The Sun.
London, England, 1847-05-21 00:00:00

to more effectually removing the evils of the present sys-
-1 tem, without adding to the power of the Minister, or
he was afraid the time would come when the people
would take the matter into their own hands.—(Cheers.)
Mr. Y. SCROPE said it had been remarked by other
Members who had previously spoken, besides those who
I had jUat sat down, that this discussion had brought
forth three or four different subjects, each of them
differing from the other. First, there was the question
of the Bill before the House ; secondly, the question
which was raised by the amendment of the Hon. Mem-
ber for Knaresborough, as to the merits or demerits of
tlis‘, Poor-law Amendment Act of 1834 ; and, thirdly,
there was the question of the merits and personal con.
duct of the Poor-law Commissioners themselves.—
(Hear, hear.) lie agreed with the Hon. Gentleman who
last spoke as to the difficulty he had pointed out in the
existing system, such as the inefficient remuneration
given to the chaplain and medical officer of parishes,
and the distinction that was made between the religious
instruction of the pauper and the criminal; but these
were matters for after consideration. The real question
for them now to consider was, whether the present Poor-
law Commission was good; but before considering that
point, he must first ascertain what was the
principle of the Act of 1844.—(Hear, hear.)
The principle of the Poor-law Amendment Act was the
removal of local abuses, and to that principle he asserted
at the time the measure was introduced, He thought,
however, that to abolish the commission altogether was
not the way to get rid of local abuses. That was one
reason of the unpopularity which the commission had
met with, for in consequence of their seeking to put down
speculation, favouritism, and jobbing, a strong opposition
was excited against them. Another reason of the great
unpopularity, was the prepossession against the exclu-
sive workhouse test to the able-bodied poor, which had
not the effect, as was anticipated, of raising the wages
of the labourer. The poor law was the very worse of
the allowance, system. The latter applied no tests, the
firmer applied the labour tests, and tended to bring
back the pauper to the condition of a labouring man.
There was a confusion in the mind of some upon these
two very different systems. He always disapproved of
the allowance system. At the same time time there was
much to be said against the union workhouses. It
might be too much to say with the Hon. Member
for Knaresborough to call them gaols, but the defence of
these same receptacles, by the Learned Member for
Bath, was very humble, when all that he could say to
show that they were not gaols was, that the inmates
could walk out when they pleased. But it must be ad-
mitted, with a recent author, that there was a reason
difficult to express. Why, every decent man, much more
every decent woman, felt they ought not to be there.

On the motion of an IloN.ltlviinEß, the House was
counted, but there was a sufficient number of Members
present.
Mr. P. SCROPE continued—He thought very much
must be left to the Central Commission. He would
give his support to the measure before the House, but
he trusted that by amendments yet to be introduced the
Bill would be carried out in the manner he had pointed
out.
Sir W. JOLLIFFE said that, after what had fallen
from the Hon. Member for Stroud, there was little left
for him, although he thought that the Hon. Member had
altogether seemed to mistake what had fallen from the
Hon. Member for Oxfordshire. He appeared to think
that that Hon. Member objected to a central control.
Now the Hon. Gentleman had advocated the necessity
for a central board of control. He regretted that he
could not coincide in all the opinions advanced by the
Noble Lord who had sat as chairman on the Andover
Union Committee. He had to defend the Poor-law
Commissioners in dismissing the Assistant-Commis-
sioners, and he alleged that they were justified in that
course; because Mr. Parker, one of these assistants, had
conducted the inquiry into the practices at Andover in a
very partial manlier. No wonder that Mr. Parker should
have exhibited something like partiality. The Poor-law
Commissioners had sent him down to his own district to
make these inquiries, and they it was who were to blame.
and not Mr. Parker. The Noble Lord did acknowledge
that the proceedings against Mr. Parker might appear
on the part of the commissioners irregular and arbitrary,
he (Sir W. Jolliffe) thought they were more than arbi-
trary, he thought that they had been also illegal, and
altogether at variance with the Act under which they
had been constituted. He felt in as full force as the
Hon. Member for Oxfordshire the defects of the Bill as
at present proposed, and he trusted that in order
to make it what it was intended to be, considerable im-
provements would be introduced into it. He bad ever
endeavoured, as an ex officio guardian, to carry out this
law in a humane and lenient manner; but he had always
found that there were inherent evils in itself which could
not be overcome. One of the greatest evils of the
law as at present administered was the admission
of the able-bodied poor into the workhouses for the
House might rest assured that no order or regularity
could be observed in these establishments as long as this
class was admitted. _ .

Sir JOHN W ALSII regretted that the Hon. Baronet
had felt it necessary to advert to the proceedings of the
Andover Union,as that inquiry had already occupied the
greater portion of last Tuesday's discussion. He (Sir J.
Walsh), as one of the Members of that House who
was obliged to give his attendance during these sixty
days, deemed it right that he should state a few of the
reasons which had led him to a conclusion somewhat
different from that arrived at by a majority of the meet- ,
ing ; and in the first place, it should be remem-
bered, that the Poor-law Commissioners were ar-
raigned before a most severe and stringent tri-
bunal. It should be remembered that as the wielders
of an obnoxious power the commissioners were
themselves unpopular; it should be further remembered
that the Committee was comprised of a great number of
Hon. Gentlemen well acquainted with these inquiries,
and in particular there was one Hon. and Learned
Member who acted as the advocate of Mr. Parker, and who
took throughout a course, the most hostile to the commis-
sioners. He would say that it was impossible for any pub-
lic men to submit to a more severe ordeal than they were
subjected to during the whole investigation. It
was also to be recollected that the commissioners
were also subjected to the suggestions and the in-
formation which a person thoroughly acquainted
with their every act, who had been admitted
into the most intimate confidence of the commissioners,
who was familiar with the whole course of their conduct,
and who was, I must say, most unscrupulous—(Cheers)
—inasmuch as he was prepared to make use of any in-
formation which he received in the strictest confidence,
however private. No passing expression of opinion
on any subject, however confidential, that Mr. Parker
was not ready to bring forward before the Committee in
violation, as he (Sir J. Walsh) must say, of all those
rules which he did think it was of the utmost importance
to the public service, as well as the security of private
society, ought to be kept up.—(Cheers.) The fact was
perfectly admitted that great evils existed in the union
workhouse, but those were not attributable to the com-
missioners. But the main question was the treatment
which the Assistant Poor-law Commissioners received
at their hands—and here he might remark that the
Assistant Poor-law Commissionership was not an office
of that permanent character which some gentlemen
suppo,ed it to be, it was always understood
to be rather of a temporary character, and therefore
dismissals and changes ought to have been suffered, and
were so, without either complaint or remonstrance. If
they all admitted the power of a central authority, they
should all admit the perfect right to check and control
their subordinates. Witb regard to the case of Mr. Day,
he must say that that gentleman appeared before the
Committee with every advantage upon his side ;
he had been led to suppose, through
some misunderstanding, that he had been clls•
placed to make way for some other officer, which
as soon as it was explained to him, he at once admitted
his error. Mr. Day was a most excellent person, and a
man of very considerable talent, but he rendered himself
very unpopular while discharging the duties of a Poor-
law Commissioner, in a very critical period, namely,
during the Rebecca riots ; and it was, therefore, a matter
of great importance that ho should be removed. In his
opinion, they acted with regard to Mr. Day perfectly in
accordance with the nature of the discretion imposed on
the commissioners, who embraced the capability of the
person who was employed. With respect to Mr. Par-
ker, it does not appear a very strange circumstance that
a resolution should be carried that he had not conducted
the inquiry at Andover with impartiality, and then
that a cry should be made at the treatment which be had
received. That would be removing all the discretionary
power, which ought to rest in the hands of the commis-
sioners. And now, with regard to the Bill itself, he must
say that, although always a friend to the new poor-law,
it was with great difficulty that he gave his adhesion to
it. The Ministry would be very assailable from the
modification which it was intended to introduce, but he
should not carry his opposition so far as to object to the
second reading.
Mr. FLOYER said that be considered it was rather
painful and humiliating, that after a period of thirteen
years, since the passing of the Poor-law amendment,
and after the numberless Committees which had sat up
stairs, that the result of their labours should be the
removal of the Act of last session, and the
present Bill, which did not, by any means, grapple
with the real or fundamental part of the question.
There was a provision that should enable Members of
this board to sit in the House. He thought that in
some points of view, that that was a beneficial arrange-
ment, but there were also many objections to it. The
Right ion. Baronet had, however, stated his views so
clearly upon the subject, that he thought that the ba-
lance was, upon the whole, in favour of the proprietor.
In looking through the Bill, he thought that there were
the only provisions of any real importance in the mea•
sure. It was true that a central authority must be
maintained as long as the Act of 1834 was kept
in operation in all the unions to which the
order of the commissioners applied. The able
bodied pauper was disentitled from receiving any relief
except in the workhouse. The measure might be right
in some points, but it certainly was one of very consider-
able pressure npon the poor man, and it would often add
that last weight to the difficulties of the poor man which
would ruin and sink him. There was another part of
the power of the Poor-law Commissioners, namely, the
power of making regulations for the workhouses. The
Right Honourable Baronet the Home Secretary,
had alluded to that the other night, and com-
pared it to the power of the visiting magistrates. But
how was the power of visiting magistrates exercised.
They must go in accordance with the rules laid down by
the Acts of Parliament. In this measure the Court had
absolute and undivided authority to pass such rules, and
' he did think that the House would have well occupied its
time in framing these regulations instead of discussing
whose importance was nothing in
many other measures,
comparison to it. In the year 1836, when boards of
guardians were formed,anditors among other officers were
I appointed they continued to Is.- in ffit.fa about 10 years.
bat a subsequent regulation altered the mode of their
• election. Considerable abuses had since, in several
• instances which ho could mention, crept in, and the
performances of some of those officers was by no means
ltn conformity with the Act under which their duties were

TILE SUN, LONDON,

specified. He thought it most desirable that when this
I measure was brought under discussion in the House,
that the House should have been prepared to deal
with it on a wider and more extended scale.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL then rose and said—Mr.
Speaker, Sir, it has been very justly said that in the
course of this debate, not one question alone, but three
questions. have been under discussion ; and tt.ose three
questions have been mixed with various others, of which
it is hardly possible to take any sufficient notice, and
much less to settle, in the course of this debate. Yet,
Sir, I cannot avoid, before I proceed immediately to
speak to the question of the second reading of this Bill,
adverting in some degree to the important questions no
doubt connected with it, and on which some Honour
able Members have already spoken at considerable
length—l mean especially the question of the poor
law amendMent itself, and the question of the
administration of that law under the Poor-law Com-
missioners, as brought to light by the voluminous
evidence given before Cie Andover Committee. Now,
Sir, with respect to the poor-law amendment itself, let
Hon. Gentlemen consider what was the nature of that
kind of administration which the poor-law amendment is
intended to supersede ; how far it was liable not only to
the objection of abuse, and of corrupting the labourer
of the country, and of destroying his property, but like-
wise to some of the very objections brought against the
present system. We were told that here was an arbi-
trary power given to a single commissioner—a power at
variance with the constitution—that any three men
should have a power to make laws which should regu-
late the laws and conditions on which relief should be
given to the pauper population of this country. ‘'‘ ill
you have again this state of poor-law administra-
tion—(Hear, hear)—because I am not without
apprehension that unless this House is determined to
persevere in the present system in its plan and objects,
we may, in a few years, find ourselves again falling into
the system of vicious legislation.—(Cheers.) Sir, it un-
fortunately happened that the price of provisions rose
toward the end of last century to be extremely high, far
above any period that had been marked for severity
previously, and there was a great difficulty on the part
of the labourers in being able to provide for the sub-
sistence of themselves and their families out of the wages
which they received. What was the course adopted ?
A certain nuteber of justices assembled together, and
made a new law on this subject. They made a law, in
total disregard of the law of Elizabeth—they
made a law that the labouring man receiving
wages should have a certain amount paid out of the
poor-rate, which was to be measured by the price of
the quartern loaf, and the food on which he was ex-
pected to live ; and reference was also had to the num-
ber of his family, and the mode in which they were to
subsist. Now it was quite evident that the poor-law of
Elizabeth never contemplated such a measur. The Act
of Elizabeth provided for the poor children who were
left:destitute and unprotected; as for the able-bodied la-
bourers who might be idL and out of work, it set them
to work and, as the condition of their work, provided
that they should be paid out of the rates to be raised in
the parish or district. Such was the principle of the
law of Elizabeth, as read in the House by the Hon. and
Learned Member for Bath, on the last day of the de-
bate ; but the plan of giving an addition to the
wages, and giving that addition out of the district
rates, giving it also without Providing employment,
such a plan was at total variance with the letter and
with the spirit of the Act of Elizabeth, and yet, Sir,
those gentlemen who complained of the unconstitutional
nature of this power should be aware that that change
in the law was made solely by resolutions adopted at a
meeting of justices.—(Hear, hear, and laughter.) Sir,
the first meeting of this kind was held in the
county of Berk s, and afterwards similar meetings
were held in the various counties in the kingdom, but
in which no other rule than their own was discussed.
Their decision was perfectly arbitrary. There is no
doubt that the new law was adopted with the view of
benefiting the people. They thought it was desirable
to pass this law in order to enable the people to have
something beyond their wages on which to subsist.
They did not allow the ordinary rules of society to
have their sufficient weight, by which wages would un-
doubtedly in time have been raised ; they interfere with
the Act of Elizabeth with a benevolent intention, but in
a manner totally arbitrary, and solely regulated by their
own view of public expediency and public safety.
Yet to whom are those magistrates responsible ? Sir,
the Chancellor would not dismiss them from the com-
mission of the peace because they had acted from the
benevolent intention of providing for the labourers of
the country in the exercise of the power entrusted to
them; to dismiss them from the commission of the peace
would not, therefore, be just towards them, acting as
they had from a mistaken sense of duty. But are those
commissioners of whom we are now speaking ? They
can be dismissed to day, or at any hour, at the pleasure
of the Crown, represented by the Right Hon. the Secre-
tary of State. If the Secretary of State defends them
when they do wrong, if their rules and regulations were
not conforming to the laws as decided by this House
and the other House of Parliament, being under the su-
pervision of the Secretary of State, they were also liable
to this second check and control; thus they were not
invested with that power and that authority which
existed before the amended Poor•law Bill was enacted.
But it was found, that although the legislative enactment
was a just one—although it was made with a benevo-
lent intention, and a desire to elevate the condition of
the people—it led to gross abuses. These abuses have
been stated at great length, and they have
been illus'rated by an evidence of the most over-
whelming kind, from the reports of the Commissioners
of Enquiry. I need scarcely advert to the various points
contained in this report, or to the mode in which those
abuses were known to spring up; to the manner in which
the vestries had abused their power ; to the manner in
which tho labourer was reduced to the lowest possible
wages, and was dismissed in certain cases by the far-
mers for a day or a day and a half, and thrown upon the
rates. The intention was good, but the effect was not
so. The Act of Elizabeth was intended to raise the
pauper class to the condition of independent labourers,
while the effoct of this enactment was to reduce the inde-
pendent labourer to the condition of a pauper.—
( Hear.) The whole country was overspread with labourers
receiving support, and a portion of their assistance
from the poors-rate, depending on the vestry for elee-
mosynary aid; depending on the individual caprice of
the members of those vestries, who took their own dis-
likes against particular labourers, and regulated accord-
ing to those feelings of spite, the relief which ought to
have been given according to the law. But, Sir, when
the Government of Lord Grey attempted to reform
these abuses, it was observed that they could not do so
without encountering, and encountering not for a period
during which the Bill was passing through Parliament,
not for one year or two years, but for many years, the
most formidable opposition, and every kind of it. If I may
read an extract from Lord Althorp's speech in the year
1834, the House will see what he proposed in the Bill
which he brought forward in the name of the Grey
Administration. (The Noble Lord read the extract which
was to the effect that, the effect of the Bill would be to
stop the allowance system; to deprive the magistracy of
the power of out-door relief; to give a larger discre-
tionary power to the Poor-law Commissioners; and to
bring into a good state and condition the system of laws
and regulation for pauper relief.) Now, Sir, observe
what were the interests, what were the prejudices, what
was the power he proposed to run counter to? His first
measure was to stop the system of allowance. What
was the effect of that system? To degrade the
labourer, yet although this was a great evil, it was doubt-
less also a system of indulgence which had the appear-
ance of benefiting the labourer, and therefore could not
fail of being represented as an injury to him. The next
thing he said was that the Bill was intended to deprive
the magistrates of the power of ordering outdoor relief.
Why, although the whole body of the magistracy said
it was a power which they beneficially exercised, yet
that was not the case with the whole body of the magis-
tracy. There were many who cherished this power,
and who left not the pauper to receive relief from those
who were their own neighbours. These were popular
magistrates, to whom the improvident labourer travelled
five or ten miles out of his parish in order to
ginettereas an
parochialedvoiernsdtertrhieesi tro the overseer for outdoor relief.
The alteration which was made in the constitution of
gave
abuses.great offenceln
many t o
instancesthose
itwere
was
found that the greatest evils existed which the measure
was calculated to remove. In the parochial vestries
itnhe a parriesgrent whopro p
or hadtio n theof
eorderingases of the relief,
ms,:decoantracteifil t for
the same—(Hear, hear)—and
the transaction.—(Hear, hear.) They increasedro theiron
own funds out of the rates of the parish, and then when
the change was proposed, those and the assistants who
were under them expressed themselves shocked at the
cruelty and impiety of the new law, and the oppression
to which it subjected the poor.—(Hear, hear.) It was
therefore necessary, under such a state of things, to give
large discretionary powers to the commissioners. This
was absolutely necessary ; as the difficulty, as well as
the impropriety of acting on a uniform system was
clearly apparent. The measure had to be adapted to the
circumstances of the various districts into which
it was to be brought into operation, and
hence it was considered right to constitute a
central power with large discretionary authority.
These commissioners have been much attacked
They have,been styled threekings, tyrants, and other terms
equally opprobrious. Sir,so far from these charges being
founded in truth—so far from the commissioners being
entitled to such epithets, it can be shown, that so far
from this, they did every thing in their power to give
fair and impartial effect to the law which they were
called on to administer. In one or two instances, there
may have been some reason for calling the discretion of
the commissioners in question, and I regret that it was
so, though it is easy to conceive how much of the opposi-
tion arose from those who clung to the abuses of the old
law, and who, in consequence, declaimed about the
tyranny and oppression of the new. It was a
great question in proposing the law of 1834, as to
whose hands the administration of the measure should be
entrusted, and after much consideration the constitution
of a board of commissioners was finally adopted. To
the principle of the board the leading parties in Parlia-
ment then agreed, though in late years great objection
has been taken to the mode in which its affairs has been
conducted.—(Hear, hear.) We have heard of certain
resolutions of the Committee on the affairs of the An-
dover Union, and of the report which that Committee
made to this House. It was suggested at the time the
report was presented, that the resolutions of the Com-
mittee should be agreed to by the House, and that a mo-
tion of censure should be passed on the Poor-law Com-
missioners, founded on the allegation on that
report. This, however, was not done, and Ido
not think it was advisable. Had it been proposed I
should have felt it my duty to oppose it. Ido not by
mean to justify whet mey have taken place in con-
nexion with the Andover union. The resolutions of
the Committee may have been right or may have been
wrong, but with regard to the Committee or the conduct
of the Poor-law Commissioners, Ido tint think it was
competent ih them to tbrm an opinion of the circara-