Private Member's Bill Research Articles

Hire-Purchase Hardships and Hopes

Hire-purchase is no longer the preserve of the poor. Since the Second World War it has become respectable and has helped much to raise industrial production and the standard of living. The social importance of the law of hire-purchase has increased proportionately to the leap in the national hire-purchase and instalment debt from some £461,000,000 in 1955 to £950,000,000 in 1961. Public and judicial dissatisfaction with the law has become increasingly apparent. During and since 1961, the centenary of (probably) the first finance company in the world, a vintage crop of cases of major importance has illustrated some of the main defects of the present system and demonstrated the still unsatisfactory position of the hirer. Numerous recent articles in legal and other periodicals harshly criticise the law and urge reforms, some of which were proposed in two abortive Private Member's Bills. Mr. F. Montgomery's Hire-Purchase of Motor-Vehicles Bill failed to get beyond first reading in February 1961 and Mr. W. T. Williams’ Hire-Purchase Bill, designed to extend and supplement the Hire-Purchase Acts of 1938 and 1954, was talked out on second reading in December 1961, after the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade had recommended the House to await the report of the Molony Committee on Consumer Protection.

Carriage by Air: The Hague Protocol

ON October 12, 1929, a Convention 1 for the unification of certain rules relating to international carriage by air was signed at Warsaw on behalf of His Majesty. Exactly two years and nine months later, on July 12, 1932, the Carriage by Air Act 2 reached the Statute Book, the object of the Act being to make provision for giving effect to the Warsaw Convention in English law. The Act, was, of course, no more than an enabling statute and it was not until May 15, 1933, that the Convention actually came into force as between the United Kingdom and the other High Contracting Parties to the Convention. The foregoing time scale would seem to suggest that one might with some confidence look forward to action by the Government in the near future with regard to the ratification of the Hague Protocol,3 which was opened for signature on September 28, 1955. It might even be thought that action is overdue. It is known that various interested parties have from time to time made representations to the Government urging the ratification of the Hague Protocol by the United Kingdom, but hitherto without avail. Ratification could not take place until after the enactment of legislation designed to give the provisions of the Protocol the force of law in the United Kingdom, and pressure of other business had made it impossible for the Government to find parliamentary time for the passage of the necessary Act. On November 23 last year, however, a Private Member's Bill was introduced in the House of Commons with the object of giving effect to the Warsaw Convention as amended at the Hague, 1955, and to enable the rules contained in that Convention to be applied, with or without modification, in other cases and, in particular, to non-international carriage by air. The Bill was subsequently enacted as the Carriage by Air Act, 1961,4 receiving the Royal Assent on June 22, 1961. The present is, therefore, an opportune moment to review the

The Library World Volume 62 Issue 6

NOT for a long time have books and libraries featured in the correspondence columns of The Times and other newspapers as regularly as they have in 1960. Earlier in the year Sir Alan Herbert's lending rights' scheme had a good run, and we have clearly not yet heard the last of it. Indeed, a Private Member's bill on the subject is to have its second reading in Parliament on December 9th. More recently, the Herbert proposals have had a by‐product in the shape of bound paperbacks, and a correspondence ensued which culminated in Sir Allen Lane's fifth‐of‐November firework banning hard‐covered Penguins for library use.

The First Offenders Act, 1958

Ox July 7, 1958, there came into operation the First Offenders Act, 1958, which is, to quote its Long Title, “an Act to restrict the imprisonment of first offenders.” Sponsored by Sir George Benson, M.P., as a Private Member's Bill, it received support and encouragement from the Home Office, which provided some drafting assistance, and it was almost unanimously welcomed in the House of Commons as a measure which would contribute in some degree to the solution of certain urgent penal problems.

Our Astronomical Column

FIXING THE DATE OF EASTEE.—A new Bill, entitled the Stabilisation of Easter Bill, 1928, is being introduced as a private member's bill in the House of Commons by Capt. Bourne and is down for a second reading on Feb. 17. The Bill, which is to regulate the date of Easter Day and other days depending thereon, provides that “Easter-day shall, in the calendar year next but one after the commencement of this Act and in all subsequent years, be the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April.”

LONDON

<h3>Opticians Attempt to Obtain Registration</h3> After the osteopaths, the opticians have attempted to obtain recognition, with similar result. Mr. Chamberlain, the minister of health, received a deputation from the "Joint Council of Qualified Opticians," with which was associated the British Optical Association, to discuss a private member's bill to secure the registration of optical practitioners and to regulate the practice of sight testing and optical dispensing. The opticians claimed competence to deal only with errors of refraction and to detect functional abnormalities requiring specialist treatment by an ophthalmic surgeon, and it was a condition of the diplomas granted to opticians by their organizations that all cases of functional abnormalities should be referred to a medical practitioner. It was claimed that they had therefore done all that the minister, in speaking of Dr. Graham Little's motion about the registration of osteopaths in the House of Commons, had advised osteopaths to do,