The Sun.
London, England, 1838-02-08 00:00:00

lItISIi POOR, RELIEF PILL.

SECOND PART,
TO THE FRIEND;' OP REAL JUSTICE'I
IRELAND.

I now come to my second proposition; namely, to shew the
injurious operation of the proposed Poor Last Bill for Ireland.
The leading principles of thiS bill, as denoted by the clauses
themselves, as well as by the explanations and arguments of
the promoters of it, are these-Ist. That ho relief shall he
„Oven outside the workhouse—that no discretion shall be per•
witted either to Commissioners or Guardians. 2(1. That the
administration shall not be connected with a Law of Settle-
ment of any description.
I shall proceed to examine what would be the effect of a Bill
founded on these principles, with reference to a population of
landholders, brought into this condition by the causes described,
and circumstanced as the parish of Burrishoole, already
alluded to in my former observations.
Here is a population chiefly consisting of small landholders
amounting in the whole to nearly 11,000 souls, all of whom
(with a few exceptions of gentry and clergy in Newport) are
in a continual state of extreme poverty ; but at a particular
period of every year are destitute of the supply of food rea-
sonably necessary for their nourishment—a destitution which
sometimes amounts to positive famine ; and let it be remem-
bered what is here meant by famine is not a scarcity of
provision in the country ; it is the defalcation of the potatoe
crop of the individual, and the total want of means to purchase
other food in its place. This kind of famine often exists in
conjunction with a large export of provisions from the hnme-
diate nr iabhbourhood of the sufferer.
Such is the condition of a large portion of Ireland—a con-
tinual state of poverty, and an annual periodical state of abso-
lute want; and let it be specially recollected, that this state has
been produced, and is continued by means of the exactions and
proceedings of the landlords.
Let us suppose the Bill in operation, and this annual perio-
dical state of destitution to come on in the parish of Burri-
shoole. Its population is nearly 11,000. We arc told there
is a very small exception to destitution ; but I will take the
destitution at 8,000, throwing off nearly a third. Let us
suppose that the workhouses are provided on the suggested
plan, according to Mr. Nicholls's Report—one in the centre of
every square of twenty miles, each to hold 800 persons.
Now, the poor Burrishoole men and their families must set
out to travel. I will even suppose that the workhouses had
previously no inmates (a very improbable supposition)—it
would require ten workhouses to hold the people of this parish
alone. How many miles would some of them have to travel
in this case (the workhouses being twenty miles asunder) ?
I dare not venture to compute it. If the workhouses were
wholly or partially filled, some of these poor families must
travel the whole length and breadth of Ireland ; but then how
is it possible for them to travel ? The families have not
cloathing to go out to worship ; they are obliged to change
cloaths with each other for this purpose, and to go out in
alternate succession. How could women and infants travel ?
For recollect the principle is, that no relief shall be given ex.
cept the whole families enter the workhouse ; recollect further,
that whenever workhouses are provided in any district, and
ready for the reception of the poor, begging becomes a crime by
the Bill, and liable to most severe penalties. How then are
they to support nature in their travels ? Independently of the
law, taxation will naturally close the hand of charity.
Thus, these poor people having once left their homes in
search of relief, may be disappointed of that relief—can neither
get back nor forward, and must either lie down and die—or
else by becoming vagrants or plunderers, and exposing them-
selves to the penalties of the law, they get shelter in the gaols
or the Houses of Correction. They must become criminals,
in order to avoid death by famine.
No matter how great the misery to which those poor people
may be reduced—they can have no claim for relief. The
keeper of a work-house may reject them, even although he has
vacant space. Death may ensue, and there is no responsi-
bility ; and, if the work-houses should be full, neither Com-
missioners, Guardians, or any officer, would have power to ad-
minister the smallest degree of relief outside, on any emer-
gency whatever. It is alleged the restriction must be stringent
in order to guard the officers from importunity. Thus, by
this unmerciful Act, the poor would have no appeal against
neglect or oppression, but to the mercy of their Father in
Heaven.

- -
to my exemplification of this Bill, I have limited myself to
its operation on the poor of one parish alone. But, if we con-
sider that the periodical causes of destitution will operate
simultaneously over the whole of Ireland at the same time,
and, if we imagine the poor of whole districts, marching and
countermarching, north, east, west, and south, without any
claim for relief, in connection with the coil where they had
resided, without that wholesome correction of the evil, which
would arise from a knowledge of character by those who were
to administer relief—if we imagine such a scene, is it pos-
sible to conceive a limit to the distress, the confusion, the pro-
fligacy and crime, which must take place ? Such would he the
consequences of this Bill, if the poor attempt to avail them-
selves of the relief it proposes. If I am answered that they
will not accept relief on such terms, I ask in return, what is
the use of the Bill ? Do the promoters of it mean to mock
the poor man's poverty—to offer him a stone when he asks
for bread ?

If there are any class of persons wh9 will claim relief, it will
be the idle and profligate, who will depart from their homes,
where they are known, and seek relief where they are not
known. You take away the check against imposture, which
could only be sustained by forcing the administration of relief
in the district or union where the wants and character of the
applicant were known ; you take from the Guardians the
power of discriminating between the victims of misfortune, and
the perpetrators of vice, and thus you would add to your claim-
ants by the encouragement of imposture, and place those im-
posters in a position to avoid detection.
But I shall now take another view of the operation of this
Bill. I shall suppose the workhouses built.) I shall suppose
that the really indigent are willing to expose themselves to
the tests of imprisonment, separation of families, and work-
house labour; I shall suppose that the poor landholders of
Burrishoole, when want begins to pinch them in the spring
season, shut up their houses and wander from one workhouse
to another, till they are safely lodged in some of these diffe-
rent prisons ;—now let me ask, how is it possible they can
ever be in a condition to travel back again to their homes ?
You must keep them there for life, or you must transport
them—this being the only purpose for which out-door relief
is permitted. Recollect these people generally are landholders,
supported for the preceding part of the year on the scanty
portion of produce left them by the landlords. If the whole
families leave their homes in spring (when the scarcity of food
commences), how is the corn to be sowed or. the potatoes to be
set ?—or if sowed or set, how is the after cultivation to be
per formed ?—how are the crops to be taken care of from
trespass or destruction in various ways ?—how is the turf to be
made for the winter fuel? Some of these 8,000 souls must
travel perhaps 100 miles before workhouse accommodation
could be obtained ; how are they to make their way home
again? Begging is penal by the law, and by the same law
the Guardians of any Union cannot give them out-door as-
sistance. Those unfortunate poor families must then remain
in the workhouses. But another question arises—How is the
rent to be paid ? It cannot be paid ; the crops have not been
put in, or arc lost ; ejectments will be brought by the land-
lords, and the former occupants will be rendered irretrievable
paupers, resting on public taxation for support. But this is
not all; there will arise a new competition for the lands of the
ejected tenantries ; a new race of paupers will be introduced,
su' ject to higher rents in consequence of increased competition,
and in a couple of years a fresh colony will start
for the workhouses, and thus a multiplication of pauperism
will be produced ad infinitum. The landlords will have an
unchecked licence in desolating the country ; because as only
a small portion of the poor of this one parish could be ad-
mitted into the workhouse of the Union wherein it is situate,
the expenses in that case, although paid wholly by the land-
lords, would fall only in a very small proportion on the land-
lords of those people—.only one-tenth part could he supplied
in that workhouse, even if none others were admitted, and
the other nine-tenths would be sustained by the landlords and
occupiers of other Unions where less poverty had been created.
Thus the vicious landlords would profit by their own vice, and
the excess of their paupers would be disgorged into the work-
houses of other Unions, where, from the kindness of the land-
lords or other causes, there were few inmates furnished from
the district itself. Thus the greater the exertions of the
higher classes to keep down poverty in any district or Union,
it is quite evident that the greater would be the influx of fo-
reign paupers to that workhouse.
What would be the melancholy consequence of this last cir-
cumstance ? That benevolent landlords who, by the moderation
of their rents, had given no cause for the production of poverty,
and the occupiers who derived from them, who had kept
the poor from distress by the diffusion of employment, finding,
themselves taxed for the faults of others—finding povert)
flowing in upon them like a deluge which they could not stem,
which they had no means of repressing—would become pa"
ralizcd in their exertions for the public good—their means
of utility would be exhausted by immoderate taxation —the
po-
verty of the country would be progressively increased, and the
funds of the kind landlord and his industrious tenantry would
be transferred into the pocket of the grinding absentee,
or the heartless resident rack-renter of other disti:icts•

The Bill produced this year has one additional provision
of importance, which, if connected with just principles of re-
lief, I would call an improvement ; but connected with the
other principles of the present Bill I call it an insult--s
mockery—a trap ; I mean the clause by which the Poor-rates
are permitted to be applied to emigration. This provision !s
described as providing for voluntary emigration. I admit this
would be very proper, if your Bill permitted the poor man first
to enjoy all the extensive resources of his own country. But
by this Bill you refuse the smallest atom of relief outside the
door of the workhouse, so long as he remains in his own
country ; it is only on the condition of expatriation that You
open your purse-strings. You lay a trap for him ; your
prison
doors are formed 30 that there is a free entrance, but no exit.;
famine guards your door—for if the poor man repasses that
door, he is precludedfrom seeking relief either by compulsory
taxation or voluntary charity. Care is taken that he shall have
no rightful claim. Having got him into this position, the
alternative of emigration is to be offered to hint—imprison-
ment for life—death—or banishment. Thele are your offers,
and if your unfortunate prisoner grasps at the last to rescue
himself from imprisonment or death, this is to be called
voluntary (Oh what a prostitution of the term !) emigration.
I ask this Government, is it their object to depopulate the
country by force under the disguise of charity ? The forty
shilling freeholders being destroyed, and the ten pound free-
holders being refractory, their political utility is gone as te-
spects the objects of the landlords. The property of the poor
man will thus be confiscated, he will be expelled from his
native soil, and Ireland will be again colonised with new
settlers, under the expectation that they will become the politi-
cal tools of their feudal superiors. Is this the object of the
the Government ? I trust it is not. I warn them, then,
and I would wish to warn the people of Ireland, that