The Sun.
London, England, 1838-05-22 00:00:00

be occasionally lauded and cried down, but which was a body
posses Sing exactly the same kind of knowledge of which Mr. Nicholls
was the beginning, middle, and end, he going to Ireland both times with_
out any colleagues whatever.—(Laughter.) He must therefore say
that no answer whatever was given by those before whom his Noble and
Learned Friend might quail in the modesty of his nature—(Laughter)
—but from whom he had no more right to feel the slightest apprehension
than from the attack of any one single Member of the Cabinet. No
answer having been given to the able, and, until answered, the decisive
and conclusive speech of his Noble Friend, which was not confined to
the details, but which dealt in a masterly manner with the principles of
the measure, he now came to sts.te his own opinions. He rejoiced that
he had an opportunity of doing so ; for he was very near being deprived
of it. He was told that it signified not whether or not he was present,
that he might attend at a subsequent stage, and that the question of
principle might as well be then discussed as on the second reading. No_
thing was moreabsurd—( A laugh)—(he spoke it with all respect), nothing
was more ridiculous, than such an answer to the objection, if
there was any force in the objection, and he thought there was very
little, in the absence of any member. To tell a person that he should
come with as much advantage to the discussion in the Committee, or
on the third reading, after the principle of the measure should have
been voted on full discussion, was a ridiculous confounding of two en
times eparate things which ought always to be kept apart.—(Laughter.)
The confusion was this : it was evident to half an eye: if the second
res ding were allowed to pass sub silentio, then one might fairly be,
t ought to have full power to discuss the measure at a subsequent stage;
but if it were said that he could do so after a debate leading to a desi-
s ion, without being prejudiced, all reason and common sense laughed at
the supposition, and all parliamentary experience in both Houses re-
futed it.—(Hear, hear.) He had asked for an indulgence, not on account
of his own illness, but on account of that of a very near and dear rein..
tire, on whom he was attending. His request was at once re-
jected. It was, perhaps, a very presumptuous thing
,in any indi-
vidual to expect such a favour, but the fact was it happened from
acti lental circumstances that he had taken an active part, inasmuch
that he had brought in and proposed the English Poor-law Bill in that
House, when it was the duty of the Noble Viscount to }mese done so ;
and that subsequently, when out of office in this very Session, he had
taken aprominent part in the debates, and defended the appointments
made under the Bill, when his former colleagues found it convenient to
leave the defence of their joint measure to him. He did not mean to
say that he had asked the favour to which he alluded as a kind of wages
for doing the business of the Government, but he referred to the real
facts in order to show that it was less presumptuous than it might other-
wise appear that he should seek for the postponement of this measure
from Monday to Friday—Sed dis older visum. Very fortunately for
him, but very unfortunately for every other interest of the State, the
Nob e Duke (Wellington) was better at about the same time, and the
instant it was known that the Bill was postponed, not only to
Friday, but to Monday.—(Hear, hear, and cheering.) They were
warned against faction, and he never yet remembered any Minister
—be he Whig or Tory—who did not on all occasions avow his dis.
like of faction, and express his hope that a measure of such magi itude
would not be taken up in a factious spirit, but considered in a calm and
candid manner.—(Laughter.) Let, however, the same Ministers cross
the floor, and they never heard a word said in dispraise of faction or
against party connection or feelings.—(Continued laughter.) They
heard nothing now-a-days of Irish agitators, or Irish Members, or their
tats.—(A laugh.) The appropriation clause itself had been altogether
forgotten.—( Loud opposition cheers.) His Noble Friend who led the
other House of Parliament once held that Ireland was not safe for a
single night, that the tranquillity of Ireland, that the integrity of the
empire, could not be maintained without the appropriation clause—that
appropriation clause which had displaced one Government and put ano-
ther in its place, which had made close allies of political foes, and
cemented friendship between opposing parties as firmly as if they had
existed for e%er, uninterrupted by political animosities. Yet this very
appropriation clause, which had long since been entirely sunk, was no .v
clean thrown overboard, as if it had never been in existence; and yet Ire.
land was still as calm and as tranquil as ever, and as easy to be
governed with a little pen and ink, and a little red tape, as Doctor
Franklin said of America, as any well-disposed quiet people ever were.
(A laugh.) The Noble Viscount had deprecated the conduct of those
who were misled and persecuted by the demoW of faction on matters of
this kind. For his own part, he (Lord Brougham) had not yet been
perverted by that demon ; and he had always been friendly to some
measure for the amelioration of the poor of Irelaml from the beginning.
But whilst there were some questions of such a nature that they might
be separated into these two questions—namely, first, shall we entertain
the question at all ? and, secondly, what shall be done in the matter ?
so there were questions which from the nature of the passions and
feelings of those whom they interested were not capable of being
divided into this order of consideration. There were some ques-
tions, in fact, in which it was necessary to answer the second
question before they could wisely decide upon the first. There
were some subjects upon which, before they decided upon
entertaining it at all, they ought clearly to see the way in which
it was to be dealt with—the shape, dimensions, and colour of the mea-
sure itself; and if any subject came under this description more than
another, then he said, most emphatically, that the Poor-laws of any
country was such a subject.—(Hear.) It was a subject which dealt
with the interests and passions of the most numerous and best educated
portion of the community, and teo often divided the humbler, but more
numerous, classes against the more instructed and wealthier classes in
the scale of humanity. And who more so than the poor of Ireland—
ignorant, poor indeed, numerous, and less civilised than any other por-
tion of the empire; and, withal, endowed with a nature which, with
many excellent qualities, was not free from a very peculiar temperament
—a temperamsnt which they themselves termed sanguinary—whichin-
duced them to cherish hopes rather than listen to the dictates of reason,.
and to build castles in the air whenever there was the slightest gleam of
hope opening upon them, and a quick imagination, which the more deep
their state of au /tering and weakness, rendered them the more likely to
encourage hopes and expectations of the most flattering kind ? The
business, therefore, of the Noble Viscount, as the true friend of Ire-
land, would have been carefully to have avoided saying to Ireland
that she would have a Poor Law until he knew what the Poor Law
which he contemplated was to be.—(Hear, hear.) Because this was
not a question in which for any man, or any statesman, to say before-
hand that it was safe, mnch less expedient, to give a Poor Law to Ire-
land. Was this so pressing, and withal so trifling a matter, like an Ex-
chequer bills bill, or any other routine business, which the clerks in
office got through as if by steam, that the Noble Viscount should pur.
sue it in this off-hand manner.—(Hear, hear, and a laugh.) They
were now about to involve Ireland in all the difficulties, the dangers,
and the abuses of a Poor Law, from which England had
but just escaped; and in utter ignorance and total darkness as to
what the measure should be, or whether they would mind
framing any measure at all wh ch was better than the
present state of things, the Noble Viscount sent down Lord
Morpeth to the House of Commons to quiet a few amateur
legislators, because they had become troublesome, and parties
were balancing; and so with this promise they got into this much..
wished-for but much..regretted long vacation, by proclaiming at the
mouth of the Noble Lord that there should be a Poor.law for Ireland.
This was in the summer of 1536. He (Lord Brougham) did not at-
tend Parliament at that time, but he actually grew blind when he read
the announcement in the papers—he would not believe his own eyes.—
(Hear, hear, and a laugh.) It seemed to him an impossibility; but, at
the same time, reflecting how the Government had committed them-
selves by this announcement—how they had, as it were, two or three
millions of paupers on their back—he took it for granted that the. Com-
missioners had reported some very excellent measure on the subject,
and that this excellent measure would be all ready for the next ses:
sion. But great was his (Lord Brougham's) astonishment when on
coming up to them he found that this conclusion was incon-
sistent with the date of Lord Morpeth's announcement ; for
it appeared that, by the report itself, that it was two months after Lord
Morpeth had made this announcement, wherein he committed the Go-
vernment and the country, Mr. Nicholls was sent over to invent and
devise a Poer-law.—(Hear, hear.) Now, they were told that this was
only an adaptation of the English Poor-law to Ireland. He (Lord
Brougham) must say that he was astonished that the Noble Duke (of
Wellington) had been taken in by such an argument; and his Noble
Friend who spoke last said that no person who had seen the admit able
working of the English Poor.laws, could have the least hesitation in
wishing to see Ireland benefitted by their adoption. Good God I did
he stand there to show the utter parallelogism of this argument ? What
was the merit of the English Poor-law Bill ? Why, that this country
having laboured for two centuries under the increasing evils of a Poor.
law, had had recourse to a new law, by which she had got out
of this difficulty; but if we had had no Poor-law before, did their
Lordships think that we should ever have passed that measure for this
country ? The notion was too ridiculous.—(Hear.) They might as well
say, because they passed a Railway or a Canal Bit, for Man6hester or any
past of England, that therefore they should have a railway or a canal
over the mountains of Wicklow. The Noble Viscount said that all the
evils of the English Parr-laws had been greatly overrated ; but it ap.
peered that the Noble Viscount had lately had his opinions considerably
changed on this subject by the study of the works of political economists,
who had taught him to believe that the Poor-laws prevented the increase
of over-popalation, by restraining the building of small cottages. He
was sorry that he had lost a pupil in the Noble Viscount on this mat-
ter • for he recollected that when he explained his views of this sub.
jet; in the other House, he received the most cordial demonstrations
of concurrence, as by cheers, looks, and gestures, from the Noble
Viscount, and who accepted, by that kind of assent, all that he said in
exposition of the fallacies of these very economists.—(Hear, hear.)
He would now remind the Noble Viscount of what he had then said,
and perhaps he might get a convert back again in him.—(Laughter.) It
was, no doubt, the interest of the landlord under the operation of a
pooselaw, to restrain the building of cottages, in order to keep down the
number of paupers; but to counterbalance this comparatively trifling
tendency were the inducements to improvident marriages which were
offered in a ten-fold proportion. But even this petty principle of
counter-operation did not in many cases exist. To put it in operation a
man should be the owner of a whole parish ; for if another person had
but half an acre of ground he would cover it with thirty or forty cottages,
all under the rateable size.—(Hear, hear.) The fact was that poor-laws
had not prevented population. Let them look but at the simple fact
that in Scotland, where there were no poor-laws, population had not
increased in a greater proportion than in England.—(Hear, hear.)
The fact was, that in all that the Noble Viscount had said he
had fallen into the very common fallacy of confounding the
cause with the effect. His (Lord Brougham's) opinions had always
been that England had prospered, not on account of, but in spite o
a poor-law.—(Hear, hear.) What was the principle of this Bill ? The
great question, in his opinion, was, whether any other claimants but the
lame, the halt, and the impotent, should receive relief; yet this teas
treated as a matter of de:ail by the Noble Viscount. This, he
maintained was not a matter of detail, but of substantial principle.
Then, again, there ought to be safe-guards that the relief should not
be abused. But where were these provisions? He recollec' e I when
the Noble Duke opposite said to Lord Colchester, who had always
been opposed to Catholic emancipation, and who opposed the Bill for
tha purpose, " Wait till you see the securities."—(Cries 0
Ilene, hear, hear.) However, the Noble Duke did not, on that
occasion, gain a vote, for Lord Colchester had seen the bill, and
perceived that it contained no securities.—(A laugh.) It was very
easy to say that they would devise securities. But he (Lord Brougham)
did not see anything in this measure which gave him any high opinion
of their power of framing.—(A laugh.) The Noble Duke thought it
would be a great advantage to localize the poor; but where, he would
ask, was there anything in this Bill to localize and regulate the expen-
diture ? There were no such regulations in the measure, and how, he
would ask, were they to be introduced ? They could not be introduced
by this House, and yet the other House had sent the Bill up knowing
that they could not be introduced, and without providing for them.
Now, for his part, he (Lord Brougham) would rather pass the Session—
ay, ten Sessions—without passing a single measure, rather than
pass] one Intaame which would prove the ruin of one country and
the disgrace of the other, and of the British Legislature.—!Hear,
hear.) Objection had been taken by his Noble and Learned Friend re-
specting the powers given to the English Board of Commissioners of
making laws. He acknowledged that he had always felt that those
pavers were large, and nothing but extreme necessity could justify them.
These three persons had the power of making laws which could not
be repealed except by the consent of the King, Lords, and Commons.—
(Hear, hear.) If the argument had been pressed, and ade nand had been
made for the introduction of a clause to empower either Howe of Par-
liament uy an address to the Crown to obtain the repeal of any order
made by the Commissioners, he, fur one, would have barn prepared to
have yielded to that suggestion. But there was in the Bill now before
the House a peculiar power of taxation, No powtr was given to the
Somerset-house Board of Commissioners to tax the I eople of England,
but a power was given them to tax the people of Ireland. How would
any man in England beer that three men, sitting in Dublin, al; ould.tax
al the land-owners of England ? These were not in material features in
this measure. They were better out of it; but if they were taken from
the measure it would be a totally different Act. It tad always appeared
to him the most grossly unjust, and the most indefensible part of the En-
g! ;sh Poor-laws, that the whole burden was cast upon, net the rich, but
uaen one class only. The landowners and occupiers alone paid for the
support of all the poor of the country, whilrt the manufacturer was