The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-12 00:00:00

he sl ould state that be beieved it necessary
to rear point this Commission. Ile would, with the per-
mission of the House, state, in a few words, the opinion
given •by the Dalte•. of Wellington in the House of
Lords. He said he disapproved of the administra-
tion which did not differ under circumstances.
There were twelve hundred parishes in the country, all
differing in'their character. It was impossible for Par-
liament.to- frame any law that could apply to those which
were so various in their character, Lni hence it had
became al.-4)ltitely necessary that such an appointment
as -a Central Board should be made, with the power to
control the whole . parishes. in the land, and to
adopt such remedies as would secure the same
administration of the power throughout the eountry.
He contended that the Commission was appointed, and
Was still necessary, for two objects—that it should secure
diversity of operation where the cirdumstances were diffe-
rent, and that it should prevent diversity of operation where
the circumstances were not different. Further he would say,
that some such body was indispensably necessary, unless
they then could show that, for all the various circumstances
of this great community', one universal scheme of relief
for the poor could be made applicable by the Legislature.
The principle of local administration was in conformity
with the principle defined by law. One portion of the body
was composed of persons chosen by the rate-payers ;
the other of Magistrates appointed by the Crown,
and controlled by a central authority, emanating
from the Crown itself. That was the original
scheme and plan of the enactment, and he saw
nothing in the subsequent woilting of the mea-
sure which led him to doubt of the wisdom, policy,
and necessity of the principle of that enactment. On the
contrary, experience had demonstrated that the mea-
sure was necessary ; and, believing it to be so,
he most strenuously proposed to Parliament the continu-
ance of the Commission for the time he had mentioned.

They would allow him to ask, if they did away with this
Commission, what ware their intentions with respect
to controlling the. administration of relief ? If they went
back to the old 'syStem they would find a local• board.
in the whdle history of the Poor-law they would not
find
.the local administration uncontrolled by authority.
Froth the time of Queen Elizabeth, down to the Act by

which the great change had been introduced, the
local 'Magistracy controlled the, administration of re-
lief. If they went back to the old system, they
must necessarily . change the boards. of guardians:
Those were now partly composed of rate-payers and
partly of Magistrates, who were, ex officio, members of
the Board. If they restored them to their control they,
must change the form of the Boards of Guardians,-
and they would thus go back step by step until they had
returned to the system Which the Act of 1834 had de-
clared to be intolerable. He had now stated enough
to show the grounds "upon which he thought
it necessary -to adhere to the Central Commission,
He had already stated the opinion of Lord Brougham
with regard to the existence of the Commission, and he
should now state that Noble Lord's opinion with respect
to the charaeter of the persons of whom it ought
to be composed. He said, "' However widely I
may differ frOm an individual on party subjects, yet if
the individual be • a man of firm mind, of extensive

-experience as to the working of the Poor-law,
if he be a man-whom I can trust for his temper, one of
the prime requisites in such a work, that man I shall
choose before any of those with whom I agree in politics."
That was the rule laid down by Lord Brougham.
And what had been the practice of Lord Grey's Go-
vernment ? Why, they had selected parties
to carry out the law from among their po-
litical opponents.—(Hear.) They had selected Mr.
Frankland Lewis, whom they had placed at the
head of the Commission, and who was opposed to
them in politics. Again what was the course pur-
sued by the present Government ? Since they had
acceded to office, did they make their selections
solely from among their own supporters? They did
not ; but they had adhered strictly to the rule laid
down at the first formation of the Commis-
sion ; they had exercised their honest judgments
with respect to the appointment of those
gentlemen whom they thought, upon the whole,
to possess most of the requisites that were
desirable ; they had exercised the patronage of
the Crown, in conformity with those principles
which had been laid down by their predecessors. They
had already made an appointment which he believed the
House would consider unexceptionable.—(Hears hear,
hear.) He had thus endeavoured to show,
first, the necesssity of a Commission ; he had
next slightly touched on its composition ; and he certainly
did think that the -Commission, as at present
composed—composed of two gentlemen differ-
ing in opinion—was so formed as to command
the confidence of the House, and the approbation
of the country. No difficulty, thsrefore, he hoped would
arise respecting the. composition of the Commission.
He should next pass on from the Commission itself to
the questionaf the Assistant-Commissioners. On the
first introduction of the measure, from the novelty of its
arrangements, it was thought necessary that nine Com-
missionera.should be appointed ; but, although nine was
the number originally intended, it was found indis-
pensably necessary to add considerably to that number.
He believed the number had, amounted to somewhere
near thirteen or fourteen, but that number had after-
wards been reduced, and at the present moment there
were only ten Assistant-Commissioners employed. It
was his intention in the Bill which he asked leave to
introduce to adhere to the original limit, and to fix nine
as the number of Assistant-Commissioners for England
and Wales ; his view of the matter being that, with a
considerably enlarged experience of the Board of Guar-
dians, the services of the Commissioners were not SO ne-
cessary ; andahat their visits might be less frequent, as-
suming rather the character of visits for special "purposes
than of visits in order to direct the general proceedings.
He would not on the present occasion dwell further upon
the subjent.of the Commissioners or ;assistant-Commis-
sioners; and he would pass on to the next point, one 'of
considerable importance, namely, the power of the
Central Commissioners to issue general orders. When
the subject was last under discussion, he confessed
that he had a strong opinion that the original Act made
it necessary that general rules should be passed by the
Commons, subject to the veto of the Secretary of State;
by which the Crown had the power of reversing those
rules. He did think that, by passing special orders and
not passing general rules, the spirit, if not the letter of
the origina enactment had been obeyed. But he was
bound to say that, since lie had had access to official
formation on the subject, he was of opinion that, until.
the unions throughout England were formed, it would be
impossible, with advantage, to issue general orders.
Since he had succeeded to the office he now filled, it ap-
peared .to him and the Commissioners that the time had
arrived when general orders as to Poor-law administra-
tion might be issued. It was his intention to lay on the
table of the House the Report of the Poor-law Commission
for the presentyear, which contained several orders ein braes
ing all the topics on which general orders were necessary.
If he obtained permission to introduce the Bill, that
measure would contain all the relief that was intended
for the destitute. With respect to prohibitory orders,
various alterations had from time to time been made,
and much error existed as to granting out-door relief.
In England and Wales, in the quarter ending March 31,
1842, 1,072,000 persons had received parish relief, and
out of that number 513,860 were relieved out of the
workhouse, and only 159,000 were relieved in the-work-
house. This might be attributed to the caution which
the Commissioners had shown in selecting the places
where the prohibitory order was to be enforced. A
painful case had just occurred in the Stourbridge Union,
and which from temporary circumstances it was necessary
to suspend the order, and doing ..see had produced the
best effects, as the temporary distress was removed, and
the labourers had now returned to their work. So far
from the rule against out of door relief being inflexible,
there were to the rule itself seven,exceptions, in which
the Board of Guardians had the power of suspending it.
The Board of Guardians had power of granting out-of-
door relief, first, in all cases of Urgent necessity -;
se-
condly, in cases of sickness and accident ; thirdly, for
defraying the expenses of the burial of any person related
to the person so receiving relief ; fourthly, to a widow
within the first six months of her widowhood .; fifthly, to
a widow having any legitimate child ; sixthly, to the wife
and family of aspenson:Cotifi tied in a:gaol or a limatic asylum ;
and seventh, to the wife and family of any person in the
service of her MnjestY, as a soldier or a sailor. The
Hon. Member for Finsbury had pointed out the conti-
deuce which he had in the ...local authorities. In those
seven-cases the local authorities had power to grant .out-
door relief, but the powers were not restricted to these
seven cases, for even in 'eases not specified, there was an
ar.ticle.enabling the Board of Guardians to depart from
the regulations of the prohibitory order if, within fifteen
clays, they report to the Poor law Commissioner the fact
of-their having. so departed from those regulations, and
the reason for inducing them to do so. The Poor-law
'Commissioners, had, moreover, in certain of the manu-
facturing districts, in which they had not deemed it ex-
pedient to issue the prohibitory order, issued an out-of-
door relief order, to enable the Board of Guar-
dians to grant out-of-door relief, provided one-
half of that relief was given in kind, and that no
able-bodied person should receive relief who was in the
employment of any other person, and that such
person should be set to work by the guardians out
of the workhouse, subject to the approval of the Com-
missioners, and under the superintendence of an officer,
and that subject to a condition which he consi-
dered indispensable— that a person receiving relief
should not be in the employment of any other indi-
vidual. The out-door labour test had been adopted by
the Commissioners. He would now leave the question
of general rules,
,and would proceed to state that after
the best consideration which her Majesty's Government
could give to the subject, they had come to the de- -
cision that it was expedient. to abolish expressly
and in terms, the Gilbert Unions.—(Hear, hear.)
In a former discussion he had stated to the ,House his
own opinion that the original Act abolished the Gilbert
Unions ; he believed that taking the clauses together
that object was accomplished. But to
_prevent all mis-
takes upon the subject, he proposed to introduce a clause
plainly and expressly abolishing these _unions. On what
grounds did he rest this proposal ?. In the first place,
he begged to state to the House that out of a community
of sixteen million persons there were now under the
operation of the Gilbert Unions a number of-persons not.
exceeding 155,000, and the inconvenience arising from
the scattered locality of these unions had increased in
a great degree. But besides this he must state to
the House his deliberate conviction that the Gilbert
Act, and the Poor-law Amendment Act, stood upon two
opposite principles which could not co-exist.- lie knew
that some persons said, " Gilbertize all the unions ; abo-
lish your present law, and make the Gilbert Act univer-
sal in its operation."-e-(Cheers from Mr. Walley.) It
would be for the House to decide .which principle it
would adopt, but it might be proved to demonstration
that the two principles were diametrically opposed to
each other, and were so decidedly at variance, ft t the
'Ruse rro.tf betvc,-;!Pri

principle of the G-ilberi, Union ? rile principle of the
Gilbert Union was, that oTery able••bodied man seeking