SIR GEORGE GREY said, that after the decision of the House that the punishment of whipping ought to be applied to persons guilty of offences of violence, he would make no further opposition to the progress of the Bill, But he must remind the House that they were for the first time connecting a sentence of flogging with a sentence of penal servitude. Hitherto, those punishments had not been coupled. When ever flogging could be inflicted, the Judge was at liberty to sentence a person to that punishment and imprisonment, but not, as might now be the case, to penal servitude for life, and to receiving 150 lashes at three periods, the intervals between which were not fixed. MR. HIBBERT proposed to add to the clause the following words : "Provided that in all cases the whipping shall take place during the first six months of the period of imprisonment or penal servitude." MR. ADDERLEY said, he had no objection to the addition of the words. SIR DAVID DUNDAS said, the proviso implied that the punishment of flogging could not be inflicted on persons sentenced to less than six months' imprisonment, because the flogging could not take place after the expiration of the sentence. SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE proposed that they should get rid of the difficulty by adding "if the sentence shall be as much as one year's imprisonment, and if less in the first part of the sentence. MR. PULLER suggested that the Judge should decide when the whipping should take place. they to whip him at once, and so make sure of the whipping? Probably, before the Bill passed, provision would be made as to the strength of the arm of the person using the cat. But who was to give the punishment? Punishment of that kind incapacitated a man for travelling. You could not whip a man to-day and pop him into a railway carriage to-morrow to travel a hundred miles or more to the place to which the Home Secretary ordered him to be removed. Was the whipping to be after he was removed to the Government prison? Sometimes convicts were not moved for four months, and then all the whipping must be in two months; or, if the convict was to be whipped in the county where he was sentenced, there ought to be a provision of certificates, to insure his not being whipped over again when he had been removed. He thought it a great pity the innovation should be made of coupling whipping with penal servitude, and that it would lead to great inconvenience. MR. DENT said, the Bill gave rise to so many perplexities that he thought more time ought to be given to consider the matter. He should move that the Chairman report Progress. Motion made, and Question put, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again.' The Committee divided:-Ayes 32; Noes 159 Majority 127. After further discussion, Amendment agreed to; Proviso added to the Clause. On Question, "That the Clause as amended stand part of the Bill," MR. HUNT said, they might get rid of the difficulty by providing that no such MR. COX said, that if he had been satiswhipping should take place after the expified with the result of the division which ration of six months from the passing of the sentence. Amendment proposed, To add the words, “Provided that in no case shall such whipping take place after the expiration of six months from the passing of the sentence." MR. HENLEY said, it was the first time that penal servitude and whipping had been married. The practice in gaols was this :-When a man was sentenced to penal servitude, the sentence was sent up to the Home Office, and the local authorities knew no more than Adam when the man would be removed from the prison. Supposing under this Bill a man was sentenced to three years' penal servitude and to be thrice whipped, was he to be whipped three times before the Home Secretary could remove him? What were they to do? Were VOL. CLXX. [THIRD SERIES.] took place on the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Peacocke), he would not have troubled the House with another division; but he believed the fact was that many hon. Gentlemen had so great an abhorrence of the system of whip. ping that they would not accept even the Amendment which would have the effect of mitigating the evil. He should divide the House upon the question. Question put:-The Committee divided: -Ayes 144; Noes 31: Majority 113. House resumed. Bill reported; as amended, to be considered on Friday, and to be printed. [Bill 111.] 2 T House adjourned at half after Five o'clock. HOUSE OF LORDS, Thursday, May 7, 1863. MINUTES. PUBLIC BILLS-Second ReadingExchequer Bonds (£1,000,000)* and Consolidated Fund (£20,000,000)* (Committee negatived); Cayman Islands [H.L.]* (No. 88). Committee-Corrupt Practices at Elections (No. 62); London, &c. Dioceses [H.L.]* (No. 68). Third Reading-Vice-Admiralty Courts [H.L.]* (No. 79), and passed. CORRUPT PRACTICES AT ELECTIONS BILL-(No. 62.)-COMMITTEE. measure. mons, irrespective of any reference to their Lordships' House, would be an unconstitutional aggression upon the rights and privileges of their Lordships. It seemed to him, that if the 10th clause were passed as it now stood, the House of Commons might as well be empowered to suspend a writ indefinitely, or, in fact, to disfranchise a borough altogether. The clause was solution of the House of Commons, not objectionable, because it suspended a Reonly over the Parliament then sitting, but over succeeding Parliaments, and deprived the Crown of its constitutional right of issuing a writ of summons to the particular borough which had been condemned. The constitutional objection would, perhaps, be lessened if, as had been proposed, the Report of the Commission in regard to corTHE EARL OF DERBY said, he did not ruption in any borough were laid before intend to oppose the Motion for going into the House of Lords as well as the House Committee, nor did he wish to take any of Commons, and if their Lordships were notice of the earlier clauses of the Bill, called upon to pass a Resolution on the partly because they related principally to subject. He confessed, moreover, that he the internal regulation of the House of had grave doubts whether, when a borough Commons, and partly because he believed had been convicted of corruption so great (with the noble Earl on the cross benches) as to deserve disfranchisement for five that any provision which might be made years, it would not deserve to be disfranfor the purpose of preventing bribery at chised altogether. Moreover, he did not elections would prove in the end little see, that at the end of five years, there better than waste paper. There were two would be any security that the constituclauses, however the 7th and the 10th-ency would be purer than at the beginning. to which he entertained serious objections in their present shape. With regard to the 7th clause, he regarded it as an unjust and unnecessary provision. Supposing a person conscious of having committed a grave offence against the Corrupt Practices Act, for which he was liable to penal consequences, were to appear voluntarily before an Election Committee; and, while criminating some other person, were to criminate himself also, but with respect to a matter wholly alien to the subject of the indictment pending against him, neither justice nor necessity required that he should be relieved, not only from the consequences of his evidence given against himself, but likewise from those of any action which he might have committed during the course of the election. Again, with regard to the 10th clause, although the House of Commons had been in the practice of suspending writs, usually for purposes of inquiry, and not for punishment, for one, two, or even three years, yet the suspension of a writ for five years, by a Resolution of the House of Commons, under the authority of an Act of Parliament recognising it as a right belonging to the House of Com On the contrary, the voters who had been denied their usual dole during these years would probably be ravenous at the end of the period, and anxious to make up for lost time. As to the 11th clause, which threw the cost of the Commission of Inquiry on any district found guilty of corruption, he held it to be singularly objectionable, and should move that it be struck out. LORD REDESDALE said, that beyond doubt the 10th clause was open to the objection that it would enable the House of Commons to legislate without obtaining the consent of the other House of Parliament. He objected altogether to the principle of legislating by Resolution. The power would be very likely to occasion a conflict between the two Houses, and the clause had better be altogether expunged from the Bill. LORD LYVEDEN reminded the noble Earl in charge of the Bill of the suggestion he offered the other evening, that the clause disqualifying agents from voting, which was in the original draught of the Bill, and had been struck out by the other House, should be replaced. If he met with any support from their Lordships, he 66 should be disposed to move the re-insertion | As to the 10th clause, he agreed that it of that provision, which had been recom- was a very questionable policy to depart mended by a Select Committee. Another from the usual course in the case of susexcellent proposal made by the same Com- pending a writ and to proceed by Resolumittee was, that the penalties of bribery tion, instead of by a Bill passed by both should be extended to municipal as well Houses and sanctioned by the Crown. He as Parliamentary elections. The disquali- agreed with the noble Earl and with the fication of agents would do much to check noble Lord the Chairman of Committees, bribery and to lessen the complete subjec- that the best course would be to strike out tion of candidates to the attorneys. No the clause altogether. It was difficult to doubt, many of the latter were very re- imagine a case where bribery was proved spectable persons; but it was the class of against a borough in which a penal suspensmall provincial attorneys who did the chief sion of the writ would be more effectual work during elections, and who always in- than a statutory disfranchisement. curred great expense. They sometimes heard talk of territorial" tyranny, but there was really no tyranny equal to that of the small attorneys in country places. They knew all the little secrets of property, and exercised their power often most unscrupulously. He quite agreed with the noble Earl opposite as to the injustice of the clause directing that places where bribery had been detected should pay the costs of the Commission of Inquiry. The only analogy, or supposed analogy to the proposition, was the regulation whereby the hundred was answerable for the expenses of a riot. But whilst it was possible for the inhabitants of a hundred to put down a riot, how could a borough possibly put a stop to bribery? EARL RUSSELL explained, that he had not said it was difficult to prove agency, but that it was difficult to make a clause disqualifying paid agents effective. He had found how difficult this was from his own experience; because it was well known that agents were in the habit of coming forward and declaring that their services were gratuitous-that they had received nothing and expected nothing. He remembered the case of such an agent, whose services were alleged by him to be gratuitous, receiving unexpectedly, and of course to his greatest surprise, shortly after the election, a present of £500. THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE said, that according to the present law the Speaker directed a writ to issue for a reelection whenever there was a vacancy in the representation; whilst the Crown issued the writs for a new Parliament. Supposing a dissolution took place during the five years' suspension of a writ, would not the present measure be an encroachment on the prerogative of the Crown? THE LORD CHANCELLOR said, there could be no foundation for the doubt which had been expressed by the noble Earl, because the Resolution to which this clause referred would derive all its authority from an Act of Parliament which would receive the sanction of the Crown; and therefore the suspension would not take place by virtue of the Resolution, but by virtue of an Act of Parliament. THE EARL OF DERBY said, that the answer of the noble and learned Lord was conclusive as far as it went; but practically the suspension would be by the Resolution and not by the Act of Parliament. As the Bill appeared to sanction an eucroachment on the prerogative of the Crown, he should like to know whether the consent of the Crown had been obtained for its consideration. Motion agreed to; House iù Committee. LORD LYVEDEN moved to insert the following Clause, to follow Clause 1: EARL GREY said, it was perfectly true that where the briber and the bribed persons were each equally desirous that money should pass from one to the other, it was "If any Person, either during any Election or extremely difficult to punish bribery. But within One Month previous to such Election, be as matters now stood, an attorney might employed as Agent, Attorney, Poll Clerk, Messend in his Bill for services. He thought senger, Doorkeeper, or in any other Capacity for the Purposes of such Election, in consideration of if it were rendered illegal to take a fee, a any Money, Retaining Fee, or other Payment considerable bar would be set up against made or promised or agreed to be made in respect bribery. As it was, a number of persons, of such Employment, such Person shall be incamessengers and others, were hired at elec-pable of Voting at such Election; and if he give tions, ostensibly for the sake of their ser- any Vote at such Election, his Vote shall be void." vices, but really for the sake of their votes. EARL RUSSELL repeated the opinion he had before expressed, that the clause | Carnarvon, E. would be of no efficacy. LORD WENSLEYDALE proposed to substitute for the clause a proposition whereby any one who had voted at an election should be ipso facto disqualified from recovering money for any services rendered by him at such election. LORD EBURY said, that from having had the misfortune to be engaged in many contested elections and from having served on several Election Committees, he was in a position to state, that if a cheek was to be put on the practice of corruption, it was necessary to disqualify agents from voting. He would even say it was desirable to go further and prevent the candidate, by law, from paying any part of the voters' ex Dacre, L. Cathcart, E. [Teller.] Hardwicke, E. Morton, E. Doneraile, V. Oxford, Bp. Aveland, L. Berners, L. Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Tredegar, L. Orrery.) Chelmsford, L. Walsingham, L. Wynford, L. cellor.) Devonshire, D. Newcastle, D. Somerset, D. Saint Albans, D. Townshend, M. Camperdown, E. morne.) De Tabley, L. Churston, L. Dartrey, L. (L. Cre- mons. The noble Earl (who was very Airlie, E. Belmore, E. Caithness, E. Suffield, L. Sydney, V. Saint Germans, E. Rivers, L. ricarde.) Truro, L. An Act of Parliament took more time, and the object in view might be defeated by delay. It might also be said, that if it was right to suspend a writ for five years, it was right to disfranchise the place altogether. In five years, however, a great change might be effected in the character of a borough; and besides, there were some towns-Hull for example-of great commercial importance, which it would not be right to deprive altogether of its representatives in the House of Commons. Ducie, E. [Teller.] Meldrum, L. (M. Hunt- Suffield, L. NOT-CONTENTS. Richmond, D. Normanby, M. EARL GREY opposed the clause, on | De Tabley, L. the ground that to suspend a writ of election for a period of five years upon a mere Resolution, and not by Act of Parliament, would be a grave innovation, which would not be justified by any advantage that would be likely to arise from it. It would be quite as constitutional to provide that in future any measure brought before Parliament relating to certain subjects might be passed by a Resolution of the two Houses, instead of by Bill. Of course, if the Crown were to assent to such a measure, it could not complain of an infringement of its prerogative; but such a step would be an immense change in the Constitution. He should oppose the clause. EARL GRANVILLE could not admit that the course proposed was unconstitutional, or that there was any difference in principle between proceeding by Resolution of both Houses, and the legislation in the case of the Jews, which had been assented to by their Lordships, which gave the other House of Parliament the power of dispensing, by its own Resolution in the case of the Jews, with the ordinary oaths taken by Members on taking their seats in that House. LORD CRANWORTH said, that the chief objection of his noble Friend (Earl Grey), in which he shared, was that their Lordships were now asked to set a dangerous precedent for no possible object. Practically, there would be only one discussion, and yet it was one of those subjects that required the greatest deliberation. Party feeling was easily evoked in such cases, and there was therefore the greater danger in dispensing with the ordinary safeguards of due deliberation. On Question agreed to; Amendment made. On Question, that Clause 10, amended, stand Part of the Bill? their Lordships divided :-Contents 26; NotContents 92 Majority 66. Clause struck out. E. Airlie, E. Clarendon, E. Lucan, E. Morton, E. Yarborough, E. Doneraile, V. Hutchinson, V. (E. Do- Tredegar, L. Eversley, V. Falmouth, V. Hardinge, V. Hawarden, V. noughmore.) Truro, L. Walsingham, L. Oxford, Bp. Wenlock, L. Wensleydale, L. CONTENTS. Westbury, L. (L. Chan- Durham, E. cellor.) Devonshire, D. Newcastle, D. Strafford, E. Wodehouse, L. [Teller.] Clause 11 struck out. Remaining Clauses agreed to. Amendments made: The Report thereof to be received on Monday next; and Bill Dartrey, L. (L. Cre- to be printed as amended. (No. 94.) |