Sitting of 20 March 1895

Preamble
The House met at Ten minutes after Twelve of the clock.
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  MUNICIPAL FRANCHISE (IRELAND) BILL.
  MR. T. M. HEALY, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, said it had been introduced by Irish Members for more than 20 years, and it was a curious commentary on the alleged ability or willingness of this Parliament to deal with Irish affairs, when it was borne in mind that since the days of Mr. Butt, attempts had been made to pass this measure by one Irish Party or another, and that to-day the question was no further forward in the direction of settlement. He had the curiosity to turn to the Bill brought in by Mr. Butt in 1874. It was backed by Mr. Butt, Sir John Gray, Mr. O'Brien, and Mr. P. J. Smythe. Every one of those gentlemen had passed away, and to-day it might be said that the attempt of the Irish Members to pass this Bill had come of age. It was a remarkable fact that in 21 years the various Irish Parties in the House of Commons had failed to secure a reform which other portions of the country had been in the enjoyment of for 30 or 40 years. There had been no reform of the Municipal franchise of Ireland, though there had been several reforms of various kinds of Municipal franchise in this country. The central idea of the Bill was to give every ratepayer a vote in the management of the Borough or the Municipality in which he paid his rates. Every clause in the Bill was already in existence in principle or in substance in English Statutes; and therefore, so far as the principle or the substance were concerned, there was nothing new in the Bill. The principle of the measure was assented to in 1892,
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  by a Conservative Government, and the Bill was read a second time without opposition. The Conservative Government took an objection, which was also taken by the hon. Member for Mid Armagh, to this effect:—
  "We are quite willing to extend the English Franchise to Ireland with regard to 11 towns, but we are not willing to extend it to 111 towns."
  In order to see what was the effect of that argument, take the county of Louth as an illustration. If the limited principle, suggested by the then Conservative Government, were sanctioned, the town of Drogheda, which had a Corporation, would get the Franchise; but the town of Dundalk, a larger town, would not. To suggest, therefore, that they could or ought to bring in a Bill which could have that effect with regard to two principal towns in the smallest county in Ireland, was a sheer absurdity. Take an illustration—the city of Dublin and its outlying townships. As soon as one passed the canal by the bridges which separated Dublin from Rathemines, he would be passing out of an enfranchised constituency to an unenfranchised constituency, and to suggest that a canal should make all the difference in the Franchise was absurd. There were some parts of Dublin not separated from the outlying townships even by a canal; they were separated by the North Circular Road, and the middle of the road was the boundary between the outlying townships and the city. If they applied the principle of the Conservative Government, persons on one side of the street would enjoy a complete Franchise, while those on the other side would be unenfranchised. Owing to the number of rating provisions existing in England, the Bill was somewhat long, but it was long because it applied exactly to the English principle. If he had his own way in the matter of drafting the Bill, he would extend the Parliamentary Franchise to Municipalities. He believed that before long, as we enfranchised larger masses of the people, the ratepayers would protest against the burden of Parish Councils, Parish Council Rolls, County Council Rolls, Municipal Rolls, and Parliamentary Rolls, and the growing cost of these registers to the electors A common register would have to be discovered in order to save the people

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  the constant expense of registration. He thought that the Conservatives of the City of Dublin were entitled to a larger share in the corporate management than they now enjoyed. In the same way he thought the Roman Catholics in Belfast were entitled to a larger share in the management of Belfast, and he thought that some provision should be devised giving the Nationalists on the one hand and the Conservatives on the other hand a larger control and a larger share in the management of those towns than they at present possessed. But no such principle had been discovered as yet to place on the Statute Book, and it would be an innovation were they to attempt to devise it in this Bill. He concluded by moving the Second Reading of the Bill.
  MR. THOMAS B. CURRANsaid, that in seconding the Motion of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Louth, he did so with that amount of diffidence which generally accompanied a maiden speech; in fact, his diffidence was greatly intensified by the knowledge of the fact that he was the youngest Member, not alone of the Irish Parliamentary Party, but the youngest of this Assembly, for which reason he claimed the indulgence which was characteristic of the House. The Bill, as his hon. and learned Friend had shown, demanded nothing of an extravagant nature, but simply asked that the towns in Ireland should have the same system of municipal franchise as existed in England to-day. It related not only to the municipal franchise in corporate towns, but affected the franchise in other towns having a governing body. The system of municipal franchise in Ireland was so grossly absurd and unjust that he could not see how anyone at all open to conviction could countenance its continuance or defend its existence. Why there should be such an unjust and invidious distinction between the system in England and the system in Ireland he could not under stand, but unfortunately that distinction did exist; and for that reason this Bill was introduced, to give the House an opportunity of remedying what was nothing short of a glaring anachronism. They were all aware that for many years past in England the occupier of
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  practically any rated premises, no matter of what value, enjoyed the right of a municipal vote, whereas in every one of the 11 corporate towns in Ireland, except Dublin and Belfast, a man to have a vote must occupy premises rated at £10. Now, a £10 rating would frequently, and in very many instances, mean a rent of twice that amount. Speaking on this subject some three years ago, his hon. Friend the junior Member for Cork pointed out that his office in Cork was rated at £10—just high enough to qualify him for a municipal vote—whereas he had to pay a rent of £50 per annum for the same premises. Thus they found this anomalous and indefensible state of affairs, that in rich and prosperous England there was a low and accommodating Franchise, whereas in the poorer country (Ireland) there was an enormously high one. In the 11 corporate towns to which he previously referred there were various franchises to the number of three. Did not this appear to hon. Members ridiculous? The Act in reference to the collection of rates aided and abetted, so to speak, the municipal law, for when Parliament passed a special Act for Dublin every Householder was given a vote; but then the Collection of Rates Act allowed the vote only to holders of premises valued at £8. In 1892 a Bill to the same effect as this passed the Second Reading with the assent of the Conservative Government. The opposition of the Conservative Party was almost confined to the portion of the Bill dealing with non-corporate towns; but surely it was the poor and needy who mostly wanted the municipal vote to protect their interests? In 99 cases out of 100 did they not find the poor people and the helpless victims of bad sanitation? And to this very class Parliament hitherto, at any rate, denied the municipal vote. Some time ago, through the exertions of the hon. Member for Kerry, Parliament extended the Municipal franchise to Belfast, but there it was not yet reduced to the English level. Dublin has a special Act, but not one in five Parliamentary voters enjoyed the Municipal franchise. But if this House under a Conservative Government thought well to extend the Franchise to Belfast, why not, he asked, to Cork, and Kilkenny,

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  and Derry? Exceptions were unjustifiable, and Cork, Kilkenny, Derry, Limerick, Waterford, and the other smaller towns had claims to justice and equality. He would like to quote a few figures taken from the Parliamentary returns showing, firstly, the inequality of franchise between Ireland and Great Britain; and, secondly, as between the municipal and Parliamentary Franchises in Ireland. In the first instance, Brest had a population of 206,000, and Dublin a population of 249,000. On the Bristol burgess roll there were 27,600 names, and on the Dublin burgess roll only 6,644. Again, Cardiff had a population of 82,000 and 11,400 names on the burgess roll, while Cork had a population of 80,000, but only 2,059 names on the burgess roll. Cambridge had a population of 35,363 and Limerick 38,000, but Cambridge had 5,400 burgesses and Limerick had only 457. Canterbury, with a population of 21,000, had 3,090 burgesses, but Waterford, with a population of 22,000, had only 679 burgesses. Kings Lynn, with a population of 18,000, had 3,302 burgesses, but Kilkenny, with a population of 15,000, had 269 burgesses. He could quote many other instances, but these were samples of the inequality of the Municipal Franchise between Ireland and Great Britain, and he contended that the people in Ireland were as eminently qualified to exercise the Franchise as the people of Great Britain. He would now quote a few instances of the inequality as between the Municipal and Parliamentary Franchise in Ireland. Dublin, with a population of 249,000, had 30,000 names on the Parliamentary Register and 6,644 on the burgess roll. Cork, with a population of 80,000, had 11,500 names on the Parliamentary Register and 2,059 on the burgess roll. Limerick, with a population of 38,000, had 4,927 names on the Parliamentary Register and 457 on the burgess roll. Londonderry with a population of 29,000 had 4,200 names on the Parliamentary Register, and 799 on the burgess roll. Waterford, with a population, of 22,000 had 4,000 names on the Parliamentary Register and 679 on the burgess roll; Kilkenny, with a population of 15,000, had 1,756 on the Parliamentary Register and 269 on the burgess roll. These last figures, brought them face to face with
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  a monstrous anomaly. They saw that the occupier of what the late Mr. W. H. Smith called a mud hovel was by law capable of voting for a Member of Parliament, a man who might be called upon to cast his vote in a matter of peace or war, or on something else of urgent Imperial importance, yet when it came to electing a person who was to superintend sanitary arrangements and the repairing and watering the streets of a town, the mud—cabin was considered incapable, and consequently denied a vote. The injustice and anomalies this Bill sought to remedy has time after time been brought under the notice of the House. No Member of the House had ever set up a tolerable defence for the existing ridiculous state of affairs. Their grievance had been admitted, but nothing had been done, notwithstanding the almost innumerable occasions they had sought the legislative intervention of Parliament. Surely a broad Municipal franchise was not an extravagant demand. Time after time the Municipal Laws in Great Britain had been altered and changed, and changed and altered again, until it was now in a fairly satisfactory condition, but for the last 50 years the Irish Municipal Law had been left undisturbed with all its glaring defects. Surely, at the eleventh hour they might hope for the alterations the Bill suggested. There was nothing extravagant in what they asked. They simply asked Parliament to extend to Ireland those rights of citizenship which were exorcised and enjoyed in every other portion of the United Kingdom. They asked, in the interests chiefly of the working people, the health of whose homes so largely depended on the good administration of the cities in which they dwelt.
  Sir A. K. ROLLITsaid, the hon. Member who had just resumed his seat described himself as the youngest Member of the House. He trusted it might not be regarded as presumptuous on the part of one who had been longer in the House if He ventured to compliment the hon. Gentleman upon the ability of his speech and upon the contribution he had made to the debating power of the House. And he hoped, too, that this, coming from an English Member, would not be regarded as a new Irish grievance. He wished to say a few words on this Bill, first, as an English Member

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  who had taken some interest in municipal matters; and, secondly, as one who had always felt that upon the question of local government in Ireland that there was a necessity for co-operation on the part of both English and Irish Members. Local Government had been conferred widely, and he thought wisely, upon both England and Scotland, and he assumed that had been done in consequence of the advantage which it was calculated to confer on both those countries, and, though he admitted there might be certain points of difference between the conditions, he was not prepared to assent to the proposition that the differences and the dissimilarities were so great that what had been done here could, in principle, be refused in the case of Ireland. On the contrary, he, as an English Member, welcomed this step towards a unity of the laws of the different branches of the Kingdom, and he was sorry to hear the hon. and learned Member who moved the Second Reading suggest that the Conservative Party had been indisposed to discuss such a measure. For his own part he had desired to do this upon his Amendment on the Address in favour of Local Government for Ireland, and also upon the recent Irish Guardians Franchise Bill, the principle of which, assimilating the laws of England and Ireland, he also supported. He remembered that on the occasion of the last Debate there was a consensus of opinion in favour of the principle of this Bill. [Mr. T. M. HEALY: "Who blocked it?"] He believed in discussion and not in blocking discussion, a view which he knew was shared by many Conservatives. His view was that the only possible standing ground for Unionists with reference to the government of Ireland was that they should be willing to afford facilities for redressing and remedying abuses and anomalies, and to show they believed the British Parliament was not only willing but capable of doing justice by dealing with matters of this description. He had always maintained that the position of local government generally in Ireland was absolutely indefensible. He gave a general and a hearty support to the Bill of 1892 on the ground that it at least made an attempt, though he admitted an attempt with some few blemishes, with safeguards which he thought
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  were illusory, but which could have been materially modified in Committee, and he did so because he thought a reform of local government in Ireland, apart from all other considerations as affecting the various branches of the Kingdom, was a right which was due to the people of that country, and one which ought to be conceded, not, as usual, under pressure and by peacemeal, but readily and on broad practical principles, and, in that Bill, the franchise, the areas, &c., to be at least wide and right. Who would attempt to justify the present position of county government in Ireland? Who could say that, while England and Scotland had representative institutions for local government, nomination by the sheriff of a county of a grand jury, which had no continuity and only a spasmodic existence for a day or two from year to year, was a satisfactory state of things? In the case of Ireland an Act of Parliament was required to authorise even the building of a new court house. Who could say that was a condition of things which ought to be maintained for an hour longer than the time required to make a reform of a state of things which, apart from any imperial considerations, was indefensible in itself? Were there not anomalies of the most extraordinary character in Ireland which demanded redress? Was it a desirable state of government in Ireland that in so many cases it should depend upon the terms of particular Acts of Parliament instead of upon some general law? That there should be in Ireland franchises varying in almost all amounts, that there should be varieties of qualification; and differences existing between the very groundwork of the franchises in the different towns; that there were gross anachronisms and survivals, and, in the non-municipal towns, scarcely any sanitary powers at all, were to his mind reasons which were conclusive in favour of the making of the change in principle, reserving details, and as an instalment of reformed local government, which was desired by the Bill. But perhaps the greatest anomaly of all was that, while Ireland was in the enjoyment of household suffrage so far as Parliamentary institutions were concerned, when it became a question of attending to a local drain or of care for the health of the people in a particular

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  locality, it should be supposed that the comparatively rich only had an interest in the welfare of the people. Why should Ireland and Scotland, or Yorkshire, have to come to London at all for such purely domestic and local purposes? He was not making any invidious distinction between the rich and poor, but, after all, the rich could, in time of danger from disease, fly to more healthy localities, while the poor, because of their employment and their families, were anchored to the place in which they worked and resided. It therefore became necessary that opportunities should be afforded for the expression at municipal elections of the views of those who, like the poor, had such a deep interest in the health and strength of the localities in which they passed their lives. It was an undoubted fact that large portions of the urban populations of Ireland were absolutely excluded from the opportunity of expressing their opinions on municipal affairs, and accordingly, in his view, no real objection could be raised to the principal provisions of the Bill. It should be remembered that Local Government was successful according as it conduced to the health of the people; for there were on measures of more vital import to the community than those which had for their object the narrowing of the kingdoms of disease and death. When the Bill was last before the House, in 1892, Irish Members of both Parties supported it, and the hon. and learned Member for Mid Armagh (Mr. Barton) almost alone presented two objections to it. One was that in many of the towns the burgesses would be taken by surprise. That objection might have been well founded in 1892; but it could not now apply, after the full discussion of the measure in that year. The other objection was that the Bill contained new clauses; but the clauses of this Bill were practically the same as the clauses of the Bill of 189. The hon. and learned Member also urged in 1892 that the Bill should be limited to the 11 Municipalities of Ireland. But no real ground could be advanced for making such a distinction. It was obvious that it would widen the sense of injustice felt in Ireland, and would also increase the anomalies of Irish municipal law, instead of assimilating it to the English
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  local Franchise. The point was, moreover, only one as to the form, not as to the substance, of local administration, since incorporation made on real distinction from a sanitary point of view. He himself would apply the Parliamentary Franchise in every branch of the Kingdom equally and solely for local purposes. He would also support the Motion to refer the Bill to the Grand Committee, because he believed such a course was calculated to expedite its progress and to give the fullest opportunities for the discussion of any of its provisions to which objection might be taken. Moreover, there was need of much more devolution, both in and out of Parliament, and all round. Exception might be taken to some of its details, and the question of rating might demand consideration, differing as it did in England and Ireland, and contracts having been based on that difference, but he ventured to say that to the principle of the Bill no exception could be taken. It proposed to give to Ireland advantages which England and Scotland already enjoyed. There was no real ground for the distinctions between the countries in those matters, and those distinctions only strengthened that particularism to which some of them objected. The best and strongest attitude for the House to adopt was that everything they believed to be wise for England would presumably be wise for Ireland, that practical equality, so far as possible, was equity, and that the Imperial Parliament was willing to apply to Ireland laws which benefited the other branches of a United Kingdom.
  MR. W. FIELDtrusted that those Conservative Members who were constantly declaring that they were desirous to put Ireland on an equal footing with England in regard to beneficial laws, would follow the example of the hon. Member for South Islington, and support this effort of the Irish Members to have the English municipal law extended to Ireland. Indeed, he could not imagine how any level-headed and sensible man who posed either as a Liberal Unionist or a Conservative could object to the measure, seeing that it merely proposed to introduce into Ireland municipal laws that had existed for a long time in England. The deepest dissatisfaction prevailed amongst the

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  artisans, not only of Dublin, but of all the towns and cities of Ireland, with the existing state of the municipal franchise. It was, certainly, most preposterous and absurd that a man who could vote for a Member of Parliament was, at the same time, disqualified for voting for a municipal representative. But though the absurdity was great in the cities and towns, it was much worse in the townships around Dublin. He happened to live in what was called a fashionable suburb of Dublin, the township of Blackrock, in which the light of the Conservative and Unionist intellect threw a beam all round. That particular township had existed for 30 years before there was a revision of the voters. The whole matter had been left in the hands of the town clerk, who was supposed to monopolise all the intellect, education, and political energy of the township. The existing municipal law in Ireland was full of anomalies. In one of the townships around Dublin the rating qualification for the Franchise was £10; and the residential qualification two years. In the next township, separated from the first only by a single street, the rating qualification was £8, and the residential qualification 18 months. In a third township the rating qualification was £6, and the residential qualification one year. In fact, the whole thing was a Chinese puzzle, and it would take the Lord Chancellor himself—for the revising barristers were unable to do it—to unravel the distinctions in municipal qualifications that were scattered all over Ireland. As he had said, the legal gentlemen who had to administer the municipal law were unable to give clear decisions upon the extraordinary Acts of Parliament passed by this House for Ireland. The present Bill would do away with all those puzzling anomalies, by establishing one municipal law which would embrace the whole country.
  MR. DUNBAR BARTONsaid, it was apparent from the language used by the supporters of the Bill that an onslaught upon its principle generally was expected, but though he did not mean to carry his objection to the extent of opposing the Second Reading, there were many points upon which criticism might be fairly offered. Four of the towns which would be affected by the Bill were in his constituency, and as
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  far as he knew not one of them desired, while one of them would certainly object to the provisions of this measure. With the general observation of the hon. Member for South Islington everyone would agree, and if this were a resolution in favour of the assimilation of the municipal institutions in Ireland and England he would not rise to discuss it. The Member for Islington had made a benevolent speech in favour of the general prospect of assimilation between the institutions of the two countries. But he (Mr. Barton) happened to represent four towns that would be affected by this Bill; his constituents lived in a work-a-day world, they could not afford to indulge in this general spirit of benevolence, and he thought if this Bill was not a general resolution but a Bill which it would be endeavoured to pass, no one would dispute that he was entitled to criticise it as a Bill and not as a general resolution. The hon. Member for Islington said, this Bill followed the English analogies; but that was precisely what it did not do. If it did, he himself should have little objection to it. He did not object to the whole question being dealt with in a large and statesmanlike manner, but this was a Bill which dealt with it in a fragmentary and piecemeal way, parts of the English legislation being pitchforked together for Ireland without the contracts which accompanied the English Bills, and which ought to accompany any Bill of this kind for Ireland. He complimented the seconder of the Motion on his speech, in which he dealt fairly with the subject; and, indeed, against the speech he had nothing to say. If this Bill was confined to the 11 municipal corporations, and if it dealt with them as they were dealt with by the English Act of 1882, he would not rise to oppose the Bill. But it did not do anything of the kind. It was not confined to the municipal corporations, but it proposed to introduce 100 other towns, some of them so small as to be almost villages—towns with 1,100 and 1,200 inhabitants, or with just the limit of population of 1,500, to bring them within the Towns Improvement Act. He remembered on one occasion being about to leave one of these towns, and he was entreated to defer his departure for a day, because else their census returns would show

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  a decrease within the 1,500 limit. In the inclusion of these small towns the Bill did not follow the English analogy. In England the Act was accompanied by a codification and consolidation of the law, and dealt with it in such a manner that the Government draftsman was occupied for two years in carrying it out. These small towns in Ireland ought to be dealt with in connection with the reform of Local Government for counties, Municipal Corporations being dealt with by themselves on a basis suitable to their circumstances. There were many questions closely connected with the Franchise which had to be dealt with when the English Act was passed—incidence of rating, boundaries, and other matters that could not be left out of view, and these matters were dealt with in consideration of the circumstances existing, but different to those in Ireland. There was no attempt in the Bill to alter the elastic Irish system of 1840, but there was a putting of new wine into old bottles which would be attended with the inconveniences attending such a proceeding. In the smaller Irish towns, such as the principal town he represented, the principle was followed that there should be a £5 rating franchise, and nobody was rated who had not the Franchise; but with this Bill would come in a wholly different state of things, though the incidence of rating would remain. As to the qualifying period, he would be surprised to find any analogy to the three months' residential qualification in the English Act.
  MR. T. M. HEALYexplained that this was adapted from last year's Act for Kingstown and Blackrock.
  MR. BARTONsaid, after being told, as he had been by one hon. Member, that Blackrock was a type of irregularities and anomalies, it was rather an unfortunate precedent. In 1878 a Committee dealt with this subject, and occupied three years in taking evidence and preparing its Report, and in their recommendations they advised that a distinction should be made between corporate towns and small towns, some of the latter being admitted to the list of corporate towns, but the main body of them, the Committee reported, could not be appropriately treated as corporate towns. In 1892 this distinction
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  was pointed out by Mr. Hadden, then Irish Attorney General, who, on behalf of the late Government, offered no opposition to the principle that the Municipal Franchise in Ireland should be assimilated to that in England; but he said the measure for effecting this should be accompanied with proposals for dealing with the small towns in a system of county government. But a Local Government Bill for Ireland hon. Members below the Gangway had refused, and now they proposed to deal with the subject, inverting the proper order of proceeding, and dealing with it in a fragmentary and unbusiness-like way. The question of administration in small towns was closely allied to, and ought to be considered in connection with, that of county government. The two ought, therefore, to be dealt with together, and the smaller towns not included in a Bill having reference to Municipal Corporations, which they could not be safely and conveniently dealt with at the same time. He thought the occupation of Wednesday in the discussion of such Bills as the present one, and that of the previous Wednesday, was very inconvenient, and really a mere waste of time. The practice was growing of endeavouring, particularly on those occasions, to obtain assent to the general principles in a Bill, though the Bill itself might be crude and incomplete as this was, and then sending it to a Grand Committee, for which the Bill was unsuitable. There had been some experience of those Committees.
  MR. T. M. HEALYrose to order, on the ground that the hon. and learned Member could not enter upon the question of Grand Committees; for it would be anticipating a discussion on a subsequent Motion.
  MR. BARTONsaid, he did not intend to go into that point, and then repeated his objections to the Bill. Speaking on behalf of the towns in his constituency, he was bound to say that the people did not want the Bill, and believed that it would be most unjust to apply it to them, unless it was accompanied by an alteration in the incidence of the rates. He hoped also, in the interests of the smaller towns in Ireland, that the Bill would not be passed into law. The Bill, as he had said, embodied a general proposition which nobody disputed, but it was crude

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  and inadequate in its details. He thought, moreover, that a Bill of this kind ought to be brought in on the responsibility of the Government, if it was to bring about any effective and general reform.
  MR. HARRINGTONsaid, the hon. and learned Member for Mid Armagh, was evidently in favour of general resolutions embodying general principles, and his only objection was as to the process by which these principles could be passed into law. He did not know any means by which this could be done, except by introducing Bills into the House; and so far as the Nationalist Members were concerned, they had no other opportunity of doing so, and of giving practical effect to their views than by taking advantage of the Wednesday sitting. The hon. and learned Member seemed to take up a peculiar position in this matter. He had stated that he had no objection to the principle of the Bill, or to the extension of the Franchise to the corporate towns, or even to the smaller towns, only that in the latter case it should be accompanied by a reform of Local Government.
  MR. BARTONsaid, he objected to the proposed extension of the Franchise unless it was accompanied by an alteration in the incidence of rating, without which it would not be fair to those who paid the rates.
  MR. HARRINGTONsaid, it would be easy to meet that difficulty, but the practical way of coming to the purpose was first to help them to pass the Bill through its present stage, and then to help in amending it in Grand Committee if necessary. He and his colleagues were as anxious as the hon. and learned Member for a reform of Local Government, and that this extension of the Franchise should be used for the purposes of Local Government, but were people to be excluded from the franchise in regard to such small portion of the Local Government as they now had? Another objection urged against the Bill by the hon. and learned Member was on the ground of procedure, because it did not follow the English analogy, but that objection had really no weight. It was true that municipal corporations were differently dealt with, but they stood in the same position as ever so far as Local Government was concerned; and all the
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  arguments the hon. Member derived from the recommendations of the Committee of 1878 were of no value, inasmuch as the condition of things the Committee dealt with had now passed away. The hon. Member had stated that in his constituency were four towns affected by the Bill, and that one of them, at all events, strongly objected to be included in it. He should like to know what section of the people of that town objected to the Bill, and in what way expression had been given to the objection. Was it the section that already enjoyed the Franchise, and would refuse it to others? There were one or two points in the Bill which he himself felt induced to criticise, and with which he would deal in detail at a future stage. In the first place, he regretted that the Bill was not made purely a measure for assimilating the municipal to the Parliamentary Franchise; for as he read the Bill now one of the sections would have the effect of excluding the lodger franchise in the different towns. There was one clause in the Bill which he feared would not operate very well for the purpose for which it was intended. One of the provisions, following the English Act, provided that the occupier of a House might pay the rates in a case in which the landlord refused or neglected to pay them. With regard to a separate House that provision might operate fairly, but in the case of a tenement House occupied by several persons it would be absurd to ask a man who occupied only one or two rooms to pay the rates for the entire house in order under this Bill to secure the franchise. There was one other provision in the Bill to which he objected, and it was that which included women suffrage. All through he had been an opponent of that proposal, and he was bound to say that he did not see that any great body of public opinion in Ireland was in favour of it. Therefore, he felt it necessary to say that if the provision was retained in the Bill at a future stage, be should not be able to support it. He trusted, however, that the Second Reading of the Bill would be now agreed to.
  MR. W. E. MACARTNEYsaid, an hon. Member had explained that there had been no Legislation on this question in regard to Ireland for 21 years, but that was not so much

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  the fault of the House as that there had been no strong body of public opinion in Ireland to demand it. Nor did he think there was any strong demand for the present proposals. At all events the Committee of 1878, which investigated the whole question of Municipal Government in the corporate towns of Ireland, declared that they were not able to find that there was any large body of public opinion in favour of an extension of the franchise. He agreed that the circumstances had very considerably altered with regard to the main provisions of the Bill; but he would suggest that the reason why this question had not been forced upon the attention of Parliament was that there had been no great popular opinion behind it in Ireland. He did not say that the system which at present existed was defensible, and he was not at all opposed to the principle of the Bill so far as it applied to the municipal towns. He believed that the reason there was no desire in the small towns for the extension of the municipal franchise was that no hardship had been felt by the inhabitants. If they had suffered hardship it was inconceivable that they should have put no pressure upon their Parliamentary representatives, and he had never heard among his own constituents of any desire that there should be an alteration in the form of government. If the franchise was given to these small towns the House would be flying in direct opposition to the deliberate expression of opinion by the last Committee of the House which investigated this matter, and before that was done he thought further inquiries ought to be made as to whether those who lived in these towns desired to see the system altered. He thought also that these small towns ought to be dealt with under the Local Government Act, and ought to form part of the ordinary County Government. For these reasons he should at the proper time object to the particular clauses which proposed to include them, and he thought that there should be some definite provision in the Bill by which the small towns should be excluded from the extension of government under the Bill unless they desired themselves to have it.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (MR. J. MORLEY,:
  I think very few remarks from me will suffice in dealing with the proposal now before the House, because, with one remarkable exception, all the Gentlemen representing Irish constituencies are prepared to agree to the Second Reading of this Bill. I think the difference in tone between the hon. Member for Islington and the two representatives of Irish Conservatism, the hon. and learned Member for Mid Armagh and the hon. Member who has just spoken, is a contrast which ought not to be lost on the hon. Member for Islington himself. He will now see, and it is a pity that English Unionists cannot more clearly comprehend, the difference in tone, the difference in political view, and the difference in the equalisation of political rights in Ireland and that which prevails amongst the better class of English Conservatives. If he has listened to the speeches of the hon. Members for Mid Armagh and Antrim he will recognise what it is that makes the Gentlemen sitting behind him who represent Ireland so much more bitter in their politics than English Radicals are, generally speaking, in reference to English politics. That is because the views of the majority of the people in Ireland, when it is attempted to press them upon this House, are encountered, not by what I may call an enlightened Conservative Opposition, but by the old ascendency doctrine, which means nothing less than the preservation of all those privileges which we in England regard as privileges which ought no longer to be preserved.
  MR. BARTONsaid, he never based his argument upon any suggestion of ascendency in Ireland, but on the plain grounds of Irish life.
  MR. J. MORLEY: The hon. and learned Member is far too accomplished a disputant to think of basing his argument on ascendency in Ireland, but what I am pointing out is that an Irish Conservative takes an entirely different point of view from that which is taken by Conservatives in this country. The hon. and learned Member declares that Wednesday afternoons are now being systematically wasted in this House, and asked why were not gentlemen from Ireland content with bringing in a general resolution. Well, we know perfectly well what would happen in that

  1479
  case; the hon. and learned Member for Mid Armagh would have got up and said:—
  "Why do not hon. Members bring in a Bill? Let us see how the subject looks when it is worked out in its details."
  We know that method of Parliamentary tactics perfectly well. An hon. Member said that he wished Bills of this kind brought before the House in order that the British electors might see that this House is capable and willing to deal with Irish questions; the Bill that we are discussing this afternoon is exactly a case in point. The hon. and learned Member who introduced this Bill reminded the House that similar proposals, if not exactly the same in detail, have been brought before the House from the days of Mr. Butt, 21 years ago. Last week the Member for Manchester admitted that it was undeniable that the reform of the Grand Jury has been for 50 years, year after year, brought before this House; and this Bill used to be called a hardy annual. Here is an admitted grievance so gross that gentlemen opposite will not venture to divide on the Second Reading of the Bill. They admit the grievance, and yet for 21 years it has been pressed on the attention of the House without any effect whatever, and unless the House agrees to the proposal to refer the Bill to a Grand Committee this afternoon will be wasted. It depends on the hon. and learned Member for Mid Armagh and his friends whether the afternoon shall have been wasted or not. The hon. Member for Antrim said there was no strong measure of support in Irish opinion; well, now, if that were so, can you really suppose that all these gentlemen from Ireland would come forward with proposals of this kind year after year? The argument that the people interested do not desire the extension of the franchise has been used in reference to every extension of the franchise; but I do not believe for one moment that the hon. Member will tell me that in the City of Londonderry, for instance, there is no feeling amongst the population—the Catholic population I was going to call them—to have the franchise extended. The hon. Member was aware, I am sure, of the remarkable figures quoted by the hon. Member for Kilkenny
  1480
  in a speech which I should like to say was certainly one of the most excellent ever addressed to this House. It is an instance of how wisdom will sometimes come from the mouths of babes and sucklings. But will the hon. Member for South Antrim believe that in the city of Dublin there are 30,000 names on the Parliamentary Register, and only 6,400 on the Burgess Roll? Is he aware that at Limerick there are more than 10 times as many names on the Parliamentary Register as on the Burgess Roll? Is it to be conceived that in cases of that kind, where the numbers on the Parliamentary Roll are out of all proportion to the numbers on the Burgess Roll, there is no feeling on the part of those on the Parliamentary Roll, who are not on the Burgess Roll, of exclusion? Ireland is no doubt a queer country; but it would be monstrous if such exclusion as that should exist without a feeling on the part of those excluded of a desire to remedy the grievance which has been pointed out.
  MR. MACARTNEYsaid, he did not push his argument as far as that. He was willing to admit that in Londonderry and other places there was a popular feeling in favour of the Bill. But, speaking generally, he submitted that there was no strong feeling in favour of the alterations proposed in the Bill.
  MR. J. MORLEY: The House must judge of the probability for themselves. Now a word as to the Bill. The hon. and learned Member for Mid Armagh said it was crude, fragmentary, and piecemeal. All Bills are crude, fragmentary and piecemeal which one desires to see rejected. But after comparing this Bill, which I have done carefully with those more competent than I am to discuss the details, I say that, so far from being crude, piecemeal, or fragmentary, it is—what I perfectly admit we do not always get on Wednesday afternoons from Gentlemen below the Gangway—a scientific Bill, dealing with details most carefully and elaborately. It is, I am told, excellently drafted, and it is such a scheme as the Government themselves might bring forward. There has been no Bill brought forward in the House this Session, either by the Government or a Private Member, to which the words "crude, fragmentary, and piecemeal," could be less

  1481
  justly applied. It supplies a new Local Government Franchise all over Ireland, primarily for the municipal boroughs, and the broad feature of it is that the municipal franchise is to go with the occupation and rating of premises irrespective of value and irrespective of the payment of rates actually by the occupier. No doubt one of the most important provisions is that the occupier's name is to appear on the rate-book, and even where he is not rated the occupier, but is occupying rated premises. This will do a great deal to assimilate the law in Ireland to the law in England. The provision is borrowed direct from the Poor Rate Assessment Act, which is an English Act, and which was extended to Parliament for Parliamentary purposes in 1884. This Bill extends the change to the Parliamentary Franchise. I can only say I cordially agree with that proposition. These proposals are the proposals made by the Government in their Registration Bill of 1893, and in the Bill which I myself had the honour of bringing forward last year, called the Period of Qualification Bill. They are not taken verbatim from these Bills, but contain the spirit of them.
  MR. BARTONasked whether the right hon. Gentleman meant that the franchise given by the Act of 1884 was the same as the English Franchise. He believed it would be found to apply only to the Franchise given to municipal corporations and only three months' qualification was required.
  MR. J. MORLEY: There may be a difference either in the occupation or period. But I am afraid I have not studied the Bill minutely enough to say. Generally speaking, however, I believe that what I have said is true and accurate. There is one proposal which makes an important change—it is in the Clause of the Bill, which enables women, married or simple, to vote in local matters. That, of course, is an English provision. It is not now the law in Ireland. It is a matter entirely for Irish sentiment to settle.
  MR. T. M. HEALYwas understood to say it was the law in Kingstown and Blackrock.
  MR. J. MORLEY: Well, it is a matter for Irish sentiment to settle. But, so far as the English analogy goes, that analogy would be in favour of the
  1482
  provisions of the Bill. Reference has been made during the Debate to the attitude of the Conservative Government in 1892. The Irish Attorney-General of that day said the Government approved of the Bill as far as it affected the 12 Municipal Boroughs. But then it has been said, the proper way to deal with the other places not Municipal Boroughs is to deal with them in connection with the general reform of County Government in Ireland. Here I would remind the House that when the right hon. Member for East Manchester brought in his Local Government Bill, the day after the Attorney-General made that statement, the Bill contained no provision of the kind we proposed in the Municipal Franchise Bill of 1892, or that is proposed in this Bill. The Local Government Bill brought in by the Conservative Government in 1892 refused to deal with places outside the 12 Municipal Boroughs. Therefore, when we are referring to the general reform of Local Government, the only Party, I venture to say, in the House who will ever attempt the reform of Local Government in Ireland as distinct from the larger and more organic reform to which the Liberal Party is pledged, the only Party to whom local reformers may look, is the Party led by the right hon. Gentleman, and he has shown by the course he took with reference to the Local Government Bill of 1892, that he, at all events, does not, when the opportunity is presented to him, intend to deal with the question of the 111 outside small towns in the way this Bill desires to deal with it, and as to which there is practical unanimity in the House this afternoon. I need add nothing more, except that the Government warmly approve of the Bill and hope it will go to a Second Reading without a Division. As to the subsequent step, I would only say we thoroughly approve of the proposition of the hon. Member.
  SIR T. LEAsaid, that until the right hon. Gentleman spoke he was under the impression that there was complete unanimity with regard to the measure. But he spoke in a bitter tone of the hon. Member who spoke on behalf of the Conservative Members, and he heard what he said with regret. If the Bill were to pass unanimously this Session it could only be by a consensus

  1483
  of opinion that as an abstract theory it was right. When a Bill was unanimously accepted by the House, was it to be referred to the Standing Committee on Law? Who was it who prevented this and similar measures passing into law? The Government professed to be in favour of the Bill, but they took the whole time of the House, and prevented them from reaching future stages of Bills. He wanted to know whether the Government would allow private Members time for this and similar Bills, so that these discussions on Wednesday afternoons might not be wasted and fruitless.
  Motion agreed to.
  MR. SPEAKER: The question is that the Bill be referred to the Standing Committee on Law.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: On Wednesday last I pointed out grave objections to a similar proposition in reference to a Bill which also proposed changes in the system of Local Government in Ireland, about which we were principally in agreement that something should be done. I have not the same strenuous and serious objection to make to this Bill, which deals with what is an admitted grievance, but I venture again to enter my protest against the course which the Government are now apparently habitually driven to accept, which is to send measures of a controversial character, or which may become of a controversial character, to be dealt with by a body of men who are not called together for any such purpose, and whose organisation utterly unfits them for effectively dealing with controversial matters. There was a letter in the Times only a day or two ago from one of the Chairmen of Grand Committees—the right hon. Member for Denbighshire. I did not read it myself, but if the contents have been rightly represented to me, he complained that it was perfectly impossible for the Chairman to adequately order these Grand Committees, or see that the business was rapidly and decorously carried out. That may be, and I think is, a small matter when you are dealing with technical and comparatively non-controversial Bills, but it becomes a serious matter when you are dealing with Bills of large scope, such as are entrusted to the Government to bring in, and
  1484
  which are hardly ever passed under the guidance of a private Member. It is quite true that the Bill does not present, in any of its main features, a large surface of attack; but all who know anything about Ireland must be aware that there are always subsidiary points which sometimes raise the bitterest controversy; and these should not be left to the decision of such a tribunal as our Grand Committees have proved themselves to be. I do not think it is likely that the Bill will pass through the Grand Committee absolutely without amendment; but it will be the object of the majority to secure that result; and look at the monstrous injustice that will be done if the House be deprived of the opportunity of dealing with it on its subsequent stages. I understand that, if a Bill goes through a Grand Committee without amendment, the Report stage is altogether avoided and the House may be asked at once to pass the third Reading. I am told that this is what has actually happened with regard to one Bill of which the details were not discussed on the Second Reading; it has gone through the Grand Committee without any amendment whatever. The result is that this House may be and will be called upon to pass the Third Reading without having had any opportunity of passing a judgment upon the details of the Bill. I do not think this is the way in which a large and important question like the government of Ireland ought to be treated. For these reasons I venture to protest on broad grounds against a course to which I infer the Government are giving their support. I should be doing wrong if I remained silent, and if I allowed the Motion to pass without expressing the general view of policy on this particular question which I have always strongly entertained.
  MR. J. MORLEY: As the right hon. Gentleman is not going to divide against the Motion, which I am glad to hear, I need not make more than one or two remarks on what has fallen from him. I may point out that, if this is not a Bill which can be referred with advantage to a Grand Committee, it is perfectly clear that no Irish Bill ever can be so referred. I cannot conceive of any Irish Bill coming to and passing through this House less bristling with contentious

  1485
  points, or, to use the right hon, Gentleman's own phrase, exposing a less surface to attack. Therefore, if a Bill of this kind cannot go to a Grand Committee, no Irish Bill can do that. But what a serious position to take—serious, that is, from the right hon. Gentleman's point of view, but not from mine—that no Irish Bill is to go through the House unless it goes through Committee stage in the whole House. That would suit my view very well, because the result would be that not half so many Irish Bills would get through the House, and that would give support to my contention that this House is not capable, from want of knowledge, of making good laws for Ireland. That proposition would receive immense support from the following of the course which the right hon. Gentleman's tactics would involve.
  MR. BALFOUR: Of course I do not accept the conclusion that no Irish Bill should be referred to a Grand Committee.
  MR. J. MORLEY: I quite understand that, but I put it to the right hon. Gentleman whether he can imagine any sort of Bill which could be less contentious than this. I can discover in it abundant grounds for differences of opinion, but nothing like grounds for those exasperating contentions with which we are familiar upon Irish subjects. The right hon. Gentleman is right in saying that, if the Bill were to pass through the Grand Committee without amendment, then the House would have no further voice in the matter until the third reading; but, if there were any serious abuse of the powers of the majority in the Grand Committee, any tyrannical overriding of the minority, it is open to the House to recommit the Bill, and it would be in the power of the House to discuss every clause in it. I think the position taken by the right hon. Gentleman is rather dangerous from his own point of view, though not at all from the point of view of the Home Rulers; but I am glad that he assents to this proposal.
  MR. MACARTNEYsaid, the Bill was only circulated on Monday, and time ought to be allowed for its consideration by the local authorities interested before it was proceeded with by the Grand Committee.
  Motion agreed to.

  JUSTICES OF THE PEACE BILL.
  MR. H. C. F. LUTTRELLrose to move the Second Reading of this Bill. He said that the subject with which it dealt was admittedly one of great importance. Justices of the Peace had to transact a large part of the judicial business of the country, and they were also intrusted with a comparatively large share of administrative work. The constitution of the Magisterial Benches was, in the opinion of many people, unsatisfactory at present. The system under which appointments were made was out of date. The Lord Chancellor had the power of appointing to the Judicial Bench both in town and country, but he acted in two different ways. For towns the appointments were made by the Lord Chancellor of the day upon the recommendation of men who belonged to the Party to which he belonged himself. These recommendations were, in fact, made by the wire-pullers of the Party which was in Office. Political considerations thus affected appointments which ought to be free from political influences. A man was often recommended for appointment as a reward for mere pecuniary Party services, for the contribution of so much money to the funds. Appointments to county Benches were now made upon the recommendation of the Lord Lieutenant or upon the recommendation of the Member or candidate for a constituency. Here again Party considerations entered where they ought not to enter, men being appointed on account of their political opinions. As long as Lords Lieutenant, who were mostly Members of the House of Lords, should possess the power of recommending persons to the Lord Chancellor, so long would Party and social considerations enter into this question. But people ought to be chosen to sit on the Bench on the grounds of fitness and capacity. Because a man possessed great wealth, it did not follow that he was better qualified to discharge the important functions of a Justice of the Peace than a man of more modest means. Too often under the existing system men were appointed, not because they were suited to the Bench, but because the Bench was supposed to be suited to their position. It would be remembered that about this time last

  1487
  year a deputation waited upon the Lord Chancellor, and asked that his hands should be strengthened and that he should be allowed to appoint directly to the Bench without the intervention of the Lord Lieutenant, and the Lord Chancellor then said:—
  "That the constitution of the Bench in many counties was extremely unsatisfactory and prejudical to the public interest, that Lords Lieutenant were too much in the hands of the local magistrates, and that the present system was in many cases virtually one of co-optation, subject to political proclivities."
  He might be told that a change had been introduced since that time, but the change was not completely satisfactory. The Lord Chancellor had now the power to appoint directly, it was true, but it was impossible for him to make appointments which would be satisfactory to all the inhabitants of a county. The Lord Chancellor was, after all, a Member of the Government of the day, and as such, it was extremely difficult for him to make other than political appointments. In his opinion the best way to exclude Party considerations from these appointments, would be to allow the representatives of the people in different localities to make nominations to the Lord Chancellor, a power of veto being given to him in order that he might prevent men from sitting on the Bench who were not fitted for the position. The power of recommendation ought to rest solely with the representatives of the people. Then arose the question, which were the best local bodies to intrust with this power? It might be argued that the smaller bodies ought to be chosen, because they were more in touch with the localities which they represented. On the other hand, it might be thought that it would be better to choose a body responsible to the whole county in respect of county matters. His proposal was that the County Council should make nominations to the Lord Chancellor, and that if the Chairman of a District Council should send up names to the County Council, such names should be considered by the County Council for recommendation. This would insure the County Councils keeping in touch with the wants of the districts. He proposed, then, to empower the Town and County Councils to make the nominations, and the Bill provided for the formation of committees,
  1488
  to be called "Nominating Committees," and to consist of not less than four and not more than ten Councillors. Upon these Committees would be the Chairmen of County Councils and Mayors of Town Councils, and it would be the business of the nominating Committees to nominate men who were suitable for the positions of justices of the peace. The Lord Chancellor would have the power to veto any unsuitable person, but neither he nor the Lord Lieutenant would be able to place on the Bench any man who was not nominated by the representatives of the people in their district. The Bill proposed to remove any Magistrate who had not attended once in the year, unless within twelve months he furnished a sufficient excuse for such non-attendance to the Lord Chancellor. It was further proposed to entirely abolish the property qualification, and he thought both sides would agree that it ought to be abolished in all these appointments. Men should be chosen, not because of the amount of property they possessed, but because of their hearts and brains, and because they were people who were considered best able to manage the affairs of their localities, or perform the functions attaching to the position of a justice of the peace. It was not work which required any great ability, but it did require that those who performed it should be men possessed of common sense, fair-minded, and of good, sound judgment. Again, what they required to have on their benches were men of all classes of society. The fault of their system today was that the justices did not represent all classes. They were too much of one class. They had got the Bench full of the land-owning class, with only a few tradesmen, who had been appointed lately. What they wanted were men of all classes, and they might depend upon it the Bench would not be sufficiently respected by the people of the country, and be in touch with the feelings, wants, and desires of the masses of the people until this change was brought about. He did not make any accusations against the present justices of the peace. He believed they were men who were faithfully doing their duty, and giving up a large amount of their valuable time in order that they might devote attention to the administration of the judicial

  1489
  affairs of the country. He thought they ought to be proud that they had men who were willing to give up so much of their time at no expense to the country. But he contended that on account of the position of these men they were not able to look at questions in the same way as many of the humbler people of the country could. A man, for instance, who was a great sportsman, would be rather apt to look upon poaching as too great an offence. Many of their justices regarded the matters which were brought before them with, perhaps, too narrow a view. They wanted on the Bench not only the landowners of the country, but the tradesmen of the country, not only people belonging to one church, but people of different views as to religion, so that when questions came up they might be looked at, not with one set of eyes alone, but that many sets of eyes and different views might be brought to bear upon the consideration of the matters arising. If their Benches were now more representative of the people they would, he was convinced, he more highly respected by the people, and it was because he was anxious to make the Bench more in touch with the people, and more widely composed of men of different opinions and views that he had no hesitation in submitting this Bill for the consideration of the House, and he hoped they should pass it.
  MR. A. J. WILLIAMSsupported the Bill. In Committee on the Local Government Bill of 1888, he observed, he moved an Amendment which proposed substantially to give the nominations for Justices of the Peace in counties to the County Councils. He entirely agreed with his hon. Friend that the modification of that proposal adopted in the Bill—namely, that thought the nomination should be made by the County Council, the work of selection, should be entrusted to a Committee of the County Council, was a very desirable one. The Amendment he moved in 1888 was really disinterred from a Bill brought in more than 50 years previously. It was, substantially, an original clause in the Municipal Corporations Bill of 1836, as brought in by Lord John Russell. It was defeated in the House of Lords, but as far back as the time when the Liberal Government proposed to reform their
  1490
  municipal corporations, that democratic proposal was introduced by Lord John Russell that the County Council for any borough should nominate as many persons as it thought fit, to be placed on the Commission of the Peace for the Borough. His hon. Friend had referred to the very important new departure which had been made upon the Resolution of this House by the Lord Chancellor. During the last two or three years most Members, he had no doubt, had been called upon more or less to take some part in reference to the work of selection by the Lord Chancellor, and he was bound to say that anything more invidious than that duty he did not think it possible to conceive, nor, in his opinion, could there be a position so unsatisfactory as the present position of the Lord Chancellor with reference to these appointments. He had to rely, more or less, upon information which he could not test; he had to rely to a great extent upon the suggestions and information afforded him by the Party to which he belonged. He did not think that was the way in which they should go about the selection to these important judicial posts. They had, therefore, to consider what, with reference to the great democratic movement which had taken place in their local government, was the best course to be adopted. During the last five years it had been his privilege to be a Member of the Committee of the County Council of Glamorganshire. That Committee was entrusted with the framing of a scheme of education, under the Intermediate Education Act, for the whole county. Under that Act the County Council Committee was composed of three nominated members appointed by the County Council and two appointed by the Government. The Government of the day was Conservative at the time of the formation of this Committee, and they put on two Conservative Members. The Committee sat five years, doing most important work, and his experience had been that a Committee of that sort, acting under a grave sense of responsibility, whatever its political opinions might be, came to the discharge of those duties under that sense of responsibility, and would discharge them without reference to political leanings. A Committee of the County Council would, he believed, do admirable service

  1491
  in obtaining information, and ultimately in nominating those who should be put upon the Bench. He was convinced, after careful consideration, that this expedient would be of the greatest possible service to the Lord Chancellor. A change in the present system could not be long delayed, and he commended the present proposal as worthy of the consideration of the House. The only way in which they could avoid the exercise of political and social influence in the appointment of Magistrates was to devolve the duty of nomination, as well as of selection, upon the responsible representatives of the people. Then they would have the primary element of a proper unpaid magistracy—a representation of all classes without reference to position and without reference to property qualification. He could not conclude without bearing his personal testimony to the manner in which, under most serious difficulties, the Lord Chan-Chancellor had endeavoured, at all events in the County of Glamorgan, to make a selection which represented all classes; and there could not be a more conspicuous instance of success upon the Petty Sessional Bench than the appointments made from among the working men of that county. In supporting this Bill he was adopting a self-denying course, because the effect of the first section would be that he would cease to be a Magistrate. But he frankly admitted that he did not feel he was fitted to be a Magistrate, and he would gladly be relieved of what was to him an unpleasant duty.
  MR. J. GRANT LAWSONrose to move that the Bill be read a second time on this day six months. If a Bill of this character was required, it ought, he thought, to be brought in by someone of very considerable legal qualifications, and he did not think the gentlemen whose names were on the back of the Bill possessed those qualifications. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Second Reading stated that the Bench at present was in an unsatisfactory condition, but he did not give one instance where the administration of justice by the local Bench was opposed by the people of the district. Hon. gentlemen seemed to consider that the Lord Chancellor acted only on the advice of wirepullers. But the Lord Chancellor was not bound
  1492
  to accept the recommendation of the Lord Lieutenant. There was no reason why every Parish meeting in England should not send a list of names to the Lord Chancellor. Both the mover and the seconder poured unlimited praise on the present state of things; and yet they sought to abolish the whole system. He agreed with the mover that magistrates were discharging their duties faithfully, and that politics ought not to enter into the question of their appointment. But the hon. Member's manner of carrying out his desire was most singular. The Lord Chancellor was a political officer; but he was an officer of immense dignity, and the officer least likely to be influenced by political considerations in discharging most important functions. The Bill divided itself into three parts; and the principle of the Bill was so much involved in each that it would be impossible to make it acceptable by amendment. The first part of the Bill disqualified any Magistrate who, without due and sufficient cause, did not attend once a year to his duties. He was not indisposed to agree with that condition. Such an arrangement would give a man an opportunity of retiring gracefully from a position which possibly he did not seek. But the whole Bill proposed to restrict the power of the Lord Chancellor. He believed that the deputation to the Lord Chancellor last year desired to set his hands free in the exercise of his authority, but this Bill tied his hands. The second part of the Bill prevented the Lord Chancellor from appointing anybody except those who had been nominated by a Committee of the County Council. The Lord Chancellor, however, had the power of vetoing the nomination. That was not trusting the people. Of all the methods of nominating magistrates the proposal of this Bill surely was the worst. There were political parties in every County Council, and they had seen cases where a party with a majority of only one or two had made nominations to public offices entirely from its own side. One or two illustrations had been afforded very recently. He fancied that, when that Committee was nominated by some of the County Councils, they would nominate persons only of their own views, and they alone had the

  1493
  slightest chance of being made magistrates. The third portion of the Bill dealt with the qualification of magistrates. He was not altogether anxious to fight against that particular part of the Bill. He was no great believer in property qualifications; but, on the other hand, he was not altogether opposed to the property qualification. To have a competency was, at any rate, likely to indicate a person who would be impartial, and who would be incorruptible. He did not deny that men without any such competency were perfectly honest and straightforward, just and fair-minded; but he did not believe anyone would contend that, if a man possessed nothing, he was the more likely to make an impartial Judge than if he had property of his own. He should prefer to hear some sounder reasons for interfering with the present condition of affairs than had been adduced; and certainly he should like to hear the views of the Government. It was a question of the greatest importance, because politics should be left out of account in the appointment of Magistrates.
  MR. A. RENTOULformally seconded the Motion.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCLIEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,: The first statement I have to make with reference to this Bill is that I have received to-day from the Lord Chancellor, who is probably a better judge than I am of this subject, an intimation that he is favourable to it. What is the position which the hon. Member has taken up with reference to this matter? This Bill contains three propositions. One is that magistrates who do not attend to their magisterial duties should be removed from the Roll. The hon. Member does not object to that proposal; and there are other assemblies besides magistrates who do not attend very often unless it is on a question in which they are interested. I refer to an Assembly not very far removed from our own. In many counties there is never a great attendance of magistrates except when there is some place to give away. Then I have observed that all the magistrates who do not attend on other occasions, say, when there is a Chief Constable to be appointed, put in an appearance. That is a scandal which ought to be
  1494
  removed, and the men who hold these high judicial appointments ought not to become in public opinion mere walking gentlemen on the stage. I go to another point; and that is the qualification. I do not understand that the hon. Member objects to the removal of the qualification. He says men who possess nothing are not persons who would be very fitted to be magistrates. What does he mean by "nothing"? Does he mean that the necessary qualification is to be a qualification of real property, and that everyone who has no real property of a certain amount is a person who has "nothing"? I cannot understand why a man who has £100 earned by weekly wages should not be capable of becoming a magistrate. Why is it to be property of a particular description? I do not want to have a man in receipt of relief a magistrate, but the class of magistrate in a county should a magistrate who represented all classes of the community. That is the important point. There is nothing more injurious to the administration of justice than—I can speak from long experience—a prevalent belief that the administration of justice in the counties is confined exclusively to one class of the community. That belief has a most injurious effect on the public mind, and though I know and believe that the magistrates do their duty in all respects, it is a prejudice against them that they only represent one particular class of the community. I remember in old days, when Sir James Graham was at the Home Office, he stated in this House that it was found necessary, in consequence of public opinion in the country on the subject, to provide that all convictions under the Game Laws should receive a special review of the Home Office. Why? Because he knew from public opinion that no convictions under the Game Laws were enforced in consequence of the magistrates being confined to one particular class of the community. That is a great objection, and when you have a responsible Lord Chancellor, he ought to have the liberty to appoint persons of all classes of the community whom he thinks fitted for the Magistracy, apart altogether from a special qualification in any particular class of property. On that ground, therefore, I do not see that any objection whatever can be taken to those

  1495
  two parts of the Bill. Then it is said that the recommendations coming from the Lord Chancellor should go through the local authority. That is a very important part of the Bill. There have been proposals made for elective magistrates. I have always been against them. It would be a very evil principle to introduce in this country; but I have said that in my opinion an election of the character proposed in this Bill would be a very proper election. Let us consider what is the position of the Lord Chancellor at present. It is quite true that he is not bound to receive or to act on the nomination of the Lord Lieutenant. That is absolutely necessary. The history of the nominations of the Lord Lieutenants in many counties is such as to have unquestionably, in present and past generations, excluded to a great degree from the Magistracy, persons who belonged to all classes and all creeds. It is useless to deny the fact that in a great many cases the appointments have been made of those belonging to one creed, to one class, and to one political opinion. That may be denied, but the denial would be contrary to the experience of anyone who knows the country life of this country. It is quite true that the Lord Chancellor is not bound by those recommendations; he may go outside them. But to whom is he to go? The Lord Chancellor has not the local knowledge, and therefore he is obliged to rely on recommendations that are made to him, not always very trustworthy. I suppose hon. Members know the kind of pressure under which Members of Parliament are placed in order to recommend persons who are political supporters in the counties, of whom they themselves know very little. That is the source of information which the hon. Gentleman describes as wire-pulling; but the present system is more exposed to wire-pulling than any system you can conceive. I hope we shall get rid of that, just as we have got rid of recommendations by hon. Members for places—a source of great evil to the men who had to make them. I should like to see the recommendations to the Magistracy put beyond the reach of hon. Members on both sides of the House. What does this Bill recommend? It recommends that the responsible Local Authority
  1496
  should vouch to the Lord Chancellor for the men whom they think are fitted for such a position. What can be more reasonable or sound than such a principle as that? They are the men who know the persons. Prima facie, they exercise that responsibility, not privately or secretly, but in the face of day; and the Chairman of the County Council and the Committee are responsible, in the presence of their constituencies and of the locality generally in which they live, for the recommendations they make. It is quite true that in many County Councils there is a political predominance—a political predominance of which Gentlemen opposite have no reason to complain. But I have faith in local government of this character, and I do not believe that County Councils will abuse that power. They will use it in the presence of people who know what they are doing, and they will vouch to the Lord Chancellor men who from their position and their character are likely to be good and worthy magistrates. Surely that is a much better system than any that at present exists. It is better than the sole recommendation of the Lord Lieutenant, of which nobody knows anything. It is far better than the private representations to which the Lord Chancellor must now necessarily have recourse in the nomination of magistrates. You will have responsible local authorities sending in lists of gentlemen to the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor is not bound to appoint everybody who is there nominated, and I myself a n not disposed to support the proposal that the Lord Chancellor should be limited to those nominations; the discretion of the Lord Chancellor ought to be unlimited. It is very desirable the Lord Chancellor should not be responsible only to the local bodies, but that he should preserve his present responsibility, which is a responsibility to the Executive of Parliament. Therefore I recommend my hon. Friends who are promoting this Bill to alter the measure in that respect. But if you are to have a commending authority, how can you have a better one than the responsible local body, whether in a county or a borough? What objection is there to such a proposal? The hon. and learned Member said that if the county Members had had sufficient notice they would have come down to oppose

  1497
  the Bill. On what ground are they going to oppose it? Because they think magistrates who do not attend are people who ought to be supported in their present position? Because they will have nobody on the Bench who has not got a real property qualification?
  MR. JAMES LOWTHER: It is not so now.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: What is not so?
  MR. JAMES LOWTHER: It is not now confined to a real property qualification.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: What do you call a real property qualification? Can a man who gets two guineas a week at wages become a county magistrate? I know men who were as fit as any man to be on the Bench, and the only reason why they were not appointed was that they had not the qualification now required. Is it intended by this qualification to keep such men off the Bench? I think the present disqualification ought to be removed. I cannot understand what it is county gentlemen oppose. Is it the fitness of the County Council to recommend men for appointment? I should have thought, after the experience they have had, that they would have had confidence in their County Councils. I certainly can answer for the boroughs. They have confidence in their Councils. Those Councils know their fellow-citizens, and they are far better able than anybody else, than any Lord Lieutenant, than any Member of Parliament, than any private individual, to tender to the Lord Chancellor counsels he ought to have in selecting men as magistrates. I therefore entirely resent what the hon. and learned Member said—namely, that we are weakening the position of the responsible magistrates to administer justice in this country. On the contrary, in my opinion, we are taking the proper measures to see that the fittest men are appointed magistrates. We are not doing anything to introduce a political element into the question; we are making the best possible provision against it. We leave the responsibility where it now is—viz., upon the Lord Chancellor, who is the highest executive judicial officer in the country; and as to the advice and the information he is to have on the subject, we recommend that that should rest with
  1498
  men who have the best means of knowing and of exercising that responsibility in the face of day and of the community in which the magistrates are to administer justice. The Lord Chancellor, so far from feeling that the proposal is any impeachment of his authority, so far from feeling that it makes his task more difficult, feels it would be in principle one that will assist him very much in the performance of his duties. Under such circumstances I, on the part of the Government, give a hearty support to Bill.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman, as the Leader of a great Party, would not consent to the inclusion in the Bill of Clause 13. If that was gone, what was left of the operative part of the Bill? What was there now in the present law to prevent a Town Council or a County Council from making nominations? Those who had experience in these matters knew perfectly well that unofficially, and, indeed, sometimes openly and with all the appearance of official action, such nominations were made. His purpose was to show that the evils produced by such nominations were quite as great as the evils produced by private recommendations usually sought in these cases. He knew of a case in which, on the Lord Chancellor seeking to make appointments in a borough, it was decided locally to place the thing on what was called a non-political footing, and, accordingly a joint list was was agreed upon; the Liberals nominated their men, and the Conservatives theirs. One of the Parties—the Liberals—did not select their best men, and would not contend they selected their best men, and the result was that better men were put on the Bench than the Liberal Party had themselves recommended. If the recommendations were made by representative bodies chosen, as they must be chosen in the present day, upon political grounds, it stood to reason that the nominations must be made, and would be made, as a reward of zealous political services. Suppose that a County Council had a certain political party in a clear majority, did anyone suppose that when there was a chance of making nominations to the Lord Chancellor, and active political men put forward their claims,

  1499
  the majority of the Council would dare to disregard those claims? Speaking to a deputation in November, 1893, the present Lord Chancellor said that names had been put before him by Members of Parliament of those who were grossly unfitted to be put on the Judicial Bench. The nominations were avowedly made on political grounds, and made by responsible persons, such as Members of Parliament. Was it contended that a Member of Parliament was less responsible than a County Council?
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I venture to say he knows less about the matter than a County Council.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEYundertook to say that was not so. A County Council was subject to, and was swayed by, motives which were often more likely to mislead it than the motives which, according to the Lord Chancellor, misled Members of Parliament in making the recommendations. Of course the Lord Chancellor was in favour of the Bill. Why? Because the action of his Party had placed him in a very ridiculous and miliating position, and burdened him with duties which no Lord Chancellor would be expected to discharge. It had been said there was positive evidence that these political recommendations had resulted in disaster. They had the actual placing on the Bench of men who were not fitted to be there.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I made no such statement.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEY(referring to his notes) said, he was obliged to say the Lord Chancellor only stated that such men were recommended. No case could be shown of a Lord Lieutenant having recommended a man who had been convicted of an indictable offence, as was admitted to have happened in the case of one of these political recommendations to the Lord Chancellor. The Bill was not honest enough to propose direct popular election to the Magistracy, but it was none the less bad, because it would bring about popular election in substance if not in form. There was nothing in the Bill, for instance, to prevent a political majority, politically elected on a local public body, from nominating themselves to the Bench as Magistrates. It was said that at present Lords Lieutenant made appointments to the Bench solely on
  1500
  political grounds. That he denied. What would be said by hon. Gentlemen opposite if he were to contend that the Lords Lieutenant appointed men of one political party because men could not be found in the other political party who were fit to sit on the Bench? And yet one statement was not less ridiculous than the other. Personally, he had no desire to fight hard for the retention of the property qualification; but there was something to be said in its favour. There were other things besides popular election, which conferred representative character, and one of these was the possession of property, which gave not only a representative character, but an interest in local affairs. However, if it were not going to be laid down by the Bill that the Lord Chancellor was not to be allowed to go outside the nominations of the local authority, it did not become necessary to fight so hard for the property qualification. To sum up, his objections to the Bill were that it would stereotpye and perpetuate the system of nomination on political grounds; that while it would give the preponderance of nominations to one political party, it made no provision to bring that preponderance to an end after the lapse of time; and that it made no provision either for the representation of political minorities on the Bench, which the promotion of the Bill professed to be the object they had at heart.
  MR. CYRIL DODDwas glad to hear the statement from the other side that politics should have nothing to do with appointments to the County Benches. That was what the Liberal Party had been striving for for many years; but unfortunately politics had had a great deal to do with the appointments to the County Benches, with the result that when the present Government came into power only from 8 to 10 per cent, of the Magistrates in England and Wales belonged to the Liberal Party. The hon. Member for the Hallam Division of Sheffield said He was anxious that the minority, whatever it might be, should have representation on the County Benches. The Liberal Party were also anxious that that should be the case. But what had been the state of things in the past? It had not been a question, of minority of the majority, but simply a question of the politics of the Lord Lieutenant.

  1501
  He was sorry to say, that as a general rule, it was hopeless for anyone to expect a nomination to the county bench unless he was of the same political Party as the Lord Lieutenant. He was, therefore, glad to hear in the House a general consensus of opinion that the fitness of a person, and not his politics, ought to influence the Lord Lieutenant in nominating him a magistrate; and he was also pleased to find that the property qualification had apparently no defender in any quarter of the House. He pointed out that there was a very considerable difference between the modes in which magistrates were appointed in the boroughs and in the counties. In boroughs there was no property qualification, and the appointments were made by the Lord Chancellor, who sometimes, but not generally, paid attention to the wishes of the Town Councils. In the counties the nominations were made by the Lords Lieutenant, and there was a property qualification of either an income of £100 a year from freehold or long leasehold land, or the occupancy for two years of a house which was assessed for the Inhabited House Duty of t£100 a year. Therefore, while in the boroughs justice could be administered by men of all classes, in the counties no one could administer it but persons of considerable social position. The promoters of the Bill contended it was a good thing to have justice administered in counties and boroughs by men of all classes, if proper men in all classes could be found to do it. The Bill had, therefore, four main propositions—first, the abolition of nominations by the Lord Lieutenant; second, empowering local authorities to nominate; third, the removal of the property qualification; and, fourth, the removal from the Bench of gentlemen who did not take the trouble to attend. With regard to the third proposition, he did not think there was any one in the House who would venture to say that a property qualification was the sole qualification necessary in a man to administer justice. What really was required in a magistrate was a sense of justice and a determination to do right, and if that could be combined with some knowledge of the law, a perfect magistrate would be obtained. He thought the Bill on the whole an excellent measure, and he
  1502
  was prepared to give it his heartiest support.
  SIR H. FLETCHERsaid, that as one who had been a county magistrate for 35 years, and a member of the County Council since its formation, he must take exception to some of the remarks of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The County Council would not, in his opinion, be a proper body to entrust with the nomination or the recommendation to the Lord Chancellor of gentlemen who should be justices of the peace. He would point out that there was in existence a body which in his own county sent to the Lord Lieutenant, or to the Lord Chancellor, the names of persons qualified to act as magistrates. In Sussex it had been the practice during many years for the chairman of the petty sessional division to send in the names of gentlemen whom he knew—and there were none in a better position to know—to possess the proper qualifications for a justice of the peace. Some months ago he, as chairman of his own petty sessional division, sent in the names of three gentleman to the Lord Chancellor—two of them Conservative and one a Liberal. The Lord Chancellor placed upon the commission of the peace one gentleman holding Conservative principles, and one holding Liberal principles, whose name he himself personally sent in, struck out the name of his other Conservative friend, and placed on a gentleman belonging to the Liberal Party.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: That is co-optation.
  SIR H. FLETCHERretorted that it might be co-optation, but he was perfectly satisfied with the arrangement that had been made. He objected to the County Council being the nominating body, because, in his opinion, they had quite enough to do at the present time; while, with regard to the idea of placing working men on the commission of the peace, from his long experience of country life as a magistrate, he was satisfied there were very few bonâ fide working men who would be able to find the time for the duties. He knew many men who had to come up to attend Committees on some 33 days during the year. The Chancellor of the Exchequer might think he spoke as an old Tory, but he was not that in the least. He was ready to go with the times so long as

  1503
  the times advanced steadily and did not make any too radical change. But the present Bill was a most extreme measure. The property qualification ought to be supported. What would happen if there were on a County Council a large preponderance of the temperance party, and they recommended the placing on the commission only those who supported temperance views? The Bill was bad in its main principle, and he should consider it his duty to give it every opposition in his power.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD,said, that if the friends of this Bill had been anxious to obtain some arguments in its favour, they could not have found anything that would more heartily satisfy them than the very frank speech of the hon. and gallant Member. He had let the House into the secrets of the petty sessional division over which, no doubt, he very admirably presided in the county of Sussex. He had the honesty to tell the House the condition of things in this particular division. Now, it might be impertinent to inquire into details, but he might assume there were, at any rate, a fair proportion of Tories upon that Bench, and that every now and again, just for the sake of appearances, they let in a Liberal. But how did they get him in? Why, it was a little club. These gentlemen considered when they met at Petty Sessions—
  "Now who would be a pleasant fellow to have amongst as a Justice of the Peace? Shall it be A or shall it be B? B is a Liberal, but still he is a good fellow; let's have him,"
  and so the little matter was arranged. And this was how justice was administered in the petty sessional division of Sussex over which the hon. and gallant Gentleman presided! Surely he must admit that, except under very special circumstances that must be connected with the hon. and gallant Gentleman's presidency, such a system would be very likely to prove a failure.
  SIR H. FLETCHER(interposing) reminded the learned Solicitor General that the system, as he had said, obtained in the whole county, and not merely in his own district. And as to only now and then letting in a Liberal, they had great difficulty in finding any Liberals at all.
  SIR FRANK LOCKWOODsaid, that was because they could not find them with the property qualification. They either did not live, these unfortunate people, in sufficiently highly-rated houses, or they had not got £100 a year from lands and buildings, or they were not good fellows. It turned out, too, that this was a bigger club than he had thought, because it was not only attached to one petty sessional division, but was a big county club. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said this was a terrible Radical measure. It would probably surprise the hon. and gallant Member to know that in 1835 a provision that the appointment of borough Magistrates should rest with the Town Council—not with the Lord Chancellor—was included in a Bill brought before Parliament in that year, and no doubt hon. Gentlemen opposite would at once appreciate why it did not become law. It was rejected by the House of Lords. Lord John Russell, in dealing with the Lords' Amendments on September 7th, 1835, made a speech in which he pointed out that the House of Commons, in the last Debate on the subject, approved, by a large majority, that the power of nomination should be in the hands of Town Councils, but this proposal did not become law because the House of Lords rejected it. Yet the hon. Member was surprised that such a proposal should be made. He respected the hon. and gallant Gentleman for having the courage of his convictions, but what real grounds could be advance for retaining a property qualification? There was no property qualification in Scotland for the election of Justices either in borough or county. There was no property qualification required for the post of Her Majesty's Judges. Then why should it be persevered in in the present instance in this part only of the United Kingdom, when, as he was confident the hon. and gallant Gentleman must admit, it operated in many cases very disadvantageously for the public good in preventing men who were otherwise fitted for the position from taking their place on the magisterial bench?
  MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid, he thought the hon. and learned Member had scarcely convinced the House that there was any demand for the Bill. He

  1505
  admitted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had no great difficulty in showing that the present state of the law with respect to the appointment of magistrates was eminently unsatisfactory, and certainly nobody would be concerned to defend, in every detail, the existing system. The right hon. Gentleman had given instances of the abuses which had come to his knowledge in connection with partisan appointments, but it certainly should be recognised that those abuses, relevant as they might be to a remote period, could hardly be validly urged in relation to the present time, so far, at any rate, as Lords Lieutenant were concerned. Now, as to the property qualification, he was free to confess that he did not see that any very great advantage was to be secured by retaining it as it at present existed, yet he believed that in many instances a property qualification might fairly, and with advantage, be enforced in spirit in the appointment of Justices, a qualification which, under 38 and 39 Vic., cap. 54, was no longer confined, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had inadvertently stated, to that of real estate. He said just now that the present state of things was eminently unsatisfactory, and they had recently had proof of the fact. They had witnessed the spectacle of the Lord Chancellor being practically mobbed in his own official room in connection with this matter, and of a deputation who pressed upon him receiving a well-deserved snubbing at his hands. He was not surprised at the Lord Chancellor being reluctant to receive advice tendered to him in such a fashion, though, unfortunately, he virtually accepted and acted upon it in too many instances. What was the result of the reluctant compliance of the Lord Chancellor with the suggestions which were conveyed to him in this disrespectful and dictatorial manner? Cases had been mentioned more than once in the House in which men appointed through this dictation made their first appearance in Court, not on
  1506
  the bench but in the dock. Another and more remarkable case still had been quoted, in which a person, who first made his appearance in Court in that particular part to which he had referred, was a man whose nomination had been declined by the Lord Lieutenant of the county, and who had been appointed over the head of the Lord Lieutenant at the dictation of the hon. Member for Peterborough and his friends. Those facts, he thought, went far to prove the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the present system was eminently unsatisfactory. Then, as to the system proposed by the Bill, that a popularly elected local body should be the authority for recommending persons for nomination to the Bench, they had recently had some evidence in London how a popularly elected body set about to discharge its judicial duties. He would not go into details of any particular case, but it had been indubitably proved before the High Court that, at any rate, one leading member of the local body to which he had alluded, entered into a back parlour conspiracy and into collusion with one of the parties to a suit which it had to judicially determine. If recent experience had taught them one fact more plainly than another, it was that popularly elected local bodies—elected as they were amidst all the controversies of partisan disputes inseparably connected with such elections—were ipso facto disqualified for such a duty as the Bill sought to impose upon them. He remembered that in 1867 the then Lord Chancellor—Lord Chelmsford—laid down a rule for his own guidance in those matters, to the effect that, in consequence of a Vote of that House, he would not appoint any borough magistrates unless he had, beforehand, the approval of the Town Council. Now, he thought at that time that that was a monstrous decision for the Lord Chancellor to arrive at, and he did not conceal his opinion. The result was that several thoroughly qualified gentlemen upon a list

  1507
  equally representative of both Parties, whose names he had presented to the Lord Chancellor for nomination to a borough bench withdrew their consent to serve. He could conceive nothing less calculated to conduce to the dignity of the magisterial bench than that its members should have to pass through the ordeal of an indirect popular election, and have their claims and qualifications openly canvassed, in no reserved terms, before a popularly elected local body. That, in his opinion, was the most objectionable part of the Bill. They had been told that under this Bill all classes would be represented on the Bench. What actual foundation was there for such an allegation? Did the Chancellor of the Exchequer undertake to assure them that the popularly elected local bodies should so set to work as to accept for nomination persons of all classes? What had been the general experience as to the election of Aldermen of Municipal Corporations all over the Kingdom? There had been one point which almost all those elections had in common, namely, that, while Party influences were usually supreme, the nominations had been almost entirely confined to one class. Instances where Municipal Corporations had chosen any persons outside their own social surroundings were few and rare, and those who were elected were almost invariably members of the middle class, to the exclusion of what was generally known as the landed class, while he did not remember any instance in which working-class members had been placed on the Corporations. If, therefore, popular election by local bodies was likely to have this effect, it would certainly be a new departure. With regard to the provision for the removal of non-attending justices, he thought that would operate very harshly, and would in many cases be inimical to the public interest. It would in the first place, he thought, lead to the removal of active useful men who had other occupations. It would introduce a system very like the
  1508
  practice of scoring divisions in the House, and judging therefrom of the legislative activity of members, for Justices of the Peace would put in an appearance, perhaps for one day, just to qualify under this Bill. Justices had other duties to discharge besides going to Quarter and Petty Sessions, and some of the most essential of such duties were those in connection with the granting of summonses and formal proceedings of that kind. To sum the Bill up, it seemed to him there was no requirement for it at all. The Lord Chancellor now was perfectly entitled to consult any person he thought fit with regard to the appointments to the County or Borough Bench. He would not, at this moment, say anything as to the unwise departure from the old constitutional usage under which the Lord Lieutenant of the County was held responsible for nominations, but even as the law had been interpreted in recent years, there was nothing to prevent the Lord Chancellor, if he thought fit, from applying to the Chairman of the County Council, or of the Standing Joint Committee, or anyone well versed in county affairs. He understood that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was opposed to Clause 13 of the Bill; but under this Bill, even with the omission of that clause, the Lord Chancellor would find himself placed in the unpleasant position of having either to accept en bloc a list of persons submitted by the local authority, or incur the odium of discriminating between a selection. The position now of the unpaid magistrates was an unsatisfactory one. He believed that there was a great risk of the public confidence being withdrawn when magistrates were appointed on avowedly political grounds, or as the result of lobbying and intrigue, and all the devices associated with a popular election. He confessed he should regard the extension of the system of the appointment of stipendiary magistrates for judicial work as a step in the right direction. The

  1509
  idea that the Bench ought to be composed of a certain number of members of one class and a certain number of another was a farce. What we required were honourable and conscientious men to discharge their duties without fear, favour, or affection. He thought this was a most unnecessary and mischievous Bill, and hoped the House would not consent to it.
  SIR A. K. ROLLITsaid, he could give the right hon. Member a very ready explanation of the fact that municipal bodies had drawn their aldermen from the same class as themselves. It was because they had almost universally elected aldermen from amongst themselves. Thus only those were selected who had undergone the ordeal of election, and the supplementation of their number was left to a further ordeal of election. Thus there was nothing in the right hon. Gentleman's argument from the action of the Corporations. There seemed to be a very general impression that the existing system of appointing magistrates was open, not only to criticism, but almost to condemnation. The appointments were not, in the boroughs, almost absolutely political; they were made by a high political official, who was a Party politician, and the qualification was generally Party services. It had been suggested that the nominations should be made from a joint list, but this also seemed to be open to objection. The result of the present system was very often that there was no qualification whatever that could be alleged in favour of an applicant, except that he had rendered some Party service. In the counties it was better, but there, too, the appointments were undoubtedly apt to be too much based on social considerations, and the result was the restriction too much of the magistracy to the landed classes and chiefly to that one class; and there was the graver objection, also, that many who had done really good public service had been overlooked in consequence of their
  1510
  not being personally known to the Lord Lieutenant. The Bill would obviate this and give the honour to the best men and those most entitled to it. The Bill, he thought, would be of great service in subjecting the appointments to the influence of public opinion, and in substituting the qualification of public work for private self-seeking. There were many things that would justify the nomination of magistrates by the Local Authorities. Borough Councils were now consulted about nominations, and could place objections before the Lord Chancellor. Some members of Local Authorities were ex officio magistrates, like the Mayors, who were the chief magistrates in boroughs, and also sat ex officio on some county benches; the Chairmen of District Councils, and ex-Mayors after their year of office. He was aware that Local Authorities recommended persons as magistrates now, but it was a privilege and not a right to do so, and probable strictly ultra vires, and it was chiefly done after the Lord Chancellor had consulted the Council, and then only rarely. He believed that the nomination of magistrates by local governing bodies amenable to public opinion would have its advantages. The pecuniary qualifications that had hitherto been required for magistrates were against the whole tendency of the times. No qualification was required for a Mayor or Chairman of a District Council. They did not want qualifications, but qualification—familiarity with public work and service, an intuitive instinct in the administration of justice, and some legal knowledge. The Bill would add the qualification of public service to the pecuniary one which at present existed, and by securing the representation of a larger number of classes upon the magisterial bench would give greater confidence in the administration of justice and create a deeper sympathy with the administration of the law. He objected to Section 11, and thought the Bill should only give an additional public channel of

  1511
  nomination in place of the present private and secret one, which was irresponsible and not open to criticism. But, subject to this, he would not interfere with the existing system, but would, by erasing the 11th clause, give the double opportunity of nomination.
  MR. J. C. MACDONAsaid, that in the constituency which he represented, containing 9,600 working men, there was not a single resident magistrate, and many of these working men would make as capable magistrates as many of the Members of that House or the other. They returned two Moderates at the recent County Council election, and he would have no hesitation in intrusting to a constituency like that the recommendation of magistrates.
  MR. A. F. JEFFREYSsaid, that, before attendance in that House occupied so much of his time, he regularly attended two county benches, and was struck with the efficiency and the self-sacrifice which the magistrates showed in the discharge of their duties. He had never heard any complaints against them nor of their being influenced by petty motives in the administration of justice; and, speaking for himself, he had great admiration for the way the magistrates discharged their duties. It had been said there should be more magistrates. A great many more magistrates had been appointed. A return was moved for last week of those who had been appointed magistrates by being elected chairmen of District Councils. That return was granted, and until it had been prepared he thought they were premature in pressing that Bill. An hon. Member had said that nearly all the magistrates were landowners, and that if a man was not a landowner he stood little chance of being appointed. From a return of the county magistrates elected last year, taking the county of Chester, he found among the magistrates there was a retired merchant, a farmer,
  1512
  a surgeon, a woollen manufacturer, a tanner, a felt-hat maker, an iron merchant, and an ironmonger. This showed that all classes in the county were drawn upon. In the county of Durham, he found among the county magistrates a doctor of medicine, a public accountant, a brickmaker, a butcher, an engine builder, a glass manufacturer, and a timber merchant. In Herefordshire there was an auctioneer, a retired draper, a farmer, a manure merchant, a Member of Parliament, a retired grocer, a newspaper proprietor, a retired officer of the Army, and, lastly, a landed proprietor. If he had had more time, he could have proved that in all the counties in England the magisterial bench was well filled, and there was no necessity for the proposed great alteration in the law. It would hardly be denied that the present law had worked well. In former days some Lord Lieutenants might have appointed magistrates in a haphazard way, and from social and political reasons. But that was not so nowadays. In many counties it was said—
  "Why should there be such a preponderance of Conservatives on the magisterial Bench?"
  With equal truth it might be asked why should there be a preponderance of Conservatives and Unionists on the County Councils. Why did a county return Conservative Members of Parliament except that they represented the general feeling of the electors? There were counties in England in which the Bench of Magistrates, the Members of the County Council, and the Members of Parliament were of the same politics. That was because the great majority of the people were of one way of thinking, and it could not be said that the elected Representatives were unworthy to sit in this House or on the County Council. There might be parts of Wales in which most men were of Liberal politics, and there you would find many magistrates were Liberals, as were also County Councillors and Members of Parliament. But who

  1513
  would, therefore, lay down a hard-and-fast rule, as the Lord Chancellor had done, that a man should not be appointed a magistrate unless he were a Liberal. ["No, no!"] Well, when a Conservative was proposed for the County Bench, the Lord Chancellor said he could not appoint him unless he could appoint a Liberal at the same time; he would appoint a pair, but not one without the other. This was giving a political complexion to the appointments in a manner inconsistent with justice. What the County Councils would do in this matter was shown by what they had done in electing Aldermen. During the last three years the Aldermen in the London County Council had been of one way of thinking. If they were to take to appointing magistrates according to the political majority there would be an end to all idea of justice. After what they had done in appointing Aldermen he should be afraid to give the proposed power to County Councils. They did their proper work well, and there was no reason why this fresh task should be put upon them. We must leave the selection of county magistrates subject to an arrangement which had worked well. If a Lord Lieutenant felt called upon to make fresh nominations he looked about for the right man in the locality in which the magistrates were needed, and he chose men who possessed the confidence of their neighbours, without asking whether they were Conservatives or Liberals. In his own county, whenever a Liberal was found who was worthy of confidence, he was sure to be made a magistrate. He hoped the present mode of appointing magistrates would be continued, and he regarded the introduction of this Bill as an unnecessary waste of time.
  MR. JOSEPH RICHARDSONsaid, that he was connected with two counties, the North Riding of York and Durham, and he had no fault to find with the method of appointing magistrates. It was true there was on the Bench a majority of Conservatives; but he had yet to learn that they had failed in their duty, and when they were on the Bench they acted with impartiality. There were appointed a number of gentlemen who were, at the time, of his own principles; but they soon turned out to be either Conservatives or Liberal
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  Unionists. But they were none the worse magistrates for that. He would be sorry that the practice which had hitherto prevailed should be interfered with.
  MR. T. L. WHARTONcomplained that the Bill had not been obtainable until that day, although if it was passed its operation might be fraught with very serious consequences indeed. There seemed to be an idea that Lords Lieutenant were ipso facto Tories, but in the North Riding of Yorkshires the Lord Lieutenant was the Liberal Marquess of Ripon, and, if this Bill was passed, the manufacture of magistrates would pass into the hands of a County Committee, which would probably be presided over by the right hon. Member for Thanet (Mr. James Lowther). Thus the framers of this Bill jump from the frying pan into the fire. Magistrates ought to be educated men whom the nation could trust. The Lords Lieutenant had done their duty in appointing the best men they could, and magistrates had not regarded politics as interfering in any way with their duty. What might be called the disestablishment portion of this Bill got rid of magistrates who did not attend to their duties; but such magistrates did not appear to be in the way of anybody else, and they had disestablished themselves. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said some magistrates never attended unless there was something to be given away; but magistrates now had nothing to give away; they had no places of profit left in their hands, appointments having been transferred to the County Committee. As to the qualification of magistrates, he had always felt that that was too narrow, and that, although a man might not possess £100 a year from land, or live in a house of the value of £100 a year, he might yet be qualified to act as a Justice. Medical men, officers of the Army and Navy, and holders of University degrees, might be appointed irrespective of their property or income. As to nomination by County Councils, he had seen a good deal of these bodies, and admitted that they did their work well, but he believed that this duty was the last of all that should be put upon them.
  MR. J. H. JOHNSTONEsaid that, as a Sussex magistrate

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  he took a strong view, which was, that the Bill was unnecessary and in operation would be mischievous. The property qualification might perhaps be widened, but there was one consideration to be kept in view, and it was that a magistrate should be a man of substance rather than a man of straw; otherwise, if he made a mistake or were guilty of misconduct in his office, the aggrieved person would have no remedy. He must emphasise the protest against nomination by County Councils, who were administrative bodies and whose usefulness would be interfered with if they were called upon to take part in selecting men for distinction on party or personal grounds. What more unhappy position of things could there be than that a County Council should be made a battle-ground of party or the arbiter of social distinctions, instead of attending to its administrative functions.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I shall not detain the House more than a very few minutes, but I desire, before the Debate terminates, to express my own view on the very far-reaching subject which, under the auspices of the Government, we are asked to take up. The House is now attempting to deal with a very old institution, an institution not without anomalies—for all old institutions have anomalies—but with an institution which is, after all, very closely bound up with the whole social life of England, so far as we can trace it back in the past; and I do not think we ought to make any fundamental alteration in that institution without looking very carefully in the direction in which it is proposed to move. I have no personal prejudice in favour of administering local justice by unpaid magistrates. In Scotland the great bulk of the judicial work is not performed by the magistrates, but it is done by paid lawyers of great eminence, the sheriffs and deputy-sheriffs of the counties. If you wish to alter the English fundamentally—and I think you are going to do so by this Bill—you will have to do it in the direction of paid magistrates. There are grave objections to such a course. In the first place, it is very expensive; it is very novel in England in the second place, and you will find it very difficult to give to stipendiary magistrates in England the same authority
  1516
  which the sheriffs in Scotland have through traditional prescription so long enjoyed. But what is it you propose? You propose to do by this Bill that which we in England have always prided ourselves in not doing—namely, to make the appointment of those who have to administer justice depend on the fortune of popular election. Disguise the matter as you may, if you pass the Bill in its present form, you will, to all intents and purposes, give Parliamentary directions to the Lord Chancellor of the day to take the magistrates suggested to him by the County Council. We cannot hope to keep politics out of the election of County Councils. As regards boroughs, we all know that the elections take place on Party lines; and, though I am thankful to say that in the counties that is not so much the position of things as yet, it has arisen in some counties, and it may become as prevalent in counties as it is now in the boroughs. If such a state of things occurred, could you contemplate with satisfaction having so altered the ancient mode of electing magistrates as to hand them over to the changes and chances of stray Party majorities? The accusation has been made against Lord Lieutenants that they recommended persons for the magistracy because they shared their political views. I am not prepared to deny that some such gross derelictions of duty may have been committed here and there. It has been done by Lord Lieutenants of both colours, and it ought never to have been done. But observe that the action of Lord Lieutenants now comes under the searching light of public opinion. Such Lord Lieutenants as I have consulted, have constantly told me that they have made every effort to find persons differing from themselves in politics who, to the best of their judgment, will be well qualified to carry out the duties of magistrates. Lord Lieutenants, as I have said, come under the light of public opinion, and are amenable to the tendencies which govern the whole community, and I am convinced that we need have no fear that they will use their power of recommendation for the purpose of promoting the interests of their own party; but popularly-elected bodies are not amenable to public opinion. They are corporate units which have no conscience. Lord Lieutenants

  1517
  are far more amenable to the influence of public opinion than any popularly elected body could possibly be. Therefore I earnestly press upon the House the extreme undesirability of meddling with this ancient institution in a manner which I believe will destroy its usefulness; and if the House comes to the determination that that institution is no longer fitted for the work it has to do, let them consider the matter from the top to the bottom, and substitute for it some other system better fitted to meet the necessities of the age in which we live; but whatever change we may desire to introduce, let us not, for the first time in English history lay ourselves open to the charge that we have made the magistrates, whose duty it is to administer the law without regard to Party, the nominees of popular authorities and the creatures of popularly-elected assemblies.
  MR. SPEAKER: The original question was, "That this Bill be now read a Second time." Since which an Amendment has been moved to leave out the the word "now," and to add at the end of the question the words "this day six months." The question I have to put is that the word "now" stand part of the question.
  The House divided:—Ayes 201; Noes 163.—(Division List No. 33.)
  Bill read 2°.

  INDUSTRIAL AND PROVIDENT SOCIETIES (PURCHASE OF FEE SIMPLE) BILL.
  MR. JAMES ROWLANDSwho was to move the Second Reading of this Bill, explained that it was promoted by the corporation of Friendly Societies in London, and that it was based upon a unanimous recommendation of the Town Holdings Committee.
  Objection being raised, the Order was
  postponed.

  COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL BILL.
  On the Order for the Second Reading of this Bill,
  SIR R. E. WEBSTERsaid, that on Wednesday last it was
  1518
  stated in his absence that he had instigated opposition to the Bill. He wished to declare emphatically that he had done nothing of the kind, directly or indirectly. There was no ground for the statement. At the same time, it was his view that a Bill of this kind ought to be introduced by the Government.
  Objection was taken to the Motion, and the Order was accordingly postponed.

  BOARDS OF CONCILIATION BILL.
  SIR JOHN LUBBOCKwho rose to move the Second Reading of this Bill explained that it was introduced on behalf of the London Conciliation Board. It was supported by the London Chamber of Commerce, by the Associated Chambers, and by the principal London Trades Unions. If the Government would agree to the Second Reading he would postpone the next stage till after Easter.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. J. BRYCE,)said, that the Government could not assent to the proposal to read the Bill a second time on that occasion.
  Order postponed.

  RULE OF THE ROAD AT SEA.
  On the Order for the resumption of the Debate on Sir D. CURRIE'S Motion—
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the objections which have been raised to the adoption by Order in Council of Rule 15 of the revised International Regulations for preventing collisions at sea, dealing with sound signals in fog, as suggested by the Washington Conference and considered by the maritime Powers."
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, that he must persevere with his Amendment which stood in his name upon the Paper:—
  "To leave out the word 'raised,' in line 2, to the end of the question, in order to add the words 'Order in Council of the 30th day of January, 1893, relative to the fixing and screening of ships' side-lights, and to the adoption by Order in Council of the sound signals prescribed by Article 15 and Article 28 of the Revised Regulations for preventing collisions at sea, as set forth in the Board of Trade circular to shipowners of 6th March. 1894.'"
  MR. BRYCEexplained that the hon. Member for West Perthshire, who represented the shipowners in this matter, desired that a Committee should be appointed to consider the question of sound fog-signals. The hon. Member for King's Lynn wanted something quite different, which had nothing to do with these fog-signals, with respect to which another Committee had been appointed. The Committee would be presided over by the President of the Admiralty Division of the High Court, and would begin sitting immediately. In these circumstances he trusted the hon. Member would withdraw his Amendment. It hardly became the hon. Member to set his individual will against that of the House and the shipowners. He trusted that the hon. Member would see that the proper way for him to give effect to his wishes was to tender his evidence to the Departmental Committee which was about to sit.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLEShoped that after the long statement of the right hon. Gentleman he should be allowed to make some reply. It was extremely unfair——
  MR. SPEAKERsaid the hon. Member could only make an explanation by the indulgence of the House.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLESsaid that he could not allow the assertions of the right hon. Gentleman, affecting to describe his objects or the views of shipowners, to pass as correct. He had received a mandate from a large Liverpool meeting to move, and must persevere with his Amendment. The right hon Gentleman said that the subject matter of his amendment was to be considered by a Departmental Committee, but many such Committees had already considered it.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  MR. STEPHEN WILLIAMSONsincerely hoped the hon. Member would withdraw his objection and allow the question to be threshed out in Committee.
  MR. T. GIBSON BOWLES: I am ready to explain my position if I am allowed; if not, I shall persist in my Amendment.
  MR. C. W. CAYZERjoining in the appeal, said the shipowners were quite satisfied with the procedure proposed by the Board of Trade.
  SIR A. K. ROLLITstated that at a large meeting of the fishing industry, the strongest opinion was expressed that this matter ought not to be longer delayed, because the safety of life and property depended on its making progress.
  MR. A. J. MUNDELLAwho said that when he spoke last week he was in receipt of a telegram purporting to come from the President of the Chamber of Shipping, but which he had since discovered was a forgery, also appealed to the hon. Member.
  *On being asked by Mr. SPEAKER whether he persisted in his amendment, Mr. T. GIBSON BOWLES said, "Certainly, Sir," and the matter therefore stood adjourned.

  The Report of Supply (March 19) brought up, and agreed to.

  WAYS AND MEANS.
  Resolutions (March 19) reported and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Mellor, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir John Hibbert.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (NO. 1) BILL.
  "Bill to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the Service of the years ending on the thirty-first day of March, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-four, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, and one thousand eight hundred and ninety-six," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time to-morrow.
  House adjourned at Ten minutes before Six o'clock.