The Marquess of Normanby had intended to say anything against the character of Mr. Unwin. The Duke of Portland would act upon the suggestion which had been thrown out by his noble Friends, and withdraw the motion. POOR-LAW COMMISSION.] Messengers from the Commons brought up the Poorlaw Commission Continuance Bill, which was read a first time, and ordered to be printed. grant such returns, and it might create an Mr. S. Herbert said, it was not usual to inconvenient precedent. Lord Ingestrie would not press his motion. Motion withdrawn. tion that the Poor-law Commission Bill be POOR-LAW COMMISSION.] On the moread a third time. reading of the bill, and to move that it be Mr. Fielden rose to oppose the third hon. Secretary for the Home Department read that day three months. The right had distinctly told the House that he is pledged to the principles of the new Poorlaw. A dogged perseverance in adhering to the new law had overthrown his prede The Duke of Wellington said, that if the House were to sit to-morrow, it would be for the public convenience, as he could then move the second reading of this bill, so that they might go into committee upon it on Monday, with the understand-cessors in office, and the present Governing, that any discussion which noble Lords might wish to go into upon the measure might be taken on going into committee on Monday. Agreed to. Adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS, Friday, October 1, 1841. ment might rest assured that if they imitated the example of the last, they would not long hold office. To hear from a Cabinet pledged to govern on constitutional principles, that they will hold to the principle of a despotic law was what he could not understand. The delegation of extraordinary and undefined powers to a board of commissioners was declared by many learned persons on the passing of MINUTES.] New Member. The right hon. G. L. D. the bill through Parliament to be uncon Damer, for Portarlington. Bill. Read a third time. Poor-law Commission. Petitions Presented. By Sir H. Fleetwood, from Preston, Abinger, stated distinctly, that— stitutional; and Mr. Scarlett, now Lord and by Mr. Cobden, from Trowbridge, and New Sarum, for the Repeal of the Corn-laws.-By Colonel Acton, from Sir Harcourt Lees, for the Expulsion of the Jesuits.-By Mr. Litton from Richard Harpur, for inquiry into the cause of his dismissal from the situation of tide waiter in Dublin.-By Viscount Sandon, from Miramichi, against an alteration in the Timber Duties.-By Mr. Gladstone, from Charles Miller, for an alteration of the Tithe Commutation Act.-By Mr. Wakley, from Finsbury for the construction of Public Walks on the north side of the Thames. COMMISSIONS IN THE NAVY.] On the Order of the Day for the bringing up the report of the Exchequer Bills Funding Bill being read, Lord Ingestrie said, he had intended moving for a return of all the Commissions (with the names attached) signed by the Board of Admiralty since the 4th Day of June last, up to the issuing of the patent of the present Board of Admiralty, distinguishing those Commissions signed after the 30th day of August; also, return of the ships put in commission during the same period making the like distinction, and of the probable date of each ship being ready for service; but if the Secretary to the Admiralty had any objection to grant it, he would not press the motion. poor are to be placed in the hands of delegates "The clause by which the affairs of the central board, appeared to him to establish or commissioners, who are to exist as a sort of such an imperium in imperio, that he thought the people of England would never consent to it." He hoped the people never would conwere considered so despotic that Lord sent to it. The continuance of these powers Althorp consented to limit the term of the commissioners to five years. But with this limitation the bill was thought so bad, that many attempts were made to stop it, and Lord Althorp, after having been repeatedly desired to postpone it to another Session, because it was not understood out of doors, uttered these remarkable words: opportunity they now possessed of passing the detested it. The electors, backed by the marked their displeasure of the Whigs, and given the Tories a large majority in that House, who might, if so disposed, repeal that law. If they lost the opportunity they would show themselves undeserving of confidence. In the petitions on the Poor-law we had the most conclusive evidence of the nation's dislike to the law. In two successive Sessions, in the latter of which he had moved for a repeal of it, the signatures to the petitions for repeal, numbered nearly half a million. Those petitions came from all parts of the country, and the letters he received on the subject, from persons in all parts, whom he had never known before, or seen at all, were very numerous. The petitions in the last Session, after the noble Lord, the Member for London, had given notice of his bill to amend the Poor law, were worthy the notice of the House. There were 6 petitions in support of the Poor-law, with 130 signatures to the whole; 21 petitions, with 247 signatures attached in favour of the bill then under consideration; 44 petitions, with 66 signatures, against any clause for out-door relief; for repeal of local-acts, 1 petition, with 24 signatures -in all 72 petitions, to which were annexed 467 signatures, somewhat in favour of the Poor-law. But what petitions were presented to that House against the law? There were 185 petitions, with 48,300 signatures for repeal; 86 with 11,621 signatures for alteration; 2 petitions, with 1,026 signatures for repeal of the Poor-law and the County Constabulary Act; 264 petitions, with 135,290 signatures, against the bill then under consideration; 281 petitions, with 61,375 signatures, for alteration of the bill; 73 petitions, with 28,717 signatures, for provision for freedom of religious instruction and attendance at places of worship; 4 petitions, with 317 signatures, against the proposed clause relative to casual poor. In all 895 petitions, with 286,646 signatures attached, against the New Poor-law and the bill to amend it. Here were a host of petitions to that House from those who did not understand the matter when the bill was before the House in 1834, but whose experience had brought them to beseech them to repeal it. The petitioners thought, and he (Mr. Fielden) agreed with them, that they were capable of distributing the sums raised for the relief of the poor amongst whom they lived in a manner more satisfactory to both parties than could be done by any directions of the central board at Somersethouse, and that involved the whole question. He knew that much was said about the abuses that had prevailed in the administration of relief to the poor, that they were lazy, profligate, and would eat up the rental of the land. If the administration had been bad, that was not the fault of the old law. When abuses did exist, it was the effect of either inadequate wages or want of work, and why punish the poor for that? It was the fault of the owners of property, and only just that they should suffer. Property was forward enough to claim its privileges; let it perform its duties. But it was a libel on the poor to say they would not work. Look at your roads, canals, railroads, buildings, and the labour they performed in the fields and in factories, in mines, and elsewhere, all of which bore testimony to the unrivalled industry of the people, and gave the lie to their traducers. Much had been said of the principle of the new law. If it had any principle, it was the 15th clause which enacted the board of commissioners, and gave them the powers which the bill before the House proposed to continue for six months longer. That principle the Home Secretary told the House he would maintain. If it were really intended that the central board should be permanent, which it must if the principle were maintained, why not make it so at once, and cease to trifle with the House? Now, what had the commissioners done to entitle them to the confidence of the country? They formed unions almost everywhere complained of-they directed immense workhouses to be built which were a disgrace to the country-they had issued peremptory orders to refuse relief to the able-bodied out of the workhouse, and required the separation of husband and wife, and parents and children, on entering those dreary abodes-they had obtained force to compel obedience to their orders-they had fixed and persevered in dietaries that had caused death-they had promoted emigration and emigration schemes, and had obtained acts for disposing of parish property, the conveyances of which amounted to upwards of 3,900-they had caused a re duction of wages-deaths of mothers in childbed-suicide of widows and others, whose relief was withdrawn-they had so well succeeded in exciting a terror of their workhouses that death by starvation was {OCT. 1} Commission. 1070 constantly suffered rather than resort 'ject; for the people might rest assured, thither for relief. Even that morning he that they had no weapon so effective for had received a letter from Manchester, good as the constitutional exercise of the accompanied by the Manchester Advertiser right of petition. The hon. Member conof the 18th ult., in which was given a let- cluded by moving as an amendment that ter detailing the particulars of two deaths the bill be read a third time that day by starvation, caused by horror of the three months. workhouse, in one of which the verdict of the coroner's jury was, "Died of disease of the lungs, accelerated by starvation;" and the second was, "Died of the want of the common necessaries of life." They had increased the number of vagrants to an alarming extent. In a table published in the sixth annual report of the commissioners there was a column containing the number of vagrants and paupers relieved, not belonging to any parish of the union, and it gave the number in the Christmas quarter of 1838, and the number for the Christmas quarter of 1839, in fourteen counties of England and Wales, arbitrarily selected, as was said. of Nottingham, in 1838, the number who In the county received relief was 197, and in 1839, 328, being an increase of 131. In Sussex, the number relieved in 1838 was 236, and in 1839, 302; increase 66. In Bedford, the number relieved in 1838 was 64, and in 1839, 158; increase 94. In Kent, the number relieved in 1838 was 821, in 1839, 1,254; increase 433. In Leicester, the number relieved in 1838 was 291, in 1839, 789; increase 498. In Salop, the number relieved in 1838 was 96, in 1839, 280; increase 184. The total relieved in these six counties in 1838, was 1,705, and in 1839 it was 3,111-increase 1,406, or 82 per cent. It was to be observed, that that table by no means showed the number of applicants. If a table of all who applied could be obtained, he had no doubt that the result would be an awful development. The increase of beggars was remarked by almost every one, and he had drawn attention to this fact to show the working of the Poor-law and the poverty of the people. The increase of crime was not less alarming, as shown by returns on the Table of that House. He must again express his regret at the determination of the Home Secretary to continue the commission, and he hoped the country would send up their petitions to that House early next Session in number sufficient to induce a change of that determination, when the House was promised a consideration of the whole sub. son why he could not support the present Sir C. Douglas wished to state the reamotion of the hon. Member for Oldham, in order to protect himself from misconstruction. The occasion appeared to him scarcely a fit one for the speech of the hon. Member, because the question before the House did not involve the general merit of the Poor-law Amendment Act, but only the continuance of the commission for a given period. When on former occasions, votes of a similar nature to the present had been brought forward, he had felt it his duty to oppose them, because they had been introduced under different Government that had had ample opporcircumstances, having emanated from a tunity of acting on the official information which they had been able to collect. Last year the noble Lord, then at the head of the Government in that House, proposed to continue the commission until the end of the then next Session of Parliament; but the proposition being vehemently opposed by him and other hon. Members, the noble Lord gave way, and fixed the end of the present year for the duration of the commission, upon which he said, that the noble Lord had better have named some time of the year when Parliament usually separated, such as August or September. The proposition of the right hon. Baronet to continue the commission only until July next, showed a disposition to afford an opportunity for considering the principle of the measure; and he (Sir C. Douglas) only feared that he might lay himself open to a factious opposition, and whether his (Sir C. Douglas's) suggestion of last year might not be adopted by him with advantage. In opposing, as he had done by his vote, the proposition of the hon. Member for Rochdale, the other evening, he had not been actuated by any less strong opinion against the refusal of out-door relief, but he had done so because he did not think it necessary then to vote on such a subject as he would otherwise have done, when the proposition of the right hon. Baronet was only to continue the commission for five months, and because he thought it would have been wiser not to have brought the subject forward | considered this power of the commissionat a time when there was likely to be so ers to interfere in the Gilbert unions, a slight an attendance. He hoped the right sufficient reason for opposing the third hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for reading of this bill, and also for opposing the Home Department would inquire into every similar proposition, in whatever shape the management of those unions where it might come. complaints had arisen. There were many cases in which the boards of guardians had acted in opposition to the rules of the Poor-law commissioners. He knew one union in particular where out-door relief had been given, where there had been no separation of the sexes, and where the food was such that no better could be given. During the four years he had sat in Parliament he had never heard of a single complaint from that union, though a strong feeling existed there when the act first came into operation, and he felt quite sure that some expression of that feeling would have reached him, had not the guardians acted as they had done in violating the rules of the commissioners. Captain Pechell had never made this question the subject of party feeling, and on the present occasion he had quite sufficient reason for opposing the bill to relieve him from any such necessity. He alluded, among other things, to the manner in which the powers of the commissioners affected the parishes incorporated under Gilbert's Act. He could speak as to one parish, where the commissioners had issued rules and regulations which went to forbid the poor from going to church on Sunday and to prevent their being trusted out of the workhouses. Thus, the power of the guardians only extended to giving out-door relief to persons whom they might not think it necessary to send into the workhouses; and the Poor-law commissioners, though they had not the power to dissolve the union, nevertheless, could make such rules and regulations as produced the utmost dissatisfaction to the guardians, to the rate-payers, and to the receivers of the rates. This fact afforded to his mind a very strong reason for limiting the powers of the Poor-law commissioners. In the town which he represented (Brighton) the commissioners had not the power to make these regulations, and they had not attempted to introduce them, because they knew there was a watchful constituency who would prevent them, but they had succeeded in appointing a paid chaplain to the union, though the public refused to pay him a salary. He Mr. Borthwick felt it his duty to those constituents who had with unexampled generosity elected him in his absence without any pledge, to state why he could not now vote with the hon. Member for Oldham. At the same time he would say, that were the question before them simply one of principle, he should have had no hesitation in supporting the hon. Member. The objection of the hon. Member for Oldham, did not apply to the present measure only, but also to the general principle of the Poor-law Act-a subject that was not now under discussion. Hon. Members did not seem to agree as to what the principle of the Poor-law Amendment Act was. The hon. Member for Finsbury declared the principle to be that of centralization-to gather up the power from the local authorities, and repose it in the commissioners; and he maintained that all the other principles of the bill were subordinate to this. The commissioners, however, declared the great principle of the measure to be to train the poor to a love of independence; and the hon. Member for Droitwich, adopted the same principle. To such a principle every one must cordially assent; but at the same time the operation of the present Poor-law was calculated to offer to it the most formidable opposition. The principle of the old Poor-law of Elizabeth was, that every member of the community, so long as he was industrious, was entitled to eat and to be clothed; but the kind of independence the commissioners seemed to contemplate was of a very different character. They seemed to desire to invest relief with so much of the character of harshness, as that the poor man would rather prefer independence, even if accompanied by actual misery. To such a principle he must offer his most strenuous opposition. He did most solemnly entreat the Govern ment not to adopt the interpretation put upon the principle of the measure by either the one side or the other, and par ticularly not to adopt that of the hon. Member for Halifax, but that they would apply themselves to the consideration of it without being influenced either on the one side or the other. He (Mr. Borth wick) objected to the power of legislation | It appeared to him, that hitherto, anything with which the present law invested the that there might be to find fault with, had Poor-law commissioners, as being contrary arisen more from defects in the Administo the spirit of the constitution. So ex- tration of the law than from defects in traordinary were their powers that their the law itself. He did not stand there to control over certain subjects, and for cer- say that no amendments might be introtain purposes, was as absolute as that of duced into the law with advantage to its Queen, Lords, and Commons, over the operation. It would be perfectly absurd, general interests of the country. The with the experience they had had of its reason why he should vote against the working, for any one to say that it was hon. Member for Oldham on the present not susceptible of improvement. He was occasion was simply this :-The Govern- not prepared to say that there might not ment had come down to the House and be equally grave errors in the administrasolicited a conditional confidence, to en- tion of the new as there had been in that able them, with the advantage of ripe ex- of the old law. He would without hesiperience, to mature a measure for the tation say, that he should be glad to have amendment of the law which should give it administered in the most considerate satisfaction to the country. He should and kindly spirit towards those persons give them his confidence for the period who might have the misfortune of beand to the extent required for this pur- coming the objects of its provisions. pose, but he reserved to himself the full That was the spirit in which he was liberty of considering the subject when most anxious that it should be applied. brought before the House in the course of He would even say, that so far as his exthe next Session. In the meantime he perience went, that was the spirit in which hoped that Ministers would not yield un- he had always seen it administered. He duly to the opinions either of the hon. observed, from the returns laid before ParMember for Oldham, or the hon. Member liament, that in the West Riding of Yorkfor Finsbury, but would leave the country shire, the expense to the rate-payers had to look to themselves for such a measure lately been increased one-fifth in some as they should consider just and effectual parts, and one-sixth in others. He confor the relief of the poor. sidered that there was the best possible security that the law would, generally speaking, be so administered, because, independent of that feeling of humanity which, he believed, pervaded almost universally, with rare exceptions, those who were intrusted with its administration, there was this additional security, that while under the old law, abuses might take place which it was worth nobody's while to bring before the public, every one could see that throughout the whole of England the most vigilant inspection was exercised over the whole conduct of the commissioners and guardians. In that House, also, there were many who were not indisposed to bring forward every particular case that might appear to them to call for public notice. He would not say that they were disposed to exaggerate, but the true facts at least, in their full extent, were sure to be brought under the consideration of the House. Mr. C. Wood said, as he had called on the Government on a former occasion, for some expression of their opinions, he wished to take this opportunity of mentioning that the declaration of the right hon. Member for Dorchester, made two or three nights ago, was to him perfectly satisfactory. Such a declaration was necessary to enable the commissioners, who were intrusted with the superintendence of the Poor-law, to discharge their duty in a manner fitted to give confidence to the public. Before the intimation to which he had alluded, it was generally thought that Government were shrinking from the general support they had given to the principles of the law. That impression had now been entirely removed by the declaration of the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Home Department, with which he, for one, was perfectly satisfied. He thought it would be exceedingly unreasonable to ask the Government to pledge themselves to anything more, or to expect that they should not leave themselves perfectly unfettered for the consideration of any amendments which might be proposed next Session. Mr. Baldwin said, he was going neither to support nor oppose the measure. He had objections to several provisions of the New Poor-law; but he would not go into the detail of them, because he was fully persuaded that hereafter there would be |