The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-11-19 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORAING, N 0 V. 19, 1844.

That a determined opposition will be offered to
the bill " for consolidating and amending the laws
relating to parochial settlements, and to the remo-
val of the poor," introduced by Sir James Graham
into the House of Commons, at the close of the
past session, we entertain no doubt; and as little
that it will be unsuccessful, if left to be conducted
according to the ordinary course of parliamentary
tactics. An energetic phalanx of noble-minded men,
who have battled, in times past, against those de-
vilish oppressions with which modern selfishness has
striven to grind the faces of the poor, will raise their
voice against it in the House of Commons ; a por-
tion—the best portion—of the British press will de-
nounce its folly and wickedness. But—alas !
amidst the busy strife of faction—amidst the struggle
of contending interests and parties—the cry of the
suffering poor and their friends will, we fear, fall
upon unheeding, or wilfully closed ears; and this
effort to draw more closely the iron chain, with which
avarice has bound them to their wretched lot, will
be triumphant. Good men and angels may weep
over the result ; but the grim spirit of that dark
philosophy which presides over pauper prisons and
exercises its cruel ingenuity in the grateful task of
paring down pauper dietaries, will fold its hands in
glee, as it contemplates and tries the edge of the new
weapon of torture which a British parliament has
placed within its reach.
When will this nation, as a nation, be roused to a
sense of its duties to its suffering poor ? When shall
we cease to goad our wretched fellow-creatures to
suicide or madness, as a penalty of their poverty ?
When shall we resolve to. extract the fangs of this
demon of tyranny, which we have set up and wor-
ship as a god ? Alas 1 we fondly dreamt that the
advent of a Conservative administration would be a
signal for so blessed a consummation ; that, with
such an administration to direct the national mind,
we should cease to regard our pauper fellow-man as
something criminal and noxious, to he punished as
a felon, or extirpated as vermin. We were mis-
taken, however; and bitter, in consequence, is our
disappointment. Under tho leading of the cold-
hearted utilitarian, who presides over the affairs of
the Home Office, and to whose tender mercies is
confided the fate of the thousands of our wretched
poor, who languish in union workhouses, or are
bandied about by parish officials, to shiver in bye-
roads and hedge-sides, or embrace crime itself, or
suicide, as more bearable than starvation, the points
of the iron have been sharpened—the brand, which
we apply to the heart and the forehead of the pau-
per, has been cut more deeply—and the entire sys-
tem which inflicts these cruelties, has been widened
and strengthened at its base, as a portion of our in-
stitutions intended to be permanent in its duration.
In the hands of hollow, selfish, and imbecile " libe-
ralism," it was but a blister upon the face of so-
ciety, which the return to other and more Christian
physicians 'we trusted would remove and heal. Yet
it is those men, in whom we trusted—to whom
thousands hopeful!' looked up for relief from their
torture—by whose wrong-headed and hard-hearted
policy it is becoming a deeply and firmly-seated sore,
whose agony is already well-nigh intolerable.
The bill, to which we have adverted—the newest
of Sir Jas. Graham's new poor-law fancies—con-
tains propositions well-calculated, if made known,
to incite us to throw off the apathy into which we
have fallen with respect to this system. It has clauses
which, if understood, would awak even avarice it-
self to offer it the most strenuous. opposition. It is
sot only inhuman in principle—what portion of the
entire system is not so ?—but it is a direct attack
upon the pockets of a most influential portion of the
people, viz, the inhabitants of the large manufactur-
ing towns, hitherto well enough disposed to remain
quiescent whilst the screw was being applied for
their advantage, but not so likely to look on with
satisfaction when it is proposed to attack their
pockets. Already we are gratified to observe that
the town council of Leicester have taken a decided
posture of opposition to the measure, and published
the result of their examination of it in a report,
which is before us ; and we trust that the example
will be followed by public bodies in other towns,
and that, as the result, a combined effort will be
made, which will convince Sir James and the au-
thorities of Somerset House that the time has come
when they should rather think of retracing their
steps than of attempting fresh enormities.
For the information of such of our readers as
have not had an opportunity of examining the bill
itself, we shall briefly detail its enactments and the
objects for which it has been introduced; and we
cannot do this better than by quoting from the
Leicester Committee's report.
"The bill entirely abolishes all settlements of every
description acquired before the passing of the act, unless
the parties have been removed by orders, or their settle-
meat has been admitted by writingunder the hands of the
majority of the overseers of the parish; and it establishes,
as the only ground of settlement,—lst, that of birth ; and
if the place of birth cannot be ascertained, then, secondly,
that of the settlement of the father, as it would be, if
liv-
in¢ after the passing of the act ; or, if the father be not
settled in any parish in England, or if such parish cannot
be ascertained, or if the pauper were not born in wedlock,
then the place of settlement is the parish in which his
mother would, if living after the passing of the act, be
settled. It will therefore be seen, that at one blow all
existing settlements, with the exception of that of Malt,
are swept away ; and that this change applies not only to
the future, but affects all settlements already acquired by
any other means than that of birth, or unappealed against
orders of removal, or written acknowledgments. The
consequence will be, that persons who have gained settle-
ments in this or any other place by apprenticeship, occupa-
tion, ownership of property, or any other means than those
mentioned, and who may from their youth have been
living here as acknowledged parishioners, will, by this ex-
port-facto law, be deprived of their present settlements,
and be liable to be removed to the place of their birth, or
if that cannot be ascertained, to the parental settlement,
as explained by the new law."
Now let us for a moment inquire what must be
the effect of the carrying out of such an enactment
in a parish like that of Liverpool. We have now
in our workhouse, and receiving outdoor relief, some-
where about 2,000 paupers who have acquired set-
tlements by birth, by paying rates or otherwise.
Probably half of these may be natives of the town ;
and with respect to them no change will be required.
But the rest belong to other parishes in England or
are natives of Ireland, who have become settled here
by some of the old legal modes of acquiring settle-
ments, and will become liable to be removed to the place
of their birth, if that place can be discovered, or to
their parental settlement, an equally difficult prob-
lem to solve. The difficulty thus thrown in the
way of parish officers is absolutely fearful to con-
template. And what shall we say of the humanity
of the measure ? We have around us a working
population, drawn t 3 this busy locality in search of
labour, who have gained settlements and formed
connexions here—married here,—buried here their
dearest; and when the pressure of age comes upon
them, or by some stagnation in trade they are com-
pelled to claim aid from those for whom they have
toiled, we are told to send them to their distant
places, which know them not--where the lapse of
years and the hand of death have left them as utter
strangers as they would be in a foreign land, and
where they are placed beyond the possibility of ever
regaining their independent positions by resuming
their accustomed pursuits. Surely this is a propo-
sition of needless cruelty and infamy !
And so the framers of the bill appear to have
thought it, for they have overlaid it with a clause of
affected kindness, the working of which, however,
will be more embarrassing than any enactment we
ever remember observing. It is to this effect, viz :
"That no person who has resided the five years last
preceding in any parish, and has ordinarily maintained
himself in or near thereto as a labourer, artificer, me-
chanic, servant, or tradesman, and has not been con-
victed of felony or misdemeanour, and has not during
such five years been removed under any order of justices,
shall be liable to be removed ; but that no residence in
any prison, barrack, lunatic asylum, or public hospital,
or while receiving relief, shall be considered either as an
interruption or as a portion of such five years."
The object of this clause is apparently to force
those who employ labour to maintain the la-
bourers when worn out or no longer required; and
the principle involved is not altogether inequitable
or unjust. It will assuredly lead, however, in very
many instances to insuperable difficulties, and press