The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-03-10 00:00:00

TO CORRESPOADENTS.

We are authorized to state that it was never contemplated to
restrict the privel.,!e of attending the approaching Confir-
mation, to be he'd at St. Jude's Church, to members or the
chil tree of menthe sof the congregation.
Our correspondent who Evidre,ses us on the subject of Annui-
ties. had better apply to the Liverpool Saving's Bank.
To A. 7.. —We know nothing about the case, referred to as
having heen brought before the Police Court, on Friday. The
impari,ll Mercury will no doubt record it in his next, unless
the redgious and poltic ci opinions of the delinquent ensure
him that immunity which is not accorded to polit:cal op-
ponents. wise(' found committing f r more venal offences.

Ql,l)t Ztbirpool Otanbarb.

TUESDAY MO RIVING, MARCH 10, 1846.

The League fallacy, which Sir Robert Peel has
lately taken up, th.t the price of food hes no bear-
ing upon the rate of wages, or our ability to em-
ploy the people, 's scarcely war by of serious refu-
tation, inasmuch as many of the arguments and
the statistics upon which it is based, do not bear
upon the effect of cheapness produced by foreign
importation. Neither do they take into considera-
tion, so far as the wages of our manufacturing po-
pulation are concerned, the effect of the displace-
ment of agricultural labour, and its irruption into
.the manufacturing districts. It is perfectly obvious,
-that every quarter of foreign wheat sold in Eng-
land, for the cultivation of which the foreign la-
bourer is paid. displaces a certain amount of native
labour, and diminishes pro tanto, the demand for
such labour; and it is equally obvious that the ma-
nufacturing- operative must ultimately be compelled
to accommodate the remuneration of his industry to
that rate which the dispossessed agriculturist will
find it compulsory upon him to accept.
In an infant state of socie y, such as that existing
in our colonies, the question of the measures now
before Parliament is, from the simpler and less in-
tricate state of things which we find there, more
easily traced and more obvious. At home, the
first effect of rendering profitless agricultural ope-
rations, and thereby diminishing the demand for
lagricultural labour, will be merely to drive such
labour into the numerous other channels of em-
ployment which offer themselves on every hand.
At first, possibly, the change may not be severely
felt, although ultimately it will be so felt and ex-
tend its influence over the entire labour market.
But in our colonies, where no other avocations,
save the cultivation of the soil, offer themselves for
the labourer to resort to, it must be felt at once,
and produce a mass of suffering and ruin which is
incalculable. Free trade and its concomitants may
be tolerable for a while, by the labourer and the
agriculurist in the mother country; in our colo-
nies, however, the total absence of protection can-
not be endured for a day.
The stand which we made last week in favour of
Sir Howard Douglas's views upon this subject, or,
in other words, in behalf of those mighty feeders
of England's greatness—her colonies—has earned
us the favour of a communication from Mr. Isaac
Buchanan, a member of the legislature of Canada,
laying before us his views as to what must be the
immediate course, in the emergency in which we
are placing it, of that most interesting and impor-
tant of England's colonies, because the nearest in
blood, in feeling, and in the character of its institu-
tions to England herself. We give here the sub-
stance of Mr. Buchanan's communication, and of
the letters to which it refers, because we conceive
both to be of vital importance at the present mo-
ment. The letters in question were addressed by
him to parties of great influence in the colony by
the steamer just sailed, copies being also furnished
to Lord Dalhousie, president of the board of trade,
Mr. Gladstone, secretary for the colonies, and the
North American AssOciation of London, a body,
which, while acknowledging their high individual
standing, he accuses of taking only the English,
and not the Canadian view of the interests of Canada.
It will be seen, that as a Canadian, he anticipates
that his provincial legislature will at once protect,
by heavy duties, the Canada home market, for its
wheat and for its manufactures, as this will in no
way deprive them of getting the English price for
their overplus wheat.
Mr. Buchanan says that the same course must
ultimately be taken in Ireland. He considers the
repeal of the Corn Law, or of "protection to na-
tive industry," as virtually the repeal of the union
with Ireland ! Irish labour must be protected, for
it is of too little, not too much employment that the
Irish people have cause to complain; and Irishmen,
be conceives, will not now submit to take the linens
of the German, the wheat of the Pole, or the to-
bacco of the American, to the exclusion of the em-
ployment of their own people, in growing or manu-
facturing these necessaries. Mr. O'Connell's sup-
port of free trade in kngland, he suggests, may
thus mean more than Sir Robert Peel, with all his
foresight, is aware of.
Mr. Buchanan says :
" What I now advocate (as what ought to be done in
Canada) is what I always advocated : the former practice
of England. and the presciit practice of the United States;
for I have always viewed the tariff of the Americans (rho'
highly approving of it) as a rebellion against their
Utopian principles of freedom f,ont national interests,
and as an evid -nee that their institutions will gradually
qualify themselves, and attain that permanency which
those of England are now repudiating.
" There are two sorts of goverrnient presented to the
- people of Canada. There is republicanism, professing to
be based on theor es (naked princi. ;es), or, more properly,
platters of opinion, for the time being, in the mob—a
system -whose safety lies in its aptitude to change; in
fact, in its annual revolution ! And there is the British
monarly —a SYS :ENS OF NATIONAL INTERESTS AND
CREDIT, of honour, and of p.,rmanent character. The
Canadians, in the war of 1812, showed how much they
prefer the latter to the former system. The last steamer
from Liverpool, however, carries them the startling news
Clot Sir Robert Peel has, in tile destruction of the
national interests, and groundwork of national credit of
England, removed the foundations of the monarchy,
giving the empire all the evils of republicanism, with none
of its advantages. We have our vital interests in the
power of a hundred Apostates, without the check of an
annual hustings !"
There can he no question that the case " of native
industry" in the mother country as well as that of
the colonies will be a very cruel one, under the com-
petition to which they will be submitted in their
own markets (which is their only fair field) by the
untaxed surplus, or sweepings, of ail the markets in
the world. Nothing but our machinery can carry
us through the unequal struggle; and all trade in
which manual labour constitutes the great part of
the cost must be destroyed.
We are sorry, too, to observe that Mr. Buchanan
is of opinion that, as considering themselves practi-
cally separated froi.n the empire, and having now no
particular interest in their country, the Canadian
will, in all probability. remain passive in case of a
war with America. If so, the consequences will be
far more serious than the mere loss of Canada.

We give here the letters of Mr. Buchanan, to
which we have made reference

Glaßgote.2Bth February, 1846.
WM• HAMILTON MERRITT, ESQ., MEMBER FOR LIN-

COLN IN THE PAI:LIAMENT OF CANADA.
DEAR SILL, *
—You will agree with me that ths suicidal measure (the
adopt ion in Et:giand f the t lieory of free trade) places the
farmer of Canada in the nr,ost et uct position, his case be-
ing, from his distance and othfr disadvantages, just the
iame as the case (f pcor land in England, whose yield
cannot be inc.ewed, which caln,,t continue to be culti-
vated at all, except with the cer,:iinty of a fair price, and
which trust, under free trade, go hack into woods.

Connected with Canada, there are two great consider-
ations or interests. •
Ist, The Canadian interest, or the prosperity of the
farmer, and of the manufacturers, and mechanics of
Canada.
2d. The English interest, or the prosperity of British
shiPrinc and the umber trade.
All the Montreal merchants, and their friends in Lon-
don, care about, is the latter, and all they demand from
the Sect etary of the Colnn:es is, what they have all along
pushed for, that the 3:. duty on wheat coming from the
United States into Canada be removed.
It was when I became satisfied that the presence of these
parties in London is rather iln injury than a benefit to
Canada, that I saw the necessity- of bringing the case of
Canada be fare the independent members of the Imperial
Parliament ; which I dui in the two letters I now enclose,
copies of which were sent to every member in both
Houses.

I have always seen that the humbug of free trade, as a
general application, is worse tlym the quackery of Morri-
son' pills, inasmuch as Batinns, in their constitutions and
s
circumstances, differ more than men do.
But as regards Canada West, you will be unanimous in
your views if the majority of tic Toronto Board of Trade
will assert their own opinions which originated the l.ody,
the sole object of which (besides the regulation of the
mere details of trade) was to guard the interests of those
whose factors, as it were, they felt themselves to be, viz.,
the producti•e industry of Canada, whether agricultural,
manufacturing, or mechanical (which all derive their vi-
tality from the prosperity of the farmer.)
If free trade is introduced into England, by Sir Robert
reel being successful in carrying his moasure, my advice
to the farmers of Canada, and their representatives, is to
refuse to lake off the 3s. duty on American wheat enter-
ing the pr.ovince, unless they wish themselves (shorn of
all constitutional power) to be led like sheep to the
slaughter.
Let England firs: relieve the provinces of the large debt

lately incurred for canals which EAgland's adoption of
free trade makes comparatively useless, thus leaving
Canada the prospect of direct taxation, to reduce still
more her diminished resources.

Let England, also, not only repeal Mr. Gl3dstone's act,
(which imposes the imperial duties,) but get Canada free
trade with the United States.

If these things are not done, the only way to preserve
Canada from immediately attaching itself to the Ame-
rican Union, is for the Parliament o Canada (instead of
taking off the three shillings) to place on our frontier the
same duty of two dollars per quarter, which the Americans
charge on Canadian wheat entering the United States ;
and farther, a duty of twenty per cent. on every other
article entering Canada, whether from Britain or the
United States, the imperial duty being deducted from
said twenty per cent. in the case of foreign goods ; for as
England gives the colony no advantage, she, of course,
expects none from Canada.

As it is the policy of a family, so it is the policy of an
independent province (for free trade wilt all the world
entirely detaches our interest from the mother country)
to buy or import as little as possible for which its own
labour cannot be paid, or otherwise for which cash is
demanded; and there is no doubt on my mind that it will
now become an object both in Canada and in Ireland to
check foreign imports (including British) for which they
can never pay after they cease to get English gold for their
produce, or through emigration.
In the now enlarged s tate of the province's banking,
however, and looking to the advantages given to our
wheat by England, we might have acceded to her desire
that the three shillings' duty be removed, if her adoption
of free trade had not imposed on us the duty of retaining
any controul of our own colonial affairs, which we con-
stitutionally can exercise in securing justice to the colo-
nists, in reference to the province's debt, &c. &c.
Parties connected with the Montreal interest have again
and again remarked to me that Canada West, at all events,
can compete in the English market with Ohio wheat ; my
answer has been, that they very much under-rate the in-
telligence of the farmer of Canada West in supposing that
he does not see that hereafter the New York market will
give a higher price than the English one, and that the
Americans will only use the English market for the
sweepings of the New York market • so that even if they
make an apparent loss on what they ship to England,
the American farmer may have a profitable AVERAGE
when the Canadian farmer will have all his wheat sold at
the miserable price in England.
In England, we are told, too, that the consumption of
the troops, for our flour, is great, whereas we know that
the Commissaries (in the Westward, at all events,) bring
in their supplies from the United States (and decline to
pay the three shillings' duty). They prefer American at
the same price, because they say this is the only means of
getting the Canadian farmer to give it for a lower price.
And sincerely hoping that peace and prosperity may be
continued to the province by the firm and wise 'decisions
of the provincial parliament now assembling,
I am, dear Sir, your obdt. humble servant,
ISAAC BUCHANAN.

Glasgow, 3rd March, 1816.
DANIEL MACNAB, ESQ., VICE-PRESIDENT HAMILTON

BOARD OF TRADE.

DEAR SIR, *
—The introduction of free trade into England, which I
predict will prove " a heavy blow and great discourage-
ment" to all the existing interests of this country, but es-
pecially the manufacturing and mechanical trades, now
demands imperatively the ACTIVITY of the Hamilton
Board of Trade.

On THE PROSPERITY OF THE PRODUCTIVE CLASSES
OF CANADA, whether agricultural, manufacturing, or me-
chanical, (all really hingeing on the farmer,) depends en-
tirely our continued connection with England.
If England were to step forward, and do some GREAT
MEASURE for Canada, such as paying our debt, and rais-
ing up a great TRADE OF EXPORTS from Canada to the
States, it would be for you to consider the English ship-
ping interest.
But if England does not immediately move in some al-
leviation of your circumstances, let the inhabitants of Ca-
nada repudiate England's interference in your trade regu-
lations, and hail the United States' bill allowing flour, &c.,
to pass through in bond to the Atlantic.
* * * * * * * *
Believe me to continue, dear sir, yours faithfully,
ISAAC BUCHANAN.

P.S.—I communicate a copy of this, and all my other
letters, to the Government in London, for NOW IS TILE
TIME ; and we have especially to meet with stern con-
tempt Mr. Hume's motion " with the view of making the
colonies of some use hereafter to England, as they had
been none in the past!" This is meant just to try to
frighten us from resistance to Sir Robert Peel's suicidal
measure. I. B.

It must strike our readers as tolerably plain, from
the expression of such sentiments by a gentleman
holding the distinguished station and possessing the
influence which Mr. Buchanan exercises in the
country of his adoption, that, so far as Canada is
concerned, the loss to Great Britain of the usefulness
in the first instance, and ultimately of the allegiance,
of those noble possessions must be the inevitable
result of the carrying out in full of the Free-trade
policy, upon which we have fatally embarked. Vast
enough are the evils which must attend the cession
of that colony. We thus extirpate the last remnant
of well-regulated monarchical institutions in the
American continent ; and virtually proclaim to the
miserable in every state of Europe that such in-
stitutions are fit only for them—are fit only for
countries whose industry is steeped in wretchedness.
But we resign more than this, great as is the sacri-
fice. We proclaim as worthless and untenable the
tie which binds together this country and her whole
colonial empire, We throw from us the only mar-
kets in exchange for whose valuable products we can
rely upon furnishing returns, of which British labour
is the greatest component part. In Canada we give
away boundless tracts of virgin soil in the healthiest
climate in the world; and in our tropical possessions
we resign, wickedly and wantonly, opportunities and
instruments which an Almighty Creator appears to
have bestowed upon us for the purpose of working
out the great problem of the cultivation of the soil of
such climes and the gathering in of their riches, un-
soiled by human blood, and uncursed with the taint
of slavery.
In resigning, moreover, to their fate our posses-
sions in temperate climes—in Canada, in Australia,
and other lands for whose cultivation the constitu-
tion of British subjects is fitted—we give up the
only patrimony of the poor of our own country ; we
break many a hope which looks forward from penury
and suffering, as the reward of their unremitting
toil at home, to comfort and competence in those far
off lands, whither friends and relatives have gone
before them and are thriving beneath the fostering
care and protection of British laws. To the inmates
of many a sad and desolate cottage in these realms,
who are, at this moment, pining and struggling to
realise that hope, and to transport their labour into
these fertile possessions, the news of this direful
change in our policy, will be a blow which must
prostrate all their bright anticipations, and fall upon
their stricken hearts with a weight which can only
be withdrawn when the kind hand of death releases
the immortal portion of their being from the dross
which binds it to earth.

Upon the destin of those already settled in our
colonies upon theh of British protection and
continued connexion with the land which, even fora
better, they left sorrowing, we shall not speculate.
Their fate is, in a great measure, in their own hands.
They may seek other ties, other protection, which
they have not found from the country of their birth
and of their love. But the parting struggle will not
be one of pleasant feeling. Loyalty—love of coun-
try—love of friends and relations—old associations,
are things which it wrings the heart to throw away,
even in the purchase of more prosperous fortunes
and better guaranteed hopes. Such feelings, how-
ever, are not understood by those philosophers upon
whose bidding, alas, the legislature of Great Britain
is now acting.
We are happy to learn that there is still a possi-
bility that her Majesty's ministers may be brought
to a sense of the justice of some concessions being
made to the Canadian interests,—not however in
the shape of a direct protection,—to ward off from
them a portion, at least, of the injury, which must
be dealt against them by the passing of the present
measures in an unmitigated shape. On Thursday a
deputation of gentlemen interested in the trade and
agriculture of Canada had a long interview with
Mr. M`Gregor, of the Hoard of Trade ; and, we be-
lieve, succeeded in removing some of the misappre-
hensions entertained by government, as to the real
feelings and position of the bulk of the Canadian
people, and extracting from him a promise to lay
their suggestions before its members, for their se-
rious consideration. This encouraging fact ought
to operate upon all well-wishes of their Canadian
fellow-countrymen to come forward and join their
earnest remonstrances and entreaties to those of Mr.
Isaac Buchanan and the "other gentlemen, who are
making so noble a stand in behalf of the mainte-
nance, in its integrity, of our colonial empire.

The Right Hon. Baronet Sir James Graham, is,
beyond all doubt, the unlucky genius of Sir Robert
Peel's government. Nothing in which he interferes
seems to prosper. Every measure which he takes
charge of is either bungled or is rendered distasteful
and odious. If his voice is raised in the House in
an endeavour to allay the heat of party, or to stare
off an unpleasant or untimely motion, its certain
effect is to throw in a fresh infusion of bitterness, and
to increase the determination and obstinacy of the
opponent, to whom he addresses his entreaties.
There is a supercilious flippancy in his demeanour,
and an evident fondness for manoeuvre in his par-
liamentary tactics, which repel confidence and

friendship, and cause every word that drops from
him to be weighed and scrutinised, as if behind it
there was a latent meaning, opposed to that which
it conveys when used by candid speakers. In ad-
dition to these unfortunate qualities, there is, in the
Home Secretary, a wilful perverseness of tem-
per, which will not allow him to see and to yield
gracefully to the weight of parliamentary or public
opinion against him, and which not unfrequently
places himself and his colleagues in positions of
nfinite humiliation. An instance of this is before
us, in the result of the debate in the House of Com-
mons upon a motion by Mr. Etwall, the member for
Andover, on 'Thursday night.
In the course of the last session the public mind
was startled and horrified by the disclosure of a
practice existing in some of the union workhouses
of this country, and particularly in that of the
Andover Union, disgraceful to humanity, and be-
traying an amount of suffering and degradation
amongst the wretched paupers who were submitted
to it, which few men, not initiated into the secret of
the iniquities of the new poor law system, could
have imagined to be found in a Christian land. We
refer to the practice of employing the paupers in the
disgusting office of pounding putrid bones for
manure. We use the word "pounding" in pre-
ference to "crushing," the latter of which suggests
the application of machinery, when, in the present
case, the bones were pounded in mortars, by hand.
Mr. Mundy, a magistrate, and a member of the
Andover Board of Guardians, deposed on oath that,

" Accompanied by two guardians and medical men, be
examined ten paupers; all, with the exception of two, ad-
mitted that they were caistantly in the habit of eating the
marrow and gristle from the bones. They eat it from
old bows, meaning those that had some moisture remain-
ing in them, but still were in a slate of decomposztiol ;
and some had been in heaps two or three months—they
eat it from these as well as from the fresh ones. _

Some of these bones were in a state of decomposition.
having lain in the workhouse yard for two or three
months ; and though: it was supposed to be the principle
of the Andover Union that dry bones alone should be
crushed, yet t ere was no instance on record where fresh
and clean bones were furnished, whether received from a
distance, or collected in Andover and the adjoining villages.
" When a beef bone, or chine bone was turned out of
the heap, there was a scramble for it, described like a
parcel of dogs, and the man who got it was obliged to run
away and hide until he had an opportunity of eating the
marrow. One man fetched two bones which he had hid-
den that very morning in wet ashes; a portion of muscle,
very offensive, was adhering to the ends of the bone. The
men said that it was a considerable time before they could
make up their minds to do so, but after they had once
taken to it, they preferred that description of labour to
any other, because they could get bones to pick."

We have been particular in giving these full de-
tails of the case, even at the risk of repeating what
may be within the recollection of our readers, in
order that they may see more clearly the repulsive-
ness of Sir James Graham's conduct during the
debate in question.
The fact of the existence of this horrible practice
having been divulged in the House of Commons,
by one of the members for Finsbury, an assistant
Poor-law Commissioner, Mr. Parker, was sent down
to Andover, to institute an inquiry; and, imper-
fectly conducted as this inquiry was, it disclosed, in
addition to the bone-pounding, the existence of
gross peculation and immorality in the treatment of
the inmates by the master of the workhouse. When
it had gone on, however, to a certain stage, and the
reports of the evidence from day to day, given in
the London Times, had created an overwhelming
excitement in the public mind, the enquiry was sud-
denly put a stop to by orders from Somerset House ;
the delinquent master of the workhouse was per-
mitted to resign his office, and Mr. Parker, the as-
sistant commissioner, who, it seems, had shown too
honest a determination to arrive at the truth, was
summarily dismissed, without being allowed to
know the offence which he had committed.

The door thus shut upon the public, concealing
the true extent of the enormities practised, was, on
Tuesday night, sought to be opened by a motion
brought before the house by the member for An-
dover, calling for the appointment of a committee to
enquire into the whole facts of the case. Was such
a motion unreasonable ? Was it one which any mi-
nister, seriously bent upon securing for our un-
fortunate poor the humane administration of a law,
acknowledged to be one capable of being made the
instrument of great cruelty, or who was willing to
pay a just deference to the voice of the outraged
feelings of an entire people, ought to have resisted ?
Certainly not. Yet, mark the flippant, the heart-
less, the insulting tone in which Sir James Graham
rises to interpose the authority of his office between
the demands alike of a whole people and of justice
itself, for enquiry. I confess, Sir," commenced
the right honourable baronet, and we can picture to
ourselves the air of supercilious assurance with
which the words were uttered:—
" I confess, sir, I cannot help thinking that it is
meancholy, at the present junction, and in the existing
state of pub!ic affairs, that so much of the precious time of
this house should have been consumed in a matter which
after all is only, I was about to call it, a workhouse
squabble in the south of England. (` Hear, bear,' and
' Oh, oh.' ")
Now we too " confess," and our confession is at
least as sincere as that of the right honourable ba-
ronet, that we feel a great difficulty in expressing in
polite, or even in allowable phrase, our opinion of
this " melancholy" exhibition of a British Minister's
flippancy and heartlessness. "A workhouse squab-
ble ' The question whether the poor of England,
in a hundred workhouses, for to that extent the prac-
tice is acknowledged to have existed, are to be driven
by famine to gnaw the foul and putrid bones, which
the very dogs have abandoned, is one upon the so-
lution of which it is "melancholy" that the pre-
cious time of Parliament should be occupied !
Leave such mere " workhouse squabbles" to be set-
tled between the Boards of Guardians and the
three kings of Somerset House ! Why should the
effluvia of rotting bones and the picture of lean
paupers, scrambling like famished beasts for the
filthy meal, be permitted to come "between the
wind and our nobility,"—to mar the bright vision
of free trade and commercial prosperity with which
a recreant ministry are deluding their country ?
Sir James Graham—we tell vou that never did the
bitterest Republican strike a heavier blow against
the British constitution—never did the most level-
ling demagogue inflict a more deadly wound upon
the feeling of respect, affection, and confidence,
with which the British people have been accustomed
to look up to that branch of the legislature of
which you are a prominent member, than has been
inflicted by that unfortunate and cruel speech !
" If the Commissioners, urged Mr. Wakley, did possess
the unlimited power which the right hon. baronet said
they did, in Heaven's name let the house and the country
see how they exercised it. (Hear, hear.) If they did
not, they gave up, not merely the assistant-commissioner,
but the poor also, to the mercy of this arbitrary power."
Happily the indignant House rose up against the
Right Hon. Baronet, and thus, in part, wiped off
the stigma which he had brought upon it, of treat-
ing with slight and mockery questions affecting the
interests of our suffering poor. First, Mr.Wakley,
by adducing a mass of startling facts within'his own
knowledge, stript the question before the House of
the flimsy covering under which Sir James endea-
voured to conjure it away from their observation.
The hon. member for Weymouth, Mr. Christie,
next made some startling revelations, disclosing the
mode in which things are managed between the
Poor Law Commissioners and the Home Office,
and bearing upon the nature of the offence, for
which the too-straightforward Assistant Commis-
sioner, Mr. Parker, received his dismissal. Mr.
Ferrand, in a telling speech, explained the tricky
process by which lie was himself sought to he crushed
with respect to the case of the Keighley Union;
and was followed by other members, when at length
the poor badgered Secretary was forced to exclaim,
" Will the House allow the to interpose ?" and
finally to accede to the motion for the Committee
prayed for ! Unlucky to the last, however, Sir
James Gral am must needs make a reservation.
He remarked—

" I am perfectly willing to withdraw my amendment, to
make it a substantive motion, and to acquiesce in the mo-
tion of the hon. member for Andover. (Cheers.) I am
afraid I shall not be met with such cheers, when I add,
that with respect to the motion of the hon. member for
Wey►nouth ( Mr. Christie), for the extension of the in-
quiry to the cause that led to the resignation of Mr. Par-
ker, which I admit was virtually a dismissal, I must offer
a decided opposition to it. ( Murmurs ) The power of ap-
pointment of the Assistant Poor-law Commissioners is
vested absolutely in the commissioners—the responsibility
of the selection rests with them exclusively ; they are res.
ponsible for all the acts of the Assistant Commissioners ;
and I repeat my deliberate opinion that it is impossible for
the commissioners to execute the duties of their office
either safely or satisfactorily if there be any interference
with reference t') the selection of their subordinates, or
their summary dismissal. This will be a subsequent ques-
tion ; but I cannot, consistently with my duty, consent to
that extension of the inquiry."
This bold enunciation of the arbitrary constitution
of the Poor Law Commission, and the irrespon-
sible character of its head authorities, though by
no means new in fact, had the natural effect of im-
pelling the House to the task of a thorough investi-

gation of the whole system. Other tlYeMbers pressed
on the House the same views; yeti with his
usual perverseness, the Right Hon. Baronet refused
to give way, and, on a division of the House, the
result was a majority against ministers of 23.
Unfortunate Sir James! We wouldn't undergo
the schooling, you must since have had, for your
next quarters' salary.