The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1842-07-29 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

HOUSE OF LORDS-TUESDAY  The Duke of WELLINGTON moved the second reading of the poor law amendment continuance bill, which bill, he said, he had originally supported as a corrective of the great evils of the former system, and the principle of which he should still support, though he thought all through that many of its details were objectionable, and ought to have been avoided. One of these was the building of those enormous workhouses, which had been denominated bastiles, but they had been rendered necessary in consequence of another act of parliament. Earl STANHOPE said, that this bill proposed to continue for five years powers vested in commissioners, which powers, in the better days of British history, would not have been tolerated for a single day. It was a bill calculated to draw down upon the government even a greater share of odium than that which had fallen upon their predecessors in office. The noble earl quoted various authorities against the bill as being unconstitutional, and amongst them that of the late Lord Eldon, who said the poor law bill was the most infamous act which had been ever passed by a Christian legislature. The bill was to be continued nominally for five years, but no one could doubt but that the intention was that it should be perpetual, and perpetual it would be if public opinion was not concentrated against it. The workhouses, if not actually bastiles, were prisons in respect of the seclusion they enforced, and worse than prisons in the dietary of their inmates. By the extension of out-door relief the framers of the law admitted that it was impossible—that they dared not carry out the workhouse test to its full extent; and as to the law having been the means of raising the moral character of the labouring classes, he need only appeal to public documents to disprove the assertion. Misery, cruelty, and crime had been the result of the poor law bill. They might repeal it, but they could never restore to life those who had been murdered in the workhouses by a system quite as abominable as the law itself had been described to be by Lord Eldon. In France Charles X. had been hurled from his throne because of ordinances which, though certainly against the constitution, had not at the time produced any evil results; and was :it to be supposed that the triumvirate at Somerset House would be suffered to retain their tyrannical authority much longer? The noble earl concluded by moving that the bill be read a second time that day six months.  Lord BROUGHANf said, as an original promoter, and still as a supporter of the bill from the experience of its working, he did not think it necessary again to enterinto the question, inasmuch as the noble earl had now adduced the same arguments he had repeatedly and very ably urged on former occasions, and to which he (Lord Brougham) had on these occasions stated the arguments which might be urged in reply. He could not avoid condemning the declamatory appeals to the passions of the people indulged in by the noble earl, and more particularly the prophecies of rebellion, prophecies which were but too apt to produce the result to which they pointed, and he thought in his calmer moments the noble earl would lament that he had used language of such a description. The amendment of Lord Stanhope was then negatived without a division, and the bill was read a second time, and ordered to be committed on Thursday. The County Courts Bill was read a third time and passed. The Customs Acts Amendment Bill went through committee.  Some other bills on the table were forwarded a stage, and their lordships adjourned.