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

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particularly refer where notority Was Eotigjit by juve-
nile offenders, did add &het penalty to the other inflicted
by the law. It bad been suggested to him that they
shotild follow this example. He was bound to state that,
with regard to these juvenile offenders, as fer all they
could discover, it was bad example that had produced
that effect • but he weuld-repeat that there was no proof
whatever Of a generally diseased state of society among
the labouring classes in the district the Hon. Gentle-
man had alluded to. If he could believe that a Commit.
tee of Inquiry was necessary, he would 'not hesitate to
appoint one, but at the present moment, with the crime
decreasing, the law being carried into execution without
difficulty, those who perpetrated the crime being com-
mitted for trial, and being about to be tried, it was not
under such circumstances that he thought it expedient
to advise the Crown to depart from the usual course
of administering the law, or to appoint a Committee
for investigating the circumstances. With respect to the
other topics the Hon. Gentleman had thought fit to in-
troduce, it would be enough for him to say that he did not
think either the language the Hon. Gentleman had ad-
dressed to the House, or the train of argument, if argu-
ment it could be called, which was rather a .course of
invective, was likely, on the present occasion, to induce
any large portion of the House to concur with him in
the motion he had made. He was quite satisfied that
neither the speech of the Hon. Gentleman, 'nor his mo-
tion, if it could be carried, would have the effect of
diminishing the evils which he declared he was desirous
of alleviating, On the contrary, he was quite. satisfied,
though it did not become him to impute motives to the
Hon. Gentleman, that he had acted with indiscretion in
the course he had taken--one which was more likely to
produce than to prevent the evils of which he complained.
On these grounds he should offer his most decided op-
position to the motion of the Hon. Gentleman.
_ _

Mr. WODEHOUSE said there would be other op-
portunities of replying to the speech of the Honourable
Gentleman, of which he should nut fail to avail himself.
He should only address himself, at present, to the ob-
servations the Hon. Gentleman made with respect to him-
self. The Hon. Member had stated that he (Mr. Wode-
house) had arraigned the exercise of the royal preroga-
tive of mercy. He was standing in the presence of that
House, and he distinctly denied any such intention.
The case alluded to was of a peculiar nature. Two per-
sOns were tried for incendiarism, found guilty, and sen-
tenced to fifteen years' transportation. A few weeks
afterwards they received a free pardon. It was utterly
impossible to deny that that was a circumstance calcu-
lated to create surprise. But when the Hon. Gentleman
said that he was an advocate for the dungeon, he begged,
leave to tell him that the more he inquired into this sub-
ject the more he would find that there fires were not
the effect of the ill-usage—the impression which the
Hon. Member intended to convey. As far as his own
county was concerned, thert was an instance of three
fires being caused by a• child between 11 and 12 years
old. There was no doubt of his guilt, but somehow he
was such a favourite with his master and mistress that
they could get '.lO conviction against him. There was
another case in Leicestershire of a fire caused by a deaf
and duir_lo man, who had previously been convicted of the
crin'e of cutting the throat of a donkey belonging to a
neighbour. Of his guilt there *as no doubt ; but a me-
morial was presented to the Secretary of State in his
favour, and a poor woman who had given evidence against
him was burned in effigy. It had been proved that eight
fires had been caused in. the county of Sussex by one
man who was not at all connected with the agriculture
of that county, being a cooper. He believed that the
discontent that prevailed among the working classes
might be materially attributed to the nonsense which
the Hon. Gentleman and others had industriously
circulated among them with respect to wages. With re-
gal -A to the assertion the Hon. Member had made of his
having arraigned the prerogative of mercy, there was no
foundation for the assertion, and he gave it his most un-
qualified contradiction.

Mr. DARBY alluded to the quotation that had been
made from the letter of the Rev. Mr. Osborne, and de-
fended the Duke of Richmond from the charge that that
letter made upon him, of being careless of the interests
of the poor labourers. He could speak from his own
knowledge that no man. was more studious of their in-
terests than the Noble Duke. He strongly condemned
the course the Hon. Member had taken of originating
such a discussion, as it might tend to increase the com-
mission of the crime.

Mr. BRIGHT said he had noticed ever since he had
had the• honour of holding a seat in that House, and ever
since he had been in the habit of reading the accounts
of its proceedings in the public journals, that there was
a great disinclination to inquire into anything connected
with the agricultural districts. •If such an inquiry was
proposed, it was sure to be discovered that the time was
most inconvenient for it. Why all this sensibility should
exist was more than he could understand, except by re-
ferring it to some questions with which many Hon.
Gentlemen opposite did not think it advisable to trouble
the House. The Right Hon. Gentleman had alluded to
the ,absence of the Hon. Member for Manchester, who,
he said, had been enjoying himself in the country, while
he and his colleagues bad been employed in looking
after the interest of the poor, in arranging
the clauses of the Poor-law Amendment Act. It was
an excellent occupation, and one there was much occasion
for ; but it was just as useful to the country for some
Members of that House to apply their minds to disco-
vering what were the true causes of pauperism, as in
treating pauperism as it existed, and devising schemes
for relieving it. The Right Hon. Baronet had spoken
of a certain clergyman as a ", popularity-hunting
parson." Nothing was more easy than to use
phrases for the purpose of getting rid of, a fact which
any individual might state. But this popularity-hunting
'arson happened to be connected with the aristocracy of
the country. He wrote—or somebody else wrote for
him—Honourable before his name; and connected
with the aristocracy and the Church, it was
not likely that he would run away with by
any absurd or vulgar sympathies with the popu-
lation among whom he lived. Any Hon. Gentleman ac-
quainted with the county of Dorsetahire must know that
that gentleman was most active and zealous in discharg-
ing the duties of his office, and was most anxious in his
desire to promote the wellbeing of those among whom
he resided. The Right Hon. Gentleman had spoken of
the favourable account he had received from the Judges
he had sent into the counties where these crimes had
taken place ;—why no one supposed that witnesses could
not be had • no one supposed that convictions could not
be obtained; they knew perfectly well that during the
last few weeks there had not been so many of these
outrages committed, as during some previous weeks. But
was it to be premised from that, that the causes of incendia-
rism had been removed ? Why, be knew, if the Right
Hon, Baronet or Hon. Gentlemen connected with those
counties did not, that there had been many threatening
letters sent in various parts of these districts within a
very recent period. It was because his Hon. Friend
did not wish to add to all the alarm that prevailed, by
stating the circumstances that had come to his know-
ledge during his visit to Suffolk, that he had not men-
tioned them particularly. He believed that the causes
of these outrages had not been by any means removed,
and that they might increase rather than diminish.
With respect to the question of wages which had been
alluded to by the Hon. Member for South Norfolk, he
could assure him that there had never been a single
meeting in an agricultural county at which Ms Hon.
Friend. the Member for Stockport and himself had at-
tended during the last year, at which they had not
endeavoured to elucidate the subject of wages to the
meeting, so as to show that the rate of wages was not
at the disposal of the farmers, but depended mainly on
the number of the labourers as compared with the
amount of work to be done. If the Hon. Gentleman
opposite had, in discussions in that House,
taken an equally wise course, there would have
been much less ill-feeling between the employers and
the employed than there was at present. But, for him-
self, he could say that there was no man living whose
conscience was clearer of any imputation of having
endeavoured to stir up the labouring population against
those by whom they were employed, and on whose lands
they lived. He had spoken of the sensibility which
Hon. Members opposite displayed upon agricultural
questions. Now, at an early period of the present
session, a motion had been made for a Committee of
Inquiry into the effect of, the protection duty on farmers
and farm-labourers. How was that motion met ?
The Right Hon. Gentleman, the President of the Board
of Trade, argued that there were persons on whom the
appointment of the Committee would have an unfavour-
able effect, particularly considering the quarter from
whence the proposition came. The sensibilities of Hon.
Gentlemen prevented him from granting that Committee,
though it would have been granted to any other interest.
The Right Hon. Baronet stated that this crime had not been
so frequent during the last week as it had been before,
and that there was no disposition in the district itself
that these things should be inquired into. Now, there
was a meeting of the inhabitants of Rattlesden to take
into consideration the statement which appeared in the
Times, and they wished that a Commission should be
appointed to inquire into the causes of incendiarism.
That fact was not only a justification of his Hon. Friend,
but a condemnation of the Member for Essex, who had
neversought for an inquiry into their cause. Why, if only
one fire every month had occurred in the manufactur-
ing districts, nothingshould have been left undone to in-
vestigate a state of things so alarming. And was it not
alarming that so many fires were taking place in those
counties ? Was it nothing that the insurance-offices
were suffering ?—that the tenant-farmers were suffer-
ing?—and that there was such an increase of one of the
worst of crimes? And yet they were taunted with inter- '
fering with what was not their concern. Butif the Govern-
ment hadinstituted no inquiry, the Times and Chronicle had;
and they differed as to the cause of these fires. The
Times stated that the new poor-law was the cause of
them. The Chronicle said "No ; for the crime existed
under the old law, but the no longer bearable distress of
the labourer was the cause of it." He was yesterday in
Kent, and he stopped at an inn, kept by a respectable
person who was a Tory, and always supported the Right
Hon. Gentleman, the Paymaster of the Forces. He
(Mr. Bright) had asked him if there was any truth in
the statement, that the new poor-law was harsh upon
the labourer ?• He replied that no person who was rated
at less than 25 per cent. could be a guardian, and there-
fore no person but the farmers could be elected guardians,
and that the labourer had no chance under such a
system, for he had a great difficulty to, make both ends
whichme t .
pressedßli t th e
uponr e
thea
labourer, grievance
fo
rbeforetherethe poor-law
w ere more
persons in those counties than there was employment
for, and he believed that on the landlords rested
the responsibility of such a state of things. The Mem-
ber for Northamptonshire had, on a former occasion,
accused him of saying that that House was a club of
landowners, and legislated for the benefit of landowners ;
but the public must have come to that conclusion,
though he had not said • so. Rents in Suffolk were
as high, or higher, than they were fifty years ago,
but the return of capital employed by tenants was
not much higher now than it was then, and the condition
of the labourers was becoming worse, and worse. There
was the keenest competition amongst all the classes of
the community: except %unapt the landowners, who