Sitting of 19 July 1876

MINUTES.
New Member Sworn—Piers Egerton Warburton, esquire, for the Mid Division of the County of Chester.
Public Bills—Ordered—First Reading—Inns of Court Procedure Amendment* [258]; Forfeiture Relief* [259].
Second Reading—Contagious Diseases Acts Repeal [55], put off.
Select Committee—Arklow Harbour Improvement* [199], Colonel Makins added.
Select Committee—Report—Bow Street Police Court (Site)* [191–257].
Withdrawn—Election of Aldermen (Cumulative Vote)* [46]; Local Government in Towns (Ireland)* [52].

PARLIAMENT—EXCLUSION OF STRANGERS.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRY: I wish, Sir, to bring under your notice a matter connected with the order of our proceedings. The First Order of the Day relates to a discussion which is likely to become annual in the House with reference to the Contagious Diseases Acts. The discussion of that question involves painful and repulsive details, insomuch that three years ago an hon. Gentleman, no longer a Member of this House, in the exercise of his right, called your attention to the presence of Strangers. The House was cleared, and the doors were closed against all except Members and persons officially connected with the House. I do not think that such a course, if pursued now, would be in accordance with public opinion. But I believe that there are very few persons, whether in this House or out of it, who will not be of opinion that there are two classes of the community—namely, women and children—who had better be absent during this discussion. I would respectfully ask you, Sir, whether it is in your power, if you find it to be in accordance with the feelings of the

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  House and with your own desire, to close the Ladies' Gallery to-day. I think it is unfair to those Members of the House who have to take part in the discussion to subject them to an influence which cannot but be of a painful character. We are accustomed to abstain from or approach the discussion of a question like this with almost sacred delicacy, and I defy any hon. Member, unless his constitution be very peculiar, to discuss the details of the Contagious Diseases Act in the presence of ladies without great dismay and apprehension. There is another class of person, who, I think, ought to be protected—I mean ladies who may have come up from the country or elsewhere and sought admission to the Gallery without having the slightest notion as to what subject was to be discussed. Therefore, Sir, I would respectfully ask you whether you will, in the exercise of your authority, direct the Sergeant-at-Arms to pursue the course which is adopted by Judges at Assizes when indelicate cases are for trial, when women and children are ordered out of Court. In order to give other hon. Members an opportunity of expressing their opinions on the subject I move that the House do now adjourn.
  SIR ALEXANDER GORDONseconded the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Mitchell Henry.)
  MR. SPEAKER: I may state for the information of the House that there are two Galleries of this House appropriated to the use of ladies. One of these is under my direct control, and having regard to the subject-matter of the First Order of the Day I have directed that Gallery to be closed. With regard to the other Gallery, as the House is aware, it is available for the use of the friends of Members, under the orders of Members in the usual manner. I have not felt myself at liberty to close that Gallery; but I have desired the messenger in attendance to inform all ladies who may present themselves there of the nature of the subject about to be discussed. If after that caution they think proper to insist upon admittance, I do not feel at liberty, without the authority of the House, to exclude them. With regard to the admission of children, I may state
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  that last year I desired that some youths should be excluded from the Gallery, and this year I have desired that they shall not be admitted.
  MR. CALLAN: I would ask the hon. Member to withdraw his Motion in order that I may present the matter in a different form. I think the course adopted some years ago would be endorsed by public opinion. Therefore, exercising the right vested in me as a Member of the House, I beg to inform Mr. Speaker that I espy Strangers in the House.
  Notice taken that Strangers are present.
  MR. SPEAKER: I wish to point out to the hon. Member before I act upon his notice that if Strangers are excluded from the House this will not affect ladies, because the Ladies' Gallery is not supposed to be within the House. Of course, if after that intimation the hon. Member persists in calling my attention to the presence of Strangers it will be my duty to act upon the notice.
  MR. SWANSTONdesired to explain that when, a week ago, he put down his name for an admission to the Ladies' Gallery he did not know what subject was to be brought forward for discussion on the present occasion. When he found what it was, he struck his name off and gave notice to the ladies, who were strangers to him, that they would not be admitted. He was glad that in doing this he had anticipated the Speaker's directions.
  MR. P. A. TAYLOR: I think you, Sir, have taken the right course in notifying to the ladies the nature of the discussion, so that if they do not wish to hear it they may have the option of withdrawing. Further than that, I think the House would be wrong in expressing an opinion as to the fitness of the admission of any person of full age of either sex who wished to hear the discussion. I submit the ladies themselves are the best judges of the propriety of remaining. The fact that the Bill itself relates to women is too often ignored. There is nothing immoral, nothing necessarily prurient in this discussion. The analogy, therefore, that has been made as to the exclusion of women from a court of justice when an indelicate case is tried, is no analogy at all. Women, unfortunately, are the subjects of the legislation to be discussed

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  to-day, and is the House going to say that women are not to feel an interest in what concerns their own sex, and are not to form their own opinion after listening to a debate on a subject so deeply interesting to them? I think the dignified and proper course is to allow women to be the best judges whether they will remain or not. There are many of them who have taken great interest in this matter. There is one gentle lady, the wife of a clergyman in Liverpool, who has spent her life in attempting to relieve the sufferings and to redeem the character of unfortunate women. The real evil consists in the immorality of these Acts, and those women who have come forward to save their sisters from these Acts should surely not be debarred from hearing the question discussed.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRY: As at present advised, I shall deem it my duty to go to a division. I may be permitted to remark that ladies do not take part in these debates, and are present, therefore, only from curiosity. They can read the discussion afterwards; but Members are placed in a very embarrassing position by the presence of ladies.
  MR. CALLANthought it preferable that a few ladies should hear the discussion than that reporters should be present to report it. Then hon. Members had held out that ladies would be able to read the discussion afterwards—but he had that confidence in the Press that if the reporters were allowed to remain they would not report the debate, and therefore he again brought under Mr. Speaker's notice that he espied Strangers in the House.
  MR. SPEAKERreminded the House of the Resolution of the 31st May 1875, and stated that he had, on a previous occasion during the present Session, explained that he considered himself bound to follow the practice prescribed by that Resolution, until otherwise instructed by the House; and that as no such instruction had since been given, he should proceed to put the Question, in pursuance of that Resolution.
  Mr. Speakerforthwith put the Question, "That Strangers be ordered to withdraw;" and it passed in the Negative.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, he had gathered from the tone of the House on this Question, that it was not in accordance with their wish that he should press his Motion for the adjournment of the House, and after the remarks made by the Speaker he begged leave to withdraw it.
  Original Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ACTS REPEAL BILL— [Bill 55.]
(Sir Harcourt Johnstone, Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Stansfeld.)
CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ACTS REPEAL BILL— [Bill 55.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Sir HARCOURT JOHNSTONE, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said: Sir, I have to resume the unpleasant task which devolved upon me last Session. I am aware that the general feeling of the House is that these Acts have been passed for a good purpose, and that the discussion of last Session should not be re-opened. This feeling is not unnatural, because the subject of the Acts is of such a painful—I may say revolting—character, that it is a positive advantage to those who wish to retain these Acts to say—"Let us close our ears rather than that this revolting subject shall be brought up again." Therefore the supporters of the Acts have this uncommon advantage, while those who seek to repeal them have been, to a great extent, neglected by the Press of this metropolis. In the North of England we have the advantage of the local Press to ventilate our cause. But even if we were absolutely deserted by the London Press, I cannot forget that only two or three years before the abolition of slavery, the London Press refused (with one exception) to notice the efforts made in this country for the freedom of the slave. There are some in this House, and a great many outside, who do not know much about this subject for the reasons I have mentioned. They do not know the nature of the various Acts which have been passed, and that they have been gradually made more stringent in their action towards the weaker sex. It was during a time of great political excitement that the most stringent of these Acts came into force; and since that time three Departments of the State

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  —the Army and the Navy, and the Home Department—have combined in the endeavour to make these Acts efficient, and so far as the Departments are concerned I do not blame them. The Acts are before them, they have to administer them, and I do not say that they have exceeded their duty; I say they have performed their duty as well as they could under the circumstances; but the fact still remains that the three great Departments of the State have given all their influence in support of these Acts. And now I must allude to the Royal Commission of 1871, and some of the statements made in their Report. The Report of the Royal Commission admits so much that is offensive in the Acts that I feel bound to bring their statements before the House. One paragraph in the Report describes the purpose of the Act of 1866, in these words—
  "It sought so far to control the conduct of prostitutes as to render the practice of prostitution, if not absolutely innocuous, at least much less dangerous."
  And the Commissioners also say—
  "It is, perhaps, not surprising that this legislation should have given rise to serious misapprehensions of the objects and intentions of Parliament."
  I will also call attention to Paragraph 35 of the Report, which states that "the number of cases in hospital among the marine service" had decreased from causes wholly independent of legislative interference—
  "These results, therefore, if they were attributable to legislation at all, were certainly not due to the legislation of 1866, of which periodical examination is the principle."
  Then, in the 37th paragraph, after condemning the manner of taking out the percentages from the averages, they conclude by declaring—
  "There is no distinct evidence that any diminution of disease among men of the Army and Navy which may have taken place is attributable to a diminution of disease contingent upon the system of periodical examinations among the women with whom they have consorted."
  In the 48th paragraph they say—
  "It is difficult, however, to escape from the inference that the State, in making provision for alleviating its evils, has assumed that prostitution is a necessity."
  There is one curious question which
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  never has been answered. The Royal Commission, having taken evidence more especially from those concerned in the administration of these Acts, and having to some extent overlooked the evidence against the system even of men like Mr. Simon, Medical Officer to the Privy Council, ended by the following recommendation:—
  "We recommend that the periodical examination of public women be discontinued."
  How is it, I would ask, that that recommendation of the Royal Commission has been before the House and the country all these years and yet no Government has yet acted upon it? With this fact staring us in the face, how can the Government reconcile it to their duty and their consciences to pass over this recommendation? If the recommendations were carried out, no doubt the Acts themselves would disappear. Those who have interest in these Acts must do all they can to prevent these recommendations from being carried into force. What, then, is the position of the promoters of these Acts? It is alleged that these Acts are devised on sanitary grounds and on moral grounds also. There are some recommendations, which I do not care to follow up, by which these unfortunate women can be sent to reformatories. We assume to have made the wonderful discovery in the last 10 years that prostitution may be put down by legislation. Why, for hundreds and thousands of years the victims of this vice have been made the subject of legislative repression; but no Governments as yet have ever attempted to repress prostitution itself, without producing a revolt or re-action in the other direction. That is what has been done by past legislation. Are we to declare to Europe that we have found out a new system which will keep all straight and safe? The Continental system may have been founded on a most anxious desire to reduce disease. Do not imagine that we wish that disease should continue to exist as a punishment for the vices of man—that is not our position. If disease exists, it should be cured; and every opportunity should be given to those suffering from diseases of this character of getting cured. In various towns of Europe the localities to be inhabited by these unfortunate women are prescribed; their dress is prescribed;

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  and great care is taken as to the places where they shall walk. In Belgium and Italy they are examined weekly; and a soldier who denounces any woman as afflicted with disease is rewarded; therefore they reward a man who commits this sin. I think that the common sense and the right feeling of this country would hardly submit to the State deriving any revenue from licences to brothels; though I know that at Hong Kong there is a system of licensing brothels, the fees for which are paid to the Government. [The hon. Member then read from a pamphlet, at considerable length, the statement of M. Duprés, Professor of Medicine in Paris, and of M. Lecour, head of the department in Paris charged with suppressing this evil, to the effect that the system had utterly failed.]Unable to get more assistance from the Government, and being taunted by the doctors, M. Lecour comes to the conclusion, as the result of prolonged experience, that—
  "We must nurse the hope that the rising generation will be better protected by religious teaching, by education, and the solicitude and authority of family life."
  I never heard such a confession of weakness; and yet it comes from the head of that powerful police, notorious since the days of Fouchéup to the present time, for the perfection of their detective system. These men confess their inability to deal with these diseases, and the causes from whence they spring. There is a growing tendency in this House and in the country to place too much faith in State agencies, and to put everything upon the State. Why, it has even assumed the duty of parents in regard to education, as if in these days parents were so utterly lost to all natural feeling that they could not succeed in bringing up their children in the way they should go. But all these human efforts to compromise with definite principles of morality, personal liberty, and responsibility, and to bring them into harmony with the lowest desires of humanity must fail; for in such an attempt the baser motive always overrides the nobler, and expediency overcomes the instincts of purity and self-restraint. Well, if this is to go on, I do not look forward to a very happy state of things in this country. I do not think the example set by the middle and upper classes is at all satisfactory at this moment. Many years
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  ago it was said the Court was the highest tribunal of morality in this kingdom, and I trust it may long continue to be so. But 40 years ago Mr. Carlyle prophetically anticipated this very evil, and said—
  "It were but blindness to deny that this superior morality is but an inferior criminality, not produced by greater love of virtue, but by greater perfection of police."
  These words, written 40 years ago, represent very accurately the state of things to which we are coming as fast as we can. Now let me take up the sanitary grounds on which the promoters of these Acts base their case. These diseases began to diminish long before these Acts were brought into operation. In fact, what is called "the more dangerous" disease fell from 32˙68 per 1,000 to 24˙73 per 1,000 between 1860 and 1866, when the first Act was passed. In this latest reliable Army Return—why I say reliable I will presently state—of 1872, we find the average has fallen to 24˙26, or less than ˙05 per cent in six years, instead of 7˙95 per 1,000 in the six years before. The Army Report of 1873 says that there is a regulation by which the pay of soldiers is stopped while in hospital with this disease, and it is presumed that that fact has led to concealment; and Mr. Inspector Lawson has told me within the last month that from the year 1873 the Reports were absolutely unreliable, and I have no doubt he will say the same if called before a Committee of this House. With regard to the Navy, my right hon. Friend there (Mr. Hunt) will, no doubt, make a good defence, as he always does of everything he is called upon to justify; but if he has not had the advantage of these criticisms, perhaps he will allow me to read them to him. In the whole Navy there is no record of the proportion of the secondary disease previous to 1866, up to which date it was 15˙7 per 1,000, and it fell, with intermediate fluctuations, to 12˙8 in 1869, when the area of the Acts was largely extended. Three years afterwards it rose steadily until it attained the highest ratio of 18˙3 in 1872. Since then it has fallen again—according to the latest Report in 1874—to 12˙2, or only ˙06 per 1,000 lower than in 1869, five years previously. Therefore, if my right hon. Friend is going to claim for these Acts a great diminution of disease in the Navy, I do

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  not think his case is quite so good as he wishes it to be. The average of the whole eight years under the Acts has been 14˙9 per 1,000, or only ˙8 per 1,000 less than before the Act passed. With regard to the Navy, I do not think he will attempt to show a very strong case, and therefore it will not be worth while to contradict him. If you were able to draw a cordon round all these so-called protected stations, a cordon complete both in military and police arrangements, and if you had an examination daily, as suggested by some practitioners, of the whole population—say, for instance, that in every Union you had the medical officer going round in the morning and examining the whole population with the aid of his associates—I have no doubt you could arrive at a great check on the increase of the disease; but such things are impossible. I hold that it is actually impossible, unless you have a system which would be intolerable to the people of this country, and impossible, I trust, under the liberties we enjoy, so that it is wiser to dismiss these theories entirely, and allow the value of these statistics to be fairly argued and put before this House and taken for what they are worth. [The hon. Member then read extracts from the Report of Captain Harris (Parl. Paper, No. 276), vindicating the conduct of the police in carrying out the Act—that, with a single exception, not a single charge of excess, or violation of duty, had been brought to his Notice.] But it is argued that the restoration of girls to the paths of virtue is to be attributed to the operation of these Acts. Now, I will ask the House and hon. Gentlemen opposite who oppose this Bill, where they see anything in these Acts which gives the Home Office or any other authority such a power of reclamation? I find that the managers of Rescue Societies and Female Reformatories, who have been engaged in this work all their lives—and they are persons who ought to know—say at the end of their Report that a large experience of the whole system only increases their conviction that it is "the greatest moral hypocrisy of the day." These are not my words, but the words used by those who have been engaged in the work of reclaiming these poor creatures. Although the police imagine that by getting hold of these women
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  they prevent prostitution, the class of clandestine prostitutes is daily increasing; and the percentage of those admitted into the London refuges has increased from 21 in 70 to 60 in 1874. This bears out the statement of the police of Paris. About 10 days ago there was a remarkable compliment paid by The Times to a gentlemen, lately a Government officer, who has been rewarded for his services, and who has from the beginning given an opinion that this system would not be productive of the results anticipated. I refer to the Report of Mr. Simon, when it was proposed to extend the Acts to the civil population. He is one of the most remarkable men in the Kingdom, and had considerable experience as a doctor before he became a Government officer. He says he believes it to be a fact that a large number of prostitutes escape supervision, and that any departure from the position hitherto held by the law with regard to the civil population will lead to embarrassment and disappointment. I hold that the argument which applies to the civil population should be equally applied to the military population. I grant that when you congregate enormous masses of men in a celibate condition, in towns full of vicious attractions, that class is more likely to be misled than the class which has the opportunity of marriage. I concede that to the promoters of these Acts; but I hold that the voluntary system as it existed before these Acts is far more likely to meet the objects in view than any system of State interference, espionage, and despotism, most repulsive to the feelings of many of us. With regard to the power which is claimed for these Acts, that they interfere with brothels, there is no such power under the Acts whatever. There was a power given in the Act of 1866 to interfere with places known or suspected to harbour diseased women. But to obtain this knowledge the police must keep up a constant system of correspondence and connivance with the brothel-keepers. Let us not be misled by any gloss which may be cast over this question. It is impossible for the police to keep themselves informed of the health or disease of these women, unless they are in continual communication with the owners of the brothels. On the one hand you have this reclamation denied by the managers of the Rescue

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  societies in London. On the other you see this attempt to suppress brothels, for which no powers are given under the Acts, and which ought to be left entirely to the local authorities; while at the same time the very people who say they are suppressing brothels, are keeping up a constant communication with them, and no doubt favour those from whom they get information for their special purpose. There is a further paragraph in the Report to which I must allude. It has reference to the question of introducing these Acts into places where they are not in force. There are two hon. Gentlemen in this House at this moment who represent those towns to whom allusion is made—the hon. Member for Liverpool and the hon. Member for Sheffield. I do not know whether they have had any correspondence as Representatives of those towns with the various Departments, but I cannot believe that there have been any public meetings in those towns asking for an extension of these Acts. I have yet to learn that that is the case, and I think the Home Office or any other Government Department would be ill-advised if they were to endeavour to put the Acts in force in the county in which I live. I will go a little farther North. Try to extend them to Scotland. Whether owing to her prejudices, or to the fanatical arguments we have used, I think if the local opinion of those towns were taken it would be found, so far from desirous to have these Acts, most uncompromisingly opposed to them in every quarter. Two nights ago, a meeting of 3,000 people was held in Leeds, which is now represented by two hon. Gentleman on that side and one on this. At that meeting there was no distortion of facts. We do not require that. There was no misrepresentation or exaggeration whatever. We can afford to do without that and be content with the facts. That meeting unanimously pronounced against the Acts. And in every large town in the North of England you will find the same to be the case. What the feelings in the South may be I am not prepared to say, but my opinion is they are in a somewhat limp condition, and that no great movement for real social regeneration and social effort is likely to come from the South of England. One great argument against these Acts is, that they
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  have had no useful sanitary results, while the moral results are so small as to be inappreciable, for although the terror caused by the examinations may have sometimes deterred women from vice, they cannot, even on this point, produce the results of voluntary agencies. We ought not to rely upon the State in matters of this sort. The State, instead of encouraging and fostering public opinion, is more apt to paralyze local efforts and to interfere with local liberty. We have seen enough of it, not only this year, but for many years past. Everything is to be put on the Consolidated Fund. All local burdens are to be charged thereon. Everything is to be put into the hands of over-worked Departments; and, if this continue very long, we may as well shut up all our local shops and live in London altogether, and not take any active part in local life. There is a mixture of despotism and morality in the Acts which horrifies me. The despotism attempts first to cajole, and then threatens and terrifies into an organized hypocrisy, which varies from abject involuntary submission, to constant evasion and escape. I would ask hon. Gentlemen who are strenuous advocates of religious education, if they have greater faith in coercion than in voluntary works of charity? Are you not really playing in this matter fast and loose; hunting with the hounds and running with the hare? Are you prepared to apply your system of detection, spying, and police not only to one sex, but to the other? Because one of the main arguments in this case is that you are interfering with liberty, on the barest suspicion—sometimes less than suspicion, the merest fancy—of one sex, while the men go scot free. Are you prepared when you take up women to take up men, and act as they do in Massachusetts, where, with their somewhat barbarous ideas of liberty, they make prostitution penal for women, and also penal for men? That Act was passed only last year. If these laws are to be extended, let us know it, and not have insidious attempts of State Departments to introduce these Acts covertly—I say that, knowing well what I say—into those places where they are not in operation. There has been a covert attempt to introduce them unknown to any Member of this House. I have the facts in my possession, and can pro-

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  duce them if necessary. If we are to be subject to such attempts, I think those who sit on this side of the House must make some little stand for Constitutional principles. Now, the Whigs, especially in this House, made great efforts to secure civil equality. Cannot they trust local self-government? We have already granted to local bodies power to educate the people, and given them sanitary powers which are working admirably well. And I believe that powers for promoting objects of this character would be far better left to voluntary and local effort. I am bound to say in all these matters we are getting very much into the condition of States labouring under Democratic or Imperial government. I view with alarm these attempts to neutralize the good we have attained through much suffering and endurance, and by Constitutional and political struggles in this country. I fear we shall be handed over to the tender mercies of one central Department, which will watch over us from the hour we get up in the morning until we go to bed. And this will be called—I do not mean any reflection on this Government—a"spirited domestic policy." We have done with a "spirited foreign policy," and I do not desire to see a "spirited domestic policy." I would ask hon. Gentlemen outside to contemplate the peculiar position in which we are placed. In Scotland, I am told, the State sanction is necessary to the marriage of any human being in the country, for the banns must be called in the State Church; so, the State on the one hand sanctions marriage, and on the other endeavours to regulate prostitution. How can you make the two things agree? Is it possible to imagine that the State can on one hand give its sanction to that which is a holy rite in every Church, and on the other hand can be regulating, not only for the Army and Navy, but for the whole civil population, that which is the most loathsome and revolting sin in the whole category of human sins? Well, Sir, I only wish the House were fuller, for I would show hon. Members that if they wish to make themselves masters of this subject, they must go through a course of reading which will be more instructive than pleasing. They should not be content with statistics obtained by Government agency, but should inform themselves
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  of the systems of foreign countries on both sides of the question. You who sit on the other side of the House are not the authors of these Acts. I believe if anybody is responsible for them, it is hon. Gentlemen who sit below me. Not being the authors of these Acts, I think you need not be accomplices in a system which cannot but injure the morality of the country, which has had no perceptible useful hygienic effect, and will only tend to the deterioration of the moral attributes and moral position of the English nation. I can point with some hope to the position which the Scotch Church, a portion of the Church of England, and nearly the whole Wesleyan and Nonconformist Bodies, have taken up in this matter. I do not think we can afford to deal with this question any longer in a cynical and contemptuous spirit—the spirit of indifferentism. The evil is unfortunately too prevalent at the present time. I think that it is our duty, who sit on these benches, to protest against these Acts. I hold them to be fatal to national life and national liberty; and, therefore, in moving the second reading of the Bill before the House, I beg to move the repeal of these Acts.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Sir Harcourt Johnstone.)
  MR. T. E. SMITH, in moving, as an Amendment,
  "That, considering the time which has elapsed since the Report of the Royal Commission, it is desirable that the subject of the Contagious Diseases Act be referred to a Select Committee,"
  said:—Sir, I can assure the House that it is with no desire to procrastinate this discussion, or to introduce any new element of controversy into what we all feel to be a most distasteful and repulsive subject of debate, that I have ventured to put a Motion on the Paper with regard to the Bill now before us. But I did feel, Sir, that it might not be improper in a private Member, who has never taken part in the controversy which has raged on this subject, and who has never publicly expressed any very strong opinion on this matter, to place a Motion on the Paper which would enable us to suggest to Her Majesty's Government the desirability of considering whether it is not in their power to take some steps which may tend to remove this

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  very objectionable subject from the arena of political discussion. I am sure it must be most distasteful to right hon. Gentlemen, to whichever political Party they may belong—because the action of both political Parties in this matter has been the same when they have been in office—to have, year after year, to come down to this House and defend Acts which they know to be most repulsive to the conscientious feelings of a large number of the inhabitants of this country, of the morality of which Acts I am sure they will themselves have considerable doubts. And I think we need only look at the limited attendance here to-day, and to the limited extent to which the Government is represented on the benches opposite, to feel how unwillingly right hon. Gentlemen come down to support the Acts in question. And I am sure it must be equally distasteful to those who take a different view of the subject to have to expose the abuses which they believe to exist. I think that especially to those who object to these Acts must it be disagreeable to have to enter on the subject, because they are most of them Gentlemen who take a very keen interest in the promotion of the movement for the female franchise and introduction of females into the conduct of public affairs. They must be well aware that the controversy on this subject, and the periodical literature of various sorts to which it has given rise has tended more than anything else to impede the movement for the promotion of female political education, and has hindered more than anything else the chance of women attaining the position as citizens of this country which they desire for them. Therefore I think both Parties must feel that it is most desirable that this matter should, if possible, be brought to a close and removed from the arena of political discussion. I venture to appeal to Her Majesty's Government most strongly, and hope that they will see their way to some sort of inquiry, either by a Select Committee, a Royal Commission, or otherwise, which may put the case clearly before those who take an interest in it, so that the time may come when we shall hear nothing more on this repulsive subject. Now I know it may be said that the appointment of a Select Committee, or any other inquiry, is quite unnecessary, because the subject has been already in-
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  vestigated, and that we have full evidence on the subject. Well, Sir, the inquiries which have taken place into this matter have been of a very curious character. There were inquiries at the early stage of this legislation, to which public attention was very gradually directed, and of the existence of which very few people were aware. Those inquiries came to a conclusion in favour of the Acts, and in consequence the Acts were gradually extended, until in 1869 the strongest Act, and the one to which the greatest objection is felt at this moment, was passed. Then public attention was aroused and public feeling awakened. A Royal Commission, composed of Gentlemen of considerable experience, and in whom the Government of the day had every confidence, after sitting a long time, produced a Report in which they distinctly recommended that the Act of 1869 should be repealed. And they made various other very strong suggestions. Well, what has been the result? Her Majesty's Government—I am not speaking of the present Government, but of the Party then in office—Her Majesty's Government have treated that Report, I may say, if not with contempt, at any rate with indifference. That any subject should have aroused public attention, that great attention has been called to it, and that there should be a warm feeling in connection with the subject, that that subject should have been referred to a Royal Commission, and been seriously and carefully investigated, that Her Majesty's Government should for five years not only have passed over the recommendation of that Royal Commission with indifference, but should have carried on, in defiance of that recommendation, a system of administration which had been distinctly condemned by that Royal Commission, is matter requiring more investigation. I know it may be said in asking for some further investigation I am not tending to reduce the interest in the matter, but rather to increase it; and that may be so when the inquiry is going on and the Committee is sitting, but I do believe that that is the only way in which we can come to any conclusion upon the matter. It is hopeless to expect after the divisions that have taken place in this House, that the Bill of the hon. Baronet the Member for Scarborough (Sir Harcourt Johnstone) is likely to ob-

  1569
  tain a second reading without any further investigation of the subject. I think that it is unreasonable to suppose that the House will pass the Bill of the hon. Baronet without even those in favour of it requiring further investigation; but at the same time I think it is hopeless for Her Majesty's Government to retain these Acts in operation while there exists in the country such a strong and determined feeling against them, and while these Acts violate the religious convictions of a large section of Her Majesty's subjects. If the Government believe these Acts to be good, and wish to continue them in peace and quietness, the only way in which they can obtain that result is to deal fairly and honestly with the country, and to show the good cause which they believe these Acts to possess, and not to shrink from any investigation as to the manner in which the Acts are worked; because so long as there is any reticence about the operation of these Acts, it is perfectly clear that the country at large will not believe that the Government have the good cause they represent themselves to have. What is the case that the Government put before us? It is a case which is very plausible. In the first place, it has been said that it has been examined; but I think that it is hopeless to imagine that the country will be satisfied with a merely official Report—an official Report and composed—I do not wish to say anything in an offensive sense—but written and composed by a partizan of the Acts, and hardly composed in the judicial and impartial spirit which we might venture to expect in a Government Report on a subject of so much controversy. I know—and every one in this House knows—that we have every reason to have full confidence in the accuracy and truthfulness of the Government Papers which are composed by their officials. I do not suppose that any hon. Member will get up and say that a Government which commands the confidence of the country would venture to lay upon the Table of this House a Return which was not genuine, or believed to be genuine. But we must be aware that when the thing goes before the country at large, to people who do not know so much about the conduct of Public Business, this Report will be regarded simply as a partizan statement on the part of the Government, and while giving full credit to the
  1570
  Government, that Report cannot command the full confidence of the country as a statement of facts. But when I look at the Report myself, I cannot but think that it is a very half-and-half statement with regard to the operation of the Acts, giving us by no means a full account of the operation of the Acts. What we want to know is—what has been the operation of the Acts as a part of our legislation; what has been done by these Acts which has not been done in any other way, and what has been the complete operation of the Acts. Now, in both these respects the Returns are singularly deficient. Everybody must have read the details which Captain Harris has given of the beneficial moral effects which the police have been able to exercise in the country. I am afraid that the police have too long delayed devoting their attention to preventing men getting drunk, and other things of that sort; but we have at length discovered that the police are great guardians and promoters of the morality of the country. I am very glad of that. I believe it is a very great duty which the police perform with great efficiency. I believe they have opportunities of doing great benefit to the country when they see sin and wickedness to warn the people; but I have yet to learn that it is necessary to pass a Contagious Diseases Act to enable the police to exercise this beneficial influence upon the country. I should have thought when a policeman saw a young woman indulging in vice, he might warn her against the evil which was likely to ensue quite as well if the Contagious Diseases Acts had not existed. Therefore, I think that it is unfortunate that Captain Harris, in showing the virtuous action of the police, in a Return which was not intended to display the virtuous action of the police, but the practical operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts, should have dwelt so much upon feeling and imagination. Then we come to other things which are based not so much upon feeling and imagination—because there must be always an element of imagination in connection with these Reports—namely, the facts and figures; and we find one or two figures which I think may tend in favour of the Acts. We find, for instance, that the amount of prostitution in the towns under the operation of these Acts has considerably diminished. Well,

  1571
  Sir, that seems to be a great advantage; but we know also from the experience of other countries, that wherever such regulations have been in operation, the amount of registered prostitution always does decrease. But there is something more we want to know—what is the amount of unregistered prostitution in these towns? I believe it will be found, in France especially, and by the experience of other countries where similar Acts have been passed, that there is a very large amount of unrecognized prostitution, and consequently a very large amount of untreated disease; and it is giving an unfair statement of the amount of prostitution—judging by the analogy of other countries—to rely upon the amount of unfortunate women who have been brought under the police superintendence during the course of the year. Well, then, the next thing we find is that the public-houses and beer-houses which are the haunt of prostitutes, have ceased to be so, and that there are none, or next to no public-houses or beer-houses which are now the habitual resort of prostitutes for the purposes of prostitution. I was under the impression that under the licensing laws all the public-houses and beer-houses were prevented from being used for the purposes of prostitution or being the haunt of prostitutes; and therefore I am at a loss to know why we want the Contagious Diseases Acts to carry this out. I believe that if the police had done their duty in former days, and with the same zeal in other places as they do where the Contagious Diseases Acts are in operation, these beneficial results might be arrived at although the Acts did not apply to these places. But then we find there is a considerable improvement in the diminution of the number of young persons who are leading this immoral life. Well, then again we come to this, that the police have it in their power to warn, and seriously warn, young persons—who are more amenable to advice and suggestion and are more afraid of the terrors of the law—from the consequences of the life they are leading. But all this can be done without the operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts. But then we come to one point—the point on which the Royal Commission particularly bases its recommendation for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act of 1869—and that is the
  1572
  large amount of examinations which have gone on under the provisions of this Act. And I do not think, Sir, that it is necessary for me to enter into the religious, nor, perhaps, the social questions which are necessarily bound up in this matter, because I believe that they will be much more strongly and better dealt with in the course of this debate by other hon. Members; but I wish to call the attention of the House to this—and it has not obtained sufficient attention in the consideration of the effect of these Acts—the great political evil, as apart from either the religious or social evil—which I believe to exist under the maintenance of these Acts in their present form. I believe it is a matter quite unknown in English history, and quite unknown in English legislation, that a large section of the community (who have not committed any offence against the law, or kept disorderly houses, or been a nuisance to their neighbours) should—however great the vice of prostitution—be treated as criminals, although the simple fact of prostitution has never been considered a crime to the law of England. I say it is a great political evil that those who have not committed any offence against the law should be subject to police surveillance by Act of Parliament, and I very much object to one class of the people being under such surveillance. It has been said that, after all, publicans and the keepers of public-houses are subjected to a similar surveillance. But that is an entirely different case. They have entered into the trade without any temptation, without any need, not from circumstances of necessity, but of their own free will, and they have obtained in return a share of the valuable Government monopoly. But this is a perfectly different case; for I find from the Returns that something like 1,000,000 examinations have taken place of a repulsive and disgusting character, and the persons subjected to them having no power to remove themselves from the operations of the Act. Now, I have heard some strong arguments used with regard to these examinations. Some people say—"Oh, the examination is nothing." Others say that, "These unfortunate women are not the people to object to an examination." And then, again, we have people speaking of these examinations "as being offensive and

  1573
  disgusting in the extreme." Of course, it is not for me, who am not a medical man, to express any opinion upon the subject, and I would rather turn to the Report of Captain Harris as to what the nature of these examinations is. Suffice it to say that Captain Harris says most distinctly what the opinion of women is upon the subject, because he more than once shows how the dread of these examinations exercises a great moral influence in deterring a woman from prostitution. Now, it is perfectly clear that whatever these examinations are, in the minds of the women who are leading such lives they are repulsive and disgusting in the extreme. This being the case, I do hope that Her Majesty's Government will take it into their consideration whether they cannot do something to put an end to this, and to show distinctly what they have to say in favour of the Acts, that we might see the subject cease to be a subject of controversy. It is one of the most painful, disgusting, and offensive subjects that has come before the House. I have ventured to express the opinion of a private Member on the matter, and it now only remains for me to move the Amendment of which I have given Notice.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "considering the time which has elapsed since the Report of the Royal Commission, it is desirable that the subject of the Contagious Diseases Acts be referred to a Select Committee,"—(Mr. Eustace Smith,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  Sir CHARLES LEGARD: Mr. Speaker—Sir, I feel I owe some apology to the House for venturing to address it on this occasion, and I can assure you, Sir, I do so with great regret, and I should like to say at once that I hope my hon. Colleague will not for one moment believe that I have undertaken the task from any feeling of opposition to himself, but simply and entirely on account of the strong impressions I hold on this subject. Sir, three years ago I had paid very little attention to this unsavoury subject, until the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) held a meeting in the borough I have
  1574
  the honour to represent (Scarborough), agitating for the repeal of these Acts; since that time I have consequently taken no little trouble to inform myself as to the statistics and details, the rights and wrongs bearing upon this important subject, and I must ask the indulgence of the House for a short time whilst I state the grounds on which I oppose the repeal of these Acts. And, Sir, having reference to the fact that Petitions have been presented to this House, purporting to emanate from public meetings, I cannot refrain from saying that I think that it is to be deeply regretted that those who have taken so prominent a part in the agitation for the repeal of these Acts, and who caused those meetings to be held, did not hold them in districts in which the Acts are in active operation, instead of travelling about the country and visiting places, hundreds of miles away from the districts where the Acts are in force, endeavouring to provoke feelings of hostility amongst people who are consequently the least acquainted with what I say are the beneficial operations of these Acts. And I am strengthened in this view by what fell from my hon. Colleague, when head that the Press in the North of England was strong enough to carry the repeal of these Acts. Sir, why should the Press in the North of England, where the Acts are not in force, know more about these Acts than the Press in the South of England, where the Acts are in force? Sir, if any hon. Member takes the trouble to look back to the year 1853, when the ravages of the contagious diseases in question first aroused the attention of the military and naval authorities, he will find that the time had indeed arrived when it would have been greatly to be deplored if a disease had been allowed to go on increasing and unchecked in our large seaport garrison towns to an extent unknown in any other part of the world. A disease so destructive of health and happiness, and by which an acquired constitutional taint, may be, and, alas! too often is, transmitted to generations yet unborn. Sir, I find from the Army Medical Report of 1859 that assuming the mean strength of the Army at that time to be 90,000 men, the inefficiency from syphilitic disease would be equal to 2,417 men for the whole year, or equal to three regiments

  1575
  The consequences were so great that in 1862 a Special Committee was appointed to inquire into the prevalence of syphilitic disease in the Army and Navy. The Committee, at the conclusion of the Report, dated the 15th of December, 1862, stated—
  "That they had refrained from entering into the painful details which had come to their knowledge of the state of our naval and military stations at home as regards prostitution, the facts were so appalling that they felt it a duty to press upon the Government the necessity of at once grappling with the mass of vice, filth and disease, which surrounds the soldiers' barracks and the seamen's homes—which not only crowds our hospitals with sick, weakens the roll of our effectives, and swells the lists of our invalids, but which surely, however slowly, saps the vigour of our soldiers and our seamen, sow the seeds of degradation and degeneracy, and causes an amount of suffering difficult to over-estimate."
  Sir, the result was an almost universal desire, spread over the country, for some preventive legislation against these diseases in our seaport garrison towns, and the advisability of some legislation was acknowledged by many persons, distinguished as much by their eminent Christian benevolence and practical wisdom, as by their high social position and legislative experience. I shall refrain from entering, as much as possible, into statistics on this subject, as I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty can do so if he considers it necessary; but as a great deal has been said about the tyranny of the police, and most sensational statements have been circulated throughout the country about the manner in which innocent and virtuous women have been seized and examined by the police, and cases have been brought forward in publications and speeches at public meetings, not only of cruel insults to innocent and respectable women, but of repeated wrongs to the unhappy women who have been, and are, subjected to them, I should like to say a few words on this subject. The constables employed in carrying out these Acts are all selected out of the whole body of the metropolitan police—they are all, I believe, married men, and are certainly all men of tried and unexceptional character, and it is quite erroneous to suppose that any of these constables can go up to any woman they may see in the street and carry her off to be examined. Sir, an official inquiry has been made into every case in which
  1576
  names and details have been given, and the persons who have made the statements have been requested to substantiate them. In some cases the persons thus challenged have refused to come forward; in others, the explanations given have been mere hearsay, or more or less frivolous. It is now five years since the Report of the Royal Commission was published, and the result of the inquiries has been to satisfy the authorities that the police are not chargeable with any abuse of their authority; that they have discharged a painful and a difficult duty with moderation and caution; that they have made no mistakes in summoning innocent and virtuous women to be examined; that the charges thus rashly made and repeated have no foundation, but have contributed in no slight degree to excite public indignation against these Acts. Sir, I will now, with the permission of the House, examine some of the statements put forward by hon. Members who oppose these Acts. It is said that the first principles of our constitutional regard for the liberty of the subject are violated by these Acts, in the so-called voluntary submission by which the woman is urged, and in many cases entrapped, into criminating herself. Sir, so far from there being any good foundation for these statements, I maintain that these Acts are so administered as to render it practically impossible for the woman to be entrapped into criminating herself, and for this reason the police are strictly instructed not to give notice to any woman to appear for examination, except on such proof of her being a common prostitute that they can, if required, substantiate the facts on oath before a magistrate. Before the examination takes place the woman must sign a voluntary submission, which is carefully read over and explained to her by the inspector of police, and I may add that every examination takes place in the presence of a female attendant or nurse, and no other person can be present. The Report of the Royal Commission very well says that the temporary suspension of personal freedom in case of a diseased prostitute,
  "Such suspension being strictly measured by the time required to effect the patient's cure, and accompanied by no restraint unnecessary for such purpose, is not to be regarded as an infringement of a great constitutional principle."

  1577
  Another statement which is urged by my hon. Colleague and others who oppose these Acts is, that they are flagrantly unjust and one-sided, because they impose upon women the gravest penalties from which men are entirely exempted. I am aware, Sir, it has been suggested on grounds as well of justice as expediency, that soldiers and sailors should be subjected to regular examination as well as women. I believe this is done in many regiments; but without discussing the practicability of the suggestion, I venture to think there is no comparison between the cases of prostitutes and the men who consort with them. With the one sex the offence is committed as a matter of gain; with the other it is an irregular indulgence of the human frame. Another of the statements put forward by the opponents of these Acts is—
  "That as the women go through the streets to the examination room they are the subjects of cheers or gibes, according to the character of the spectators, and that men of almost every rank are to be seen waiting outside the examination rooms for the women who shall be allowed to pass out, as being safe for that day at any rate, or they would not be allowed to go at large."
  Now, Sir, irrespective of the gross improbability of this statement, can it be believed that the visiting surgeon or the police would permit such conduct? No, Sir, the result of my inquiries on this point satisfies me that there is no truth whatever in the assertion. As a rule, persons are never seen waiting near the examining rooms, and the only exceptions to this have been when the agents of the Repeal Association have posted themselves near the doors, and accosted the women on their way to and from the examination room. And I may add that the women made no opposition to these Acts until they were excited to do so by the Repeal agents, and I think, Sir, it can be readily understood that among women of this class, never accustomed to control or restraint of any kind, there will be found some who may be easily induced by persons whom they look upon as superior in position and intelligence to themselves, to defy or evade the law. It has been stated that these Acts are, medically speaking, a failure. If, Sir, this be so, it is indeed strange that the medical officers of the Army and Navy who must be necessarily special judges of the relative amount of
  1578
  syphilitic disease in their regiments or ships at different times and under differing circumstances, and who have no interest at all in any preventive measures, except so far as they are found to affect the health of the men in the public service, have arrived at, I believe, the unanimous conclusion that the Acts have caused a great reduction of disease in the protected towns in the United Kingdom. In 1872, Lord Aberdare, who was the Home Secretary, said—"Although there was a difference of opinion on the moral effects of the Contagious Diseases Act, the general conclusion to which he had arrived was, that its effects in preventing women from entering on a profligate life was so strong and so great as to make the moral good prevail over the moral evil." He also admitted "that the evidence given by both naval and military officers was conclusive to the effect that there was a great diminution in the amount of prostitution. The most blessed effect of the Act was that it had almost entirely put a stop to that most horrible form of vice—juvenile prostitution." And, Sir, I will take this opportunity of saying that I find from the 14 towns included in Dr. Balfour's tables presented to Parliament, now under the Acts, that the average ratio of primary syphilis in the four years ending 1863, previous to any preventive legislation, was 129 per 1,000, in the four years ending 1873, 53 per 1,000. In the 14 towns included in Dr. Balfour's tables, never under the Acts, the average ratio for the four years ending 1863 was 121 per 1,000, for the four years ending 1873, 107 per 1,000. In the coastguard ship at Southampton, where the Acts were first applied in 1870, the ratio of primary syphilis has fallen from 104 per 1,000 in 1868 to 26 per 1000 in 1873, the mean ratio for the four years in which the Acts have been in force having been 31 per 1,000. In the coastguard ship at Hull, where the Acts have never been in force, the ratios have varied since 1867 from 111 and 155 per 1,000 to 100 per 1,000, the mean ratio for the four years ending 1873 having been 124 per 1,000. I should just like to refer to Winchester, as the state of that town was very alarming in 1866. The Acts were first applied there in 1870, in that year 163 women were sent into the Lock Hospital at Aldershot, and 143

  1579
  ndividual women were put on the register for the first time; in 1875 only 28 individual women were registered for the first time, and 12 only were sent to the Lock Hospital. In 1873, 179 girls between the ages of 12 and 18, and 117 women between the ages of 18 and 30, who had been found in bad company and improper places, were rescued by means of the police employed under the Acts. There were also 219 who had commenced immoral practices, but who discontinued to do so on being cautioned by the police, and were consequently not registered. I need not mention the numbers which were saved in 1874, as they were stated last year, but I find from the official Report just presented to Parliament, that 374 young girls and women were rescued and prevented by the police in 1875 from a sinful life. These together form a total of 889 girls and young women prevented in the course of two years from beginning a life of open infamy. There can be no doubt as to the accuracy of these statements, which are published by Captain Harris, assistant commissioner of police, and they can all be verified by inquiry. Sir, these are facts and statements, few I admit, but the importance of which it is impossible to over-rate; and I think instead of hon. Gentlemen abusing these Acts, and wishing to have them repealed, we ought rather to be thankful when we reflect that they have both directly and indirectly promoted the objects of sanitary and municipal police. When we reflect that they have also purged the town and encampments to which they have been applied of miserable creatures who were masses of rottenness and vehicles of disease, and provided them with asylums where their sufferings could be temporarily relieved, even if their malady was beyond cure, and where their better nature was probably for the first time touched by human sympathy, then I say when we hear of appeals being made to the wives and mothers of England, to prevent the coming snare of vice being made easy to the rising youth of this country, let that appeal go forth for what it is worth, but let the House of Commons remember, and let the wives and mothers of England remember that the question we have to weigh in the balance to-day affects not so much the present as the future generations. We must place in one scale the
  1580
  repeal of these Acts for injuries and wrongs, imaginary or real, inflicted on those affected by these Acts, and on the other scale we must place a diseased and disabled people; a disease which may not confine its ravages to him immediately sharing in the sin, but which may inflict a terrible and lasting punishment on an innocent wife and mother, a disease which destroys the peace of the living, and the health and the happiness of those yet unborn. I must thank the House for the kind indulgence it has given me, and I will only add in conclusion that I think we ought to bear in mind that great evils must be remedied by measures sometimes apparently harsh; but that ought not to prevent us from giving them our support, when by so doing one of the most inveterate maladies to which the people of this country can be exposed is greatly diminished, and by which the innocent are often involved in the consequences of the guilt of others. And, Sir, it does appear to me that we have no reason in 1876 for voting against the Acts which have done much to eradicate a disease, that it shall no longer supply such a large proportion of patients to our hospitals, nor corrupt and poison the very life-blood of countless thousands of our people.
  MR. STANSFELD: Sir, we have already heard in the course of this debate of the difficulties of this subject under discussion. Attempts were made to clear the Speaker's Gallery because the subject was considered one which it was so difficult fitly to speak upon in this Assembly. I would put it to the House, what must public opinion think of a law which we hesitate to discuss with open doors? Sir, no man can be more conscious of the difficulties of this subject than I am, for I suppose that no man has more often taken part in its discussion. But the difficulties that I feel do not in any degree depend upon the delicate, or, as some will have it, the repulsive nature of the subject. Those difficulties vanish for the serious-minded man, who is impressed with the moral gravity of the subject, and who addresses the public upon it under a sense of responsibility. Sir, the difficulty which I have felt, and which I feel to-day, arises from totally different considerations. The difficulty I feel arises from the very vastness of the sub-

  1581
  ject and its many sides, and because I know the disinclination which exists in many minds to look into the question, and fairly to take in and to appreciate the arguments adduced against this legislation. Now, we who oppose the Contagious Diseases Acts have been called fanatics, and I admit to you that for the time being the very persistence of our conviction exercises a repellent effect on the minds of those who are not disposed to argue or even to listen to us. So much so that I have often remarked that because of this so-called fanaticism on our part hon. Members in this House, and many men out of this House, are disposed to take anything and everything for granted in favour of this legislation, simply out of reaction against us who seek to compel their attention to it. They take everything for granted in its favour, they believe certain things without having any real grounds of conviction at all, and they believe that they know without having studied any of the evidence of the subject. Now, Sir, one of the strongest evidences, to my mind, of this condition of mind among many persons is, the implicit credence given to the statements contained in police.Returns—I do not mean the credence given to any mere statements of facts, but I mean the weight given to these statements of facts as evidence of the efficiency and the moralizing influence of this legislation. I do not propose to go into this part of the question at any length to-day, because I should trespass too long upon the patience of the House—and that part of the question has already been dealt with by my hon. Friend who moved the second reading of the Bill, and will, I dare say, be dealt with again by other hon. Members before the debate is closed; but I would say in reply to the hon. Baronet who has just addressed the House (Sir Charles Legard), that there is no clause in any of these Acts which gives the metropolitan police, or any other police, any power to suppress brothels, or to reclaim prostitutes, and that whatever influence they may choose to exercise, either directly or indirectly, in reducing the number of brothels, in warning girls or in reclaiming prostitutes, could be exercised precisely to the same extent and effect, if the Contagious Diseases Acts were not in existence. Sir, there are certain things which
  1582
  I desire very much to state, and, if I can, to demonstrate to the House, if it will grant me its patient hearing. I wish to show, as distinctly as I can, the origin of this legislation—the ideas and expectations in which it originated. They have been referred to by the hon. Baronet (Sir Charles Legard) who has just spoken. I want to prove to the House that, in spite of the figures which he has placed before them, those expectations have not been realized. The question before us, practically, is not whether we will maintain the status quo, and, for the sake of Army and Navy efficiency, retain these Acts in our garrison and seaport towns. In my opinion it is not possible for us, for any length of time, to hold that ground. I believe these Acts will be extended if they are not repealed; and I will give the House my reasons for that belief. Then, Sir, I desire to point out, from Continental experience, the demoralization which is certain to result from the prolonged existence of a law, whether partially applied or extended to the whole country, such as the law which now exists; and I speak of demoralization not merely in the ordinary sense—in the sense of sexual morality or immorality—but of demoralization in the sense of the destruction of all notions of liberty, of law, and of justice in this land. We are sometimes asked, what substitutes we would propose for the Contagious Diseases Acts. We are not bound to propose substitutes for a law which we hold to be altogether evil. If substitutes are held to be necessary, then it will be for the Government of the day to propose substitutes. But though I can recognize no obligation in this respect, I do not shrink—so far as the expression of my personal opinion is concerned—from stating clearly to the House the principles with reference to which I, for one, should discuss and consider any substitutes which might be proposed for the existing legislation in this matter. There is one more fact which I wish to state before I address myself to my argument, and that is, the fact that the opposition to this legislalation is no longer confined to our own country. A common evil and a common danger have made other countries unite with us in a common cause, and the movement against the State-sanction and State-regulation of sexual vice, has ex-

  1583
  tended into many lands besides our own. It has extended not only into other countries of Europe, but into the Colonies, and into the United States of America; and, at this moment, the movement is making great progress, both in the Republic of Switzerland and in the Kingdom of Italy. In the Kingdom of Italy a Commission, similar to the one which sat in this country some years ago, is now engaged in considering all the regulations which govern the conditions of prostitution in that country; and, Sir, I feel bound to say to the House that those in this country and elsewhere who have thus banded themselves together in what they hold to be a good cause—are not unconscious—none, indeed, can be so conscious—of the enormity of the task which they have taken upon themselves; but they have taken it upon themselves, moved by a profound sense of duty, of fidelity to the highest principles which ought to guide our actions in this life, and they do not feel it permitted to them to relax their efforts. I will now, with the leave of the House, turn to the first of my subjects—the original object of the introduction of this legislation. Now the original object was to promote the efficiency of our military and naval Forces. I know that that object has been widened—and I will not forgot that as I go on—but the original object, the justification in people's minds, of this legislation as far as it goes (for it is confined to these districts around our military and naval stations) was the preservation of the efficiency of our Army and Navy Forces. The hon. Baronet who spoke last has referred to the conditions—frightful conditions—of disease in 1853;and, no doubt, from that reference he is equally conscious of the large expectations of improvement which were held out at the time when the Act of 1864 was first introduced. My proposition is that these expectations have not been realized; that their realization has not been even approximated, and I do not think any man really aware of the extent of the expectations in those times, and familiar with subsequent figures, can deny my proposition that these expectations have not been realized, even upon the Returns and figures of the Government themselves. Now, I will take the Government Returns, the Army and Navy Medical Reports. I am not
  1584
  about to question any figures in those Reports. I am about to enter into no close or doubtful calculations. It appears to me that the classification of disease might in minor points be contested; but I will deal with the thing largely, and I do not think my right hon. Friend who will follow me will find any reason to question the accuracy of my statement. I will avoid the use of medical terms—I have never found it necessary to use medical terms. I will first point out that the Army Medical Reports divided the diseases caused by sexual vice into two heads, and without giving the medical names, will characterize the one as "the less" and the other as "the more serious class." With regard to the less serious class, it is not only explicitly admitted, on the face of the Army and Navy Reports, but shown by these very Reports, that no diminution has followed, as a consequence of the enactment of these Acts. That is with respect to the less serious class of disease. With regard to that which is called the more serious class of disease, there is a decrease. Now, that decrease has often been exaggerated to my mind. But I will not for the moment deal with the question of that exaggeration. There is a decrease, but whatever that decrease may be—whatever proportion of that decrease may be due to the influence of the Contagious Diseases Acts, and whatever proportion to a continuation of the decrease which was previously going on from year to year, and which was due to causes entirely independent of the Acts—whatever those proportions may be, my proposition is, that the decrease is in the less serious cases only of this more serious class. I will give the House what, to my mind, is a proof of the accuracy of my proposition. I turn to the Army and Navy Reports to find out what has been the effect of this legislation upon the disease, upon which the hon. Baronet who has just spoken was so eloquent—
  "that constitutional disease which permanently affects the constitution of the man, which affects it may be his innocent wife or generations of children yet unborn."
  And when I turn to these figures I find that taking the whole Army, of which about two-thirds is now stated to be protected by these Acts, there is no reduction in these more serious cases.

  1585
  Inspector General Lawson has questioned this statement. What is the result according to his calculation? It is simply this—that whereas I have said that in the year 1866 the admissions to the hospitals in respect of the more serious cases of constitutional disease were in the proportion of 23˙39 per 1,000, and that in 1872 they were in the proportion of 24˙26, the real facts were that—taking into account cases which I have omitted because they were, so to say, concealed under other names—the admissions for the year 1866 were in the proportion of 24˙8. That is to say, 24˙8 instead of 23˙29. Well, I really do not think we need deal with decimals in a matter of this kind. I do not think my right hon. Friend would justify this exceptional legislation on the ground that as far as the Army Medical Reports show, there is a decrease of a decimal in the admissions to the hospitals, in respect of the more serious cases of constitutional disease. I think we really must deal with the matter in a somewhat more comprehensive manner, and I have no doubt that that will be the course of the right hon. Gentleman. Now I come to the home Navy, with which he must be particularly familiar. With respect to the less serious class of disease, there is a very large increase of admissions in the case of the home Navy. There is no progressive decrease in that which is really serious—constitutional disease; and if I come to the question of efficiency, I find that, taking all these classes of disease together, as regards the Navy, the number of admissions of constantly sick and of invalided per 1,000 is larger now than it was at the date of the passing of these Acts. Now, I differed from the calculations of the Secretary of State for War—or, rather, the right hon. Gentleman differed from my figures—last year. The calculations he then read to the House are not in the Army and Navy Reports, and have not been laid on the Table of the House in the shape of a Return; and I submit that it is hardly fair to the House that we should be expected to take for granted, not only figures, but calculations and deductions from figures which are not placed before us in order that we may carefully analyze and consider them ourselves. I have had some opportunity since of knowing—I think, accurately—
  1586
  what was the basis of these calculations, and I believe it to have been this—The theory was that it was necessary in this case, in order to avoid errors arising from fluctuation from year to year, to compare periods of a certain length in former years with periods of the same length in subsequent years. Statistically speaking, that is, generally, a perfectly sound method of proceeding; but here there are special circumstances which have to be taken into consideration. Taking periods of a certain length for our calculations, we find that in one period there was a steady, continuous diminution of these diseases, owing to causes perfectly independent of the Acts, because pre-existent to them: and it is neither fair nor accurate, statistically speaking, to take a long period before the Acts to get a higher starting point. For a considerable number of years before the enactment of the Contagious Diseases Acts there was a constant and steady diminution in these diseases, from causes which military men know well; and in the number of admissions into hospitals in respect of these diseases. I am therefore entitled to argue that the only correct method of calculation, the only sound datum and starting point is, to begin at a point of reduction in disease which we had attained before the passing of these Acts, and compare what was existent at that particular time with what has existed subsequently. There is another source of error in the Government calculations to which I would call the attention of my right hon. Friend. I ask his attention to these sources of error, because I do not know that they have ever been pointed out to him, and because I am sure he would desire to deal with this matter fairly. In the Army Reports, a comparison is made between the subjected districts and certain selected districts. These districts have, of course, been selected with every intention to select them fairly; but I think I can show to my right hon. Friend and the House that there is an error latent in that selection, although, of course, unintentional. If, instead of taking the selected districts for comparison, you were to take the whole of the Army outside the subjected districts, you would reduce the number of admissions in the rest of the Army 20 per cent. That is to say, you have gained 20 per cent in your argument in

  1587
  favour of the Acts by taking those selected districts. But there is another source of error in taking the selected districts, because if you take London and Dublin you will see that there are exceptional circumstances affecting the rate of admissions. I submit to the House that the cases of London and Dublin are so far exceptional that we cannot select them for a true comparison; and I will show how the comparison is thereby disturbed. In the year 1873, the average numbers constantly in hospital per 1,000 in respect of the more serious class of disease were in the proportion of 4˙45. In the selected districts the proportion was 8˙86; but if you eliminate London and Dublin from these selected districts, you will reduce the proportion from 8˙86 to something like 4˙90. In the year 1874 the proportion in the subjected districts was 3˙11 per 1,000; in the selected districts it was 6˙89; and if you eliminate London and Dublin, it would be 4 and a small decimal, which I have not been able with perfect certainty to calculate. If you take in the unselected districts, I believe there will be no difference whatever between the numbers per 1,000 constantly sick from the more serious class of disease in the subjected districts, and the numbers for the whole of the rest of the Army. I only wish the right hon. Gentleman to take these figures into his consideration. Inspector General Lawson's figures were somewhat extraordinary. He made out, and appears to have persuaded the Secretary of State for War that in the subjected districts there was a saving through the Acts of 387 men daily; but he arrived at that conclusion by a method of calculation which appears to me to be erroneous. He found that if it had not been for the Acts, the numbers constantly sick would have been 13˙41, instead of 5 and a decimal, which I have not heard stated; but in the un-subjected and selected districts, which are favourable to the supporters of the Acts, the numbers constantly sick were only 8˙86;and therefore it is perfectly clear that there is an error in this method of calculation which cannot stand the test of criticism. These are really imaginary figures, based on calculations which, to my mind, cannot be sound; and, at any rate, they are calculations on hypotheses and not figures representing the actual state of the case. One
  1588
  more thing I have to say. Since Lord Cardwell's Order of 1873 it is admitted, on the face of these Returns, that they are not worth the paper on which they are written. In the latter part of 1873, Lord Cardwell issued an Order stopping the pay of soldiers in hospitals, and before that expired we had a marvellous drop in the number of admissions, followed by a much more marvellous one in 1874. I know, and any of the medical officers engaged in the Army Department will confirm the statement, that they do not themselves rely upon, and consequently that we are not bound to accept, those Returns as to admissions to hospital since the date of that Order stopping the pay of the soldier when he was in the hospital. Now, taking a large view of this subject, and not going into minute matters of a few figures—1, 2, or 3 per cent, more or less—the question I have to put to the Government and the House is this—Assuming for the moment that the only question is simply the maintenance of these Acts for the purpose of securing and promoting efficiency in our naval and military Forces, I ask whether there is any sufficient evidence of success to justify us, even for that purpose and object, in maintaining legislation to which none of us can assent without repugnance and regret? But this question of efficiency is not, to my mind, the real question. There is nothing I so earnestly desire to do as to enable the House to appreciate the real dimensions of this question. My proposition is that we cannot stop here—that if these Acts are not repealed, they will inevitably be extended, and I will justify that proposition by arguments founded upon logic, experience, and positive evidence of intention, so far as this country is concerned. First, however, with regard to the argument of the hon. Baronet who immediately preceded me (Sir Charles Legard)—the argument as to constitutional disease. The hon. Baronet asked the House to hesitate before it repealed Acts which, to his mind, had already put a strong check upon that constitutional disease which he said might affect generations yet unborn. I have shown the House that there is really no substratum of fact, as far as we can judge from the evidence before us in these Returns, to justify the appeal of the hon. Baronet. I do not believe in the

  1589
  fact, but neither do I believe in the argument based upon it. I believe that even if you could, by generalizing this legislation, stamp out a specific disease, you would give such a sanction, and such a stimulus to vice, that, leaving the question of morality entirely on one side, you would, inevitably, in the course of a generation, bring about a general physical degeneracy far worse than any specific disease. But as the argument used by the hon. Baronet is one that operates on many minds; let us consider where it would lead us. Those who believe it cannot be satisfied with legislation confined to certain limited stations. If society is justified in this special legislation by the duty of endeavouring to stamp out a certain constitutional disease, then society can only be justified if it adopt measures which, by hypothesis, are capable of producing such an effect. How can you produce such an effect if you confine this legislation to certain exceptional military and naval stations? I say, therefore, that if you reflect upon it, you will see that the argument based on the necessity of stamping out constitutional disease—if, indeed, it could be done—must, by an absolute, logical compulsion, lead you to the necessity and duty of generalizing these laws and making them binding and operative on the whole civil community in this country. My next argument is one founded on experience. If you go to any country on the Continent where these laws have been maintained for a generation, you will not find a single instance where they are confined to military and naval stations. They affect the centre of population, whether military and naval stations or not. Now, as to the question of intent, as far as this country is concerned. All these Army and Navy Medical Reports are full of suggestions that these Acts ought to be extended to the whole civil population—and full of suggestions that any partial failure in their operation is to be attributed to the fact that they are not universal, and that the disease creeps in from the un-subjected districts of the country. But we have other evidence. A year or two ago an officer of the Board of Trade—Mr. T. Gray—went the round of the seaports. He did not speak on the authority of my right hon. Friend; but he went the round of the seaports and
  1590
  preached the extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts in these districts. There are other and more important agencies. A society exists for the extension of these Acts—a society containing amongst its members the names of many eminent medical men, and the names of not a few Members of this House. I have here the Report of that Society for the year 1875, and in that Report I find these words—
  "Under present circumstances"—that is to say, the circumstances of the opposition to this legislation—"the society do not aim at so wide and immediate an extension of the Acts as before; but the case of certain seaport towns, not subjected to the Acts, which are known to be hotbeds of disease introduced by sailors of the merchant service of our own and foreign countries is so glaring, and attended with such disastrous consequences, that we feel it our duty to call for special interference to repress this disease."
  And if any more evidence is wanted, we find it in the Report of Captain Harris, to which reference has already been made. (Parliamentary Paper No. 276, June 12.) I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) is here to-day, and will be able to say something on this subject; because this Report speaks of "great efforts being made to extend the Acts to Liverpool and Sheffield," and says it will be a great benefit if it were extended to the western counties. Well, then, am I not justified in thus judging the logical consequences of the argument based on the necessity of extirpating and stamping out disease? From the experience of foreign countries, and from the evidence of intention in this country itself, am I not justified in saying that there is in these Acts a principle of growth—I would say, of evil growth—an appeal to the worst motives of some men, and to the mistaken philanthropy of others, that these Acts should be extended to the whole community? Now, I will ask the House—assuming that we must consider this subject from this point of view of the inevitable extension of these laws, if they be not repealed—I will ask the House to bear with me a few moments whilst I endeavour to put before them some of the consequences to morality and to law which I think would follow from such an extension. What is the future that we must be prepared for? In every centre of population throughout these islands, you would have, by force of law, a selected, centralized, irresponsible police force, in-

  1591
  vested with a perfectly arbitrary power of dealing with the question of prostitution, and of bringing upon the register, and to examination, and to the hospitals, all women whom they have reason to suspect. I am not about to discuss the question of discretion—there may be as much discretion among these police as has been asserted—I speak of the arbitrary system; and by arbitrary, I mean above and outside the law. And I say, without fear or possibility of contradiction, that you cannot extend Acts like these to the whole population—that you cannot work Acts like these—unless you invest the police with practically arbitrary discretion; and I say that the so-called "voluntary submission" is an instrument of terrorism, without which you could not work these Acts; for you could not work them, if you had more than a very small percentage of cases before the Courts of Law. Supposing that in every centre of population you had a body of selected, centralized police, because such functions cannot be entrusted to your local police—and, supposing this system in operation for a generation, then I will ask any constitutional lawyer in this House what he thinks would by that time have been the effect, first of all on the character of the police administration of the country, and then upon those principles of law, of judicial administration and of personal liberty, which have been hitherto the basis of our constitutional life? But, though these laws are arbitrary, and would be still more so if they were extended to the whole of the population, they have not yet reached, in this country, anything approaching to the arbitrariness to which they would inevitably attain if we were to extend them. More stringent laws are constantly being demanded by experts on this subject. Wherever these laws have been in operation on the Continent of Europe their failure is denounced by the very medical specialists who are at the head and front of this question, and to remedy this failure, these medical specialists invariably demand more and more stringent legislation of this kind. International medical congresses have been held where such proposals are brought forward as that the examination of the women concerned should take place much more frequently—not once in a fortnight, or once a week, but once every
  1592
  two or three days; and that the compulsory examination should be extended to certain classes of men. I never heard it proposed that it should be extended to the titled or the rich; but I know that the proposal has been made with regard to our own seafaring and manufacturing population, and also to the lower class of officials in other countries. And, lastly, these medical specialists propound that nothing short of an international, universal system, homogeneous and practically identical for all civilized countries, will be sufficient for the purposes which they have in view. I will give you a few quotations from the pamphlet to which my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Sir Harcourt Johnstone) has referred; and in the statements of M. Lecour respecting the condition of Paris, you will find evidence of the accuracy of what I say. [The right hon. Gentleman accordingly read numerous extracts from the pamphlet referred to.] The whole of the extracts I have read to the House form a confession of failure on the part of the greatest expert in these matters in any civilized country in the world. His last and almost despairing demand is for powers which I devoutly trust this House will never sink so low as to accord, and, even if they were accorded, M. Lecour tells us in profound sadness that he has but one hope left, and that hope consists in a return to those moral influences whose power and whose life, it is my deep conviction, would be sapped and under mined by the legislation he proposes. I ask the House, not without much of this same sadness too, whether it is possible for any thinking man, looking at these proofs of the tendency of this legislation and the logical conclusion to which it inevitably leads, and to the experience of foreign countries to support such all-pervading and perfectly arbitrary schemes of police management as it is declared will alone suffice for the hygienic objects in view, whether they are schemes which Parliament ought to sanction; and whether their effect, if they were carried out, would not be to sap the foundation of those principles of law and liberty, morality and religion, which have hitherto been recognized as the basis of our national and constitutional life? Now, is there nothing to be done? I have put that question to myself, and I will endeavour to answer it. Is there

  1593
  nothing to be done to alleviate human suffering and to check this disease? That is the idea latent in the minds of those who yield to the seduction of this legislation. Is there nothing that can be done? I think there is. I would say, let us act upon the principles of the religion we profess. Let us not be deceived by police details about the reclamation of prostitutes, juvenile or others. Neither legislation nor compulsory examination can help us here, and these are the gist, the kernel of this legislation. We have a right to ask for laws which shall promote order and decency, or rather we have a right to the due administration of the existing laws on these subjects. To my mind, these laws are not duly administered in this metropolis. We have a right to remove temptation from the path of the young of both sexes, and I hope we shall exercise that right. Then we have a duty to discharge—a duty which I, for one, am prepared to admit has not been fully performed in this country. We have the duty of curing disease. I entirely differ from those who would look askance at human misery and disease because it is the consequence of vice. I say, all the more because it is the consequence of vice will I seek to cure it, because, if properly administered, cure may lead to the moral result we ought to desire. I believe that when this legislation is removed—and it will ultimately be removed—there will be an immense and favourable revulsion of public feeling in regard to this part of the subject, and that voluntary, philanthropic, and religious zeal, in co-partnership with medical skill and medical philanthropy, will find means by which far more good can be accomplished than by any compulsory laws. But I would not be content with voluntary efforts alone. The principle of the Poor Law, if properly administered, ought to suffice for all we want. Sanitary legislation and administration are in a state of progress, and I believe that when this question comes before us for a practical purpose, methods will be found by which, not only in the subjected districts, but throughout the country, the alleviation of suffering and the cure of disease may be brought about more surely, through voluntary zeal, and far more efficaciously than by the present Acts. I venture to say, too, that there are improvements in the ad-
  1594
  ministration of military affairs which might do much good. The health of the Army, especially in these respects, was improving before these Acts were introduced, through the policy of Lord Herbert. I say that active industrial employments for soldiers, the learning of trades, to prevent idle time, a more healthy system of living, more healthy amusements, and greater facilities for marriage—within certain limits of age and length of service—would all have a beneficial effect; and all of these are improvements which, I trust, have not yet been carried to their fullest extent. Short service is the order of the day, and I believe that short service has not yet gone so far as it may do. But if we take our young men into the Army from 19 to 25 years of age, I ask, is it not a monstrous thing to declare by statute that it is inconceivable that any one of these young men can remain virtuous till he returns to his native home, and that therefore we must make statutory Governmental provisions to enable them to be safely vicious? But this is not only monstrous, it is increasingly mischievous; because year by year we shall send a larger number of these young men back to their homes and to civil life, after two years' training in the cynical conception that it is no part of their duty to place the slightest check upon their lowest passions or desires; but that it is part of the duty of the State to provide for the safe indulgence of those passions. I must now thank the House heartily for the close attention with which they have listened to me. I would appeal to them, let us retrace our steps, and thus coming once again on common ground which we can hold consistently with the principles which are dear to us all—the principles of Constitutional law, liberty, and morality, and of the religion we profess, I believe that we shall find manifold ways of doing far more than this legislation can even attempt towards the alleviation of human misery and the cure of disease.
  MR. MUNDELLA: I was not desirous of taking any part in this debate, because in the last Parliament I said what I wanted to say; but, having been a Member of that Royal Commission so often alluded to in the speech of the hon. Baronet who moved the rejection of the Bill (Sir Charles Legard), I feel that I ought to say something in relation

  1595
  to some of the statements which he has made to the House. I acquit the hon. Baronet of any desire to misstate anything with respect to that Commission; but I must point out that he has fallen into some glaring errors which I should have hardly expected after his telling the House that he had spent some time in mastering the whole question. The hon. Baronet told us of the frightful ravages of this disease prior to the introduction of these Acts. Now, if there was one thing more clearly established to the satisfaction of that Commission than another, it was that for 20 years past this disease had been very rapidly abating, and it was shown that the ratio of diminution was much greater before 1864 than it had been since that time. The reason was given for this decrease. Lord Herbert had introduced great improvements in the Army; and he did very much to humanize and civilize, as well as to improve the condition of the soldiers. He did very much, also, in the direction of cleanliness and better sanitary arrangements; and the result was that a steady and rapid diminution of the disease took place. I am always unwilling to quote statistics, but I should like to refer to the remarks of Mr. Charles Buxton, formerly M.P., in his Report to the House of that Commission. He traced the whole progress of the disease from the year 1860 to the year 1869, showing that in 1860 the proportion of cases of disease in the Army was constantly 54˙72 per 1,000, whereas in 1869 it had run down to 40˙82. That was the proportion for all diseases; but he also showed that in 1860 the number of persons who were constantly sick from this special disease was in the proportion of 23˙73 per 1,000; in 1861, 24˙70;in 1863, 20˙31; in 1864, 19˙11; and in 1865, 18˙14. Then the Acts began to operate, and his whole conclusion shows that four years after the Acts came into operation the diminution was only 1˙32, whereas in the four years previous to the introduction of the Acts, the diminution was 3˙42. Now, I would further remind the hon. Baronet that I sat for six months on that Commission, and that the Report of the Commission was entirely against the view which he has taken on this occasion. Any one, without previous knowledge, would suppose, hearing the speech which the hon. Baronet addressed to the House
  1596
  —a speech marked by considerable ability and great fluency—that he had taken his tone from the Report of the Royal Commission; but it is directly in the teeth of that Report, the first condition of which was that the compulsory examinations should be abolished. Well, why did the Royal Commission come to that conclusion? Was it from the conviction that they were likely to diminish the amount of the disease? No; they came to that conclusion on the ground of the immorality of the whole proceedings, and as much as anything from that very fact in regard to which the hon. Baronet has declared there is no real evidence, but merely the false statements of people going about and telling of the abomination of the examinations—statements which had no basis in fact. These are not pleasant things to refer to, but I will show you on most authoritative evidence how completely the hon. Baronet has either mistaken or overlooked the facts of the case. [The hon. Member accordingly read extracts from the evidence of Miss Lucy Bull, Matron of the Royal Albert Hospital at Devonport, and of an officer of the metropolitan police, employed to carry out the Acts at Shorncliffe, which can be read in the Report of the Royal Commission.] And proceeded—After all, this is not a question as to the effect of these Acts on our soldiers and sailors alone. I was very glad to hear the hon. Baronet (Sir Charles Legard) confine his argument as to the benefits of this sort of legislation very much to this section of the population, because, whatever may be said to the contrary, these Acts were obviously not designed to put down public-house brothels nor to reclaim fallen women, but solely for one purpose. What that purpose is I will explain to the House by reading to it the language of a Royal Commissioner, than whom a better man or a more just man ever lived. This Report was, as it states, "Respectfully submitted to the Commission" by the Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice—a Report that was put in before the Chairman drew up his Report. He said he could see nothing in the evidence to shake the opinion he should naturally have formed from reading the Acts, and he went on to say that the aim of the system was to provide fit subjects for fornication. Now, those who know how careful he

  1597
  was in the use of language, how temperate, how fair, just, and impartial he was, will attach much significance to these words. He was, I believe, at one time a vice-president of the Society for the Extension of these Acts. It was the case with him as it has been with several other gentlemen who formed part of the Royal Commission; some of them went in as subscribers, and others as vice-presidents of the Society of the Extension of these Acts, and they left the Society with the full conviction and determination in their minds that the compulsory examination of women should be abolished. And here let me remind the House that 16 of the Members of the Commission were agreed upon this point, and there were only some six or seven who did not think with them. Among the latter I may mention Lord Hampton and Sir John Trelawny, both of whom were Members of this House at the time, and had introduced the Acts; while the others were official members, one of them being the surgeon to the Metropolitan Police. But the fact remains that the balance of testimony, both as to the sanitary question and as to the moral question, was decidedly against the Acts. As to the sanitary part of the question—which I think is the very lowest ground upon which you can consider it, because there is the far greater and more important question of morality and public policy behind—the testimony of Mr. Simon ought to be sufficient; but on this point I may ask who was it that moved to insert a paragraph in the Report to the effect that all the evidence was worthless as establishing a good sanitary result—an Amendment which was only lost by a majority of one? Why, Sir, that Amendment was moved by no less a person than Professor Huxley, who is not a man likely to be swayed by sentiment, and who has been accustomed to analyze evidence. Well, after hearing all the evidence, he strongly urged the Commission to adopt his Amendment, that the testimony they had heard did not prove anything in the shape of any sanitary advantage or diminution of disease likely to be gained by the military and naval forces, or by the whole population, because according to Mr. Simon and Professor Huxley, and the whole of those who could speak with authority, the disease was steadily increasing both in amount and in intensity.
  1598
  But suppose I grant that the Acts have produced all the sanitary results to which their advocates lay claim; still I say that that is not the question. Suppose I take it for granted that you have saved something to the Army and to the Navy; I should still like to point out what has been the effect, and what will be the effect of such legislation as this upon the whole population. Let us take a contrast. The hon. Baronet (Sir Charles Legard) drew an exceedingly vivid picture of the ravages of this disease among countless thousands. He told us of its dreadful effect on children unborn. We are all aware of this, and we all regret it; but we cannot, by legislation, prevent the consequences of guilt. You may have heard of Dr. Acland, who, when he passed the picture of one of his ancestors, used to shake his stick at it, and say, "You rascal! It was you who gave me the gout." And, perhaps, after all he was justified in his remonstrance. But I wish at this moment to ask the House to contrast the state of health in England, and the condition of the English population generally, with the condition of any other nation in which this sort of legislation is being carried out. As the House is aware, I was a Member of the Royal Commission, and I took a strong interest in the question, and since that Commission has finished its work I have never failed to continue my investigations and reflections upon the subject, and every day, the more I know, the more deeply am I convinced of the radical error of the system. I do not say that we can do nothing to get rid of this disease; on the contrary, I think we can do very much, and the Royal Commission has recommended us to do much. But the Royal Commission say very naturally—"This is a very nasty subject; you have forced it upon us; we have heard the evidence upon it, and we have made up our minds;" and I would warn the House after what that Commission has placed before it not to persist in carrying on the existing legislation. But to proceed with the contrast I desire to put before the House. In France, you have the best system of regulations as applicable to this disease that the police can frame or carry out. Well, as my right hon. Friend below me (Mr. Stansfeld) has already told the House, that system is a failure, I was in Paris last Easter

  1599
  twelve months, staying there during the vacation, and while I was there I was introduced to M. Lecour, who is well acquainted with this subject. We discussed the matter over, and what was the result? He placed in my hands the literature of which he is the author—and I may say that he writes a book on this question nearly every year—and I found that so far from the French doctors being satisfied with what was going on, my friend was in the very midst of contention, discussion, and strife. Dr. Jeannel has written a book, from which it appears that the state of the disease in France is such as to alarm even the least sensitive person; and M. Lecour tells us what he has done, and in a book he published in 1874 he states that he arrested 11,000 women in Paris in the year 1873 for infractions of the regulations relating to this subject, and that yet the disease is increasing at no slow rate. And what, I ask, is the general condition of the French urban population? Contrast it with that of the English population, and I will tell you what you will find. With regard to the French soldiery, there was a statement that appeared in The Revue du Monde to the effect that after the conscription of 1873, it was found that when the men. who had been drawn from the urban districts came to be examined, 15,000 of them were rejected as unfit for military service, to something over 10,000 men who were accepted—that is to say, that out of 25,000 men who were drawn in the conscription from the urban districts, only 10,000 were found upon examination to be fit for service. This is the information we have as to the health of the Frenchmen, and much is also said in the same report as to the constitutional character of the disease from which they suffered. Now, let us take another point. The hon. Baronet (Sir Charles Legard) has spoken of the dreadful ravages made by the disease among our own population. I remember that when the Factory Inspectors made their enquiry into the condition of the factory children they stated that they had examined 10,000 children, singly and separately, by means of the medical officers they employed, and they reported as a striking fact that among 10,000 children of the factory population of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire, there was scarcely a trace of enthetic disease! I might also refer to Mr. Simon's Report
  1600
  as to the gross exaggeration that has prevailed on this subject. I should now like to refer the House for one moment to an article that appeared in last Saturday's Times. It is a most significant article on the state of the population in France. It calls attention to the facts regarding this country, which I need not go into, and then it goes on to show that the population in Great Britain will, at its present rate of increase, double itself in the course of 63 years, while in Denmark the same process will be accomplished in 73 years, and in Norway in 71 years, whereas in France, taking the ratio of increase for three-quarters of a century, it will require 334 years to double the French population. The Times warns us not to base our institutions on the social and legal institutions of France. Surely, Sir, we have here sufficient contrast between the two countries. In France you have all this compulsory legislation in full force. There you have all you can possibly desire by way of regulation, and yet the population is in the miserable state that has been described. Mr. Simon says it is the public policy of England to promote marriage, while in France it is indiscriminate fornication. What did old Ben Franklin say? and there were few wiser men in his day than he. He taught, from the mere low ground of political economy, that what will maintain one vice will keep two children. Let us beware how we encourage a system under which young men spend the flower of their youth, wasting their time and health in irregular indulgences. Let them have the courage to marry as their forefathers have done, and increase the population. Marriage is the best restraint on the vices of youth, and I verily believe that but for the celibate state of the Army you would never have heard one word of the disease which is now so rife in that service. No one ever hears of the Contagious Diseases Acts being needed for the Civil Service, or for any other service; they are solely passed with the view of maintaining a celibate Army. Very glowing accounts are given of the closing of 250 public-house brothels since these Acts came into force. But I ask, if these Acts are so beneficial, why should they be confined to the districts they at present protect? Why should we not close public-house brothels all over England? If

  1601
  you find it necessary to maintain a police for the special purpose of enforcing these Acts, why do you not send them all over England? There is no doubt that if the Government were in earnest on the subject they could close all the public-house brothels in every part of England. It is said that they save young girls from the streets. Is that the object of the Acts? I say that, on the contrary, the object is to prepare young girls for the streets, and not to save them. ["Oh, oh!"] I do not doubt that the English, policeman, or Englishmen of any kind, would do whatever they can, apart from the mere matter of imposed duty, to save these poor girls. But what did the Royal Commissioners recommend? Why, that girls under 16 or 17 should be taken off the streets; but no one has paid any attention to it. They also recommended that the public-house brothels generally should be closed, but no one has paid any attention to that. Beyond this they made a recommendation that the age at which the seduction of girls should be made criminal should be altered from 12 to 14, and after having fought this for four or five Sessions we have raised the age to 13. I am the last man to say that we ought not to grapple with this evil. On the contrary, I say we ought to do everything we can to grapple with it; and I am seriously assured of one thing, and that is that we should take these poor creatures and heal them, not that they may go and sin again, but that they may "go and sin no more." Captain Harris says there is a strenuous effort being made to extend these Acts to Sheffield. I have made every inquiry in Sheffield, and I believe that there is no town in England where it would be more impossible to introduce these Acts than Sheffield, and I also believe that the whole population would rise, almost en masse, against any attempt to carry out such a project. I trust that when the right hon. Gentleman rises to speak on behalf of the Government, he will tell us how it is that such a statement ever came to be put forward, and who are the persons who have ever made any representation demanding the extension of these Acts to the borough I have the honour to represent. Granting, for the sake of argument, all that you claim on sanitary grounds, I say that in the interests of public morality and public policy these Acts are among the
  1602
  most dangerous, if not the most dangerous, that Parliament has ever introduced during the present century, and that if the policy on which they are founded be persisted in, it will ultimately be found to produce the most mischievous and pernicious results.
  MR. HENLEY: Sir, I wish to state shortly why I shall support this Bill. First, what do I find is the practice? I find that these unhappy women are enrolled, as it were, in a kind of regiment, with police officers appointed to look after and command it, and officers of the medical staff attached. And what is all this done for? Not to discourage vice, not to punish immorality; nothing of the kind, but simply to turn these unhappy women among the population almost "warranted free from complaint," in order that they may exercise their calling, which, to say the least of it, cannot be righteous. Such is the actual working of these Acts. And what are the reports we hear from the places where these Acts are in force? Why, we are told that everything that used to disgust in the unhappy victims of this vice is almost entirely removed from sight, and that, on the other hand, these unfortunate people are now much better dressed, so that vice simulates virtue and becomes more attractive. Well, I ask the House, is this a proper object for a Christian Legislature to maintain? For my part I cannot reconcile it with our duty, and when I look to any other part of the world where unfortunately this idea of regulating vice has been prevalent for many years, what do I find is the result? Why the result is—although, perhaps, I am hardly warranted in calling it such—a very low state of morality. Up to within a few years we have abstained from this kind of legislation in our own country. The number of children born in wedlock constitutes a test of the morality of a country that cannot be mistaken, and in that respect, thank God, our country stands so well in comparison with other nations, that I cannot help thinking that the kind of law which is prevalent on almost every part of the Continent must have had something to do in the creation of that worse state of things, as compared with what exists here. And I would here refer to another matter that has struck me very forcibly. In a country immediately opposite to our own, the

  1603
  result of the very low state of morality that has prevailed there has been a want of children. If that country had increased its population in the way this country has, I doubt whether they would not have given a much better account of the Germans than they were able to do. These, Sir, are some of the reasons that will induce me to support this Bill, the object of which is to repeal these Acts. I hardly believe it to be true that sanitary grounds have been the cause of this legislation, because if that really were the case—if those who produce this kind of legislation had no other object—we should not have heard so much stress laid upon this particular point. Indeed, I believe that they would have refrained from proposing these measures, because the medical evidence from the beginning has shown them that they could have no real confidence in the stamping out of this disease unless they applied the law to men as well as to women. But the authorities of this country so far from adopting this course—and their refusal to do so makes me disbelieve their sincerity—not only refrained from applying the law to the men, but they actually discontinued the examination of the men when they began the examination of the women. I have no doubt that the duty was felt disagreeable and disgusting both by the men and the surgeons; but if the real object had been a sanitary object, and if the purpose really was to get rid of the disease for the benefit of the community, I never can believe that they would have taken the course they have adopted, of merely shifting the examination from one sex to the other, when the medical men themselves tell us that this procedure can be of no real value. I am sorry to have taken up the time of the House, but I have felt strongly on this matter; and believing that the legislation against which this Bill is aimed is immoral, I shall vote against it now, as I have done from the beginning, and as I intend to do so as long as I can raise my voice against it.
  MR. WHITBREADsaid, that although they had arrived at so late an hour, and so near the close of the debate, he was anxious to say a few words in explanation of the vote he intended to give on this question. He was the more anxious to do so, because at one time he had some little responsibility resting upon him in connection with this sub-
  1604
  ject, and he did not think there was any one then sitting in that House who had so complete a knowledge of the steps that were taken by the Government shortly before the first Act was introduced, and when the question was first mooted in Parliament, as he had. As he thought that this legislation was founded on a gigantic delusion, he must ask the House for a few moments to give him its attention while he endeavoured, without going into the moral question, or even into the statistical question, which had been so ably and convincingly dealt with by others, and particularly by his right hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) to relate the story as it actually came before him at the time he was connected with the Board of Admiralty. About the years 1859 and 1860—he went back thus far, because he wanted to show what this legislation was founded on—the attention of every one connected with the Navy and the Army was drawn, and drawn very forcibly, to the terrible condition of the men at many of the military and naval stations where the disease was no doubt rife to a serious and alarming extent. He remembered particularly well, a little later on, being very much struck by the case of the Warrior. The Warrior was the first iron-clad ship we had, and she was sent on a trial cruise. She carried a picked crew of 500 or 600 healthy men, and she had to put in at Portsmouth for some small repairs to her steering-gear, which occupied a short time. The number of men she left in hospital suffering from this disease was alarming, and no one who was responsible for the efficiency of the Service could hesitate to take any steps that could properly be taken to mitigate such an evil. Now, the hon. Baronet (Sir Charles Legard) had spoken with considerable ability against the Motion, and had referred to a Departmental Committee which reported in the year 1862, and which consisted of persons connected officially with the Admiralty and the War Office—a Committee of which he (Mr. Whitbread) had the honourable, although the unpleasant, post of Chairman. As the hon. Baronet had referred to that Committee, and as the time had long since passed away, he did not know that he should be violating any confidence in also referring openly in the House to that Committee, although

  1605
  its Report was never laid before Parliament. That Committee met to consider what steps could be taken in connection with this subject, and they began by asking the assistance of the Foreign Office in collecting information not only as to the law on the subject in Continental States, but also as to the statistics of the disease. He would not go too minutely into all that came before them—he might, however, say that they found that the severity of the regulations in Continental States on this subject bore no relation whatever to the amount of the disease. He would beg the House to bear this fact in mind. As it was then so was it now. The House had just heard what his right hon. Friend (Mr. Stansfeld) and others had told them about the evidence from France. The Committee also had found that in many places where the regulations were extremely severe the disease was alarming—quite as bad as it was in England; and they had found that in other places where there appeared to be few regulations, and where these were scarcely put in force, the disease varied, being sometimes lighter and sometimes more severe. But there was one, as he thought, most unfortunate case, and he believed it was out of that one particular case that a vast deal of the mischief of the present legislation originated. That was the case of Malta. There, long before the time he was speaking of, there had been repressive laws on this subject, and a few years before the date of the Committee those laws had been repealed. The disease immediately sprang up. Those laws were re-enacted, and the disease was apparently for a time stamped out. This it was that led to the cry by which this legislation was forced on the country, and every one talked of stamping out the disease. This was what had been the cardinal delusion. Before he proceeded further he would here state that there was another place under the control of the British Government—he referred to Gibraltar—where laws as repressive as those at Malta were enforced with this advantage, that if a woman were found to be diseased she could be dispatched right across the neutral territory and got rid of without the trouble of putting her into a hospital, and yet the disease at Gibraltar was as severe as it was in England. He had asked gentlemen from both places
  1606
  how this difference was to be explained, and he remembered a gentleman well acquainted with Malta stating to him in private conversation the reason for what had been observed at that island. That gentleman had stated that at Malta the class of women who associated with the soldiers and sailors was a totally distinct class, and as thoroughly well-known as if they were negroes and of a different colour from the rest of the population. It was, therefore, possible to lay hold of all of them. There was no other place from which a fresh importation could come, no place where so complete a cordon could be drawn around those women; but at Gibraltar, as in England, if they tried the stamping out process, they would find a very large Border land which they could not regulate. There was an enormous number of these women in different places, who were ostensibly earning an honest living during the day, and whom no police in the country could touch, for public opinion would not stand it. Let them pass what Acts they liked, there were points beyond which they dared not go, and if they were to attempt to interfere too severely with women who, to all appearance, were earning an honest living during the day, but who might be conducting themselves irregularly at other times, there would be such a revolution of public opinion against them that they would soon have to rescind the legislation which raised the outcry. Another point that came before the Committee was the terrible condition of the poor women, living in the neighbourhoods where soldiers were quartered; and, he must say, that this was one of the most painful things the Committee had inquired into. The local police officers and others detailed the condition in which those poor women were—not so much with regard to their moral degradation as with respect to the physical misery and torture they had to endure; for when a soldier or sailor found himself diseased by a woman, his revenge was not always of the tenderest character. The Committee were told by the local police authorities, that if voluntary hospitals were set up, the condition of those poor women was such that they would gladly go into them. The hon. Baronet had referred to the Report of this Committee as if they were supporters of the Act. He would read

  1607
  one clause of their Report containing their recommendation to show whether this was so. A coercive course was strongly urged on the Committee, and they said—
  "The former or coercive course has been strongly urged upon your Committee, by many who have had opportunity for observing the fearful extent and evil consequences of venereal disease in our military and naval hospitals. Tour Committee, however, have not found in the Reports from foreign countries where this system is practised, such conclusive and consistent evidence of the diminution of the disease by coercive measures as to lead them, particularly while the other course remains untried, to recommend for adoption in this country a system involving new and questionable principles of legislation, and certain to be distasteful to a large portion of the public."
  This Report was acted upon for a certain time and to a certain extent. Parliament voted money for the erection of Lockwards at different seaports and military stations, and, to a certain extent, the voluntary system was tried. But it had a most unfair trial as compared with the coercive system. For how was it tried? It was tried tentatively, by opening one small ward at each of three stations, and it was tried for a short time only. The fact was that it was starved in point of accommodation, and it was voted a failure upon the very smallest evidence that could be brought against it, without an attempt to find a remedy for the weak points discovered in it. It was tried at Devonport with 25 beds, and the contribution to the ward containing them was only paid on the quarterly certificate of the Commander-in-Chief, who was the Admiralty visitor, that the beds had been fully occupied during the quarter. But the moment coercion was put in force they had four times as much accommodation. Was that a fair trial? No one could deny that the wards opened on the voluntary system were filled, but it was charged against them that the patients went out before they were cured, and that they did not go in soon enough in the earlier stages of the disease. And now the great stamping-out theory came in. But it seemed to be forgotten that the first thing necessary in the stamping-out process was to get the thing to be stamped out under their feet, and that was what had never been done with the disease in any country with the single exception of Malta. About the time this legislation
  1608
  began the cattle plague had appeared, and it was supposed that it had been stamped out, and it was thought that human beings could be dealt with in the same way as cattle; but what would have been thought of the wisdom of the cattle plague regulations if they had only interdicted the travelling of diseased cattle on the turnpike roads, and had left all the bye-ways open? This was exactly what was happening with regard to these Acts. If it were possible to stamp out this disease, how was it that during the period the coercive system had prevailed it had been productive of so small a result? Another point was that under the voluntary system the objection felt to the system of registering the names was obviated. The great point that was made against the voluntary system, was that women went out before they were cured; but admitting that this might be the case in some instances, he considered that the system had immense advantages over that of compulsion. The only real argument in favour of the continuance of these Acts would be their success, and that they had not been a success was fully apparent from the evidence. It was quite evident that the Contagious Diseases Acts had no power in them to prevent immorality. There was no new power for keeping order in the streets—that was done by other laws. There was no especial power to enable them to reform young girls or to suppress bad houses. If any man spoke a kind word to a young person entering upon an evil course it would have its effect if it were a word in season, but these words were not spoken under any authority given by the Contagious Diseases Acts. If a police officer spoke them he did so out of his own humanity and not as directed by the Acts. He could not shut his eyes to the fact that a certain number of these women might be deterred from entering the prescribed districts and following an immoral life by the dread of being put upon the register. But, to his mind, this power of registration was the most tremendous that could be put in the hands of any set of men. He submitted that if the State were to continue this power and this attempt to make people virtuous by threatening to place them on the black list, it ought not to be confined to this particular offence, nor to one sex. He did not wish to say a

  1609
  single word against the police who had to carry out these Acts. He himself had had a hand in placing the Metropolitan Police in the Dockyards, and he believed that a better step in the way of economy was never made. He was fully aware of the good services rendered by that force, but he greatly regretted that they had employed them in this business; but should these Acts be extended, as was proposed, they could be no longer worked by the Metropolitan Police, and he wanted to know how they would be enabled to get a sufficient number of experienced and competent men to discharge the duties—it would be impossible to find a sufficient number of the Metropolitan Police for the purpose. He would here refer to a suggestion contained in a speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers), which he made last year, and which had been backed up by Petitions of singular weight, which he presented the other day. The suggestion was that they should treat this disease as they treated other contagious diseases, and say that any person should be punished for wilfully and knowingly communicating it. If they were to act upon this expedient, they would have this great advantage that they would punish not only her, but him who communicated disease. In that case the legislation would be fair and equal as between the two sexes. The policy that had been adopted in the Army appeared to him a great mistake. There it was made penal to contract the disease, and the soldier who did contract it was placed under stoppages. He could not imagine a more fatal policy; because if, in place of making it penal to the soldier or sailor to contract the disease, they had put him under stoppages for concealing the fact, and made it penal to communicate the disease, they would have been dealing with the matter in a far more sensible and natural manner. Now, as it had been found impossible to stamp out disease in this country by coercion, was it not time to consider whether there might not be some alternative course? The voluntary system was voted a failure, but the solid fact remained that the voluntary wards were popular and full. He was now going to state that which he could not prove, but which he believed at the time, and believed still to be true, and that was this, that into the Lock
  1610
  wards, under the voluntary system, women were induced to enter of a class whom the police could not have touched under a coercive system. The reason why the police could not introduce them would perhaps be seen in the report of one of the cases in Captain Harris' recent Paper. But what was the difference? In that time he was speaking of women coming in; no questions were asked; they were cured and they went out, no one being able to point at them in their future life. Now they could not come in without having their names placed upon the register. The result was that many women were kept out who, under the voluntary system, would have been brought in. If it were true that the women left before they were cured, that might have been met. He considered the point at the time, and it seemed to him best if they had a voluntary system to rely upon it as a purely voluntary system; but it must be evident that it would be a very different thing to take powers to detain a person who had voluntarily come into the hospital and to exercise the power which was now in operation under the Contagious Diseases Acts. The objections as to the two would be of a very different degree. In fact, in our Poor Law system, as at present administered, there was power to detain in the workhouse infirmary any person who might be brought in affected with one of these diseases. His own opinion was that it would be better to rely on the system as purely voluntary until we had more experience upon the subject; and if, after that experience, it were found necessary to take powers to detain the dangerous, then the objection he would have to offer to legislation of that kind would be very different in degree and in kind from that which he entertained to the police powers of the present Acts. Now, it could not be said that no alternative was offered. He was as anxious as the hon. Baronet who spoke against the Bill (Sir Charles Legard) to minimize, as far as possible, this disease, but he honestly thought that the end might be attained by means less objectionable than those by which it was now sought. He would earnestly appeal to his right hon. Friend at the head of the Board of Admiralty to apply his own candid mind to the consideration of the question. Let them get rid of the various supposed indirect advantages of

  1611
  the system, and ask themselves whether it was clear that the voluntary plan would not have done at least as much as the Acts; at all events, if supplemented by some of the provisions to which he had been referring; he would ask the right hon. Gentleman to believe it was as unpleasant for them to bring this matter forward as it could be for him or others to defend the Acts. He sincerely hoped, for one, that it might not be necessary to have an annual discussion upon it. But the right hon. Gentleman himself was far too fair to say to them that whilst these Acts were upon the Statute Book, and whilst the Government published an annual Report, with the fullest details from the officer who was at the head of the system, they on their side who objected to them were to keep silence. On the subject of the agitation against these Acts he wished to say one or two words, and he could say them more freely because he had taken no part either by speech or in any other way in the progress of the agitation in question. But he did believe that the agitation was engaged in by those who moved in it first upon the purest principles. He was glad the two sides were beginning to understand each other. He remembered last year, in the justly commended speech of the hon. and gallant Officer (Colonel Alexander) who moved the rejection of the Bill repealing the Acts, that he listened to no part with more pleasure than the graceful tribute he bore to the high character and qualities of a lady who had been much engaged in the agitation. Let the House remember, if it was unpleasant for them in that Chamber to have to discuss this question, what it must have been for ladies, against whose life or character there was not the faintest breath of any suspicion, to have come forward and thrown themselves into a public agitation upon such a subject. They must have suffered deeply and acutely. Those who were engaged in this agitation were amongst the most deserving of our citizens. They took up this matter after mature consideration, knowing what it would cost them, and they were not likely to lay it down quickly, believing as they did that there was a vital principle at stake. And now, as it seemed to him, that the time was ripe for a solution of the question, he urged upon the Government not to leave it in the hands of
  1612
  private Members, but to take up the matter for themselves. If they were to get rid of the police powers in these Acts, and if they could come again to the voluntary system, they would be rid of much that was now distasteful to the public. It could truly be said by those who opposed these Acts that the relationship which had been established between the police and houses of ill-fame was novel and dangerous—one of co-operation rather than of repression. It was said that now for the first time in this country legislation had made authority the handmaid of vice; and believing that the question could not rest where it was—that either one side or the other must prevail, either we must get rid of the coercive system or the Acts must be extended—he earnestly urged upon the House and the Government to take this question up and endeavour to put an end at once to this painful agitation.
  MR. HUNT: I agree with most of those who have spoken, that this is a subject which it is painful to discuss. It is most painful for me to speak upon it. I have never opened my lips upon it before, and I should not have troubled the House on the present occasion but for the fact that the Government Department of which I have the honour to be the head, has necessarily been referred to in the discussion, and that I have felt it my duty, as an administrator of the Navy, to examine carefully the evidence on which the maintenance of these Acts rests. Looking at that evidence in the most unprejudiced manner, I am bound to confess that the health of the Navy has materially benefited by the operation of these Acts which the measure before the House proposes to repeal. [Quoting from the published Reports of the health of the Army and Navy, the right hon. Gentleman here instanced the case of the Britannia at Dartmouth, where for three years there had been no case of disease among the crew. A similar state of things had been experienced in the case of a vessel at Southampton. The carefully collected statistics which were to be found in these Reports as to the home stations, and as to Malta, Gibraltar, Calcutta, and other places where the Acts were in operation, showed, as he contended, that in the case of the Army as well as in the case of the Navy, the Acts had decreased disease and greatly diminished its virulence, where it had

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  not entirely stamped it out.] He continued: That the disease will occasionally occur in isolated cases, even under most effectual surveillance, is only what may be expected, but there is abundant testimony to the efficient manner in which the Acts have been carried out. Reading the health statistics, coming as they do from the naval authorities, and from the military authorities, I cannot conceive that anyone can come to any other conclusion than that the operation of these Acts has been materially beneficial to the health of the Services. I know it is said by some hon. Gentlemen—"You have no business, and it is not the duty of the State, to diminish this disease;" and I believe some go so far as to say it is the duty of the State to leave this matter entirely alone because this disease is the proper punishment of sin. I cannot go with that argument. I think that, even supposing the disease never affected any but those who are sinners, it is our duty to alleviate the infirmities of humanity, even when brought about by the wrongful acts of the patients themselves. But when we think of the innocent persons who have been alluded to by the hon. Member behind me (Sir Charles Legard), who suffer from this disease, I think it becomes the duty of the State to step in. With reference to that, I may call attention to some statistics that I do not think have been mentioned in this House with reference to this matter. My hon. Friend behind me (Sir Charles Legard) alluded to the thousands unborn who were the victims of the sins of their forefathers, and upon whom fell the greater part of the burden of suffering which these sins entailed. What do I find in the Registrar General's supplement to his fifth Annual Report of Births, Deaths, and Marriages? What does he say with regard to deaths by syphilis? He says the registered deaths for syphilis during the 26 years from 1848 to 1873 were 31,860, of whom 22,269 were infants under one year of age; 24,253 were under five years of age; so that we see that of the registered deaths in consequence of this disease, a very large proportion indeed were innocent babes. With these figures before us I think no one can say it is not the duty of the State, so far as in it lies, to repress this disease, so as to prevent posterity being affected by this horrible disorder. These
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  Acts, as has been stated during the course of this debate, were first proposed with the view of maintaining the efficiency of our military and naval forces. They were not proposed in the interests of morality. They were proposed in the interest of the efficiency of the Services; and when it was stated that the loss to the Army was, by reason of this disease, equal to three regiments, I think it was about time the Government stepped in, to see whether some remedy could not be applied to this most horrible state of things. Although that was the primary object of the Acts, it was thought that, concurrently with the cure of our soldiers and sailors, something might be done to cure the morals and religion of the unfortunate women concerned, and therefore in these Acts there was special provision that, in every hospital which was registered, moral and religious instruction should be given; and I think that those who have taken the trouble to read the Reports on the subject will be satisfied that a great improvement has taken place. With regard to the moral improvement of these women—not only as regards their manners, which, perhaps, do not always show a greater real improvement, but only some outward refinement—but those who read the Reports will, I think, find that a large number of women have been rescued from the paths of vice, sent home to their friends, or got into service, who otherwise would have been left to pursue their ill ways. It is idle for the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) to say that all this might have been done without these Acts.
  MR. WHITBREADexplained that what he had pointed out was, that there was a Reforming Committee before these Acts were passed.
  MR. HUNT: I think with the hon. Member that a good deal could be done by voluntary effort without these Acts; but I also believe that there are many of these women who never would be reached but for these Acts. The fact that these women are brought into hospital compulsorily brings them under a system which they never would have consented to be brought under voluntarily. The moral influence would not have been brought to bear on these women in the same number of instances as under the operation of these Acts. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax

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  (Mr. Stansfeld) says he knows those who oppose these Acts are looked upon very much in the light of fanatics. I have never looked upon them in that light. I fully appreciate the motives of those who are opposed to those Acts, and I think their convictions on the subject are fully entitled to respect. And I must say, as a matter of feeling, that one would be much more inclined to take the same view as the opponets of the Acts, than the view of those who maintain them. But to me it is not so much a matter of feeling as a matter of reason; and looking at it by the light of the evidence brought before me, I must say I consider the maintenance of the Acts advantageous to the interests of the Services, and that I think it is therefore the duty of the Government not to consent to their abolition. There is some difficulty with regard to the way in which this Motion is put by the Chair, to which I would call the attention of the House. There is an Amendment on the Paper that this matter be referred to a Select Committee. Now there has been an inquiry by a Commission, in the year 1871, and very full evidence on the subject was taken. That Commission also made some important recommendations. Therefore, I am not prepared to assent to the Amendment that the subject should be referred to a Select Committee; but I think it most desirable that we should come to a decision upon the Main Question—namely, whether this Bill should be read a second time. Therefore, I should propose that the Amendment be put and negatived, in order that the Main Question may be put and decided that the Bill be read a second time.
  Sir HARCOURT JOHNSTONEsaid, if time had allowed, he might have made some reply on the debate, but he would not now interpose between hon. Members and their desire to come to a division. He maintained that his figures were fairly selected, and that they sustained his arguments. With regard to the moral question he had an opportunity, at an earlier stage of the discussion, of contradicting most authoritatively the moral effects which the agency of the police was said to bring to bear on the unfortunate creatures concerned. If anything was more striking than another, it was the evidence of the managers of reformatories that the police were not
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  the proper people, and never could be the proper people, under any circumstances, to reclaim and send back to the paths of duty those unfortunate people. He would not detain the House. It was not his purpose to enter into discussion with hon. Gentlemen opposite. He believed the House was not divided as to the necessity for curing disease, but on the question how it was to be done. He trusted the Government might, at some future time—as there was no desire on his side to make this an annual Motion—look into this matter in a different way. While their wish was to cure the country from disease, they wished equally that women should be spared exceptional treatment, and that some means should be found less productive of moral evil than these Acts.
  MR. T. E. SMITHthen intimated that, after what had been said by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty, and in order to meet the wish of the House to divide on the Main Question, he would, with the permission of the House, withdraw his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question again proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day two months."—(Sir Charles Legard.)
  Question put, "That the word 'now 'stand part of the Question."
  The House divided:—Ayes 102; Noes 224: Majority 122.
  Words added.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Second Reading put off for two months.

  INNS OF COURT PROCEDURE AMENDMENT BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. H. B. Sheridan, Bill to provide for the Election of Masters of the Bench of the Inns of Court, and to amend the procedure by which Members of the Bar are disbarred, ordered to be brought in by Mr. H. B. Sheridan, Mr. Ingram, and Mr. Dillwyn.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 258.]

  FORFEITURE RELIEF BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Marten, Bill to amend the Law of Relief against Forfeiture for Breach of Covenant or Condition, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Marten, Mr. Osborne Morgan, and Mr. Gregory.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 259.]
  House adjourned at five minutes before Six o'clock.