§ Mr. Broughamsaid, it had often been his painful duty to lay before the House the complaints of large portions of his majesty's subjects, but he never performed this duty with feelings so distressing as at that moment, both because the evil was so much more extensive in its pressure than at any former period, and because the prospect of relief, compared with the urgency of the case, was faint and unsatisfactory. The Petition which he had to present, was signed by nearly the whole of the labouring population of the great town of Birmingham. To prepare this petition no public meeting had been held, not even any public notice had been given that the petition lay for signatures, but three copies having been laid in different parts of the town, and the fact having become known, in less than forty-eight hours 11,000 names were affixed. At each of the places where the petition was placed, several persons of respectability attended 22 to prevent any person from signing more than one name, and to exclude all those who were under twenty-one. In a few days more, the signatures amounted to 12,500, and to prevent a concourse of people from the neighbouring villages, it was deemed expedient not to suffer the petition to remain longer, lest tumult might be occasioned by the multitudes which would flock together. It was therefore from the town of Birmingham alone that the signatures were collected, which might be calculated to represent a population of 50 or 60,000 souls, probably the whole of the poor population of that town. This petition proceeded on no theories whatever; it urged no arguments or views connected, however remotely, with party questions. It was a statement, in humble but earnest and impressive language, of the degree of misery, approaching nearly to despair, to which that once flourishing town was now reduced. Before he moved that the petition be read, he should state that the misery which was felt was far from decreasing. There had, a short time ago, been an influx of orders; but that was found to be temporary, and the distress was greater than ever. The statement which he had made on the 13th of March had been too much corroborated by the accounts from Birmingham. It was then clearly shown that the misery, far from diminishing, was on the increase. The average assessment to the poor-rates during the last 12 months was 9s. 4d. in the pound; the average of the last six months was at the rate of 12s., of the last three months 13s., of the last week 14s. 4d., and this average fell short of the sum actually expended in the same proportion, as 14s. 4d. fell short of 17s. 8d. The expenditure had, for several weeks, been 4 or 500l. above the sum actually raised by the rates, and 100l. per week above the expenditure of any former period of distress, however great. These facts would be sufficient to awaken the attention of the House, but he should not deal fairly with the House or the petitioners, if he did not state his opinion that the distress was, to a great degree, beyond the power of the House to relieve. It was mere vanity, not to speak disrespectfully of the proposal of the chancellor of the exchequer, for any one to expect a loan of a million, or a million and a half, could produce any sufficient relief. This was manifest by the fact, that to relieve the persons who had signed the petition in his hand, near half 23 a million yearly would be required on a moderate calculation. How was it to be expected then that the sum would spread over not only the inhabitants of Birmingham and a population three times as great in its vicinity, but those districts which, though they suffered less, still suffered dreadfully? Greatly though he lamented the necessity and their want of power to relieve it, it was proper to state that no one immediate step could afford any tolerable prospect of permanent amelioration, except that general change of policy which was the only sort of relief which statesmen should consider, though not so immediate as that of which a vain and delusive semblance was now held forth. What relief that change of policy did afford might be safely granted by parliament, and beneficially received by the country—itwould be deeply rooted and stable in its effects on the people at large, and even at this time, with a view to immediate relief, would not be altogether ineffectual.
The petition was then read. It purported to be the Address and Petition of the Distressed Mechanics of Birmingham, and sat forth,
"That the there under signed Inhabitants of the town of Birmingham beg leave to approach the House, and to inform them of their forlorn and miserable situation; accustomed from their earliest infancy to habits of continual labour, they have never been forward to obtrude their humble interests upon the public attention, but they have always placed confidence in the wisdom and justice of parliament and of their country, nor should they now have been induced to prefer their complaints, but their misery is greater than they can bear, and they are compelled to make known their distresses to the House; they are in distress, and in their misery they call upon their county for relief, they ask no more than the House will acknowledge that good citizens have a right to expect, they ask no favour, they only ask to have it placed in their power to earn an honest bread by honest labour, they only ask to be permitted to give to their country the benefit of their labour, and to receive in exchange the scanty comforts necessary for the support of life: their wants are only food and clothing and shelter from the elements; never before have they known the time when the labour of an Englishman could not procure him such humble comforts as these, nor can they now believe 24 that his labour is of less value than formerly; in all former times the labour of an Englishman could produce a sufficient quantity of the good things of life, not only for his own maintenance, but to provide an ample remuneration to his country and to his employers, and they presume to believe that the labour of an Englishman is still competent to produce a far greater quantity of the good things of life than is humble maintenance requires; that some cause which they cannot understand has deprived industry of its reward, and has left them, without employment and without bread, and almost without hope; they have no longer any demand for their labour, nor any bread for their families, their life has become useless to their country and burthen some to themselves, it would be better for them to die than to live, for then they should hear no more the cries of their children, their hearts would no longer be wounded by the sight of sufferings which they indeed share, but which they cannot relieve; they implore the House not to misunderstand the expression of those bitter sufferings which they endure, hunger and poverty and distress have indeed changed all things around them, but they have not changed the petitioners, they have not changed that devoted loyalty which as good subjects they feel towards their king, nor that true English spirit which binds them to the constitution and to the House; many of them have not had any kind of employment for many months, and few of them have more than two or three days work per week, at reduced wages; the little property which they possessed in household furniture and effects, and the small hard-earned accumulations of years of industry and care, have been consumed in the purchase of food, and they are now under the necessity of supporting their existence by a miserable dependence on parochial charity, or by soliciting casual relief from persons scarcely less distressed than themselves; in the midst of these painful sufferings and privations their friends and neighbours tell them that they must wait and hope for better times they beg leave to inform the House that they have waited until their patience is quite exhausted, for whilst they wait they die; upon all former occasions of distress in any branch of trade, it was always found that some other channels of industry existed through which the honest labourer could obtain his bread, but now the petitioners find all other descriptions of la- 25 bourers equally distressed with themselves, a general calamity has fallen upon the whole nation, and has crushed the happiness of all; they would indeed indulge the hope that their sufferings are peculiar to themselves, and may have been occasioned by the cessation of the war expenditure among them, but on whatsoever side they turn their eyes, if they look to Manchester or to Glasgow, or to the crowded city or the peaceful village, from one extremity of their country to the other, they can perceive nothing but an universal scene of poverty and distress, the sighs and the tears and the convulsive efforts of suffering millions too plainly convince them that some general and universal cause must have operated in producing such general and universal misery, and they implore the House to remove that cause, whatever it may be, they cannot but think that the House can remove it, or if its roots are so deeply hidden that no human wisdom can discover them, or so strongly fixed that no human strength can remove them, they must then consider their sufferings as a visitation from Almighty God, to which they must dutifully bend; but in that case they in-treat the House will adopt proper measures for the whole nation to humble itself in mortification and prayer, in order to propitiate the divine justice, and avert those heavy calamities which afflict them; but they cannot but think that these calamities originate in natural causes, which it is in the power of human wisdom to discover and to remove; they cannot but think that, in a great nation like this, the means of existence must exist for all: they cannot but think that, in a country abounding with every blessing, and with every production of agricultural and mechanical industry, some means may be devised by which the blessings of Providence may be distributed and enjoyed, by which the productive powers of industry may again be brought into action, and the honest labourer may again be enabled to earn an honest bread by the sweat of his brow; and the petitioners humbly pray that the House will take into consideration their distressed condition, and adopt such measures as in their wisdom may be deemed necessary for the relief of themselves and of their suffering country.
§ "Ordered to lie on the table.