possible to devise any satisfactory form | observation, at what pace a parof words. It seemed to him that the ticular vehicle was going. He had had form of words proposed was not satisfac a great deal to do with cases involving tory. He suggested to the Committee the speed of vehicles in London streets, that, having made up their minds that and it was almost impossible to get any there should be a speed limit, it should uniformity of opinion as to the speed of be left to the magistrates to say whether a hansom cab, and a fortiori it would be or not it had been exceeded. more difficult to get the speed of a motor-car. Some words were wanted in the Bill to preclude a bona fide mistake being made as an error of judgment. He would suggest the insertion of the following words :-" No person shall be convicted under this section except upon MR. DALZIEL said if the AttorneyGeneral did not like the form of words proposed he was willing to leave him to introduce another form. SIR ROBERT FINLAY: I do not proof of a time test." That would think it possible. MR. DALZIEL said this matter did not turn upon the evidence. There was hardly a case brought into Court where there were not hali-a-dozen witnesses on each side. It was almost impossible to say whether a car was travelling twentyfive or thirty miles an hour unless it was properly timed. All that was asked for was that evidence should be produced that a test had been made of the speed. If the magistrates had to decide between three or four men on the car and the three or four men on the road, how on earth were they to get out of their difficulty? It was simply a case of a number of men guessing on a matter with respect to which it was admittedly practically impossible to guess. They were told that this should be left to the justices. That did not come very well a Government who would not trust the justices in regard to drink licences, and who were going to introduce a Bill on the subject next year. The whole history of motor-car cases showed that the local magistrates were prejudiced against motorists, and many of them had stated that they would impose the maximum penalty every time motorists were brought before from them. MR. MARSHALL HALL thought there was a good deal to be said for the Amendment. There had been misapprehension as to its effect. It did not cast any aspersion upon either the magistrates or the police. It was fair to state, what was a well-known fact, that it was practically impossible for any human being to say, from mere practically carry out all that was wanted. He was not making any imputation on the honesty of the magistrates or of the police when he suggested that such words as these would meet the case-viz., "No person shall be convicted under this section except on proof of a time test." MAJOR JAMESON said he wished to protest against the interpretation of this clause being left to the magistrates, and half-educated barristers-at-law. MR. BRIGG said that the Committee would be wise in allowing the magistrates to exercise their common sense and do justice in this matter. SIR ROBERT FINLAY said that the Amendment was not one which the Government could possibly accept. He understood from the Solicitor-General for Scotland, that in Scotland, to which part of the kingdom this Bill applied, the evidence of two witnesses would be required for conviction. It was well worth considering whether the same rule should not be applied in England, and before the Report stage the Government could consider whether a clause could not be framed to provide that no conviction should take place except on the evidence of two witnesses. ment Board ought not to ask the Committee to decide this matter without giving them further information.. The hon. Gentleman who had just spoken, said that on some lonely road a. person might be run down; but that had nothing whatever to do with the speed limit, and was provided for in another part of the Bill. He had driven a motor-car a good deal, and every expert motorist would agree that he would not for a moment attempt to give the speed of a car by watching it pass. Even such an experienced motorist as Mr. Edge said he could not estimate the speed merely by seeing a car pass. If this Amendment were carried they would not get a speed limit really, but a limit to be provided by a policeman. If there was to be a speed limit it should be determined as accurately as possible. LORD ALWYNE COMPTON (Bedfordshire, Biggleswade) said that he wished to support the Amendment. There ought to be a proper test of speed. He approached this question, not from the point of view of a driver of a motor-car, because in his own experience he had had the greatest desire in the world to keep within the legal limits of speed, and the magistrates had been often rather unwise in their decisions upon that point. He himself was against a speed limit, because he did not believe that any man or woman could judge what was reckless driving. But the Committee having agreed on a speed limit, they should see that there was a proper means of testing whether that speed was exceeded. In his judgment it was not sufficient that the test should simply be out of the mouth of two witnesses, as had been suggested by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General. MR. RENWICK (Newcastle-on-Tyne) said he sincerely trusted that the Government would not give way and accept this Amendment, MR. T. M. HEALY said they had heard of the "Lady's Mile," but in future it will be the "Bobbies' Mile." Question put. The Committee divided:-Ayes, 45 MR. NORMAN (Wolverhampton, S.) said the President of the Local Govern- Noes, 140. (Division List No. 243.) Agg-Gardner, James Tynte Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-(Line, Anson, Sir William Reynell Atkinson, Right Hon. John Bousfield, William Robert AYES. Hatch, Ernest Frederick Geo. Pease, Herbt. Pike (Darlington Stanley, Hon. A. (Ormskirk) TELLERS FOR THE AYES-- Clive, Captain Percy A. Cochrane, Hon. T. H. A. E. Cohen, Benjamin Louis Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasg.) Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) Cremer, William Randal Cripps, Charles Alfred Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile Dalkeith, Earl of Davenport, William Bromley Delany, William Dickson, Charles Scott Divaeli, Coningsby Ralph Doogan, P. C. Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Ed. Forster, Henry William Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow) Mount, William Arthur Murray, Rt. HnA.Graham(Bute Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. Question, "That those words, as amended, be there inserted," put, and agreed to. Amendment proposed "After the last Amendment to insert the words, 'Provided that a person prosecuted for an offence under this section shall not be convicted on the evidence of one witness only.""(Mr. Walter Long.) Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted." MR. T. M. HEALY asked whether it would not be better to have two justices. In England one justice could convict. Would it not be fair to say, "a person prosecuted for an offence under this section should not be convicted by one justice only"? LORD HUGH HUGH CECIL (Greenwich) asked whether, in this case, there would be an appeal to the quarter sessions, or whether the case would be decided finally by the magistrate. MR. WALTER LONG: I have already said I am prepared to consider that. Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) TELLERS FOR THE NOES - MR. MARSHALL HALL pointed out that there should be two witnesses as to speed. At present there might be two witnesses, but only one could speak as to speed. MR. WALTER LONG admitted that there must be two witnesses as to speed. Question put, and agreed to. MR. DALZIEL said his next Amendment was to leave out Sub-section 2 of Clause 1, which provided that any constable might, without warrant, arrest and take to the police station any driver of a motor-car who, in his opinion, had committed an offence under the clause. That was a pretty serious matter when the Bill was first drafted, it was much more serious now. MR. WALTER LONG pointed out that by a subsequent Amendment he proposed to move this sub-section into its proper place in Section 7, so that it would not apply to Clause 1. MR. DALZIEL said then he would discuss his Amendment in its relation to the Bill as drafted. The question was whether a police constable should have power to arrest a driver of a motor-car when he thought he had committed an offence under this sub-section. It was a very severe sub-section. He thought it was only reasonable that a police constable should be satisfied with the private card of the driver and the number of his car, by which he could always be identified, and that then he should be summoned in the ordinary way. If a hansom-cab driver ran his cab into another vehicle, nine times out of ten his number was taken and he was summoned in the ordinary course, whereas, in this case, the police constable had a right to be dissatisfied with the driver's card, and would have a right to haul him off to the police station. cab or a butcher's cart might be arrested, not by a constable only, but by any person, if it was necessary for the protection of the public. In the present case it was not in the least likely that the power of arrest would ever be put in force except in cases where the driver resists the authority of the police, or where he was in a condition which made his further driving dangerous to the public. SIR FORTESCUE FLANNERY asked whether they were not engaged in flogging dead horses. If all that Sub-section 2 did was to enact what was at present the law, it only advertised really what the law was, and the Government had nothing to gain by it. He submitted, under the circumstances, that they might delete the subsection, and leave the law as it was and not unnecessarily advertise it. MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWEN (Kent, Tunbridge) said the case was even stronger than that put by his hon. friend, because, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, this sub-section weakened the law. He therefore appealed to him to accept the Amendment. MAJOR JAMESON supported the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman had told the Committee that this clause was more favourable to the motorists, but if motorists preferred the law as it stood, the right hon. Gentleman could have no reason to retain it. He objected to the clause altogether. The Bill had been drawn under totally different circumstances. In the first place, the right hon. Gentleman had told them that the introduction of the speed limit was the greatest folly that had ever been committed. He now came down and carried a speed limit. No criminal could be found who had less justice shown to him than would be shown to the motorist if a constable was to be allowed to pounce upon him and drag him off to durance vile. If this Amendment were persisted in he should support it in the Division Lobbies. *MR. SCOTT-MONTAGU pointed out that he had down an Amendment dealing with the case of the man who refused to give his name and address and whose car did not bear marks of identification, and he thought that would best meet the case. MR. DALZIEL said if the Government accepted that Amendment he was willing to withdraw his own. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. MR. NORMAN said he should like to have cleared up a point which puzzled motorists. Was it an offence for a motorist not to stop when he was called upon to do so by a man not in uniform ? SIR ROBERT FINLAY: It is not an offence. MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWEN said that as the object of his Amendment was to prevent the stopping of motorcars by men not in uniform he should not press it now that it was laid down that only a constable in plain clothes could stop a car. MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWEN moved to insert after "constable "the words "in uniform." The object was to limit the power of arrest to police-constables in uniform. If a man in civilian clothes was to hold up his hand to a motorist to stop, how was the motorist to know that he was not some person intent on a practical *MR. SCOTT MONTAGU: If a joke? If the right hon. Gentleman constable is not in uniform how can we did not accept this Amendment he tell him from a private individual? would be putting a very severe disability on motorists, as they would be liable to heavy penalties for not stopping, although they might not know whether the person who told them to stop was a constable or not. They might commit the offence quite in ignorance. Amendment proposed 66 In page 1, line 12, after the word stable' to insert the words in uniform.' (Mr. Griffith Boscawen.) be there inserted." MR. BAYLEY said they had just passed an Amendment providing it should be necessary to have two witnesses in order to secure a conviction, and yet this clause would enable one policeman in private clothes to arrest a motorist. He hoped the Amendment would be pressed so that only uniformed should have the con- persons of arrest. power *MR. SCOTT-MONTAGU thought it Question proposed, "That those words unnecessary to press the Amendment, as the Attorney-General had assured the Committee that no policeman could stop a motorist unless in unform. SIR ROBERT FINLAY hoped the hon. Member would not press the Amendment, as it was unnecessary. If a constable in plain clothes arrested a motorist he would, of course, give proof that he was a constable. It was quite unreasonable to insist that he should be in uniform. MR. WILLIAM REDMOND was able to say from a wide experience extending over many years that, whether one was arrested by a constable in uniform or by a constable in plain clothes, the sensation was exactly the same. ***THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY, Buteshire) said it was a question of stopping the car at the behest of anyone who might be a private individual and not a constable even in disguise. Were motorists to be expected to do that? VOL. CXXVII. [FOURTH SERIES.] MR. DALZIEL agreed, as the Government had admitted it would not be an offence if a driver ignorant that the person who hailed him was a constable, declined to stop. MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAW EN repeated that he would withdraw his Amendment if he was assured that a person who failed to stop when a plain clothes constable held up his hand would not be guilty of an offence. MR. WALTER LONG said there was no doubt whatever on that point. Obviously only a constable in uniform had the right to stop and arrest. MAJOR JAMESON was glad of that assurance, for only on Bank Holiday his motor was pulled up by a fellow who Q |