The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-28 00:00:00

int/mint( 2111114

LONDON, TIIURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 1847,

Ireland must have an extension of the poor-law.
Without a better administration of that law, the ,
beneficence of Government, the munificence of Par-
liament, and the sagacity of our leading statesmen
will be exerted to no purpose whatever. Without a
juster distribution of the national alms, and a more
rational arrangement on the part of the poor-law
guardians in Ireland, it is folly to anticipate any
effective diminution of the unparralleled miseries
with which that country is afflicted. Lord JOHN
RUSSELL acknowledged as much on Monday
evening, when he announced the intention of the
Ministry to bring in a Bill conferring additional
powers on the poor-law guardians, " to afford relief
either in or out of the workhouse to ALL parties disabled
by bodily ailment." The circumstances under which
the Prime Minister made this announcement are
most significant as to the necessity for some proceed.
ing of the kind. Although Lord Join; RUSSELL had
just broached his scheme of district relief committees
although be had just recommended to Parliament
the granting of 50,0001. to the land proprietors of
Ireland, for the purpose of enabling them to purchase
seed for potatoes; although he had just proposed a sys-
tem of loans advanced upon the terms of the Drainage
Act, namely, at an interest of three and a half per cent.;
with the intention of affording assistance towards the
improvement of estates, and the reclamation of waste
lands; although he had just submitted to the consi-
deration of the Legislature one of the most
comprehensive propositions ever made by Prime
Minister for the alleviation of the distress consequent
upon the famine and destitution, he yet felt it to he
his bounden duty, as one of her MA:ESTY'S ad-
visers, and as a patriotic statesman, to demand of the
Imperial Parliament extended powers for poor-
law guardians. It is this especially which as-
sures us that Lord JOHN RUSSELL has the Genius and
the Courage which are most essential in the Premier
at these epochs of peril and disaster. It is this which
imparts such homogeniety to the speech delivered by
the Noble Lord on Monday evening, which ren-
ders that speech admirable, not merely for its dissec-
tion, one by one, of the several exigencies of Ireland,
but for its sagacious and systematic indication of the
remedies which are alone calculated to re-organize
the society of that kingdom, and which, above all,,
enumerates those remedies in a sequence so natural
and judicious as to render them compact and effec-
tual, instead of casual and disjointed. The Noble
Lord was conscious that millions might be lavished
upon the completion of unremunerative public works,
that thousands might be expended in the purchase of
seed for potatoes, that bog-lands might be drained
into cultivation, and tracks of dry soil irrigated.into
fertility, and that still the demon of starvation might
continue triumphant, and men and women perish
with hunger in the ditches. Lord JOHN RUSSELL
saw that this would be inevitable unless some sub-
stantial provision were made for the famishing pea-
santry. He saw the calamitous consequences which
would be inevitable unless Parliament were prepared,
as he himself emphatically expressed it, "to enact
that relief should be given by law to the destitute."
Under the existing state of things the assistance
afforded by the poor-law guardians is restricted
within very narrow limits, while the destitution
which requires assistance is altogether unrestricted—
it is boundless. So many paupers can be accommo-
dated in a given workhouse, say 250, and there may
be some 550 souls starving in the parish. What be-
comes of the 300 for whom there is no accommoda-
tion whatever ? The board says at once to the 300,
"Be off! There's no room for you here. We are
crowded as it is, and have no particular wish to breed
a fever by close packing in the sleeping quarters."
The natural and ostensible result of which is that the
300, finding themselves denied all aid by the paro-
chial authorities, and excluded from all opportunity
of shelter in their sorest troubles, become reckless--
try to get by foul means what they find it impossible
to obtain by fair—turn rapparees and vagabonds, and
are not unwilling to earn a guinea from the agents of
" Molly Maguire " by driving a bullet through a
" marked man," or bludgeoning a prosperous tenant
upon his own threshold. Those are the evils arising
from this systematic niggardliness. The workhouses
being constructed only to contain a limited number
of the poverty-stricken, there is always, from the per-
petual pauperism of Ireland, a surplus of the local poor
denied admittance within their walls.] In extraor

dinary periods of privation ldiketothea pfrriegshentfta,ltheaxttseunrt-
lus is ,naturally increase.
ofreeliecfQ:haain
the peasantry
the law santry, :are
dFrriovmen ttohitsheincsoumffimciniessicon of
offn
they are transformed from the victims of famine into
the perpetrators of crime : they are forced into a
lawless struzgle for the preservation of their lives :
they are incited to acts of insubordination and goaded
to deeds of bloodshed. It is useless to mince the
matter, and would be sinful to conceal the truth.
When uneducated multitudes are refused all aid by
the guardians placed over them by the Legislature, tilt
necessary consequence is, that they feel themselves
help of brute
the force.poor.
impelled to appease the cravings of their own hunger
by the
iatAllgtuhaisramizo
itgsh,t be readily
obviated were
like those
mentioned the other evening in the House of Com-
mons by Sir H. W. BARRON, to hire some additional
premises whenever the dearth may make the applicants
more numerous than the workhouses will contain.
What can be more idiotic, in fact, than to build shel-