§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ VISCOUNT BURNHAMMy Lords, I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill, which is commonly known as the Boy Scouts Bill, and I am glad to assure your Lordships at this late hour that it is an agreed measure. It was first brought forward in 1921, and it has twice been passed by your Lordships' House. The aims and methods of the Boy Scout movement were the subject of inquiry by the Privy Council before it received its Royal Charter of incorporation. I regret to say that they have been to some extent endangered by imitation and even fraudulent representation for some years past, and I believe that this Bill provides the appropriate remedy and protection. I wish to spare your Lordships any further debate, and I do not think there 930 will be any opposition. I have, therefore, now to move that this Bill be read a second time.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Burnham.)
§ VISCOUNT HALDANEMy Lords, it is all very well talking of Boy Scouts and other benevolent organisations, but the noble Viscount has brought this Bill forward in a form which creates an entirely new criminal offence, and it also alters the law of copyright materially. I do not rise to detain your Lordships, for the exposition of these things, but to suggest to whoever represents the Government that the Law Officers of the Crown had better be consulted about this-Bill before it goes further
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
§ House adjourned at ten minutes before eight o'clock.