The Sun.
London, England, 1849-02-10 00:00:00

never been brought into cultivation, but which had been
left waste, the tenants going away, leaving behind
them arrears of rent and rates. How then were they
to meet this state of, things ? That matter was one
of great and growing difficulty, because those amounts
of rates were year after year increasing, and con-
sequently year after year becoming an additionol burden
on the property. Now, how was the evil to be met? He
was opposed in principle to the Government on its own
responsibility appropriating large districts of waste land,
and employing the unemployed of the population upon
them. It was a dangerous principle in itself, and, there-
.....

Fore, he could not accede to it. He thought it, however,
lossible that some arrangement might be made for ren-

[,,ring those waste lands available for the support of the

population. In several unions, such, For insiance, as the
liilrush Union, where there was so large a number of

the population out of employment, arrangements might
he made for carrying out such a system. In unions so
circumstanced, he would suggest that the proprietors
should let on lease to the paid guardians of the poor, for
a certain number of years, those waste lands which were

so burdened with arrears of rates that no one would rent

them, and that those guardians of the poor should either
'et them on lease, free of such arrears of rate, to respon-
ible tenants who had skill and capital to cultivate them,

1r keep them in their own hands, and employ upon them
he paupers of the district, and thereby render them

available for the support and sustenance of such pauper
population, The rates due by such landlord could be
kept out of the rent paid to him by the guardians, as well
38 any demands upon him in any other part of the union.
suck a plan might be objectionable, but it appeared
to him the only mode which was in the present
circumstances of the country available. There was one
question to which he wished shortly to refer, and that
was in regard to what was said about taxing mort-
gagees for the support of the poor. That he objected
to, as whatever tax was put on the mortgagee, he would
of course raise the rate of interest ou the party of whom
he held the mortgage. He would, however, have some
'listinction made between those who were burdened with
claims in consequence of family settlements, and those
who got their properties mortgaged in consequence of
their own acts. He did not, however, offer any objection
to the appointment of a Committee, although, as he had
before stated, he felt sorry that the Noble Marquis had
adopted such a course, He did not think it right to
throw so important a question, the lamentable effects of
which question they had fully before them, upon the
wide sea of inquiry by a Parliamentary Committee, with-
out holding out the least prospect of a settlement of the
question. It was necessary that the question should be
speedily settled, that the landlords of Ireland should
know what course was to be pursued towards them in
respect to this important, question. Let them compel
those landlords to do their duty, but at the same time
they ought to enable them to do their duty. Give them,
at least, some cruse for hope that their exertions in be-
half of those of whom they were the natural guardians
might be aided and countenanced by the operation of
the law. If, on the contrary, they did not do that, but
made those landlords who did their duty support those
who did not, the result would be the same as would
follow from a dead body being attached to a living one,
no advantage could accrue to the one, while the other
would slowly but certainly die away, from the close con-
tact and corruption of the other.—(Hear, hear.)
The Marquis of LONDONDERRY would not detain
vie House after what had been said by the Noble Lord
who had just sat down.
.11.2.... complained of the appoint-

ment of a Committee without Government proposing any
positive measure on the subject. They threw upon their
Lordships the appointment of a Committee, which would
go through the whole session before their investigations
were closed, and no measure would result from their
labours in the course of the session. It would be almost

impossible for that Committee to come to a definite con-
clusion on the subject, as the opinions submitted to it
would be so various and so contradictory. He, therefore,
protested against the delay which would thus be incurred,
and called upon Government to propose a measure them-
selves, which would enable those landlords in Ireland who
were willing and anxious to do their duty, to do so
effectually.
The Marquis of CLANRICARDE considered the
course adopted by the Government the best which could
have been pursued. A Committee of investigatioU was
absolutely necessary, from the difference of opinion
which prevriled on the subject ; and he could tell the
Noble Lord (Stanley) that although he had suggested
certain modes by which the present law could be
amended, yet, upon any one of those modes there was
the greatest difference of opinion, and it would not be
safe to adopt any one of them without the fullest and
the most satisfactory investigation. He did not agree
with the Noble Lord as to its being the constitutional
duty of the Government to have introduced a measure
on the subject at once, without the aid of a Parliamentary
Committee. In certain matters of public policy the
Government might be constitutionally called upon to do
so ; but in a question such as the present, where the
amendment or abrogation of an existing law was the
matter in view, he conceived that they would not be
authorised or warranted in making such amendment
without the strictest investigation as to what amendment
was necessary. The Government, from the information
they possessed, would guide that Committee to the
consideration of the topics it was most necessary to in-
vestigate, and would be prepared immediately on the
Committee reporting to introduce a measure on the
subject. In regard to what the Noble Lord had said, as
to the report of Major Larkham, respecting the curtail-
ment of the area of taxation, he could assure the Noble
Lord that there was no suggestion in that report as to
the equalization of taxation on property, and that he
deprecated such a system as much as the Noble Lord
could do. It was, however,- a subject of much diffi-
culty, and would be submitted to the Committee for in-
vestigation. He thought the Noble Lord was wrong
when he said that the present poor-law had totally
failed in its operation. _ . .

Lord STANLEY—What I said was that in the
south and west of Ireland, and extending over Leinster
and Connaught, the poor-law had been a failure.
The Marquis of CLANRICARDE was happy to
hear the explanation, but even in those parts there
was not a word about the failure of the poor-law
until the occurrence of the famine in Ireland. In 1845
the poor-law in the west and south of Ireland worked
well, and until the pressure came there was no pressure
in those districts.

Lord STANLEY—That was not the present law.

The Marquis of CLANRICARDE : No ; but the
present law was enacted in consequence of the altered
state of matters. He was glad to hear the Noble Lord
repudiate the idea of a general taxation; and he had no
doubt that, after the investigation of the Committee,
Government would be able to introduce a measure
which would be the means of improving the present
system.
Lord MONTEAGLE was favourable to the appoint-
ment of a Committee, as it would be the means of giv-
ing information to the people of England as to the real
s►tate of the operation of the Irish poor-law. The
people of England were very apt to say to the people of
Ireland, we pay our rates and support our poor, why
don't you do so also? But the state of Ireland was
different from that of England, and the Irish poor-law
was also different from the English poor-law. Hence the
necessity for information on the subject. He said that
there was one point to which the Noble Lord (Lord

Stanley) did not advert, namely, the want of unanimit
between the landlord and tenant, such as prevails in
England; for in Ireland, in consequence of the tenant re-
fusing to pay his due quota of his rate, through inability,
or some other cause, the whole debt was thrown on the
landlord, and from such a state of things it could not
but be deemed impossible that the law could be adreinis-
terea with any system of economy. He had every hope
tlmt this Committee would remedy those evils so justly
and forcibly adverted to by the Noble Lord (Lord Stan-
ley), and that their deliberations would not be of a long
eteitinuance. as expedition was essentially requisite on
this momentous question; and he also perfectly concurred
with the Noble Lord (Lord Stanley) that the present
system of poor-laws was a total failure. It might be said
that the failure was principally owing to its improper ap-
plication, but he (Lord Monteagle) should say that no
poor -law could ever meet the case in that or any
other country; nor should it be at the same time un-
derstood that he was for a repeal of all poor-
laws for Ireland, because the present law was a failure
in consequence of giving to the guardians an unlimited
power over property. He should add that this failure
was not at all owing to a want of local exertion on the
part of the Irish landlord. He highly approved of the
principle of individualising property, so that each landed
proprietor should support the poor on his own estate,
and thought that nothing could be more unjust and irk-
some than that landlords who used every exertion to the
happiness and tranquillity of their tenantry, should be
obliged by the union system to pay a portion—a very
large portion, too—to the poor-law guardians for others
who had neglected, through dishonesty or inability, to
fulfil their obligations. The Noble Lord then alluded to
the report of Colonel Clarke, one of the officers of the
poor-law, who stated that the prevalent doctrine among
the people is that they need not work, but must be sup-
ported by the country.. He felt fully assured that the
principle of individualising property could be
carried into effect, and that much good would
arise from stch a system. He hoped that
that Mezentian principle, so aptly and judiciously,
alluded to by the Noble Lord (Lord Stanley), of binding
the living and dead together, by the union of solvent and
insolvent electoral divisions, would be duly and carefully
borne in mind by the Committee, and that the worthy,
and humane would be relieved from the contact and
contamination of those whose recklessness was so obvi-
ous to all thinking persons. He should say, in allusion
to the Noble Marquis (the Marquis of Clauricarde),
that the Noble Lord (Lord Stanley) did not by any
means intend that the surplus rate of one shilling in the
pound over the valuation rates was to go into a national
fund, but that the Noble Lord intended that it should be
applied for a specific purpose, namely, for the relief of
such unions as Ballino, and others, were distress pre-
veiled
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room, not
larger than the table of the House, there had been an
account of the number of emigrants, and of the money
they took with them, amounting, besides bullion, to
25,0001. in bills on persons in Boston and New York ;
and, therefore, to the poor-law principally could he as-
cribe this and'other injuries that were now daily the lot
of Ireland. Again, he would ask, what benefit arose
from the Bill of the Lord Chancellor? Was it not ren-
dered useless and inoperative by the claws . which were
added to it? That law of encumbered estates had never
worked any beneficial result from the time of its passing
to the present moment; in fact it had been a total failure.
He was fully assured that the expectations raised by
this law would be frustrated unless a judicious change
-were made in it, for it had been the cause not only of
dividing the landlord and tenant, who should co-operate
in the reduction of the rate, but had been, in connexion