The Sun.
London, England, 1854-03-25 00:00:00

REMOVAL BILL.

The Settlement and Removal Bill, that is, the bill for re-
laxing the one and abolishing the other, has received a large
addition. By a separate bill, the prohibition of compulsory
removal is to be extended to the case of Irish paupers. It
will be remembered, that when the provisions of the bill were
first announced, the Irish members immediately asked whether
their eountrymen were to come in for their share of a measure
recommended on the general ground of humanity, and on the
right of the destitute under the original Poor Law to be re.
lieved where they applied for relief. It must have struck
most people that not only was it very difficult to defend the
exception as a matter of argument, but that its maintenance
would create a perpetual feud. We are to suppose the case
of two destitute families in the same court, iu the same em-
ployment, and possibly inmates for several years of the same
lodging-house. The Welsh or Northamptonshire family is re-
lieved without removal, and the Irish family is shipped, at an
inclement season, to Cork or Belfast, either port possibly still a
hundred miles from its home. Such a distinction certainly would
be invidious. It admits, indeed, of a defence, and, commercially,
of a very fair defence—viz., that the Welsh and Northamp-
tonshire unions are maintaining London paupers, and London
may therefore as well maintain the provincial ones ; or, in
other words, if all England agrees to give up compulsory re-
movals, that is its own concern, and it will find its own ac-
count in so doing ; whereas Ireland has no English paupers
to remove, and would, therefore, gain much and give nothing
by being included in the measure. But logic, especially the
logic of X. s. d., does not apply to Ireland. She is the poor
neighbour to whom we are bound to show hospitality all tie
more because she cannot return it, or rather because she
cannot return it exactly in kind. It is not only inhuman, it
is idle to deny that England receives immense benefits from
the Irish immigration, and it is but a poor return for them if
she flings back on the Irish seaboard every poor creature who
asks for relief instead of work. The general question need
not be disturbed by the lamentable but only occasional cir-
cumstance that many destitute persons have been sent here
simply to get rid of them, and to be a burden on our rates.
That is not au exclusively Irish practice, and, in the present
state of the labour market, is not very likely to be resorted
to. The present, therefore, is the very time for the assimi-
lation
of the English and Irish laws as to the removal of
paupers.
That the question is one of very great difficulty appears
from the diversity of opinion exhibited by the house, without
respect of party, and betrayed even by the Government. The
bill in its original state has met with a remarkable reception.
Those country members who might be supposed to know
most about the working of settlements and removals, and the
possibility of modifying the one and doing without the other,
either speak with diffidence or disagree considerably. Some
think that the measure will effect a saving ; others that it
will be a boon to the poor man, and will complete his eman-
cipation from a species of servitude ; others that it will lead
to great cruelties, and keep the unsettled poor more on the
move than ever, inasmuch as the threat of the workhouse
will now be everywhere substituted for that of removal.
There is room for this variety of opinion, inasmuch as the
law can be administered cruelly enough, even after the power
of compulsory removal has been taken away. But that power
deserves a separate consideration. If the custom of com-
pulsory removals has led to great cruelty and extrava-
gance—if it involves the absurdity that in the case of
the most enterprising and industrious poor, for such they
must be supposed, who leave their parishes in quest of work,
the only relief given to distress is transportation to some dis-
tant and poverty-stricken parish—then we may at once pro-
ceed to abolish this custom. There will then remain the
question, How are we to meet the case of the Irish stranger
who asks for relief? It appears to be apprehended that every
union will have a good many strange applicants; and that in
this metropolis, and other great cities, a majority of those ap-
plicants will be Irish. What, then, are we to do with them
when we are no longer permitted to ship them off to the
nearest pert of their own country ? We trust the times are
coming when there will not be many such applicants, and, in
any case, some other alternative may be found besides trans-
portation to Ireland and imprisonment in a workhouse. It
is strange indeed if our boasted civilisation and those social
institutions of which we are so proud can hit on no kindness
to perform to the stranger except banishment or incarcera-
tion. Freedom is the very genius of our country—free-
dom to roam over it in quest of employment, and to find
it everywhere a home. Yet, when misfortune befalls the Bri-
tish freeman in his adopted home, wherever that may be, and
he is driven to appeal to the humanity of his new neighbours,
we are told that there are only two ways of treating him—the
two alternatives we give a wild beast—we may either drive
him away, or shut him up in a cage. For the honour of our
country, we will believe some other course to be possible.
It is proposed to deal with the Irish difficulty in a separate
bill. There is reason for that. The present measure may well
be discussed on its own merits, without the introduction of a
new and questionable element; and the Irish bill will probably
require provisions that would not apply to the case of English
and Scotch paupers. There is always a danger of Irish poor,
in the strongest sense of the word, that is the aged, the sick,
the maimed, and otherwise incapable of work, being shipped
here by wholesale. As long as this is possible, it may be
necessary to provide against it by some special anti-
dote ; and, if there should be such an importation
as we apprehend, and the antidote be found insufficient, then
it will be time to consider how to deal more effectually with
Irish applicants. Possibly it may be found necessary to deal
with the immigrant at the port where they land, and to send
back at once those whose very appearance betrays the specula-
tion on which they have been sent over. We suggest that,
not because we think it at all likely we should ever be driven
to such rigorous measures, but to show there is at least one
alternative besides the imprisonment or the transportation of
the Irish applicant for relief. We are not in the least blink-
ing the difficulty of counteracting an evil which, as it has
hitherto been almost constant, and sometimes aggra‘vated
to a frightful extent, may be expected to recur. But
if we allow, as we must allow, and even welcome, a
regular Irish immigration, then we must also expect
those immigrants to be exposed to the usual vicissi-
tudes of life, and to become applicants for relief. When, in
the course of nature and under the dispensations of Provi-
dence, they are thus thrown on our charity, we very
much doubt whether it would be found possible to keep up a
distinction between them and other applicants—whether hu-
manity itself, not to say common sense, will not refuse to re-
cognise the distinction. A separate measure is necessary, and
it is just possible that the arrangements required may be so
complicated and difficult as to prevent that measure from
being perfected for a considerable time. There is no reason,
therefore, why the introduction of this new feature should
affect the discussion of the present bill. We admit that the
one bill eventually involves the other, inasmuch as
the English applicants for relief being once entitled
to it in the place where they apply, the Irish cannot
long be excluded from the boon. But they who approve the
present bill are bound to support it, even if it takes them ulti-
mately further than they desire. The President of the Poor-
law Board most emphatically stated on the iutroduction of
his bill that the claim to relief was not iu virtue of a settle-
ment, but of destitution. All who accept that great principle
are bound to carry it out, and common feeling, consistency,
and the gravest political considerations will compel them to
do so. But, meanwhile, on the great principle laid down by
Mr. Baines, they aro bound to meet the English stranger's
application for relief with common hospitality, not with ex-
pulsion, nor, we will add, with incarceration.—Times.