The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-09 00:00:00

sdtrimnogsetnarduous had it
wdiassoc.fnotuenntd, necnens(siary
ato
‘a.etryonce represts thlQewevilwrosf
pa-sed to enforce a labour-rate,dee lan
employment in a particular district proved for all who had to
.w.tiftohr
800 it. plefrtehoenrsewwheans
must of necessity fail in their object b
for there were a thousand who required subsistence, tehneyy.
to
if he °would so adapt it
permanent
Scrape)
ewlieofo.ldle.fol.
athrreanTonn.
ibeeeßmillears
teShntiranolegulediiikTeto meet a temporal evil;
inensition, and enable t.he peoupt
rove
of
great, nay of im-
that it might enable its administratorsi afrsotmateonoef
state :o another, thehneit
wouldmlg therefore recommend him
yt omPaests
mouse tlervn:.ne and, .
(Sir W. Somerville), and to
to accept the prop,
(the Secretary for beim.- ~w Commission for Eng-
sition. of the Right Hop. q entleroart
submit the Bill to the Poor-lee
land.—(Cheers.)
Mr. FOX said that the Hon. Member for Stroud ban
already proposed to submit it to that tribunal, but he
trusted, that such a proposition would not be adopted,
for he believed that the state of Ireland was quite mils-
on,:erstood, and the sooner some such test as this was ap-
lied to
elendthehette r. 'The samevagnenessof expres-
pioon which hae4
distinguished the poor-lawcommissioners
s
of Ireland had alw:'r3 marked their di,patchee, and if
which occurred in the unions
the lavish expenditure
there were repressed the rate= would meet the expenses.
Mr. SHARMAN CRAW r ORD asked the House
whether it was not necessary that FitZmething should be
done to encourage the employment of ;sbour in Ire-
land.—(Hear, hear.) He did not pretend to say
that the Bill was not liable to objection,
but under the present circumstances it was feepoisible to
frame any measure which would be less objectionable.
One of the evil effects of the poor-law was that those
who gave employment to a reasonable number of
labourers could not exempt themselves from
the overwhelming taxation which pressed upon
them for the relief of the able-bodied poor.
The object of the Bill was an application to the
guardians to exempt a person who exployed an average
number of labourers on his land from the rate for the
able-bodied poor. The preeent system of the poor-law
in Ireland was :he cause of ma4h demoralization, and he
trusted, that as this measure would amend one of its
most glaring defects, aed was calculated to do much
good, the House would not reject it on the present
occasion.
Mr. E. DENISON said that thousands of able-bodied
labourers were standing idle in Ireland, while thousands
of acres of land remained uncultivated, and if the House
did not take advantage of that opportunity to promote
the employment of labour, and to prevent the cultivation
of the land for another year, he thought that the conse-
quences would be universal ruin and fumine.—(Hear.)
Sir G. GREY said it was owing to a mistake that the
Bill had been read a second time, and the House would,
therefore, have to give expression to its opinion with re-
gard to it upon the question of the committal of the Bill.
The principle of the measure, which he thought would
reduce wages to a minimum, had been tried in England
some years ago, and the most convincing teeitimony was
then produced, which satisfied the House and the public
that it was a vicious one, and would defeat the object
which they all had in view—viz., the application of
capital to the employment of laboute—(Hear.) The
remedy for the existing evil he thought was be 'found
in land being placed in the hands of persons of capital,
who had both skill and enterprise to apply labour in a
beneficial manner.—(Hear, hear.) From the recent
accounts received from Ireland it appestred that there
were great hopes of an improved state of thins in those
parts which were considered to be in a most destitute
condition. He had received a letter from a gentlem,:n
who had acquired a competence in an English manufac-
turing town, and who had taken a lease of some pre-
perty in Ireland with a determination to settle upon it,
stating that there was nothing dispiriting or discouraging
in the prospects of that country, and that the people
cheerfully gave their labour for Bd. a day. He (Sir G.
Grey) believed that in the efforts of an enterprising gen-
tleman like that was to be found the real cure for
the condition of some parts of Ireland.—(Hear, hear.)
The Bill would not effect the object which its supporters
had in view, and although it was only In be of a tempo-
rary nature, he trusted that the House would be careful
in sanctioning a principle which was so destructive to
honest industry and to a sound system for the proper cul-
tivation of the land.—(Heer, hear.) He hoped that it
would not consent to the Bill being referred to a Com-
mittee up stairs.
Mr. STAFFORD attributed much of the existing
evils of Ireland to the extended area of taxation. In
the county to which the Right Hon. Gentleman, the
Member for Tamworth, was connected—the county of
Clare—in that county the Right Hon. Baronet stated
there had been upwards of 15,000 evictions. That
might be all very true; but if any Hon. Member would
inquire, he would find that the greatest number of evic-
tions had taken place in those electoral areas which were
the largest; and it would appear that the numbers were
just in proportion to the extent of the area.—(Hear,
hear.) One witness before their Committee bad
declared that in some instances the areas ex-
tended to as many as 12,000 acres, in others to
more, and in one instance to as many as 17,000 acres.—
(Hear, hear.) After all, the question would still aed
still revive—What was an able-bodied labourer ? Here
was a great practical difficulty in giving a proper answer
to that question. In order to carry out the full principle
of the Bill, they must give a ratio of wages on which all
persons should be bound to act ; and without some such
provision as this, they would be adopting a principle
~
which, obnoxious in England, wuld be perfectly
impracticable in Ireland. The Honourable Gentle-
man who had so strongly put to the House the idea of
so many labourers in Ireland standing idle on so many
thousand acres, had said, let this arrangement
be lett to the board of guardians. With this sugges-
tion he quite agreed, for every Bill that had lately been
laid on the table of the House had had the effect of in
creasing more and more the power in the hands of the
central commissioners in Dublin.—(Hear, hear.) This,
to say the least of it, was an unwholesome doctrine, and
he conceived that the greater the check given
to such a system, the better. Wherel er the
guardians did their duty, he should say
leave the arrangements of all their local affairs to local
management. Feeling that this Bill could not possibly
be amended to any efficient purpose in Ireland, he should
vote against its going into Committee.—(Hear.)
Colonel DUNNE said that, as the Honourable Mem-
ber for Stroud had expressed a willingness to have the
details of the Bill altered in Committee, he should differ
with the Honourable Member for Northamptonshire.
The Hon. and Gallant Member then went into a series of
details to show that the number of labourers employed in
the cultivation of the soil in England was greatly inferior in
proportional numbers to those employed in the cultiva
tion of the soil in Ireland, anu said that this Bill
was divided into two parts—one, which provided that
those unions which were loaded with the relief of the
entirely destitute' were to be absolved from the suppor
of the able- bodied paupers; and the other, that where i
was necessary to support the able bodied poor, the rate

payers should be relieved from the support of the desti-
tute. The Bill evidently recognised the fact which none
could gainsay, and that was, that they must support both
those classes of poor, either with work or without work.
He preferred the latter, and approving of the principle
of the Bill, although objecting to several of its details,
he should certainly vote for its being carried into Com-

mittee.—(Cheers )
Lord BERNARD said that the principle of this Bill
was one which reduced itself to an absurdity. It was
❑either more nor less than saying to a machine that the
machine shall work whether its work would be service-

able or not—just saying that a shoemaker should be
compelled to make shoes whether he could sell them

or itot.—(Laughter.) Whether the late Govern-
ment liked to hear it or not, the Honour-

able Member for Northamptonshire had spoken
neither more nor less than the truth—that the whole

source of the evils consisted in the extent of the elec-

toral areas. In the district of Bandon which herepre-
sented there was abundant opportunity for gathering
evidence upon the subject. It was wated from one end

to another:that if the vareas were reduced, they would
cake the whole of the inmates out of the workhouses.—

(Hear, hear.) Thinking that the principle of the Bill
was bad, he should vote against its committal.
Mr. REYNOLDS said that nothing, he conceived,
could be more erroneous than the supposition that the
evils of Ireland were owing to the mischiefs of ex-
tended areas of taxation.—(Hear, hear.) The
abject of this Bill was to give employment to the
able-bodied poor, but the question arose as to who the
able-bodied really were, for it would appear that at the
present time there werereally very few able-bodied poor
left in the country, at least in the west and south. In-

deed, how could it be so, when they recollected
that the whole amount of out-door relief given to an
able-bodied labourer was one pound of prepared Indian
meal during the twenty-four hours ? And under
that system, while the iron-hearted political ec,,no-
mists of that House were day by day putting
forth their theories, the people were becoming
day by day neither more nor less than inanimate skele•
tons.—(Hear, bear.) It was with an infinitude of plea-
sure that he had the other day heard his Right Hon.
Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer read a letter
from Mr. Rourke, the Poor-law Commissioner in Ire-
land, in which he stated that distress was subsiding in
Ireland, but he had a very different account to give, and
he would only read one extract from the Freeman's Jour-
nal of yesterday ; and it was to the effect, that at a
meeting of the guardians of the Lnion of Killekeen,
Mr. Daly, a guardian, had reported that a farmer
in the neighbourhood having had _ a mare die

'rom fever, in less than two hours, such was the wane

in the district, the skin was off, and the people were
feeding upon the head and entrails of the animal.—
(Hear, hear.) Instances were abundantly cited of the
impoverishment of the inhabitants to such a degree that
it was only necessary to allude to one. In Ballinasloe,
genrrally considered one of the best towns in Ireland,
and under one of the best landlords, Lord Clontarf—Aid
though he differed from him in politics he
must give him that credit—in Ballinasloe it was a fact
that the inmates of the workhouse were absolutely
more numerous than the inhabitants of the town -
-(Hear, hear.) In another case a man was carrying a
coffin to bury the body of his brother, and when he had
got about within two miles of the hovel where the dead
man lay, he sunk down in a state of exhaustion and died
upon the road ; and they were both buried together the
next day in the same grave.—(Hear, hear.) He was in- 1

duced to name this, the more especially because it was
notorious that throughout the whole of the distressed
districts the bodies of the dead were lying in
a state of nakedness, and the country was too
poor to procure coffins in which to bury them.
The object of the Bill was to exempt from the poor•rate
those districts which gave employment to labDurers, and
to lay a charge upon grass lands which were not, but
might be cultivated in other districts, and thus while the
measure forced persons to employ the able-bodied poor,
it would also increase the amount of agricultural pro-
duce in Ireland. lie looked, therefore, upon the second
reading as a fortunate, and not unfortunate mistake, and
hoped that the House would consent to the measure.