The Express.
London, England, 1847-03-05 00:00:00

that they might look with satißfaCtion at thepiesei

position of the trade of the country, and with confi-
dence to the prospects for the future. Lord ASHBUR-
TON had been told, that since the removal of the
dutietion woollen cloth,large quantities had been manu-
factured in Belgium and imported into England for
home consumption; if such really were the case, no doubt
could exist but that home manufactures had been
subjected to a severe test by the principle of free
trade so rashly and hastily adopted. The Earl of
CLARENDON was aware that a certain amount of
Belgian cloth had been imported last summer, but no
complaint on the subject had reached him from the
home manufacturers. The Labouring l'oor (Ireland)
Bill went through committee.
In the House of Commons the LORD ADVOCATE, in
answer to SirA. L. Hav,entered into a statement with

respect to the food riots which bad recently taken
place at Wick, in Scotland. A conversation in re-
ference to the Relief Works in Ireland ensued at
the instance of Mr. E. DemsoB. Sir GEORGE
GREY, in answer to Mr. N. COLLETT, said that no
bill on the subject of the Game Laws was in
preparation by the Government. Mr. V. SMITH
in an explanatory speech, moved that in order to
assist and encourage voluntary emigration to the
colonies, it was expedient to increase the importance
and authority of the land and emigration board, to add
to their agency in Great Britain and Ireland, and pro-
mote their vigilant superintendence of the passage
and future location of emigrants. The motion was
seconded by Mr. MACKINNON, and supported by Mr.
LEFROY and Mr. KERR. Mr. HAwES, in replying to
the arguments of Mr. V. SMITH, observed that there
was already an active and vigilant superintendence at
the ports both of embarkation and landing, which made
it all but literally true, as stated by Lord STANLEY, that
the emigrant, from the time of leaving his parish to his
location abroad, was under a good and efficient super-
intendence. The number of voluntary emigrants,
from 1839 to 1846 inclusive, that had left the United
Kingdom for America, Australia, and other places,
was 856,:392 ; this having occurred under the super-
intendence, in a great degree, of the commissioners,
and under the sanction of the Secretary for the
Colonies. Not wishing to meet the motion of the right
hon.gentlemenby a direct negative, he should conclude
by moving the previous question. Some questions put
by Mr. SMITH 0' B MEN on the sabj eel ofem ig ration from
Ireland having been answered by Lord J. RUSSELL,
Mr. V. SMITH withdrew his motion. Mr. HUME
then proposed the resolutions of which he had given
notice, on the subject of the annexation of Cracow,
condemning the conduct of Austria, Russia, and
Prussia, and calling upon the house to resolve that
the payment of the Russo-Dutch loan by England
should be henceforth suspended. Lord SANDON se-
conded the motion. Lord J. RUSSELL strongly con-
demned the conduct of the three powers in reference
to the annexation, but inasmuch as the subject was
one which addressed itself to the prerogative of the
crown rather than to be met by resolutions in the
Reuse of Commons, moved the previous question.
The debate was then adjourned. A discussion ensued
as to the day on which it should be resumed, when
Thursday next was at length determined on for that
purpose.

Ir is possible that those of our readers who have
the good fortune to be neither lawyers, nor members
of parliament, nor poor-law guardians, may be
puzzled to understand the debate in the House of
Commons of Tuesday last respecting the " Poor
Removal Act " of last session (9 & 10 Viet., c. 66.)
To make intelligible, not the act itself, for that is
admitted to be impossible, but the peculiar terms
which render it unintelligible, and the results which
Ries from that happy phraseology, we can only refer
to the original text. It has been published in a con-
venient form by Mr. SYMONS, the author of a work
on parish settlements. The intention of the mea-
sure was, as is well known, to render all persons
irremovable from the pariah in which such
persons " shall have resided for five years next
before the application for the warrant." If
the clause had stopped here, whether just or
not, it would have been reasonably perspicuous,
though it is right to observe that neither " warrant "
nor " application " are the proper legal terms for an
order of removal, and for the complaint of the parish
officer on which it is founded. The occurrence of
only two comparatively innocent specimens of laxity in
'parliamentary paragraph, shows, however,. degree of
accuracy far above the legislative average. And the
clause goes on to provide that the time during which
ouch person shale be a prisoner, &e., shall receive
relief, or shall incur certain other disqualifications,
shall for all purposes be excluded in the computation
of time hereinbefore mentioned.
This is the first section of the act, and this is the
Proviso which, as the select committee truly state in
their report, gives rise to the doubts which occasion
the most prominent difficulties attending the admin-
istration of the law in question. It must by no
means be assumed that this is the only ambiguous
clause. In the very next clause, s. 2, it is provided
that " No woman, rending in any parish with her
husband at the time of his .death " shall be removed
for a certain time ; and there is more than one case

now pending before the Queen's Bench for the pur-
pose of ascertaining whether a widow, whose husband
died before the passing of the act, comes within the
purview, of the clause. The doubts and difficulties,
however arising from the first section are quite suffi-
ciently prominent to occupy us for the present, as
they have lately occupied the committee and the house,
not to mention the six hundred unions which have
for the last eight months remained in a chronic state
of bewilderment.

Many of our readers already know, and the rest
will easily understand, that the puzzle arises from the '
indifference of Parliament to such trifles as auxiliary
verbs, the very basis, according td Mr. SHANDY, of
all logic and philosophy. The enacting part of the
clause makes irremovable those who shall have
done certain things ; the proviso excepts from the
enactment, as to the calculation of time, those who
shall do certain other things. For the enactment it
is immaterial whether the five years of residence
occur now, or twenty years ago, or twenty years
hence. The future-perfect shall hare covers all times
up to the moment at which the law in any given case
is put in operation. It is equally clear that the future
shall covers all time to come. Those who henceforth
reside, or have heretofore resided, five years, will,
priald facie, be irremovable, but will not be entitled
to include in the reckoning of five years any time in
which henceforth they shall be in receipt of relief, &c.
Cadu questio, the question now occurs, how does
the case stand as to those who have heretofore re-
sided during a period amountirg to five years, but
which would be reduced below fire years by exclud-
ing the time during which they have received
relief, &c. ?
The question is of great practical importance. Many
parishes have contained numbers of paupers belong-
ing to, and relieved by, other parishes. The settle-
ment by non-resident relief given by parish A to its
pauper, while residing in parish B, was the simplest
and most certain of any. Parish B entertained no Jea-
lousy of such a pauper, because the admission by
parish A of its liability was conclusive and easy of
proof. Under the new act, if the proviso as to relief,
&c., is to be interpreted retrospectively—if shall is
considered equivalent to shall hare—the position of
the parishes remains the same as before. B, in
which the pauper lives, will remove him to
A before he becomes irremovable under the
act. That this was the intention of the
framers of the act, appears from the statements
of Sir JAMES GRAHAM and Mr. Lawts. They con-
sidered that circumstances, which will hereafter in-
terrupt the computation of the five years, must also
interrupt it when they occurred before the passing of
the Act. Contemplating an extensive change in the
existing burdens of parishes, they wished to limit the
alteration by the previa°.

The Act received the Royal assent in August, and
early in October the poor-law commissioners found it
necessary to take the opinions of the ATTORNEY and
SOLICITOR-OaNntAL on the construction of the pro-
.

vise, as well as on five other doubtful points, to
which we need not here refer, arising on the
construction of an Act of ten short clauses. The
law officers were of opinion that the proviso was not
as the commissioner and parliament intended that it
should be, retrospective—that shall was not equivalent
to shall hare—recipiet to receperit—and that any per-
son who shall have resided in a parish for five years
is irremovable, even though during a part or the
whole of those five years he may, previous to the
passing of the act, have received relief, served the
crown as a sailor or soldier, or come within any or all
of the exceptions which were intended to exclude him
from the provisions of the act.
That this opinion was right, we have no doubt
whatever. It is not a question of law so much as at
grammar. If en act were to declare that any mem-
ber, who shall introduce an absurd bill into parliament
shall be fined and imprisoned; it would be a most
sweeping and dangerous interpretation of it to punish
those who have introduced such bills. But if it ap-
plied to any member who shall hare introduced such
bill, we fear that Sir JAMES GRAIIkM would suffer
legally, though under an ex post facto law. Whether
the opinion was right or wrong, the commissioners
prudently adopted it, and circulated the substance of
it among the different anions. But here arose an
inextricable discord and confusion of judgment and
action Dome unions quietly adopted the re-
commendation, abandoned their own non-resident
poor, now become irremovable, and accepted
the charge of the strangers within their gates
who had hitherto been maintained by subsidies from
their lawful homes. Even in this, the simplest case,
it was often found impracticable to ascertain the facts
of the five years' residence. The denizens and the
outlying natives were respectively adopted and de-
serted in the mass—subject to the probable compul-
sory return of those of the non-residents who had not
become irremovable elsewhere. More commonly the
unions formed treaties of reciprocal non-extradition
with their neighbours, agreeing in their interunional
transactions, to ignore the act altogether, and main-
tain their nen-resident poor as if nothing had hap-
pened. Some more crafty, investigated the balance
of profit and loss, and ascertaining whether
their resident stranger poor, or non-resident
settled poor, would be most expensive, de-
clared for or against the law-officers accord-
ing to the remit. For the various additional
modifications of procedure, we must refer to the evi-
dence which accompanies the report of the committee.
It is difficult to say whether most good or harm has
arisen from this state of anarchy. The responsio juris
consullorum, under the prudent influence of the com-
missioners, seems to be gradually prevailing. About
half the unions have given in their adhesion to that
which is officially and rightly supposed to be the law,
though the reverse of the meaning of the legislature.
A large class of paupers have been transferred from
the parishes to which it was intended that they
should remain chargeable.
Sir JAMES GRAHAM and Mr. CHARLES BULLER
make the best of this curious accidental legislation.
They think that the benefits of the act have been use-
fully extended by the mistake in the auxiliary verbs.
Mr. BANKES, indeed, naturally objects that the opi-
nion of the law officers has had the effect of a decla-
ratory act of parliament ; but the effect was impli-
citly contained in the act itself. If parliament could
learn to say what it means in plain English it might
set the law officers at defiance. There is no harm in
a simpler process of applying the rules of a grammar
than a new and probably more inaccurate piece of
legislation ; and we think the committee is right in
advising the house for the present not to make bad
worse by any attempt to explain itself farther.
There is every reason to fear that the ex-
isting complication has not reached its climax.
The Rev. W. MutenousE, chairman of the
Clifton Union, with 60,000 inhabitants, and evidently
a man of ability and experience, which is still one of
the dissentient bodies, declares to the committee that
he cannot understand even the key to the mystery,
the official resolution of doubts, the celebrated opinion
itself. "We are not satisfied with the opinion of the
law officers, neither do I, to this hour, understand it."
Assuming, however, as we may safely assume,
that the proviso is not retrospective, we think It
probable that the effect of the blunder has been
beneficial rather than otherwise to the poor, by
saving them from involuntary removal. Against
their wishes the act is hardly binding at all, for, as
Mr. SYMONS ingeniously suggests, a pauper has
nothing to do, if he wishes to be removed to his
place of settlement, but to walk into the next parish
and there apply for relief, as it is only when he has
lived five years that he is irremovable. As regards
rate-payers, however, great hardship mat have
occurred. Let us take a case from the evld
Mr. W. 0. STANLEY, as to two parishes in Anglesey
Llechcynvarwydd, some years ago, built soma
cottages in Rhodygeidio, and there maintained'
its poor. The law officers pronounce their opinion,
and Llechcynvarwydd—there is a pleasure in
writing, we will not say pronouncing, the name,
telling, as it does, of Welsh litigiousness and
astuteness-- Llechcynvarwydd, we say, has thrown
its whole parochial burdens on Rhodygeidio, which
must devoutly wish that it had settled a colony on
some neighbour with equal foresight
Probably, Mr. LEWIS is right in saying, that, what-
ever the evil has been, a new change of the burdens
would be an additional inconvenience. Parliament
will, no doubt, leave the law as it stands, subject to
its being possibly overruled by the Queen's Bench.
But, if the law is an improvement, it is singular that
we should be indebted for the benefit to an acknow-
ledged mistake.

THE plain unvarnished statement, made lest night
by the LORD ADVOCATS, in the HORN) of Commons,
regarding the painful collision between the military
and the populace at Wick, completely exonerate'