Some of the Jedburgh residents who were fined up to £15 each in 1916 for failing to comply with strict lighting regulations imposed to protect communities from German air raids were earning only 30 shillings a week at the time, the House of Commons was told.
The penalties handed down by Sheriff-Substitute Ronald Baillie at the local court were believed to have been the highest dished out anywhere in the country. And the sense of 'Jethart Injustice' was considerable when, at a later sitting, he restricted the sanctions on those who failed to draw their blinds at night to between five and fifteen shillings.
A series of appeals for common sense over the summer of 1916 in an attempt to have the 'grotesque nature' of the original fines scaled back was ignored by the Secretary of State for Scotland's office.
As Hansard, the official record of Parliamentary proceedings shows, local Roxburgh MP Sir John Jardine (Liberal) used a debate on Civil Service estimates for the Scottish Secretary's department to propose lopping £100 (some £6,000 in today's money) from the Ministerial budget for salaries and expenses. It opened the way for him to pursue the cause of the "small merchants and traders in the Royal Burgh of Jedburgh".
In a passionate, and at times fiery, speech to MPs Sir John said: "The accused say that these fines are excessive. That is their grievance. They held a public meeting to express that view. A former Provost was in the chair, and they unanimously stated what they thought about it.
"Their first grievance is the excessive fines, but their second, the point which I bring forward now, is the refusal of the Minister to bring the prerogative of mercy into play. It is the same power which is constantly put into operation by the Home Secretary in England. It is a very well-known procedure in England and is not unknown in Scotland."
In a direct challenge to his own ruling Liberal Party Sir John continued: "I have been appealed to as the Member for that county (Roxburgh) to bring forward what these people who have to pay the fines, and their neighbours, ratepayers, and others, at a public meeting alleged to be grievances, because the Secretary for Scotland ought to have examined into them and rectified what there was of excess."
The courageous Sir John told the House: "They say the amounts are heavy if considered along with their pecuniary circumstances. These are not great and rich people who have motor cars to ride in every day or who dress themselves in purple and fine linen.
"They are the ordinary, quiet shopkeepers and little innkeepers of a little country town in Scotland, and to them £15 or £10 is a big sum to pay, especially as it is known that the trade of Jedburgh is suffering because of the War, and they have had many expenses and have given very much to charity, and, like most of us, have had bereavements.
"No country excels the borderland in traditions of valour, nor, as I believe, in present courage in coming in great numbers to the flag and taking a great part in the fighting in all parts of the world.
"The people generally are in such a condition
that all public authorities ought as far as possible to be generous, and, while
being just, to imitate the Crown in its office of mercy. I believe that very
strongly, because I know the people well."
Fines of the magnitude handed down by Sheriff Baillie for lighting regulation offences could not be found in any other part of Scotland, claimed Sir John. He had found that in Glasgow the fines were often two shillings, rising to fifteen shillings sometimes, and in many other boroughs the scale of fines was similar to the range in Glasgow. And the accused in Jedburgh who had been saddled with huge financial penalties had no right of appeal.
The Borders MP went on: "It is a sound and
reasonable discretion that a fine is meant not as a means of sending people to
prison, but merely to give them a reminder that they must not break the law.
If you sentence a
servant girl, who does not pull down a blind, to a fine of £10, she has to go
to prison, and the evil done is great.
"I have mentioned already that the sheriff-substitute administered the law in the way I have referred to. On a next occasion the
fines inflicted by the same sheriff-substitute went down from £15 to five shillings. That,
I say, is a more reasonable way of dealing with things.Unless these fines are reduced it will
be an intimation to this and to any other Court that they may go on inflicting
fines of £100 and £15, which are far beyond the means of the people to pay."
Then Sir John made reference to the case of the Home Office minister "who committed an
offence for which people in the Burgh of Jedburgh were fined £15, whereas he
got off with five shillings."
The law was no
respecter of persons, and ought to be equally administered, he suggested,, so that the people
of Jedburgh and the county of Roxburgh must not be left to say that it was only
in that part of Scotland that heavy fines were inflicted.
"We must have something
like an average, and a measure of common sense. I saw that a Member of
this House got off with only a fine of five shillings, and that the wife of a titled judge of this country, I think, got off with
£2 odd, but I am not going to speak evil of dignitaries or of anybody else, and
I am not going to give names."
TO BE CONTINUED....
HOW DID THE COMMONS RESPOND TO JARDINE'S BARNSTORMING SPEECH?
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