The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-04-30 00:00:00

LIVERPOOL, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30,

fiTOIITHEIN TIMEgs,

SELECT VESTRY.-YESTERDAY.

The usual fortnightly meeting of the select vestry was held
in the boardroom, workhouse, yesterday. Mr. Churchwarden
Woodruff occupied the chair, and the other members present
were—Mcssrs. Bairstow, J. Owen, Wiie, Hand, Bold,
Brancker. Shaw, Whitty, Satchell, Taylor, Hastings, Cooke,
Denton, Critchley, M,llor, J. Jones, Jackson, H. Jones,
William Jones, Luff, and Gardner.

SCOTCH AND IRISH PAUPERS' REMOVAL

BILL,

A very important statement has been drawn up by the
clerk to the Liverpool Vestry, with reference to the provi_

lions of the Scotch and Irish Paupers' Removal Bill, now
before the House of Commons, as compared with the opera-
tion in Liverpool of the existing law. The statement was
drawn up for the purpose of being laid before the Poor-law
Board and the House of Commons. A copy has also been
sent to the principal Boards of Guardians in England and
Scotland, inviting co-operation with the Liverpool board in
their efforts to oppose the bill. It will be seen, by a
reference to our report of yesterday's proceedings in the
Select Vestry, that the statement was the subject of some
discussion, but was finally agreed to as the expression of
the general opinion of the board. The views embodied in
the document are set forth in the following terms :

Under the present law, the pauper before removal is
required to make oath before the justices, that he was born
in Ireland or Scotland as may he, and had not acquired auy
settlement in England ; he is then, without any delay, taken
and landed at the seaport in Ireland nearest to the county
of his birth. The evidence taken before the Select Com-
mittee of the House of Commons shows that, in the year
ended December, 1854, Liverpool removed 5,001 paupers of
the most destitute class, at a cost of £1,240, the able-bodied
having been first submitted to the severity of the Work-
house test (viz., wheat-grinding by hand), but a considerable
number of the whole consisted of women and children, to
whom no test was at all applicable. Fur-fifths of the
whole applied to be so removed, and none were removed
without their own consent. No complaint has ever been
made aTainst Liverpool, as to such removals, which was not
immediately, and, to the Poor-Law Board, satisfactorily
disproval.

Under the provisions of the proposed bill, were these
removals at all practicable, they would have cost, in extra
maintenance, extra justice clerks' fees, extra officers, and
extra conveyance, to say nothing of costly litigation, not less
than an extra sum of £7,000 in the year ; but the practica-
bility, it is contended, is entirely out of the question.
The sth and 6th clauses of the bill require that the
pauper shall be removed to the place of his both, unless it
shall be proved before the justices, that he, having been
born in Ireland, had resided continuously in some union
therein for the space of five years next before he left Ireland,
in which case he is to be removed to such union ; and that
thirty days' notice of the chargability shall be given by the
removing pariah before the removal takes place.
Now, such is the ignorance of the Irish paupers we have
been in the habit of passing, that two-thirds of them cannot
name the place of their birth. If possible, they are still
more ignorant of the name of the union they may have
resided in. All they can tell is the name of the county, if
they give the best information in their power, which they
naturally do if they desire to be removed ; if they do not,
then the obstacle to removal is insurmountable—they
" cannot tell anything about it." Again, the rambling
propensities of the Irish poor are so notorious, that an
actual residence of five years in the same union would be an
exceptional case indeed ; consequently, the place of birth
would almost always be the information to be sought.
Supposing, now, that some clue be obtained to the place
of birth, you will have to seek out the necessary witnesses
in Ireland or elsewhere, to establish the fact, by legal evi-
dence, before the justices in open court, or in a case of
appeal, to sustain an action in a court of law, and the seek-
ing, after all, may result in a total and expensive failure. In
Ireland itself difficulties arising out of this habit on the part
of the Irish poor, of moving about from place to place,
frequently occurs with the boards of guardians. In short,
the present bill would be a complete withdrawal, for any
practical good, of the power of removal, in the use of
paupers belonging to Ireland; any number of them may be
assisted over to Liverpool (often for 61 to Is per head) and
thrown upon English parishes without the smallest chance
of the latter being relieved of the burden ; and thus will be
entailed a vast additional expense on English ratepayers in
the support of Irish poor.
A perusal of the evidence taken before the select commit-
tee of the House of Commons must convince any one that it
is undesirable to abrogate the law of removal as regards
Irish paupers. We have it on the evidence of the oldest
and most experienced poor law inspectors—of the most
practical and experienced poor law officers—and others most
competent to form a judgment on the subject—that the
abrogation of this law would inflict grievous injury on the
English ratepayers ; that its value, as a " test," operates as
a powerful stimulant to drive the Irish poor to strain every
nerve to obtain employment ; and that the result has been,
to place many of them in a state of independence by self-
exertion, who would, in all probability, be hopeless paupers
but for the operation et this law. To retain this law,
therefore, as a check on Irish vagrancy and pauperism, has,
by a vast majority of the witnesses, been insisted on, because
it guards the English ratepayer, as well as benefits the Irish
poor themselves. It is bat just, then, that it should be
allowed to operate free from impossible conditions,
Much stress ha 3 also been laid, in portions of the evi-
dence, on the value of the workhouse test, as a sefeguard
against Irish pauperism. This evidence is utterly futile.
Why is it that in Ireland, with the most stringent and
disheartening system it is possible to conceive, that, even
before the f amine crisis, the- workhouse contained so many
paupers ? How is it that slew there are snore than one-
third of the inmates of the Liverpool workhouse irremovable
Irish ? It cannot be urged that in Liverpool we have no
test; for at the present moment, our stores contain 1,000
packs of flour over and above our wants, exacted from the
labour of the pauper—!he labour so much exceeding the
demand; and although the Liverpool workhouse may be-said
to be comparatively free from able-bodied paupers, there
are SOO of that class of Irish paupers which cannot be
tested. They are infirm, young, and disabled, the mothers
of children, and otherwise so encumbered, as to render the
application of a labour test simply impossible.
Under these circumstances, the Select Vestry are anxious
to obtain the co-operation and assistance of Boards of
Guardians, in a strenuous opposition to the bill in question,
it being intended for a second reading in the House of
Commons, on Friday next, the 26th instant.