Commons Sitting of 25 August 1846

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS. — 3°. and passed. Small Debts; District Lunatic Asylums (Ireland); Pawnbrokers; Waste Lands (Australia).
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Mr. Milner Gibson, from Importers, Dealers, and Consumers of Foreign Coffee, praying that the Duty on Foreign Coffee, may be reduced to Fourpence per Pound.—By Viscount Ebrington, from Guardians of the Poor of the Barnet Union, in the Counties of Hertford and Middlesex, for rating Owners of Small Tenements to the Poor Rates in lieu of Occupiers.—By Viscount Morpeth, from Chemists and Druggists residing at Leeds, in the County of York, praying that the Spirit Licenses and Duties Bill may not pass into a Law.—By Viscount Morpeth, from Committee and Members of the Bridlington and Quay Mechanics' and Scientific Institution, in favour of the Corresponding Societies and Lecture Rooms Bill.—By Mr. Greene, from Medical Practitioners of Axminster and its Neighbourhood, and by Mr. Wakley, from Medical Practitioners of the Borough of Maldon and its Vicinity, and from R. M'Gowan, M.D., and others, in favour of the Medical Practitioners Bill.—By Mr. Granger, from Members of the Relief Committee of the Baronies of Kinsale and Courcies, in the County of Cork, and by Mr. Labouchere, from Inhabitants of the District of Courcies, setting forth the Total Failure of the Potato Crop, and to suggest Measures for the Relief of the Poor in Ireland during the Impending Calamities.—By Captain Pechell, from Prisoners in the Queen's Prison, complaining of Harsh and Severe Treatment from the Keeper of that Prison, and praying that he may be deprived of the Power to inflict Punishment on the Debtor without previously submitting each Case to the Secretary of State.—By Viscount Morpeth, from Booksellers, etc. of the Town of Bradford, in the County of York, and by Mr. James Oswald, from Incorporation of the Company of Stationers of Glasgow, praying the House to refuse to Railway Companies the Power sought by them to open Packets and charge for each separate Parcel therein contained.—By Mr. Aglionby, from Messrs. Holme, Loftus, and others, Attorneys at Law, praying that in case the Small Debts Bill shall pass into a Law, the Lord Chancellor may be empowered to appoint any Attorneys at Law to be Judges of the Courts to be created thereunder whom his Lordship may consider duly qualified.—By Sir Thomas Troubridge, from Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the Town and Borough of Deal, in the County of Kent, in Council assembled, praying that the Small Debts Bill may pass into a Law.—From Occupying Tenants of the Parish of Carnmoney, in the County of Antrim, against the Tenants Compensation (Ireland) Bill.—By Mr. Charles Russell, from Wholesale and Retail Traders and Residents of and in the Vicinity of Hatton Garden and Holborn Hill, in the City of London, praying the House to adopt Measures for Redeeming and Extinguishing the Tolls upon Waterloo, Southwark, and Vauxhall Bridges.

THE POOR LAW COMMISSIONERS.
MR. HUMEsaid, the House would observe, among the Notices of Motion for that day, one of nine Resolutions which he had placed on the book some time ago, with a view to giving an opportunity to the
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House to pronounce an opinion thereon. These resolutions had relation to the proceedings of the Poor Law Commissioners; and he had been induced to give notice of his intention to move those resolutions entirely from the evidence which had been brought before the District Asylums' Committee, of which he was a member, with respect to those proceedings; but, as the right hon. Secretary for the Home Department had stated that it was not the intention of the Government to allow the district asylums to proceed until the Government should have had time to consider the subject, and form an opinion thereon, it would not suit his (Mr. Hume's) purpose to proceed with the first eight of his resolutions. But, with regard to the last of his resolutions, which related more especially to the personal conduct and to the proceedings of the Commissioners, and which referred to charges against them of a very grave nature, he considered that the subject of it was so important that he should be justified in offering to the House some remarks upon it. But he did so with reluctance: he had been a warm advocate of the amended Poor Law, considering that if carried out on sound principles it was adapted to produce great good to the country; but he should not do his duty if he neglected to remark on the facts which had been developed on evidence before the District Asylums' Committee. He did not mean, at present, to refer to what had passed before the Andover Committee, because it was sufficient for his purpose to state some of the results of the evidence brought before the District Asylums' Committee; and that evidence was demonstrative, to his mind, that the Poor Law had not been properly carried out. Now this was a very grave charge; for Parliament having determined to intrust to the Commission what had often been called unconstitutional powers—powers that had never been given by the Legislature to any other body of men—powers that had always hitherto been exercised by the two Houses of Parliament, and which had only been granted on the last necessity, and to prevent the evil that then threatened to pauperize the whole of the working classes—he, among others, then agreed to give to the Commission its extraordinary powers as the only means of preventing so great an evil. But then the House had determined, when the change in the law was under discussion, that it was expedient to give these powers to a board, in order to prevent any person solely and

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singly from exercising the whole of the powers given by the amended law. Parliament had resolved that everything done by the Commission should be done by a board. Now, the evidence before the District Asylums' Committee, and indeed the evidence already on the Table of the House, proved satisfactorily that the law had been in some particulars utterly annulled by the Commissioners; for it was made out that the Commissioners were in the habit of sitting in their private rooms, and of acting without consulting with one another, and without sitting as a board, so that their proceedings had been carried on without any check from one or the other. It was on that ground, therefore, that he held that the Commissioners had grievously violated the law, and there was this further ground—for by Clause 4 of the Poor Law Amendment Act it was provided—
"That the Commissioners shall make the record of their proceedings, in which shall be entered in writing a reference to every letter received, whence, its date, the date of its reception, and the subject to which it relates, and a minute of every letter written or order given by the said Commissioners, whether in answer to such letter received, or otherwise, with the date of the same, and a minute of the opinion of each of the members of the Board of Commissioners, in case they should finally differ in opinion upon any order to be given, or other proceeding of the Board; and such record shall be submitted to one of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State once in every year, or as often as he shall require the same."
The last enactment was framed with a view that the record should be submitted to Parliament. Those were the safeguards that Parliament had set up against the undue exercise of the powers confided to the Board of Commissioners; but all these safeguards had been completely removed by the conduct of the Commissioners. It appeared in evidence, that from the year 1841 no secretary had sat at the board. The minutes had never been properly kept; but the minutes had been made on separate pieces of paper, and these at the end of the year had been bound up together into what they called a volume. Then at the meetings of the boards no minutes of their proceedings at the previous board had over been read, as was the practice of all other public boards; and he therefore, upon the whole, was conscientiously of opinion that the Commissioners had acted illegally, and were acting illegally, and that there was the greatest possible danger in allowing them to go on in the same course. When he recollected that he was one of those who supported the formation of a
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board, being at that time a Member for a populous county, and that no man had been more violently assailed than he had been for having given that support to this law, which had ever since been thrown up against him by those who wished to attack him, it being known that he had all along supported the Commissioners, he confessed that he had been deceived, and that the checks that had been devised by Parliament, and the control which he thought Parliament had established over the conduct of the Commissioners, were of no avail. In the Third Annual Report of the Commissioners submitted to the House in 1837, the following regulation appeared as having been made with reference to the Hatfield Union by the Poor Law Commissioners in that year:—
"Every destitute person who shall present any such ticket to the master of the workhouse shall by the said master be received as casual poor; and after a compliance with the workhouse regulations, provided for the admission of destitute persons, shall, if he or she be able-bodied or partially disabled, be set on such work as may be provided for the able-bodied or the partially disabled."
He quoted this to show the principles on which the Board had acted with reference to the question of admission to the workhouse:—
"After such person shall have performed a task of work proportioned to his or her capacity, he or she shall receive such a meal of food as is provided to be given to the regular paupers, inmates of the workhouse; and thenceforth, on the performance of the prescribed work, shall receive the same diet and he subject to the same discipline as the other paupers of the workhouse."
After having done the work, therefore, the pauper was to receive the same diet as the other able-bodied paupers in the workhouse. These regulations did, he contended, contain the true principles of the amended Poor Law, and the test that was meant to be established by it. That test was the capability of working, and that was the test that was established by the Poor Law Amendment Act of the 4th and 5th of William IV. Now the acts of the Commissioners had set at nought all these resolutions. They, as the Committee he had mentioned had decided, had systematically set at nought all these resolutions, because they had issued orders that any pauper presenting himself at the workhouse should have food. Now what was the bad effect of such a rule, sufficiently appeared by the great increase in the number of vagrants which had taken place of late. In England and Wales the number of wandering poor or paupers and vagrants

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in the whole 480 unions was in 1841, 43,000; in 1842, 78,000; in 1843, 112,000; in 1844, 118,000; in 1845, 116,000, leaving out the odd numbers. Now that statement showed that the number of vagrants had trebled pretty nearly since 1841; and how could it be otherwise than trebled when the Poor Law Commissioners issued orders in 1838 and 1839, that all persons applying for relief at a workhouse should have it, although no work was provided for the able-bodied mendicants? He took upon himself to state to the House that if the law had been carried out, it would have been signally successful. It appeared that it would have been so by the results of the instances in which it had been carried out. At the workhouse of St. Saviour's, Southwark, Mr. Hall had stated that for the three weeks before the labour test was applied, 11,111 vagrants were admitted; but in the three weeks after they were reduced to 776. With the test of labour to contend with, the vagrants, it seemed, did not choose to return to the workhouse; and that proved most completely the correctness of the Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry as far as regarded this part of the subject. In the parish of Marylebone, in 1834, they had been pestered with applications for admission to the workhouse on the part of vagrants. What was the effect of the labour test in the workhouse? They had been accustomed to receive as many as 900 applications in one week; but when they applied the test of labour no more than ninety applied—all the rest disappeared. Now, all the evidence that had been lately collected proved that this application of the labour test had been systematically neglected by the Poor Law Commissioners; that they had deceived Parliament and the public, and brought the Poor Law into discredit in the eyes of the nation. That being the case, he thought it was deserving of the serious attention of the Government whether such proceedings should be any longer tolerated. This mode of proceeding of the Commissioners had been the origin of the District Asylums' Committee, of which he was a member; for the Commissioners having deceived Parliament and the Government, the late Government brought in a Bill for establishing such district asylums. He, as a member of the vestry of Marylebone, had represented to the late Government that they had, in the workhouse of the parish, ample provision for the casual poor, and
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that to establish these asylums would only be to encourage begging, and that the result would be that they would have persons begging all day, and coming home at night to a warm room, and to food, and that next day they would sally out to plunder the public afresh. Except in the city of London, where there were no workhouses suited to the reception of casual poor, the poor of the several parishes being usually farmed out two or three miles from town, there was in the workhouses within the metropolitan police district ample accommodation for the reception of as many mendicants as would apply. According to returns from the metropolitan parishes in 1845, it appeared that there was workhouse accommodation in the unions for 22,186 paupers; but the greatest number of persons that actually applied in that year was 19,577, leaving vacancies for 2,609 persons more than had been filled up. With this information before them, the Poor Law Commissioners could not have recommended the establishment of district asylums; and this information they might have had if they had inquired, which they never had done. There was not a single minute to show the grounds on which, they had made that recommendation. Yet they had recklessly and ignorantly recommended the late Government to establish a double set of workhouses. These were his complaints against the Poor Law Commissioners. Mr. Hall himself stated that he was the only assistant who had been employed to make any inquiries relating to the subject of these district asylums; and from his report itself it appeared that there was clear room in the metropolis for 1,000 more vagrants and casual poor than had been wanted. Mr. Hall said, that the greatest number applying for admission in any one night was 16,000, whereas there was room for 17,000; and yet the Commissioners would have district asylums erected. Towards the necessary expense of this, the parish of Marylebone was to be taxed at one-third of the whole amount, while it was only to have had one-eighth or one-ninth share of the management. The Commissioners would have taxed the parish at the rate of 10,000 l. a year. The waste of money that would have taken place would have been intolerable. The first of the resolutions which he had intended to have submitted had been agreed to by the District Asylums' Committee, to the effect that the orders of the Commissioners of 1838 and 1839 had greatly increased vagrancy

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in the metropolis. He should mention one further circumstance with reference to this part of the subject. The police magistrates of the metropolis had not done their duty with respect to this class of offenders. Some of those magistrates—all except two—when men had been brought before them, who had been drinking in public houses, and remaining there till eleven o'clock at night, and had been taken into custody in the streets, did not do their duty as they ought. A great experiment had been made, and Parliament had entrusted the conducting of it to individuals who had violated that trust; and in saying so he was not excepting the First Commissioner—not Sir F. Lewis himself—they had all violated the trust reposed in them. It was with great pain that he brought the subject before the House; but hoping that Her Majesty's Ministers would be enabled to deal satisfactorily with the evil, he must say it was absolutely necessary that they should interfere if they meant the law to be carried out. They must do that in order to give confidence to those who managed the inferior departments under the law, or it would be much better to repeal the law. On these reasons, as the Government had not yet had time to go over the voluminous documents and evidence that bore upon the subject, he would only ask, that during the recess they would see that proper regulations were carried out. Those who were adverse to the New Poor Law rejoiced at the maladministration of its provisions, as furnishing arguments against the principle of the law. That was not his feeling. He thought that they ought not to confound the effects of maladministration with defects in the principle of the law. For the reasons he had given, he should conclude by moving only his last Resolution:—
"That Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to cause a special public inquiry to be made into the facts above recited and referred to in the evidence before the House, to ascertain whether the Commissioners, by their letters, instructions, and proceedings, and by their omission to direct the means for setting the able-bodied mendicants to work, did encourage and increase mendicity; and also whether the proceedings of the Commissioners generally have been culpably irregular or illegal; and if it shall appear that the Commissioners have so acted, or have by their culpable defaults occasioned the mischief complained of, that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to take into Her consideration the certainty of dismissal of inferior officers when they have infringed the law or the rules laid down for their guidance; and that She will be pleased to direct that evenhanded justice be done to these superior officers, who have had,
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as is expressed by the Commission of Inquiry, 'the immediate advantage of well-defined objects assigned to them, powerful means at their disposal, and clear rules for their guidance.'"
SIR G. GREYsaid, that the hon. Gentleman would bear him out, he was sure, in stating that on his (Sir G. Grey's) having represented to the hon. Gentleman that at that late period of the Session, and as the Report of the Andover Committee was not yet printed, it would not be practicable to go into the subject of his resolutions, the hon. Gentleman had given him in private a distinct assurance that he should not move his Resolution this Session. Considering the importance of the subject, and the importance also of examining the evidence given before the Andover Union Workhouse Committee, and the District Asylums' Committee, he thought it was the duty of Her Majesty's Government to give the most deliberate attention to the whole subject. Under the impression, then, that the hon. Gentleman had given him a distinct pledge that he should not move his resolutions this Session, he (Sir G. Grey) should not go further into the subject.
MR. HUMEobserved that, consistently with the rules of the House, he should not have been able to make any observations unless he were about to end by a Motion; but he had no intention to press any of his resolutions.
Motion withdrawn.

DISTRESS IN MAYO.
On the Motion that the Order of the Day be read,
Mr. D. BROWNErose to call the attention of the House to the state of distress in the county of Mayo. He stated that Mayo was the poorest county in Ireland; that it contained between 3,000 and 4,000 of the most wretched peasantry on the face of creation; that the greater number of the proprietors were absentees; and that every alternate year hundreds of the people were suffering under the pangs of hunger and the extremity of want. The accounts he had received from Mayo at this moment were of a most alarming character. If the facts which had reached him were true—and he had no reason to doubt their truth—the peace of society in that county was in imminent danger, not merely on account of the famine, but on account of the rashness to which the people might be precipitated from the pressure of despair. He had on a former occasion declared himself

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opposed to the principle of making the people of Ireland dependent upon the people of this country; but the facts which he was about to detail to the House would show the urgent necessity which existed for taking the most immediate steps for the purpose of meeting the calamity; otherwise, as he had said, the peace of society would be endangered. The information which he had received from Castlebar, Kilmain, and other parts of the county, represented that the potato crop had not merely failed, but that potatoes had almost completely disappeared; and that, consequently, those persons who were dependent for their subsistence upon that root, had not at the present moment a morsel to eat. There were no fewer than 42,000 persons in Mayo who were in a state of destitution. 22,000 of these had recently been employed by the local relief committees—leaving, however, 20,000 still without a single particle of any kind of food. He hoped he should not appeal in vain to English Gentlemen to urge upon the Government to take more immediate steps than could be taken under their own propositions to relieve the imminent distress in the county of Mayo. The last Administration had done well: they had excited towards them the gratitude of the people of Ireland; and he hoped the present Government would imitate their good example, He did not wish, by telling the House that the peace of society was endangered, to use any exciting language—he did not wish to make an inflammatory speech which would be carried elsewhere; but he conceived it to be his duty, as representative of the county of Mayo, to state the real facts of the case. He knew that the priesthood would do all in their power to preserve the public peace; but there were circumstances under which reason was unavailing—under which reason abandoned the unfortunate sufferers, and under which the law of nature became stronger than the law of the country or any other human obligations. The noble Member for Lynn had asked him two questions which some other Members might be disposed to put, namely, why the present harvest did not supply the people with labour and the means of existence?—or if it could not do so, why the people did not come to this country for work as usual? With respect to the first question, he begged to say, that the employment arising from the harvest in Mayo, and, indeed, in Ireland generally, was perfectly inadequate for the purpose;
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and with respect to the second question, his answer was, that formerly, when the people came to this country to the harvest, they were able to leave their families some provision till their return; but they were unable to do so at present. The hon. Member concluded by saying, that he was anxious to promote the best understanding between the people of this country and the people of Ireland; that the party to which he belonged, in the exercise of their capacity as Repealers, were anxious—if this country by proper legislation would allow them—to prove the identity of interests between the two countries; they were anxious to prove that mutual dependence, that reciprocal benefits, and above all, that equal and just laws, would best advance the prosperity and happiness of both countries.
The O'CONOR DONsaid, that the attention of the Government had been fully awakened to the subject, and that they were devising means by which the people would be enabled to get over the immediate pressure of the distress, so that measures might ultimately be adopted to improve their condition.
MR. LABOUCHEREadmitted the general truth of the pictures that were drawn of the distress existing in Ireland, although he believed that some of the details were exaggerated. The failure of the potato crop was this year much more extensive than it was last, and Ireland was therefore in a situation of peculiar difficulty, He could assure the House that the fullest attention of the Government would be given to the subject during the recess, after which assurance he trusted that he would not be expected to enter into details. The county of Mayo was at present, he believed, one of the most distressed parts of Ireland; and he feared the visitation with which the country was afflicted had fallen more heavily there than elsewhere. Still, however, some of the statements were, he believed, in some degree exaggerated. He was glad to find by the accounts from the markets there, that at Westport, lately, Indian meal was selling at less than 1d. per lb.; thirty tons were sold there recently at that price. Potatoes, also, were selling at 1½d. and 2d. per stone, though he admitted that they had been forced on the market because of their diseased state. It might, however, be said, that it was of no use provisions being cheap, if the people had not the means to buy them. That was very true; but, at the same time, he did not see how the present condition of

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the people in that respect was to be altered, unless there was a very cordial co-operation on the part of the landed gentry with the Government. He trusted that that co-operation would be afforded, and that those who were the natural guardians and protectors of the people would come forward on the occasion. Every means would be adopted by the Government to provide employment for the people, particularly in the county of Mayo. Colonel Jones', the head of the Board of Works in Ireland, having been recently in London, had been spoken to on the subject. In answer to inquiries, Colonel Jones wrote, on the 24th, the following letter:—
"London, August 24, 1840.
"Sir—In reply to your inquiries as to the employment of the distressed poor in the county of Mayo, I have the honour to state that on Monday last at Bellina I gave personal instructions to Mr. Brett, the county surveyor, not to stop any works where employment to afford relief was necessary, and moreover that he should put men upon additional works that might have been applied for at the special baronial sessions, and not commenced; and I left him with the full impression, that acting upon the orders I then gave him, he had full authority to afford employment to all those who might require it, until the measures to be adopted by Government should be known. I may also state that memorials were then under inspection, and I have no doubt have been reported upon ere this. As I leave London for Dublin by this night's train, the state of Mayo shall be immediately inquired into by me on my arrival there.—I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
"HARRY D. JONES.
"To the Right Hon. H. Labouchere."
He had already informed the House on a former occasion, that there was every reason to believe that the supply of grain, through the exertions of private individuals, would be sufficient for the markets. Except in some very extraordinary case of necessity, the Government would not interfere with either the wholesale or the retail trader. His attention having been called to the condition of the barony of Kinsale and the parts adjacent in the county of Cork, he had by that night's post written to Dublin, calling the especial attention of the authorities to the subject. And with respect to the great question, he could only repeat that the attention of the Government and of the Lord Lieutenant would be given incessantly to the state of the people of Ireland; and he hoped that with the active co-operation of the landlords they would be able greatly to mitigate the evils which threatened them. He could not help adding, that all the accounts he had received showed that the people had
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exhibited the greatest patience under these trying circumstances; and that the clergy, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, had done their best to promote peace and to check the spirit of exaggeration, and that tendency to panic which were calculated so much to aggravate existing evils.
Order of the Day read.

SMALL DEBTS BILL.
On the Motion that the Small Debts Bill be read a Third Time,
MR. WARBURTONcomplained of the restriction of the judicial appointments to barristers at law. A clause ought to have been introduced, declaring that the judges should have no right to compensation if they were hereafter to be entirely prohibited from practising as barristers. If it was now too late to introduce a clause, the House ought at least to receive the most complete assurance from the Government that no such claim would be admitted.
SIR G. GREYwas quite willing to give the most distinct assurance, that the exclusion of the judges from practising as barristers hereafter could not be acknowledged as giving any claim to compensation. The Lord Chancellor thought it exceedingly improbable that those gentlemen could have extensive practice; and would no doubt be disposed distinctly to intimate that the extended restriction on practice would not be allowed to constitute any claim to compensation.
Bill read a Third Time and passed.
House adjourned at a quarter past Three o'clock.