§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD GORELLMy Lords, the Bill to which I ask you to give favourable consideration this afternoon has, at any rate, the merit that it is extremely simple to understand. It has, further, the advantage that it has hitherto been supported by members of all Parties, so that I think it may be said to be entirely non-controversial, at any rate up to the present moment. It has twice been introduced in another place, and the only reason why it comes to you now for the first time, instead of coming up from another place in the usual way, is, as I venture to think, due to the lack of time. I think it may be represented to your Lordships as the complement to the Bill moved by the noble Lord, Lord Darling, last year, the Auctions (Bidding Agreements) Bill, a Bill which, I am told, has already, even during the short space of time during which it has been law, had 671 very good effects. That was a Bill to protect the man who sold honestly from those who were buying fraudulently. This is the exact converse. This is a Bill designed to protect the man who buys in all good faith against the fraudulent seller.
The evil which the Bill attempts to stop is this. In many places up and down the country, in the busy streets of towns in ordinary times and of seaside resorts during holiday times, a gang of people come who represent that they are holding an auction, when, in fact, it is not an auction in the ordinary sense of the word at all, but is merely a device, by means of mass excitement and one trick and another, to stimulate people to offer prices quite out of all proportion to the value of the goods. It is worked in a variety of ways always by a number of people acting in confederation together. They have practices or signs and codes and even a language of their own. There are a number of people usually mingling with the crowd known either as "ricks" or "gees." Some of them have the task assigned to them of standing just outside as apparent members of the public, and of saying what an exciting and interesting thing is going on within and inducing, the fly to walk into the web. At any moment any of them may divert themselves from one rôle into another in order the better to "sling a gee"; that is to say, to take part in the swindle that is going on.
I confess that from two points of view it has been interesting to study their practices, both as one who has taken some interest in crime and also as a student of the English language. I have found there are many phrases and ways of speech which were hitherto quite unknown to me. I wonder whether any of your Lordships would follow what was meant by the following words:—"Smitzing the bogey to hinton to noise the edge"; that is to say, "the bogey" is not inappropriately the term for anybody who, after having parted with his money for something that on investigation proves to be quite worthless, becomes an objector. To "smitz him to hinton" means to get him quietly round behind the rostrum on the plea of interviewing the management or something of that kind, in order that he may not affect the psychology of 672 the patter which the auctioneer is getting off in the front. Then there is the expression "Gazoomphing a sarker." I am told that among the jobs assigned to these "ricks" or "gees" is that of going about among the crowd that is coming in on one pretext or another, notably when a bid has been made, and looking over their shoulders and estimating the amount of money in the purses of the people present. Anybody who happens to have a large sum with him is known as a "sarker." And there are other terms. To "gazoomph" him is to indulge in a very ingenious piece of trickery almost too elaborate to explain. I can only tell your Lordships that without nefarious design I tried a gazoomph on a friend of mine last night and with complete success because, though no goods passed, it was some time after the conversation had closed before my friend realised that in fact a deception had been practised.
One of many ways in which is it done consists in this. After the hammerer has succeeded in extracting a small sum from one of his victims, he then puts this money up for auction together with some trifling article, and tries to induce the bidder to buy his money back again. The man says to himself: "At any rate I am going to get back my five shillings and this article," and he does not realise until afterwards that on the net transaction, if he has parted with ten shillings and the five shillings for the article, he is himself out of pocket ten shillings. There are many other devices. There is a whole number of phrases, but I will not trouble your Lordships with many. "Deuce phunt" equals £2, and, less precisely, "Uncle Ben" equals £10. Why I mention these things to your Lordships is because the people moving among the crowd, both by means of these terms which convey absolutely nothing to the ordinary man and by a variety of codes and signs, are enabled to keep the hammerer in complete touch with the people from whom he intends to extract money.
To use a, phrase which was recently in general use politically—namely, the capital levy—the hammerer is determined to make a capital levy on everybody who has been induced to enter into this shop, and nobody is allowed to go out, if it can by any possible means be 673 prevented, until he or she has parted, not with a few shillings for certain articles, but with every single penny he or she possesses. If your Lordships wish to follow further and in detail the procedure adopted by these gangs I would recommend your Lordships to read a pamphlet prepared by Mr. E. K. House, the Chairman of the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers, which is a very full exposure of all these practices. One point must be emphasised and that is that in no case does the buyer get a bargain. He often hopes to do so and, of course, he is induced to take part in these mock auctions in the belief that he will. But it is to be remembered that the hammerer is under obligations to show at least "half bunce" as it is called; that is to say, a profit on every single article that he sells, so that obviously he sells nothing except at two or three times its real cost. The victims are drawn from people of all kinds but especially from those who are holidaymaking or passing along, and it is found that considerable loss results to the genuine traders in the area where these gangs have set up their pitches, and that the street or town gets a bad name.
Further than that, the reputable body of auctioneers very much resent the slur that is cast upon their profession by the operations of these people. There is a Further method of fraud: that is to say, the rigged sale where, in a country neighbourhood for example, one of these gangs will take a house, will furnish it from top to bottom with a variety of articles including one or two good pieces of furniture, will let it remain for a short time, and then will advertise broadcast that the contents of the house are being sold by auction. The one or two good pieces are almost invariably knocked down to one of the "ricks," and the rest of the sale is carried out by every means of creating excitement and boosting up the articles that occur to these adepts in the art.
It has been found that the present law is inadequate to deal with this crying evil. The only remedy, as I understand it, under the present law is to prosecute these people for attempting to obtain money by false pretences. That has been found inadequate. The hammerer himself is usually careful not actually to describe the thing he is selling by a 674 deliberate misstatement. For instance, he will not say that a chair is a Chippendale chair or that a piece of glass is Waterford glass; but he will give it as his opinion that it is as good as that. Meanwhile the gang go among the crowd and, not being actually responsible and not known to the public to be responsible at all, create the impression that here is really a genuine article going for a mere song.
The Bill which I invite your Lordships to give a Second Reading to-day has the support of a great number of chief constables ranging from Edinburgh to Plymouth and from Margate to Blackpool. I mention Blackpool especially because that resort of holiday makers has suffered very grievously from these gangs. The Bill is supported also by the National Chamber of Trade, the Association of Goldsmiths, the Scottish Association of Watchmakers and Jewellers, and the London and Suburban Traders' Federation, and it has the warmest support of the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers and Landed Property Agents. Your Lordships w11 see that the actual provisions of the Bill are extremely simple. First, it imposes a penalty on anybody conducting or assisting in conducting a public sale in this way. Clause 2 fixes the penalties. The first is a penalty of money and under subsection (2) anybody who has been already convicted, if he be a licensed auctioneer, shall lose his licence. I venture to hope that if this measure is passed it will effect an improvement in our law and enable this increasing scandal to be dealt with. I hope your Lordships will view the measure with favour this afternoon. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Gorell.)
§ LORD DESBOROUGHMy Lords, I rise to express in a few words the opinion of His Majesty's Government on the Second Reading of this Bill. I should like, in passing, to extend to my noble friend who introduced it all our thanks for having enriched the vocabulary of the House of Lords to, I might almost say, an alarming extent by those researches into the East-end terms which I had already seen this morning detailed in the pamphlet to which he has alluded. The Government do not propose to oppose the Second Beading of this Bill, but I should 675 like to be allowed to make one or two remarks to show that it would need careful consideration on the part of any Committee to which it might be referred.
In the first place I think my noble friend opposite would admit that it does create a new criminal offence, and all new criminal offences created by Acts of Parliament should be examined with the very greatest care and caution. There are two objects in the Bill. One is to create this offence and the other is to provide for the revocation of an auctioneer's licence on conviction of an offence under the Bill. There are five lines which create this new offence and they are most important. The Bill is called a Mock Auctions Bill, but I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that there is nothing in the Bill about mock auctions. Clause 1 is very wide. It, goes beyond mock auctions—if they can be defined, and I do not know whether they can—and deals with the public sale of goods by auction or otherwise, and, therefore, as I understand it., this Bill would apply to any public sale by auction or otherwise of any goods. Therefore its scope is enormously wide. My noble friend will probably agree with that. Care, therefore, must be exercised that it does not cut across all those numerous Acts of Parliament which have been passed with the same object since the year 1893, beginning with the Sale of Goods Acts and being continued under the Drugs Acts and various other Acts down to the present time.
With regard to the second object of the Bill providing for the revocation of an auctioneer's licence on conviction of an offence under the Bill, I would point out that at the present time there is no means of doing this. An auctioneer's licence is a mere matter of revenue, and new machinery would have to be set up in order to deprive an auctioneer of his licence. There would have to be something in the nature of a licence similar to that granted for a motor car. A person applying for a licence would have to state that he had not been convicted. In any event new machinery would have to be set up under the Bill. So far as His Majesty's Government are concerned they wish to point out that this is a very far-reaching Bill, and one that will have to be very carefully considered, but they 676 do not wish in any way to oppose the Second Reading of a Bill which is designed to put down an abuse of which they are very conscious.
§ LORD DANESFORTMy Lords, I think you should be grateful to the noble Lord who introduced this Bill for an attempt—and I trust it may be a successful attempt—to put down a very real abuse. The noble Lord has also earned our gratitude by calling the attention of your Lordships to some novel forms of the English language, novel to me at any rate, and I think novel to most of your Lordships, and not likely perhaps to be imitated. He made a very interesting reference also to a topic which has occupied a good deal of attention in another direction—namely, the capital levy—and he illustrated this capital levy by pointing to methods which, apparently, are used by these fraudulent persons for the purpose of depriving the unwary of their property. I trust the striking illustration that he has given will be brought to the notice not only of the noble Lords, his colleagues, who sit beside him, but to other authorities and heads of the Party to which he belongs.
That this Bill is necessary I personally have no doubt whatever. I have attended these auctions myself, not indeed with a view to buying things; fortunately, perhaps, I was not induced by either the language or the methods to invest my money in the articles that were offered; but I remember—if your Lordships will pardon a small personal experience—shortly after I was first called to the Bar having had rather an interesting experience of this class of dealing. There was an old lady acquaintance with a good deal more money than astuteness, who went to one of these auctions for pictures and was induced by some of the methods which the noble Lord has described to invest something like £100—it may have been more—of her wealth in the purchase of pictures which were entirely and absolutely worthless. She very properly consulted a legal friend with a view to bringing an action and was advised that she would fail. However, having more money than she knew what to do with, she thought she would bring an action. The action started and went on a little time, and promised an interesting result, but before it came to 677 trial her heart failed her and, being told it would certainly fail, as it certainly would have done, she abandoned it and an interesting exposition of the law was lost.
I use that illustration to show that as far as I know no civil action would ever succeed in the absence of proof which, in the circumstances, with sharp practices of this sort prevailing, it would be impossible to obtain. Therefore I entirely agree with the noble Lord that this Bill is necessary. As regards what was said by my noble friend Lord Desborough that it creates a new crime, I confess that does not shock me as greatly as it appeared to shock him. If new offences are invented and carried out for fraudulent or improper purposes surely the law must step in and make the offence a criminal one, and impose a penalty. Consequently, when I am told that a new crime is created by a particular Bill, I ask myself, not "Is this a new crime?" which seems to me to be an irrelevant consideration, but "Is this really necessary for the proper administration of justice and the protection of the citizen?"
My noble friend Lord Desborough went on to point out, very justly if I may be allowed to say so, that the language of Clause 1 was open to very great objection. On the one hand it is too vague and on the other hand it is possibly too wide. I am not going to detain your Lordships more than a moment. Let me take Clause 1:—
No person conducting … a public side of goods by auction or otherwise shall knowingly misdescribe by word or by implication the purposes of such sale. …I do not imagine that these astute gentleman would go so far as knowingly to "misdescribe by word or by implication the purposes of such sale." That is a little too crude a mode of operation. When I come to read the words "shall knowingly misdescribe by word or by implication the purposes of such sale," I have not the vaguest notion what they mean. Perhaps my noble friend who sits beside me [Lord Darling] will be able to tell us what they mean, but I certainly do not envy the lot of the Judge who, when a person is brought before him at Assizes, is asked to say that this man must be found guilty, or at any rate that the jury ought to be recommended to find 678 him guilty, because he has misdescribed by implication the purposes of such sale.I hope the noble Lord who introduced this Bill will very carefully consider—possibly with the assistance of the Home Office, who are always very ready, I think, to give assistance in proper cases—whether Clause 7 does really carry out his purpose, and whether it would enable either a Judge or a jury to meet the evil of which he is complaining. Subject to amendment—and I think it would require some amendment in Committee—I should give my most hearty support to the Second Reading of the Bill.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, perhaps you will allow me to say a few words about this Bill as it does deal with a matter of law of some little importance. I do not think any one of your Lordships would attempt to justify or other than reprobate such practices as were described by the noble Lord who moved the Second Reading. The methods of the persons at whom he aims his Bill are as discreditable as their language appears to be obscure. But it is not enough to say that there are people who are doing discreditable things. You have to ascertain I think, first of all, exactly what is the gap in the law through which they are at present enabled to escape punishment, and, secondly, you have to be sure that that gap is effectively closed, and no more than closed, by the Bill which is submitted to the House.
Now, may I state in a sentence what is the existing law? If any man with intent to defraud attempts to obtain money by a false pretence he is guilty of a criminal offence, and on proof of the fact that a person, in order to sell goods at more than their proper value, wittingly misdescribed them, the jury would be entitled to draw from it the inference that he had an intention to defraud, and therefore to convict him. Speaking in the hearing of many noble and learned Lords, I think that statement of law will be accepted as accurate. It is perfectly true that there are not many prosecutions for the class of offence to which the noble Lord has drawn your Lordships' attention. That is not because of the difficulty of securing a conviction when the facts are proved: it is because of the difficulty of getting people 679 to come forward to give evidence. The gentleman who goes to Blackpool and who has unwittingly become a "sarker" and has been "gazoomphed" is not anxious to advertise his own gullibility and to give evidence in a court of law or even to make complaint to the police. Accordingly this sort of offence is comparatively seldom prosecuted, not because when a prosecution takes place it will fail, but because it is very difficult to get people to give evidence.
The Bill which the noble Lord has introduced, although it describes itself as a Mock Auctions Bill, is, as has been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Desborough, in no wise confined to mock auctions. It is extended to every public sale whether by auction or otherwise. I do not know whether the sale which the noble Lord himself perpetrated was in public, but if it was he made himself liable under this Bill to a fine of £100. The difference between the Bill and the existing law is this. Under the existing law you cannot be convicted of a crime unless a jury think you intended to defraud: under this Bill, even if you acted without any intention to defraud, you have committed a criminal offence. That is indeed a very remarkable change in the Criminal Law and I venture to think it is a very undesirable one. It is not right to make people guilty of a criminal offence without their having any criminal intent, that is to say, without their having any fraudulent intent.
Take the gentleman who I think he called a "gee." To-day it is an offence to go about among the public and make fictitious bids and thereby encourage a sale. As the noble Lord knows, it is already prohibited to have at a sale by auction people making bids on behalf of the vendor. That is under Section 58 of the Act of 1893, and it is provided that any such sale is to be deemed fraudulent. In such cases as the noble Lord describes, if it were proved that that was done, the vendor would have a remedy by endeavouring to void the sale on the ground that it had been obtained by fraud. Again the difficulty is not of proof but of getting the person to come forward and lodge a complaint. In these circumstances I confess that I regard with some little apprehension 680 a Bill which has as its title the Mock Auctions Bill, which is designed I doubt not to deal with an admitted form of fraud, but which really does not hit at the fraud which it is designed to stop, but merely creates a fresh criminal offence either in cases in which the Criminal Law would already cover the offence or in cases where the Criminal Law ought not to cover the offence because there is no fraudulent intent in the person charged.
May I say one word in answer to the noble Lord who told us a story of his early days at the Bar, about a lady who started an action when she had been induced to buy a picture by some false representation and yet stopped the action because she was advised she could not succeed. In the first place, this Bill would not touch such a case, and in the second place I should be sorry to think that anything said in your Lordships' House would give colour to the belief that people could sell by auction pictures or any other articles by false representation as to their authenticity or value or any other material point and not be liable to civil action. I do not think that is the law.
§ LORD DANESFORTMay I interrupt the noble and learned Lord to say what I ought to have said in my speech? What really happened in that case was that the lady was told that as she was not willing to go into the witness box she could not prove her case.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORI am obliged to the noble Lord. That entirely explains it, and incidentally your Lordships will see that it corroborates, my point that the difficulty is not in the law not being strong enough, but in the fact that people are not willing to come forward and give evidence. That is not a matter which will lie dealt with by this Hill or indeed which can be dealt with by Act of Parliament. The noble Lord in introducing the Bill told your Lordships that it has the support of one of the two auctioneers' societies—I am not saying it in any spirit of disrespect when I say the junior of the two societies. He says that certain chief constables also support it. I have made some inquiry at the Home Office. At the Home Office they have not had any intimation from chief constables that they desire the amendment of the law which this Bill 681 incorporates, and the Commissioner of Police expresses the view that the difficulty is not the law being too weak, but that it is, as I have already indicated, that of securing evidence to put the law in motion.
In these circumstances, while one would be reluctant to see a Bill which aims at remedying a wrong thrown out on Second Reading, I would venture to suggest that if a Second Reading is given it would not be unreasonable to ask that a Select Committee should examine the Bill, first in order to ascertain what is exactly the position of the law and how far the Bill has the support which the noble Lord believes it to have, and in second place, to ensure that the remedy which he here proposes will be effective to remedy the wrong to which he called attention, and at the same time will not go beyond remedying that wrong and make a crime of that which ought not to be a crime. I would suggest to your Lordships and to the noble Lord that the House should give the Bill a Second Reading and that a Select Committee should then investigate it.
§ LORD JESSELMy Lords, after what has fallen from the Lord Chancellor I really do not think that we ought to trouble a Select Committee to examine this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Gorell, made a most eloquent speech, and I certainly felt strongly that there was a great deal to be said for his case, but it seems, after all, that the law is not at fault. The fault is with those people who will not come forward. The Lord Chancellor has explained to us very clearly what the law is and, having listened very carefully to his remarks, I cannot think that there is any necessity for proceeding with this Bill. I hope, therefore, that the House will not give the Bill a Second Reading. I am sorry to think that my noble friend Lord Banbury of Southam is not here this afternoon. He had upon the Paper a Bill for the protection of animals, but unfortunately he could not come. I am perfectly sure that, if he had been here, he would have been the first to say that in these matters people ought to be able to protect themselves. Further, I am very much averse from creating a new offence. There are quite enough offences on the Statute Book at the present time, and I think it would 682 be a pity to add to them if the law is already sufficient without this Bill. If I can get anybody to support me, I shall certainly ask the House to divide against the Second Reading.
LORD GORELLMy Lords, I hope that you will not take the advice of the noble Lord who has just spoken. After what fell from the noble and learned Lord upon the Woolsack, and, indeed, even before he had spoken, in view of the remarks of my noble friend Lord Desborough, it had been my intention to propose that, in the event of the Bill obtaining a Second Reading, it should go to a Select Committee. I hope that your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading in order that it may do so. I cannot think that the argument that the Bill creates a new offence is one that should weigh against it, because obviously, if it is a measure designed to deal with something that is not at present dealt with, then it necessarily creates a new offence. The noble and learned Lord upon the Woolsack told Its that, so far as he had gathered from the Home Office, no chief constable had written complaining that he could not at present deal with the offences which this Bill would create. I can only tell your Lordships that I have in my possession a number of letters from chief constables all over the country. They may not have written to the Home Office, but they have undoubtedly written to the society which has been interested in this measure.
Of course, it is perfectly true, as the noble and learned Lord upon the Woolsack said, that the great difficulty is that the defrauded people will not come forward, and what one hoped to do was to strengthen the hands of the police so that they might be able to take action. In one part of the noble and learned Lord's speech I am afraid that I did not quite follow his argument. He said that the Bill would create an offence even if the seller were quite innocent. In view of the words "knowingly misdescribed," I should have thought that this could not be so. No one could knowingly misdescribe and then plead that he was quite innocent.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORIf the noble Lord will forgive me, I did not say "quite innocent," but "had no 683 intent to defraud." If there is intent to defraud it is covered by the present law. If there is none, it would, no doubt, be covered by this Bill, but I would only remind the noble Lord of his experiment of last night.
LORD GORELLI may say at once that it was a purely verbal experiment. Having described the methods, I left it to my friend to say in what way he had been cheated, and he was unable to do so, although it was done in cold blood and without any of the, excitement of an auction. I do not think that it is necessary for me to say any more. After what has fallen from two noble Lords in support of the Bill and from the noble and learned Lord upon the Woolsack, I venture to hope that your Lordships will not reject the Bill, but will give it a Second Reading on the understanding that it will then be examined by a Select Committee.
§ On Question, Bill read 2ª.
LORD GORELLMy Lords, I now beg to move that this Bill be referred to a Select Committee of this House.
§ Moved, That the Bill he referred to a Select Committee of this House.—(Lord Gorell.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to, and Bill referred to a Select Committee accordingly.