The Sun.
London, England, 1833-05-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

With our knowledge of the engines which
have long been in activity for the noble end of
perpetuating the dependence of the Irish poor
upon their landlords, we augured no immediate
success from Mr. Richards's motion of last
Thursday evening, yet that motion was far from
being precipitate or imprudent. It was for a
resolution declaratory of the opinion of the House
that a poor law for Ireland " 071 the principle of
the 43d of Elizabeth, with such alterations and
ii nprovements as time and circumstances may
require, is expedient and necessary to the in-
terests of the United Kingdom."lt is to the
credit of Mr. James Grattan, that he, a Member
far an Irish county, seconded Mr. Richards.
However, we expected nothing from the motion
beyond the restatement of a multitude of im-
portant facts, all bearing powerfully upon the
aiccessity for poor laws, and of almost an equal
tunnber of doubts, assumption', interrogatories,
deprecations on the part of those who have made
up their minds that poor laws are no more want-
ing for Irish peasants than for Irish pigs, end-
ing, perhaps, in a proposal for a committee or
commission to be authorized by Parliament " to
inquire." We were not disappointed. The
ostensible head of that department of „which
Mr. Spring Rice is Secretary—to wit, Lord
Althorp,—concluded a cold and discouraging
speech by moving an address to the Crown for
such a commission to inquire into " the condi-
tion of the poorer classes of his Majesty's sub-
jects In Ireland, and into the various institutions
iestablished by law for their relief." We like not
this,—it looks like evasion : coupled with the
'bias of Lord Althorp's mind upon the subject,
as indicated throughout his prefatory speech,
there is great room to suspect, either that the
result of the commission will be a report de-
cidedly unfavourable to the establishment of poor
taws in Ireland, or that the attention of the com-
missioners will be directed to points but re-
motely allied to the immediate question of poor
laws. There is no recipe for losing sight of a
given subject so sure to be successful as that of
opening out an indefinite field, and starting a
variety of game. Had Lord Althorp meant
altogether fairly by Mr. Richards, it would have
been easy and natural, even in rejecting his
reso•ution, to propose a commission for inquiring
" into the expediency of extending to Ireland the
provisions of the 43d of Elizabeth." This
would have met the motion frankly, and would
have produced a report which could not have let
the poor-law question slip away. But what does
Lord Althorp ? Ile plunges into " the con-
dition of the poor of Ireland" generally. You
might as well talk about the " the condition of
mankind generally—and in respect of what ?
how many thousand heads of speculation are
embraced under that one word "condition !"
Such an inquiry, if skilfully managed, may last
until the millennium, or even through that in-
teresting interval. Then, we are to have a
report upon the charitable institutions " at pre-
sent existing "in Ireland. What a voluminous
business is here, and how little to the purpose !
There are, of course, in Ireland as well as
England, a great number of private and local
charities, sufficient, if they were not overcrusted
with abuse, to cover some portion of the emer-
gencies arising out of the wretchedness of the
population in certain of the towns of Ireland ;
but the purification of these charities, and their
recall to the purposes in which they originated,
would be the work of twenty years at least ; and
suppose it accomplished, how far would it go ?
'ro one-tenth, perhaps, of the cases of town
distress, leaving nine-tenths unprovided for,
and the whole mass of rural and agricultural
misery without an attempt at mitigation. Three
or four years ago a committee was got up, pro-
fessedly to examine into the state of the
poor of Ireland. Mr. Spring Rice was the
chairman. Suspicions were somewhat pre-
valent at the time, that as the subject of Irish
poor laws had begun to be familiarly talked
about, and a belief to spread that no other remedy
would prove effectual for the ills by which society
in the sister island was afflicted, the Irish land-
lord interest concocted that expedient of a com-
mittee, that a report on its authority might be
produced to discountenance all endeavours, in
or out of Parliament, for the introduction of a
system of poor laws. The landlords gained
their point,—they had then an active, brisk, and
willing organ ; they have now, in lord Althorp,
an instrument of higher rank, not, perhaps, quite
so conscious of the uses for which he is employed.
But we cannot help anticipating from this com-
mission manceuvre consequences by no means
propitious to the well-being of the poor of
Ireland. The " inquiry" into the state of the
wretched factory children, acceded to by
Ministers, instead of a Bill for their protection,
has roused the mingled resentment and astonish-
ment of every humane mind throughout the
kingdom. It has created a not unnatural dis-
trust of the earnestness and energy of the King's
present Government in the rescue of suffering in-
fancy from gross and sordid oppression. So
this appointment of an " inquiry" into the
existence of a fact notorious to all mankind--
namely, the helpless destitution of the Irish poor
—has already recoiled upon the Ministers who
proposed it ; for on all sides we hear nothing
but echoes of one and the same charge against
Lord Althorp—viz., that he has got up the com-
mission (at whose bidding is also pretty generally
hinted) for the purpose of delay in the first in-
stance, and finally for that of shuffling off the
poor laws altogether. Let his Lordship look to
it; every name in his commission will be scanned
and canvassed; not an Irish landlord must find
room therein ; not one individual who has been
recently known to deliver an opinion hostile to
the institution of poor laws; no preceptor,
partner, nor pupil of Matthew Maculloch ;
none of those economists who can lecture calmly
on human starvation, and who lay it down as a
maxim, that to prevent misery from being pro-
pagated, misery must never be relieved ! but
men of independent circumstances, of general
acquaintance with society, of sagacity, humanity,
and knowledge of Irish character, who will neither
be flattered, nor frightened out of their convictions,
--men on whose word implicit reliance may be
placed,—men who will not consent, even should
the license be granted them, to issue garbled ex-
tracts of their official proceedings, like those
" extracts" from the information received by the
English poor law Commissioners, from which
such partial and very mischievous inferences
have been, if they were not intended to be,
drawn. All the objections brought against the
application of the poor laws to Ireland have been
most absurdly founded on their abuses in this
country, superinduced abuses, modern abuses,
perversions of the old Act of Elizabeth, which,
as is well stated by Mr. Poulett Scrope, went
more " to prevent" pauperism among the people
than to support,it. The fact is acknowledged
that England never began to thrive until the
poor laws were established, and the same of
Scotland. But both
.in England and in Scot-