HC Deb 27 March 1854 vol 131 cc1353-71

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Amendment proposed to be made to Question, [24th March] "That the Bill be now read a second time;" and which Amendment was to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."

Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

Debate resumed.

MR. WALPOLE

said, he wished to put a question to the noble Lord the Member for London in respect to this Bill. The debate upon the second reading of the Bill was adjourned from Friday night to that day. The House was then told that the noble Lord the Secretary for the Home Department would probably be present on that evening to state the course he proposed to take in reference to the extension of the principle of the measure to the Irish and Scotch poor. Not seeing the noble Viscount in his place, he (Mr. Walpole) wished to ask whether the noble Lord the Member for London was prepared, on the part of the Government, to inform the House as to the nature of the measure in reference to the Irish and Scotch poor before they proceeded further with the Bill before the House? If the noble Lord was not prepared to make such statement now, he would ask him whether it would not be more convenient that the debate on this Bill should be ad- journed until the House had before them the whole of the measures upon this subject which the Government intended to propose?

LORD JOHN RUSSELL

said, he expected that in a few minutes his noble Friend (Viscount Palmerston) would be in his place in that House, and would, of course, be ready to answer any question that might be put to him. With regard to the question put to him by the right hon. Gentleman, he (Lord John Russell) was not prepared, on the part of the Government, to state the details of the measure they intended to introduce in regard to the Irish and Scotch poor in England. He did not, however, think that the absence of such statement formed any ground for the postponement of the second reading of the Bill now before the House. He was of opinion, after the second reading of the Bill, the Committee upon it might be postponed for a considerable time, so that the House might be placed in possession of the views of the Government before they were called upon to consider the details of the present measure in Committee.

MR. PACKS

said, that, considering the answer of the noble Lord in respect to this measure most unsatisfactory, he felt it to be his duty to move that the debate be now adjourned until the 28th of April. He did not think that it would be fair to the English or Irish Members that the House should affirm the principle of this Bill until the other measures to be proposed by the Government in connection with this subject were fully before them.

MR. J. BALL

seconded the Motion.

MR. WALPOLE

said, he had thought a good deal of this question since Friday, and he could not but feel that whatever decision they might come to upon the Bill now before them, that decision would be extremely unsatisfactory, inasmuch as it was impossible that the House could affirm the general principle upon which they were to proceed in reference to the whole of the United Kingdom. They were told on Friday night that the claim of the Irish poor to be placed on the same footing as the English poor in regard to irremovability was, in the opinion of a Member of the Government, irresistible. He (Mr. Walpole) agreed in that opinion, for he thought that the claim of the Irish poor was irresistible according to the principles upon which the Bill was framed. It was framed upon two principles. The one was this—that the poor man was entitled to make the best use of his labour, and in the manner most advantageous to himself. The other was, that destitution, and not settlement, was to be the sole title for relief. Now, if they were prepared to affirm those principles with reference to the English, surely the same principles ought also to be extended to the Irish and Scotch poor. If destitution, and not settlement, was to be considered the sole title for relief, he thought that, in some respects, the claim of the Irish was even stronger than that of the English pauper, inasmuch as the Irish had no Law of Settlement, and they might be transferred to some town in Ireland with which they had no connection. The intentions of the Government should be fully explained, and unless they were the House might involve itself in serious responsibility by proceeding further with the present measure. If the principle of the irremovability of the English paupers be sound, he entreated the Government to postpone the affirmation of such a principle until they were in a position to furnish the House with full information as to all the measures they intended to propose in relation to this subject. Those measures, he believed, from what had been stated on Friday, would require very great consideration. He submitted that whatever regulations they adopted, they could not draw a distinction between the English and the Irish poor; and, if so, surely the House was entitled to know what those regulations were to be which Government intended to apply to the Irish poor, before they agreed to the regulations proposed in regard to the English poor. Further than that, it appeared to him that there was an additional reason for adopting the course which he now suggested. It was to be borne in mind that they were not by this Bill about to do away altogether with settlement. They were rather going to preserve settlement for the purpose of preserving the rights of the English poor to the different trusts in the different parishes to which they belonged. But if the Government proposed to interfere in respect to the Irish poor, by applying to them the principle of irremovability which they applied to the English poor, they would have to consider a difficult question—namely, how far those poor who had not a settlement in their own parishes were entitled to a share in the trusts established in the different parishes in England? Whether the Government proposed to deal with that difficult question he did not know, but it was a question that could not be lost sight of, if they wished to settle this important subject definitively and for ever. There was one other observation which he wished to make. He had a great objection to any measure being brought into that House in so imperfect and incomplete a state, for they were not informed until they had entered upon a discussion of the second reading of this Bill that the Government had in contemplation other measures which should necessarily accompany the measure under consideration, or as parts, in fact, of the same question. He would remind the Government what they had done last Session. They had passed a Bill imposing a duty upon successions, which was intended to apply to all the real and personal property of the Kingdom, whether settled or unsettled. Having prepared that Bill in regard to property belonging to individuals the Government declared that they meant to introduce another measure in regard to corporate property, which was to be taxed to a similar extent, as the property of individuals. But that Bill had never been brought in. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: For want of time.] The right hon. Gentleman said it was for want of time. Well, that made his argument all the stronger. It showed that the measure was intentionally imperfect; and yet that imperfection had not been made good as soon as it might be. The Government, as yet, had made no announcement of such a Bill this Session. The House had had the financial statement of the right hon. Gentleman, and yet they did not, even now, know whether that measure to which he alluded, which should have been universal in its application and in its bearings, would or would not be made complete by the introduction of a Bill including corporate as well as individual property, so that one and the same law should be equally applicable to all successions. Our legislation on that subject was obviously incomplete: and so it would be on this subject also, if the House went on with the present Bill. He fully concurred in the opinion that destitution, and not settlement, should be the title for relief; but he thought that their proceedings would be much fairer towards all parties concerned if they waited for full information upon the whole subject before they affirmed the general principles involved in the measure now before the House. The principles of that measure in their practical working depended on its details; and he defied any hon. Member who had considered the subject to say that the House could settle the question fairly and fully unless the details of all the mea- sures applicable to the subject were placed before them. Suppose that they passed the present Bill, and then that the measure subsequently introduced in regard to Ireland and Scotland were rejected, where would they find themselves? They would then find that they had affirmed a principle applicable to the English poor, and had refused to affirm the same principle when it was intended to be made applicable to the Dish and Scottish poor. By acting in this manner the Government would endanger their own measure. Instead of pressing it at that moment, he hoped that the noble Lord would have the goodness to reconsider whether, in point of fact, they would not further the success of this Bill, save the time of the House, and make their legislation more complete, by waiting for the introduction of such other measures as it might be advisable to introduce on the subject, for by proceeding at once with the present Bill, they would certainly be legislating partially and imperfectly, and therefore, be might add, inconclusively and inconsiderately, and most unfairly, upon this important and difficult question.

MR. BAINES

said, he was extremely willing to acknowledge that the right hon. Gentleman had not been influenced by any party motive; he had dealt very fairly with the measure. In giving his support to the principle of the Bill, he was giving it to a most important principle, which, however, was not exactly what the right hon. Gentleman had stated. The principle of the Bill was not that destitution instead of settlement should be the claim to relief; for at this moment destitution was the claim to relief. That principle was not introduced by this Bill for the first time. For if a person became destitute in any parish in England, that parish was bound to give him relief. The way in which settlement was introduced into the case was this:—If a person applied for relief in a parish which was not his parish of settlement, the former might relieve itself from further burden by causing him to be transferred to the parish where his settlement was. It was, therefore, not quite accurate to represent the principle of the Bill as being, to make destitution, instead of settlement, the ground of relief. He submitted to the House that no reason whatever had been shown for postponing the present Bill; and he could not take upon himself the responsibility of consenting to a postponement of a decision upon a question simple and plain in itself; and one on which upon every account it was desirable that the decision of the House should be given as early as possible. A postponement had been suggested on the ground that certain measures were to be proposed, by and by, with regard to Ireland. When he introduced the Bill, he was asked whether it applied to Ireland, and he stated that he had carefully drawn the Bill in such a way as to apply only to the simple case of removals in England and Wales on the ground of settlement. Settlement was not a matter applicable to Ireland at all; it was confined to England and Wales. The removals to Ireland from England and Wales, or from Scotland, proceeded upon an entirely different principle. Therefore they might very well consider the question, whether relief should be given without reference to settlement in England, quite independently of the question affecting the removal of paupers from England or Scotland to Ireland. The hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Maquire) had brought forward a Motion on that subject; and he (Mr. Baines) had then stated that it was not advisable to mix up the Scotch and Irish question with that of England; that the latter stood on ground of its own; that the question had been left perfectly clear by the decision of the Committee of 1847, whose Report it was proposed by this Bill to carry out; that they had come to no decision on the Scotch and Irish question, which required further investigation; that some correspondence likely to throw light on that question would be laid before the House in a short time, when they might, if they thought proper, legislate upon it; but that probably some further information would be necessary, either by Committee or in some other way, until which time he was not prepared to deal with the Irish and Scotch question. That course, he thought, mot with the approbation of the House. He bad then moved the second reading of this Bill on Friday last, when he had just heard for the first time that there had been some communication with a noble Member of the Government, which led to an expression of opinion on the part of the Government that the Irish question was one that called for a speedy solution. No doubt it was; but they could not come to the solution of such a question until they had got the materials for it; and they had not those materials at present, though they had abundant materials for the solution of the English question, including the evidence taken in 1847, the Reports of Committees in the year following, and the Reports of the Commissioners, which were limited to England and Wales. The case was perfectly ripe for decision on that question; but on the other, he for one was not prepared to legislate. ["Hear, hear!"] This was not a new expression of opinion on his part; he had said the very same thing before, and it was an opinion from which he did not feel disposed to recede. Therefore, there was no ground whatever—the questions being entirely separate in themselves—for postponing the English Bill, in order to await any announcement on a perfectly different question, for the removal of paupers to Ireland proceeded on an entirely different ground. He entreated the House to proceed to consider the present question at once; and let those who disapproved the principle of the Bill meet it by a direct negative.

MR. ROBERT PALMER

, said, he was surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that he heard for the first time on Friday of the arrangement that had been made with the noble Lord at the head of the Home Department, in respect to the removal of the Irish and Scotch poor.

MR. BAINES

said, he must beg to correct a misapprehension that appeared to have taken place as to what he had said. He believed that the decision in respect to the Irish part of the question was taken on Thursday. He did not hear of the matter until after that decision had been taken. And it was on Friday that the proposition for postponement of the present question was made, on the ground of the arrangement which it was said had taken place in respect to the Irish and Scotch poor.

MR. ROBERT PALMER

said, that he had so understood the right hon. Gentleman. He must say that he concurred with the proposition made by the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Packe), because he thought that the two subjects were mixed up and depended upon each other. It was impossible to pronounce a fair judgment upon the question of the irremovability of the poor of England until they knew whether the Irish and Scotch poor were to be placed upon the same footing as the English. He believed that the votes of a great many hon. Members depended upon the knowledge of all the facts. He appealed, then, to the noble Lord, whether it would not be better to postpone the further consideration of this measure. The House had a right to be informed upon the general subject of the Irish poor before they were called upon to assent to, or to dissent from, the second reading of this Bill, for which there did not appear to be any present hurry.

MR. H. HERBERT

said, that he felt considerable difficulty as to the course which he, as an Irish Member, ought to take on the present occasion. He certainly had no wish to interfere with the passing of any measure that might be considered beneficial or interesting to England. But he should, however, deem it to be his duty to give his vote in favour of the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Packe). If the Bill were passed into a law without Parliament legislating for the case of the Irish poor in England, its operation would be most unjust and oppressive. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the cases of the English and Irish poor did not depend upon the same principles; but if there were any differences in the cases of the two classes, he thought that the injustice of the present law was greater in its operation upon the Irishman than upon the Englishman, because when an Irish pauper was removed from England, he was not taken to the place of his settlement, but only to the nearest seaport in Ireland. In the north of England and the south of Scotland, he had been assured that the farms were principally cultivated by Irish labourers, but for whom the farmer would be alike unable to cultivate the land or gather in his crops. In that part of the country it was the custom to employ the Irish for a certain period, and then, just before the expiration of the time that would secure them a settlement, to turn them off to seek work elsewhere. That was a common occurrence. Whilst, therefore, they were doing away with the hardship of the Law of Removal in the case of the English labourer, he submitted that the Government ought to be prepared to state how they proposed to deal with the Irish labourer also. He should be the last man to ask that House to encourage a wholesale immigration of Irish paupers into this country. If they were not wanted here, let measures be adopted to prevent their importation. But if they were wanted, and he believed they were, he did not think Parliament had any right to legislate upon the subject before it unless it also took the case of the Irish labourer into its consideration. Much misapprehension appeared to exist on the subject of the immigration of Irish poor into England. Many person thought that the funds of boards of guardians were employed to send such poor here; but that could not be the case, as the accounts of all such boards were carefully audited by the auditors of the Poor Law Board.

SIR JOHN PAKINGTON

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board had acted a perfectly consistent part in reference to the question of debate, and had made a speech which every one must have felt to be most honourable to himself. He could not, however, agree with his right hon. Friend, when he said, that because the Bill before the House dealt only with England and Wales, therefore the House was in a condition at once to proceed to its consideration. Perhaps there was no Member of the House who understood this subject better than the right hon. Baronet the First Lord of the Admiralty. From having been long at the head of the Home Department, from his great experience of country gentlemen, and from his having sat on the Committee of inquiry in 1847, the right hon. Baronet knew the subject well, and he (Sir J. Pakington) appealed to him with confidence, whether, for years past, it had not been notorious to every one who had given attention to the subject, that whenever it was dealt with, the Irish portion of it must also be considered. Again and again it had been asserted by those who had made themselves acquainted with the subject that the Irish part of it was one of its chief difficulties. And, inasmuch as the Government had announced their intention to deal with the question in the last Session, he submitted that it was their duty either to grapple with the Irish difficulty from the first, and produce a complete measure, embracing the Irish as well as the English portion of it, or, on the other hand, do what his right hon. Friend (Mr. Baines) had done, and place a Bill on the table dealing with England only, and carry forward that Bill without any mention of the Irish part of the question. What had they been told that evening? His right hon. Friend (Mr. Baines) had informed them to-night that there did not at present exist any materials—[Mr. BAINES: Sufficient materials]—for settling the Irish question. Well his right hon. Friend was, he imagined, the highest authority to whom they could appeal, and yet he has now told them that there existed no sufficient materials for settling the Irish question; and at the same time they were told by the Government that they were about to deal with that question. How did they mean to deal with it, if they had no sufficient materials for doing so? He was afraid—indeed, he had reason to believe that in many instances it would be the case—that some who were friendly to this measure would, if it were now pressed to a decision, vote against it; and he therefore hoped that the Government would reconsider the peculiar position in which they had placed the House—that they would recollect that the important addition with regard to the Irish paupers was never announced until Friday night—and that they would either abandon legislation for Ireland altogether, or postpone this Bill until they knew what would be the shape of their Irish measure.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

said, he did not see the logic of the conclusion at which the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Pakington) had arrived, that because the Government was not at present in possession of sufficient materials for maturing the details of the measure with regard to Ireland, the House was, therefore, not to proceed to affirm the general principle of the now proposed measure by reading the Bill a second time. He quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman, that if you deal with the question of pauper removals, you cannot deal with those of England only; the Irish question must undoubtedly be grappled with and disposed of. He thought no one who considered the matter carefully and seriously could deny that it would be an act of the grossest injustice to give the English labourer, settled in an English town, the right of not being removed to his parish, in case of his applying for relief, and at the same time to leave the Irish labourer exposed to the hardship of being, under similar circumstances, sent to a distant part of Ireland, with which possibly he had no connection. There was no question that all should be dealt with on the same principles. You had two men working in this town, or in some other great English town, contributing by their labour to the prosperity of the place, serving the people of the town, and performing all the hard work of the town. Here, in this very town, if you saw a man mounting a steeple, going up an almost perpendicular ladder, with a hod of bricks upon his shoulder heavier than himself, and which, perhaps, he could hardly carry upon level ground, you might rely upon it the man was an Irish labourer. In short, if you saw a man engaged in work which beyond all others required physical strength, endurance, and contempt of danger, the probability was that he was an Irish labourer. Well, then, that man, if unable to work, and all his family, if he should die, were to be exposed to all the injurious consequences of removal to a distant part of the country, while an Englishman, or the family of an Englishman, under similar circumstances, were not so to be dealt with ! Now, as long as Parliament maintained the present law, they treated both alike—they dealt with the English as they dealt with the Irish pauper, and nothing could be fairer than that. But if they were prepared, on full consideration of the case, to say that the power of removal should be taken away as regarded the English poor, justice did require that it should also be taken away in the case of the Irish pauper, or, if not entirely, at least that it should be very much restricted. He said "very much restricted," because great apprehensions prevailed upon this matter, and upon these grounds he thought what his right hon. Friend (Mr. Baines) said was worthy of attention—namely, that some further inquiry was necessary, not simply to obtain materials for legislation, but to remove unfounded prejudices. English gentlemen were fearful that if the Irish should not be removable, the Union-houses in England would be flooded by a deluge of Irish paupers. Now, how were those paupers to come to this country? Who was to send them? If he were not greatly mistaken, not one farthing of the Irish poor rate could legally be employed in sending Irish paupers to England. But, then, it was said that individuals would send over paupers to this country at their own expense. Well, he would not endeavour to conceal any features of the case. He would take for granted that some had been sent from towns in Ireland near the coast to lighten the burdens of those towns, and to cast the burdens upon some English towns upon the opposite coast. Now, he thought that while on the one baud it would be perfectly just to protect the Irish labourer from the present operation of the law with respect to removal, it must be admitted that on the other hand abuse ought to be prevented in this particular; and therefore, without pledging himself to any particular measure upon the subject, it struck him, if Parliament were to say that, in order to entitle an Irish labourer to be unremovable, it should be necessary for him to have passed one twelvemonth in industrial occupation in the town in which he claimed relief—a condition analogous to that on which in his own country depended his right to relief in the electoral division of a Union—it occurred to him that some arrangement of that sort would remove any reasonable apprehension of abuse in regard to the immigration of Irish labourers. After all, the number of removals which now took place was much smaller than many persons imagined. In March, 1853, the whole number of orders executed for the removal of Irish paupers was not above 4,800, and therefore, if Parliament shut the door against the kind of abuse to which he had adverted, and confined the operation of the law to bond fide Irish labourers settled and employed in English towns, hon. Members would find, on inquiry, that the apprehensions entertained were really to a great extent founded on mistake. It appeared to him, however, that the justice of making such an arrangement, and the necessity of some further investigation in order to determine upon the measure by which that object should be accomplished, formed no reason why the House should not now come to a decision upon the second reading of this Bill. The third stage of the Bill would naturally be postponed, and they might reasonably hope that, before the House was called upon to go into Committee, the measure to which he had referred would have made such progress that Her Majesty's Government would be able at least to state to the House the nature of the Bill they proposed to introduce relative to Ireland. He therefore should earnestly entreat the House not to negative the principle involved in the present Bill, which was simply the principle that a change should be so far made in the English Poor Law, that paupers should not be removable. That principle only applied to the inhabitants of England and Wales, but it did not preclude the House afterwards from entertaining the proposal for extending that principle to the natives of Ireland, or even to the natives of Scotland; whereas, if they negatived this principle, they went much beyond what he believed to be the wish of the great majority of the Members of that House—they negatived the principle for any change in the Poor Law, and did not really make their votes turn upon their desire to see a similar measure to this applied to Ireland. He hoped, therefore, that the House would agree to the second reading of the Bill, which would not pledge them to go on with it unless they were satisfied that some safe measure should be proposed with regard to Ireland, but which would so far elicit the opinion of the House that some such measure as this was desirable.

SIR JOHN TROLLOPE

said, he was but the more convinced of the great difficulties which surrounded the subject by the speech of the noble Lord who had just addressed the House. He had long been of opinion that Parliament must deal with this question in a broad and comprehensive spirit. It appeared to him impossible that the Legislature could sanction the principle of repealing all power of removal as to English paupers, without being prepared to consider the law as affecting Ireland and Scotland. It was clear to his mind that they ought to consider the whole subject together, inasmuch as one portion of it pressed upon the attention of the Legislature at the same time as the other. The noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) said that if they consented to repeal the power of removal with regard to English paupers, it would be necessary to consider, also, how they were to deal with paupers coining into this country from Ireland. And the noble Lord shadowed forth some details of a system, which might be proposed by Her Majesty's Government at a future though perhaps distant day, and threw out a hint that it might be proper to annex the condition that, in the case of Irish paupers living in England, there should be a twelvemonth's residence, a condition which appeared to him (Sir J. Trollope) to be a clog on that relief which could not be imposed on the subjects of the realm coming from the sister country, while no such condition was imposed upon the English labourer. He would remind the noble Lord that there was a power in the Scotch Act for the relief of the poor, which was passed in the year 1846, to remove from that country persons who had not had a five years' residence there—a power similar to that which was at present in force in England. He (Sir J. Trollope) was strongly of opinion that if Parliament consented to repeal the laws which were now in existence as to relief to the English poor, they must at the same time consider the laws as to Ireland also; and if they repealed the power of removal here, so far as it concerned English subjects, they must prevent the removal of Irish also. Indeed, they would not be legislating on a just and fair basis if they did not do this. The large towns had certainly complained of the great influx of Irish paupers; but at the time they did so it was under peculiar circumstances. There was now every reason to believe that a labouring man was a man of great value in this country. He was sure that that was already the case in the agricultural parts of the country. The parish authorities never had occasion to send the Irish labourers back from the agricultural districts. They came there when their assistance was most required, and excepting in case of sickness, when the charity of all men would, of course, be extended towards them, they were rarely a burden to their employers. He saw at once, therefore, the unfair position in which his right hon. Friend (Mr. Baines) was placed by the sudden determination of the Government materially to alter their plans for the consideration of the House, without apparently calling him to their councils or asking his advice on the subject. He confessed that he thought his right hon. Friend was placed in a situation of the greatest possible difficulty. With regard to the Bill itself, he (Sir J. Trollope) had various objections to its details, which he should be ready to state at the fitting time. It would be irrelevant to do so now. But it was clear to him that the House ought not to consent to the second reading of the Bill without some knowledge of the other measures which must be inevitably consequent upon this, which must be sooner or later dealt with by that House, and which, in his opinion, ought to be all taken simultaneously.

THE MARQUESS OF GRANBY

said, he had always entertained the opinion that in dealing with the question of settlement and removal, one of the most important ingredients that would enter into its consideration was the Irish portion of the subject. But it was not fair to the Members of that House to ask them to give their sanction to the present measure at the moment that another measure of such importance was hanging over their heads, the nature of which Ministers themselves appeared to be ignorant of. He hoped, for the sake of the question itself, as well as for their own sakes, that Her Majesty's Government would consent to postpone the Bill.

SIR GEORGE GREY

said, he could not see any reason for the further postponement of this Bill. He had stated on Friday night that he was not prepared, by mixing up these two subjects together, to risk the loss of this important measure, and, adhering to that opinion, he was prepared now to give his vote for the second reading. The removal of Irish paupers formed no part of our English Poor Law; it rested upon a series of Acts wholly separate and distinct, the last of which was passed in 1847; and he must say, after what he had heard to-night from his noble Friend (Lord Palmerston), he should be prepared, when the proper time came, to consider the proposed amendment of the law relating to the removal of Irish paupers from this country. But the question as regarded the removal of Irish paupers stood now in a different position from that in which it had stood on Friday night. The hon. and gallant Member for Portarlington (Col. Dunne) had stated on Friday night that there was a distinct pledge from the Government that Irish paupers should be placed on precisely the same footing as English paupers; but he now found from his noble Friend (Lord Palmerston) that there was no such intention on the part of the Government, and that they only proposed to remedy such cases as had been adverted to, and to prevent Irish labourers from being removed to Ireland under circumstances of great hardship. If a year's industrial residence were to be proposed as a restriction upon this power of removal, that would be a totally distinct question, deserving the attention of the House, after the House had assented to the second reading of this Bill. He (Sir G. Grey) thought the law was in an unsatisfactory state upon the subject, but was very glad to hear that the proposal made by the Government differed from that which he understood from the hon. and gallant Member (Col. Dunne) had been made.

COLONEL DUNNE

said, he came down to the House prepared to vote against further adjournment, but he wished to explain why he should now vote diametrically opposite to that intention. After the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, and who might be taken as an exponent of the intentions of the Government, it seemed that the Government were not going to fulfil the promise they had made to the Irish Members. The Government said, that they considered the claims put forward by the Irish Members to be irresistible, and had made up their minds on the subject, without saying that any further inquiry or consideration was necessary. There was now, it seemed, a breach of their promise; and as he knew that any delay between the second reading of this Bill and the bringing forward of the Irish Bill would be employed to get up a feeling in England against the claims of the Irish poor, he would not aid in passing the Government Bill till the Irish measure was before the House. Besides, there was the chance of the Irish Bill being thrown out by the English Members.

MR. EVELYN DENISON

said, he thought there appeared great danger that this question would, after all, be turned into a party question, and would not be considered fairly upon its own merits. The measure now before the House was sufficiently difficult, sufficiently important, and sufficiently complicated to have received attention without regard to any other; but since the introduction of this new element respecting Irish and Scotch paupers into the discussion there seemed but little likelihood that the measure would be fairly considered. Now, among the Committee which had sat a few years ago, though he did not agree upon all the points which came before them, there was a similarity of opinion upon this one—namely, that if the question of the removal of the poor of England and Wales was to be mixed up with the question of the removal of the Irish poor, there was no chance whatever of any measure of that sort being carried in that house. His opinion remained the same still. But he invited the attention of the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) to this point—whether he was not hazarding the existence of this Bill by insisting upon now going to a division upon it, and why, as, after the second reading, it might be found necessary to postpone the measure in its further stages, it could not be equally well postponed in its present stage? A great difficulty would be avoided by following such a course, and the question, he thought, would not then become a party one.

MR. PHILIPPS

said, that, as representing a district adjoining the Bristol Channel, and as connected with a part of the country most vulnerable with regard to the visits of Irish paupers, he thought himself fully justified in asking what the proposed measure respecting the removal of Irish poor would be before he was called upon to vote for the second reading of this Bill? Although there might not again be a necessity for stringent regulations respecting the removal of paupers to the sister country, it was not very unreasonable to ask for security against a possible danger. Generally speaking, he was in favour of the principle of this Bill, but he objected to take a leap in the dark as regarded the other measure which was to be brought forward.

MR. MAGUIRE

said, that a short time ago a memorial had been presented to the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Home Department on this subject, praying that Irish paupers in England might be placed on precisely the same footing in respect of removability as English paupers in Ireland and English paupers in England itself. The answer of the noble Lord to the memorialists was to the effect that their memorial had been taken into consideration by the Cabinet, which was of opinion that the case set forth was irresistibly established, that justice required that the wishes of the memorialists should be complied with, and that the President of the Poor Law Board would communicate with them as to the best manner of carrying out the suggestion that English and Irish labourers should be put upon exactly the same terms as regarded removability. Well, when the Irish Members came down to the House, expecting that this solemn pledge of the Home Secretary would be faithfully redeemed, the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board, as the organ of the Government, got up and said that the Government was not prepared to legislate on the subject, and that they had not sufficient materials for doing so. If there were not sufficient materials—if the whole of the facts were not known—how came the Cabinet to come to the conclusion that the case put before them was "irresistible?" And having arrived at the conclusion that it was "irresistible," why were they not prepared to legislate upon it? From a return that had been presented to the House, it appeared that from the county of Middlesex (exclusive of seven parishes that had refused to make a return) there had been removed to Ireland, in the year 1853, between 7,000 and 8,000 of Irish poor, the most of whom were orphans born in England, and widows of persons who had been long resident in this country. He (Mr. Maguire) altogether despaired of any redress being afforded to Ireland, if it were not incorporated with this Bill. He believed that the Government were now attempting to cajole the Irish Members, who, if they voted for the second reading of this Bill, would bring about the following result. On both sides of the House there appeared to be objections to the concession of Irish claims in this matter, and they could only be conceded through the strength of the Government; whereas, he would appeal to persons of common sense, that, if they allowed this Bill to pass, the Irish Members would forfeit all their influence on this question, and would have no such power to put the screw upon the Government as they had at present. He was, therefore, in favour of the Motion for the adjournment of the Bill, in order that time might be given to the Government to consider the matter, when, no doubt their law officers would be able to frame a clause that would meet the case of Ireland and do justice to all sides.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL

Sir, I believe the course that the Government is now taking is no new course. My right hon. Friend the President of the Poor Law Board declared very early what was the object of this Bill, and stated that it applied only to poor who are removable on the ground of settlement. It is notorious also that the question was asked in the other House of Parliament of my noble Friend at the head of the Government, and that the substance of his answer, circulated through the country, was, that the Government admitted that the law with respect to Irish paupers required revision and alteration—that such revision and alteration would be made, but that the materials at their command were not yet sufficient—that further information was required, and that until information was procured, no further legislation should be proposed; and my noble Friend also said that the Bill with respect to removal and settlement would not be postponed on that account, but that its second reading would be proceeded with. That answer was in conformity with what my right hon. Friend the President of the Poor Law Board has stated. But, Sir, there seems, I think, to be a general agreement in the House in conformity with what was stated in the letter of my noble Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department—that if it is a hardship to remove persons from the parishes in which they reside in England, it would be a hardship to remove Irish paupers who reside in English parishes, and who have given the benefit of their industry and labour to those English parishes. I stated on Friday evening, however, that any provisions on that subject could hardly be introduced into the present Bill, and that they would require very great caution in their preparation. Now, the hon. Member who spoke last, and the hon. gallant Member for Portarlington (Col. Dunne), appear to think that it will be a great gain if they throw some slur on the principle of this Bill, and to my astonishment the latter hon. Gentleman appealed to persons of common sense. I should have thought, Sir, that people of common sense would have been the last persons to whom the hon. Member would have dreamt of appealing, because this is clear, that if in England you decide in favour of the principle that paupers shall no longer be removable—that removal shall not take place; and still more, if Parliament proceed with this Bill to the extent of confirming it in any further stage—that then the claim on the part of Ireland for the application of the same principle becomes irresistible. You will then have an argument for saying, "You have prevented this hardship and put an end to removals, which are attended with circumstances of great hardship to men who are labourers in England; do not leave any small shred or fragment of that hardship remaining, but extend your remedy to Ireland." But the hon. Gentleman, on the contrary, seems to think that, if this principle is not assented to with regard to England, it will be a great benefit to Ireland. The benefit to Ireland will be just this, that the same hardship will still continue to exist in Ireland; and `the only consolation to the Irish labourer will be the reflection that the English labourer will suffer from the same hardship. That is the appeal to common sense which the hon. Member has made; and I should have thought, after the Government had declared in favour of the principle, that the best course to take would have been to do what we now propose, namely, first to affirm this principle with regard to a subject which has been before a Committee of the House of Commons, and upon which my right hon. Friend (Mr. Baines) has bestowed great labour; and then, to consider afterwards by what provision, and in what manner, you shall extend a similar principle to Ireland. At least, it does appear to me that to raise difficulties in the way of passing this measure will be of no benefit to Ireland, and is only saying that, with regard to that country, the law shall remain in its present state.

Motion made, and Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned."

The House divided:—Ayes 209; Noes 183: Majority 26.

Debate further adjourned till Friday 28th April.