which had led to the moving of the Amendment, and more particularly in view of the deplorable accident to which his attention had been called, he would suggest to the House that the Amendment ought not to be allowed. motors would render the law almost see why they should not modify the law grotesque if one principle was applied whenever they had an opportunity. He in this case and another in all thought they should modify it in this other cases. Under those circumstances, case and say that the killing of while he appreciated the motive a child in England or Ireland would be followed by the same penalty as it would be in Scotland. He knew himself that there was a great deal of dread and fear on the part of the public with regard to motor-car driving, and every little provision they could put into this Bill which would reassure the public, would be to the advantage both of the motorists and of the public. He did not see any objection. to this clause being inserted from the point of view of motorists themselves. They drove generally with great care and skill, and he had nothing to say against them. Of course there were exceptions, and the exceptions were those particular gentlemen who were described "road hogs." These gentlemen did not receive any sympathy from any section of the House of Commons. But the motorists who drove their carscarefully though rapidly would be anxious to have everything put into this Bill that would reassure the publio mind. The acceptance of this clause would have the additional advantage of improving the general law and placing it on the same high level as that of Scotland. MR. BROADHURST (Leicester) said the clause only proposed to give effect to the volume of feeling in the country that the law should be altered in the direction indicated. One of the most competent County Councils in the country had passed a resolution exactly on the lines of the clause moved by the hon. Member. The argument as to the application of a different law to a motor car from that applied to a coach was one which would not hold water. A coach or a carriage did not inflict the injury and the devastation, and was not guilty of the massacres of which motorcars had been guilty. He hoped the hon. Member would take the opinion of the House on this clause. It would considerably assist the Attorney-General in pressing on the Government the desirability of bringing the English and Irish law up to the high standard of that of Scotland. SIR WALTER FOSTER (Derbyshire, Ilkeston) said he did not think the objection made to this clause by the Attorney-General was altogether a valid objection. It was based merely upon the pedantry of the law as it existed. He did not see why a motorist who was responsible for an accident in England should not suffer, while in Scotland he would have to pay a considerable penalty. That was a condition of things which ought to be remedied. SIR ROBERT FINLAY said he admitted that there should be a general alteration of the law, and that there should not be one law for motorists and another for carriages. SIR WALTER FOSTER said that was just what he ventured to describe as the pedantry of the legal view. He did not as MR. SPEAR said he certainly thought that where a motorist broke the law and killed a child he ought to pay compensation. law MR. HEMPHILL (Tyrone, N.) said if his hon. and learned friend went to a division he would vote for this clause. It proposed to extend, to a particular class of cases, the obviously just and righteous which prevailed in Scotland. Motor car traffic was a new feature on the highways, and these vehicles were much more likely to lead to loss of life than horse drawn vehicles. Therefore, when they had a Bill dealing with this new invention of science, they should apply the principles of equity, and not be hampered by any mere technicality or analogy with other laws. There was a precedent for what was proposed in the law of Scotland. What has happened would happen constantly. Nothing would operate as such a deterrent to drivers of motor-cars as to have the terror of this clause before them. It would touch them upon the most sensitive part; and there would be a dread that if a child was run over, the parent of that child would have compensation adjudicated to him by a jury. The clause only provided for compensation to a parent, but the child might be an orphan, and he suggested that the clause might be extended so as to include compensation to guardians. * MR. SCOTT-MONTAGU said he did not oppose the clause, and he might say that he had never heard of a child who had been killed by being run over by a motor-car. He hoped, however, that if this clause were accepted, the principle would be extended so as to include every vehicle; otherwise they would have the anomaly of motor-vans being liable while horse-drawn vans were not, and that would be unjust. most MAJOR JAMESON (Clare, W.) said he would support the clause of his hon. and learned friend; but it was annoying to hear the useless reiteration of certain hon. Members in their talk about massacres, as if every motor-car driver was a sort of a Herod who went out on to the road to murder children. He knew that the public mind had been alarmed unnecessarily about motor-cars, and that was largely due to the speeches and writing of prejudiced men, who had resolved that this industry should be knocked on the head if they could it. He asked hon. Members to vote for this clause, and to realise that the people connected with the motor industry had every desire to see it conducted with safety. manage *Sir ALBERT ROLLIT (Islington, S.) said it did not seem to him to be necessary to have such a display of feeling on either side in regard to this clause. He thought that the proposal in the clause was only fair-that where there had been a breach of the Act, either by reckless driving, or excessive speed, and a fatal accident occurred, there should be a right of compensation. It should be remembered that parents had an accruing interest in the lives of their children. Mr. Hemphill (West *MR. BURDETT-COUTTS minster) said he would be sorry if all the support for this clause came from the other side of the House. He entirely approved of the principle, and if this were a Bill dealing with horse-drawn vehicles he should like to see it applied to them. If it was necessary to prove pecuniary loss before an action for damages could lie, surely the parents lost all they had spent on the child up to the time of its death, and all the support they might expect in their old age when the child grew into a man. He confessed that he would be naturally influenced by the legal or constitutional argument of the right hon. and learned AttorneyGeneral, but if they waited till a general law were passed on such matters as that dealt with by the clause under discussion, they might have to wait till Doomsday. As the Attorney-General only objected to this clause on the ground of its being special legislation, and otherwise approved of the principle, he would make a sugges tion which would relieve the situation and possibly induce the hon. Member (Mr. Healy) to withdraw the clause. Would the Attorney-General undertake to bring in a Bill next session to amend the general law in this respect? If not, he (the speaker) would vote for the clause. MR. SEELY (Lincoln) said that this was a clause which he would be very glad to see applied to all traffic on the highways. It was very seldom that one noticed in the papers the death of a child by being run over by a motor-car, but very often they saw reports of children being killed by being run over by drays or vans. He supported the clause, but expressed the hope that at some future the principle, by means of a general law, date the Attorney-General would apply to all classes of traffic on the highways. SIR ROBERT FINLAY said that he should certainly, in conjunction with the Attorney-General for Ireland, and the Lord Advocate for Scotland, take the matter into consideration; but he was bound to say that it was surrounded with a great many difficulties which were not fully appreciated by the House, and he must not be understood to pledge the Government in any way to legislation. MR. BOND (Nottingham, E.) said that as he understood the law at present, a master was not responsible for an acci- | stage, and in the present Bill, of the dent caused by his coachman when act- well-established principles of the law ting outside the scope of his proper relating to responsibility for accidents. employment. Why should the owner of a motor-car be inade responsible for the acts of his driver if he were acting outside his responsible duty? He therefore deprecated any alteration at this 123. Question put. The House divided:-Ayes 69; Noes. (Division List, No. 259.) Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton Campbell, John (Armagh, S.; Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall) Clancy, John Joseph Cohen, Benjamin Louis Corbett, T. L. (Down, North Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) Agg Gardner, James Tynte Boscawen, Arthur Griffith Lewis, John Herbert Nolan, Joseph (Louth, S.) Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion) NOES. Dalkeith, Earl of Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk. VOL. CXXVII. [FOURTH SERIES.] Roberts, John H. (Denbighs. Robson, William Snowdon Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye Samuel, Herbt. L. (Cleveland) Shackleton, DavidJames Shipman, Dr. John G. Sinclair, John (Forfarshire) Spencer, RtHn.C. R(Northants TELLERS FOR THE AYESMr. T. M. Healy and Mr. William Redmond. Horner, Frederick William Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow Pierpoint, Robert Clause (Cars at rest upon highways.) "Where the driver of a motor-car requires to visit any house or shop for the purpose of business or refreshment it shall be lawful for him so to do, provided the engine of the car has been stopped; but nothing herein contained shall relieve from any penalty for causing obstruction when the driver, after a reasonable interval, has been required by a constable, or the owner or occupier of any adjacent premises, to proceed.”—(Mr. T. M. Healy.) Brought up, and read the first time. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the clause be read a second time." SIR ROBERT FINLAY said the clause was not desirable. It was lawful for a motorist, so long as he did not create an obstruction, to stop in the road for any length of time. Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn. Amendment proposed to the Bill— "In page 1, line 12, to leave out Subsection 2."-(Mr. Walter Long.) Amendment agreed to. Amendment proposed to the Bill page 1, line 22, after the word Whiteley, H(Ashton-und-Lyne TELLERS FOR THE NOES- SIR ROBERT FINLAY said the clause which they were now discussing was a clause for apprehending any driver who committed an offence. If an offence had been committed no objection could be raised. MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWEN (Kent, Tunbridge) asked who was going to be the judge. A man might be stopped for committing an offence which a policeman thought he had committed, but that offence had to be proved. would be pressed. He hoped the Amendment *SIR ALBERT ROLLIT said it seemed to him only right and consistent with the duty of a constable that, whether in or out of uniform, he should apprehend if he saw an offence had been committed. MAJOR JAMESON said this clause He was ought certainly to be altered. strongly in favour of the Amendment and hoped it would be passed. MR. WALTER LONG appealed to the Committee to arrive at a decision on this The question. provision in this section gave less power of arrest than any other Act dealing with ordinary traffic on the highway, and, therefore, it could not be contended that motorists were penalised to a greater extent than other people. *MR. SCOTT-MONTAGU said motorists were also under the Highways Act of 1835, and therefore could be arrested by any person. How was a motorist to know if a man came out from behind a building in a tweed coat Question proposed, "That those words and pot hat that he was a policeman ? be there inserted in the Bill." "In 'constable, to insert the words 'in uniform on duty.'"-(Mr. Louis Sinclair.) MR. DALZIEL supported the Amendment on the ground that if there had been no offence committed the constable had no right to stop him at all. Question put, and negatived. MR. LOUIS SINCLAIR (Essex, Romford) said he now desired to move the Amendment, which provided that a which was dropped. The other two railways formed a continuous line from Strabane to Letterkenny, but the Lords had struck out railway No. 2 and had only granted the railway as far as Convoy. The Committee upstairs sanctioned the two railways because they considered that they would link up the whole County of Donegal. The Bill, as amended by the Lords, would only provide for a spur railway. He was authorised to say that if this Bill had come to that House earlier in the session the Chairman of the Committee would himself have moved the rejection of the Lords Amendment. view of the statement which had been made by the Chief Secretary, he hoped the promoters would take the Bill as it stood and come to Parliament next session for railway No. 2. In MR. HUGH LAW (Donegal, W.) said as a portion of the County Donegal was affected by the difference which had been made in this Bill in the other House, he would just like to say a few words in support of the Amendment of his hon. friend. If the Bill had been carried in its original form it would have afforded a speedy transit for fish, which was the main industry of that part of the country, with only one transhipment to the port of exportation for England, and thus conduced in all probability to a large fresh fish tra le growing up. Having regard to the efforts made this session, and last, to develop this industry, it was of great importance that any Bill to promote the industry should not be mutilated. As the Bill stood they were no better off than they were before. He associated himself with the Motion of his hon. friend, and protested against what had been done in the other House. MR. HEMPHILL (Tyrone, N.): As representing the constituency in which Strabane was situated, he hoped the Chief Secretary would be able to carry out his promise to have this length of railway completed. As originally suggested, Letterkenny at one end and Strabane at the other were to be the termini of the railway, and if that idea were carried out there would be a direct means of transhipment to England. As the Bill now stood, the object of the promoters had been completely defeated by what had taken place. The hon. Member for Donegal was not desirous of |