The Sun. — London, England, 1837-02-25 00:00:00

ad they were without victuals frqv Tuesday morning to Wednesday night. Friday is the dr fixed upon for the re lieving officer to pay the poor of my parish ; they are to meet him at two o'clock. On Friday, the llth of November, they assembled at the usual place of receiving their allowance. lie did not come before six o'clock. He told them he Would not pay them that night, and ordered them to meet him on the Saturday at two o'clock. They went •he did not attend, but went to anot h er h ouse w h ere h e h a d never paid them, and loft their allowance. The relieving officer comes into the parish without knowing the state of the poor, and pays those only who arc upon his book. I hope you will endeavour to do away with such men. Why not pay a salary to the overseer of the parish, who knows their dis tresses? Where the system is pursued of not relieving able bodied labourers who have large families, they must inevitably perish. Flour is 2s. 4d. per stone, labour is is. 6d. per day, and I do assure you our labourers with large families are starv ing." There were two other cases in the same communica, tion, but being unwilling to trespass too far upon the indul gence of the House, he should not read them. He wished now to call attention to the statements lie had received re specting the Union of Droxford. The lion. Member then read a statement respecting the distress of certain poor fami lies in that Union, in consequence of the insufficient scale of parish relief. Another gentleman wrote to him thus from Berkshire :—" The Commissioners report that allowances have been easily stopped, and without producing murmurs and complaints. True; but this is due in a great measure to the patience and fortitude with which the poor have endured their privations. A gentleman who has the best means of knowing, in the Bradfield Union, told me on Saturday that the distress and sufferings he witnesses are inconceivable. I this morning procured the particulars of the subsistence of one family in m) parish ; half an ounce of tea, half a pound of sugar, one pound of lard, one pound of cheese, besides dry bread, for a man and his wife and four children. These people endure ; and there fore the Commissioners say there is no distress. In the Bradfield Union the Board advances loans. Brown, whom a medical person will not pronounce able bodied, is paying back a small sum given in relief to him when he was ill in the summer. His wife carried 6d. out of the remaining Bid. last week, and was told she must without fail bring the other 21sd. I have spoken with persons connected with Boards of Guardians in different counties, and have been an swered, We go on very well ;' but with the additional ob servation, we have no such practices (viz., those of the Bradfield Union) ; we have been obliged to fight the Com missioners a good deal, and resist their orders.' One gentle man, from Cambridgeshire, said, ' The success seems to de pend on there being a good Board of Guardians, who will not be driven by the Commissioners.' Now lam writing on this subject, I cannot help adverting to a letter in the first Report of the Commissioners, from Mr. Thomas Stevens, tho new Assistant- Commissioner of Bradfield ; he says, I have just signed a distress-warrant to seize the goods of J. Lovegrove, who earns 12s. weekly, and has refused to sup port his mother. I hear that the goods have been disposed of, and there is not sufficient to distress. Upon the con stable's return to this effect, we shall commit him to prison for the full term allowed by law.' This was done. Now, Lovegrove's case was this. His mother had been allowed one shilling per week, he doing all the rest for her. He was setting an excellent example to young men, and had been some time engaged to a very respectable young woman, but he put off his marriage in order that he might be able to do something for his aged mother, and get together something previous to marriage. There are many observations in that report very harsh towards the poor, and arguments which ap pear to me quite unsupported by facts." [Lovegrove is since Married, and is not now called upon to make an allowance to his mother.] " The treatment of the helpless poor in Brad field Union is as follows :—" A widow woman, very infirm and old, half a gallon of bread, one ounce of tea, half a pound of sugar, and ls. 4d.-2s. 7d. Allowance to a man and wife, the man being very slowly recovering from influenza, and much debilitated—these are people of 63, or thereabouts—one gallon of bread, one ounce of tea, half a pound of sugar, three penny worth of oatmeal, one pound of mutton, and Is., making 3s. Bd. Case of a man and wife with four children, young people, but the man ruptured and asthmatic, therefore not able-bodied. In the autumn the man was confined two weeks by sickness ; the wife the second week applied for assistance, and received bread, tea, and sugar, to the value of 4s. 80. This money they have been made to repay during the winter by 6d. at a time. The Board gives no assistance to widows under 60 out of the workhouse, so that a poor woman left with four or five chil dren is obliged, like the widow Kerridge, to go to prison, with little or no prospect of release, for six or seven years. One poor woman, lately bereaved of her husband, has eight children, two daughters at service, who pay her rent : a third, aged 17, who can only occasionally get work ; two boys, aged 15 and 13, who earn ss. between them ; and three younger, who cannot work, get no assistance, and are half starved. Another widow has four young children, and three grown up ; her husband had been confined to his bed with a very painful disease for some years before his death ; upon his decease all allowance to her was stopped ; she has lately been ill three weeks ; she was given during one week only two gallons of bread, one ounce of tea, half a pound of butter, half a pound of sugar -3s. Bd. She was very ill when I saw her, and al lowed to be so by the medical attendant, but there was nothing for her. I give you the whole weekly consumption of two fa milies :-Ist. A man and wife, and four children—five and a half gallons of bread, half an ounce of tea, half a pound of sugar, one pound of lard, and one pound of cheese. A man and wife, and five children—besides bread, one ounce of tea, 11b. of sugar, one pound of lard, half a pound of butter, and sixpenny worth of bacon occasionally." A highly-respectable gentleman at Newbury sent him an account of the growing inquest, held at Welford, Berks, the beginning of this month, on a poor woman named Lucy Watts, sixty-two years of age. The Hon. Gentleman then read the account, which stated that she died sooner than obtain relief in a work-house. The gentleman who sent him this account says :—" Dying they are in great numbers, and die they will, sooner than go into the bastile, as they call it, as did the poor woman herein mentioned." A Magistrate wrote from Dolgelly, and Said An Assistant Commissioner has been here, and having had his Board of Guardians appointed (which was obtained by interested persons, who wanted the lucrative offices), he has ordered an union of twelve pa. rishes, one and all of which are against it, believing that it will add greatly to their expense, and in the same degree decrease the comfort of the poor people. They are, to be sure, nume rous, owing to their longevity, but fm thei former poverty °living easily kept. In this parish r which contains nearly 4 -19ths of the 12 of the union, there are 530 out of much more than four thousand inhabitants who receive relief, but they receive only 1,3481, being not quite 21. 11s. a-head Per year, or not ls. a-head per week, and not nearly 2s. the pound on the rack rent. Upon inquiry, lam sure it Will appear that the other parishes are not in a Zrso position, but some of them better. Can any altera n m en d t hi s ? N ot hing but starvation can ; and lam satisfied that most of our poor would starve rather than enter the workhouse. It is on the score of humanity that I appeal to you t o save t h e h ear t s of my poor old neighbours from : ) elag broken. I really heard from good authority this morn 14g that a poor woman near me had become deranged t hrough f ear o f t h e wor kh ouse ." He would next rea d a letter vhich he had received from the Mayor of Morpeth. th e In that part o f t h e country w h ere I reside, in Morp e th, i n e County of Northumberland, there has lately . been a Union for med for th at town , ca ll e d t h e Morpeth Union,' embracing 6 or 70 ne i g hb our i ng towns hi ps . I was appoi n ted a G uar - I am f u ll y nn, and from what I have seen of the working of the measure, convinced that a more cruel and unjust Bill never Passed the House of Commons. I have seen the feelings of th e aged and infirm wounded in the most brutal manlier, and their p ress i ng wants ridiculed and neglecte d . I can only i n this brief note allude to the general working of the Bill; but shall ment i on that there have been very recently two s uicides in this Union by labourin men from Poor-law op pressions. Th e Board of Guardians for this same Union ave only a f ew d ays ago resolved that the common d ecenc i es o_ Christian burial' shall not be observed, as heretofore, towards d ecease d paupers. This has created, b ot h i n town and neighbourhood a strong and unmingled feeling of in (lignation and di sgust ; but whether this public expression will effect the rescinding of the order I cannot say. I could pention individual cases of great hardship, but as you will have a greater number of similar ones from other districts, I shall not trouble you with matters of detail. The whole of this legislative measure is, in my humble opinion, preg nant with cruelty and violence; makes war upon the most defenceless class of society, and tends to tear asunder all those tend er feelings and sy m p at hi es b etween the middling an d l ower ranks of life which are so necessary towar d s ma i nta i n i ng th e val happiness and strength of a State." Some of the most int eresting and aff ec ti ng ° cases which he had received in illus !tration o f t h e privation, hardship, a nd o pp ress i on i n flicted on the poor by the present system of Poor-laws had been fur xat ished hire by Mr. L ew i n , a very respectable ' of land i ckham-market, in the county of Suffolk. He should arid hardship which had lately come to his knowledge arising ;_lit of thi s Bill. They had had petitions presented to them rem thousa n d s of persons, including clerg l ymen, magistrates, ardian s o f the poor, and others, the best judges, praying for 1.18 amendment. He knew of some guardians, one the Chair. of a Bo ar d, w h o, from humane feelings, were induced thet'th great difficulty to retain their ituat' s With t s last report of the Central Board, s on w i li o i l Ch . doubtl r e e s s great iieryeess would be laid, he should on l y say that he had reason to be many of th e s t atements would be disproved. To a certain ex tent he h a d t h e means of doing ;tert of their duty to support t h at system which supported sa f ar m ies lt amounting be very o dd if 25 Commissioners, receiving to 39,0001 . per annum. could not get up a Work laudatory. of their own exertions. That, however, was a matter for the consideration of a Committee with unrestrained bPowaers, Which th e N o bl e L ord would not grant. The coun e4 a been t o ld b y L ord Althorp that out-door relief would Brou gham by t h e Bil l rather than otherwise, whil e Lord e n,ghaid went so far as t o say, t h at he doubted whether any ;nil!`4 wife, ever even drea m t o f any separation between husband teen , and p arent an d c h i l d. How had these promises e. sai pt 7 The Hou se h a d a l so b een told that the Chief reoe'tual double were to have only 1,50 0 /. a-year, whereas they that sum. The Assistant-Commissioners were toe o n i are b now 3; 2 mg f ht or ten in number, with 800/. a-year ; there Ought not them, with 1,500/. a-year.--( Hear, hear, hear. ) into the cause of their costly charges to be inquired the cause their own hear. ) The Commissioners bad increased cre ase but they had made a corresponding de. to S2aornent hariful allowance to too poor ?—( Hear.) At that from a Board tshaelia of in his pocket a py of ? a humble petition Praying to be Guardians to the mighty Commissioners, allowance of swallowed I"ed to give the aged poor an additional : nee 'tut a __po ounces of bread per day. They had already xpected fr oth rein asal. This was the last thing he should have trona Ministr page. not to . Y which was pledged to diminish pa dto confer originate fresh fountains of itwhich • . was r. nes ou the poople, not to diminish the 111 in, THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY, PEI3RITARY 25, 1837. few and little necessaries of the most helpless part of them. and to consign them to strangers.—(Hear, hear.) On the subject of improvident marriages, on which so much had been been said, and which had been so strongly deprecated as the source of evils in this country, he hoped the house would allow him to read part of a letter from a personage whose name must be familiar to many in the House—he meant the Styrian friend and correspondent of Captain Basil Hall, and who had many opportunities of observing the consequences result ing from the prohibition of any other than what are called prudential marriages among the poor. This personage, a lady, too, of Scottish extraction, thus wrote :—" We have no poor (that is, in the province of Styria), which, owing to the question in England respecting the Poor-laws, is deserving of being noticed. No mail is allowed to marry till he can prove he is able to maintain a wife and family ; and this, with the law of celibacy of the clergy, and the security required by a pecuniary deposit of the military before they can marry—almost an act of celibacy—are checks on po pulation which would make the hearts of Mr. Malthus and Miss Martineau burn in them for admiration. The result is, the entire demoralization of the people. The mask of religion helps nothing. At the last grand jubilee in the next parish, seventy-two pairs of single women adorned the procession, dressed in white and covered with garlands of flowers. In eight months forty-four of them were in the family-way.-- ( Loud cries of " Hear !" and much laughter.) Madame Nature is not a political economist—( Hear, hear !)—and she does not let her laws be outraged with impunity."—( Cheers and laughter.) From every account that he had heard, lie had reason to infer that a great increase of the crime of infanticide had taken plate in consequence of the new bas tardy law; and this result was foreseen and predicted by seventy-one Members of the other House. He would content himself with reading one clause in the Leicester petition upon the subject:—" We cannot omit, also, expressing our unqua lified dissent from the principles of (what are termed) the bastardy clauses of the Act; offering, as they do, in our view, a direct premium for infanticide, and consigning in many in stances, as they must, helpless and deceived females to perma nent degradation and misery." And among a mass of evi -1 dence to the same effect, he would also select the verdict of a coroner's jury last summer, " That the infants were found in. decently exposed ; but whether born alive or otherwise, there was no evidence ; and the jury were of opinion that the deser tion of the children by the parent was attributable to the in justice and- demoralizing effects of the bastardy clause of the new Poor Bill." The House would be pleased to observe, that these and other cases are incidental evils only, which he was obliged to pass over rapidly in order to leave himself time for the other heavy evils of the system. One of those heavy grievances was, the magnitude and extent of the Unions.- -(hear.) Originally, it did not appear to have been in tended to comprise more than five or ,six parishes within one Union. Such an arrangement might have allowed the helpless inmates to indulge a hope of seeing their friends on some occasions or other. But now they had been extended to 30, 40, and even 50 parishes. It was, therefore, a day's journey for a wretched son to go and see a confined mother.—( Cries of " Hear.") To show how little credit was due to the statements made in the last Report of these Commissioners, he would read to the House the contradictory accounts which they themselves put forth respecting one par ticular union—the Biggleswade Union. One individual said—" I consider the new Poor-law acts remarkably well, and is one of the best that was ever passed by any legisla ture. The check it has upon drunkenness—( Hear, hear) — with the incentive given to make the best they can of every shilling they receive, is truly wonderful. Our beer-shops were crowded on the Sabbath, from morning till evening ; and now, I believe, very few enter them at all on that day— (Cheers from Lord John Russell and the Members about him) —and almost all go to some place of worship. We are paying our labourers Is. per week more than we did previously to the advance in wheat. We now give them Bs. per week. I believe there never was more contentment between the em ployer and the employed than at present. The number of misdemeanours has greatly diminished."—(Cheers from the Ministerial benches.)-13ut a second witness said, " They frequent the alehouses quite as much.--( Hear and laughter.) I think it quite out of the question for a man with a family to save money out of Bs. a-week. Their rents average Is. 6d. a-week, and clubs 6d. a-week, to be deducted from that sum." A third person said, " Poaching and petty de predations have increased in this parish double to any former year." A fourth said, " I am not of opinion that poaching and petty depredations have at all diminished • but that the greater crime of sheep-stealing has increased to a tenfold degree." And with respect to the beer-shops, another per son said, " They increase daily in number, and the quantity of money spent in them by the labourers is very great. I may be wrong; but I consider them as at present constituting the chief obstacle to the assumption of orderly and domestic habits by the labourer. He can hardly rs turn to his cottage at night without passing ono of them ; and when he sees a companion or two there, and a comfortable room and a blazing fire, and knows that he shall be met at home by all the wants of poverty, it is a great temptation to him to enter in and enjoy its luxuries." Gentlemen might recollect the mention, the other night, by the Noble Lord, in introducing his Irish Poor Bill, of a parish called Cholesbury. He adduced that parish as an example or warning in legislating for the poor of Ireland, as he believed another Noble Lord had formerly done for the poor of Eng land. This parish also made the most prominent figure in the Report of the Commissioners. But neither of the Noble Lords, though they stated that all the farms in the parish had gone out of cultivation under the old system, added the im portant fact, that " all the farms" consisted of only two in number, of fifty acres each.—( Hear, hear.) The whole parish contains only 110 acres of arable and meadow land. But his objection to this law—and it was a fundamental ob jection—was its total variance with the principles of every other law, and with the general maxims of the Constitution. When he looked at the persons from whom it had sprung, his Majesty's present Ministers, he was lost in astonishment. Was it not their constant boast, and did they not celebrate it in all their toasts at political meetings, that the people were the source of all power ? and now they invented a law, and would diffuse it over the whole realm, that they and their Commissioners were the source of all power, and the people its victims. The unconstitutional extent of the powers given to the Central Board was well described and justly reprobated by a gentleman well known to many Members of this House, and of the highest character, the Rev. Mr. Cookesley, who was a guardian of the Eton Union. In an address to the rate-payers he asked whether they desired their representatives (the guardians) to be mere servants—" to be a mere court to register the edicts of a supe rior Board of paid Government Commissioners. I must (says lie) profess my astonishment that the people of England should have submitted to the exercise of such powers as these Com missioners exercise.—( Hear, hear, hear.) They are powers such as no body of men since the days of the Star Chamber have legally had in England, and such as no body of men ought to have had.—( Hear, hear, from various parts of the House.) Had the Boards of Guardians been open Courts, these powers could not have been put in operation, for public opinion would have compelled the Board to act with indepen dence in resisting the outrageous authority at present enjoyed by the Poor-law Commissioners." Ho goes'on—" The new Bill professes to be a Bill for the better provision for the poor ; but I have yet to learn how this better provision can consist with a total violation of their feelings.. The aged pauper, who - has spent his manhood in labour, thinks as much of his own arm-chair and his own fireside, and he loves the smile of his kin dred and his friends, as much as richer men love their enjoy ments. I know not how many hearts may be broken if this system of incarcerating the aged in workhouses is to be car ried into general execution. Your Board of Guardiaps a few weeks since came to the resolution of letting the aged pau pers out of their prison for a few hours during the day. But of this they were afraid of informing the Poor-law Commis sioners, as they must prohibit any such infringement of their barbarous rules and regulations. Is it your pleasure (says he) that your aged poor—the creatures who flee to you for protection from famine—who trust to your benevolence and mercy—should be thus treated? Will you submit to these mandates of a savage, relentless economy ? The windows in your workhouses are bu4t at the tops of the walls of the rooms. Why ? Lest the poor should have the blessing of looking out of them—lest they should forget for a moment that they were in a gaol.—( Hear.) Is this a wanton, deliberate act of cruelty, or is it a benevolent instance of better provi sion for the poor ?' Some time since the circumstance of a per son having lived for some weeks upon workhouse diet was men tioned with pride in the House of Commons. Would this same man have fattened on it within the walls of a workhouse shut out from the view of everything but the wretchedness of himself and fellow-sufferers? I am almost tempted to wish that the man who first hit upon this infernal scheme of shutting out the sight of our common earth from the view of the poor, had been condemned to live in one of his own dungeons for life. One topic more, and I have done. There are about ten idiots in your workhouse. If I could fancy an aggrava tion of the miseries of incarcerated poverty, intense and tre mendous, it would be this simple addition of idiotcy. Upon their companions falls the duty of attending them. * In our house, at this present minute, a man is dying ; his wife cannot see him, if he be an inmate." Thus, while the Ministers had been putting the country in commotion about establishing Municipal Corporations in Ireland, which they said were necessary upon the principles of self-govern ment—they had been destroying self-government in every parish in England—( Hear, hear,)—and consigning any thing but self-government of those parishes to Commis sioners sitting here in London. (Hear, hear.) If it were attempted to cast any imputation upon the motives of those who deprecate the new system, he hoped they might be allowed to answer that they were only treading, at however great a distance, in the steps of the illustrious men who were at the head of both parties in this House in the bygone generation,who only recommended the removal of abuses from the old system, but strict adherence to the principle of the system itself.—( Hear, hear.) Mr. Whitbread strenuously advocated the right-of the poor to have work, and that at ade quate wages ; he said his " creed was, that no excuse should be left them for doing wrong." Mr. Fox suggested the pro priety of an association to raise the price of labour. " It was not fitting (he said) in a free country that the great body of the people should depend on the charity of the rich." Mr. Pitt said, "that the law which prohibited relief, where any visible property remained, should be abolished. That degrigi , ing condition should be withdrawn. No temporary oeoasion should force a British subject to part with the last shilling of his little capital, and descend to a state of wretchednes from which he could never recover, merely that he might be entitled to a eastial relief." His humane provision their new law ageln abolished. They were forcing British subjects to part with the last shilling of their capital, and compelling them to de scend to a state of wretchedness from which they could never recover. If this horrible wrong were to be re Imposed, let it be re-imposed by the local authorities, if they had the hearts to do it. Let not strangers, let not Londoners, be called in to in flict the misery on those they never saw before. The Com missioners themselves acknowledged that the " pauverisetl labourers were not the authors of the abusive system, and ought not to be made responsible for it." Was tearing them from their homes no responsibility ? They were told by the sacred Word that they ought to do to others as they would wish others to do to them. Was there any maxim of religion or morality which said, thou shalt not relieve a poor man " till he is in the last state of destitution"—( Hear, hear)—and that the proof that he is shall be his being driven to accept so wretched a \boon as their relief holds out? On the contrary, the Word of Wisdom said, " Make not an hungry soul sorrowful, nei ther provoke a man in his distress. Add not more trouble to a heart that is vexed, and defer not to give him that is in need." He disclaimed any intention to repeal the Bill. The difference between his proposition and that which the Noble Lord chose to grant was this—he was for full inquiry— ( flear)—which, if the Commissioners' Reports be just, the Noble 'Lord could have no occasion to fear. The Noble Lord was for a partial inquiry, which, he would venture to say, would not and ought not to be satisfactory to the people. He then moved that a select Committee be appointed to inquire into the operation of the Poor-law Amendment Act, and to re port their opinion to the House. Mr. JOHN FIELDEN have always condemned this Bill ; I voted against it on every division during the time when it was passing, and I am here to-night to compiain of its working, now that it is a law. The Commissioners are now trying to introduce this Act into Lancashire and Yorkshire, and I tell the Noble Lord he may as well attempt to conquer the world as attempt to effect that object.—( Hear, hear.) My own opinion is, that the motion of the Hon. Member for Berk shire ought to have been for a total repeal of this Act.— Cheers.) The Noble Lord saye.that the Bill is working well. It is not working well. In page 6 the Commissioners state that the complaints made by the labouring people are not so much against the diet as against the imprisonment, and the separation of man from wife, and of parent from child, that they endure in the Union workhouses ; and I put it to every Member of this House, whether chat complaint is not a just one I And I put it to his Majesty's Attorney-General, whether, according to the law of England, so severe a law can be in flicted, where there is no other crime than poverty ?—( Hear, hear.) I should like to hear his Majesty's Attorney-General justify this by any law that is recognised in England. I call on him to state that such is the law, if it be the law of England ; and I call upon the House to join us in demanding a full in quiry into the facts. I assure the House that the approach of the Poor-law Commissioners has created extreme dread in extensive districts of the north. I have myself received many petitions to this House upon that subject, both from Lancashire and Yorkshire. From one township I have received a copy of the resolutions passed at a meeting, which I will read to the House. Here the Hon. Member read a string of resolu tions, one of which was to the effect, that the object of the Poor-law Amendment Act was to grind the labouring people down to the level of our unfortunate brethren in Ireland.— ( Cheers.) Another was for raising funds to protect those who may suffer from any resistance they may offer to the Commissioners. Another was also for raising funds in order to carry on a system of passive resistance to them, after the manner recommended by Lord Fitzwilliam and Lord Broug ham—namely, " by buttoning up our breeches pockets, and stopping the Supplies."—(Cheers.) When I first came into this House, knowing intimately the sufferings of an immense body of workmen, the handloom weavers, from an insufficiency of wages, I attempted to procure for thorn some interference from this House which should improve their condition. I pro cured a Committee to be appointed, before which I proved that those workmen, labouring from morning till night, could earn for themselves and theirfamjlies not more than the pittance of twopence per head per day. This House refused to act upon my suggestions to regulate the rate of wages that they should receive ; and now I put it to the House whether, if one of these hardworking men, through sickness or accident, becomes incapable of labour, it is just to treat that man as a criminal in the mode of giving him relief? Is it just to make this man go into an union workhouse and put on a prison dress, and submit to separation from his wife and children, before you will aid him in his sufferings ? I deny that it is--( Hear) —and as I have found that this House is unwilling to do that which is to keep the people from poverty, 1 will resist this Act, which punishes them for being poor.—(Cheers.) Now, Sir, as to the means which are put in force to thrust this Act upon an unwilling people. In plisse sof the Poor-law Commis sioners'Secondßeport they state those means in these words : ";Partial riots have occurred in different counties, but the aid of small parties of the metropolitan police (who, by a provision of a most useful Act of the last session can now be sworn in and paid as special constables in any county in England), occasionally aided by the support of a military force, these disturbances have been put down without any considerable injury to pro perty." So that here is this well-working Act of the Noble Lord, which satisfies the country, and yet which requires this new military force to carry it into execution.—( Hear, hear.) Consulting the votes of this House, I find that the Act was brought in after twelve o'clock at night, by the Hon. Fox Maule, the Under_ Secretary to the Noble Lord at the head of the Home Department.—( Hear, hear.) The object of the Act is clear enough. The Poor-taw Commissioners hail it as useful; and it is doubtless useful to the Poor-law Com missioners. We have got, Sir, by stealth, and at midnight, that rural police which, I trust, we never could have had by the light of day. Already I see by the newspapers that this London police has been sent 220 miles down into the country to quell the Cornish miners, who are resisting the new Poor-law. I do not forget, Sir, the words of Sir James Scarlett with respect to the Poor-law, when it was passing through the House. I remember his saying of the Central Board of Commissioners, that it was an imperium in inzperio, and that the people of England would never be made to submit to Hear.) I hold in my hand an essay on the English Constitution, written and put forth to the world by Lord John Russell ; and in describing the sort of force that would be the destroyer of the English Constitution, lie has held up to our eves, as a warning, the picture of that very force which the Poor-law Commissioners have described to us as a " useful" reality.—( Cheers.) But, Sir, these are the words, and they arc contained in page 379 of his Lordship's own book :—" It is in this point of view that the increase o: a standing army is really dangerous, and the encouragement of military habits most pernicious. And the reptile is the more to be guarded against as it would approach without the rattle which gives warning of its vicinity, and serves as a pre servative against its poison. A standing army which destroyed the freedom of England would not march by beat of drum to Westminster, and dismiss the House of Commons. It would not proscribe the House of Peers, and deluge the streets of London with the blood of her Magistrates. It would appear in the shape of a guardian of order ; it would support the authority of the two Houses of Parliament; it would be hostile to none but mobs and public meetings, and shed no blood but that of labourers and journeymen. It would establish the despotic power, not of a single King, or a sin g l e General, but of a host of corrupt senators, and half a million of petty tyrants." Now, what I anticipate is, that this now force will be sent down into the peaceful valley of Todmor_ den, where I have all my life lived, there to coerce me and my neighbours into subjection to these three Commissioners. But 1, in my turn, warn the Noble Lord against making us feel this abandonment of his own principles.—( Hear.) I tell him it will be resisted; and, moreover, I don't shrink from telling him to his faro that I myself will, if necessary, be a leader In the resistance. If it has come to this at last, that the Sheriff's wand and the constable's staff are no longer effec tive in maintaining the peace, and if this new law is to be the cause of that destruction of the Constitution which the Noble Lord has himself so well described, resistance has be come our duty, and I am prepared to perform my part.— ( Hear, hear, hear.) I hold in my hand a statement put forth by the Guardians of the Bridge Union, in Kent, showing the receipts and expenditure for the quarter ends ing September 29, 1836. The population of the Bridge Union is 10,636, or 1-316th part of the whole population of England and \Vales ; and I find from this statement that the total sum expended in the quarter for in-door maintenance and out-relief is 6101. 16s. 51d. ; fourstimes this would be 2,443/. Bs. 9d. for the whole year. Now, 1,316 times this is 3,214,9881. the actual amount that would be expended for in-maintenance and out-relief in England and \Vales if every parish were similarly managed. But then we have to add the establishment charges—the cost of the machinery of management. That item, according- to the same statement, amounts, in the Bridge Union, fur tub same quarter, to 1,1451. 15s. ; four times this makes it 4,5751. for the year, and 1,316 times this is 6,020,7001. for the whole of England and Wales, when it shall come under similar management to that of the parishes comprising the Union of Bridge. The sum actually spent on the poor in this union, for a year, and extended over England and Wales, would, according to this, amount to 3,214,988/., and the establishment charges to 6,020,700 L, making together 9,233,688/. —a larger sum than has ever been collected in the name of the poor, even when it was customary to pay. county-rates and highway rates out of the sum collected as poor-rates. I will now compare this expenditure with the actual expense of the poor in two townships where the poor are relieved without having this expensive establishment. The township of Oldham, which I represent, is one, and the township of Tod morden and Walsden, where I was born, and I have always lived, is the other. For this p ur p ose I have taken the year ending March, 1836, the last year the accounts are made up. The population of the township of Oldham, according to the census of 1831, is 32,381 ; or 1-432 d part of the population of England and Wales. The sum disbursed to the poor was 2,194/. This multiplied by 432, the proportion of population which Oldham bears to England and Wales, will be 947,8091.; so that, under the management which prevailed at Oldham, the expenditure for the actual relief of the poor would, if ex tended over England and Wales, be 947,808/., while, if all were conducted in proportion to the expenditure of the Bridge Union, the expenditure in actual relief for England and Wales would be 3,214,9881., and the establishment or machinery, to bring it about, would cost 6,020,7001., making together 9, 9 35,688/. Now I will compare this with the expenditure of the township of Todmorden and Walsden, where I served the office of overseer of the poor in the difficult year of 1817. The population, according to the census, is upwards of 6,000 ; or 1-2333 d part of the p o p u l a ti on o f England and Wales. The sum disbursed to the poor was, in the year ending March, 1836, 4031. This multiplied by 2,333, the proportion of population' which my township bears to that of all England and Wales, gives 940,1991. So that England, tnanaged in the manner adopted at Todmorden and Walsden, would pay in poop's-rate ti-Itel WV- Tile rpt4rnp from 0 1 14491 494 fferfl Todmorden I have had from the parish officess. They have been audited and passed by the magistrates and rate-payers ; but it is very singular that they do riot agree with the return riven by the Poor-law Commissioners to this House, printed do the leth of August hat, and now in the hands of Hon. Members. I beg the attention of the House to this; for I assert that here is a paltering with the truth that demands in quiry, In the Commissioners' retutt I find under the head of " Expended for the Relief of the Poor," in the township of Oldham, year ended 25th March ' 1836, 2,5161. 14s. ; whereas the account that I have received says, " Paid to the 'poor 2,194/. Os. 7d. i" that is, $22/, les. ed., or 12 per cent., less 1 thin tLe Commissioncia report it. But, Sir, I find the misre i presentation not confined to Oldham; for in the same return the Commissioners state the expenditure on the poor in Todmorden and Walsden to be 434/. 7s. ; and according to the return that is made to me by tho overseer, the sum so expended is only 4031. I have no means of put ting the whole return to this test ; but in these two instances I find the Commissioners make a serious misrepresentation of the amount expended on the poor in places not yet under their control ; and 1 ask if this even is not a ground for inquiry into their doings? lam certain that I have not been deceived by the overseers. But I find in the report of the Commis sioners another return which, on the face of it, raises a strong conviction in my mind that it is false. Li 1835 they state the total expenditure fur the township of Oldham to be 4„568/., and the total sum levied in rates 3,747/ ; leaving a deficiency in the amount of rat e s l ev i e d o f 811/, under what they state to have been expended. And in 1836 they state the total expenditure at 3,8A1. 151., and the total sum levied at 3,351/, 4s. ; fhowing a deficiency of 535/. 11s. under the sum stated to have been expended. Thus, according to this, the good people of Oldham ran into debt to the amount of 1,359/. I Is. in two years, which I am sure they would not do. The Hon. Member concluded by calling on the House to ac cede to the full inquiry. The question being put, Lord J. RUSSELL rose to move an amendment. In the first place, he begged to thank the Hon. Gentleman, the se conder of the motion, for explaining to the House its real object.—( Hear, hear.) Ile thanked the Hon. Gentleman for explaining that the real object of the motion was the repeal of the Poor-law Amendment Act.—(Hear, hear.) The Hon. Gentleman had told them that that Act was defective from beginning to end, and that it was now sufficiently obvious that, be the circumstances whatever they might, the Act was totally and completely incapable of being carried into full ope ration ; and therefore he, for one, demanded its repeal.-- ( Hear.) This declaration, no doubt, was sufficiently candid, but the Hon. Member's conduct would have been much more so, if, instead of bringing forward a motion of this descrip tion, he had moved at once for leave to bring inn Bill to re peal the Poor-law Amendment Act.—( Hear, hear.) He ( Lord John Russell) expected, indeed, that that would be the real object of the motion, although the Honourable Member for Berkshire did not openly say so, and it was with that view that he (Lord John Russell) gave notice of the amendment which it was then his intention to move.—( Hear, hear.) The Honourable Member for Berkshire had stated that the amendment was produced with a view to screen the Poor-law Commissioners ; he said, " The Government are interested persons in this matter, and it is no wonder that they ' should wish to screen their agents from inquiry." By way of answer to that assertion he would read the words of the amend ment he meant to propose, and the House would then see whe ther the object or effect of that amendment could be to screen anything that had been done from a full and fair inquiry. These were the words of the amendment, " That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the administration of the relief of the poor under the orders and regulations issued by the Commissioners appointed under the provisions of the Poor-law Amendment Act."—( Hear, hear.) Now these words he conceived, were sufficiently comprehensive to admit of an inquiry into the whole of what had been done under the new law, and would enable the Committee to convince itself even to the minutest particular, of the manner in which that new law had been carried into operation.—(Hear, hear, hear.) It might inquire into the establishment of unions, into the pro priety of having the administration of relief confined to work houses, into the manner in which the relief had actually been administered in those houses, into the dietary established under tho directions of the Commissioners, into the restrictions im posed upon the inmates of the workhouses, into the character and extent of the medical attention and relief afforded to them (upon which the Hon. Member for Finsbury had ex pressed so much anxiety for an inquiry); and further, it could inquire as to whether the Poor-law Commissioners had been too expensive in their proceedings under the provisions of the Act, whether it were fit that it should be applied generally to the whole country, or whether it would be beneficial that it should be confined to certain districts only in which the abuses of the old poor-law system were aggravated and noto rious-_( Hear, hear)—and, finally, it mig,sht inquire whether it were expedient to carry the new law into effect in the north, in the counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland, or in the manufacturing districts to which the Hon. Gentleman, the seconder of the motion, belonged.—( Hear, hear.) He asked the House, then, whether, when he proposed such an inquiry, it could be possibly stated that he had it in view to screen the Commissioners ?--( Cheers.) The Hon. Member who made this motion, and who accused the Commissioners of wishing to hide their proceedings—of being persons well paid and anxious to secure their salaries--was himself a sort of repre sentative of an enormous union, and ho had endeavoured to make out a case against the new law, which no doubt they would see admirably reported to-morrow—( Hear, hear, laughter and cheers)—with a number of statements of fact—statements of evidence—which he ( Lord John Rus sell) must own he very indistinctly heard, and which, if he had heard, he must also own it would at that momont have been out of his power to reply to ; and he would 'tell the - - House why. Whenever any complaints had been made either to him (Lord John Russell) or to the Poor Law Commission ers, he or they directed an immediate inquiry to be made, to ascertain the correctness of the representations made to them, and in every instance it was required that the Guardians of the Union to which the complaint related should return an immediate answer to the inquiries made of them. But when the Poor Law Commissioners saw that the Hon. Member for Berkshire was about to bring forward a proposition in the house, theylnquired of him whether he had any particular statements of fact to make, because if he had they would be ready to institute an inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining what the statements were on the other side. The Hun. Member for Berkshire declined to give the Poor Law Corn missioners any information upon the subject. He ( Lord (John Russell) hoped the House would be satisfied if he did not make an answer at that moment to many of the complaints whi c h th e H on . M em b er f or Berkshire had brought forward from clergymen and gentlemen living in different parts of the country, with many of which he (Lord John Russell) was wholly unacquainted. Having stated thus much With regard to the particulars that the Hon. Member for Berkshire had gone into, he would advert a little to the general statement made by the Hon. Member by whom the motion was seconded, and whom, he feared, he must lead flints the peaceful valley in which, like Rasselas, he had so long re , sided.—( Laughter and cheers.) lie was obliged to state to the Hon. Member, when he brought him out of that happy valley, that there was, before the Poor-law Amendment Act passed, a state of great poverty, misery, and crime is many districts of the country, owing to the abuse of the old law, and he would read to him some pas sages from a petition presented to that House by a re lative of his ( Lord John Russell's) who at that time was one of the Members for the county of Bedford._(Hear, hear.) It was a petition from the Magistrates and gentry of Redburnstoke, in the county of Bedford, complain ing of the operation of the old poor-law system, and stating at great length the evils that had resulted from it. The Poor-rate, they stated, had been rapidly increasing for the last ten years, and amounted at that time to nino shil lings an acre, whilst poverty and pauperism were daily be coming greater and more widely spread. Hence evils of the worst complexion arose as well to the landholders as to the paupers ; heavy rates were imposed upon the one—idleness, insubordination, and crime increased with the other. The petitioners concluded by observing, that the system, if allowed to continue, would affect the whole body of agricultural labour ers, and produce a state of universal and inveterate"idleness wholly incompatible with the due cultivation of the soil. That was the state of things that existed in 18:29, and it was impos sible not to see that if such a system were allowed to go on, those idlers who would not labour on farms, but were em ployed by day on the roads and at night resorted to poaching, would in the end establish a system of terror, by which the overseers and farmers would be prevented from checking their career, and thus, whilst the morals and industrious habits of the labouring classes were destroyed on the one hand, the value of the property of the country was impaired on the other.—( Hear, hear.) He confined his illustrations at that moment mere particularly to the county of Bedford, be cause it happened that he was better acquainted with it than any other; and he had heard farmers in the county say, with regard to labourers out of employment, " We could very well give them employment ; but they are men of such bad habits and character, that if we were to let them into our farm yards, they would be sure to rob us." This was the state of the agricultural labourers in many parishes in England prior to the passing of the Poor-law Amendment Act—a state most unnatural in this country, because the disposition of English labourers was to work, and work hard, to earn an honest and independent livelihood.—( Hear, hear.) It-was nothing but the vicious system which the Hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Fiel den) wished to restore, that had induced the naturally indus trious labourers of England to abandon their former course of good husbandry, and to adopt the idle and profligate habits which had latterly disgraced so large a portion of them.— ( Hear.) He sincerely hoped that the resistance which the Hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Fielden) threatened them with in his happy valley would turn out to he of a no more formidable cha racter than that which they had already encountered.__( Hear.) With respect to the Union which comprehended the very district of which he had just read an account, there was a report of the Poor-law Commissioners not yet published, but which would soon be delivered, showing the condition of that district at the commencement of the present year. He begged to quote a passage from it :—" The Board of Guardians of the Ampthill Union represent to us," say the Commissioners, " that a reduction in the Poor-rates has been effected to the extent of 45 per cent. ; and this not by depriving the aged and infirm or helpless widow of any comfort, but rather, as can readily be proved, by conferring upon them many impor tant benefit s , an d i n trut h i ncrease d - allowances ; while on the other hand the habitual sturdy able-bodied paupers' habits of idleness have been put to the test by the offer of a well regu lated workhouse, where a comfortable maintenance i s pro vided." He (1:ortl J. Russell) was ready, as he had already stated, to submit to any inquiry on the subject; he was ready to appoint a Select Committee to investigate the matter, but he must at the same time declare his own conviction that thew never was a grea t er bl ess i ng conferred tip 9 the g rea t mass of the people (If gny pqntvx Orin that ehange o f an o ld an d ftWitte4 Viteitt, which redtwing very considerabl e expellees on the one h an d, enabled the farmers and cultivators of the sail to envie ) , 'lm o money in productive laltonr 1 whilst on the other it enabled the_ lahonrer to return to his ancient habits of inde pendent industry, and induced him to look at present and for Ow future to his character as the source of his profitable em ployment and well-being, and deterred him from continuing to be the degraded dependent on parish labour and parish pay. --( Cheers.) Although the Hon. Member for Berkshire had undertaken to bring the subject of the Poor-law Amendment Act under the consideration of the House, it was, ueyertheiess, obvious that ho had hardly paid that attention to its operation, even in his ovm clistrigt 4 vthi a l l ai gentleman incredulous of the well-working of the Bill ought, above all others, to have paid. There were, nevertheless, instances of gentlemen whose im pressions or prejudices against the Bill had vanished when they came to acquaint themselves with the mode in which it operated. In the last Report of the Poor -law Commissioners there was a particular instance of this. A- gentleman named Grant, who had been of opinion that this Act was of a most oppressive and tyrannical character, and that under its provisions the sick, the aged, and t: c infirm, would be severely ill-treated, happened by accident to be elected a guardian, and thus to have a full oppor tunity of seeing what the operation of the Act really was. Accordingly, having been some time in his office of guardian, he wrote a very long letter of detail to the Commissioners, stating that be had carefully watched the operation of the Act; that he was convinced of its bene ficial effects; and that, so far from acting with severity or hardship upon the aged, infirm, or rich, it placed them in a situation infinitely- b...tter than any that they had ever previ ously enjoyed. —Hear, hear. ) lie did not in , an to say that the Hon. Member for Berkshire would have been convinced in the same manner, but it would, at all events, have been quite as becoming in him if, previous to bringing forward a motion of this deser:ption—a motion, the real object of which was to repeal the new Poor-!aw system—he had attended with something like interest or case to the working of that new system in his own neighbourhood.—( Hear, hear.) Was it possible that a gentleman who set himself up as an opponent to the new Poor-law system—who set himself up as the great advocate of the poor—could see persons in his own district, within a few miles of his own residence, transacting business relating to the poor, blindly persuaded that they were re lieving and doing good to the poor—was it- possible that he could see them pursuing this mistaken course, and not at tend the meetings—not to declaim against the Act as a vicious Act, and to give himself the airs of a great Lcgis_ lator—( Hear, hear, and- laughter)—but to interpose oh the part of the poor, and to prevent their being treated in the manner he had described. ( Hear, hear.) As he had already stated, lie could not on that occasion attempt to follow the Hon. Member through all the various cases he had brought forward. He would, however, read a few extracts from some of the various addresses he had received upon the subject. [Here the Noble Lord read passages from two reports made from Biggleswade union, the Wickham union, the Royston union and several others, in which it was stated that the poor rates had been reduced from 40 to 50 per cent., whilst the moral and physical condition of the poor was materially and strikingly improved.] He need not, he thought, quote any more extracts from these addresses. (Hear, hear.) Indeed the only difficulty in the case, if be felt at all justified in de taining the House at as great length as the Honoarable Member for Berkshire or the Honourable Gentleman who seconded the motion, would be to conspress within any mode rate compass the voluminous mass of evidence with which he was furnished from persons of all classes —persons of the highest rank filling the situation of chairman to these unions, and persons of the humblest rank, labourers aware of the benefits they derived from the operation, and clergymen acting officially upon the boards of many of the unions, all ' tending in the strong . . at manner to show the great advantages that had resulted from the measure.—(Hear.) Not pretending to go at any length into the details with which he had been supplied, he would just state generally what appeared to have been the decrease in the poor-rates within the last two or three years. In 1834 it appeared that the total amount expended for the relief of the poor was 6,300,0001. ; in 1 835 it was 5,500,000/. ; in 1836 it was 4,700,0001. The total expenditure for the three years, therefore, was 16,500,0001. Had the expenditure continued the same as in 1834 the total expense would have been 18,900,0001., so that the total saving up to March, 1836, would be 2,400,000/.—(Cheers.) The Commissioners added that although the amount expended for the year ending March, 1837, could not yet be ascertained, it was nevertheless cer tain that a further diminution had taken place. On compar ing the expenditure of fifty-nine Unions for the quarters ending Christmas, 1835, and Christmas, 1836, it was found that for the first of these periods the expenditure amounted to 88,9491:, whilst for the last it amounted only to 74,0581. ; showing a diminution of 17 per cent. It might, therefore, not unreasonably be expected that the expenditure for the relief of the poor would not exceed 4,000,000/. for the year ending March, 1837, instead of 6,300,000/., its amount in 1834. One remarkable test of the beneficial operation of the new system had been lately afforded. During the preva lence of the influenza, which unfortunately had occasioned so many deaths in all parts of the kingdom, it was generally found in the workhouses that the care taken of the poor, and the me dical relief afforded to them, had made the mortality consider ably less than could have been expected.—( Hear, hear.) Colonel A'Court stated, with respect to the medical relief given in HaMpshire and Wiltshire, " Since the prevalence of the influenza in my district I have used every exertion perso nally to visit the several unions in it, and I have already attended two-thirds of the Boards of Guardians. I am, therefore, enabled from authority to assure you, that in no aiilgle instance have I heard of the slightest complaint, or neglect, or insuffi ciency of attendance on the poor on the part of the medical gentlemen, who, though worne down with fatigue, appear to me to have performed their arduous duties in the most praise. worthy arid exemplary manner." As a further test of the ma nagement of the poor in the workhouses, they sent a circular letter to the twelve unions in East Kent, the workhouses of which together contained 2,200 inmates, one-half being aged and infirm, the oth er h a lt' principally children, inquiring what had been the mortality from the influenza. The return made to that circular letter showed that only seven paupers had died of that malady.--( Hear, hear, and cheers.) Ile must say a few words with respect to the treatment in the workhouses so far as regarded the able-bodied. It seemed to he imagined by those who complained of the operation of the Poor-law Bill that there ought to be provided in every work house the means by which every working man with his wife and family might be supported with the same comfort as a man in full employment. He thought this opinion was formed up on a false notion of the nature of the relief that ought to be given. It was not pretended by the authors of that Bill that when men who were able to work were found in the workhouses they were to be 'treated in exactly the same manner as they would enjoy themselves in their own separate cottages ; or (as it was assumed) that they were to be kept upon better (bet, be better sheltered, and better clad, and enjoy more com forts and more liberty than the independent labourer. This would be holding forth to the independent labourer a motive to be idle. It would be saying to him--" If you labour you will live hardly, and your wife and family will be ill-supported by your earnings ; but if you choose to be idle and to come into the workhouse, you shall there be better fed, sheltered, clothed, and provided for."—( Hear, hear.) The intention of the Legislature •in establishing the workhouse sys tem could only be to say to the able-bodied labourer, " It is your duty, it is your interest, to seek for work if it is to be found ; and if work is riot to be found, then, so far as saving you from destitution so far as furnishing you with sufficient food and medical attendance goes, we will provide for you ; but we do not pretend to make your existence in the same degree comfortable as the existence of an independent workman." The tendency of the system adopted by the Legislature was not, ho ima gined, to have a vast number of able-bodied labourers kept idle in the workhouses or in the " bastiles," as the Hon. Mem ber called them.—(Laughter.)—The object of the system he conceived to be to make all men seek for work. Formerly it was a great advantage to a poor man to have a wife and family, because it gave him an additional claim on the parish; but now, if a man wished to support a wife and family, in order to do so with comfort he must seek for work, and not go into the workhouse. That in fact had been the result of the new system ; for in one of. th e most pauper i se d di str i cts, where the or.law Commissioners had carried the law most completely into effect, he meant East Kent, the result showed this to be the case. In East Kent, out of 160,000 inhabitants, 55 had been the maximum of able-bodied la bourers in the workhouse at the same time. But it was said that it was cruel to force the disabled and infirm into the workhouse. This, he admitted, was a matter into which a committee might very properly ingi ire; that was to say, they might make inquiry with regard to the conduct which the Commissioners had pursued. Ho, however, be lieved that if any such inquiry were made, it would be found . that the conduct of the Commissioners had been emi nently prudent and cautious upon this point. To those who said that the effect of the new law had been to send all the disabled and infirm into the workhouse he had a most com plete answer to give. He could refer to returns which had been received from eighty-eight unions, showing that the number of in-door paupers was 8,850, while the number of out-door paupers was 54,417. In these eighty-eight unions nine-tenths of the disabled and infirm received out-door relief. This was the working of that cruel system which was repre sented as making every person who was disabled and infirm, whatever might be his age, go into the workhouse. A ques tion had been raised with regard to the kind of relief afforded in the workhouse. , Upon this point he had several testimonies which he would mention to the House. In the return from the Eastry Union it was stated that the amount of annual payments by the twenty-six parishes in 4.11 e union for the year ending Christmas, 1836, for illegitimate children was fully 300/. ; whereas there was not now a single instance of pay.. moot of illegitimate children. The amount of poor -rates col lected in the same 26 parishes, for the year ending 25th March, 1835, was 16,9601. The amount collected in the same 26 parishes in the year ending 24th December, 1836, was 8 965/. : Th e poor in the union workhouse arc amply provided for: their diet is wholesome, substantial, at the same time fully sufficient. Their cleanliness is a matter of great considera tion ; they receive the utmost attention, when needing it, from the very able medical gentleman who superintends the medical department. Their clothing is suitable ; their moral and religious improvement duly attended to ; and their gene ral comforts most indubitably exceed by far what they could possibly enjoy ersewhere. The children of both sexes are reared and trained in a manner far surpassing those of indepen dent labourers, generally being well attended to, having both schoolmaster and schoolmistress, aed a - re properly instructed. both morally and religiously 50 t thus imbibing habits the re. verse of what would most probably have possessed them, had they lean sat large." And now with respect to another point, naniely, the savings of the labourer. Under the old system it was not the interest of the labourer to save money. It lie did so, he was generally told that lie could not receive relief from tarp parish. The consequence was, that lie spent his money, and then lie entitled himself to out-door relief, which out-door relief was a great object of desire to him. Since the pass ing of the new Poor-law Act, however, a much greater disposition of saving hail been manifested among the la bourers. He would take the liberty of reading an extract from a letter which had been received from a gentleman with whose name MctuLovii were well acqua i nte d , and whose authority he considered was of more weight than thqt (If. the Honourable Member for Berkshire. It was from a letter written by the well-known Poor-law Reformer, Mr, \Vhateley, of Cookham.—(Hear, hear, hear.) He said:-- `r At Cookham they have called for a rate of ad. in the pound, instead of one (as it used to be) at 2s. 6d.; and when the snow was five and six feet deep I contrived to walk to the tvings' Batik at Maidenhead (though I was mare than three hours in performing the journey of three wiles). heing the bearer of 101. 13s. to.deposit there agai ns t th e ex gen .ies 0,. the next winter. This sum was contributed by the po, rest o the poor, and collected in pence. Had it been sues td t any one of these depositors a few years ago that they migit contrive to save a penny, the suggeeion would hay' been con. sidered an insult ; now it would be equally insulting to s spec; that their contributions could at all inconvenience them-... 3 .ch is the change of feeling."—" I do," said the Noble Lord, "very humbly and respectfully recommend to the lion. Men be for Berkshire the example of Mr. Whateley.—(Cheers. ) I am sure if he would attend to his own Union, and go a little more frequently to the Board of Guardians—if he would ad vise his labourers to lay by money—and if two or three years hence he should be sine to come down to the !louse and say that he had done as much good as Mr. \Vhateley, I think he hill dt sei ve the thanks of this House for his praiseworthy exertior.s."—( Cries of "Hear and cheers.) The Noble Lord said he would read but one more extract, and that was from a communication received from a gentleman who had only tee ntly become acquainted with the workings of the Poor-law Act. It was from Mr. Woolley, a gentleman of great skill as a land surveyor, at d who had been appointed an assistant Tithe Commissioner The statement of th:s gentleman was contained in a letter to Mr. Gulson :—" I wanted to talk with you on the almost magical effect I find produced by the new Poor-laws in the south. There I had seen the evil in its rioting; ;' I saw no chance but ruin or change —prompt, effectual, decided, radical change; I began to fear the thing had been pushed too far, the remedy too- long deferred ; but I am perfectly delighted to find that I was mistaken. The change has been made, and the effect is more than any one cou!d have hoped. I have in my professional engagement as assistant Tithe Commis. sioner been much in Sussex and the weald of Kent. I have seen the effect on the poor-rates, the character of the population, the improvement of the land—such a change 1 I have talked with all sorts of persons, of all sorts of opinions on other subjects, and have heard but one opinion on this—that the measure has saved the country. I am sick of the pitiful cry attempted to be raised against the measure, and especially at the sup posed inhumanity of it. Let any man see the straightforward walk, the upright look of the labourer as contrasted with what was before seen at every step in those counties. The sturdy and idle nuisance has already become the useful, indus trious member of society. No man who hits not looked well into human nature, and the practical weelting.of the wretched system of pauperism, can form an idea how different is six pence earned by honest industry, and sixpence wrung from the pay-table of a parish-officer. lam fully convinced that the measure has doubled the value of property in many parts of the kingdom. This is important;" but pounds, shit ling-s, -and pence, will not measure the value of the change in character which is already visible, and which I am well convinced will develop e itself more and more." This was from a practical man—a man accustomed to go over the coun try and converse with all sorts of persons in the pursuit of his profession ; accustomed to see farmers and labourers, and, therefore, well able to judge of the matter of which he spoke. The Honourable Gentleman who seconded this motion spoke of petitions that were about to be presented on this subject, and, as far as he (Lord John Russell) could learn, those petitions were coming from places where the Poor. law had been introduced. —( Hear, hear. ) It was very easy for persons to go into those places and talk of the tyranny of the Commissioners—to speak of the restric tions imposed on the rate-payers, and describe how they were bound down by the harsh mandates of the Board ; but all this was a gross misrepresentation of the Poor-law Act, the real object of which was to establish self-government--a principle found to be so useful in all matters of local concern. What was the case formerly ? The idle labourer, complaining of else overseer who refused him relief, went to some distant Magis trate and made out his false tale of distress. The Magistrate, knowing nothing of the matter, made an order for relief, norant of what the effect would be. But what was nog., the case ? The Magistrate was now a member of the Board of 'Guardians ; he met his brother Guardians at the Board, where they conferred together as to the actual facts of each ease ; and where the pauper merited relief they granted it to him, while the impostor was detected and turned adrift. Thus, mat ters were gone into by the Board with practical sense and practical judgment. The consequence was, that a kind of local government was established, actingcertainly under such general rules and general directions as the intelligence and experience of the Poor-law Commissioners had prescribed, but with re spect to details acting according to the judgment of the Magis trates, the country gentlemen, the farmers, and the rate payers connected with the district. This, in his opinion, was a good, a wholesome, and a rational system. This was a mode of local government by which he hoped that those abuses which formerly prevailed would never again occur, For his part he hoped he should never see the day when this House would countenance a motion such as the Hon. Member for Oldham, at the close of his speech, had hinted at—a mo tion for rapealing the Poor-law Bill.—( Loud cheers.) lie was ready to admit that there were questions into which a Com mittee could very properly inquire. They could inquire whe ther the Commissioners had acted to the best of their judg. ment. In this he was inclined to agree with the lion. Member who had brought forward the motion. With re spect to one thing of which the lion. Member for Finsbury spoke last year, namely, with respect to the mode of medical tenders, and the pay for the attendance of medical officers, he would make one observation. The intention of the Com missioners was (and it was a very right intention), that the Boards of Guardians should not show any favouritism by appointing particular persons, or by giving larger salaries than were necessary to be given. He therefore considered the best way of acting was, that the Boards should determine that tenders should be made for medical attendance, at the same time it should never be a rule that the lowest tender should be accepted. It would, however, afford a means of forming a notion of what tender might be accepted, having regard to the qualification of the person. But he owned that he doubted whether it would not be better for the guardians to determine (if upon inquiry it were practicable) what degree of medical relief should be given, and then to appoint a person to give that amount of medical relief.—( Hear.) This was a point, however, upon which the Poor-law Commissioners might be right, they having investigated this subject from day to day, and from week to week, with unceasing industry. They were persons whose names were well known and deservedlly res pectel—Mr. Frankland Lewis, Mr. Lefevre, and Mr. Nicholls _they were persons known for their knowledge, for. their in telligence, and he must say for their humanity.—( Cheering.) Ile, therefore, should hesitate very much before he thought that any opinion which men not so intelligent, and not so qualified for the task, might form on this subject, was su perior., or even equal, to the opinion of those who'had for a long time devoted their entire attention to it.__( Hear. ) At the same time there were matters (as he hail before said) lit for inquiry before the Committee which he should have the honour of proposing, and where he hoped the reasons, the opinions, - and the authority of such men as Dr. Kennedy, Colonel A'Court (as we understood), and others, would be listened to with every attention. He was perfectly ready, for one, and he was sure that they were perfectly ready on their parts, to hare such an inquiry. "My conviction is (said the Noble Lord) that the more this system is looked into, the more it will be confirm e d an d strengthened in the opinion of the Parliament and of the country.--( Cheers.) I foresee that it will be so confirmed ; and I shall always consider it a mat ter of pride and satisfaction to me, that I ever had a part in proposing such a measure.—( Cheers.) I beg to move, as an amendment, that a Select Committee be appointed to inemire into the administration of the relief of the poor under the orders and regulations issued by the Commissioners ap pointed under the provisions of the Poor-law Amendment Act." The original motion and the amendment having been put by the Speaker, Colonel WOOD thought that the amendment of the Noble Lord would give as extensive an inquiry as the Hon. Member for Berkshire could require. He would therefore recommend that Hon. Member to withdraw his motion and accept the proposition of the Noble Lord. At, the same time, if the lion. Member were determined to press his motion to a divi sion, he would vote for him.—(Laughter.) Mr. D. W. HARVEY said, that having presented several petitions on this subject from all parts of the country, and above all, from many of his constituents, who, from their situation, were probably better able to give a sound opinion on this subject than any other class of persons, he would not, therefore, suffer them to be charged with endeavouring to get up a senseless cry against this law ; if they did excite an outcry, it was the cry of humanity against one of the most heartless, selfish, and cruel measures that had ever received the sanction of the Legislature.—(Hear.) The Noble Le:d st a t e d, w h at no one doubted, that the operation of that Bill had been highly favourable to certain classes, inas much as the amount paid as poor-rates had been reduced front six millions to four millions, and that it had doubled the value of property.. (Cries of "No!" ) This statement no one doubted who regarded the impression that this measure had made on that House, and on other classes in the country simi. larly circumstanced ; but the question was, had it operated with equal advantage to other classes, namely, to the reci pients of the poor-rates ? If it should turn out during the inquiry that the latter was the case, then would it be said that it had been attended with no good ; but he feared that it .... . would prove that the sufferings of the poor had been aggra vated in attaining this advantage. It appeared that they had reduced the income of the poor 33 per cent., and this redue.. tion had been chiefly from the receipts of the aged and infirm. Such was the humanity of this boasted measure. He had that day presented a petition from an important part of his constitu ents; not so much from the largeness of their numbers as , frorn the situation they occupied—he meant the guardians of the poor in the parish of St. George the Martyr. It must be known to those Finn. Members who were in the habit of reading the journals, that these gentlemen were amongst the most stre nuous opponents of the Bill, and had greatly exerted themselves to prevent its being brought into ope-. ration in their district. These opponents, then, of this law, had been called upon by their fellow-parishioners - to superin tend the administration of the relief to the poor; and becatise they who by the voice of those who chose them had been. de clared fully competent to perform the duties of their offwe as guardians of the poor, had objected to adopt the enactments of this oppressive measure, they were to be told by the Noble Lord that they were joining in a pitiful and senseless cry. But if the operation of this Bill had been such as had been de cribed by the Noble Lord, would not the result of the inquiry prove beneficial, and tend to increase the beneficial working of the measure ? He repeated, therefore, that in the mode in which he had opposed inquiry the Noble Lord had displayed more of the dexterity of the pleader than the candour befitting a statesman. The Bill had been hurried through that House with unexampled rapidity, an d h a d un d ergone . leis discussion than was bestowed upon a Turnpike-road Bill- He would' venture to say that never had a measure, affecting the interest