The Sun.
London, England, 1847-02-16 00:00:00

condition, on account of the previous two hard winters ; for
the people, accustomed to mild and temperate seasons, had not
laid up provisions in sufficient quantity. Disease and fever then
prevailed, and crime increased so much that they were
obliged to send three judges on the assizes to Munster and
Leinster. One of the judges had died of the gaol fever, and
the Attorney-General, who had volunteered, for a benevolent
purpose, to go on the same circuit, had died alto. The same
letter stated that the judges were offended daily with the
most miserable spectacles of expiring wretches, and the most
noisome effluvia. The Noble Lord continued to say that much
had been referred to the power of law, but he doubted whether
it could ever re-create any near approach to
an Irish Parliament. The position in which the
people of England were at present placed was, that
though straitened themselves, they were called upon
for an advance of money which it was said would be_repaid.
He would not question that the people of Ireland might really
wish to repay, but what he had doubt of was, whether they
would ever be able. But he had another reason for speaking
as he had done ; he saw that notwithstanding all the clamoured
necessity the Irish gentlemen still contrived to live in luxury
with liveried servants and their French wines ; and one thing
he would put to them was, how was it they did not pay so
many taxes as the English people? They were at least free
from those which pressed heavily on this country. There was
the income-tax, which was very heavy in its operations, though
not quite so heavy as it once was ; there were the cess-taxes,
and, he believed, the land-taxes, which they were not subject
to. (Lord Lansdowne—They pay quit rents.) Well, at least they
were free from the payment of the income and cess- taxes, amount-
ing to four millions and a half, which this c untry had to pay.
The land in Ireland did not maintain its own poor, as it did in
England. Nevertheless he admitted that something must be
done to prevent the painful state of distress iu the west of Ire-
land, for they had heard that 27,000 had come over to Liver-
pool in one month. It was quite a mistake to say that persons
who came over at the rate of nine hundred a day were emi-
grants, intending to make their way to other parts of the
world. They were professional beggars, who came there to
obtain food, and to stay until they were removed. He was told
that persons in Ireland who occupied an inferior position in life
kept servants and carriages, which a similar class in this country
would not dream of doing ; they were parties who were fit to
pay a higher tax than they did. There were very few mort-
gages in France ; but in Ireland, reckoning the value of the
rent of the land et 14,000,0001. a year, 5,000,0001. or
6,000,000/. went to the mortgagee annually. This was a
great exascerbation of the evil under which they laboured, for
the mortgagee did not care for the famine or failure of the
potato crop.—( Hear, hear.) He was sorry to have felt it his
duty to utter these unpalatable truths ; but he was not in the
position of an individual who was bestowing his own charity—
he was a law-giver and a law-maker; he was not giving away
his own money, but the money of the public, one of whose
trustees he was. The money was for the relief of the em-
ployer as well as the employed, and would in his opinion be
injurious in the end to both.
Lord LUCAN wished to ask the Noble and Learned Lord
from whom he derived his information that as many as 4,000
ejectments had been made in a short time in one part of
Ireland ?
Lord BROUGHAM said the statement was made by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer in the course of his address to
the House of Commons on Friday last, and that it was not
gainsaid by any one who heard it.
Lord LUCAN said it was stated at the last sessions at Belli.
oar 6,000 processes were issued ; now he was correct
in saying that 400 had not been issued, and they were
issued at the instance of middlemen for conacre, because no
ejectment could be made on such a process. When the Noble
Lord talked about wishing to discuss the question with great
feeling, he could not help thinking that the speech which the
Noble and Learned Lord had just delivered was more acri-
monious than any speech he had ever heard. He did not
believe one word of the statement with respect to the eject-
ments.
Lord BROUGHAM said it was stated that out of 6,200
cases 4,000 were processes, with this addition, that this
accounted for the immense number which had emigrated to
Liverpool. He naturally thought they were ejectments and
not mere processes; for what could induce persons to come
over in such large numbers, except that they had been ejected
from their holdings ?
The Marquis of WESTMEATH explained that the pro-
cesses were simply for debt, and not for ejectment.
Lord STANLEY did not wish to offer any factious oppo-
sition to the passing of the measure, but was content to take
it as a temporary measure—as one, however, which in his esti-
mation violated all the principles of political economy, and all
the rules of common sense. It was a Bill which, if it had
been submitted to him except for the purpose of meeting a
temporary calamity, and one which they all thought would
lead to the preservation of large masses of the population on
the point of perishing from famine, would have encountered
his determined opposition ; and he was satisfied that so far
from receiving the unanimous sanction of that or the other
House of Parliament, it would have been found
exceedingly difficult to have found any Member
in either House to take the responsibility of introducing it.—
( Hear, hear.) He wished in the first instance to address
himself to some of the provisions of the 8,11, for the purpose
of showing their Lordships, mere especially after the speech
which had been delivered by his Noble and Learned Friend, in
which he thought he threw too severe a censure on the conduct
of Irish landlords, the almost irresponsible power which it
would place in the hands of the Government and of the local
committees till applied under the Act. He wished their
Lordships and the country to understand, and to have placed
before them the way in which Irish landlords had voluntarily
consented to be taxed for the relief of the indigent in their
own neighbourhoods, and how they had consented to have that
relief dispensed. He did not think there was an instance in
which so much power was sought to be placed in the hands of
any Government as was sought by this hill. There was the
power of local taxation to an almost unlimited amount, and of
issuing money from the Treasury without the control of the
Executive qovernment of the country. It appeared that the
Lord-Lieutenant was author iced to appoint a certain number
of persons to act in the capacity of relief commissioners, who
had unlimited power of appointing as many officers, and with
as large salaries as might be required by the exigencies of the
case. First of all, the Lord-Lieutenant was to issue orders,
that in any electoral district, or any division of it, which he
might think fit to constitute, a committee should be constituted
as a relief committee, which, with the exception that the resi-
dent justices within that district, and the elected guardians.
must be guardians of it, was to be constituted by the sole will
and pleasure of the Lord-Lieutenant. The inspector was also
to be a member of it. This power of the Lord-Lieutenant
might lead to the exclusion of the landed proprietors
of the district. Mere committees had to frame lists
containing the names of those whom they considered fit
recipients of relief, with unlimited poser to select these in-
dividuals, and with unlimited power as to the number who were
to be placed on the lists, and receive relief; and this committee,
so constituted, was authorised to expend certain sums of
money which they and the Lord-Lieutenant might think fit for
the relief of those individuals. It might be said that there was
a check put upon any undue expenditure by the finance com-
mittee. It was a check, but the check was only upon the local
authorities, and not upon the Government. It was true the
Lord-Lieutenant had the power of altering or amending the
expenditure of those committees ; but he might amend the
expenditure by increasing it—at least there was nothing in the
Act to prevent him from doing so. The expenditure was,
therefore, at the option of the three or four persons who con-
stituted the committee, one of whom was the Government
inspector, and who were appointed at the will and pleasure Ed
the Lord-Lieutenant, to incur what expenses they thought
proper-there was no restriction. It was just possible
that they might consist of parties who were not
responsible for one farthing of the expenditure they
incurred ; and let it be borne in mind—let it be
in the recollection of their Lordships, that the measure had re
ceived the consent of the Irish Members of Parliament, and of
Irish Peers in that House, so deep was their sense of the pre-
sent calamity, so anxious was their desire to do all in their
power to meet an appalling emergency. He did not say that
their conduct was reckless ; but he said so simply to show the
great lengths they were prepared to go rather than allow the people
to die from famine. It showed that Irish proprietors were dis-
posed to entrust unlimited power of taxing the whole
property they possessed in the hands of those corn-
mittees.—(Hear, hear.) He would say that they had con-
sented to place their whole property in the kends of an irre-
sponsible tribunal. The way in which, without distinction of
party or political feeling, they had rendered the control of
their whole property, or rather the taxation of their whole
property, into the hands of the Government, and ot the Lord-
Lieutenant, not only for the relief of those on their own pro-
perty, but those in their immediate neighbourhood, showed
that at that moment the Irish landowner did not deserve to
have imputed to him that he was indifferent to the sufferings
of the people, and that they were unwilling to take upon their
own shoulders the burden of supporting the people.— ( Hear,
hear.) Then with regard to the British people, this Bill gave,
for the first time, most extraordinary powers, because power
was granted to the Executive to dispose of British money for
the relief of distress in Ireland.—(Hear, hear.) It
was true the Bill stated that the loans for this pur-
pose should be limited to 300,000/. ; but unless he
misunderstood the Bill, it gave, over and above, powers, with
regard to which no limit was placed, as it gave the Commis-
sioners of the Treasury power to make grants of whatever sum
they might think proper in aid of the subscription raised in
various parts of Ireland in aid of alleviating the prevailing dis-
tress.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE—Sums voted for that pur-
pose—sums granted from time to time for that purpose by
Parliament.
Lord STANLEY admitted that so far he was in error ; but
of the definite sums they had nu means of judging. The
Bill, as he had said, was no doubt of a most
orancptioual I..itatcu,tor, aunt r iultatrit every principle ot political
economy. It might leave, as his Learned Friend had said, be-
hind it some evil, though it might do some immediate good.
It would lead the people to an habitual dependence upon the
people of this country for support when their country was
afflicted by any similar calamity. Were their Lordships pre.
pared to overlook them ? The other House had overlooked
them before the prominent consideration that the people of
Ireland should not be allowed to starve. There were no other
considerations which could have justified the introduction of
the Bill. The powers granted by it with regard to many
public measures were almost unlimited, and with regard to the
local taxation of Ireland absolutely unlimited. It was to the
credit of the Irish proprietors of land, that not one word of
complaint had been offered as to the extent in which the whole
property was to be encumbered by taxation by irresponsible
authorities. That was one of the provisions of this Bill, and
which, perhaps, he should say, was more objectionable than
any of the others. It was a greater power than was ever before
vested in any irresponsible body—that not only they should fix
the amount of taxation for particular districts, but that they
should declare, according to their will and pleasure, who were
the persons who were to be called upon to pay it. That pro-
vision, strong as it was, was, in his opinion, infinitely less
objectionable and dangerous than the one which was to be
given to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, who was not only to
have the power of saying that A should pay for A's poor, and
B for B's poor, or A and B together should pay for their poor,
but the power of saying that A, B, and C, being together,
should pay conjointly for the district which they occupied, and
for which C might not be responsible for the inhabitancy of a
single poor person. The power was unlimited. He did not
doubt that it would be wisely and properly exercised, but it was
an enormous power to vest in any single person..fi
was,
es
than He was not
going, as he said before, objectionable as
sug-
gest any alteration ; he would rather
was left with her Majesty's Government, that
any attempt should be made to alter or ma-
thtahte the
rpontsoibifityterially amend the Bili. He would rather it
should at once be passed. This was a great national emer-
gency, and these powers the Govfiedence, rnment deemed indispens-
able. pen
able. They asked for their con
given to them to the fullest and most
' nd
unlimitedus that there were some provisions
of this Bill which ought to be amended, yet, under these pe-
bd passeing aatsempipop
eraorsyedy
on:,
and it
extent;ougt to
and,
be
although he was conscious
the Government, than that their Lordships should attempt to
amend that which in all its provisions was so exceptional,
ietu lwi a
ornl
d circumstances,
h e bette r
that and t thhee
B as
that it would be difficult to interfere with it. That far which
measure
suhroeul
he rose principally was to express his earnest hope that on
this proposition—considering the readiness which the Irish
Members and proprietors in the other House of Parliament
had shown to meet the views of Government, in legislating
for an immediate remedy for a temporary but most formidable
emergency, the Government would be cautious how they ap-
proached the subject of a more permanent relief.—( Hear,
hear.) The esil which might be done by improv,ueut legis-
lation for the next eight months might be inconsiderable, but
the evil which it would do if they introduce]