The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-15 00:00:00

gallows on which they hanged him as make the unfor-
tunate suitors in Chancery pay this amount. Heil said
there had been no sale of offices. The Right Hon.
Baronet said there had been a sale. Issue was joined
upon that point, and a Committee ought to decide.
—(Cheers.) The Irish case was perfectly different—
there a patent office was in question—an office
which was legally the subject of purchase and sale.
The taxing masters in the Court of Chancery had
2,0001. a-year, while the taxing masters in the courts of
common law, who had a great deal more to do, had
1,200/. a-year. When the Bill had been brought for-
ward, the Right Hon. Baronet had never told the House
that the compensation would amount to 7,5001. a-year
during the lives of the parties, and 2,5001. a-year for
some years after their death. The Hon. and Learned
Member for Liskeard said that if the motion passed it
would put a stop to all law reform. He should suspect
for the future all persons who talked of law reform who
did not vote for this motion. He had showed the House
that these fees were not worth ten days' purchase. They
had been altered by Lord Hardwicke, and one great fee
had been entirely abolished by Lord Lyndhurst within
one month after he had been first appointed to office.
Strangers were then ordered to withdraw, and the
House divided, when there appeared—
For the motion
Against it
Majority against the motion
POOR LAWS (IRELAND.)
Sir D. NORREYS moved the appointment of the
following Committee on Poor Relief (Ireland) Acts—
Sir Denham Norreys, Lord Eliot, Mr. More O'Ferrall,
Mr. Young, Mr. French, Viscount Bernard, Mr. John
O'Connell, Lord Claud Hamilton, Sir Henry Winston
Barron, Mr. Shaw, Lord Courtenay, Mr. Vesey, Sir
Edmund Hayes,.; Mr. Bellew, and Mr. E. P. Shirley.
This question was in a very peculiar position, and he
could not understand the grounds on which it was in-
tended to oppose the appointment of this Committee.
The poor-law in Ireland was an experiment, and all
that was asked for was inquiry. He denied that his
object was to procure the repeal of the poor-laws. The
alteration in the poor-laws in England was an experi-
ment. Some years after the experiment had been insti-
tuted the House had granted an inquiry. Why
should they refuse an inquir' into the working
of the poor-laws in Ireland P and yet they had
virtually refused to do so. The conduct of the Govern-
ment had been most unstatesmanlike. They had, in the
first instance, granted this Committee, because they had
been badgered into it by his Hon. Friend the Member
for Kildare, and then, because his Right Hon. Friend
the Member for Dublin said " No," they had refused
it. They were about to rescind their own act by re-
sisting the nomination of a Committee. Some half-
dozen of Members opp osed it, and therefore the Go-
vernment thought themselves justified in opposing it. If
the Government thought the poor-law worked well and
beneficially in Ireland, they should not have supported
the appointment of a Committee; but if they really con-
sidered that the matter required revision, they should
have granted it. The public mind in Ireland was so
much engaged on another subject, that its attention was
diverted from the consideration of the poor-laws; but
there was a strong feeling in that country that many
of the provisions of that law required remodelling.
He looked upon the poor. laws as now established in a
manner that would prevent their ever being done away
with, but he thought that there were several defects
that might be remedied. He wished that the Com-
mittee should be appointed, to consider the general work-
ing of the system, and see how far it was likely to
meet the objects for which it was intended.
Mr. BELLEW opposed the motion. He thought
that at the present time no advantage would be derived
from the proposed inquiry. He complained that the
Poor-law Commissioners had not sufficiently studied the
wishes of the inhabitants of the people of Ireland, and
he regretted also that no attempt had been made to
legislate on medical charities. But he thought that
within a year or two from this time a Committee would
be much more useful than it could be at present.
Sir J. GRAHAM said the Hon. Member for Mallow
having made his speech, he hoped he would now be
somewhat more at ease, and not press his motion. The
House would recollect that he had, at the close of the
last session, given an assurance that if Irish Peers de-
sired inquiry on this subject he would yield to their
wishes, and that he had given a similar assurance
with respect to Irish Members in that House.
A great number of the Irish Peers were adverse to the
inquiry sought for by the Hon. Baronet the Member for
Mallow, as also was his Hon. Friend the Member for the
Queen's County, and a number of other Irish commoners.
He was decidedly of opinion that the proposition of the
Hon. Baronet, for a Committee, would be attended with
not the slightest (practical or beneficial result at this
period of the session. The questions proposed to be
entered upon in that Committee were so multifarious and
difficult, that the more he considered the motion of the
Hon. Baronet he was confirmed in this opinion. He was
most anxious to allow a fair trial to the measure of last
year, and to be influenced by the opinions of those
Members of this House who were connected with Ireland.

-16

Mr. F. FRENCH supported the motion of his Hon.
Friend for a Committee. Such a Committee had been
sanctioned on a former occasion by the Right Hon. Ba-
ronet, and he (Mr. French) certainly thought it was now
rather a singular mode, when it suited his will and plea-
sure, to call upon the House to stultify itself by rescind-
ing the opinion they had expressed on that occasion.
Would the Right Hon. Baronet (notwithstanding his vic-
tory last night) now maintain unaltered a lass, which
tended by its operation to increase every existing evil
of which Ireland hitherto complained, because some
Hon. Members from Ireland said that amongst their con-
stituencies there existed no desire for a change with re-
spect to the Irish poor-laws? But he would challenge
them to show that in a vast majority of the parishes of
Ireland the operation of those laws was not attended
with the greatest detriment.—(Hear, hear.) Such
must be the opinion of any one who paid the slight-
est attention to the spirit and tone of the Irish press.
(The Hon. Gentleman then read an extract from a letter
of the Rev. Mr. O'Malley, who had been an advocate of
poor-laws, to show they had not worked well in Ireland.
The Hon. Gentleman then went on to show that Mr.
Nicholls was quite incorrect in his calculations as to the
expense of building the poor-houses, and the number of
persons who would be likely to go into them.) A
petition presented to the House, from the guardians of
the South Dublin Union, stated that the cost of
each pauper in the Mendicity, before the establishment
of the poor-laws, was 31. 13s. 10d., while, under the poor-
laws,
the cost was 71. 16s. This law was not fitted to the
habits and feelings of the people, and they would agitate
against it from one part of the country to the other.
Mr. SHAW said he would state a few simple facts
which, he thought, would remove some of the erroneous
impressions which, it seemed, had been taken up with
regard to the working of the law. There was not one
single member of the Commission upon either side that
was not in favour of adopting the law. He, for one, had
never thought that the system was perfect ; but he
thought that some further trial should be given before
any attempt to change it was made. Ina large pro-
portion of the unions the system was working satisfac-
torily—that was, the largest portion of the rates were
collected, and the paupers were provided for. On the 25th
of March last the balance against the unions was only
hl3a,voeobole.en in
liefatihronuegsahtstattheids, wasand
hanfarcetenNniVhmlcelnlcinelldghtitiatto,
in the present state of the unions, it was not desirable to
do anything which would interfere with the efforts of
those who were using their best exertions to carry the
law out fairly.
Mr. MORE O'FERRALL said that the Right Hon.
Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department, had
unjustly, and from his own imagination, accused him as
one of the persons who opposed the introduction of any
poor-law into Ireland. On the contrary, when he was
a member of the Commission, he had not opposed the
introduction of a system of poor-laws. But he syas
in a minority in the Commission, in opposition
to the report on which the present lJaw was
founded. He never voted in favour of this law, although
a Member of the late Government at the time
.when it
came before the House, and, rather than vote for it, he
had placed his office in the hands of his Noble Friend
then at the Government, because he was convinced
that the Bill was not suited to the feelings and habits
of the people of Ireland, and that it would increase the
evils which it was designed to remedy. But, when the
measure became law, he never attempted to start any
resistenco to it. Was it not rather too bad to tell him he
was one of those who wished to upset the poor-law ?
He wished to do no such thing ; but they might depend
upon it, if they did not amend the present law, they
would cause the upsetting of that which would prove
worse than a poor-law. If the Government were deter-
mined not to grant the Committee, upon them must rest
the responsibility ; for, if once they forced the people
to resist the law, they might depend upon it they would
have some difficulty to stop that resistance.
Sir J. GRAHAM explained.
Mr. REDDINGTON said that he could not conceive
any grounds on which an inquiry could be refused.
Great doubts were entertained throughout Ireland, but
particularly in the west of Ireland, as to the operation of
the law. But though he thought that a Select Commit-
tee ought to be granted, he admitted that much was to be
corrected at home, particularly on the part of the guar-
dians, which legislation could not reach.
Lord J. RUSSELL said his opinion was, after listen-
ing to the objections which had been urged for the refu-
sal of a Select Committee, that unless the principle of
the law was entirely vicious, the best course to be
adopted was to leave to the Government the question of
inquiry into the abuses in the administration of the law
—to send all complaints to the Secretary of State for the
Home Department, who would investigate the charges
made against the Commissioners, and who could be asked
in the House what the foundations of those complaints
were, and what was the result of his inquiries. Having
so done, there might come a time when a Select Com-
mittee would be advisable ; but at present the objections
made by the Honourable Gentleman confirmed him
that the Government took the right course. On the part
of those Hon. Gentlemen who spoke in favour of the
Committee, there was an evident blending of two
questions. Some spoke against the principle of the
law, and others spoke against its administration. With
regard to the appointment of a Committee, as the law
was entirely new in Ireland, and as many of the persons
who had to carry it into effect were unused to it, and as
it appeared those who were hostile to the law were be-
coming more reconciled to it, he thought that they
should wait for some time. With regard to what the
Hon. Gentleman had said on what had always been a
sore subject with him (Mr. F. French), he meant the
appointment of Mr. Nicholls to go to Ireland, he would
state the sole reason of that appointment. When the
report of the Commissioners appointed to consider the
qt
pill
eIF
ns liwo ono nr
kolhfnagsde
vobefer eat nhl
the no first
oi
or ps-
leraep‘syresanctoteinde ,a
the
hlhyee had asked the
o asaujaeientt eodf withthat
rno ern ptao
make
t a n
systemda t
shoaret yis
poor-lawsb had
o arlyl s
ftioannt enl drdeatl hta
nao tdn t. hf
for
rur eet phtoehret
ni an letoor non eds
considered
rud
i oel
nd
how best the report might be modified. He did not throw
it aside entirely, for it would be seen that many of its re