I do not mean that the bill is of no importance, for it is intended to check the ravages of a disease which kills thousands every year. What I intended was, that the opposition which my Hon. Friend offers is not shared by other Members. My Hon. Friend says the bill will make Vaccination compulsory; but Vaccination is compulsory already. The purpose of the bill is to consolidate and improve existing legislation. It would be much fairer if my Hon. Friend brought in a bill to repeal compulsion. I will not bring in the bill after 12 o’clock at night.
The pledge not to bring on the bill after midnight settled its fate. Its promoters, aware that its provisions would not hear discussion, had reckoned on its unopposed passage at an hour when members were few, weary, and indifferent. Mr. Duncombe’s vigilance defeated the scheme, which Mr. Cowper incontinently revealed. The bill was brought into Committee on 10th July, and the order for its reading discharged amid general satisfaction. Mr. Henley observed—
I am very glad this bill is withdrawn. The endeavour to make Vaccination compulsory has been most mischievous. Vaccination was quietly making its way. People were adopting it more and more; but from the moment it was made compulsory, they began to think every evil which happened to their children afterwards ensued from it. I have no objection to refer the question to a Select Committee as suggested, but whatever their report, nothing will satisfy me that it is advisable to make Vaccination compulsory.
Mr. Duncombe agreed that the course proposed was judicious—
The question is delicate and difficult, and investigation should precede legislation. In 1853, at a later period of the session than that at which we have arrived, the Compulsory Vaccination Act was smuggled through the House. Fortunately it became inoperative through its own defects, which it is now proposed to remove, and to make the law more stringent; but while I believe that great good has resulted from Vaccination, I do not think we should try to encourage it by penal enactment.
Mr. Cowper, in protesting against surrender, observed—
Some argue as if people should never be forced to do what they do not like; but the force of this objection is greatly weakened when we recollect that in compelling Vaccination we are not obliging parents to do anything disadvantageous to themselves, but merely to take precautions against a loathsome and terrible disease.
The most intolerable tyrannies vindicate themselves by the advantages they enforce on their perverse subjects. The claim made for vaccination, that it protects the vaccinated from smallpox, deprived the vaccinated of any right to complain of risk of injury from the unvaccinated. Moreover, that those who were persuaded that vaccination neither prevented nor mitigated smallpox should be required to undergo an operation, that was to them a cruel and dangerous imposture, was surely a wrong of the most excruciating character. It was well that neither the bill of 1855 or 1856 was allowed to pass; but if either had passed, it might have brought the question of compulsion to an earlier issue.