Star.
London, England, 1821-05-25 00:00:00

Exch. Bills 3s pre.—, 0pg.75 %

The Bill for the disfranchisement of GI impound,
and the transference of it, right to elect two Mem-
bers to Parliament to the County o•f York, was
finally passed last night in the House of Lords, by a
majority of 39 to 12. It goes hack to the Commons
for their assent to the alteratimis which have been
made in it; :and this, it is confidently expected, will
not be withheld. Even those who may regret most
the substitution of Yorkshire for Leeds, must confess
that it i, important to have the principle that the
elective franchise may be transferred from those by
whim, it bas been justly forfeited, established in such
latitude as it is done by this Bill. There have been
instances of extending a franchise to adjoining Hun-
dreds and Towns, but this is the first time we have
found it so clearly laid down that the light of Repre-
sentation is one which the Legislature may take back
and confer anywhere.

The important subject of the Poor Laws was last
night brought under discussion in the House of Corn-
mons, by the second reading of a Bill which Mr.
SCARLETT has introduce 1, for remedying the ac-
knowledged evils with which the existing s}•stem
abounds. The Bill has met with rather geiter.d
concurrence; but is opposed by Sir ItonEtur
WtL-
soN, and a few other Members, who conceive that
it will be an invasion upon the rights of the Pior.—
We think Sir ROBERT and his friends are in the right,
and that the Poor ale much indebted to them for
standing forward to protect them from the crude le-
gislation of a Gentleman, whose knowledge of law
may be great, but whose knowledge of the great
principles on which all society is founded appears to
be extremely limited.

The grand principle of Mr. SCARLETT'S Bill is
this, that every man who is ca, able of earning his
bread, must earn it ; and to enforce this principle, he
proposes that such restrictions shall be put upon the
power of granting parochial retie, as shall exclude
all persons of that de,crivtion from the benefit of it,
except in such extraordinary emergencies as famine
and epidemy. Now before this principle of Mr.
SCARLETT's can be admitted to have absolute opera-
tion, the Legislature would require to enact and pro-
Vide at the same time, that every man who is able and
willing to work, shall always find sufficient employ-
ment. at sufficient wages, to enable him to earn his
' daily bread. But until something of this sort is done,
we hold that any attempt to shut out thelabouring poor
from their right to parochial relief, when they cannot
procure work by which to earn a livelihood, will be an
act not only of injustice, but of sore oppression.—
It will be an Act for the banishment at least froni
their native soil, if not the starvation of all who, in
the language of monopoly and wealth, form the su-
perabundant part of the population; though, in truth,
there can be no superabundant population as long as
there is a superabundance of everything to feed, and
clothe, and make happy every man, woman, and
child in the rand.

We have always regarded the right to parochial
relief as a sort of re-active right, by which the la-
bouring classes are protected from being worked
down to the dust, by the higher orders, who have
capital and laws at their command, and by these have
got the power of dictating the terms on which their
humbler fellow-men shall toil for the means of
living; and sorry shall we be to see this great piaci-