HC Deb 23 June 1865 vol 180 cc719-30

Order for Committee read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

LORD FERMOY

said, that this Bill was, on the face of it, a deception. It was described as a Poor Law Continuance Bill, yet of all the twenty-four clauses only one, the first, enacted the continuance of the Poor Law Board. The other clauses excited much difference of opinion both in and out of that House. The 24th clause declared that the Bill might be "cited and described for all purposes as 'the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1865,'" and that was exactly what the Bill was. It was impossible for his right hon. Friend to carry the Bill in its present shape, and he would suggest that the Bill should be limited to a single clause, continuing the Poor Law Board for one year. The question involved in the religious clauses alone would keep them there for a fortnight or three weeks, and it was too important a question to be hurried through the House, fie would move, as an Amendment to the Motion— That, in the opinion of this House, the provisions of the Bill should be limited to the continuance of the powers of the Poor Law Board for one year.

MR. HARVEY LEWIS

seconded the Motion. He said some of the largest parishes in the metropolis had petitioned against the Bill, and the House had, he thought, some reason to complain of the indecent haste with which the President of the Poor Law Board attempted to force the Bill through at the fag-end of the Session. Why had it not been brought forward sooner, when it would have been a charity to find the House something to do?

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, the provisions of this Bill should be limited to the continuance of the Poor Law Board for one year,"—(Lord Fermoy,) —instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. SPEAKER

said, that if the Amendment were carried it would negative the Motion to go into Committee, and that therefore it would be impossible to pass even that part of the Bill which would continue the Poor Law Board.

VISCOUNT GALWAY

said, he objected to the Bill, and he trusted that the President of the Poor Law Board would not refuse to accede to what was evidently the general feeling of the House. He would not object to the Speaker leaving the Chair, in order that the first clause might be carried. But the other clauses of the Bill were of great importance, and would lead to a great deal of discussion. The Bill proposed to deal with the Gilbert Unions. A few years ago the House would not agree to a dissolution of these unions, and it was rather hard that they should be put under the power of the Poor Law Board without having a word to say on their own behalf.

SIR BROOK BRYDGES

said, it was too late in the Session to discuss the important clauses of this Bill. There were important taxing powers in the Bill given to the Poor Law Board independently of the Guardians. These might be very proper, or they might be very improper, powers for the Poor Law Commissioners to possess; but the alterations in the law were most important. The Bill was brought forward when hon. Members could not discuss its provisions with satisfaction to their constituents, and he believed that the majority of the House were anxious that the Bill should be cut down to a mere continuance Bill.

SIR JOHN SHELLEY

said, it was his duty, having presented a great number of petitions against the Bill, to represent to his right hon. Friend (Mr. Villiers) that in the interest of the Poor Law Board itself it would be extremely imprudent to press the clauses of the Bill, with the exception of the continuance clause. The other matters should be discussed in the New Parliament.

MR. WHITE

said, he concurred in urging on the President of the Poor Law Board to adopt this plan. He had presented a petition from the directors and hoard of guardians of Brighton praying the House not to enter upon a discussion of clauses from 9 to 18. The matters to which those clauses related could not receive adequate attention in the present Parliament, and he hoped that they would simply pass a continuance Bill.

SIR MATTHEW RIDLEY

said, he would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not to go on with the Bill.

MR. C. P. VILLIERS

said, that the noble Lord (Lord Fermoy) stated, not very courteously, that this Bill was one of deception, because, professing to be one of continuance, it contained many other clauses. That statement was wholly unfounded. The title of the Bill was "A Bill to continue the Poor Law Board for a limited period, and to make certain Amendments in the law regulating the Relief of the Poor." The noble Lord was a Member of the Committee, which sat for three years, and he could not affirm that the introduction of the Bill was in any sense a surprise. The Report of the Committee was sent to every Board of Guardians in the country; and the guardians had considered the Report and taken action on it, and had presented petitions to the House, and memorials to the Poor Law Board. They had singled out those portions of it to which they objected, namely, the payment of priests out of the rates, and any interference with the discretion of the guardians in the education of the children. Those objections had been respected; but no one had objected to those parts of the Report which were embodied in the Bill. The real objection to the Bill was to prevent the Roman Catholic clergy from having access to the workhouses, and giving instruction to their own people. The Roman Catholics some time since having complained that an Act of Parliament having given access to the workhouses for their priests, they were still not admitted, the Duke of Richmond, with the consent of Mr. Sotheron Estcourt, issued an order to meet the case, but at this order the guardians took offence, saying that the order gave a direction to the guardians to procure Roman Catholic priests to attend to the unions. The Resolution of the Committee, embodied in the present Bill, fell something short of that order of the Duke of Richmond. He would ask hon. Gentlemen who complained of the lateness of the Session to name the day before which he could have introduced this Bill. It was brought in at the first opportunity. The clauses relating to the register of creed, to access to the inmates by the Ministers for religious instruction, and to going to a place of worship were approved by the Secretary of the Protestant Alliance, and he thought himself safe when he obtained the approval of that Gentleman. The fact was, that considerable pains had been taken to bring hon. Members there that day to vote against this Bill; yet, considering the exertions that had been made, the result was not very striking. Those most likely to object to the religious clauses were absent. His hon. Friend (Sir John Shelley) told the House that he had presented a great number of petitions against the Bill, but if so they had not been reported in the Votes. He did not believe that twenty petitions had been presented against the measure, although there were 700 unions in the country. He had received deputations from Boards of Guardians, and he believed that, after explanation, they had been in most cases satisfied with the religious clauses. There were 250,000 Roman Catholics in the metropolis who were just as loyal as any other class, and a great injustice was inflicted upon that body by the present system. In the pauper schools and workhouses of the metropolis no notice was in many cases taken of their religious opinions, and it was notorious that their children were sent to schools where they were brought up as Protestants. One of the Poor Law inspectors went to a district school containing 700 children, and asked whether they had any Roman Catholic or Dissenting children among them. They said they had none. He had great reason to believe that many of these were the children of Roman Catholic parents, and he went to the workhouse to make inquiry. He saw a poor woman, a Roman Catholic, left with four children, who had been sent to this school. The inspector asked her of what religion her children were. She replied, "They are Catholics, or ought to be." She knew, nevertheless, they were being brought up as Protestants, and, being asked why she had not complained, she said, "What is a poor woman like me to do?" The inspector knew of 350 children of whose religion no notice was taken, and he knew that the parents and relatives of some of them were Roman Catholics, although the children were brought up as Protestants. At Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham correct registers were kept, the religious feelings of the poor were consulted, and no ill-will was excited between Roman Catholics and Protestants. He knew a metropolitan district inhabited by a million of souls, and containing ten workhouses, in which not the least notice was taken of the religion of the children. Now, these poor people did care whether their children were brought up as Roman Catholics or Protestants. Some thought, indeed, that the poor cared more for their children in this respect than the rich, but at any rate they had feelings which were entitled to respect. The Roman Catholics had good ground of complaint in this matter, and if hon. Members refused to do them justice now they would hear more of this hereafter.

MR. HENLEY

said, he had hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would not have resumed his seat without expressing his willingness to concede to the evident wish of the House. The right hon. Gentleman intimated that the objection to the measure was entirely owing to the religious clauses, but he had not stated the reasons on which he founded that opinion. Upon his (Mr. Henley's) side he had heard no objections founded upon the merits or demerits of a single clause. The religious clauses were only a small part of the Bill, but if they were so important, why had not the right hon. Gentleman brought in the Bill two or three months ago? What was to hinder him? Hon. Members would then have had an opportunity of hearing the opinion of their constituents. He did not wish to give his opinion upon any of the clauses of the Bill, but it contained five main provisions. With regard to the first of these the Gilbert Unions had a right to be heard. The next provision was the taxing power, which was now restrained by the consent of the Board of Guardians. By the 8th clause, however, the right hon. Gentleman took power to order an expenditure of £500,000 without any consent at all, and he might repeat that as often as he pleased. The next was a power to transport children from one part of the country to another without reference to distance. Then came the religious clauses of the Bill. It was somewhat singular that the right hon. Gentleman, having had this subject before him for six years, and the Committee having been sitting for three years, and the right hon. Gentleman having communicated with Boards of Guardians, should have brought in a set of clauses, and then, before the ink with which they were printed was dry, should have withdrawn and amended his own clauses. If the right hon. Gentleman, after all this time for consideration, and after having had his official experience directed to the matter, thought it necessary to amend his own proposition, it was odd that the House of Commons were to be allowed no time for consideration, and were to have many unpleasant things thrown at them because they would not, without discussion, accede to these proposals. There was one very curious thing in the Bill as amended. The right hon. Gentleman had divested himself of the power of censorship over religious books, but he retained in his own hands the very extraordinary power of deciding whether a child of twelve years old was to be permitted to choose his religion. Whether the right hon. Gentleman intended to make a journey into the country, in order personally to examine these children, or whether he intended to have them sent up to him by third class trains to be examined at the Poor Law Board, or how this clause was to be otherwise worked out, he did not know. Another strong power was taken by this Bill. If a man or a woman, being out of the workhouse, applied for relief for a sick child and got it, and if the Board of Guardians saw fit to order them to do task work, and the parent neglected or refused to do it, he or she was to be considered an idle and disorderly person, and might be sent to prison as a vagrant. Another provision gave the Board of Guardians a taxing power with reference to the superannuation of a number of persons who had nothing to do with the relief of the poor. The House ought surely to know the opinions of the Guardians and the taxpayers before they adopted such a clause. All these were important alterations is the law, which might or might not be advisable, but which it was impossible to discuss after the Appropriation Bill had passed through Committee. There was no earthly reason that he could see why the Bill should not have been laid on the table three months ago. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would, in deference to the universal opinion on all sides of the House, agree to make this simply a Continuance Bill, and not drive hon. Members to move that the Chairman report progress after every clause. At this period of the Session it was utterly impossible that the questions of pauper emigration and officers' superannuation could be fairly discussed. In six months all the other matters contained in the Bill could be discussed and adopted. His own opinion was in favour of what were called the religious clauses of the Bill; but, in the interest of those for whom they were framed, it would be bettor they should be passed after the Bill had been sufficiently considered by the country, rather than leave it to be said that it had been snatched through after the Appropriation Bill had been brought in, and thus drive many persons to be awkward in the working of the Bill. Another reason for more consideration was, that the wording of some of the clauses was very defective. The clause enabling ministers to visit and instruct the inmates of his persuasion was so indefinitely drawn that he did not believe a single Minister would be able to avail himself of the provision.

MR. LOCKE

said, that the objections were not confined to the religious clauses. That morning he received a communication from the Bermondsey Board of Guardians, who objected to clauses from 16 to 19 inclusive, not one of which referred to religion.

MR. KNIGHT

said, he must for himself indignantly repudiate the assertion of the President of the Poor Law Board that this Bill was opposed on anti-Roman Catholic grounds. All that the Roman Catholics could justly demand would have been given them by the order which the Duke of Richmond, with the consent of Mr. Sotheron Estcourt, had proposed to issue; and now the right hon. Gentleman, having been in office for six years and done nothing, proposed to hurry a Bill through Parliament at the eve of a general election, to do what would have been done by the Duke of Richmond's order. The right hon. Gentleman had, after all, left out the best part of the Select Committee's recommendations—namely, that Roman Catholic children should be handed over to Roman Catholic schools and maintained therein by the guardians. To say that hon. Members on his (the Opposition) side of the House refused to give Roman Catholic children their religious rights and privileges was, in fact, a mere bit of electioneering tactics.

LORD EDWARD HOWARD

said, he was delighted to hear from the hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) with his large experience, that he looked with favour on the religious clauses of this Bill. It was a sanction of an important principle for which the Roman Catholics would be very grateful. It had been said that the Session was so advanced that the measure could not be properly discussed. He did not concur in that opinion. At all events he was willing to accept what he desired whenever it was offered to him; and he trusted that his right hon. Friend would go on and try and pass the Bill. It contained clauses of great importance, affecting deeply the religious liberties of large numbers of the most destitute persons in the country, and which clause had undergone the careful consideration of a Select Committee of that House. Why delay for another year the consideration of these important matters? Next year there would be a new Parliament, with new Members and with new subjects for consideration. The management of workhouses varied in different places. Roman Catholics had great complaints of that management in many places, especially in the metropolis. Bricklayers and dock labourers flocked to London. Without them the metropolis would be wanted in its magnitude and in its present commerce. But having done their work they died, and their families were often forced into the workhouses, where, for want of instruction, they were led away from the religion of their forefathers. He regretted that so many hon. Members connected with the metropolis had spoken in favour of delay, because it was in the metropolitan workhouses that the children of Roman Catholic parents were most frequently perverted from the faith in which they had been brought up. This Bill would meet the evil, and he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would proceed with it. Thank God! there had been throughout the debate such an enunciation of liberal feeling towards the Roman Catholics in workhouses on both sides as to lead to the conviction that, at all events, if not this year, yet still eventually and ere long, the case would be treated equitably, and the existing evil be met by a proper remedy.

SIR JOHN TROLLOPE

said, he must remind the House that this debate might have been greatly shortened if the President of the Board had not thrown out the taunts he had. For himself he would say that all the right hon. Gentleman's taunts were entirely without foundation. The right hon. Gentleman intimated that hon. Members on the Opposition Benches had been summoned there in large numbers to defeat the Bill. He for one had received no such summons. It was still more unfounded to assert that his hon. Friends met this Bill in a spirit of bigotry. He agreed that Roman Catholic children should be fully open to religious teaching in the tenets in which they had been brought up, and that if this teaching could not be obtained in the workhouse, it should be procured out of it. Would the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether he meant to go into the Bill as it stood, or limit it to a continuance Bill? If the former, he would find hon. Members on the opposite side of the House willing to consider the clauses, and that not in a spirit of bigotry.

MR. NEATE

said, he was prepared to give his humble support to the Bill as it stood. Especially he approved of Clause 22, which extended the limits to which children would be sent for the purpose of education.

SIR MINTO FARQUHAR

said, he could not help thinking that the President of the Poor Law Board was rather too apt to assume an aggressive attitude towards the Opposition Benches. But why had not the right hon. Gentleman turned round on his "Liberal friends," as they called themselves, and attacked them for their opposition to his Bill? Instead of which the right hon. Gentleman must needs attack those who sat on the opposite side of the House, and told them they had been whipped up to oppose this Bill from religious feelings. He could tell the right hon. Gentleman such was not the case, and that hon. Members on that side were too independent to be whipped up for any such purposes. The right hon. Gentleman had entirely misinterpreted the feelings of those who sat upon the Opposition Benches. Their only reason for opposing the Bill was, that its clauses required full consider- ation, which the present Session would not afford time to give.

SIR GEORGE GREY

said, he did not think the House would have been satisfied if his right hon. Friend, after so long an inquiry by the Select Committee on Poor Laws, had proposed a mere continuance of the powers of the Poor Law Board for a year without embodying in such a measure some of the most important recommendations of the Committee. His right hon. Friend had withdrawn some of the clauses to which considerable objection had been made as requiring further consideration, and had hoped that those now left in the Bill might have been thought reasonable enough to pass without any considerable delay or discussion. It was clear, however, that there was on the part of the House a great indisposition to go on with the clauses during the short remaining period of the Session. It was impossible at the present hour (3 o'clock) to make any progress with the clauses in Committee, One great advantage had been gained by the discussion. They had heard from every Gentleman who had addressed the House a concurrence in those clauses the object of which was to give the Roman Catholic children in workhouses these religious rights and privileges to which they were justly entitled. Seeing the evident indisposition of the House to go into the consideration of the clauses this Session, and being of opinion that the measure could not be passed during the short remaining period of the Session, he would advise his right hon. Friend, having done his duty in bringing in this measure, and having made the best fight be could, to consent to limit the Bill this Session to a mere Continuance Bill. If his noble Friend would withdraw his Amendment, the House might go into Committee and pass the Continuance Clause, and the other clauses could then be withdrawn. The Government would, if they were in office, propose a measure containing those clauses as soon as possible after Parliament should meet, and he trusted that the expression of opinion which they had that day heard would insure the favourable consideration and adoption of them in the next Session of Parliament.

MR. NEWDEGATE

said, it was evident that there was a sort of tacit agreement between the Roman Catholics and the Poor Law Board to supersede the guardians in the management of unions: and there was a rivalry between the two sides of the House in making concessions to the Roman Catholics and their priesthood. He did not, however, think that the feeling prevailed in the country as it did in that House. The impression was that on the one hand the Roman Catholics were pressing their demands, and on the other the Poor Law Board was pressing its authority, and that the Board of Guardians was to be superseded with the concurrence of the two parties. That feeling was justified by the circumstances, by the day's debate, by the character of the Bill, and by the attempt made to pass it when it was well known that many Members of this House were already addressing their constituents, that, in fact, the House was a mere shadow of itself, and that the legislative power was almost entirely transferred to the Government. The House of Commons was much more careless on this subject than the country generally. England was not ashamed of its National Protestantism; and though in that House hon. Members treated all religions alike, the people had a National Religion, and were becoming aware that the Roman Catholics were beginning to make themselves as oppressive as they were in other parts of the world. He trusted that at the coming election the people would instruct their representatives as to the course to be taken on this important matter.

MR. HENLEY

said, he wished to make one observation, and that was that should he be a Member of the next Parliament he would be ready to give his support in carrying the clauses now omitted from the present Bill.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clause 1 (Continuance of the Poor Law Board for One Year).

MR. C.P. VILLIERS

said, he adhered to the opinion he had expressed that the Bill had been opposed by hon. Gentlemen opposite solely on the ground of the religious clauses. He had, however, no help for it except, very unwillingly, to submit to the proposal that had been made. With regard to the clause which rendered persons liable to be punished who were relieved out of the workhouse and who refused to perform task-work, he must remind the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley) that the clause merely gave the same power in regard to persons out of the workhouse that was exercised over those in the house.

SIR JOHN TROLLOPE

said, it was exceedingly inconvenient to come to Parliament from time to time to continue the Board. Why did not the right hon. Gentleman extend the term from one to three years?

MR. C. P. VILLIERS

said, he thought he was meeting the wish of hon. Gentlemen opposite by limiting the continuance of the Board to one year, and "to the end of the then next Session of Parliament." That was really a continuance for two years.

Clause agreed to.

Remaining clauses put, and negatived.

House resumed.

Bill reported; as amended, to be considered on Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 238.]