The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-20 00:00:00

shown by the number of charitable institutions which

existed in that '6oinklY. Irthe Hon. Member for
Durham should ever visit the-eastern district of Suffolk,

he believed his opinion on this subject would undergo
an entire change.--(Hear, hear.) Although the Hon.
Member for Manchester had fairly stated the number of
fires, he had not fairly stated the causes to which they
were attributable.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. BRIGHT said he had not intended to bring any
special charge against the landlords of Suffolk espe-
_

cially. He believed his charge applied to those of the
whole country.=(Hear, hear.)
Mr. VILLIERS said, he thought the Right Hon.
Gentleman ought to regret the tone in,whieh he 'had;
refused to accede' to the motion, seeing that the Noble
Lord (Henniker) had admitted that he went to him
for the purpose of urging upon him the necessity
of adopting some steps for the suppression
of the fires.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.") The High
Hon. Gentleman had commenced by saying that it would
not become him to impute motives ; he wished he had

not insinuated one. Why the Right Hon. Baronet had
introduced his measure for the alteration of the poor-law
solely in consequence of the agitation on the subject. If
he mistook not, the Right Hon. Baronet said that he had
done it unwillingly. Why did he not address the same
sort of speech as he had addressed to the Hon. Member
for Manchester, to those Hon. Gentlemen who sat behind

him, when they urged on the question of the repeal of
the poor-law ?—(Cheers.) There was not a sentence of
his Honourable Friend's speech that was half so
inflammatory, or half so violent as the speeches which
he had heard made in that House on the subject of the
poor-law.—(Hear, hear.) Why did the Right Hon.
Baronet reserve his attack for the Hon. Member for

Manchester? Why, it was because, as had been just
observed by his Hon. Friend the Member for Durham,
there was a peculiar sensitiveness on the subject, because
the majority of that House were interested in keeping
up an artificial price for the fruits of the soil.—(Cheers.)
It was not the free-traders who were to .blame, because

the question of the corn-laws was introduced whenever
any question was raised as to the condition of the poor.
It was the landowners themselves who always made the
condition of the poor the excuse for maintaining the
corn-laws, they said the laws were to be maintained be-

cause they were for the benefit of the agricultural
labourer. The condition of the poor was always
pleaded as the excuse for maintaining these laws, and
now that the whole 'country was alarmed in consequence
of the incendiarism prevalent in these districts,
where the condition of the agricultural poor was known
to be so miserable, surely a motion for inquiring into
their condition was not ill-placed. The Hon.*Gentle-
man who represented the county of Suffolk stated that
they had not brought the condition of the poor of that
county before the House, because they had
.asked the
Right Hon. Baronet on the subject, and had- confidence
in him. But if the House and the country wanted' to

know the cause of the distress—the distress was not

caused by the new Poor-law—it had been going on for
the last twenty years. As far back as 1824, thQy had
had evidence of the deteriorated condition of the people.
He had found letters in the Times, describing the mise-
.

rable condition of the agricultural population in the
counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, and Essex, written before

the new. Poor-law was enacted.

He would read tq the

House a letter which appeared in the Times in the year
1830, signed " A Labourer."—(The Hon. Gentlemen
here read extracts from the letter referred to, in which
the writer represented the condition of the labouring
population as being miserable in the extreme. Their
wages were low, and he attributed that circumstance
to the operation of the old law, under Which
the farmers paid their labourers half wages, and, sent
them to the parish to make! up the difference.
The writer then went on to state, that he heard that a

law had been passed to keep up the price of corn, for the
goOd of the proprietors of land ; and he suggested the
propriety of passing a law compelling the farmer to pay
his labourer the value of three pecks of flour a week as
wages.) That letter had been made the subject of a
leading article in the Times in 1830. It was quite evi-

dent that the new poor-law was not an adequate cause to
account for the distress. The Times was quite right in
describing the people as in great distress ; and the had
been as much distressed under the old law as they ,were
under the new one. There had been something for the
last twenty years continually deteriorating the condition.
of the people of this country and that was, that during
the whole of that period the population had been in-
creasing, the demand for employment had been dimi-
nishing, and the price of food had been rising. In 0.824,
a clergyman, who had given evidence before a Commit-
tee of that House, stated that the condition of the People
was deteriorating, that their wages were low, and that
they were becoming pauperised. If ever there was an
occasion when inquiry into the condition of the poor
was called for, it was at the present moment. The. Hon.
Members for Suffolk said the people were well off ; at
.the same time it could not be denied that these incen-
diary fires had occurred. The irisairance-offices, it was
stated, had paid four times as much as they had received
in those counties ; and an idea was prevalent among the
proprietors of those offices, that the parties themselves
had in many instances destroyed the property. Seeing
these various Contradictory statements, the Government
ought to make inquiry. It was most desirable to ascer-
tain the cause of the distress, and his Hon. Friend the
Member for Manchester had done his duty in bringing
it before the nouse. A more proper or a more discreet
motion could not be made, and he should certainly ;vote
in favour of it.

Sir J. TYRRELL thought the speeches of the Hon.
Members for Manchester and Durham were calciflated
to excite the lower orders, and possessed all the charac-,
teristics of incendiary speeches.
Mr. VILLIERS rose to order. He wished to liknOw
what the„Right Hon. Baronet meant by " incendiary
speeches?" • -
Sir J. TYRRELL had' said-that, to his humb'e ap- '
prehension, the character of the speeches of the Hon.
MeMber foiD -urham and the Hon. Member for 'Man-
chester possessed ail • thu characteristics of incendiary
speeches..--(Hear;-hetir.) If their object had been to
discourage incendiary fires, he must say that speeches
less calculated' to attain such an object he had never
heard. It mttst-be that he was a person of weak com-
prehension, 'for they had heard-from high authority that
persons representing the agricultural districts were not
persons of very acute perception, and that must be some
apology for him.-.-(Ckeers and laughter.) The fact
was, thiS debate' was •an -adjourned corn-law debate, and
whenever- he had entered the House of late he had
heard' little else. These unfortunate fires had now
ceased; and if the speeches were incendiary
speeches, and the fires should break out again,
they would see to whose ability they might attri-
bute laugh.). Much had been said of the
want of employment in the manufacturing districts. lie
attributed much of that to the character of the opposi-
tion to the corn-laws which had been' put forward by
the late Government, and the low farmers and unin-
formed people had not hitherto had such confidence in
her Majesty's present- Ministers on the subject of the
corn-laws—(Opposition cheers)—as to induce thein to
give increased employment. (Renewed Opposition
cheers.) He always read the Money and City article,
and sometimes not without disgust, for whenever any
proposition was brought forward for a railroad, however
miserable the prospect of traffic might be, there was
plenty of capital to support it. But those capitalists
would not invest one farthing in the cultivation of the
soil. The Hon. Member for Durham had accused him
of a cruel disposition, because he had presented a peti-
tion for a more severe punishment for the crime of incen-
diarisin. In the only case inwhich a person advanced in years
had confessed to the crime of incendiarism, he had
stated that he had been induced to set the property on
fire in order to be transported. Now, the Hon. Member
for Durham could not produce an instance in which a
person had committed incendiarism for the purpose of
being hung.—(Load laughter.) It had been kis misfor-
tune to present a petition praying for increased punish-
ment for the crime of incendiarism, but he did not say
that he wished to have that crime punished capitally.
Now, the farmers would, he thought, have greater con-
fidence in the Government since their recent declaration,
and increased employment of labour would be the conse-
quence, more particularly after they had witnessed the
. expiring effort of the Anti-Corn-law League a few
nights since.
The House then divided, when there appeared-
--For going into 'a Committee of Supply 130
For Mr. Gibson's amendment
, • • Majority
Upon entering the gallery we found the House in
Committee, and

Mr. IVYSE moving on the grant.of Education (Ire-
land), "That a dutiful address, be presented to her Ma-
jesty, humbly representing to her Majesty the import-
ance of due.provision being made for the University edu-
cation of her Roman Catholic subjects of Ireland, espe-
cially of such as are intended for the priesthood, and
the inadequacy-of the means and system now existing
for the attainment of such object ; and further praying
her Majesty, that she will be graciously pleased to give
directions, by an enlargement and improvement of exist-
ing arrangements, either by opening the emoluments and
honours as well as studies of the University of Dnblin to
Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, and raising the
College of Maynooth to the dignity of a theological
faculty of the said university, or by founding and main-
taining'it Roman Catholic university, with equal rank,
.endowments, and privileges with those of the University
of Dublin, or by such other means as her Majesty in her
wisdom and benevolence may deem fit,- adequately to
supply the deficiencies now complained of, and, as far as
may be, effectually provide for the future moral and in-
tellectual wants of the Roman Catholic inhabitants ;
thus promoting the advancement and happiness,
'not of -Roman Catholics only, but of all
'Classes and pefsuasions of the Irish people."
He would wish to exclude all partisan and political con-
siderations in the consideration of this question. An
impression had gone abroad, that he (Mr. Wyse) had,
'on a previous occasion, endeavoured to disparage the
*utility and importance of the Dublin University. No-
thing could bo further from his intention. He had been
•educated himself there, and entertained the most devoted
affection for the institution. He had no reason to com-
plain of any unjust interference of the Dublin University
with the religion of its pupils. During his time there
he never had observed it, and he believed that, as far
as their rules and regulations permitted, nothing could
be more tolerant. But, he did not think that the rules
of that University were made in a spirit of toleration,
and that it could be made much more beneficial to the
Catholic community than it was at present.—(Hear,
hear.) Nor were the difficulties in making it so great
as were generally supposed. It was no longer contended
that education was 'not necessary to enable men to
govern and obey properly; and subjects of every.
Government had a right to claim from it
instruction, in at least the elementary princi-
ples of education. The elementary education of
the people had engaged successive Governments, and he
must say that they had promoted it by every means in
their power. He had called upon the Government of
that day to throw open the University to Catholics, or
to help, to establish a Catholic University_ by its side.
He did this while lie had the honour to be a Member of