JUSTICES OF THE PEACE (QUALIFICATION OF WOMEN) BILL. [H.L.] (Hansard, 20 May 1919)

§ EARL BEAUCHAMP
My Lords, I do not think it will be necessary for me to 735 detain your Lordships, at any great length in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, which is one of the shortest measures that has ever been presented to your Lordships' House. Women have proved themselves in late years so well qualified to occupy positions of responsibility that I believe if it were possible to ascertain the feelings and opinions of your Lordships' House we should find on the part of the majority of members considerable surprise that a measure of this kind has not already become law.
Women have educated themselves through experience, and with the general approval of the people are fit to take a larger share in the local government of this country. I do not know that they could exercise their undoubted capacity better than in this particular fashion and in the Police Courts. In a book on The Administration of Justice in Criminal Matters, by Mr. Alexander, commenting on the personal qualities necessary, he writes— They appear to be high moral character, a fair degree of education, business knowledge, a knowledge of the world and common sense, together with an admixture of the milk of human kindness. The training of a lawyer is unnecessary to carry out the duties of a justice of the peace efficiently, and therefore I think we shall find many women well qualified to act in that capacity.
In many cases it is quite evident when young girls are dealt with in Police Courts that a woman justice would be a considerable advantage. Her experience with girls would help her; modesty would suffer a good deal less injury, and in many cases in which offences against girls are involved I think we might hope to see a somewhat heavier penalty established. It is quite impossible to speak with any real useful criticism, but a number of cases you will see in the papers any day of men summoned for indecent assaults on girls. It is curious to see how very different are the sentences which are imposed. Quite recently I saw the case of an indecent assault against a girl nine years old, and the defendant was only fined 40s. In other cases where similar assaults have been proved the defendant has been punished with fourteen days' hard labour, two months' hard labour, 736 and in the case of a girl four years of age the offender was placed on probation for twelve months. In another case a sentence of twelve months' hard labour was imposed.
It is desirable that in matters of this kind there should be a better fixed standard, and I believe that the presence of women justices would tend to secure that result. It is clearly unfair that a man who acts as chairman of a district council becomes ex officio, a magistrate, and that women are not allowed to act in that capacity. It has prevented women being appointed to that position. I am sure that every one of your Lordships would agree that women would be specially well qualified to do admirable work in the new Children's Courts. Even if the Courts did not consist wholly of women, still the presence of women on the Bench would be of the very greatest advantage. Women would be far better able to understand the minds of the children; and they would respond better to questioning from women. Some mothers, summoned for keeping their children from school, might find their home problems better understood by women justices than by the school attendance officer and male justices.
If you will pardon a personal reference, I should like to say that when I was a member of the old London School Board I found that admirable work was done on what were called "B" Committees by the women members. A parent was summoned for not sending the children to school. They made various excuses, generally that they needed help at home. The presence of women on these Committees was of the greatest assistance in helping us to sift the worth of the evidence, and in allowing us to say in which of the cases we might usefully prosecute and which cases should be left alone. I am sure that in this direction especially we should find the presence of women of the greatest use. I realise that there is no hope for any Bill in these days unless it secures the benevolent approval of the Government. I do not wish to press on the Government any request for time in another place. I shall be satisfied, for the present at any rate, if I can be assured that they will not offer any opposition to this Bill, and that so far from opposing it at the present stage they will be ready to give it their approval.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, the noble Earl has asked your Lordships to read for a Second Time a Bill which contains proposals of the greatest possible importance. No woman in this country has ever been appointed a justice of the peace. The explanation of that omission is no doubt to be found in substance in the view, which has been rightly taken, that under the law as it stands to-day such an appointment could not legally be made. During the Royal Commission on the Selection of Justices of the Peace, which sat in 1910, one of the Commissioners raised the question as to whether women should be made eligible for the Commission, and Lord Halsbury made the observation that in his view there were many causes to which women could contribute much, but that it would not be desirable to make women magistrates with limited functions. To that view, I confess, I assent. If your Lordships, and Parliament generally, are prepared to sanction so great an innovation you must do so with a full consciousness that the choice is being taken for all purposes, and that no distinction must or can be drawn between the case of female and male magistrates. It may interest your Lordships to be told that, in spite of the generally received opinion, acted upon by all my predecessors, that women were not eligible for the Commission, recommendations of women have from time to time been made and strongly pressed upon my predecessors. One woman was recommended by the Lord Lieutenant of a county, and members of the public have frequently pressed on my predecessors, and on myself, names of different women.
It is obvious that the matter could only be dealt with by Parliament. In these circumstances I may, perhaps, explain what is the attitude of the Government. My noble friend might have put the matter as against the Government a little more emphatically, because declarations were made by leading members of the Government—indeed, they were made also by myself—not specifically with reference to the Commission of the Peace but with reference to the general position of women under the altered conditions of our time, and language was certainly used both by the Prime Minister and by the Leader of the House of Commons which in my judgment would make it quite impossible to refuse assent to proposals of this kind. A measure which goes very far has been introduced in another place. I believe the 738 title of that Bill is "A Bill for the Emancipation of Women"; at any rate, that is the name it has received in the Press. That Bill has made a certain amount of progress in another place, but there were some practical difficulties in giving effect to its purpose which bad been insufficiently considered by its promoters, and it is improbable that that Bill will have a successful, or at any rate a complete, Parliamentary career. That leaves the noble Earl's Bill on this part of the women's question the sole occupant of the field, and I am able to give him even a larger reassurance than that for which he asked.
Either this Bill, or a Bill with the same object perhaps conceived in a slightly different way, will be assisted in the one case or introduced in the other by His Majesty's Government, so that it may reasonably be anticipated—whether the anticipation affords your Lordships pleasure or not, I do not know—that within a reasonable period of time women will become eligible as magistrates. It would be wrong if I attempted to conceal from your Lordships the far-reaching nature of this change. The decision involved is a very grave one. I am able only to suppose that on the whole it will meet with the approval of your Lordships. I think that it will be thought here, as elsewhere, that we have reached the point at which decisions have already been taken which carry this present decision with them. The responsibility which this proposal throws upon myself is considerable, and is very much regretted by myself, because great as is the assistance which is rendered to the Lord Chancellor by Lords Lieutenant and by Advisory Committees your Lordships know that the Lord Chancellor constantly sustains in this connection a degree of personal responsibility which he cannot impose upon any one else, and the eligibility, if it be established by law in this session, of women to sit on the Magisterial Bench certainly promises to add considerably to the burdens, already sufficient to bear, of the Lord Chancellor.
In preparation of the period which may arise—in the near future if these proposals become law—I think it right to point out to your Lordships, and to point out to the many women in the country who may be aspirants in the near future to a seat on the Bench, that the Commissions all over the country at the present time are tolerably full. But both my own policy during the 739 six months or so in which I have been responsible for this matter, and the policy as I understand it of my predecessors, has been to see that numerically the Bench was sufficiently strong for the manifold and constantly growing duties which the Legislature imposes upon justices of the peace. The result is that to-day it would in the main be generally true to say that all over the country the Benches of Magistrates are adequately manned. No one, I hope, would suggest that it would be reasonable that because so great a change was made in our law it would become my duty to make immense, inconvenient, and otherwise unnecessary additions to the number of magistrates in order that representatives of women might be found everywhere on the Benches.
Assuming, therefore, that my noble friend's proposals, or similar proposals, become law, I only desire to say, as a word of warning, that while naturally if these proposals are adopted it would be my duty to see that effect was given, if and when occasion offered, to the view of the Legislature that women should be made eligible, it must not be expected of me—I may say quite plainly that I would not and could not consent to that course—that I should make all over the country large additions to the number of magistrates merely in order that women might be given Commissions of the Peace in districts which are already completely provided for. The change must of course, for the reasons that I have indicated, be gradual. Nor do I think that the prospect need be a discouragement either to women themselves or to those who in this matter have advocated their claims in the past with so much perseverance. They should rather draw comfort when they reflect upon the enormous change which would take place and the increase in usefulness which would be open to women, and when they realise that the time will conic when women will be able to address themselves to a sphere of public activity in which, I believe with the noble Earl, they may contribute something which is quite special to their sex and is from the very nature of the case incommunicable from ours.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE
My Lords, I think that the House will have heard the statement of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack with great satisfaction. I am certain that my noble friend below the gangway, who is responsible for this Bill, 740 will be highly gratified at the attitude which the noble and learned Lord has taken on behalf of His Majesty's Government. It is quite true, as the noble and learned Lord stated, that in this matter the burden of proof has completely shifted since the time of which he spoke, when Lord Halsbury raised objections to the idea of adding women to the Bench. It is not now so much a question whether women can prove definitely their special fitness for a particular form of public service, but whether those who do not desire them to fill those posts can prove they are for some reason or another disqualified. That being so, it stands to reason that in this particular matter of the Bench—for the reasons so clearly explained by my noble friend, who showed that there are special functions which women can discharge, particularly those connected with the Children's Courts and cases in which girls are involved—women can play a part of special public usefulness.
Those of us who have the honour of being His Majesty's Lieutenants of counties will be grateful to the noble and learned Lord for the concluding passages of his speech. I have no doubt that we shall receive a large number of applications to send forward women's names. I am glad therefore, that the noble and learned Lord has uttered this caution, that he will not make himself responsible for large additions of magistrates to Benches which are already sufficiently occupied, simply because women desire to sit there. A great deal of the work of the magistrate is humdrum and exceedingly irksome, and, one would have thought, not specially attractive to anybody. One often wonders how it is that so large a number of people desire to be placed on the Bench. It is familiar to us that the satisfaction of being able to write the letters J.P. after a man's name has proved to be in itself a lure which cannot be resisted. And, no doubt, here too the distinction of being picked out for an honourable office from among one's fellow citizens will have attraction.
I am not entitled to speak for my brother Lords Lieutenant, but I have no doubt that they will in all cases be prepared to consider favourably, where additions to the Bench are required, the names of suitable and capable women that are sent forward. Perhaps at first they may even be disposed to strain a point, though not I hope to excess, in recommending additions 741 to the number of the Bench in respect of this change. We were all, I am sure, very glad to hear from the noble and learned Lord that His Majesty's Government are disposed to give facilities to this Bill or to a kindred Bill, which, I take it, would be in substance the same even though the wording or the method of approach might be in some respects different, and that there is therefore not merely a hope, but a definite prospect, that the change will become law during the current session.