The Sun.
London, England, 1834-07-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Duke of Wellington has given notice of a motion to
replace the political clauses in the Irish Coercion Bill. We
suspect that this is- only a military ruse of his Grace to pro-
voke a debate and cannonade Ministers. Unquestionably the
Duke of Wellington may march the rank and file of his Tory
majority of Peers and proxies against the Government in this
covert way, but his real object cannot be to strengthen the Bill.
His Grace must know, that if he were to succeed in the re-
storation of the offensive powers, the Commons would throw
out the Bill altogether. Indeed such a result of this unfortu-
nate measure would not be very injurious. Lord Melbourne,
some days since, placed the matter on its proper footing, when
he stated, that if Ireland were to be factiously agitated, he
would of course call Parliament together to obtain a prompt
and legislative remedy. We regard, therefore, the Duke of
Wellington's notice as a mere party manoeuvre, for the pur-
pose of harassing an enemy. Much powder will probably be
wasted in the discussion. But next session we think that this
system of political threat and annoyance will terminate.
Every body begins to see that the House of Lords will risk a
collision.—Morniny Chronicle.

Though the feeling of the Government, and indeed of the
two Houses of Parliament, respecting Poor Laws, has been
pretty clearly announced in the favour which the Poor Laws'
Amendment Bill has received at their hands, another Session
cannot be permitted to pass without coming to a decision one
way or another upon the question of Poor Laws for Ireland.
Mr. Poulett Scrope, who has, much to his credit, devoted a
good deal of time to the consideration of this subject, has just
published a pamphlet addressed to Ministers, and couched in
the important interrogatory—" How is Ireland to be governed?"
The pamphlet suggests the adoption of Poor Laws as an es-
sential ingredient in any practicable plan of relief. To this
proposition we assent. We believe that not only the report
and evidence of the Parliamentary Inquiry, as quoted by Mr.
Scrope, but the opinions of most, if not all, the intelligent men
who have looked into the causes of Whitefootism, and other
illegal combinations, will bear him out in the assertion,
that, instead of springing from political agitation, " they
are but the struggles of an oppressed and starving people
for existence." If this be the case, the conclusion to
which he comes is irresistible, namely—that some provi-
sion must be made for the poor, in order to prevent
those acts of violence and outrage by which they endea-
vour to provide for themselves. It may be remembered
that our own correspondent, who, in a visit to that country,
touched upon this very subject some time ago, traced White-
footism to the same cause—starvation. He instanced the
process of clearing estates, too, that is, driving the surplus
population out of their wretched cabins, to perish in ditches
and by the road side, as one of the operations by which the
Irish peasantry have been goaded to revenge. In the
pamphlet to which we are referring, Mr. Scrope takes the
same view ; he selects the same instance of estate clearing for
reprobation, and founds his position, as to the connection
between starvation and outrage, on the concurrent testimony
of unimpeachable witnesses, who have deposed to the fact.
Let political economy say what it will, nature has no law of
extermination. The attempt to clothe such a law in the lan-
guage and attributes of philosophy is a species of the grossest
imposture. Nature's office is to preserve, and not to destroy.
Justly, therefore, does Mr. Scrope conclude, that a system
of poor laws is essential to the good government of Ireland,
which never will, and never can, be at peace so long as fa-
mine continues in commission, and the people have no se-
curity against a death of hunger, but what the accidents of
charity may supply. To use the strong language of the
pamphlet :

" ln Ireland, where there are few manufactures—where there is
no poor law—no legal provision against starvation—the only means
of existence for a people, whose numbers are large and rapidly in-
creasing, is the occupation of land, or employment upon land at
such wages as will support life. When these are wanting ; when
the cottier is turned oat of his holding (from inability to pay the
exorbitant rent which the desperate competition for land, as the
only means of existence, enables a landlord to demand, or through
any other cause), and he cannot obtain work and wages, what al-
ternative is open to him ? The law refuses him any. The law of
Ireland says he shall starve. But nature and the instinct of self-
preservation revolt against such a mandate. Laws may be made to
tell a strong man to lie down quietly in a ditch and die ; but they
will not be obeyed. He w ill struggle against such a fate • and
others, who are not yet in the same extremity, but who feel that
they are daily liable to be exposed to it, will struggle with him to
resist and put down such a law, and to substitute a rude but more
just legislation of their own."
To conclude, as we commenced, the subject of poor laws for
Ireland must come before Parliament in the course of the en-
suing session, and we trust, notwithstanding the known dispo-
sition of the Government and the Legislature, the claims of
justice and humanity will finally prevail.—Morning Herald.
Some apprehension appears to prevail among the inhabi-
tants of Wandsworth, Battersea, and other large villages ad-
joining the metropolis, that the provisions of a Bill, entitled
the "Common. Field Land Enclosure Bill," introduced
into the House of Lords by Lord Ellenborough, and which
has just passed that branch of the Legislature, may operate
injuriously to them, by leading to the enclosure of those open
spaces on which the salubrity of those situations materially de-
pends. By this Bill the enclosure is made to depend, not on
any special further act of the Legislature, but on the decision
of a majority of the owners of common field lands. At a cur-
sory glance this would seem to be a sufficient protection to the
inhabitants generally, but it has been shown in a letter we
have received on the subject that the combination of a few
builders and large landed proprietors of the neighbourhood,
who would have motives of their own for turning these open
spaces to account, would easily counteract any such protec-
tion, if really intended by the Bill in question. They wish,
therefore, before it passes into a law, that the attention
of the House of Commons should be drawn to some of
the consequences that may follow it, and in particular
that a clause should be introduced into it similar to one
in Lord Kenyon's Agricultural Labourers' Bill in 1831,
which was, in fact, a species of Enclosure Bill, enacting that
its provisions should not extend to any lands within ten miles
of London, or to within three miles of any town possessing
more than 6,000 inhabitants. Without going at present into
any lengthened discussion on the other parts of Lord Ellenbo-
rough's Bill, we must be permitted to caution Hon. Members
to weigh well its enactments, for, according to our impression,
it is a general Inclosure Act—a measure which will enable
large proprietors to enclose lands without the intervention of
the Legislature. If this be the meaning of the Bill, its opera-
tion may be as oppressive and prejudicial to the agricultural
poor as to the inhabitants of the metropolis and of other large
towns.— Times.