The Sun.
London, England, 1837-06-28 00:00:00

IIL, tmperfect measure, and also that it was impolitic that the
kLord-Lieutenant should have the power to appoint and
Viremove the Judges.—Agreed to.
rr POOR LAWS.
;r Earl STANHOPE said, that having observed the con-
currence,-;,, of men of different opinions in the production of
measures which were of the most pernicious tendency, and
Which were productive of the greatest difficulties and dangers
:,144 the country, and having no hope or expectation that any
',,Proposition for the purpose of alleviating those difficulties
z wrmld be impartially considered, he had thought it worse
than useless to attend longer in that House. Such had
been his disgust at the party spirit exhibited, and such the
11: he
despondent; with whichhad viewed, and with which he
still contemplated the prospects of the country, "that he
4would not have been inclined to return to his place in
that House if he had not been desired to do so by large
bodies of his fellow-countrymen, whose interests and rights
alio was anxious to defend ; and he was therefore the re-
gpresentative of the labouring classes in that House, for
they were not represented in. the House of Commons.
~,iHe considered it a high honour to have been en-
trusted with the petition from the West Riding of
•Yorkshire, in which place he had not before been
:;"'for 30 years, and he was totally unconnected with the dis-
trict. It was from a meeting which was unexampled for
the numbers which attended it. In the opinion of some
military men who were present and who of course were
the best judges, there were very nearly 300,000 per-
oons - there assembled, yet they preserved the utmost
1 order and regularity, and evinced the greatest judgment in
abstaining from entering into any discussion of other topics
than the one immediately before them. But it was not
important merely from the numbers which attended it, nor
done for the subject which was there discussed—its chief
Importance arose from the spirit which actuated the im-
mense multitude. He read an extract from a letter which
he had received, immediately after the meeting, in which the
.- writer said, " We have shown them what we can do peace-
°i- ably—but we will meet no more in such a way—the peti-
Ai tion your Lordship is entrusted with is the only petition
r-. that will ever be presented from the West Riding of
.:7. , Yorkshire. If we are oppressed still, we will take other
~:' tmeasures." He was sorry the petition had not been entrusted
to tome Noble Lord who could have done more justice to
,•to its vast importance. Though he would trouble
_,.'their Lordships for a few moments, yet he would not
~enter into individual ' cases of hardship though he
,i, had hundreds of them, all of which he would prove at the
s. Bar. He would then confiue himself to the principles
', of the measure which were now undergoing a discussion
:;" in a Committee of the other House. Speaking of that
Committee, he must in passing say that, looking at its con-
struction, considering that four-fifths of its members went
-;-,
into the Committee with opinions favourable to the law
into the working of which they were appointed to inquire ;
'.: considering all these matters, it was impossible that its Re-
-4',:, port, be it what it might, could give satisfaction to the coun-
- try. The evidence upon which the Report would be founded
.L.
%was not taken from the poor themselves, but upon that given
hy the new Viceroys and their assistant Commissioners.
''''t That Committee in place of allowing his Hon. Friend,
•wh.o had done himself so much honour by moving fur its
*:.appointment, was not allowed to prove his own case, but
; for some purpose or another known to themselves, they
„:..went to districts with which he was unacquainted.
Earl RADNOR rose to order. It was impossible that
they could there discuss the proceedings of a Committee of
the other House of Parliament—it was clearly against all
order.

Earl STANHOPE said he was perfectly in order,
for the evidence taken by the Committee was on
the table of the House—it was published day by day,
and therefore he contended he had a perfect right to
comment upon it. The principle of the Bill was to estab-
lish a dictatorship such as was unknown to our Constitu-
tion—the most arbitrary tribunal of ancient or modern times.
According to this novel system of legislation, Parlia-
ment enacted that parties should be punished unless they
yielded obedience to rules which had not been approved
by Parliament, and which were not in existence when the
Act was passed. He would ask if Parliament had a right
to delegate the power to make rules which should
have the authority of the laws of the realm : if not, then
the ordonnance conferring such powers, although an Act
of Parliament, had no claim to obedience. Their
ancestors had resisted the encroachment of their law-
ful Sovereign, and would not have crouched to the arbitrary,
unconstitutional, uncontrouled power of these or any other
functions ; they would not have allowed themselves to be so
disgraced, more especially when the rules were made to op.
press the labouring classes, who in common with all others
were entitled to protection, and, when in misfortune, had
ispeiiial claims on their sympathy.—(Hear, hear.) It had
''oeen truly said by his Noble Friend, who had the ho-
nour of opposing the second reading of the Act, that " it
was impossible to contemplate a more complete system
of grinding slavery than that to which the Bill would
subject the poor. They must eat, drink, and sleep
at the bidding of the Commissioners, and would
hardly enjoy the breath of life without it." His
Noble Friend then proceeded to say 'that if they passed
that law, the poor would be more complete slaves than
the villains of old." In this he entirely agreed, and he
considered that the professions which had been made in respect
to that measure had been fully in contradiction to the con-
duct which had been pursued in reference to it. If the
Administration had proposed to abolish the Habeas Corpus
lAct, and to attack the liberty of the Press, such measures
would merely affect a particular class of the community ;
they would be far less injurious in their operation than this
law, which placed the poor under the arbitrary controul
of the newly created sovereigns, the Poor-law Commissioners,
'from whose regulations the poor had no protection ;
for a labouring man, whatever might be his con-
duct, frugality, or his merits, without any fault
of his own,* but in consequence of the bankruptcy
lof his employer, might be deprived of work, and thus de-
;livered over to the tender mercies of these individuals.
I—(Hear, hear.) Much had been said, when party
subjects bad been disputed, of the advantages of
self-government. The provisions of this law, however, were
directly the reverse. For they prevented parties from ex-
pending their own money according to their own discretion,
for the benefit of the poor in the parishes in which
!they resided ; whilst the Commissioners had the right
!salaries
appoint, to remove, and to fix the amount of the
!salaries of all their officers.—(Cries of " No, no,"
!from the Duke of Richmond, we believe.) Did the
'Noble Duke doubt this ? He then referred to 46th section
lof the Act, which gave this power to the Commissioners ;
the Noble Lord next referred to the former Poor Acts,
and contrasted them with the present. He said that
;although the Statute of Elizabeth directed that those who
'would not work should be sent to gaol, yet cases of that
!nature very seldom occurred. The next principle of the
`that
was what was called the workhouse system, and
Oat was the pivot upon which the whole machine was
made to turn. It was said that the former workhouses
liwere places of luxurious ease, in which the paupers were
feasted in indolence at the public expense. Those who
made such an unfounded assertion seemed to forget that
i!the parishes taxed themselves for the support of these
workhouses. If it had been, as it was represented, the
doors of the overseers would have been thronged with nis-
plicants ; but, so far from that having been the case, the
workhouses were always resorted to with the utmost re-
pugnance by the poor, who considered them as the last and
worst refuge. It was said that the condition of the pauper
in the workhouse ought not to be worse than that of the
,labourer. This, of course, could not be intended to
apply to the aged and the disabled. 'With respect to the
idle, the former law provided that those who would not
work should be sent to the common jail ; but, as far as
his (Earl Stanhope's) experience went, the proportion
who were disinclined to work was generally very small.
During the twenty years which he had employed labourers
,he had never discharged one for idleness ; but, on the
c„. °TntrarY, they were grateful to receive employment.
Hehad observed a difference between the statements of
two of these Viceroys. One of these gentlemen said that
the paupers only resorted from necessity to the work-
house ; whilst the other, the present Viceroy of Kent, said ,
that they never were so comfortable in all their lives before
:, •Is under the present system. He would ask what right
vas there under the existing law to confine paupers on the
Sunday and to prevent them from attending Divine service?
He would also ask what right was there to confine them on
any day ? Ho would appeal to the authority of the Noble
And Learned Lord behind him (Lord Wynford). It was
undoubtedly true that the pauper might leave the poor-
, iiouse, but then he knew that it was at the risk of starva-
tion awaiting him without the walls. If the present system
was pursued, he was convinced that it would, by degrees,
' bring down the English labourer to The level of the la-
bourer in Ireland. Could it be hoped to restrain crime by
- the fear of punishment ? Did it not rather tend to increase
crime when the criminal not only was punished, but also
the poor, merely because they were destitute of employment
and the means of subsistence. This, then, was an Act, not
for the better administration of the poor laws, but it was
sn Act for their abolition, for the principle of the former
Bill was protection and not imprisonment. The one was
an Act to employ and relieve, but this was an Act for im-
prisonment. The House saw that, in the year 1604, the
exact plan of the Bill of 1834 was first mooted ; but what
was the opinion of Mr. Sergeant Sniggs upon the subject ?
.Speaking of the scheme, he said that it would not be war-
ranted by the Act, and that he thought too highly of the
wisdom and integrity of the High Court of Parliament
to surmise that they would give their sanction to such
t proceeding. It was clear from this that Mr. Ser-
geant Sniggs 'did not live in .the time of the Reformed
House of Commons. If labour were property Parlia-
ment could have no right to take any measure by which
:lint property would be reduced ; but this had, in effect,
seen done by the present law. Such, in short, had been