The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-24 00:00:00

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LONDON:
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 1641.

rile Peers resumed the adjourned debate on the
Ithe Composition (Ireland) Bill, and passed it.
The Borough Improvement Bill was read a
r° °lid time on the motion of the Marquis of
e Ilm.twuy. We believe the object of it is to
unable corporate towns to apply their funds to
131,e, Improvement of the health of towns. The
"I Was referred to the Committee on the Drain-
age Bill.

b(ln the motion to read the East India Rum
llties Bill a second time, which the Marquis of
LA I'ISDOWN E recommended to the House in a neat
speech,}L Lord ASHBURTON; erewhile Free-trade
nlr O, made a furious attack on the Import Du-
es Committee, because, we presume, it sets in so
;near a light the wisdom of his former opinions,
1,1h:1 the folly, as well as something more, of his
tesent interested convictions. He denounced
af,,e Committee as one-sided, the evidence as ex-
`'crated, and the statements as absurd. •
till
That small statesman, Mr. SPRING RICE
ia,.twas, Lord MOUNTE AG LE that is, followed
the same track, and stigmatized as exag-
i;,r`lted, because he knows no more on the Corn-
4t" than he knew about finance when he was
ethe head of the Exchequer, the statement
at the Corn-law causes a charge on the people
acponivalent to 100,000,0001. For our own parts, we
th übt whether that or any known sum can measure
0: enormous charge which the bread tax levies
"r People; but it was worthy of this small
Zesman to follow in the wake of Free-trade
ItiNo round to the side of restriction.
I-61.C1 ELLEN BOROUGH supported the Bill, which
Was read a second time.
TTheir Lordships adjourned till to-morrow.
'll the Commons two Committees to try the
StAlhan's and Walsall elections were sworn.
L? 4J• RUSSELL announced that he should, on
2( 6th, move, that the House adjourn till the
th °f April, for the Easter holidays.
`'1"11 AlAtioN moved a resolution that it is in-
t'llledient to confine so many convicts in hulks
100:10. He stated that at present 3,500 were
et l'lnfined, 0,000 of whom were now retained
kolne, 'whereas but, for a recent regulation of
tre Colonial Minister, they would have been
4!lsPorted. The Noble Lord objected to the
4.gteln of confining men in hulks, and to the
votatl°f commuting sentences of transportation
'nojtll.kirt Periods to that punishment. lie did
to -N:7°l to resume the plan of sending convicts
be:ew South Wales, but he thought they might
ntitisent to Van Diemen's Land. We know
piing vhich has more perplexed, or which is
iee'ffl.'eater.reproach to statesmen, than the total
cieney of their inventions to repress crime,
-lents
ell go under the name of secondary punish-
.

4414)11 Joux RUSSELL vindicated his own con-
et from the charge of hastiness in adopting the
eirleseut plan, and reminded the House of the
ily,(4:111"us evils which had taken place under the
' • transportation. He moved the pre-
-48 TleStloll.
Ofter a short discussion, in which Mr. Fox
/14:°1" etated that Lord. J. RUSSELL contemplated
m to take from the Secretary of State the
thWer of commuting a sentence of transportation,
ti e House divided, and Lora Mano N's resolu-
;was carried, we believe, by 49 to 28.
*CIIOLEFIELD then, in a thin House, (the
tio`i"ers of both sides being absent,) moved a re-
ution in favour of a property-tax, and to take
taxation off industry and off articles of general
11,11surnption. The Hon. Gentleman grounded
~nutotion on the present condition of the people,
"tt showed how taxation pressed them to the
earth,
Muivrz -seconded and supported the me:

tion; so did Mr. TURNER, Mr. WILLIAMS, and
Mr. FIELDEN,

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER though
happy to receive any assistance in raising taxes,
thought that the extensive change proposed by
Hon. Members, would inflict so much derange-
ment on all the great interests, that he must re-
sist the motion. He begged leave to move the
previous question.

Mr. HUME supported the motion, and dwelt
on the exemption of property from its fair share
of the public burdens. It paid only 24 per cent.
out of the whole revenue, while industry paid
76. If the resolution were carried, which he
thought might have been better worded, it would
be the duty of the Government to prepare gra-
dually to carry the change into effect.

Mr. GOULDURN resisted the motion, as calcu-
lated to produce disturbance in all the interests
of the country. The Right Hon. Gentleman was
very learned, but not very clear, about taxing ca-
pital in masses, and taxing it when it is diffused
through all classes, a distinction as to taxation
we have not met with in our reading. As ex-
pectant CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, he
took the fiances of the Tories under his pro-
tection.

Mr. WAKLEY took the opportunity to renew
what has been called his inflammatory harangues.
He referred to the little disposition there was in
the House to satisfy the people, and the still less
disposition there was in the people to be satisfied
with the House. They would require many
acts of substantial benefit before they would
believe that the House intended to do
them any good, and that it did not care for their
interests was plain by the few Members—not
fifty at most—who had attended this important
motion. In particular he missed from the
House those testy Lords—though the' people
could well spare them—who on other occa-
sions were so ready to harangue the House.
None of them were present on this important
question—yes, he begged pardon, there was one
Lord present, but the rest, including the leaders
of both sides, showing how little they cared for
the people, were absent. So the Hon. Member,
evidently addressing his observations more to the
public at large than his littM audience, paid off
those attacks, which were unwisely, we thought,
made on the " demagogue " on account of his
speech on the Poor-law Bill.
Colonel SIBTITORP said a few words partly
against the motion, but chiefly against the
Whigs.

Mr. MARK PHILIPS had been an avowed ad-
vocate of a property tax since 1834, but, looking
at the very empty state of the House, he advised
his Hon. Friend to withdraw the motion, and
bring it forward on the night of the Budget, when
the House would be crowded, and when he might
elicit the opinions of the leaders of the House.
If his Hon. Friend divided the House, he would
vote with him.

General iOHNSTON wished to know the num-
ber of his 'friends and his enemies, he disliked
motions which led to nothing, and he recom-
mended his Hon. Friend to divide and try the
strength of the parties on the question.
Mr. SCHOLEFIELD yielding to a general cry
of his friends for a division, divided the House,
and found his motion supported by 27, and op-
posed by 40.

Some other uninteresting business was trans-
acted, and at a Quarterbefore Twelve o'Clock the
House Adjourned.

We feel profoundly humiliated on learning
that the House of Commons is engaged in a dis-
cussion, night after night, about giving the poor
a little mutton broth, or a table-spoonful of wine,
when sick. 'Tis pitiful, 'tis wondrously pitiful,
to see the Assembly, which has been called the
noblest collection of freemen on the earth—
which votes, without remark or reflection,
70,0001. for building stables, 60,0001. for an ex-
pedition to the Niger to improve the blacks,
hundreds of thousands of pounds to wrest Syria
from MEHEMET Au, and maintain the integrity
of Turkey, and even millions sterling a year for
the household expenses of one person, and for
pensions to the knaves of RoJalty—it,is, we say,
Wondrously pitiful to see Ibis august Assembly,
which squanders a nation's resources on trifles,
engaged, as it were, in measuring out skilagalee
to the poor with the parsimony and ill-temper of
a Mistress SQUEERS To know that the Assembly
so engaged is the great guide, leader, and law-
giver of the nation, the visible god of its idola-
try, makes us form almost as degrading and
contemptible an opinion of the nation as of this
renowned Assembly of free men. Self-respect
leads men to despise a body engaged in such
miserable discussions and squabbles. Why, there
is not a decent housekeeper to one of the Mem-
bers of that Assembly who would weigh out her
charity to an imploring beggar by grains and
scruples, as this riotously and wastefully extra-
vagant body talks of doling out relief to the
sufkring and industrious poor.
This great and deep degradation—for such it
is, and such it will be felt to be throughout the
empire—comes of the House of Commons being
the representative, and lending itself to he the
instrument of the avarice, of the landowners. It
has made a law on the one hand to declare that
industrious people shall have neither work nor
bread, without complying with the impossible
condition of paying a large tax to the land-
owners ; and on the other, it has made a law to
deprive of all sustenance those whom it will not
allow by labour to earn bread, except on the
hard condition of submitting to the workhouse
test. It has adopted the principle of free trade
as to the labourer, and told him to rely on his
own resources, and it has maintained the prin-
ciple of protection as to the landlord, and under-
takes to secure him an ample allowance, whe-
ther it properly belong to him or not. Rates to
add to wages have been done away, and rates
to add to rent continued. To the industrious the
law says they shall have no relief but merely
to save them from starvation—to the rich it
gives an exorbitant tax, levied on the poor,
driving them to that starvation from which it
will barely rescue them. The Legislature has
converted the nation into a workhouse, and has
become the exacting, despised, and hated over-
seer of the poor.
The division on Mr. EASTHOPE'S motion,
the language adopted by Sir ROBERT PEEL, the
tone recently taken by some of those journals
which were the most zealous supporters of the
New Poor-law, indicate a considerable change in
public opinion. Why is this The principle of
the law—to which we do not object—of making
the working classes depend on their own re-
sources, is unaltered. We do not believe any
change has taken place in public opinion on this
point; but last year and the year before there was
great distress in the land, pauperism increased,
those who had to relieve it naturally grew some-
what weary of their arduous work, and harsh in
their behaviour ; numerous cases of individual
suffering—of females driven by destitution to
commit crimes—of aged persons and infants
dying from starvation, were painfully paraded
before the public ; and the accumulated misery
of a suffering population thus enlisted the feel-
ings of the public against the law. No enactment
could stand such a test. Had a similar scrutiny
been at any time directed against the Old Poor-
law in a season of distress, it would have been at
once enlarged or annihilated.
The New Poor-law is of modern origin. A
considerable party opposed it from the first, and
have closely watched it ever since, exaggerating
all its faults, and ascribing to it much of the

misery which the carelessness or depravity of
individuals have brought on drenaselves. For
the first three years the law was in existence, its
operations were facilitated by the low price of
food, and by the comparative prosperity of the
people. For the last three years the compara-
tive scarcity and dearness of food, and the vast
distress of the lower classes, have impeded its
operations, and strengthened its enemies. A
portion of the press has ascribed the sufferings of
the people to it, and as they have increase'
l
law has become odious. Thus has are-
the
ee tion
...den a change
in the public sentiment, and a- general
being supposed at har:u, gives that changeweight
in Parliament.
The 1
char.ice=447 is
S good as ever it was, but. a great
has talien place in the price of fuod. In
1-1:330 wheat was at 365, the quarter, in 1839 it
f .
i Wati at 888., and is now some where about 038,