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

................
I from being in a great degree resomsible for it actions,
but does prevent full inquiry :Ind discussio r, in this
',s
State for t ecretary
_House, which it is so desirable should be gone into. For
these reasons we are about to try that which we now
propose. You see I have stated two plans, tilt ! one re-
of
uiring a re-
f on the part o. c the 4‘
other a
direct representative of the Poor-law
be Home Department, and the
t Commissioners ind
d e ni tni
icsatlr.
this House, and irr principle
rith the poor-law They are both connected
ation and with G overnment
- -both liable to all the objections of being ca lculated to
e. [cite party oppositio
a nd Government suppr
nOas hd,
by
that
means,
get party
to that which Memb era of this
House might otherwise see
reason to object to..—(Hear,
h. ear.) I confess, however,
o,:nts-being persuaded that
yo,unotwithstanding these
must make some cen-
tr d ciLotrol—being persuaded that the system we have gone since 1834 Eras beengreristemtl uapneela
seriously defective, Land that defect Lses beenini u31.0=
both to the Government and psorslaw Ceoniml i-----s.
sioners—tbat the Government have surTered from that
which they did not originate—that the Poor-law
Commissioners have suffered for acts of which the whole
hisitery was not gone into by this House ; seeing such
has been the case there remains no alternative but to
connect the poor-law administration with a . iepartment
of the Government. I come then to the fur ther ques-
tion, whether we ought to connect it with a a existing
department ? I own I think the Secretary of State for
the Home Department has, with the powers of le cretary
of State, the various businesses that have been imposed
upon him by Acts passed within the last few year .s
—the
attention he must give to all the other business of the
Cabinet, both foreign and domestic—the attent ion he
must give to all the business of this House—he ha s suffi-
cient, if not more than sufficient, to absorb the e" hole of
his time and attention without connecting him M>eciallY
and solely with the administration of the Poor -law. If
that be the case, we must have another seen "tarts or
another board. I confess I have no great rave rence for
one plan or the other, but Ido not think the plan we
have proposed, if liable to the objections th at were
stated against it by the Hon. Member for Oxk sedshire,
in the course of this evening. He said there will be
Members of the Cabinet, who will not be able to pay
all the attention to the business that is reqnia •ed, in
order toform proper opinions upon points connect' d with
the poor-law ; but still being members of the board,
they would feel themselves bound to defend pat ticular
decisions. I do not think the plan is open to
that objection. It is in fact only adoptie.g the
plan used, with regard to other departments of
the Government. It is in some instances found
inefficient to secure responsibility to have a
a secretary or president to devote his attention to one
particular department, and carry on the business .of that
department with the assistance and counsel, if necessary,
of the other Members of the Administration. The
Board of Trade, for instance, has a president, and has
various colleagues connected with him. There is only
one person, however, responsible as the President of the
Committee of Privy Council upon the affairs of trade ;
and with reference to all minor points of detail, either
the president or vice-president acts, without reference to
the Cabinet ; but if there is a question of considerable
importance, all the Members of the Privy Council take
part in it. It is not very different with regard to the
administration of the affairs of India—with reference
to the Secretaries of State, and so on—but as
I said before, that is a matter, rather of
detail—a matter rather to be considered in Committee,
than matter to be discussed on the second reading of
the Bill. The real principle of the administration that
we propose is, that there should be a head—that there
should be a president, who should be responsible for the
administration of the poor-law—that that head should
have a seat in Parliament— that he should be called upon
in Parliament to give any explanation upon all points
connected with the poor-law administration.—(Hear,
hear.) I quite admit that it exposes Government to
odium and obloquy that Government was not formerly
exposed to. I admit that it was tar easier for the Go-
vernment, when every parish depository decided upon
every question of relief that came before them, and when
all cases of abuse and hardship or cruelty occurred,
all the indignation of the public was thrown upon
and directed against the particular vestry, and no part of
it fell upon the Government of the day. But we have
attempted to make a great social change in the adminis-
tration of the poor-law ; we having attempted in 1834 to
reform those abuses which had sprung up by a depar-
ture from the statute of Elizabeth, of 1796. I think
that this reform cannot be carried out or completely
effected, unless you have a central control responsible
to Parliament. I believe in that manner you may get
the machinery to work more truly than it did in the
beginning ; you may get it to work so truly, that the
cases of complaint brought before this House would be
few, and that the answers to those complaints would take
up but a little part of the time of the House in debate.
What I wish to see is, the Act of Elizabeth, conferring
relief should be carried into effect in all its spirit, and in
a manner which is conformable with the state of our
institutions of the present day. The exact words of
Elizabeth are not exactly applicable to the present time,
because if you were to set the poor to work in manu-
factures, they would either be competing with those who
have independent labourers earning wages, or their work
would be insufficient and useless. But the workhouse
system is in accordance with the spirit of the Act of
Elizabeth naturally applied—where relief is wanted,
relief would be given. That the relief should be large
and liberally given, in conformity with the spirit of that
Act. I believe it is necessary for the maintenance of
the forming of society of this country, and therefore it is
that Ido not think that the expenditure which now
exceeds the whole sum raised by the property and in-
come tax of the country—l do not think that expendi-
ture ought in amount to be complained of, if the source of
administration were that which it ought to be.—(Hear.)
Admitting that it is an experiment—admitting that it is
a change in the present law—admitting that as there
were certain defects in the law of 1834, which no one
could then see, there may also be similar defects in this
measure of 1847 ; admitting all this, still I think that it
is, under present circumstances, the most expedient
course you can adopt, and in a path beset with difficul-
ties, the only one that can be recommended to Parlia-
ment, and I therefore pray the House to assent to the
second reading of the Bill.—(Loud cheers.)
Mr. B. DISRAELI regretted the lateness of the
evening, but hoped that he would be able to compress
the few observations he wished to make on this measure,
so as to finish before the arrival of the midnight hour.—
(Hear, hear.) Although he thought the Noble Lord was
a great authority on subjects of that character, he could
not assent to some of the propositions which he laid
down, and he felt persuaded, however plausibly it might
be asserted to the contrary, that the general bu-
siness of the country must be brought before Par-
liaments—(Heer. hear.) It was very true that
in doing so there might be a certain infusion
of passion and an occasional interposition of
factious sentiments, but without the interference of Par-
liament these measures of a special character must al-
ways prove a failure, and the situation in which they
at present found themselves proved the accuracy of that
position. Throughout the entire argument of the Noble
Lord, and of all those who agreed with him, this falla-
cious assumption pervaded all their speeches. They
said that central control was necessary, and the Noble
Lord assured them that that control must be a.
metropolitan control.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.")
There was no middle state —no halting• place,
between the most obscure parish in the kingdom and
Somerset House.—(Hear, hear.) For his own part, he
never for a moment challenged the right of control over
the parochial administration of the law, and he thought
it would be wrong to agitate that question; but if it was
not considered right to leave this parochial authority to
itself, it did not follow that metropolitan control was
the most eligible mode by which the abuses which ro.-
suited from it could be remedied. The laws of charity
must be local in their administration, as the feeling it.
self was prompted and kept alive by local residence.-.,
(Hear, hear.) The Noble Lord, however, said there
was no difference between the control of a parish and,
the control of a Minister of State, and however inju-
rious it might be to bring the parochial administration
before Parliament, that there was no middle course for
them to adopt. He (Mr. Disraeli) begged the House to
consider that central control did not involve metropolitan.
control.—(Hear, hear.)—and he did not see why a cen-
tral control should not be deposited with every county.
At any rate, he did not see why it should be set-
tled in London. The advocates of the measure
admitted the evil of large unions, and yet
the basis of the present system was a union.
comprising all the unions of the country.—(Hear,
hear.) Let them look for a moment at the scheme of
control now before them. The Noble Lord proposes tar
bring the to Aral control into Parliament. Well, then
suppose a labourer
felt aggrieved in a remote parish,
and that he did not get redress from the poor-lave
guardians, what was the next_ ste? The case was
be would ask
brought before Parliament; and who, ,
was responsible for t hat? Why,her Majesty's Alanisters. It was very well for the Noble
Lord td
say that party feeling had never yet crept into the dis•
cessions on this subject. But he apprehended that time
might arise and circumstances might occur when th{t
great principles involved in this question would degenep
rate Into a party struggle.—(Hear, hear.). With rpgar.
to the Bill itself, he did not find fault with it, because *
the increase of patronage it lave tothe Crown;' '
for I it
maintained that the amount of taxation,andthe I
rec uct
tion of privileges, had al w- ays in this country bore
a proportion to the decrease of
patron;
age.—(gear.
But he objected to it, ' and objected most earnestly, t
that which still further
made the I peroehia. constitution
of this country the Parliamentary constitution. ThA
moment that they had a Poor-law Minister in that Homo
—the moment that parochial affairs were brought ins*
that House—all that time which was at present devoted to.
railways—all the time which was devoted to private buet
ness—would be otherwise consumed, and none left fas
those purposes when they had converted the Membe II
into a parochial—(Loud cries of ‘• Time, time.") TIMP
Hon. Member said the quarter was not yet exhausted....
(Ironical cheers.) There wai one other topic which hi).
wished much to avoid ; it had nothing to do with th i
question. Why it was introduced into the discussi( op
was no matter of his ; but it was enough that no one iete
the course of the debate bad avoided mention of the A r.
dover Union Committee.—(Hear.) He was a memb I,
of that Committee, and he wished to make one remelt"
upon the subject. The Noble Lord himself, wile
the ability which distinguished him, referred to Oik,
members of the Andover Committee. That Committals
lasted for a considerable time—he believed for a spa
~
of nearly four mouths. It represented every section
opinion in regard to the law itself. But he was houi
to say that various as that (pinion was, and strong.k:!.
was their conviction, he believed that every member w,,,
satisfiod—impress d with the deep conviction that tlii,
result of that investigation was beneficial to the publ
But the Nolle Lord said he would not listen to 014.
accusations when he found an officer had so forgotte„,
his duty, that an officer was so chargeable with dercli,
b tion that in an underhand manner he should sat.
disoovered creating a factitious public opizioi