procedure; yet in one case the judicial authority—in the second case—must be satisfied of the defective 1707 condition of the individual and that he comes within the meaning of the Act, but in the other case he is only called upon to make such inquiry as he thinks fit. According to the ordinary rules of construction one must assume that if he is to be satisfied in the one case it is not necessary that he should be satisfied in the other. So that apparently where a parent or guardian proposes to shut up a defective and it comes before the judicial authority, the judicial authority is not called upon to be satisfied of the condition of the unfortunate individual, but by some sort of perfunctory inquiry which is quite different to satisfaction is to be called upon to act. Yet that may be the same individual in either case. I will not go all through the Bill in order to show your Lordships the difficulties of interpreting it. The opening words of Clause 4 are quite unmeaning. Your Lordships will not be surprised to hear that that clause was not discussed in the House of Commons at all; it was the subject of a leap of the "kangaroo."
Then I go to a very important clause in the Bill, Clause 6. This clause provides that in certain cases the proceedings before a judicial authority should be held in private. That is a very important clause, because your Lordships know that what we have to be on guard against in this kind of legislation is lest injustice should be done whilst the bright light of publicity does not beat on the proceedings. Private proceedings have to be specially safeguarded lest abuses arise without the knowledge of the public. The clause is extremely difficult to understand, but what does appear is that the defective is for his own protection to have the opportunity of appointing two friends to watch his interests. I should hardly have thought a defective was exactly the person to appoint the two friends; at any rate, a defective child is not the person to appoint two friends, and yet it is contemplated that a child should seek protection by appointing two friends to look after its interests. There appears to be no provision for the parents of the child to be present. The clause goes on to say that no one else is to be permitted to be present; so that for a period of many years, or perhaps for life, such proceedings may be conducted without the parents being present. That seems to me so outrageous that I think the Government will surely not proceed with it.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORWill the noble Marquess allow me to say that what he states is not accurate.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYIt is expressly directed that only certain persons are to be admitted to the proceedings.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORThe procedure assumes that the person himself is capable of asking that the proceedings should be conducted in private, and if he is capable of doing that it is assumed that he is capable of appointing two friends. The judicial authority has power to order all cases to be conducted in private.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYI am sure a child is not capable of making any such appointment of two friends to look after its interests. The noble and learned Viscount knows that quite well.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORIt does not apply to a child; it is only when the proceedings are private that it is provided that there should be two friends present.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYDoes the noble and learned Viscount say there will never be proceedings in private where a child is involved?
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORNo; but that cannot be done except in special cases.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYThere ought to be provision for private inquiry even in the case of a child on the application of the parents, and if it is not provided in the Bill it ought to be provided. In the case of a child the parents ought to have the right to be there, not because they are appointed, but they ought to be there in the ordinary course, and I hope the noble and learned Viscount will consent to an Amendment being put in the Bill to see that the elementary rights of the child are secured in such a way.
I should like to call attention to one other considerable ambiguity in the Bill, and that is the provisions as to a guardian. The guardian is appointed by the judicial authority, but a later clause in the Bill provides that the local authority is to 1709 make provision for the guardianship; so that there appears to be two totally independent authorities who are to appoint the same individual—namely, the guardian. The Bill has been, as I venture to think, so carelessly drafted that it has not been seen that these two provisions of the Bill overlap one another. Those are some instances which I venture to give your Lordships as showing how much this Bill requires care in its revision. I will not deal with the provisions for bringing the detention of the defective to an end, which the noble and learned Viscount has himself mentioned. I was glad to hear him tell us that under power of the Regulations which are provided for in the Bill, and which he will take care are effective, there will be means preserved for those who are interested in the defective of approaching the Board—I suppose it is at any time—in order, if they have good reason, to show why the case of the defective should be inquired into, and, if necessary, he should be released. That does not appear on the face of the Bill, but I take it from the noble and learned Viscount that he will see that that is provided.
I would also venture to ask him to look very carefully at Clause 10. I do not think he himself will defend the drafting of that clause. It is very obscure, and it does not appear exactly what conditions are to be fulfilled at the periodical reconsideration of the cases of defectives detained under the Bill. Lastly, I should like to ask the noble and learned Viscount what is meant by "suitable supervision." In Clause 29 of the Bill the local authority is empowered to provide suitable supervision. I do not know that there could be, but there is no definition, as a matter of fact, as to what suitable supervision is. It is a new and entirely novel provision of the law, as I understand, that there should be such supervision over defectives, or, indeed, over any persons. I should very much like to know what supervision is, and what is really involved in providing supervision. Does it give powers to the supervisor which ordinary persons do not possess—powers, for example, of entry into the houses of persons who are to be dealt with; powers of remonstrating with their parents; powers of invoking the officers of the law to assist them? All these are vague as far as the provisions of the Bill are concerned.
1710 I do not pretend that I have gone exhaustively through all the matters in the Bill; indeed, like the rest of your Lordships I have not had time. It has been impossible for us to do so; but such as they are I have ventured to put a few of the examples of the criticism to be made against this Bill, which never could have, or ought to have, arisen if the Bill had been properly discussed in another place. Whether we shall be able in the very short time at our disposal to put this Bill in to anything like proper shape seems to me exceedingly doubtful. For my part, I earnestly hope that no misfortune will happen to this Bill which will prevent its passing into law in the present session. But none of your Lordships will suggest that we ought to abandon our elementary duty of revising the provisions of this Bill so that, as far as in us lies in the time at our disposal, we may make it as satisfactory a piece of workmanship as it is in our power to do.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYMy Lords, we have listened to two very interesting speeches upon this Bill to-night. The noble Marquess who has just spoken has brought criticism to bear upon it which seems to me to be in many points very effective, and which requires careful answer and explanation, if such can be given. I am certain that no one can differ from the conclusion to which he was drawn that the Bill does need careful consideration in Committee, not only upon those points to which he called attention but upon a good many others besides. There are some points to which he called attention of which I, without claiming in the slightest degree the right or the power to speak upon such matters, would have imagined that an explanation would not be very difficult. I suppose that in many cases the powers of a child do devolve automatically upon the child's protectors or guardians to a certain extent which would make it competent for them to call for a hearing in private, and then to select representatives who were to be there on the child's behalf. But I quite feel with the noble Marquess that the point requires consideration as it stands in the Bill. The noble Marquess is obviously of opinion, and I think there are a good many who share the opinion with him, that the endeavour to force through the House of Commons in a single session several very large measures dealing with far-reaching topics 1711 does make it difficult to deal with administrative questions such as this, which can only reach their proper form as the outcome of prolonged and careful consideration both here and in the other House. That is a criticism which is very difficult to meet.
But I confess that many of us were more afraid—even with all the faults and blemishes which the Bill in its present form may contain—that this subject would share the fate of some others in past years which were not legislated upon for the strange reason that every one, with the exception of a small and vigorous minority, was in favour of such legislation. Those of us who care keenly about social reform questions have again and again found that it is fatal when once both sides are agreed about them. I was afraid that this Bill would meet the fate of such projects, for example, as the Poor Law reform which everybody desires, but no one thinks it worth while to bring pressure on one side of the House or the other to pass it into law. That legislation on this subject has been long overdue I think no one will deny. Years have passed since a Royal Commission met and considered the subject for, I think, four years, and when they had considered it they came to a conclusion—not very usual in Royal Commissions on exceedingly controversial matters like this—a practically unanimous conclusion; yet the matter has been allowed to lie by in the House of Commons for years. Any one who has followed the far longer Report issued by the Royal Commission on the Poor Law will find again and again that their considerations were brought up short by the impossibility of their recommendations going forward without the law being reformed at the same time with regard to mental deficiency. It is indisputable that reformers, social, philanthropic, medical, and eugenic, are agreed that some legislation on this subject is earnestly called for, and I am glad that the matter should have been brought before us to-night by the noble and learned Viscount, who, if any man is able to, can explain to us the legal bearing of the evidently somewhat difficult and complicated clauses of this Bill, and who has at the same time authority, responsibility, and experience with regard to dealing with any one who is non compos mentis, and, what is more, whose special duty it is to protect, as the 1712 chief administrator of justice in this country, the weak from harm which could arise under legislation of this sort.
I venture to think that though the Bill is long and complicated, and though a great many parts of it were passed over with singular lightness in the House of Commons, it is not quite so black as the noble Marquess has painted it. A great deal of this Bill is incorporation of existing legislation, legislation which has not been disputable, and which has been practically replaced by what is in the Bill, and those portions therefore needed a little less discussion than might at first sight, have seemed desirable to us. But the Bill is obviously complicated by the fact of its overlapping with the Poor Law, with the laws about prisons, with the Lunacy Acts, and with the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
It is quite obvious, as the Lord Chancellor reminded us to-night, that the cost of doing what this Bill suggests may be very large. The £150,00 which was spoken of will not be all the money that will ultimately be required for giving effect year after year to the provisions of this Bill. I do not fear that objection in the least. I believe that that money will be well spent, not merely because of its ultimate result philanthropically, socially, or in any other way, but I believe that when this Bill, brought, if need be, into a more workable shape than some of its clauses now possess, is in operation we shall find before many years are passed, and still more after a good many years have passed, that an enormous gain has accrued both to individuals and to the community from the powers which will then exist under the provisions of the Bill that we are now considering.
It is absolutely needed for the safety of the individual and the community that we should have legislation of this kind, and the cost will be found to be well worth while. We have to protect the individual from wrongs that may be done to the individual by the community; and we have to protect the community from wrongs which may result to it from misconduct or incompetence on the part of the individual who is concerned. Both of these are necessities obvious to those who have considered the question, and both are dealt with in this Bill. The Lord 1713 Chancellor has shown that there is no practical danger of undue interference with the liberty of the individual. I venture to think that that kind of danger exists much more frequently in theory than it does in practice with regard to legislation of this kind. The objection that wrong may be done to the family or the home, the father, the mother or the child by the intervention of the State for the child's good is much more a theoretical than a practical danger. On the other hand, there is to these individuals at this moment an enormous harm and risk coming from the lack of means of interfering on their behalf in the way this Bill will. That is beyond dispute.
We are told at times that it may be hard on a widowed mother—this was mentioned in the House of Commons—to have her feeble-minded child taken from her for the child's good. I would venture to say that for the child's good, for the mother's good in many respects, and certainly for the good of the community, it may sometimes be absolutely right and necessary. And we have a right to believe that Acts of this kind will be administered first of all with common sense, and next with a wholesome regard on the part of those who are administering them to the cost that is involved. I do not think our danger is that there will be an enthusiastic desire on the part of those who are administering the Act to sweep into their net the largest number of children. Knowing the immense cost, both locally and Imperially, involved, I should be more afraid in some cases that the administration of the Act would be weaker than it ought to be. But I think even more good is done by legislation of this kind in the way of protecting society from the harm which the individual may inflict upon it. I do not think it is realised how tremendous is the peril to which the country is at present liable owing to the hereditary character of this mental deficiency. I am quite aware that there are experts who say that the hereditary character of it is exaggerated, and that it has not been absolutely proved that mentally deficient parents will have in a large proportion mentally deficient children. But any one who has gone into the matter knows—whether it is true to the extent that some contend I cannot tell—that the mentally deficient do produce in large numbers mentally deficient children, and the mischief goes on. Your Lordships will find 1714 tables given in some Poor Law publications which show from actual experience a mentally deficient mother producing four daughters mentally deficient, and each of these in turn producing two or three more; and so the mentally deficient family becoming a positive curse to the population. And that is not merely because the mentally deficient daughter is more likely to come to unhappy grief in life than one whose mental powers are of an ordinary sort, but because of the extraordinary fact—I am not prepared to explain it in any way, but I believe it is quite indisputable—that the mentally deficient are more fertile than those whose intelligence is normal. It is stated by a competent investigator that the average is four on the part of the normal and seven on the part of the mentally deficient in the proportion of births. It is a condition of things which is appalling to contemplate if it is as shown. I speak not as an expert, but I can refer to authorities on the subject, if necessary, to show that that has been pressed upon us on all sides as one of the terrible curses with which those who are best acquainted with the administration of the Poor Law are familiar.
On all these topics of mental deficiency there has been a material change of view in recent years. It used to be said at one time that mental deficiency is like one of those inexplicable misfortunes or disasters that happen in the course of nature, like an earthquake, or a volcanic eruption which there is no means of foreseeing, of dealing with, or of doing anything to remedy. We believe that, according to modern scientific and medical evidence, to be totally untrue, and that legislation such as this would indirectly enable us to prevent the increase of the mentally deficient to an extent with which we are at present unfamiliar. Then people used to speak as though the mentally deficient were merely those whose powers in many respects were behind those of other people; that it was a matter entirely of degree, and not a specific illness of itself—a contention now is absolutely denied or disputed by experts. Mental disease can often be cured and is understood now in a way it was not understood a few years ago. Then it used to be said that the average mentally deficient person, if he did no good, at any rate did no great amount of harm; and in speaking of such people the old-fashioned phrase "an innocent" was 1715 in common use. But they are not innocent as regards the harm they may be helplessly bringing on the community to which they belong.
If we had to show on a Second Reading occasion that a Bill of this kind was undesirable, we must show that either the need does not exist for such a measure, or that the measure would do more harm than good; but nothing has been said to that effect to-night, and the evidence of the necessity for the Bill is simply overwhelming. Many of your Lordships, I doubt not, are familiar with the reports which have been periodically made by experts on what are called Special schools; schools dealing with those who are abnormal in their requirements as regards the education to be given to them, and who need a different kind of treatment and a different mode of handling from normal children. Any one who has read those will have seen for years past how precisely the kind of thing has been called for which this Bill is more or less effectively endeavouring to provide. I am sure it is not necessary to ask your Lordships to read this Bill a second time. You will do that as a matter of course. But I venture to hope that nothing will be done to it afterwards which will imperil its passing into law. However, I want to see it criticised on some of the points that have been mentioned, and I want to see it technically amended in detail; but I think it would be a disaster indeed if the result of such amendment was that the Bill did not pass into law.
We are on our guard against the evil of bureaucracy, and I suppose there is such a danger in legislation of this kind. We are going further in that direction than England has gone in the past; but I do not think that organisation and system applied to questions of this kind will result in consequences which will be felt afterwards to be harder on the individual than before. A small and trifling instance, but one not without its bearing on this kind of thing, was brought before us either to-day or yesterday when it was pointed out what had been the consequence of the difference in the treatment of casual paupers. There are just one-half as many casual paupers in London to-day as at this time last year. That startling change is consequent on a change of system which centralised in what might be called a bureaucratic way the work of dealing with those who claim the 1716 help of our casual wards. That was not a popular change when it was first made, but the result has gone beyond what even its most sanguine promoters had dared to look for. Risks though there must be in legislation of this kind, they are risks which I think we ought to run. I do not think that in practical fact we shall find the dangers which are easy to point out in theory in matters of this kind; and once more I say we trust to the carrying out, not only of this law but of kindred laws, in the practical, common sense, reasonable way in which Englishmen are accustomed to administer them. The need for legislation on this subject is real, widespread, and urgent. Not one of these epithets can be denied; and I am sure that those who have the interests of the poorest and weakest of the people most at heart and who care for those who are least able to take care of themselves are anxious that—with its inadequacies removed so far as possible—this Bill should become law with the least possible delay.
LORD MONK BRETTONMy Lords, I hope that this Bill, in spite of the imperfections which have been pointed out in it, will be read a second time. It is a matter of great importance that this first step, however short a step it is, should be taken towards carrying out the Report of the Royal Commission, because it has been sufficiently established that crime in this country is largely due to mental deficiency, and that the protection of the race requires legislation on the subject. In this matter we are not in the forefront of civilisation; and your Lordships will probably have read a letter which appeared in the newspapers last week with regard to marriage in Pennsylvania, which shows how very much ahead of us the Americans are in these matters. But whilst we may approve the principle, there are serious drawbacks to the Bill.
The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack passed over the question of adequate finance. He said the £150,000 was all that was required for present needs. In another place Mr. McKenna admitted that the £150,000—of course, I mean double the £150,000, because the other £1 comes from the rates—was only sufficient for one-third of the population, although he said it might do for the present. I have seen figures which have been before the 1717 London County Council on this matter, which, taking the mental defectives in London alone and putting the cost of a mentally defective person at the cost of a lunatic, calculate that a great deal more than twice £150,000, more like twice £190,000, will be required for the care of mental defectives in London alone. I do not wish to put these figures as regards London too high. I merely quote them because I thick they bear out to a great degree that this Bill is not going to be catholic throughout this country because there is not the money available for the purpose. And if this money is not going to be spread all over the country for this purpose, then it becomes a very interesting question as to how the money is going to be allocated. Who are the happy authorities who are going to get some of these grants if they are only sufficient, as Mr. McKenna admits, for one-third of the population? I hope that when this allocation takes place the rural districts will be remembered, because in the Report of the Royal Commission it is clearly shown that the rural districts do require assistance for their mental defectives, because they have, perhaps, the larger number of mental defectives and because their wealth in rating power is not to be compared with that of the larger cities.
I should like to say one word, and I do so as a representative of the County Councils' Association, with regard to the relations of the local authorities and the authorities under this Bill and the Government. This Bill belongs to the category of Bills which impose duties on local authorities; it is a coercive measure, and it may be necessary that such measures should be coercive. It always strikes me as a curious thing that when His Majesty's Government come to temperance questions they give local option. Surely the craving for drink is very closely akin to mental deficiency, and if local option is given in temperance questions why in mental deficiency questions is there a stereotyped form of instruction to oblige all local authorities to behave in the same manner? That is merely by the way. But I wish to call attention to the method of coercion of local authorities under this Bill, and under another Bill which will be before your Lordships' House in a few days, and which I think might be called the "Little Sister" Bill to this Bill—I mean the Elementary Education (Epileptic and Defective Chil- 1718 dren) Bill. I do not know who is going to be in charge of that measure when it comes to your Lordships' House. Under this Bill the method of coercion of local authorities is by the legal system of mandamus, but when we come to the Children Bill it is by a system of fines upon elementary education generally; a local authority is to be fined in that Bill in respect of quite another branch of its work. I speak on behalf of the County Councils' Association when I say that if the local authorities are to be coerced in this way we infinitely prefer the system proposed in this Bill, the system of mandamus; and I hope that when the Children Bill is before your Lordships' House next week the noble Lord who is going to be in charge of it on behalf of the Government will not say that this procedure by mandamus is a very awkward and cumbersome one and cannot be included in the Children Bill. I hope that the noble Lord who will be in charge of the Children Bill will bear that in mind when we come to that Bill next week.
I would like to bear out what has been said by the noble Marquess with regard to the obscurity of this Bill, and to indicate two of the many Amendments that I should like to see introduced into this Bill. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack told us, as I understood him, that so far as people of criminal and dangerous propensities were concerned the expense was going to be borne wholly by the State. I hope that is so. I hope I understood the noble and learned Viscount aright. I can only say that this Bill was carefully gone into by a number of lawyers connected with the County Councils' Association, and they came to the conclusion that on the ratepayer would be thrown the duty of caring for and looking after criminals of dangerous propensities. We think such people are more suited to prisons, and we do not think they should be a charge on the ratepayer, and we shall ask the Government to make that clear in this Bill. There is one other point that I hope will be made clear in Committee—I mention this on behalf of the County Councils' Association—and it is the position of the Lunacy Commissioners. The clauses connected with the Lunacy Commissioners are rather obscure. There is a clause which establishes the Lunacy Commissioners; there is a clause which destroys the Lunacy Commissioners, 1719 and there is a third clause which constitutes a Board which includes the Lunacy Commissioners; and finally, there is a schedule which shows what are the duties of the Board. I speak on behalf of those most competent to express an opinion on matters psychical and matters medical in this country when I say that they desire that the duties of the Lunacy Commissioners should remain as regards insanity precisely as in the past, and I hope when we come to the Committee stage the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack will give his favourable attention to an Amendment which will make that clear. I regret that your Lordships' House is unable to amend the most important clause of this Bill—the finance clause. I am very much afraid that if the money is not largely increased this Bill will be in many districts a dead letter.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy Lords, if I add half-a-dozen words to this discussion it is mainly because I feel that the protest made by my noble friend behind me earlier in the debate ought not to remain without a word of support from those who sit beside him. With that protest I entirely agree. At the same time, I am certainly far from regarding the Bill of the noble and learned Viscount with any feeling of hostility. On the contrary, I welcome it. I am deeply convinced that legislation of this kind is urgently needed, and that it is in fact, as I think was said just now, overdue. It is urgently needed in the interests of the unfortunate people at whom the provisions of the Bill are most directly aimed; it is needed in the interests of their friends and relatives upon whom the care of them involves an intolerable burden; it is needed, above all, in the interests of our race, the degradation of which is, I am afraid, progressing steadily owing to the neglect of the kind of precautions which this Bill suggests. And, my Lords, lastly I believe this legislation is desirable in the interests of the taxpayers of the country, because it is a matter of common knowledge that the reproduction of these deficient people is tending to create a class, becoming more numerous every year, which imposes a very heavy burden upon the community to which it belongs.
With regard to the Bill, my noble friend was able to show, and I think my noble friend on the Back Bench also, that it needs 1720 very careful examination in regard to certain points of detail. On the other hand, so far as the principle of the Bill is concerned, I admit that there is a great weight of authority behind it. It has behind it the Report of a strong Royal Commission. It has behind it a great body of expert professional opinion. It has passed in two successive years through the House of Commons, and I believe that the commonsense of the people of this country convinces them that some legislation of this kind has really become indispensable. Therefore in my view it would be a calamity if this Bill were not to pass into law this session. I remember, I think a year ago, complaining of His Majesty's Government because they had postponed this Bill in order to give facilities for other legislation of a kind that did not seem to most of us on this side of the House so desirable, and this session I am certainly not going to offer any obstacle in the way of its rapid progress.
But, my Lords, having said that, I am bound to say that it does seem to me shocking that a Bill of this magnitude and importance should come to us in the circumstances in which it has been produced this evening by His Majesty's Government. It is a Bill of tremendous importance. We listened to the grave words in which the noble and learned Viscount spoke of the evils with which the Bill was intended to cope, and of the manner in which it would deal with those evils. This Bill with its seventy-one clauses, comes to us at a moment when we have, I suppose, but five more working days of the session to dispose of. How is it possible for us in those circumstances to give to the Bill anything like the consideration which it merits? One looks ruefully at these deserted benches. But I am bound to say I can well understand members of this House feeling that it is not worth their while to come here to take part in a discussion which can only be perfunctory and inconclusive.
I do not wish to close my remarks with merely a barren complaint, an old complaint which has often been made before in this House. I venture in all humility to make this suggestion to His Majesty's Government. They have announced that they are going next session to introduce a measure dealing with the constitution of this House. Such a measure must obviously deal, not only with the con- 1721 stitution of the House, but with the powers of the House, and if with the powers of the House then with the relations of the two Houses of Parliament. I earnestly hope that if the noble and learned Viscount is going to give his attention to these most weighty matters he will endeavour to find some means of arranging that when one House of Parliament has dealt fully and exhaustively with a measure and has sent it to the other House of Parliament in the last days of the session, that House of Parliament should not feel placed in the dilemma of having either to reject the Bill or to abdicate the functions belonging to it under the Constitution. That is the dilemma in which we are placed. That is a question which, as the noble and learned Viscount knows, has often been considered; and I trust that if these high questions of policy are going to be dealt with some attempt will be made to provide in the future that the efforts which either House of Parliament has made in dealing with an important measure should not be thrown away by the prorogation of Parliament, and that it should be possible in a new session to resume the consideration in one House of a Bill that has been dealt with fully by the other in the previous session.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, as to what has fallen from the noble Marquess who leads the Opposition, I must say I think his observation is entitled to great weight. It is an evil that a Bill of this magnitude should come to this House in the last clays of the session, and it is an evil that the other House should be considering, as it is considering, measures of great importance in a very limited time. That cannot be obviated. There are measures of the first magnitude which occupy the time of Parliament, to which there is a certain amount of opposition; but with regard to this Bill it had not been the subject of great Party controversy. The noble Marquess has spoken about making some provision for dealing in the next session with Bills that come up late in the session. I have great sympathy with the idea of redressing the evil to which he has referred. Whether it is possible to provide for it I do not know, but certainly it ought to be considered.
Coming to this Bill, let me express my gratitude to the most rev. Primate and those who are associated with him for the tone of his speech, and for his recognition of the real situation and the necessity of 1722 this legislation. And let me express my gratitude also to the noble Marquess who leads the Opposition for the tone he has taken up. The passing of a measure of this kind does require a certain amount of forbearance, and it is a misfortune that it should have conic up so late; but luckily this Bill is not, as I have said, a Bill about which there has been Party controversy, and I think both sides in both Houses have desired to co-operate in making it the best measure possible. That leads me to say a word on the contrast in tone to the two speeches to which I have referred of the speech of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, who spoke earlier in the debate. When I listened to him I was for the moment under the impression that he meant to move the rejection of the Bill. His attitude was one of almost uncompromising hostility.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYI must protest. That is not so. I began my speech by congratulating the Government on having introduced the Bill, and I expressed my conviction that the Bill was a very necessary and proper Bill. I did not wish to take up the time of the House by going over the whole ground.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORThe noble Marquess said that the Bill was utterly ill-drawn and hard to pass in its present form. That, does not make matters easy or enable matters to be conducted free from feeling. With regard to what fell from the noble Marquess and the tone in which he spoke of the drafting of the Bill, may I say that, so far from the Bill having been carelessly drafted, it has been drafted with the utmost care. It has been drafted by one of the most skilful draftsmen in the country. Its provisions are the outcome of the work of a Royal Commission, and I have myself expended all the care I could upon it. With regard to other points in the noble Marquess's criticism, it really would have taken a long time to deal with some of the remarkable things he suggested. He said there was no proper definition of "defective." Did he hear what I told you, that the definition of defective was not only based upon the Report of the Royal Commission, but is the outcome of the recommendation of a Committee appointed by the College of Physicians which gave us all the assistance the best experts could give us, and that that definition when so devised was again revised carefully? I do not think more 1723 care could have been taken about the drafting of Clause 1 than has been taken about it, and I fail to understand the attitude which the noble Marquess has taken up with regard to it, and also in some of the other remarks he made. I am not suggesting that there are not defects in the drafting, but that is not the fault of the draftsmen. It is due to the excessive interest that has been taken in this Bill; nearly everyone has had suggestions to make about it. We have not treated it as a Party Bill, and the result is that the views of many different people are represented. That, of course, has led to some defects in the drafting, and I have prepared a series of Amendments which are being printed just now. I hope they will be circulated in the morning and that they will meet the comparatively small defects in the drafting. All I can say, so far as the main structure of the Bill is concerned, is that I have rarely known anything upon which more care or thought has been bestowed, and I hope that when the noble Marquess comes to criticise it on Monday he will give us somewhat more full and detailed reasons for his objections to the provisions than he has given us in the course of his Second Reading speech on this occasion.
I now come to what was said by Lord Monk Bretton in the interesting speech he made about the position of the Lunacy Commissioners. I am the Minister responsible for the Commission, and I naturally attended to their position. The change made in their position is only this, that they pass into the Central Board and will form part of that Board. The legal members will still be appointed by the Lord Chancellor, but the other members will be appointed by the Home Secretary. There will be a Chairman of that Board; but Clause 65 provides that all the powers they have at the present time will be entrusted to committees. The Commissioners to this extent are changed in their position in that they pass from their present designation and from the chieftainship of the Lord Chancellor to that of the Home Secretary and become members of the new Board; but their position is safeguarded, and I do not think it would have been possible to frame this Bill in a better form with regard to them. As regards the other parts, the framework of the Bill has been constructed on the principle I explained when I opened the matter to the House a short time ago; 1724 and I can only say that while I am quite aware that there are defects in draftsmanship, those are defects which come in, not from too little, but from too much care. It is extremely difficult to frame a Bill of this kind—a measure of a non-Party kind—without both sides taking an interest in these matters.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.