The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-29 00:00:00

NEW POOR LAW AT HUDDERS-

iALLD.-PUBLIC MEETING.

(FROM OUR OWN REPORTER).
A meeting of the inhabitants of Huddersfield, convened by
a requisition of the rate-payers to the constables, was held in
the Philosophical Hall in that town, on Wednesday. Mr.
Firth, the deputy constable, was called to the chair, in the ab-
sence, from town, of the chief constable, Mr. Hayley.
Letters were read from Lord Stanhope, and Mr. Fielden,
M. P., excusing themselves from attendance, and expressing
their entire concurrence with the object of the meeting. Two
cases of extreme hardship, u.ider the New Poor Law, were
referred to by Lord Stanhope, were also read.
W. STOCKS, Jun. Esq. m3ved the first resolution—He said
the cases recited had made his blood boil, and he asked was
this England ? Was this the country of constitutional liberty—
and them there, sending petition after petition for the whole
of the twelve months which were just concluding, and this
horrible law was in existence yet? He maintained that the
old Poor-law had worked well upon the whole. He viewed it
as a club which they entered into, to relieve one another at
present in case they needed it ; after then for themselves to
draw from--but this was not the impression of the political
economists of the day, who wanted their labour for nothing.;
who wanted to send the labouring men to cultivate foreign lands
which they had purchased ; they wanted to fill ships with Eng-
lish labourers as they had been filled with African labourers, to
make slaves of them. He deprecated the system of applying
the poor-rates to any other purpose than the relief of the poor.
He attributed the abuses of the old system to an union among
the overseers, the landlords, and the farmers in the agricul-
tural districts to lower wages by what he called the " rounds-
men system." They would remonstrate and petition week
after week against the new Poor-law, until the accursed law
was repealed. He contended that wages were now not near
so good in that neighbourhood as they were sixty or seventy
years ago, according to the price of land and the price of food
at the respective periods. They did not ask anything extra-
vagant of Government ; they only asked that the curse of God
might be fulfilled.—( Hear.) God said that man should
get his bread by the sweat of his brow—not that by
the sweat of his brow he should starve—and that they should
get their bread by the sweat of their brow was all they
wanted. He denied the assertion that the poor were impro-
vident, and contended that they had not an opportunity of
rising--their wages being so low. He knew that the poor in
that neighbourhood were provident, from the great number of
Benefit Societies there were amongst them. He condemned
the political economists of the day, whom he said had speculated
in land in Canada and America, and had thought to pay for it
with paper ; but the President of the United States had re-
quired cash, which had burst the bubble, and that caused the
late panic, and their present distress.
Mr. Oastler here entered the room, and was most enthu-
siastically cheered.
Mr. GATLIFFE seconded Mr. Stocks's resolution, which
was then put from the Chair, and carried unanimously.
Mr. OASTLER then presented himself, and was received with
loud cheers. He said—l rejoice to appear before my neigh-
bours and my friends on this occasion, more than I ever re-
member to have rejoiced before. It has been my duty on many
occasions, in times past, to meet with you when the conten-
tion was of a party nature, and when all the bad feelings of
human nature might be supposed to be called into the aid of
each party against the other ; but, Sir, upon this occasion, I
rejoice to be among you, to help you in the settlement of a
question which is as interesting to the Tory as to the Whig,
and to the Radical as to either of them. The question
which we arc this day, Sir, required to discuss, is a ques-
tion which is as dear to the rich—is as serious to the rich,
as it is to the poor. The question which this day calls
for our cool deliberation, is as dear to the Churchman
as to the Dissenter ; nay, if there be an infidel in the room,
he being a member of the human family, this question is
equally dear to him.—(Cheers.) Let me, then, my friends,
call upon you all, of whatever party, of whatever sect—let me
require of you as you love yourselves—to banish every party
feeling. Rich and poor, for your own sakes—Whig, Tory,
and Radical, for your own sakes—and for the honour of reli-
gion, Churchmen and Dissenters—let me require that on this
occasion you shake hands and mingle your common judgment
with each other, and then determine what shall be done.—

(Cheers.) I know that I hold very, very strong opinions on
this question. I believe those opinions to be founded on the
word of God; I believe them to be founded on the
principles of the British Constitution. Believing that to
be the case, I on many occasions deliver my opinions
boiling hot from my heart, and I have said strong say_
ings_l have spoken strong things. To day it is not
my intention to give utterance to the warm feelings
which I begin to feel working at the bottom of my heart. I
will try to keep them down; nor do I intend on this occasion
to appeal to the feelings of any person in this assembly ; it is
to their judgment that I will address any observations which I
intend to make; and although I know I have been charged as
a madman, an enthusiast, an incendiary, and a disturber of
the public peace, it is my intention upon this occasion to prove
that if such be the epithets which belong to my opinions,
they attach also to those men who have hitherto ranked high
as men of wisdom ; that if I am an incendiary, so was Locke ;
that if I am an enthusiast, so was Blackstone ; that if I be a
disturber of the peace, so was Hale and many others.—
( Cheers.) If there be an individual in England who ought
to be guided by judgment and by reason, I certainly
am that individual. It so happens that all my private interests
lay on the other side. I happen to be the steward of a gen-
tleman in this neighbourhood who is a doating friend of the
Poor-law Bill. I have opposed him as respectfully but as
firmly as it was possible for a poor respectable man to do in the
presence of a rich master. I have thrown my livelihood over-
board. I told him that this question was at the bottom of the
title to his estate ; and although he thinks it will secure his
rental, I know very well that it will destroy it. This question
is of more importance than many persons are wont to attach to
it : it is a question which drives every man, I don't care who
or what he may be, who studies the Poor-law Bill, back to first
principles ; he forgets the delusion of party, and he begins to
enquire how was society first constituted ? and why was it con-
stituted ? Now the answer is, most indubitably—for the good
of all. Society was introduced by man on the face of the earth
for the sake of the preservation of the weak and the poor against
the strong and the rich ; and each party made this
contract—the rich shall have a title to their property, on con-
dition that the poor shall have their liberty and life.—( Cheers).
Do I express that too strong ?—( No.) If Ido I will give you
the very words of Paley, who, certainly, is calculated to be
a very high authority upon all these sorts of subjects. He
says, " The poor have a claim founded upon the law of nature.
All things were originally common, no one being able to pro-
duce a charter from heaven of any better title to a particular
possession than his next neighbour. There are reasons for
mankind agreeing upon a separation of this common fund,
but this separation was made and consented to upon the ex-
pectation and condition that every one should have a sufficiency
for his subsistence, or the means of procuring it."—( Cheers. )
And you will recollect that I never yet advocated the prin-
ciple that a man who was too idle to work should be
allowed to live out of the produce of his neighbour's
industry. But Paley goes on and says, "No fixed laws for
the regulation of property can be so contrived as to provide
for the relief of every case of distress which may arise." The
share in the common stock was given up, that those who were
acquainted with them best should provide subsistence, which
was the way society acted before kings began to reign, and
before laws were made. That is from Paley. Is it to be be-
lieved that those persons who hold property only hold it on
the express condition, that every member of society should
have his liberty and his life ? This being granted—and Ido
think that no member of the human family can dispute it—l
proceed to inquire into the condition on which the Crown
demands and asks a right to allegiance from its subjects.

That I shall find defined by Blackstone himself. We do
not find that the right to live was given up ; but we find
that the Crown is only permitted to claim our alle-
giance, upon the score that it gives us its protection.—
( Cheers.) Blackstone says, " Allegiance is the tic which
binds the subject to the King in return for the protection
which the King provides the subject ;" and the coronation
oath of our own Queen requires that all the laws shall be ad-
ministered in mercy, that if there be any doubt whatever as
to the rights of her Majesty's subjects, she swears before God
and the people, that the doubt shall be on the side of mercy.—
(Cheers.) She is asked—she will, however, be asked on the
day of the coronation, " Will you cause law and justice to be
administered in mercy ?" and she answers, " I will ;" and
she shall have nay allegiance, because I know she will. We
are all under one common head, equally protected in our rights,
excepting that in all cases of doubt the poor are in mercy to
have the benefit of the doubt. The Crown is, as I shall show
you before I have done, seised or possessed of all the
land in the kingdom. The Crown is the only real free-
holder, for all the soil in England, and those persons who
receive a title to land, receive it upon this condition—that all
the poor shall live nut of confinement, enjoying their liberty,
for the Crown holds all the land in bond for the good of all,
and the Crown has only the power to distribute the land for
the good of all. She can't grant that which the laws of so-
cieby and the principles of our Constitution do not empower
her to grant. Do I seem now to speak treason? Not I, in-
deed! 'Tis the brightest gem;ln the British crown that mercy
is its darling attribute ; that she only holds her power for the
good of the people. Do I say that men like to live and be
free ? I do, and I wish the argument to be fairly borne in
mind, because in the new Poor-laws man shall give up his
liberty to save his life ; lie shall go into a prison be-
fore he shall enjoy his inalienable right to live. I will
go a little farther back, to that chart of English
freedom we are so much in the habit of talking of,
Magna Charta, which says " No man shall be taken and im-
prisoned unless be be judged by his Peers and the law of the
land." Thank God the laws of the land do not yet say so ;
but the laws of the Commissioners do, but I am going to dis-
pute it. We will go on with Magna Charta: it says, " We
will not by ourselves or others procure any thing by which any
of these provisions may ba revoked, and if anything be obtained
let it be null and void." Hitherto we have not come to any
written law on the subject: we have spoken of the rights of
society, and we have spoken of the rights of Magna Charta,
hut it was soon found it would not do to let this great question
be left to the caprice of any King or Queen. Judge Hale
says, the laws of this country make sufficient provision for the
necessity of the poor; by the 43d of Elizabeth, which made
charity a system, and interwove it with our very Con-
stitution, so that the brightest gem of Christianity
is interwoven upon the British Constitution—and shall
the New Poor Law Amendment Act put it out ?
(No.) Blackstone says, " the law not only regards life and
member and property, every man is the enjoyment of them,
but also furnishes him with everything necessary for sup-
port, for there is no man so indigent or wretched but he may
demand a supply sufficient for all the necessaries of life from
the more wealthy part of the community, by means of the civil
statutes enacted for the relief of the poor, a humane provision
dictated by the very principles of society." I scarcely dare