MR. CRIPPS (Lancashire, Stretford) | shown that the owner, whether present or said he should like to have the words absent, would not be liable just the same "when present" inserted, in order that as the driver. the presence of the owner should be necessary to make him criminally liable. MR. WALLACE (Perth) agreed that the omission of the words "when present" would be an improvement. If the owner permitted a breach of the Act he should be made responsible. He did not think there would be any opposition offered to this proposal. SIR FREDERICK BANBURY said he was quite willing to amend the Amendment by leaving out the words "when present." * MR. BURDETT-COUTTS (Westminster) said they all agreed that if an owner permitted intentionally a breach of the law he ought to be made liable. If the words "when present" were to remain, he would ask whether the case could not be met by adding to "or if the Amendment the words absent, intentionally or knowingly permits." It seemed to him that those words would cover any case of the owner either ordering the driver to go at an excessive speed in his absence or of permitting the offence when he was present. MR. DALZIEL (Kirkcaldy Burghs) did not think the words "when present' THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir should be omitted. Were they going ROBERT FINLAY, Inverness Burghs) to make the owner liable for permitting thought they would only get into greater dangerous driving when he did not difficulties if they added the words. happen to be in the car himself, and which had been suggested by the hon. knew nothing at all about it? He hoped Member for Westminster. The law the right hon. Gentleman would not as to aiding and abetting quite met the accept this Amendment. case. Amendment proposed to the proposed "In line 2 to leave out the words when present.' Amendment to proposed Amendment agreed to. MR. LAWSON WALTON (Leeds, S.) said the President of the Local Govern- Amendmentment Board had given a conclusive answer to the Amendment. Permission was a form of abetting, and under the law any person who aided and abetted equally liable to the principal offender, and the law as it stood was quite as strong as it would be by the insertion of these words. He could not conceive a case in which it could be Noes, 72. was Beach, Rt. Hon. Sir M. Hick Burdett-Coutts, W. Cawley, Frederick Channing, Francis Allston Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles Farrell, James Patrick Allhusen, Aug. Henry Eden AYES. Question put. The Committee divided :-Ayes, 37; (Division List No. 239). Coghill, Douglas Harry Forster, Henry William Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh) Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S. W. Paulton, James Mellor Greville, Hon. Ronald Percy, Earl Plummer, Walter R. Ritchie, Rt.Hn. Chas. Thomson MR. BROADHURST (Leicester) hoped | it would be convenient to take the discussion now on his Amendment proposing a speed limit of fifteen miles an hour. MR. WALTER LONG said it would be inconvenient from the point of view of the hon. Member and those who desired a speed limit to take this Amendment at the present stage. He thought they were all agreed on the Second Reading that if a speed limit was introduced into the Bill it should not form part of that portion which carried with it the penalty of imprisonment. He had himself put down an Amendment that raised the question in a precise form and dealt also with the question of penalties. It would be more convenient if the Committee postponed the discussion of the question of a speed limit until he moved that Amendment. MR. DALZIEL moved to leave out recklessly or negligently, or" in line 6. He had placed this Amendment on the Paper with a view of obtaining from the President of the Local Government Board a definition of the words he proposed to leave out. It seemed to him that it would be exceedingly difficult for these words to be defined, more especially in view of the fact that in nine cases out of ten it would be the local policeman who would have to interpret what was reckless or negligent. A stronger reason why the words should be left out was that they were unneces Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier Walrond, RtHn Sir William H. TELLERS FOR THE NOE-Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Mr. Anstruther. sary. If they were left out anyone driving to the danger of the public would still be liable to all the penalties provided in the Bill. Surely a person driving dangerously was driving recklessly and negligently. He begged to move. Amendment proposed "In page 1, line 6, to leave out the words recklessly or negligently, or.'"-(Mr. Dalziel.) proposed to be left out stand part of the Question proposed "That the words clause." Gentleman would not think it necessary motor-car ought to realise as he went | stitute reckless driving. He was afraid along that he must use the road in a that the magistrates would say that the way consistent with the general con- speed limit fixed by the Bill was the safe venience of others who used it. He speed laid down by Parliament, and that hoped the hon. Gentleman would with- a mile or two in excess of it was not a draw the Amendment. safe speed, because Parliament had limited the speed to a certain number of miles per hour. He thought motorists should have some protection against the prejudices which certain benches of magistrates had already exhibited, and he had not the slightest doubt that a motorist for driving at thirty miles an hour-assuming the would not only be convicted of exceeding speed limit to be fixed at twenty-fivethe speed limit, but also of reckless and careless driving, if these words were left in. MR. MALCOLM (Suffolk, Stowmarket) said he did not think that many Members of the Committee had much objection to the clause as it stood. There was an important point to which he wished to call attention-namely, that the whole of this clause was very stringent. They hoped that later on the President of the Local Government Board would see his way to give a more easy and effective kind of appeal than was provided for under the Bill as it stood. Otherwise he thought the clause would operate very unjustly. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. MR. ALLHUSEN (Hackney, Central) moved to leave out "or at a speed" in line 6. It would be generally agreed, now that the right hon. Gentleman considered a speed limit desirable, that they should omit these words. He was very much afraid that if they were left to be interpreted by the magistrates, any speed in excess of the speed limit would be regarded as reckless and careless driving. He wished to make it clear to the magistrate that there were two separate offences in the Bill, one being reckless driving and the other exceeding the speed limit. With regard to the first offence motorists were agreed that very heavy penalties should be imposed, but the second offence, which might be a mere technical infraetion of the law regarding the speed limit, was one which hardly called for the same punishment. MR. WALTER LONG hoped his hon. friend would not press the Amendment. He was under a complete misapprehension as to the effect of inserting these words in the clause. What the Government proposed would not materially alter the existing law, but collect the law from existing statutes and Local Government Board regulations into Sub-section 1 of the clause in order to make it as clear as they could make it, that apart altogether from the speed limit, whether it was twelve or 120 miles an hour, there was a totally different offence-namely, reckless and negligent driving. If they took these words out of the clause they would weaken the law as it now stood. SIR ALBERT ROLLIT (Islington, S.) said that the effect of the Amendment would be to wreck the Bill. The danger of a speed limit was that a man would never be convicted of furious driving so long as he kept within the maximum limit. MR.BAYLEY (Derbyshire, Chesterfield) said he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would accept the Amendment which did not repeal any right that the public had under the common law, but would rather strengthen the common law. MR. WALTER LONG said it was rather curious that this Amendment had been put down on the Paper by opposing sides on this Bill; and that both those who desired to protect the rights of motorists and those who claimed to protect the public, objected to these words. The insertion of these words, however, was due to the decision in a case of "Mayhew v. Sutton which was to the effect that the driver of a motor. car must not only have regard to the amount of traffic he saw on the road, but to what might reasonably be expected to come on to the road from cross roads, leading into it, or out of lodge gates. MAJOR JAMESON (Clare, W.) said that he heartily supported the Amendment. It was the most absurd thing in the world to give a magistrate power to say what traffic might be expected on the highway. MR. ARTHUR LEE (Hampshire, Fareham) said he hoped that his right hon. friend would accept this Amendment, because it was very undesirable that vague terms should be used in this Act. MR. WALLACE said that the magistrates might forget one important circumstance, and that was the condition of the highway. Although the previous words might be sufficient, it would be safer to leave these words in also. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would stand by the words in the clause. Nobody could be prejudiced by these words. MR. SPEAR (Devonshire, Tavistock,) said that suppose a farmer opened his gate to let his cattle cross the road; such a possibility as that ought to be kept in view by those making use of motor-cars. MR. DALZIEL said he hoped the President of the Local Government Board would keep an open mind on this Amendment. There was not a road in the whole country which had not another road turning into it. What they appeared to be doing was setting traps in order that motorists might be caught. They might as well call this Bill at once a Motor-car Abolition Bill. It was iniquitous when a road was clear that a man might be summoned because, under circumstances not defined, there might be traffic in the road which was then clear. He never heard of such words being put into any Bill, and he thought it was absolutely preposterous. He hoped the House would not be prejudiced to such an extent that it would be impossible for people to have motors at all. He sincerely hoped the right hon. Gentleman would accept the Amend ment. MR. SEELY (Lincoln) said as he had put down an Amendment lower down in order to raise this discussion, might he point out to those who were pressing so hard for the retention of these words that the real thing that caused all the difficulty was the extremely heavy penalty for the first offence. A man was liable to be sent to prison. For that reason it was extremely awkward to have a lot of loose, ambiguous words put into the MR. SEELY said he objected to the latter half. clause. The President of the Local | These words covered all the cases in Government Board was right in his esse and in posse, and if the extension endeavour to make this perfectly clear to stopped there they would have loose, the public, that they were to be protected, vague, and ambiguous language, which but he submitted that the real way out would have this two-fold effect. It might of the difficulty was to take it out of the mislead the magistrates, and would power of the magistrate to send to mislead the public. prison for the first offence, and make imprisonment the penalty for the second offence, so as to give people time to find out what the opinion of the magistrate was as to reckless driving. These were a lot of new words, and nobody knew what these particular words might be held to mean, or what style of speed and driving might be held to be covered by the words. The real way out of the difficulty would be to take these words out of the clause, and give up the attempt to enforce such a heavy penalty in the first instance, having regard to the fact that some of the magistrates were hostile to motoring. SIR ALBERT ROLLIT said no one would wish to restrict unnecessarily a very important branch of industry, and to repeat the mistakes committed in other Bills; but on the other hand the personal safety of the public had to have equal consideration. It seemed to him that on the whole these words ought to be retained. It was said that previous words covered these heads. That might be so. The additional words were simply suggestive to the bench of a consideration which under no circumstances ought to be lost sight of. There was one particular reason for the inclusion of these words, and that was that the whole of the public were entitled to the use of the roads at law, and there might be places that were particularly dangerous. If that was so, they ought to be relieved of the terrible anxiety they were under about motor-cars at points of danger, and therefore additional caution should be imposed on the drivers of motor-cars. MR. LAWSON WALTON said the argument of the hon. member for Islington, although supposed to be in favour of the Amendment, was fatal to it, for the reason that he was trying to make these vague words explicit. The Committee had already passed words which were as vague as they could be "that they should have regard to all the circumstances." MR. LAWSON WALTON said the was magistrate had to determine whether Amendment. MR. RANDLES (Cumberland, Cockermouth) opposed the Amendment. He said many of the country roads were very narrow, and a speed which was quite safe on the average road might be very unsafe in such roads. It might be reckless to go at even fifteen miles an hour in some of these narrow lanes. He had received notice of a case, which occurred in his constituency, where one of his constituents was driving down a road which was only seventeen feet wide from hedge to hedge, and only thirteen. feet wide when three feet was allowed |