The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-10 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT

Mr. W. 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 the cultivation of the
land for another year, he thought that the consequences
would be universal ruin and famine.—(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 yvith 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 testimony 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 labour.—(Hear.) The
remedy for the existing evil he thought was to 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 appeared that there
were great hopes of an improved state of things in those
parts which 'were considered to be in a most destitute
condition. He had received a letter from a gentleman
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. lie (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
h ad in view, and although it NVI4 only to be of a tempo-
rary nature, he trusted that the House would be careful
in -sanctioning a principle which was so destructive
honest industry and to a sound system for the proper cul-
tivation of the land.—(Hear, hear.) He hoped that it
would not consent to the Bill being referred to a Com-
mittee up stairs.

Mr. gTAFFORD attrib.ved much of the existing
evils of Ireland to the extended area of tsxstion. 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
maight 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 ef.ent ~f the area.—(llear,
hear.) One witness before their Committee had
declared that in some instances the areas ex-
tended to
,many as 12,000 acres, in others to
more, and in o. se instance to as many as 17,000 acres.—

HOUSE OF COMMONS, May 9.
(Continued from our Afternoon E.ition of yesterday.)
EMPLOYMENT OF LABOUR (IRELAND) BILL.
- Mr. P. SCROPE moved the second reading of this
Bill, and in doing so he took ooession to point out to
the House the evils which had resulted in Ireland from
not providing employment for the able-bodied poor at
a small stipend, instead of providing them with out-
door relief. It could not be said that the able-bodied
poor of Ireland were averse to work, for experiments
had been tried in some parts of Ireland, and it was found
that the poor worked very hard when employment
was given to them, and that ;hey preferred it to
out-door relief.—(Hear, hear.) Without having re-
course to the reclamation of the large tracts of waste
lands in Ireland, there were ample means and fields at
the disposal of the guardians for providing work for
their able-bodied poor, if the law only permitted them
to do so.—(Hear, hear.) The present system imposed
the responsibility of supporting the resident poor
upon the landlord.—(Hear.) It, therefore held. out a
premium to the landlord to get rid of his
poor by clearance, and thus absolve himself from em-
ploying them in the improvement of his estate.—(Hear,
hear.) Something must be done, then, to remedy that
evil. How it could be done he could not at that moment
say, but certainly the system of settlement proposed by
Government would never accomplish the object.—(Hear,
hear.) His own measure, however, would, to some ex-
tent mitigate the evil ; it made no alteration in the pre-
sent area, but it simply exempted those who found
, employment for a certain portion of the poor from being
liable to contribute to the rate for supporting the able-
, bodied poor.—(Hear, hear.) It was admitted by the
most practical men in Ireland, that if this principle
were carried out it would set most of the able-bodied
poor to work at once, instead of keeping them idle
in workhouses. The measures;of:improvement at pre-
sent propounded for the relief of the landed in-
terest of Ireland would be of no avail, for while
landlords had to pay such heavy poor-rates as were im-
posed upon them at present they could not pay interest
on borrowed money, and he hoped, therefore, this Bill
would meet with the serious attention of the House
bey ore it were rejected. —(Hear.)
The SPEAKER then put the question, and declared
the Ayes had it, when
Sir W. SOMERVILLE rose, and said, amidst some
laughter, he should oppose the Bill. He fully appre-
ciated the motives of the Honourable Gentleman
for introducing this Bill, and he thought every
Irish Member owed him a deep debt of gratitude
,for the constant endeavours he had made to remove some
of the miseries of the Irish people.—(Hear, hear.) He
could assure his Hon. Friend that the Bill would meet
with no contemptible reception from him, but at this
period of the session it was not possible to go fully into
the consideration of the subject, even though the Bill
were referred to a Select Committee, as his Hon. Friend
had suggested.—(Hear, hear.) That system could not
but lead to a direct demoralization of the country, for
the labourer would naturally give as little as possible of
his labour because he was not working for profit, which
is the legitimate object of all labour, but for relief, which
he might possibly conceive he was entitled to without
the necessary exertion.—(Hear, hear.) Beside these
objections there was still another, which was, that if
the Bill worked well in some parts of Ireland it
would be sure to work ill in others, and tend in a
greater or less degree to demoralize the labouring po-
pulation. He would not at present enter into details,
but he might simply refer to the 6th clause to exemplify
its injurious character. Had his Hon. Frieni invited
him to a discussion of its several provisions, he should
have been ready to have gone with him, but as he had
taken the course of persisting in appointing a fixed day
for the committal of the Bill, he must most decidedly
oppose him, and move that it be committed that day six
months.
The motion having been put,
Mr. P. SCROPE said that he was willing to refer
the Bill to the Poor-law Commissioners.—(Order, order.)
Mr. F. FRENCH said that he must protest against
the course which his lion. Friend behind him (Mr. P.
Scrope) had taken. It the circumstances of England
and Ireland had been the same there might have been
some reason fur such a proposition. If they would only
adopt a reasonable view of the case of Ireland, and
listen to the opinions of the residents of Ire-
land, they would know that if the people of
that country were permitted to apply their
means for the employment of labour, they would save the
whole expense of the stiff of the workhouses from one
end of the country to the other. But instead of thus
judiciously applying the funds derived from the poor-
law, they were paying nearly two millions to soldiers
every year,' for the purpose of collecting a rate from
persons who were themselves almost in a state of star-
vation, and whose condition, bad as it was at present,
was likely to be still worse. 4.early one-third of the
land in the west of Ireland was now lying in a
state of waste. In Mayo the grass lands, which
had alwarys been considered one of the strong-
holds of the wealth of Ireland, were now lying
waste. In Tipperary and Connaught the land was al-
most altogether unoccupied. He had lately met with a
Noble Lord, whose brother had extensive estates in the
south and west of Ireland, and he had told him that he
had jest come from his brother's agent, and he had told
him that out of an estate of 8,000 acres he had only
been able to let to the amount of 351. In other districts
the matter was, if possible, still worse, and unless some
means of relief were adopted, such as this Bill pointed
out, that the evils of famine and destitution would be
very largely increased.
Mr. SLANEY begged to caution the House against
too hastily adopting a measure which had eminently
failed when adopted in this country.—(Hear, hear.)
All present would remember the terrible state of distress
which had been experienced in the southern counties of
England some years ago.—(Hear, hear.) He had been
chairman of a committee appointed to examine into the
causes of that distress and the means of relieving it. It
was found necessary to at once repress the evil of
discontent, and a very stringent law was
passed to enforce a labour-rate, and most arduous had it
proved for all who had to deal with it. If there was
employment in a particular district for 800 persons when
there were a thousand who required subsistence, they
must of necessity fail in their object for promoting any-
thing like permanent relief. If the Hon. Member for
Stroud (Mr. P. Scrope) would so arrange his Bill as to
i enable it to meet a temporal evil; if he would so adapt t
that it might enable its administrators to meet a state of
transition, and enable the people thereby to pass from one
state to another, then it might prove of great, nay of im-
mense service, and he would therefore recommend him
to accept the proposition of the Right Hon. Gentleman
the Secretary for Ireland (Sir W. Somerville), and to
submit the Bill to the Poor-law Commissioners for Eng- I
land.—(Cheers.)
Mr. FOX said that the Hon. Member for Stroud had
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 mis-
understood, and the sooner some such test as this was ap-
plied to Ireland the better. The sarne vagueness of expres-
sion which had distinguished the Poor-law Commissioners
of froland had always marked their dispatches, and if
the lavish expenditure which occurred in the unions
there were repressed the rates would meet the expenses.
Mr. SHARMAN CRAWFORD asked the House
whether it was not necessary that something should be
done to encourage the employment of labour 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 impossible 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 employed an average
number of labourers on his land from the rate for the
able-bodied poor. The present system of the poor-law
in Ireland was the cause of much demoralization, and he
trusted, that as this measure would amend one of its
most glaring defects, and was calculated to do much
good, the HAtae) would not reject it on the presen
occasion.