consider the house and its practices as adverse to them. The principle of this act was a base and ferocious one, tending to stimulate the bone and muscle of this country to forcible resistance. He sketched the life of a man who, having toiled from fifteen to sixty, finds his strength decaying, and his employers no longer willing to continue his accustomed wages. He applies for aid; he begs the guardians, rather than insist on his entering the poor-house, to let him have a little relief in his own cottage. They tell him that they would gladly do so, but that the commissioners forbid it! We had been told that this law would raise wages, but it had not done so. How was it to raise wages? It could do so only by combinations among the working men against their employers. The impression of the people was now, that parliament wished to preclude all relief whatever, in the poor-house or out of it. In the Kensington union were 25,000 inhabitants, and only one relieving officer. St. Luke's had 40,000 inhabitants, and only one officer and one assistant. He then specified some particular cases of abuse. Whatever the cruelties or oppression committed in the poor-house, the pauper had no appeal, no redress; he could not go out to complain. By the present bill, the powers of the commissioners, already so great as to be driving every respectable man from the boards of guardians, were to be made still greater, and the powers of the guardians still less. The guardians had not even power to allot a separate sleeping-room to an infirm old couple, without the leave of the Somerset-house commissioners. He wondered that the gentlemen of England would act under such a control; indeed, he was sure they would not brook it, but for their desire to aid their poor neighbours. As to the alleged reduction of the poor's-rate, it was a delusion. Charges formerly paid from the poor's-rate were now transferred to the countyrate; and all that John Bull got, was to pay from his left-hand pocket instead of his right. Mr. G. Knight was not surprised that gentlemen inveighed against this law, for it was an easy road to popularity. He begged the house to remember the evils of the old system, and especially the payment of wages out of rates. The enemies of the poor were not those who sought to raise their wages and habits, but those who deluded them with a false sympathy. Not only had a saving been effected, but the condition and comforts of the paupers themselves had been improved. As to the case suggested of a man forced into a poorhouse at sixty, it was of no application, for at sixty, the commissioners allowed out-door relief. Though this law proceeded from the whigs, he would not the less support it, being a good law; for. the question was too important to be decided upon party considerations. Mr. Buck would not concur with the absolute opponents of the bill, but he thought that some of the clauses must be amended. He mentioned a case where a county magistrate had been summoned before an assistant commissioner under circumstances of unwarrantable indignity. Mr. Muntz disliked the law, for making no difference between the respectable and the dissolute poor. He related a case of an industrious man thrown out of employ by his master's failure, who had endured great privation rather than go into the poor-house, having been told that he could not be admitted without selling off his goods, and being apprehensive that he should not easily get a character on coming out again. There ought to be some distinction between rural districts and those great towns in which hundreds of people were sometimes thrown out of work at a blow. He would do his utmost to prevent the passing of this bill in its present state. Mr. Liddell would oppose the bill, to record his disapprobation of the proposal for continuing the commissioners during ten years more. Such a continuance appeared to him little less than a perpetuity. His own experience was chiefly in a rural district, and he could not say he was aware of any improvement produced by the present system, either in economy or in the condition of the poor. Even if there should not be a majority against the second reading, he hoped the ten years' continuance clause would never be suffered to become law. Sir Robert Peel said, the two great questions were, the continuance of the experiment, and the centralization of the management. We were too apt to forget past evils, and to dwell only on the present. The state of things which preceded the present law was the ground of the course he took. He cited some evidence taken before a committee on agriculture, showing that in certain parishes, as the amount of money relief had increased, so had also the demoralization of the labouring classes. If the legislature thought that compulsion into the poor-house would relieve the industrious man from the payment of rates to relieve his idler neighbour, and eventually raise the character of the idle themselves, surely the measure was justifiable, although individual cases of hardship must occur. And he believed that even under the old system there were many hardships, which, as the districts were small and insulated, were not heard of, as abuses were now in the large unions, where so many people were assembled. After the great expense incurred (though expense was certainly a secondary consideration) he should not like to see the experiment abandoned, especially as nothing was suggested in its room. It had been said there was no aggregate saving; for that if there were less laid out in rates there was more laid out in wages. That was the very object; it was thus that the poor had benefited from the poor-law. In supporting the principle of this bill he must, however, reserve to himself the right of questioning several of its clauses. He had great doubt, for instance, as to the expediency of the ten years' continuance. Five years, and then, if necessary, five years more, might be a safer arrangement. Besides, a good deal must depend on the personal character of the commissioners for the time being. He hoped, too, that the law would not be executed with strict rigidity; and that, in matters of feeling, such as churchyard burials, there would be a due deference to the natural sentiments and wishes of the people. Moreover, he thought there should be no encouragement to further unions. Indeed, he apprehended that the principle of these unions had already been carried too far. Mr. T. Duncombe said, the present system wanted amendment; but this bill contained nothing except aggravation. Sir Robert Peel had taken thought about the burial of the poor; he wished the house would respect the feelings of the poor while living. This measure went to repeal all the local acts of parishes; but the people of England would not submit to be disfranchised at the will of three gentlemen in Somerset-house. The bill had been brought to its present stage with indecent haste. Mr. F. Maule said, there had been quite sufficient time for its consideration, inasmuch as it was almost the same with the bill of last year. Mr. Wakley had belied the poor; they were not the persons who had disturbed the public peace by discontents; nor had they shown any of that tendency to combination which he had enlarged upon. The present question was not a pecuniary one; and even if it had increased, instead of diminishing the rates, he would not have grudged that additional cost. If the measure was to be carried on, it could be only by a central management. So little were the boards of guardians fit for the uncontrolled execution of the duty, that there was hardly any abuse of the old system of which some or other of those boards had not solicited the restoration. Sir E. Knatchbull would not oppose the second reading, though he objected to many of the clauses, and wished for a good deal of relaxation in its working. He instanced, from his own neighbourhood, a class of recent cases where the distress had arisen solely from the continuance of severe weather, and where it would have been right that the guardians should possess a power to give out-door relief, from the impossibility that, during a frost, the poor, however willing to work, should obtain employment. Viscount Howick believed the act of 1834 to be one of the most beneficial measures ever passed, and rejoiced, therefore, that no one had gone so far as to propose the restoration of the old system, though he thought the adoption of Sir E. Knatchbull's views would gradually bring that system back. Outdoor relief given under pressure would be an example discouraging provident habits. It had been ob jected, that men would endure much suffering rather than enter the workhouse. That was the very thing desired. It threw them on their own efforts, and the efforts of their friends. It was only on the abandonment of those efforts, under the old system, that the character and condition of the English peasantry had declined. He approved the renewal of the term for ten years, in order to prevent agitation, by proving that there was no intention of giving way. Some difficulty would arise about the burials, because the poor-houses were generally in the neighbourhood of large towns with crowded church-yards, and the parish churches of many of the inmates were necessarily distant. Mr. Darby urged the importance of consulting the people's feelings on the subject of burials. He thought it an important security to the country to limit the term of renewal. It was an error to suppose that the new law restored the principle of the 43rd of Elizabeth ; if it had, there would not have been the present opposition to it. The workhouse was not really the fair test it was supposed to be, for an industrious man, attached to his home and family, would refuse it, when an idle one would take it. The true test between these two classes was to offer them hard work. Where a man had more children than he could maintain, it was consistent with the statute of Elizabeth that some of them should be supplied with work. Mr. Rice held it to be indispensable that the management should be in a central board. The most eastern part of Kent, where no outdoor relief was given, was the district of the county where wages were highest. He should support the second reading, in the hope, however, that the bill would be amended in many particulars. Mr. W. Attwood observed, that almost all the supporters of the second reading had made it a condition of their eventual support, that the bill should receive great alterations, of which the tone of its authors gave little reason to expect the accomplishment. Hither to the commissioners had wholly disregarded the suggestions made for the mitigation of their practice; and as every thing showed mitigation to be hopeless, he had no alternative but to oppose the second reading. Sir E. Filmer said, he would give no vote; for he could not conscientiously support the second reading, and, on the other hand, he did not wish, by voting for the rejection of the bill, to negative all alteration in the existing law. Mr. Langdale wished for a provision, enabling paupers of all denominations to attend their respective places of worship on Sundays. Mr. James said, that in his county the original unpopularity of the poor-law had almost disappeared, and the law was working most beneficially. He was favourable to this bill, though he did not like the separation of aged couples. Mr. Fielden believed that the new poor-law tended not, as had been said, to raise wages, but rather to lower them, and he would oppose this bill in every shape and on every occasion. Lord John Russell contended that the new poor-law was founded on the principle of the statute of Elizabeth, which goes at once to relieve the old and infirm, but requires from the able-bodied a test to distinguish whether they are willing to perform labour if it be found for them. The duke of Wellington had acted on this principle in allotting relief during a famine in India. It had been said, that hard labour was a better test than the workhouse; but he thought experience was the other way. Then came the question, whether the workhouse test would admit any considerable relaxation; but there had been no suggestion offered which would not, in his opinion, bring back the evils of the old system. Sir E. Knatchbull had pleaded for out-door relief in a season of severe frost. If that were given this year, you must give it next year likewise, to such as might be destitute of work, though the weather should be less severe. Thus, step by step, the ancient evils would be brought back. The present law was for the benefit of industrious labourers, whose welfare the former system destroyed. Here he read some evidence to show what had been the mischief of paying wages by rates, and how much those mischiefs were complained of by men who would fain have been industrious. He entreated the house not to admit the recurrence of so injurious a state of things, nor seek popularity by undermining the independence of the labourers. He would not enter into detail; but he should regret to see the period reduced from ten years to five. Upon a division, the motion was carried by a majority of 147, the numbers being-ayes,201; noes,54. Although the principle of the bill had been thus affirmed by a large majority in the house of commons, yet on several subsequent occasions the attacks upon it were renewed by its opponents, among whom the most conspicuous were Mr. T. Duncombe, Mr. Wakley, Mr. Fielden, General Johnson, Mr. Attwood, and colonel Sibthorp. Upon the motion for the committal of the bill, Mr. Townley Parker moved, and Mr. Grimsditch seconded the motion, that it should be committed on that day six months; the committal, however, was carried by a majority of 196. On this occasion some weighty observations were made by sir Robert Peel upon the language adopted by the commissioners in some of their public documents. He thought that, with the best intentions, there was occasionally a harshness displayed in the vindication of certain principles, which might be avoided consistently with the maintenance of the law, and the avoidance of which would tend to fortify the powers of the commissioners. To give an illustration of this, he would take for instance an official circular published by the poor-law commissioners; one of those public documents directed by the board to be printed chiefly for the use of the guardians. In one of those papers he found the following expressions:-"One principal object of a compulsory provision for the relief of destitution, is the prevention of almsgiving." Why, he heard the noble lord, lord John Russell, himself say, that the poor-law would completely fail in effect if the affluent withheld their alms. That was perfectly true; and he should abominate the poor-law if he thought it relieved the rich from the duty of almsgiving. He was perfectly certain the poor-law would fail if the affluent, relying upon its provisions alone, however improved the system of administration might be, felt that the mo ral obligation on them to attend to the wants of their poorer neighbours, was thereby extinguished. It was no such thing. In point of fact, the relief of the poor must mainly depend on the rich and affluent; and therefore it was unwise in the commissioners to issue a public document announcing that a principal object of a compulsory provision for the relief of destitution was the prevention of almsgiving. One object might be the prevention of mendicancy, or vagrancy, certainly not of almsgiving. It was a complete desecration of the precepts of the divine law-"Give alms to the poor;" "Turn not your face from the poor man.". He only mentioned this as an illustration of the great advantage and wisdom of weighing the expressions which might be used, so as not to give an impression of unnecessary harshness. Indeed, he did think, with respect to the public documents put forth by the commissioners, independently of the use of particular expressions, that their general tone and character might be improved consistently with the maintenance of the principles of the law. He would not enter further into the matter at present. |