The Sun.
London, England, 1842-06-18 00:00:00

of the people out of doors than to the reasoning faculties of
Members of the House. He trusted the questton would be dis-
cussed with calmness and argument, without any appeal to ro.e..
judice. He considered the establishment of educational dis-
tricts as of questionable policy. It would lead to great ex-
pense, and he thought it unfair that illegitimate children aban-
doned by their parents should receive a better education than
honest parents had it in their power to bestow. He thought
the organization of district committees most judicious, and he
was glad to find the Government had adopte.. treasures for the
regulation of apprenticeships. He also was of (-pinion that it
was most important that the Gilbert Unions should not be
allowed to interfere pith the unity of action which was so de-
sirable for the Good working of the Poor-laws. There were
two omissions in the Bill, however, which he regretted.
1 he one was of a clause authorising the boards of guardians to
trake arrangements for the payment of the county-rates, by
means of which the office of high-constable might he
abolished, and the other was the omission of a clause
for regulating the rating of small tenements. HO
was much obliged to the House for the indulgence with
which they had heard his remarks. He had not adverted to
the saving of expense under the new system ; previously the
amount of rates had been ruinous. However, the saving of
expense was not the object of the law ; it was to restore ha-
bits of industry and independence to the British peasantry ; and
this object the Poor -law vas greatly calculated to advance.
He believed, on the whole, that it was founded on sound and
wholesome principlea, and he would not be deterred by any
unpopularity from supporting the Bill now before the House.
General JOHNSTONE said that upon no question was
there such contradiction of opinion as on that now before the
House. Much had been said of the uniformity of the system.
But the Hon. Member gave up that point. The present law
had set one man egainst another to an extent beyond any
measure that had ever been passed. It bad created a hatted
between employer and employed. His chief objection to the
measure was the unconstitutional power which it gave the Com-
missioners. He should be glad to know of what use the As-
sistant Commissioners were at all? One part of the measure
had been totally overlooked by the Hon. Member who had
just sat down, namely, the great difficulty the poor had under
the present law of obtaining medical relief. He (Genet al J. )
knew an instance of a man having to walk twenty-nine miles
backwards and forwards for medical relief. No medical roan
saw him till the third day. and on the fourth he was dead.
Another objection to the law was, that the vicious poor and
virtuous were treated alike. With respect to what had been
said relative to the saving of expense under the present system
he had to observe that, during three years previous to the
passing of the present law the poor-rates were diminishing,
and during the last three years they were increasing in every
district. As to the difficulty of getting the guardians to attend,
a day's loss was of much consequence to the farmer, and if his
attendance as a guardian was so required he ought to be paid.
With respect to the Commissioners, if they had been of any
utility, there was no ground for continuing their power so long
as was now proposed. In some of the items of the Bill now
before the House they did not go far enough. With respect
to the bastardy clause, he must say he saw no reason why the
father should not be compelled to summit the mother of the
child during the time she was incapable of supporting herself.
He was opposed to the workhouse test, which had been so
much relied on by the Hon. Gentleman opposite, and he must
object to the second reading of this Bill as long as the extraor-
dinary and unlimited power of the Commissioners was con-
tinued.
Colonel SIBTHORP objected to the Bill, on the grounds
that it entailed heavy expense, and useless expense on the
country, without in any wise, though it had had a trial of
eight years, bettering the condition of the poor. There were
several clauses its the present Bill upon which, when in Com-
mittee, he would take the sense of the House. He regretted
that he should find himself obliged to support the motion of
the Hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. S. Crawford).
Mr. GIUMSDITCH regretted to find such a Bill as the
present emanating from the ConServative side of the House.
He knew that in every part of the country this law, as now
administered under the directisn of the central power, which
sat at Somerset House, was condemned by the great mass of
the po ople. Upon a careful revision of the present Bill, he
found that it was nothing more nor less than the Bid of the
Noble Lord the Member for the city of London ( Lord John
Russell), which had been introduced. It was, to be sale,
dressed out differently. He did not know why the Commission
was to be continued for five years longer ; that meant that it
was to be perpetual, and if so, the people of this ccurory
would be up in arms against it. —( Hear, hear.) The prin-
ciples on which this law were based were unconstitutional. Why
should the Commissioners have the power of a veto given
to them in all eases ? Toe Right Hon. Gentleman, in the -Vac-
cination Bill he introduced, treated the Commission as per-
petual. and he opposed it on that ground. He was of opinion
that the powers of the Commissioners ought to be annihilated.
heir power was despotic and tyrannical, and ought not to be
permitted in any free country. He trusted the Right Hon.
Baronet would apply his rnastar-mind to the subject, and make
himself acquainted with the evil, of the present system. The
unions at present. were too extensive, and he hoped they would
be smaller. In-petters ought, in his opinion, to be introduced
to superintend the working of the law, and who would make
returns to the Secretary of State. These appeared to him to
be wise regulations, and would, he felt persuaded, he beneficial
if introduced. The Hon. Gentleman then referred to the
principles promulgated by Malthus, and adopted by Lord
Brougham, and said that the principles were unknown to the
early legislation of England en the subject. From the time
of Elizabeth to William she Third the laws relating to the poor
operated in the most beneficial manner, but in the latter reign,
end in subsequent ones, Acts were passed to which the evils rf
the Poor-law system might be traced. Then came the present
law, and he contended that it was quite inapplicable to the
people of this country. Why should the people, if reduced
to a situation which would demand relief, obtain it only on tl e
condition of being deprived of their homes, and having their
goods and chattels sequestrated ?—( Hear, hear.) It was ins-
possible for the Commissit ners who presided over the execu-
tion of the law to enter fully into the wants anti wishes of the
poor. He should feel it his duty, therefore, however unwil-
ling to differ from the Government, to vote against the second
reading of the Bill.

Sir C. NAPIER said that there were some things in the
new Poorsiaw of which he approved, and others of which he
as strongly disapproved. He objected, in the first place, to
the powers of the Commissioners. He did not see why an ex-
pensive allowance should be made to those gentleman, for car-
rying out a law among a class into whose wants they could Lot
enter. He objected to the principle of refusing, in alt cases,
out-door relief. He could only say, that in the union in which
he was a guardian, they had felt it their duty to grant out-door
allowances to aged men and women, and they had not found
that any loss to the parish funds had thereby been incurred.
Again, they had not insisted on compeliing parties to recrea-e
themselves beyond the walls of the workhouse. He did not
think it politic to create among the people a feeling that the
workhouses, which should be a refuge for the destitute, were
in reality but state-prisons. He also objected to the bastardy
clause. He did not think that it had had the effect of di,coc-
raging immorality ; while it appeared to him to be cruel and
unwise, to charge unfortunate women with the whole of the
trouble of bringing up their illegitimate children. In his
opinion, it was unwise to compel a mother to reside in
a workhouse with her child. It would be far better,
he thought, to allow. the mother to leave the workhouse
and seek employment elsewhere, which would enable her to
contribute towards the support of her offspring. The present
clause, which prevented her from leaving the workhouse without
her child, was cruel, oppressive, and unwise. With respect to
the Gilbert Unions, he had understoad that they had given
great satisfaction ; and why, theta, not let well alone ? He did
not see any reason why the Right Hon. Baronet should lay
! banes on those Unions. There were parts of that measure, lie
should repeat, of which he approved ; but considering it as a
whole, he felt it to be his duty to vote against the second read-
ing of the Bill.
Mr. FERRAND said that the people of this country were
! all but unanimous in their opposition to the Pill. He would
tell the Hou-e that in the north of England the law was carried
out with a cruelty and oppression which was a disgrace to
Englishmen. He challenged the Right Hon. Baronet, who
was the father of the present measure, to show that the old
Poor-law had been inefficient, and that the manner in which
it had been executed necessitated tl e appointment of Com-
missioners at Somerset House. That law had protected the
poor, and had given general satisfaction ; and he called upon
the Government to assign any reason why they should sub-
stitute in its stead a measure which was repugnant to the Con-
stitution of this country. In the south of England, no duutt, the
old law had been abused ; but if properly executed it would have
answered every purpose which a Poor-law should accomplish.
( He quoted an extract from a Report of Dr. Kay, show ing the
contrast between the labourers of the north and those of the
south.) He had thus proved that the old Poor-law was well
administered by the proprietors of the north of England, but
was neglected and abused by the proprietors of the south of
England. He thought, therefore, it was a mighty system of
oppression that the poor of the north should be punished for
the sins both of omission and commission of the proprietors of
the south. The Commissioners found they could not carry out
the New Poor-laws unless they removed the surplus popula-
tion, as it was called, from the south of England, and he was
sorry that the claim of the poor to a share in the soil of the
country should have been treated so lightly. They had a con-
stitutional right to it, and he hoped it would never be forgot-
ten. But many of the poor of the south of England clung
with natural affection to the homes of their birth, and the Pour-
law Commissioners actually recommended that they should he
driven from their homes by starvation.—(Oh, oh !) Oh, oh ' he
would read part of a Report from an Assistant-Commissioner.
In short he recommends it. It was a Repots dated Man-
chester, July 22d, 1835, in which he says, N cessity must
drive some of the present population fom their homes."
He would now read them a letter from a manufacturer in the
north of England, who had been in constant communication
with the Poor-law Commissioners. It was front Mr. Greg
to Mr. E. Chadwick, the Secretary of the Poor-law Comis-
sion, expressing a wish to open a correspondence with him on
the question of procuring a supply of labourers from the south
of England for the north. No Report had ever been made of
the number of the poor kidnapped in this manner; and he was
thus in the dark as to it, but he thought he could prove enough
to call for the interference of the House. The communication
specified an immense number of different descriptions of
labourers that would be required ; and it was this he de-
nounced, that the manufacturers of the north should haira
entered into a conspiracy with the Poor-law Commissioners
to absorb the surplus population of the south. The Right
Hon. Baronet might think he had not given sufficient prools
of what he had stated; he, therefore, quoted another letter
from Ashworth, to E. Chadwick, Esq., giving an account of
the state of a family of four persons, who had migrated from
Buckinghamshire. Another letter stated that employment
could he furnished to twenty thousand of the poor of the south ;
that was, there was a proposal to kidnap that number, and was
that the way in which to treat the poor of England?—(oh,
oh.)• He should be glad if any Hon. Gentleman would give
him an opportunity of answering a speech of his, in which he
would maintain that this was not the case. Another letter to
Mr. Chadwick stated that twelve stout girls and boys had been
tent to Stalybridge, and considered that too many hands
could not be forwarded. He would not have trespassed on
tae attention of the House, if he had not thought
that an awful responsibility attached to him, and as
a Member of that House, he was going to hold up to
public reprobation a publicservant of the Government for be-
guiling and selling into the most oppressive slavery those poor
deceived and miserable wretches. Dr. Kay, an Assistant
Poor.law Commissioner, had published a work called the
" Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes em-
ployed in the Cotton Manufacture of Manchester." In this
work he dwells on the degrading and depreciating influence
arising from his ceaseless and monstrous employment. And
this was the condition into which Dr. Kay became a mid agent
to beguile the labourers of the south from their green fields
and fresh air. ('The Honourable Gentleman read some
further extracts, describing the debased condition of the manu-
facturing classes, their low diet, and inconvenient dwellings.
The Hon. Member then went on to quote from Dr. Key's
book, in which the Learned Gentleman spoke of the manufac-
turing population as being frequently the victims of inflam-
matory demagogues.—(Cries of "bh, oh," cheers, and
loud laughter.) He knew what that cheer meant, but he
would challenge any Hon. Member to lay his finger on a single
word which lie (Mr. Ferrand) had ever uttered, either in pub-
lic or private, except to inculcate loyalty to the Queen and obe-
(Hence to the laws.—(Cheers and laughter.) He would say
to Hon. Members opposite, " Go, and do likewise."—( Shouts
of laughter.) Such were the opinions of Dr. Kay before he
became an agent for transporting the poor from the south to
the north. After he had become an Assistant Poor-law Com-
missioner, he painted the blessings of the condition of the
manufacturers' labourers in the most glowing colours. Would
the House give these Commissioners power for five years
longer? Would the Commissioners come to the bar, and say