The Sun.
London, England, 1848-03-17 00:00:00

PASSENGERS' BILL.

Earl GREY moved that the House do resolve
itself into Committee on the Passengers' Bill.
Lord STANLEY complained of the emigrant tax
which was levied in Canada upon emigrants, which
in some cases amounted to 30s. a head upon each
person imported into the colony ; whereas in New
York the emigrant tax could not under any circum-
stances amount to more than a dollar and a half. The
effect of this system would be to transfer the whole
tide of emigration from Canada to the United States.
Earl GREY thought it was necessary for the
colonies to adopt some method of preventing
the immigration of old and helpless pau-
pers, who would from the moment of
their landing become burdens on the colony.
In many instances, grandfathers, crippled and help •
less, and totally incapable of earning their living, had
been sent out from Ireland to Canada with their grand-
children, and had, from the moment of their landing,
become burdens upon the colony, and it certainly
was the duty of the Colonial Legislature to prevent
the emigration of helpless paupers who were incapable
of undertaking the labour necessary to maintain
themselves.
The Earl of HARDWICKE complained that the
Bill placed the shipowner between two fires. He was
to allow twelve feet space to each passenger it his
ship carried a surgeon, which surgeon would
be a great expense to him, but if he
did not carry a surgeon, he was to allow fourteen
feet space to each emigrant, which would prevent his
carrying out as many passengers as his ship was
capable of accommodating.
After a short conversation, in which Earl Grey,
Lord Stanley, Earl Fitzwilliam, and Lord Lyttelton,
took part, the motion was agreed to, and the House
resolved itself into Committee on the Bill.
On the first clause being proposed,
Lord STANLEY objected to the provision with
respect to cooking on board emigrant ships, and
moved an amendment to strike out the words in the
clause relating to the subject.
After a short conversation across the table, the
amendment was withdrawn.

The several clauses were agreed to, and the 13
reported without amendments.—Adjourned.

ROUSE OF COMMONS, Mach 16.
MEDICAL RELIEF.
(Continued from our Third Edition of last night.)
Mr. C. I3ULLER could not help complaining of
the course the Noble Lord had pursued in placing
upon the paper a series of resolutions impugning the
whole system of medical relief as administered under
the poor-law, and then, at the last moment, confining
his attention and the attention of the House to one
particular case in which the system was defective.—
(Hear.) The Noble Lord had supported his motion by
reference to the evidence taken in 1844, without taking
any notice of what had been done by the Poor-law
Commissioners in the interim, and the result would
appear that it was the opinion of the Noble
Lord, and, if the resolution were adopted, of
the House too, that there was a neces-
sity for rectifying certain abuses which he
would undertake to prove had long since been
most efficiently rectified by the Poor-law Corn-
missioners.—(Hear, hear.) He felt great pain in
being obliged to oppose the Noble Lord on
the present occasion, because he knew that
the Noble Lord had done much to alleviate the
sufferings of the poor of the country, and was looked
up to by them as their best friend, but he could assure
the Noble Lord and the House that this subject had oc-
cupied his constant attention since ho had the honour
of holding the office he now filled, and it appeared
to him that the question was too intricate to
be dealt with in the manner the Noble Lord
proposed.—(Hear, hear.) It appeared to him
that the principles and details of the questions
were the most anomalous, the most important
and the most difficult of any connected with the
administration of the poor-law, and he should have
been exceedingly happy had the result of his
deliberations on the subject enabled him to
prepare some plan for the administration of
medical relief on a new and improved principle.—(Hear,
hear.) He apprehended, however, that no new plan
could be devised for the administration of medical
relief through the medium of the poor-law ;
and the result of all the consideration he
had been enabled to give the subject
was, that it was impossible to give medical
relief through the poor-law upon any general system,
that should prove better or more satisfactory than that
already in existence.—(blear.) It was his opinion, that
if they were to establish a more extended or complete
system of medical relief, they must abandon
the system of local agency and local rates, and
administering the relief through the medium of the
poor-law, and devise some system of centralization
which would give from the funds of the country
a system of medical relief adequate to the
wants of the people. (Hear, hear.) His
conviction was that medical relief could not be
put upon a different footing to what it was at present.
In stating this he did not mean to say that it might
not be improved in its details, as his belief was that
it was only by that improvement that it could
be placed upon a proper footing. The expenditure
for medical relief was considerably on "the increase,
and it could not therefore be said that any
economy that had taken place in the ad-
ministration of the poor - law had been
accompanied with any want of attention to the sick
poor. The Right Honourable Gentleman, in
order to prove this assertion, read several
returns with respect to the expenses for medical
5,3-1-e, 4... -,•.'1"1, it appeared that from 1838 to
1846 the expenses for medical relief had increased
one-sixth upon the sum originally paid. Under the
old system it was almost impossible to get a justice
of the peace to give an order for nourishment. It
was now a common thing to do so. It was a creation
of the new system.—(Hear.) Large sums were
annually expended under this head. There were
cases in which the salaries of poor-law officers were
too small—(Hear)—and others in which they were
perhaps too large; but it was a difficult thing to ap-
portion salaries. Sir John 'Walsh said, in his evi-
dence in 1144, that the salaries in Norfolk and Suf-
folk were large, but they gave satisfaction. In
Northumberland and Cumberland they were smaller,
but there they also gave satisfaction. These counties,
and Westmorland, Durham, and Cornwall, however,
were less pauperised than the others. Without an
exception, they possessed good medical relief. The
House must be aware how difficult, nay, how almost
impossible it was, to fix salaries by a general rule.—
(Hear.) Some discretion must be left to the Com-
missioners, for they must render the amount paid
palatable to the districts, and according to the amount
of labour required. Those unions to which the
medical officers devoted their whole time were those
from which the least complaints were made. The
salary of the Nottingham medical officer, for instance,
was 1201., with hoard and lodging. Perhaps that
would not satisfy some medical men. Again, in the
Wayland Union there existed a mixed plan, which he
believed worked as well as any, and which was to fix
the payment of the medical officer partly by salary and
partly by a payment for each case attended. There was
also another plan, wholly different from the preceding,
but which the Hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Wak-
ley) had told him in a conversation on the subject he
thought might prove satisfactory. This was a plan
adopted under the Earl of Stradbroke, in the Bly thing
Union. There were no medical officers at all in that
union, but the poor applied to any medical man they
thought proper, and, at the end of the year, a sum voted
by the guardians was divided amongst those so called in
by the poor themselves. Some medical men held that
this system was open to abuse, but he believed that in
the 13lything Union it worked well. With these various
plans, and though as a gener,.l pr:Lelpl,. 11, t1.„,,,1,.
permanent salaries were the best, ho should be
sorry to force oh the guardians of any distriot the ob-