The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-05 00:00:00

other portion of Ireland. There were landlords who would
not thrown up their commissions, and there :were
tenants who would not take up their muskets
in the event of the House passing this Bile.
Now, what did the Noble Lord do? He simply gave
them to understand that the men must yield either their
' money or their lives, and in that way did he
perform the promise which he had rendered to the
country. The Noble Lord might declare that he had
done all that in him lay to fulfil his promise originally;
but he (Mr. Osborne) for his own part conceived that
the House had a right to consider what amount
of discretion had been exercised in the ful-
filment of the duty which the Noble Lord
and his Government owed to the country.
The Noble Lord had said that the only plan for the
relief was to draw a sum from the Consolidated Fund
for the relief of the people, and he had proposed to the
House a grant of 50,0001. from that source. But in re-
spect of this grant the Right Hon. Baronet the Member
for Ripon had asked a question, and put a position
which, as coming from him, was peculiarly significant.
It was well known that the Right Hon. Baronet acid the
Noble Lord had been in treaty for the former to take a
place in the present Cabinet, and the question, therefore,
of the Right Honourable Baronet was particularly
effective, when be inquired as to whether
this was to be the last grant of the same kind.—(Hear,
hear.) The Noble Lord knew too well that he could
give no such guarantee. And what was the effect of
the Right Honourable Baronet's suggestion, that the
Noble Lord should come down with some comprehensive
measure, and some effectual relief for the people.
He came down with the information that the
comprehensiveness of his measures would include wide
districts in the north, the ruin of the west, without saving
any of the community in the distress in which they were
involved, and that the grant of 50,000/. would save the
people from absolute starvation only for a few weeks.
—(Hear.) He would ask the Noble Lord what the
Members of this House had continually foretold and
he would toll him that the Government were responsible
not only for the future, but for the want of foresight
and prudence which ought to have been ',exercised.—
(Hear, hear.) For himself, he should say that as a
Member of Parliament he was not settsfied with such
replies, and he could tell him neither would that
House be.—(Hear, hear.) It might be all very well
to ask the House what more could be done ; but he
most respectfully tell them that so long as the present
system continued, no improvement could possibly be ex-
pected.—( Hear, hear.) So long as the members of the
Carlton Club were unable to drive out or control those
of Brookes', so long would this evil continue and increase.
—(Hear, hear.) It was, iu fact, adopting the old adage
date obolum be/is aro.—(Cheers.) '1 he Noble Lord was
willing to grant a Committee of inquiry, and he ex-
pected to obtain the repayment of the grant by a
rate in aid (Hear, hear) but he could tell the
Noble Lord that no man in his senses in the West of Ire-
land ever expected to realise this amount through erste in
aid, and he must warn the House, vvhaetever might be said,
that they would never realise more than 2,000/ or 3,000/
from auy such source. In fact the system must be alto-
gether altered or no benefit could possibly accrue. When
the plan for a Committee had been proposed last year
the whole of the Irish Members to a man had voted
against it, with the exceptions of Lord Portarlington, and
the Committee was to all intents and purpose,s a caput
mortuum. He knew of no precedent except one in Gil his,
for the course pursued by the Noble Lord at the head of
the Government. He must now say one word with rate
charityin aiel.
like Ttlebut he was sure they were
011: House
this subject,
pp osed they were doing something
doing no such thing. The Noble Lord had referred to
twenty-one unions that would be thrown on this rate
in aid, but he did not tell them bow many
other unions would he throw upon it. The House
might depend upon it, if this measure passed, they
would have more than three times twenty-one unions
thrown upon the rate. Ho did not believe that the
Noble Lord bad given this measure a proper
consideration, and he trusted therefore, he would recon-
sider it. It might be asked what other objections he
had to the measure? To that question he would an-
swer in the words of Lord Hall, that the plaster
was not so large as the sore.—(Hear, hear.) He called
upon the Noole Lord before the resolution passed
to state to that House how these unions
were to be supported when the rate in aid was worn
out, and the landlords of the north and south of
Ireland were eaten up by it. The Noble Lord had
said that the landlords of Ireland were exempted
from income-tax, and therefore they must pay a
6d. rate ; Adam Smith's canon was, that the people
must pay to the rates according to their income ; he
joined with him in that opinion, but he asserted that
it was no argument to say that, because Ireland
was exempted from the income-tax, that, therefore, the
landlords were to be subjected to a 6d. rate. The proper
course to pursue was for the Noble Lord to propose the
appointment of a Committee to inquire into the subject.
The Hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork called upon
the House to tax the landlords, for they had no friends,
and were the only parties who could pay this rate in aid.
—(Hear, and laughter.) But the Hon. Gentleman,
when he talked in that way, did not take into his
consideration what these unfortunate landlords, who
had no friends, had been going through.—(Hear, hear.)
He called upon the House to lay an additional taxation
on the rateable property of Ireland which had gone
through the privations of their succestive famines, and
had suffered by that means a loss amounting to no less
than 16,000,0001.
,Was the Honourable Gentleman
aware of these things when he talked of taxing
the landlords only, or was he aware that these very
landlords at the present moment were not receiving a
quarter of their rents?—(Hear, hear.) He knewn a
gentleman, a Member of the House, who in the course
of the last year had paid no less than 5,000/
to the poor-rates of his parish, while many
others had paid 8001. and 1,0001., and yet the
Honourable Member for Cork came down to the

House ready to tax these unfortunate landlords because
he said they were accustomed to it and ought to pay.
Do not tax any other property, said the Hon. Gentle-
man, but he (Mr. Osborn) was convinced that if the poor.
law was to succeed in Ireland it must be remodelled,
and revised, and the rates must be levied upon all pro-
perty that could be made available for the support of the
poor, no matter whether it was composed of land, mort-
gages on land, or money in the funds.—(Hear, hear.)
The fundholder must bo compelled to pay in the
same proportion as the landholder, but the House ought
to take some guarantee that the rates to be so
levied should not be spent in eleniosynary grants,
bnt that they should be directed to the pur-
poses of home colonization and assisting the
people to emigrate to some flourishing colonies.
—(Hear.) In fact care must be taken that the money
was not thrown into a bottomless pit, as hitherto it had
been, leaving the people still wretched, and the
country still in a state of pauperism.—(Hear, hear.)
With regard to this rate in aid itself; he wished
the English Members to bear in mind that
the principle of a national rate was very
much fancied in this country. Apply that
principle to Ireland, and some good might
be accomplished, but, at all events, if they persisted in
throwing th© whole burden of the poor upon the land the
time soon come when Ireland would he entirely de-
pendent upon England.—(Hear, hear.) lle agreed with
the Noble Lord at the head of the Government that
Ireland was not over-populated, but there could be
no doubt that there were certain districts labouring
from what the Noble Lord properly called " local con-
gestion," which resulted from the circumstances of the
people of those districts having hitherto sub-
sisted almost entirely upon the potato, and
the failure of the land in producing that root,
had rendered it incapable of supporting the
masses that were congregated upon it.—(Hear, heir.)
Mr. Otway, one of the witnesses examined
before the Poor-law Committee bore out this view
of :the case, that gentleman was asked how he
accounted for the destitution of these districts, and his
answer was that the land was insufficieent to support the
poor upon.
An HON. MEMBER—And a foolish answer it was.
Mr. B. OSBORNE proceeded—Some Hoe. Gentle-
man remarked, "And a foolish answer it was;"
but if that Honourable Gentleman would take the
trouble to reflect that the land had become too
impoverished to grow anything else but potatoes, he
would see at once that it was quite reasonable to sup-
pose that it could not produce food enough
to support the people upon it.—(Hear, hear.)
If the Noble Lord's Government deserved the name of
one, it ought not to throw itself on the charity of the
House, but ought to come forward with some definite plan
which would do away with elemoeinary relief, and place
the people of Irelaud in a situation to maintain
themselves, and by which those enormous
sums of money which had been wasted by the
House might be saved to this country
The poor laws did not add to the resources or the capital
of the country, but tended rather to diminish them.
He had himself been obliged to discharge a
number of labourers in consequence of having
been obliged to pay last year 1,000/. for poor-rates, and
yet they were told the property of Ireland must support
the poor population. That was a most dangerous doctrine
to promulgate, and they might talk of Louis Blancism;
and speaking of that gentleman, he would do him the
justice to say that he did dot support the
ateliers nationaux ; and they might talk of
Paulet Scropersin—(Laughter)—but he would say that
the doctrine that property was responsible for poverty
was nothing but a system of legalized communism.
—(Loud cries of Hear, hear.) There must be other
measures besides a poor-law, and he would ask the
Government what were they to be ? The Noble
Lord was bound to introduce a Bill to enforce the
sale of those lands which did not pay their
portion of the poor-rates.—(Hear.) There seemed to be
on idea iu the House that the poor-law would promote
the sale of estates in Ireland, but that was one of the
greatest fallacies in the world.
(LEFT SPEAKING.)

The Right Honourable the Speaker gave his
fourth Parliamentary entertainment, this session, on Satur-
day last, at his official residence in Eaton-square, on which
occasion the following Members of the House of Commons
honoured the Right Honourable Gentleman by their com-
pany to dinner :—Viscount Mandeville, Lord Brooke, the
Right Hon. J. C. llerries Sir Lucius O'Brien, Bart., Sir
Henry Meux, Bart., Sir Henry Halford, Bart., Sir W. Jollitle,
Bart., Sir Arthur B. Brooke, Bart., Sir Alexander Hood,
Bart., Sir John Tyrell, Bart., Major Beresford, Captain
Henry G. Bolder°, Air. Benjamin Disraeli, Mr. George
Bankes, Mr. Thos. E. Taylor, Mr. Joseph Napier,. Mr. John
Stuart, Mr. Augustus Stafford Mr. Forbes Mackenzie, Mr. P.
Miles, Mr. Richard S. Bourke, Mr. D. Waddington, Mr. R.
C. Hildyard, Mr. Thomas R. T. Hildvard, Mr. Thomas
Baring, &c. The Marquis of Chandos, the Earl of March,
the Alarquis of Granby, and the Right Hon. C. E. Law,
were, from various causes, prevented dining with the Right
Hon. Gentleman.

RESPITE OP 11TyrcuELE.—We are glad to learn
that the execution of Mitchell, who was last week sentenced
to death for the murder of his illegitimate child, iu Sand-
gate, is stayed by a respite from her Alajesty.—Newcasete
Guardian