The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-07 00:00:00

cowed i,n tho same faktitteable spirit as iri thd to* et douse
iVlieti they originated there. He would not oppose the
production of the papers for which the Noble had
moved.

The Marquis of CLANRICARDE did not think the
explanation of the Noble Lord at all satisfactory. The
Noble Lord b oisted a good deal of the Three-and-a-Half
pre Ctiritti, hilt hii did riot think there was any thing
very novel or statesmanlike in the idea : lie belidvdd it
was a good measure, but it was generally anticipated. He
approved of the financial policy of the Government gene-
rally, but he altogether disapproved of the manner in
which tees had treated that House, which was now the
chief subject of discussion. The Irish Registration Bill
might not be very pressing I he felt confident it was
better tile present law should be allowed to continue than
that the Government measure should pass into a law. It
was a farce to say the present constituency of Ireland
was popular—it was narrow, cramped, and restricted.
The Charitable Bequesta Bill contained much that was
good and useful, but, at th# same time, it was a great
mistake to say that the measure had originated with the
present Government; it had been devised by their pre-
decessors. The hurly burly way which measures had
been passed through that House was in a great measure
attributable to the Government. Many Bills had gone
through the House without a single word being said upon
them. The Grand Jury (Dublin) Presentment Bill, he
would venture to say, was not understood by any of
their Lordships, and nu one had said a word upon it but
himself. lie thought the motion of his Noble Friend
well timed ; and ho trusted that he would bring it for-
ward next session. For his own part, he thought the
course that had been pursued was not calculated to in-
crease the esteem of the people for Parliament.
The Earl of WICKLOW was net at all surprised at
the course that had been pursued by the Noble Marquis,
as these species of discussions had now taken place for
several years at this period of the session. He thought
many of the complaints that had been made against the
Government with respect to the introduction of Bills
was totally uncalled fqr. As to the censure that had
been cast upon the Government for the counting out of
the house of Commons, he thought it lay with Members
on the other side, and not with the Government.
The Marquis of NORMANBY, in reply, stated that
the manner in which the business of the House had been
conducted latterly was greatly detrimental to the coun-
try. Bills had been hurried through the House in a
most unseemly way. In conclusion, he wished to know
whether the Metropolitan Buildings Bill had been sub-
mitted to the Commissioners alluded to by his Noble
Friend. He thought some course ought to be adopted to
put an end to the legerdemain legislation that had lately
taken place. He thought if the House met at four
o'clock instead of five o'clock that might be prevented.
The Duke of BUCCLEUCH said that the Metropoli-
tan Buildings Bill had not been specifically referred to
the Commissioners alluded to.

The motion was then agreed to.
POOR-LAW AMENDMENT BILL.

Lord WJIARNCLIFFE moved that the House should
resolve itself into a Committee on the Poor-law Amend-
ment Bill.

The Bishop of EXETER objected to the motion. He
thought it would be useless to attempt to go on with the
measure at the present late period of the session ; they
had, in fact, only that night to discuss it, although the
House of Commons had taken seven or eight days to
do so. There was no pressure for the measure during
the present session, and he should therefore move that it
be committed that day six months. It became that
House to give the subject its greatest attention, and was
it to be said that it could be properly discussed in a
House consisting of not one twentieth of its Members ?
The present law was an experimental law, and the ex-
periment had answered most marvellously ; that it had
seen the cause of the incendiarism that had taken place
he thought there was very little doubt. These reasons
alone appeared to him to press their Lordships to con-
sider well what provisions should be made with respect
to the poor, and to take care that no rash provisions
should be adopted. No provision in the present Bill had
any relation to the spiritual education of the poor,
and he thought such an omission showed that the sub-
ject had not been well and duly considered. He thought
the Secretary of State was responsible for this, not only
to his country, but to his God. Their Lordships could
not pass a measure of this kind hastily, if they wished
to have the sanction of their country. He felt indignant
that men, placed in the situation of Ministers of the
Crown, should dare so to trifle with their duty as to en-
deavour to thrust forward a measure like the present.
If their Lordships passed this miserable expedient, they
might depend upon it that they would set at nought the
best interests of the people. The law of Elizabeth said
that the poor had a right to subsistence and to be pro-
tected from want ; but if the present measure passed,
that right would be taken away. The Poor-law Bill of
1834 was the product of the Malthusian theory. He
(the Bishop of Exeter) had the greatest respect
for Mr. Malthus, but he objected to his principles.
The biographer of Mr. Malthus said—Mr. Malthus'
philosophy and the poor-law must stand or fall together.
Mr. Justice Blackstone said the poor were entitled by
the canon law to relief from the parsons and parishioners-
of every parish. The statute of Elizabeth required that
there should be work found for the poor in their own
parish. It positively enjoined the building of new cot-
tages for them, if their previous dwellings were not suf-
ficient. Liberty—the liberty of the public at large—
was recognised in that statute the Magna Charta, as he
ventured to call it, of the poor. If the British Legis-
lature had recognised this right in 1834, it would have
dealt with the poor as freemen, instead of shutting them
up in gaols. Gaol was a strong word, but he would cite;
an authority to prove that it was not too strong. (The
Right Rev. Prelate then read a letter of the Poor-
law Commissioners, characteristic of the poor-house
system, as a system of poor-law restraint). This was all
which was necessary to establish the justice of the
appellation. He then referred to the state of the
pauper schools, and the ignorance of the school-
masters. Mr. Tufnell had stated that tho character
of the bulk of the adult population, and the ,
example they set were of the worst description.
Was it to be endured that honest persons of good
character should be compelled to associate with persons
who would contaminate them, and that their wives and
children should be exposed to the same evil? These
considerations were so important, that he defied them to
go on with the Bill in its present shape. As Christians,
they could not, as legislators they would not. Under
the old law, and under the Gilbert Acts, man and wife
could not be separated. In case relief was required, the
wife could not be removed to the place where she had
a settlement, even though the husband had no settlement
at all. Lord Brougham had denied that the Commis-
sioners ever ordered the separation of man and wife.
He had taken pains to bring that to the test. He
wished to bring the point to issue, by a trial in a
court of law ; but his counsel told him that his diffi-
culty was this : the orders of the Commissioners were
made of the same authority as an Act of Parliament.
The only question then was, whether Parliament had
the power to separate man and wife, and ho was
not prepared to say it had not that power.
lie did not, however, think any parallel to the power
given by this Act could be found, except in the Act of
Henry VIII., which gave to his proclamations, during
his life, the force of law, and another Act of Heary 111.,
by which his obsequious Parliament gave to the De
Spencers, and other minions of that monarch, the power
of making regulations that were to have the force of law.
No such power as this was ever given by any other Act.
But the separation of man and wife was now the abso-
lute law in 460 unions—many of them very extensive,
some of them covering as much as 300 square miles. In
such a union as this, it was impossible for the poor to
leave their homes to go so far for relief. The hardship
they suffered from this cause was very grievous. They
had been told on many occasions, and they had been
told last night, of the abuses of the old poor law. But
it should be remembered that they were abuses, whereas
those evils of which he complained were legal parts of the
system—that was the great distinction. And these
abuses of the old law were, besides, of comparatively
modern introduction ; they were principally these—
the system of allowances, of roundsmen, and the pay-
ment of wages out of the rates. All these practices
were, he believed, introduced in the years 1795 and
1796. These were years of singular scarcity and dis-
tress, when the prices of provisions had risen to an
enormous height, in consequence of scarcity aggravated
by the war. Then arose the practice of allowances and
roundsmen, which was first adopted, he believed, in the
county of Berks. But in the county of Durham, where
he had long resided, and in the north of England, it had
only been adopted to a limited extent, though in
the south of England it was so general that it
created the impression of its being a universal
practice. He thought it was their bounden duty, when
they were endeavouring to fix on a right basis an en-
during system of poor-laws, that they should consider
well whether they could not revert to the state of things
that existed under the 43d of Elizabeth, with such
checks as ought to be provided against the repetition of
those gross abuses which led to those evils which were
made the plea for enacting the present law. Could such a
question as this be decided that night ? He did not
think there were as many as twelve Peers present. The
House of Commons had taken six months to consider
the Bill, while their Lordships certainly would not have
as many hours. Was not this a measure of such a com-
plicated nature as to render more ample time for delibe-
ration absolutely necessary? lie must say that it was
not only a most complicated ;,measure, but that he
thought the necessity for passing it at the present time
was so inconsiderable—there was so little reason for
passing the Bill this year, that to do so with so little
consideration would be absolutely trifling with the sacred
interests of the poor. He did hope, that what he might
have said that night, however weakly, or perhaps with
an appearance of greater warmth than he ought to have
spoken, would not be permitted to injure with their
Lordships the cause he was advocating; and he hoped
he had brought forward facts enough to induce their
Lordships to support the motion which he should now
make—that this House do go into Committee on this
Bill on this day six months.
The Duke of WELLINGTON said he had listened
with great patience to the speech of the Right Rev;
Prelate, and in reply, he bogged to call their Lordships
attention, in the first place, to the arguments which the
Right Rev. Prelate had brought forward to induce their
Lordships to postpone the consideration of this measure
to a future period. In the first place, the Right Rev.
Prelate told their Lordships, an hour and a half ago,
that it was too late in the evening to go into the consi-
deration of this Bill, and he afterwards said there was
not a sufficient number of Peers present to discuss
it. He begged to remind the House that they
had frequently sat till a much later hour than
They were not at all
theirthis, annudmbethrsatwearet
ftehwe p;
according to the constitution of that House, to con-
sider any question whatever.
eetsenttbeymo:,eernet,
suffitheojuenght,
too
nd fewr
the to
consideration discuss
eurhelothusaet bofarlcobmeemnonsos. andlong
u
one which related to a subject so perfectly well known
under
to all their Lordships, and one which had, in fact, been
under the consideration of Parliament during the last
l m
of measure