The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-07-31 00:00:00

COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY.

The house afterwards resolved itself into committee o'
supply, which 'occupied a considerable portion of the remain
der of the evening, and in which many resolutions on th
miscellaneous estimates were moved by the CHANCELLOK
of the EXCHEQUER.
On the motion that a sum of £lO,OOO be granted, to enable
her Majesty to grant relief to the distressed refugee Poles
now in this country,
Lord SANDON said, that by the forms of the house he was
precluded from moving an amendment for an addition to this
grant; but he might and would appeal to the right hon. gen-
tleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take the matter
into consideration. When the grant of £lO,OOO for the relief
of the Poles was first made in 1834, there were about 400 dis-
tressed individuals belonging' to that country resident here,
and it was then staled that the sum granted was to be limited
to those who were here at the time. This was done that no
encouragement might be given to Poles to come over here
from other countries where they had sought refuge. Since
that time, however, about 200 more had accumulated here,
and if government had the wish, which he did not believe it
had, it had not the power to send them out of the country. It
was for those who were in a state of destitution, and were not
allowed to participate in the government grant, that appeals
were made from day to day to the benevolence of the
,pub-
lic; but with all these aids the greater portion of those 200
men were in a state of the most lamentable distress. What
he wished to urge on the consideration of the right hon. gen-
tleman opposite was an addition of £5,000 to the sum he
had already proposed, and even then the whole sum of
£15,000, apportioned amongst the whole 600, would afford
but a scanty pittance to each. Ile regretted that this country,
which was the richest in Europe, was the lowest in the scale
of her bounty to those unfortunate Poles who sought refuge
on her shores. The scale of allowance by Prussia, Austria,
and France, was much larger than ours. Even the little
state of Berne gave £4,000 a-year to the Polish refugees in
her territory. France was the most liberal of all in the
aid she extended to the refugees in her dominions. She
allowed £lOO,OOO for their relief; but then the Poles had
greater claims on France than on any other country, as
France had encouraged them in that resistance to Russia
which ended in their exile. It was pitiable to see men who
had once been in the enjoyment of every comfort and many
of them of every luxury, in their own country. now walking
about our streets in a condition bordering on starvation. As
to the extension of the grant, and its division among the
whole six hundred Poles now here, being an encouragement
to others to come over, he would observe that the allowance
to each would be so small that only those actually starving
abroad would be tempted here by it. But, to prevent any in-
flux of them from that cause, he would not object to a provi-
sion that no Pole arriving in this country should be entitled
to any part of the fund until he should have been half a year
in this country. He trusted that the cause of these distressed
men would not be prejudiced by the indiscreet part which
isomer
fe rtwentyedn ohno
et- ho ef atdheed
aindividuals
sa, mhoandgtsatktehne.m ,
The who
choand-
duct of those individuals was no doubt wrong; but allowance
should be made for their feelings, and probably for their
imperfect knowledge of our institutions. At all events, he
hoped that the acts of a few would not be found to prejudice
the case of the many. In conclusion the noble lot d again ap-
pealed to the government to reconsider the grant, and to
make the addition to it which he had suggested.
Mr. O'CONNELL thoughttheChaneellor of the Exchequer,
however chary of the public money it was his duty to be,
might with perfect safety propose to add to the amount of as-
sistance granted by parliament to the distressed Poles, as he
was quite sure that a great majority of the community looked
with the deepest sympathy on their sufferings, and that they
would look upon such a vote as no extravagance whatever,
But it Wad said we 114Q41C1 Create a Precedent by so doing.