POOR LAW ADMINISTRATION BILL. (Hansard, 20 May 1847)

§ MR. ESCOTT

wished to take that opportunity of putting a question to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department. It was a question relating to a matter of great importance, on which he had already asked for information from the right hon. Gentleman. He wished now to know whether, since he had put his former question, the right hon. Gentleman had received any information which he could lay before the House with respect to the labouring population of the west of England, and particularly as regarded the county of Somerset; and whether, with reference to the destitute state of a large portion of the population of that county, any steps had been taken by the Poor Law Commissioners; or whether any general steps had been taken throughout the country by the poor-law guardians with or without the sanction of the Poor Law Commissioners? From all the experience he had had in the west of England, and from all the examinations he had been able to make into the state of the poor in the neighbourhood to which he referred, he had found that any extraordinary degree of distress was usually caused by either boards of guardians or the Poor Law Commissioners neglecting to enforce the powers which they possessed under the present law for relieving the poor. He did not mean to say that at the present moment there was not a much more extraordinary pressure than ever before existed; 1109 but he did mean to say, that if the Poor Law Commissioners had not acted, or if the hoards of guardians had not acted, upon the discretionary power which he believed was vested in them for relieving that distress, it was his humble but decided opinion that the time had come when it would be the duty either of that House or of the Government to insist upon steps being taken to relieve those large masses of the people, who, under present circumstances, were unable to support themselves, and whose destitute state endangered the property of a great part of the country.

§ SIR G. GREY

replied, that he had not received any official account of the condition of the labouring classes of the west of England. There had been, as he had stated the other night, owing to the high price of provisions, a disposition evinced to create disturbance, and there had been some illegal proceedings, especially on market days, in two of the western counties. These proceedings, however, had been promptly checked by the judicious measures taken on the part of the local magistrates. No personal violence had yet been resorted to; and he hoped the measures to which he had alluded would be effective in preventing any recurrence of such proceedings. With respect to the Poor Law Commissioners, he understood that they had lately received applications respecting the condition of the people owing to the high price of provisions; and he had no doubt they would adopt such measures as they should deem necessary for the purpose of meeting the emergency which at present existed. He must say, however, that it would be very unfair that the whole responsibility of meeting an emergency like the present, arising from the high price of corn, should be thrown upon the Poor Law Commissioners. It lay with the employers of labour—those who were receiving high prices for their corn—rather than with the Poor Law Commissioners—or, in other words, the ratepayers—to provide a remedy for the evils which at present existed. He had no reason to suppose that there was any indisposition on the part of the class to which he had referred to meet the emergency. No statement had been made to him to that effect; on the contrary, he had lately seen a Gentleman connected with Somersetshire who expressed an anxious desire to lend his influence in order to meet the evils in question.