§ Order of the Day read for resuming the adjourned debate on the Motion for Third Reading.
§ On Question, Bill read 3a.
§ Clause 1:
§ Women shall not be disqualified from being justices of the peace.
§ 1. A woman shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage for being appointed or being or becoming by virtue of office a justice of the peace.
§ LORD STRACHIE moved to insert, at the end of Clause 1, the words "provided she has attained the age of thirty years." The noble Lord said: In moving this Amendment I am following the precedent set under the Franchise Act of last session. It is only reasonable, if a woman is not to be entitled to vote for a Member of Parliament (which in some ways is not so important a matter as administering justice) until she is thirty years of age, that she should not have the right to send persons to prison until she has attained the age of thirty. The noble Earl, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, based his principal argument on the desirability of women sitting on cases of indecent assault and crimes against women. I am entirely with the noble Earl in that view, and I am 1065 also in entire agreement with him in his condemnation of the inadequate penalties imposed by justices in some of these cases. But I think that is all the more reason why you should have women of mature age, at any rate of over thirty years of age, to adjudicate on such cases. I see the noble Earl, Lord Crawford, smiling—
§ LORD STRACHIEIt would be very disagreeable for any noble Lord, sitting at the hearing of such eases as bastardy cases, to have a young unmarried woman sitting with him on the Bench. In such cases, if you are to have women justices, it is only fit and right that they should be women of mature age, and I am unable to see why the noble Earl in charge of the Bill (Earl Beauchamp) disagrees with me. The only reason appears to be that he thinks it is a further inequality between men and women, but I do not think that he objected on the Franchise Bill to the age limit which was there imposed. It seems to me that the question of inequality is not a very strong argument, because as a matter of fact I think the noble Earl would say that he himself as a Lord Lieutenant would not think of appointing a young man of twenty-three or twenty-four. The old idea of appointing a man simply because he had arrived at the age of twenty-one has now fallen into disuse. Therefore I think we may put aside the question of equality and treat this matter entirely upon its merits, and ask ourselves whether it is not desirable that we should have a limitation, and whether, if it is right to put women upon the Bench, it should not be on the same conditions as those on which they obtain the franchise—namely at the age of thirty. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Clause 1, page 1, line 7, after ("peace") insert ("provided she has attained the age of thirty years").—(Lord Strachie.)
§ EARL BEAUCHAMPWe have already had one discussion upon this subject, and therefore it is not necessary that I should detain your Lordships at any great length. The noble Lord who has moved this Amendment has put forward no argument in favour of it beyond those which he advanced on the previous occasion to which I have already referred I confess that I am not able to agree with him.
1066 There is no analogy between the vote given in this House upon the question whether women under thirty should be given the franchise and this present measure. The former was a compromise agreed to between all parties in the State, and this is a smaller matter dealing with a different question, and really it seems to me that it is impossible to find any analogy. You might just as well say that, in any matter dealing with the power and privileges of women, they should not be given a voice until they arrive at the age of thirty. Just at the moment when we are trying to sweep away all the barriers between the sexes it seems to me unfortunate that we should create this new one.
There is no reason to suppose—indeed, I heard the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack say on the last occasion that he would himself prevent—the Benches being flooded by a large number of inexperienced women. Nobody expects that this would be the result. For my own part, I have complete confidence in the Lord Chancellor and the Advisory Committees, and I am sure that they will not recommend the appointment of unsuitable women. In the circumstances I hope that your Lordships will agree to the Bill passing as it is drafted, and will not insist upon inserting a clause which certainly by a very large number of women will be looked upon as a fresh and new disqualification against their sex.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD BIRKENHEAD)I rather hope that the noble Lord who moved the Amendment will not think it necessary, on reflection, to carry the matter to a Division; and if he will allow me to tell him, almost in a sentence, the reasons which lead me to form this hope, I think I can show that the case of which he is apprehensive is one which, on reflection, he will see is extremely unlikely to occur in the actual circumstances which will arise when this Bill is passed.
I attempted to make it clear that I should not in any circumstances, if this Bill became law, sanction the appointment of large numbers of women justices. It would be impossible to do so, if only for the reason that the Bench, speaking generally, is very fully manned all over the kingdom, and it is obvious that women who aspire to become justices will only receive con 1067 sideration as and when proper vacancies occur. In those circumstances let us consider what a woman has to face who desires to become a justice of the peace. In the first place it is, of course, the Lord Chancellor who appoints. The noble Lord said inadvertently that the Lord Lieutenant appoints, but he is far too conversant with constitutional practice not to know that the Lord Chancellor has never surrendered the right to appoint justices of the peace, although he generally, and I may say invariably, is glad to have the experience and advice furnished to him ungrudgingly by the Lords-Lieutenant and the Advisory Committees.
It is nevertheless true that any woman of twenty-five years of ago who aspires to become a justice of the peace would have to satisfy the Advisory Committee of her exceptional fitness. I am
§ Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
§ Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Earl Beauchamp.)
§ On Question, Bill passed and sent to the Commons.