The Express.
London, England, 1847-03-27 00:00:00

If they looked to individual distress in Ireland, he admitted
that . profitable employment could not be found;
tout if they took Ireland sa a whole he did not
think that this was the case. He could not entertain •
doubt but that there were means of profitably employiug
the whole latentring population of that country. He could
not believe that millions of the able-bodied hands in that
great country would be supported in idleness by the rate-
payers, when they had inch opportunities of turningtheir
industry to amount. If the people of that country were ill
fed, ill clothed, and ill lodged, it as owing to the fact that
the tallier of the people had not been called forth as it
ought to have been, or was improperly directed. It was the
misdirectios of that labour which caused the present distress.
When they looked to the large amount of waste land there
which was capable of improvement, the capacity of that
which was under cultivation for further improvement, its
mineral wealth, which was almost untouched, its great water
power, and its fisheries, no man could doubt that the labour
of Ireland, if properly employed end directed, would be
sufficient to maintain her people, not only better than they
were now, but in comfort and happiness. (Hear, hear.)
No law could be paned in his opinion better calculated to
the eetabliihment of such a state of things than • measure
which would provide effectual means for the relief of the
destitute. Such • measure was calculated to make the
labourer try to get profitable employment, and it gave en
inducement to the wealthy to employ him. (Hear, hese)
Undoubtedly • great change of this kind should be
made gradually and the assistance of this country should
be given to facilitate it. That was proposed to be given, for
they should remember that the poor-law was not the only
measure before parliament, but was accompanied by others
to facilitate the progress of Ireland through the crisis of this
Mange. These measures, and thee efforts made to emigrate
by the people of het ind in larger numbers than he could
have ventured to antic pate, gave them a right to expect
that great improvements would take place in the state of
society in Ireland. But in advocating the poor-law, which
he looked upon as tke one which would most contribute to
stimulate the progress of Ireland, let him not he misunder-
stood as if he did not look forward to the future of that
country with anxiety and apprehension. It was impossible
for any man to look to what was going forward thin e with-
out feeling the deepest alarm. Although he considered the
medium proposed by the government the wisest which could
be proposed, and es well calculated as any which human
wisdom could suggest for the improvement of that country,
he was yet but too deeply sensible that no measure which it
was possible to devise, that none which parliament could pos-
sibly sanction, that nothing short of a miracle could work en
immediate improvement of evils of such long standing and
inveteracy as those of Ireland. His noble friend maid that
they would reduce the rate of wages in Ireland by this mea-
sure. Reduce the rate of wages us ,that country ! (Hear.)
Was it possible to do so ? After the description which his
noble friend gave of the habitual state of Ireland, after the
report of the poor-laws commissioners, who stated that 2s. 4d.
and do. fel. were the weekly wages of the labourers of 1836,
he considered the notion of reducing the rate of wages the
most extraordinary he ever heard. H's noble friend adverted
to opinions exproised by himself and other members of the
government in 1838, as being inconsistent with the present
measure. There was no inconsistency in their conduct. In
1838 they proposed the existing poor-law, which they
expected would have a more powerful effect than it really
produced. That expectation was disappointed, partly because
the local authorities to which the administration of the law
was confided did not apply it with that vigour with which
it was intended to be applied, and partly because it was not
accompanied by those other measures which, as his noble
friend knew, they meant to combine it, but which they were
not in • position to carry. Experience lad dace shown, not
that the measure was bed, but the necessity of proceeding
further in the same direction. It was with that view that
he proposed the bill about to come under their considera-
tion, and he would only further add, that while undoubtedly
he felt great apprehension as to the future, still he saw
nothing in the condition of Ireland that should lead
them to despair, (Hear, hear.) She possessed all the
elements of progress. If she was only true to herself—if she
exerted herself as he trusted she would do, and as he believed
the bill under discussion would have a considerable effect in
enabling her to do, he saw no reason to believe that she
might not emerge from the present dark season of misfortune
to greater prosperity and happiness than she ever yet
had known. That she might do ID was his most earnest
prayer. (Cheers.)
Lord BROUGHAM said he wished to state his opinions
very briefly on the present subject, which was one of the
most important and alarming that he remembered to
have seen brought before parliament since he was
a member of it. In the present emergency he was favourable
to temporary and not permanent measures. In legiels-
flag within certain limits, and for a temporary purpose, they
could wait and see the effect of the measures they passed,
end extend them if found beneficial, but that was not the
clue with a poor-law for Ireland or any other country.
(Hear, hear.) Once pass it and they could not recall it.
VOial irrevocabik verbum. Once see that the people
of Ireland were to be fed without labour, and they could
not atop till they had well-nigh ruined the owners of pro-
perty in Ireland, for whom he felt much—Gaughter); mad
also the occupier and the tiller of the soil, for whom he felt
more. With the one he felt politically ea a member of the
nuns class; but with the other he felt as being of the same
nature and SI a man to whom nothing was alien that con-
cerned their eommen humanity. The one class would be
rained by the pillage of their property, and the
other by the loss of their independence. (Hear, hear.)
The question was, whether, if they had now to pass a poor-
law for England for the first time, they would pass such a
Law as now existed, and which in principle they were about
to extend to Ireland ? And if such a law was bad for •
country like this or Scotland, sod all men admitted that it
was no more nor less, it must be ten times worse for a country
like Ireland. But, apart from this objection, he was strongly
of opinion that this was not the moment at which the de.
vision of parliament aught to be taken on this subject ; and,
looking at the division in the other house on the clause
which involved the whole principleof the bill, when 36 voted
in the minority, 34 of whom were Irish members, against
242, who formed the majority, he could not look upon the
result of that division as the deliberate opinion of the Com-
mons of England. It was a mere jest to Pay that any poor-
law could afford relief from the existing predure of distress
in Ireland ; whatever its other merits, this measure could
have no effect in meeting tke present crisis ; why
not therefore postpone the subject until they could
come to its consideration, uninfluenced by feeling.
But he had other serious objections to the application of this
principle of poor-law to Ireland besides that of time. He
could find no machinery in that country capable of carrying
it out; nor could he trust the authorities to whose hands its
administration was to be entrusted. He was not disposed—
and he spoke it with all respect—to entrust the powers of this
act to Irish functionaries st all. (Hear.) If the act waste
be put in operation, other machinery must be found than any
that now existed ,• and the aid of government officers, of the
oonstabulary, and probably of the military, must be called
in, or the rates would never be raised. What was the case
now? In the Castlebar Union, 1,1001. was due for poor.
rates ; and, though the union was in debt between 3001. and
4001., no more than 351. could be collected. The same diffi-
culty was experienced in other parts of the country, and he
was not disposed to think that that difficulty would be less-
ened by increasing the amount of the rate. If there
was one thing more disagreeable to the Irish mind
than another it was the payment of direct taxes. (A laugh.)
That was the only reason for not applying the land tax, the
property tax, and the assessed tax to Ireland. It was not
from motives of mercy or regard that the several Chancel-
lors of the Exchequer had sacrificed the revenue which
might be drawn from the extension of these burdens to Ire-
land, but the knowledge that the expense of collection would
be so great, that the net proceeds to the exchequer would
scarcely be worth the haring. (Hear, hear.) The workhouse
test was peculiarly inapplicable to a country with two mil-
lions of mendicants (some said more, but that was sufficient
for his purpose). To accommodate that number, more than
3,000 workhouse*, supposing each held about 600, would be
required ; but no one dreamed of anything like this ; and
the moment the workhouses became full, the orders of the
eommissioners for giving out-door relief would, in point of
fact, become the law. They must remember, too, that this
measure was not experimental—it was final. He would not,
then, enter into the general question of the poor-law; but
he believed that its tendency was to destroy all feelings of
kindness between the upper and lower classes; and that it
led the pauper to believe and to act as though—end this was
their language—he held a prior mortgage of the property of
She country : M believed the tendency of that law was to sap
the right of property; to diminish the stimulus to labour
and exertion, even in an industrious people ; to create impro-
vidence even in a naturally provident people ; and to put an
end to that spirit of independence which alone made man
worthy of the name. These were the consequences of •
poor-law, and of the abuses to which it was inevitably liable.
To such an extent had those abuses gone in this country—
to such wreck and ruin was the industry and the land reve-
nue going—that in 1834 it became necessary to pass an act
for retracing our steps, as far se we could do so. Suck was
the result of going too far in a wrong direction.
As to the manner now proposed, nothing but the mod ex-
treme necessity could ever reconcile him to it—but pass it
when they would, they might depend upon it, that a supple-
mental power would be necessary to enable than to levy the
rates, and other restrictions must be imposed to enable them
to administer the relief with ordinary safety. For the rea-
sons he had stated, be implored them to do no more at
this time then the emergency required, and to defer to a
more favourable opportunity the measure (should it be then
necessary) for the permanent arrangement of the poor-law.
He wished to bear his testimony to the great humanity of
the people of this country, and the admirably true represen-
tation of those human feelings exhibited be the present
Hon se of Commons, as shown by their votes. 'But that was
no reason why, under the prewar., arid stimulus, and ex-
citement of those feelings, so great, so fearful, and so irre-
vocable a change in our policy should be made. There was
also another reason which operated with him against the bill.
They were now touching on the end of the present parliament,
and ho believed that the cry raised out of doors—a very
natural one, he admitted, considering the burden imposed
upon them by the influx of Irish poor—for a poor-law for
Ireland, and the fear of the consequences of refusing it,
when gentlemen approached the beatings, might have ope-
rated in influencing the opinion in favour of the proposed
measure. This was an additional reason for not pressing such
a measure at this time. (Hear.)
The Marquis of LONDONDERRY end the Archbishop of
Dusitim rose simultaneously; the former penbned in his
right to sdelrese the house, but the call being very general
for the most rev. prelate, the Lord Chancellor put the ques-
tion formally to their lordships, as to who should be heard,
and declared the decision to be in favour of
The Archbishop of DUBLIN, who said he felt called upon
not to give a silent vote MI the occasion, in consequence of
the peculiar connexion he had had with the subject under
discussion—a connexion not courted by him, but forced
I..iireilr him,oh
ipsic
noa manner,ubt,
recollected LatblichevOLC:a
been one of the commissimiers appointed by a pre-