Page images
PDF
EPUB

not to the debtor; to take away from the secured creditors the right to vote, except in respect of the amount for which they were not secured; to authorize interference of the Court in defence of the minority dissenting properly from an arrangement deed; and, in accordance generally with the Scotch system, to get rid of the various officials whose employment now cost the estate so much, leaving the realization of the assets to a trustee appointed by the creditors themselves-these were, the Lord Chancellor explained, the chief features of the Bill. The object was to distribute the assets, not to punish the bankrupt. Justice, however, to the creditors against the bankrupt had been consulted by empowering the former, under certain circumstances, to claim payment of their debts out of the bankrupt's future assets. He justified the necessity for speedy legislation on bankruptcy by reference to the present scandalous results of the Bankruptcy Law, and he gave some account of the constitution of the Courts to which the administration of the law was to be confided, intimating his concurrence in the desire to appoint Mr. Commissioner Bacon the first Chief Judge. On the question of imprisonment for debt, the subject of the companion Bill, the Government, he said, had felt there ought not to be one law for the rich and one for the poor, and, as there was almost unanimity on the part of the County Court Judges in favour of retaining the imprisoning powers of those Courts, it had appeared necessary to confer a similar jurisdiction in regard to the higher class of debts.

Lord Cairns expressed his entire concurrence in all the leading principles of the Bill, convinced as he was that the creditors should have the maximum of independent power of dealing with the estate, and the court the least power of interference with them. But he found fault with the introduction of the Bill into the other house first, which must at this late period preclude any thing like careful revision by the Lords. He passed a warm panegyric on the merits of Mr. Commissioner Bacon. No common law judge could exceed, or indeed equal, that gentleman in fitness for the post of Chief Judge; but he thought it must have been an oversight that Mr. Bacon was left by the Bill to discharge the duties of chief judge with no higher salary than his fellow-commissioners would take with them into retirement.

Lord Romilly approved of the large powers given by the Bill to the Lord Chancellor and Chief Judge to frame rules. He made also some remarks on the subject of imprisonment for debt.

The Bill was read a second time, and was then referred, together with the Imprisonment for Debt Bill, to a Select Committee. After which, the two measures in a slightly altered shape received the Royal Assent.

The proceedings of the House of Lords in regard to another very important measure of the Session, the Habitual Criminals Bill, which was introduced in that House, have been stated in our first chapter. A long interval, occupied mainly with the Irish Church

measure, ensued before the House of Commons found time to take this Bill into consideration. The time at length arrived, but not until the first week in August, when the Government found an opportunity to bring it forward, and Mr. Bruce, the Home Secretary, then made his statement in justification of a measure which he admitted to be of a novel and stringent character. In the outset he disclaimed the idea that it was introduced on account of any alarming increase in crime, because during the last 30 years crime had diminished, and for the last 10 years had been stationary, owing to various causes, such as emigration, education, and the effect of our prison legislation. But during the year 1868 there had been an increase of 1430 in the convictions, of which more than 1100 were for burglaries and violent crimes. This increase he traced chiefly to the operation of the changes made by the Act of 1864, and the aversion of the judges to inflict the long sentences of penal servitude, for which cause a large number of criminals had been released during the year. As one result of this in the metropolis alone 836 prisoners were now annually sentenced to short periods of imprisonment who before 1864 would have been sentenced to penal servitude, and when released would have been under the supervision of the police. It became necessary, therefore, to supplement the legislation of 1864 by further provisions for more complete supervision and identification by means of registration of habitual criminals. The leading idea of the Bill was to give every facility and encouragement for the reformation of reclaimable criminals, but to "hunt down" the irreclaimable and incurable class, which amounted to 40 per cent. of the whole. This would be done by depriving them of the usual presumption of innocence, and placing on them the onus of proving that they were living honestly. Persons once convicted would be liable to the supervision of the police only for the term of their sentence; to a second conviction would be affixed the further condition of police supervision for seven years after the sentence; and in the case of a third conviction for felony the judges would be bound to pronounce a sentence of not less than seven years' penal servitude, accompanied by police surveillance for life. To this last proposal Mr. Bruce anticipated the most objection, and he justified it at length, relying much on the good effects on the criminals themselves of the modified supervision under the ticket-of-leave system.

Mr. C. Adderley, whilst admitting the necessity of applying some novel principle to the evil, doubted the wisdom of the provisions relating to thrice-convicted criminals, as applying the deterrent principle too stringently. He objected, too, to entrusting the work of supervision to the police, who were not fitted for it, and proposed to hand it over to the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies throughout the kingdom, who had already done much towards the reclamation of criminals at a trifling cost.

Mr. Hardy, reserving discussion for the Committee, gave a general support to the Bill, and pointed out that there was nothing novel in its principles. Police supervision was already applied to the ticket

of-leave holders, and in some trades in the north of England, dealing in "waste," for instance, the general presumption of innocence was reversed. As to Mr. Adderley's suggestion, there was this objection to it, that the agency did not exist all over the country.

Mr. Newdegate held the Bill to be a departure from constitutional legislation, and predicted that it would alienate the people still more from the law and from its administrators.

Mr. T. Chambers also regarded it as a violent departure from former criminal legislation, and uncalled for by the state of crime, which was diminishing.

Mr. Henley took particular exception to Mr. Bruce's expression, "hunt down," and feared that the means employed would drive many curable criminals into the irreclaimable class. He was also averse to the surveillance clauses, which, among other things, would ruin the efficiency of the police for the repression of crime; and the stringency of the clause making a sentence of seven years' penal servitude imperative on a third conviction, he emphatically condemned.

The Bill passed through the House with certain amendments, the most important of which was the omission of the clause last referred to.

The important subject of Trades Unions, respecting which the Royal Commissioners made their report to Parliament early in the present year, was brought under the notice of the House of Commons by Mr. Thomas Hughes in an able speech upon introducing a Bill of which he had taken charge, for amending the laws affecting those societies. The discussion which took place on this occasion manifested on both sides of the House a disposition to relax to some extent the Combination Laws in favour of the Unions, and to relieve them from disabilities as to holding and recovering property to which they were subject. Mr. Bruce, on the part of the Government, admitted the validity of their claim to consideration in these respects, but declared the inability of the Government to devote during the present Session the requisite time and attention to the settlement of the subject, or to carry a Bill through Parliament. He promised that the matter should be taken up with a view to legislation another year, and in the meantime undertook to bring in a Bill by which the protection now afforded to Friendly Societies for the security of their funds, and the remedies which the law gave to the latter, should be provisionally extended to the Trades Unions. A Bill for this purpose was accordingly brought in, and was passed with general concurrence.

It is worthy of notice that a step was taken this year towards the recognition of a claim which has of late been strongly urged by an advanced school of Liberal politicians-the concession of political franchises to the female sex. In a Bill making provision respecting municipal elections, Mr. Jacob Bright procured the insertion of a clause whereby the franchise at such elections was extended to women.

Among the legislative schemes of the year which failed to reach their consummation, though they made some progress towards maturity, was one of high constitutional importance, and which for a time seemed likely to meet with the acceptance of Parliament, since it found much favour at the outset in the assembly principally affected by it. This was a Bill introduced by Earl Russell to authorize the Crown to create, subject to certain specified restrictions, peerages for life. The limitations at first proposed were-that not more than twenty-eight life-peers should sit at the same time in the House, and that not more than four should be created in a single year. The classes from which the noble earl proposed that such life-peers should be elected were persons who had sat in the House of Commons for upwards of ten years; persons appointed by the Crown to preside in the superior courts of law or equity in England, Scotland, and Ireland, or who had held the office of Attorney-General in England or Ireland, or of Queen's Advocate in England, or of Lord Advocate in Scotland; persons distinguished for their attainments in science, literature, and art; and persons who had held office under the Crown for not less than five years.

In making this proposal Earl Russell admitted that the actual law of Parliament was declared by the successful refusal of the House of Lords, in the reign of Queen Anne, to admit the Duke of Hamilton, when created an English peer, as Duke of Brandon; and the right of the House to decide who should sit and vote as peers could not now be questioned, unless, indeed, by the House itself. Nevertheless, there were, he argued, powerful reasons why the House should not now resist the creation of life-peers. Persons were often eminently fitted to be useful members of their Lordships' House, who yet could not sustain adequately the hereditary dignity, the Crown being no longer in a position to endow newly-ennobled families, and the valuable sinecures which were formerly available for the dotation of the descendants of Judges raised to the Peerage having been abolished. The great danger apprehended from lifepeerages was that a Ministry might flood the House with them. But that danger might be obviated by limiting, as he provided, the total number, and the number to be appointed in a single year. The admission of life-peers so qualified would cause no change in the general constitution of the House. Any such change he should, for his own part, earnestly deprecate.

The Marquis of Salisbury was of opinion that Lord Russell's Bill was founded on a true principle, and he agreed with its proposed limitation in point of number; but he criticised some of the contemplated qualifications. He believed the defect of the House, which in its own way, though not elective, was representative, was that its members were all too much of one class-the agriculturaland did not comprise a sufficiently strong commercial element. He should be glad, therefore, if room were given for carrying rather further the principle of the Bill than would be possible if the choice of these life-peers were restricted to the extent contemplated.

N

Lord Cairns remarked upon the absence of any expression of opinion from the Government. He thought the objects of the Bill required still further elucidation. He protested against the theory, suggested by Lord Salisbury, that the House was a representative assembly.

Earl Granville defended the Government for not having pronounced a hasty opinion on the Bill. The Government was in favour of the principle of life-peerages, but it must reserve till the proper time its opinion on the details of the Bill. He intimated some apprehension that it contained too many restrictions on a Government's freedom of choice.

Earl Stanhope thought an unlimited power of creating lifepeers would be fatal to the liberties of the House. He conceded, however, that some addition of life-peers might be beneficial.

Lord Colchester approved of the introduction of a limited number of life-peers.

Leave was then given to bring in the Bill.

Before the Bill went into Committee Lord Cairns stated the amendments which he desired to have made in it. First, he proposed an alteration in the preamble of the Bill which would put on record the motive with which it had been introduced and agreed to. His second amendment, to be proposed by Lord Stanhope, after one peerage had been created in the year, would restrict additional creations to the case of holders of certain offices, or the performance of distinguished naval and military services. He doubted the propriety of the number-four a year-which Lord Russell proposed. On the average, two and a half commoners a year had, he found, been created peers in the thirty-seven years since 1832. As the annual creations for life would be, after all, only supplementary to the hereditary patents, which he supposed it was intended to continue to grant, from one and a quarter to one and a half life-peerages a year, which would probably be the average under his own proposal, would be as many as could safely be conferred. The measure being only an experiment, it was, at all events, advisable to make a cautious beginning.

The Earl of Carnarvon was not hostile to the objects of the Bill, but he recommended caution in a measure modifying the hereditary character of the House, which, he alleged, had not prevented it from maintaining an equality, if not a superiority, to the other House. He doubted the efficacy of the special provisions of the Bill for attaining its contemplated objects; but, on the other hand, he pointed out that Lord Cairns's amendment would not fulfil its object, but might, on the contrary, lead to the introduction, not of twenty-eight, but of forty-nine life-peers. The Bill must, he believed, in any case be an experiment, as it would oppose two different elements to each other in the same House; but he admitted that it was necessary to do something to restore the old unity between the two Houses which had formerly been always preserved, but had been by recent changes somewhat impaired.

« PreviousContinue »