The Sun. — 1842-07-27 (London, England)

POOR -L AW BILL.  The Duke of WELLINGTON moved the send reading of the Bill for continuing the Poor-law Ca mmission till the 31st August, 1843. He said .he had been originally one of th 3 supporters of the Bill, and be was so on the ground that the only remedy for the evils which prevailed under the old system, was. to be found in the Bill of his Noble Friend. He hadi  watched the working of the Act, and had found it had given general satisfaction throughout the country. He (lid not mean to say that he approved of all that had been done under this Act; some of its provisions went a little too far, and he was one of those who did not think there was any necessity for erecting those buildings which had obtained the name of Bastiles— (Hear, hear from Lord Stanhope)—especially as some parts of the country were not ripe for the introduction of those establishments, As he had before stated, however, he approved generally of the working of the Bill, and had much pleasure in now moving the second reading. He had paid great attention to the subject—(Hear, hear)—and wherever he had had an opportunity of observing, he had found that the management of the workhouses was as good as could be expected under any circumstances. He concluded by moving the second reading. On the second reading being put, Lord STANHOPE said the present Bill was only a fragment of the one that was to have been proposed to the other House of Parliament. But now the question was, that they should continue for five, or rather six years the arbitrary and irresponsible power of the dictators of Somerset House. He had thought that this was a question on which more relief was to have been expected from the present Ministry than from the late Government. But he must confess that he had been much disappointed in finding the present Government taking on itself the odium they must incur by the present measure. The Bill could only be carried out by investing the Commissioners with absolute power. Now it was the opinion of Locke, that the Parliament could make laws, but not legislators. The Commissioners were entrusted with both legislative and . .  executive power. In the declared— opinion of the late Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, a more complete system of grinding oppression never existed, and that if the Bill was once passed, the poor of England would become more completely slaves than the villains of the old feudal system. The Bill was continued nominally for five or six years, but there could be no doubt, if Parliament did not interfere, that  these powers would be made perpetual. It was a Bill to continue and confirm the powers of the Dictators, without beingcompromised by any measure to alleviate its severity. And what were the circumstances under which the Ministry had the hardihood to propose this measure ? Under circumstances of unprecedented distress, when the difficulties of the country were infinitely increased. In the manufacturing districts hundreds were perishing of hunger ; these facts had not been denied, not even disputed. Would this have occurred had they had a law whose principle was to grant relief ? This Bill punished poverty as a crime, no matter how that state of poverty might have been caused. They were confined to workhouses, which had generally acquired the mune of bastiles.— (" No," very loudly and decidedly pronounced by the Duke of Wellington.) The Noble Duke had allowed that they had acquired the name of bastiles.—(Another loud " No" from the Duke of Wellington.) The Noble Duke had himself said so.  The Duke of WELLINGTON must interrupt the Noble Lord ; when he said they had acquired the name of bastiles, it was only from those who thought like the Noble Lord himself.—(A laugh.) Lord STANHOPE contended that they were bastiles, the Commissioners only issuing their lettres-de-cachet against the poor. They were prisons in their form, their seclusion, their rigour, and worse than prisons in the quantity and quality of the food given in them. Since the enactment of the law there .had been a fearful increase of crime. The state of the labouring population must be various in different places ; but at the present time it was worse than it had been at any period of his recollection. As to the economy of the measure, which was to be one of its chief recommendations, in the agricultural districts the rates had fearfully increased, in one place from 3s. to I Is. in the pound. He complained that the poor had no remedy under the law if it injured them ; it was adding insult to injury to tell them that they could go by a writ of certiorari to the Court of Queen's Bench. Cases of injustice and oppression had occurred, and in those cases the Poor-law Commissioners, in the persons of the Assistant-Commissioners, had themselves been the judges. Their Lordships could not read a newspaper without finding recorded cases of starvation to death, and of suicide occasioned by horror of the workhouse. Had they not read of cases where petty thefts were committed for the sake of avoiding starvation in the comfortable asylum of a gaol ? Had not all this misery been occasioned by the accursed infamous Act, as the late Lord Eldon justly termed it ? They might repeal the Act, but they could never recal to life 'the thousands who had been murdered in the new prisons. He warned their Lordships to beware in time. There was no animal so weak or so tame that ill-treatment long continued would not rouse to anger. Charles the First was brought to the scaffold by the attempt to levy ship money, and Charles the Tenth, surrounded by a powerful army, was hurled from his throne. Let diem beware of the consequence of upholding. this iniquitous law, or they would see similar events In this country —they would shortly see a general convulsion. The Duke of