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

IMPER, LAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF COMMONS. AUGUST 7.

The SPEAKEP. took the Chair at the usual hour.
Sir R. INGLIS presented petitions from places in Wilt-
shire, the Wesleyan Methodists of Old-street Chapel, Queen-
street Chapel, Soutl,wark, and other places, against idola-
trous worship in India. Also a petition from Lincoln in
favour of support to the Church of Lower Canada; and two
petitions from Durham against the Parochial Assessments' Bill.
Mr. BROT HE RTON presented a petition from Stock-
port, praying for the adoption of such legislative measures as
would give beneficial employment and education to the indus-

trious Classes.
Mr. FINCH presented a petition from a place in Stafford-
shire, against idolatrous worship in India.
Sir W. BR ABA ZON presented two petitions from the
Barony of Kiluraine and town of Bellinarohe, county Mayo,
agreed to at a general public meeting, praying for the total
extinction of tithes. The petition was signed by 1,400 per-
sons : also another petition, very numerously signed, from the
barony of Burnshoole and town of l*wport, to the same effect.
Lord SANDON presented two petitions from Mr. Thomas
Kinder, merchant, of London, complaining cf the conduct of
the Mexican Government in their loan transactions, and
of the inadequate support afforded by the Government of
this country. He said that Mr. Harvey, the British
Consul in Mexico, gave not only every encouragement
to the loans being made, but gave what very nearly ap-
proached to a guarantee on the part of the British Govern-
ment, but from their withholding that support he had been a
loser to the amount of between 60,0001. and 70,0001. This
gentleman bad suffered most severely from the abuses of the
low in Mexico.
Mr. P. THOMSON thought the Noble Lord would have
done better if he had merely laid the petition on the table
of the House, and then if he had wished to have made
the statement he had done, he could have given proper notice,
and thereby rave afforded a fa r opportunity for meeting it.
His Noble Friend had made an imputation against a public
officer. lie heli.ved nothing could be more unfounded than
such a charge. If it was not made by the Noble Lord him-
self, it certainly was made by those by whom he was instructed.
Lord SANDON explained.
Mr. WARD said, from his personal knowledge of Mexico
he could say, that the idea of supposing that a man being con-
nected with the British Minister would have an effect on the
tribunals, was out of the question.
Lord ASHLEY presented two petitions from places in
Dorsetshire, against the encouragement of idolatrous worship
in India.
Mr. V. SMITH brought up the Report of the Committee
on Church Leases.
Mr. P. SCROPE presented a petition from Stroud,
praying for an alteration of the Corn Duties.
Mr. D. W. HARVEY presented a petition from St.
Saviour's, Southwark, against the Grammar-school Bill. The
Hon. Member gave notice that he should to-morrow move
for the discharge of the order for the committal of that Bill.
The Honourable Member also presented petitions from
Sheffield, Southwark, Essex, Taunton, and Newcastle-
under-Lyne, against the Poor-law Bill ; also petitions
from Rochdale and Bath, in favour of Mr. Owen's plan
for giving employment to the working classes, and praying
that that gentleman might be heard at the bar.
Mr. THORNELY presented a petition from Wolver-
hampton agaiust the continuance of idolatrous worship in India.
POOR LAWS.
Mr. POULETT SCROPE brought up the Report of the
Poor.law Committee.
Mr. FIELDEN could not let this Report be brought up
without saying a few words of the manner in which the Corn-
mittee had conducted the investigation, and upon that docu-
ment which was the result of it. His proposition was, that the
Committee should examine those whom nobody could doubt
were the best witnesses—the labouring people and the rate-
payers. He proposed at the first meeting of the Committee that
they should procure certain returns from those Unions in which
the rates had been reduced 50 per cent. This was objected to,
upon the ground that the returns would be too elaborate to be
allowed, and too difficult to procure. He then proposed they
should take those Unions in which the reduction had been 60
per cent. ; and the first three on the list of this descrip-
tion being Ampthill, Bedford, and Woburn, the Committee
ordered the returns from those Unions. He (Mr. Fielden)
sent two men down into Bedfordshire to make inquiries as
to the condition of the people, whom the returns showed to be
deprived of parochial relief, under the new law ; and he was
in hopes that the Committee would have gone into a full ex-
amination of the rate-payers and labourers of those Unions, as
well as into the examination of Commissioners, Guardians, and
officers of the new law. But he had been grievously disap-
pointed. The House would find, by looking at the evidence,
that the Committee had been engaged no less than thirty-six
days and a half in examining Commissioners and Guardians.
Indeed the Commissioners alone had taken twenty days out of
the fifty-two days the whole examination had taken up. Four
days had been allotted to the medical inquiry; leaving ten
days and a half for the examination of witnesses against the
law, and this notwithstanding half a million of persons had
yeti Toned against it, stating their reasons. The Corn-
inissioners and the Guardians, too, were persons actually
upon their trial; they were persons who had been com-
plained of, and the Committee was originally appointed
for the purpose of ascertaining whether those complaints
were just. Would the House be satisfied—would the
country he satisfied, that this Commtttee had conducted
an impartial examination, when it was found that thirty-six days
and a half out of fifty-two days had been allotted to the ex-
amining of persons who were on their trial ? ( Hear.) His
(Mr. Fielders's) main objection to the law was founded on his
firm conviction that it would reduce the wages of the labouring
people ; and if he had nothing more than even the Assistant.
Commissioners to satisfy him upon that point, their evidence
had shown him that that had already been the result. The
House should have foreseen this before it had passed the law.
Honourable Members would perceive that it was stated, on
the authority of Mr. Overman, Vice-Chairman of the Amp-
thill Board, that the wages of the labourers in his neigh-
bourhood had been raised since the law came into operation.
Indeed, in illustration of the fact, he stated what he himself
paid upon his own farm in 1834, and what he paid in 1837 ;
that is to say, he gave them a table containing the weekly
payments for every week in those years to his labourers, and
the totals showed an increase in the gross amount in 1837.
So far Mr. Overman made out the case very well ; hut in his
previous examination he had stated not only that wages had
been raised, but that many more men had been employed on
the land; and here Mr. Overman had failed to establish his
case, but had completely succeeded in establishing the point
which he (Mr. Fielden) aimed to prove, namely, a reduction
in wages. Mr. Overman in 1834 and 1835 employed twenty
men and thirteen boys, and the gross amount which he states
tie paid to them in the year is 775/. 6s. Id. He states that in
1837 and Ic3B his gross payment in wages was 8701. Bs.,
which was doubtless a considerable increase in the money
spent in wages ; but he employed in the latter year eleven
boys and twenty-six men, which, as any one would find on
calculating it, proved a reduction of lld. per week in money
wages. As Mr. Overman and his teblrs were cited in the
Report as the proof of an advance in wages, he (Mr. F.) had
proposed an amendment to tire part of the Report, which he
would now read. The Hon. Gentlernen then read his amendment.
He had moved this resolution ehen complaining in the Com-
mittee of the whole Report, and he asleed whether lie had not
a right to complain of such a delusive statement being sent
forth to the country as that which he had just pointed out.—
Hear, hear.) Before he had become a Member of this Cum-
mite°, he had imagined that the handloom weavers, and some
others in the North, were the most miserable of the English
labouring people ; but he had beard enough confessed in the
Committee to show him, that if the people of the South were
not now as badly off as the handloom weavers, it would take
but a short time to bring them to the condition of those mise-
rable people. He would pause, in 01-10- to a>k the Ilnese
whether it cs:11 nut. bot:i cruel and impolitic to continue this
wicked and obnoxious law, if there was any chance that its
results would be such as lie had spoken of ? Ile could
point out good, honest, and industrious labourers, men whose
characters were not disputed, who, with their families, were
living now upon 3d. per head per day. In the Report of the
Committee it would be found that Neale, the Assistant-Com-
missioner, had made a statement of the wages of agricultu-
ral labourers in Somersetshire, Gloucestershire, and Worces-
tershire, and the average rate of wages afforded Is. sd. per
head per week for the labourer and his family. Mr. Rawson,
a manufacturer at Leicester, stated on his own experience
that wages had been reduced one-third since the new law came
into operation, and he apprehended a continued reduction.
He (Mr. Fielden) had sent two men down into the neigh-
bourhood of Ampthill to make inquiries in that neighbour-
hood, and they took a survey of the parish of Westoning in
particular; they obtained the name, number in family, and
earnings of every labouring man within the parish for 1834
and 1837, and the result was a reduction of 16 per cent. in
their means of living. The tables establishing these matters
had been put in by Mr. Turner, one of the persons whom he
had sent to make the inquiries. He had received letters from
all parts of the country, from so far west as Barnsta'ple' and
so far east as Norwich, from Carlisle, and from many places in
the interior of the country, addressed to by magistrates,
ttergymen, guardians of boards, and by tradesmen, all com-
plaining of the operation of this law, and all statine, it to have
the effects which he had anticipated with dread, and which he
had often stated to the House. —( Hear, hear.)
Lord G. SOMERSET rose to order., After the Hon.
Gentleman bad been addressing the House for upwards of half
an hour, he (Lord G. S.) had not heard one word respecting
the importance of the Report which had been brought up.
The SPE AKER considered that it was exceedingly im-
portant that no Report should be discussed until it was printed,
and in the hands of the Members. No Member could be aware
of its contents unless he were one of the Committee. He had not
had the good fortune to hear much of what had fallen from the
Hon. Member, but as far as he understood his observations,
they related to a Report, of the contents of which none but the
Members of the Conmittee could be aware.
Mr. FIELDEN had opposed the Report in the Commit-
tee upon every occasion.
The SPEAKER suggested that the Hon. Member would
be more in order in objecting to the Report when any step was
proposed to be taken upon it.
Mr. FIELDEN said the Report was exceedingly unsatis-
factory to hirn, and in the Committee he wished to hate
entered his protest.
The SPEAKER reiterated his former objections.
Mr. FIELDEN then begged leave to enter his protest
against the Report which had been laid on the table.
Mr. P. SCROPE would not enter into any of the details
of what had fallen from the Hon. Member, but he must refute
the charge made by the Hon. Gentleman that the Com-
mittee had paid no attention to the evidence produced.
The Hon. Member for Oldham was the last person that ought
to have made any complaint, because he had the liberty of