The Sun.
London, England, 1857-07-24 00:00:00

ELECTION COMMITTEE.

The Committee appointed to try the return for Hun-
tingdon county was sworn at the table of the House.
LUNATICS (SCOTLAND) BILL.

The amendments to this bill were considered.

Mr. C. BRUCE suggested that the neN Lunacy
Board should be put into working order, with Sir J
M'Neil, president of the Scotch Poor Law Board, at its
head.

Tha LORD ADVOCATE said that he had consulted
SirJ.ll'Neilonth:,expediency of joining the two boards.
He had expressed his readiness to undertake the duties,
but be considered it inadvonble to join the two boards
the working of which would be very different.
In reply to a question,
The LORD ADVOCATE said that be had intended
to alter the ,alaries to be aid to the commissioners
from 1,2001. a year to 1,0001., but be found he was too
I.Ate, as the clause was passed. He assured the house
that the commi,sioners would not be paid more than
1,0001. per annum. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. STIRLING moved the omission of clause 113,
which exempted from asses-meets Orkney and Shet-
land.

Mr, BLA.CKBURN suggested that the exemption
F bout(' on,y apply to Stietltud, vOlich after a discussion
Was agreed t _ _

The other amendments were then agreed to, and the
bill ordered to be read a third time on Monday.
POLICE (SCOTLAND) BILL.

On the motion f,ir kto committee on this bid,
Sir J. OGILVEY said he had no wish to make any fac-
tious opposition to the bill, but he objected to the prin-
ciple of centralisation it wont] establish, as opposed to
local self government, which was dear to the people ( f
Scotland, the destruction of which they would notsubmit
to it if it were possill) to acid it. It as no reason
thy.: because the principle had been introduced into the
English Police Act that it should be applied to Scot-
land, and ho thought it should bo resisted to prevent
the establishment of a a precedent in future I.gislation.
Adruitiing the principle to be appliewile to England,
he contended that it was not to Scotland, the circum-
stances connects-d with the management of the body
being vastly different in the two countries.
Tne house then went into committee on the bill.
Clause 1, with amendments, was agreed to.
Oa clause 2,
Sir J. ANDERSON said it was only right that
burghsforming part of counties should have a voice in the
management of the lichee, and he moved the insertion of
words that the provost of chief magistrate of every
burgh containing 1,000 inhabitants, incorporated with the
ei)unty for the purposes of this act, should be a member
of the police committee.
After some discusion the amendment was withdrawn.
Oo clause 3, relative to the power of the Secretary of
State,

The LORD ADVOCATE said that this and several
other clauses, bearing on the subject, were copied, word
for word, from the English Act. All the Government
asked for was, that having consented to bear a certain
portion of the expense of the f ,rce, the same powers
should be given them in Scotland that they had in
England, where the country gentlemen were
as jealous 01 centralisation as those of Scotland. The
E glish bill had been found to work well, and he knew
no reason why its principle should not be applied to
Scotland. The learned gentleman then gave several in-
stances of the evils reQulting from local selflovernment
in Scotland relative to the police force, and said that all
this bill proposed was to give the Government a certain
amount of superintendence, of the police in Scotland,
but not an interference otherwise than to see V.:at the
public interest did n ,t suffer.
Mr. C. BRUCE supprted the establishment of an
efficient police force throughout Scotland. The details
of management should be left in the hands of the
people of Scotland. He also urged the necessity
of a certain number of detectives being kept, either at
the expense of the Government or of the people of
Scotland.
After a discussion, in which Sir T. E. Colebrooke,
Mr. Blackburn, Mr, Black, Col. Sykes, Mr. W. Ewart,
Sir G. Grey, and other members took part, the com-
mittee divided, when the numbers were—
For the motion 74
Against it
Majority
The clause was agreed to.
Clauses up to 23 were agreed to, with amendments,
when the chairman reported progress, and asked leave
to sit again.
The other orders for the morning sitting were dis-
posed of, and the home suspended its sitings at 4 o'clock.
The house resumed at 6 o'clock, and was
[LEFT SITTING.]