The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-13 00:00:00

TO THE RIGHT HON. THE LORD
ADVOCATE OF SCOTLAND.
My dear Lord,—lt was natural that the House of
Commons should hear with admiration, not unnaingled
with 'surprise, your clear and able statement upon our
Scottish poor-laws. That the former feeling should be
general was no more than all your friends anticipated
when they learned by whom the subject was to be pre •
sented to the House ; and the latter was the equally na-
tural result of the ignorance which too widely prevails in
the Legislature regarding the institutions of a country
which, pursuing the peaceful career of industry and im-
provement, has not, by agitating and perplexing men's
minds, compelled, as it were, every citizen of the State
to a more accurate and unavoidable acquaintance with
them.

An obvious disadvantage, however, attends this good
reputation, and it has been frequently visible in the
little attention which has been given to the discussion in
Parliament of Scottish questions ; and, so strongly im-
pressed am I with this fact, that in a matter of such
importance, great and inconvenient as are the evils of
delay, it were far better, as I think, that any measure on
this subject should be well considered in this session,
with a view to its being passed in the next, rather than
that, in the short interval of two months, it should at
once become the law of the land.
In addressing to you some thoughts upon the Bill
which you have brought in, I am well aware that I
do so under every disadvantage, especially when I state
objections to any part of it.
The current of popular feeling is, at the present mo-
ment, against any one who may do so, and my language
may be attributed to feelings of self-interest, to which I
do not pretend to be insensible, but which Ido not in
the least fear your assigning to me to any undue extent;
while, I entertain a hope that a long residence in the
north of Scotland, and I know not why I should not say
it, a devotion of at heist an average contribution to the
claims of poverty and sickness, may, where I am known,
procure for me a similar acquittal.
Premising, then, that in what I have to advance, I
speak solely with ref, rence to rural and landward pa-
rishes, and chiefly, though by no means exclusively, to
these in the Highlands.
I. I fear that it is not by many very clearly seen,
what may be the effect in such districts of the new law ;
and that a result ruinous to the landholders, and, conse-
quently, to other classes, will arise from the endeavour
to raise its superstructure too exactly upon the wide
and straggling, and, as now considered, the uncer-
tain base of the old one ; and the difficult endea-
vour to make one enactment serve alike for north and
south, for town and country. I take at once, as a
fair instance, a parish near this, and presenting no very
peculiar features.
In this parish, it has been the practice of the Kirk-
session to endeavour to give aid to as great a number
as possible of those who appeared to require it, and
though the sums given are not large, there will, in these
twelve months, have been so relieved, about 180 persons
or families.
I may here observe, that should it be said that all
these cannot possibly be bond fide paupers, I reply that
it has not been the usage of Kirk-sessions in the High-
lands to be guided by the most rigid rules as to this.
In truth, they are not without excuse ; for it has so long
been held, and by no mean authorities, that parochial
relief in Scotland is given rather as an aid than for
main te nance ; that it is not wonderful, that small as
ths se funds frecpently are, they are often very widely
diffused ; and 1 will not assert, that possibly an English
Poor-law Commissioner might not say, on examination
of this list, "I find of these 180, not more, according to
the Scots law, than 40 real paupers—of these 10 should
have out-door relief ; 30 should go to the workhouse ;
and as for the other 140, they may be poor, but they are
not paupers." He might, however, come to a very dif-
ferent conclusion, and, at all events, the numbers re-
lieved in the parish are us I have stated.
Of course, there are diversities of condition among
these ; but I take it there are few of them who could
not make out a board of gentlemen sitting in Edinburgh,
a case of poverty. The distinction between the regular
poors' roll and that of the occasional poor, it may be
remarked , has in practice never been much attended to
in the Highlands, the poor being rather disposed in
classes, according to the amount paid to them, than
divided into two distinct sections ; and under these cir-
cumstances, there is not one of these recipients who, in
the present day at least, would not call himself a pauper,
or be so called by the agent who might take him by pe-
tition to the Supreme Court.
It; then, with the numbers of the poor thus deter-
mined under the whole law, you proceed under the new
law to adjust their rates of allowance, let us see what
will be the result in this parish.
Five guineas is, I believe, a fair quotation of the ave-
rage annual sum which the promoters of these changes
demand from each individual or family.
This gives 945/. and the expense of management, me-
dical attendance, and education of poor children being
add(!el, it is clear that 1,000/. will not be an over-esti-
mate. The nett land rental of the parish, or rather the
rental after paying Kirk, King, assessments for prisons,
roads, &c., ordinary management, and unavoidable re-
pairs, may be stated at 2,7001. Ido not deduct mort-
gages incurred in improving the productiveness of the
soil, legal provisions to widows and children, bad debts,
or any of those ordinary drawbacks which a liberal pro-
prietor may well consider unavoidable ; but, taking the
nett rental as I have stated it, the charge for the poor
will be 37 par cent. I am, of course, aware that part of
this is payable by the tenantry nominally, but, it is very
obvious, really by the landlords—and as for what is ex-
igible from feuars and the like, it will not in many in-
stances be worth collecting.
These, in varying proportions and degrees, I know to
be the circumstances, not of one, but of fifty parishes,
or, possibly, many more ; and I desire to assure you,
that I am unconscious of exaggeration in my statement.
Its correctness is well known to hundreds, who, how-
ever, are, unfortunately, not legislators, and will only
be attempted to be denied or explained away by those
who, being acquainted with none but more wealthy
countries, are ignorant of it ; or by others who may be
seeking no more than a cheap reputation for philan-
thropy.
I may be told that lam more alarmed than is neces-
sary ; that things will not be so very bad ' • that we
may have implicit faith in the board, and so forth. It
may be so ; but this assurance will hardly have much
value till the figures I have given are disproved ; and,
as to the proposed board, several of whom are my
valued friends, while I beg to say of one and all of
those who as vet compose it, that I do not think it
possible to select, in the kingdom, the same number of
individuals, better fitted b, character and ability, for
this or any similar duty ; nevertheless, as I cannot tell
how long we may have their services, and am equally
ign srant of the rules by which they or their successors
may be guided, I must be permitted to express my be-
lief, that few will be content to hold their estates under
any such doubtful tenure.
But, if such be the state of matters in parishes like
the one I have referred to, what will be the fate of many
who possess estates in the north-west Highlands and '
Islands ? I firmly believe, that in many of these the
nett rental will not give to the whole of those whom the
kirk session would wish to relieve, any thing approach-
ing- to the allowance which is contended for ; and, if
this be so, there can be but one result. Such of these
unfortunate proprietors as have no other source of in-
, come, must follow the footsteps of those whom the an-
nihilation, by legislation, of the kelp manufacture, drove
to Australia and elsewhere, of whom several occur to
my memory, at this moment, and will, as readily, to
yours.
The owner of ten thousand a-year may contrive to
surrender 37 per cent. ; the owner of one thousand can
hardly do so ; and the natural unwillingness of all men
to descend, in their own neighbourhood, from the top to
the bottom of the social scale, will cause their estates to
to be handed over to their creditors, who will become
known to the residents or them, only through the medium
of an agent, whose more stringent management may per-
haps induce them to doubt if they have, after all, been
gainers by the change—while the undrained, neglected,
and wood-stripped soil, and ruined mansion, will remind
sober and patriotic observers how possible it is in legis-
lation for real to outrun discretion.
2. When giving evidence before the Royal Commis-
sioners in 1843, I stated -it as my opinion, that paupers
in the Highlands, especially able-bodied ones, would ge-
nerally refuse to go into poor-houses or work-houses. I
am still inclined to think so as to some cases.
More recent inquiries, however, have induced me very
much to modify this opinion, and I have lately heard a
greater willingness to do so expressed by poor persons
in my immediate neighbourhood, than I had anticipated.
If this be so, there can be no doubt that a means of
keeping the expenditure within something like endu-
rable bounds may thus be attained, while it is universally
admitted that there are many classes of the poor, the
solitary, the infirm, the idle, and the dissolute, for
whom such relief is the most efficient.
Should such houses be encouraged, I trust, however,
that the Board of Supervision will find some mode of
sparing parishes the heavy charges for architect's bills,
in which the counties are mulcted in the erection of
prisons ; and that the Board, having procured such
variety of plans as may suit all parts of the country,
parishes may be allowed to remain unacquainted with
the architects who drew them ; and permitted or
directed, by the Board itself, to build new, or improve
old, houses to the form and scale presented to them.
3. I have long been of opinion that a valuable and
useful test of pauperism exists, which does not appear to
have excited sufficient observation, and which may be
turned to good account.
I allude to the possession of land. I do not wish to
enter into a discussion on what is called the allotment
system, nor of many topics connected with it; but I
think that the possession at a fair rent, the limit of
which may easily be specified, of a certain portion of
land—l leave to others to say how much—should be
held to disqualify the individual, or any of his family,
who holds it, from claiming parochial relief, and that
the receipt of such relief should at once put an end to
his holding.
Such an enactment would, on the one hand, much
relieve the landlord, who has land to give, and not
money ; while, on the other, it would be a protection to
the poor from those ejectments of which we have heard
so much in Ireland, and even in Scotland.
To close these remarks, I beg leave to make the fol-
lowing suggestions—:
1. That it be expressly enacted, that the receipt of
relief, under the existing law, shall, in itself, constitute
no claim whatever under the new one ; but that the
local Board, or the paid inspector, he directed, as the
first act of their administration, to make a new survey,
' and submit, to the general Board, their opinion as to
those who come, in law, strictly under the denomination
of paupers ; dividing these into two classes, viz., those
to whom out-of-door relief is more suitable, and may
safely be given, and those to whom a Poor-house is a
' more fitting asylum.
2. That in all parishes, without exception, a poor-
; house be permitted, and that unions of parishes, for this
purpose, be also allowed, without limitation as to-popu-
latioui and that existing buildings way be temporarily