§ Mr. Brownlowpresented a petition from the Inhabitants of Clare and its vicinity, for the establishment of Poor Laws in Ireland: it complained of severe distress, and prayed that the 43rd of Elizabeth might be ex- 532 tended to Ireland. He observed, that this petition had not been got up to answer the assertions of the Treasury Bench on that subject. The distress in Ireland was so intolerable, that throughout the wide world he believed there was nowhere so much suffering as in that country. In every point of view, whether as respected their houses, their food, or their clothing, the suffering of the Irish was extreme. The hon. Member for Wiltshire had complained of the Weekly wages of a labouring man being only three shillings and sixpence; but it was in evidence before a Committee of that House, that the average daily wages of labour throughout Ireland was only three-pence a head. The great evil in that country was, that there was no moral connexion, no sympathy, no sense of natural obligation, between the rich and the poor. Differing, as he feared, from most of his countrymen in that House, he was prepared to support the prayer of the petitioners for the extension of the Poor Laws to Ireland, as the only method by which the evils endured by the labouring classes in that community could be mitigated.