POOR-LAW ADMINISTRATION BILL—ADJOURNED DEBATE (THIRD NIGHT).

HC Deb 20 May 1847 vol 92 cc1110-64

MR. HENLEY

, in resuming the debate, said he should abstain from going back into the questions which had occupied so large a portion of the discussion on the previous nights, namely, those referring to the Andover Union, and to the general character of the Poor Law of 1834, not from any idea than these were not very important in themselves, or did not form the subject of debate on the present occasion; because, if he understood rightly, the object of the periodical appointment of the Commissioners was, that Parliament should have an opportunity of revising the whole Poor Law from time to time, and of making such Amendments as experience might suggest; but he preferred addressing himself to a different branch of the subject. In what condition was the House now placed? The noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government had declared that, in his opinion, the present executive portion of the law did not work satisfactorily. The noble Lord had added, that it was not owing to the report of the Andover Committee that he had been brought to this conclusion; and that he did not think the Commissioners were obnoxious to the blame which had been east upon them; or, at least, not to the degree in which it had been cast upon them. The noble Lord, in short, did not think the men in fault so much as the system. This brought them, then, to the Bill before the House, and to the consideration of the question as to how the noble Lord proposed to amend that system; whether that Amendment would touch the real grievances of the system; whether, in point of fact, the Bill would do any good at all; or whether, as he thought, instead of offering any improvement, or being any advantage to the country, it would not rather aggravate all the existing evils. As he had already said, he should not. on this occasion, go into the general question of the Act of 1834. On every account he thought it better to avoid it, for in the first place it had existed and been in operation between thirteen and fourteen years; and the effect of any immediate alteration of the law would be to subject both Parliament and the country to another violent change in the mode of administering relief. That would be a great evil. In the next place, he believed that a great majority of the people were disposed to adhere to the principle of the law—which he took to be local administration with a cen- tral control. All that Parliament had got to do just now, in his opinion, was to see whether the executive department now proposed by Government was likely to carry that object most beneficially into effect, and whether those portions of the law which had created the greatest dissatisfaction in the country were likely to be improved by the present Bill. Now, those portions of the law which had created the greatest dissatisfaction had nothing to do with the general principle of the law, but were comprised in the mode of relieving the casual poor or those who become suddenly destitute, in the manner in which medical relief was afforded, and in the regulations which the Commissioners made with respect to the affairs within the walls of the house. He should, in the first place, call the attention of the House to the power which the Commissioners at present enjoyed of "subordinate legislation," as they themselves called it. He thought it a perfectly legitimate question to ascertain how the Commissioners had exercised that power; whether their laws and regulations were such as Parliament would have made; and whether it was true, as was asserted in 1834, that, owing to the various circumstances of the country, it was difficult, if not impossible, for Parliament to make a general law for the whole country, but that they must leave a vast discretionary power in the hands of the Commissioners, otherwise the law would never work. He would endeavour to show the House the kind of laws and regulations which the Commissioners had made with respect to the casual poor, and to the administration of medical relief, and to the proceedings within the workhouse, and contrast them with what Parliament had done for prisons. He must say that in his opinion the Commissioners had not exercised this power wisely and discreetly, and that it ought never to have been intrusted to them. He thought he should be enabled to show this, both from the general nature of the rules which they had made, and the extraordinary small number of cases in which they had exercised it. They had only applied two tests in the course of the whole thirteen years, namely, the workhouse test and the outdoor labour test, and he thought this was very slender ground upon which to ask Parliament to put into their hands so important a power as that of making laws. In order that he might not misrepresent them, he would take the liberty of reading to the House the Commissioners' own de- finition of their power—subordinate legislation, and contrast it with the manner in which they had carried it out. The extract which he was about to read was taken from their report for 1839, in which they went at great length into the question of subordinate legislation which had been delegated to them. They said— Whatever rules Parliament has laid down for the relief of the poor, the Poor Law Commissioners must enforce without modification; they can only give to these rules greater precision by developing their provisions, and making subsidiary regulations for carrying them into effect. He should now proceed to show how in the several particulars he had named the Commissioners had departed from the principle here laid down. He would first take the case of the casual poor, or those persons who from any circumstance were suddenly placed in want of relief. Now, the first public attention which was called to this class of persons after the passing of the Act of 1834 was by the metropolitan police in 1837, complaining of the vast amount of destitution which was visible in the public streets. The Act of Parliament expressly required that the Poor Law Commissioners should make general rules, and submit them to the Secretary of State for his approbation; but they made no rules at all till the year 1841. They evaded the law by sending rules to every separate union. It would be in the recollection of the House that the Legislature, in 1834, not feeling it quite safe to hand the poor to the tender mercies of any set of men, distinctly provided that cases of urgent necessity should be relieved by the overseer, or any other of the poor-law authorities who should come into contact with them. This was evidently meant as a safeguard; and if it had been fairly and honestly acted upon, it would have prevented much of the mischief which had occurred since. What did the Commissioners do? They ordered the relieving officers to give relief "in cases of sudden and urgent necessity;" and the order which they gave to the workhouse masters was to admit people "in cases of sudden or urgent necessity;" orders which, though nearly the same in words, were still considerably different in effect. The general practice was for the porters to lock the gates of the workhouse at nine o'clock, and carry the keys to their masters; no ingress or egress being allowed, on any pretence whatever, till morning. All over the country, the people naturally asked what was meant by "sudden and urgent distress," and what was the difference between "sudden and urgent" and "sudden or urgent" distress? The consequence was, that people were not relieved. A correspondence with the Commissioners ensued; and, in 1838, the pressure of public opinion produced a little more liberal treatment to that class of poor. In the year 1841–42, when the present Member for Dorchester (Sir J. Graham) became Secretary of State for the Home Department, he would not stand any of the Commissioners' slippery work, and he compelled them to make general rules; with each of the general rules there was an explanatory letter; and what did the House suppose was the definition of "sudden and urgent" necessity, which the Poor Law Commissioners gave in their letter, upon which the casual poor were to be relieved? It was this:— By 'sudden and urgent necessity' the Commissioners understand any case of destitution requiring instant relief before the person can be received into the workhouse; as, for instance, when a person is deprived of his usual means of support by fire, storm, or inundation, or robbery, or riot, or any other similar cause which he could not control when it had occurred, and which it would be difficult or impossible to foresee or prevent. He asked any man to say if there was any room for wonder, after this, that persons under the control of these Commissioners, and subject to their dismissal, should have frequently neglected the poor? How could it be otherwise, not merely with such a definition staring them in the face, but with the fear of the auditors before them, who had the power to strike out of their account any money paid contrary to the law or contrary to the order of the Commissioners? He asked whether it was not extremely likely that under such a state of things, and with the cases of cruelty that arose in consequence, a public clamour would be excited against the law? Well, another definition was issued in 1845, after public opinion and clamour had been generally excited on the subject, and he would read to the House the result which the Poor Law Commissioners arrived at, after an interval of eleven years from the passing of the Act, and let them judge whether such a body ought to be intrusted with such a power. In 1845 the Commissioners rescinded the definition of 1841–42, and gave the following:—"By explanatory letter, 'sudden and urgent necessity,' the Commissioners understand any case of destitution requiring instant relief." The Commissioners thus came back to the plain and simple intention which Parliament evidently entertained at starting in 1834; and had they done so sooner, it would have prevented much destitution and suffering, and consequent dissatisfaction with the law, which had arisen in the interval. With the permission of the House he would now go into the question of medical relief. He quite admitted that everything he had said about sudden and urgent necessity had nothing at all to do with the general principle of the law; but it certainly had a good deal to do with the question as to whether they would continue to intrust any set of men with the power of making such rules. Could any one believe that, if a Member of that House had laid upon the Table such a definition of sudden and urgent necessity as the Commissioners gave in the first instance, it would not have been kicked into the lobby? See what the conduct of the Commissioners was with respect to medical relief. If there was one subject which, more than another, had been the source of almost universal dissatisfaction, it was the management of medical relief. What did the Commissioners themselves say upon this subject at the commencement of their first report—for he would deal only with their own written statement of their views and conduct, and then there could be no misrepresentation. They should be judged by their own words. It would be in the recollection of the House that when the Poor Law Amendment Act first came into operation, what was called the "tender system" was insisted upon by the Commissioners. With respect to this point, the Commissioners stated in their first report:— We found it a practice for a medical man, in the great majority of instances, to contract with the parish for the supply to the settled paupers of medical attendance for a small fixed sum, on the expressed or implied condition that he should be allowed to make whatever charges he pleased for non-parishioners under suspended orders, or an under of medical relief by overseer. The House would observe that the allegation of the Commissioners was, that parishes wore wont to pay medical men a small fixed sum, leaving them to make up an adequate amount of remuneration from other sources. That was their recorded opinion. Then let the House observe the rule which they established on the subject:— We deemed it the most advantageous that each practitioner should fix the price of his own services, under competition. We found it neces- sary to adopt as a rule that the aggregate charges for medical relief shall not exceed the aggregate of the former expenditure. According to their own showing, they found this state of things—that medical practitioners were paid an inadequate fixed sum directly, hoping to make up an adequate remuneration by indirect payments from non-parishioners. Well, the Commissioners establish the tender system, which deprived medical men of the chance of obtaining indirect payments, because the rule of the Commissioners prescribed that they should attend the non-parishioners as well as those belonging to the parish; and yet they declared that their remuneration should not exceed the amount of the small fixed payment which they were in the habit of receiving under the former system. The natural result of such an arrangement followed—an universal clamour arose from one end of the country to another. The remuneration for medical relief was cut down to such an extent that if it had not been for the humanity of medical men—to their honour be it said, and he stated what he knew to be true—the poor would have wanted medical assistance altogether. The medical gentlemen, from one end of the kingdom to another, nobly stepped forward and said—"The poor shall not suffer; we will do our duty by them as we did before; we are not sufficiently paid, but we will do justice to the poor, and leave it to public opinion to set the matter right." The amount formerly paid for medical relief in the district of the union with which he was connected, was 450l. The board of guardians reduced that sum to 300l., but the Commissioners disallowed that amount, and said that it was a wasteful expenditure of money. In the parish in which he (Mr. Henley) resided, the doctor used to be paid 10l. a year; an order was issued to cut his salary down to 2l. 17s. 6d. The sum ultimately fixed for the payment of medical relief throughout the union was, he believed, about 290l. The Commissioners struck their claws in, and tore away some small sum of 10l. or so. What he had described came under his own observation in one union. But it was found impossible to adhere to such a system. Public opinion compelled the Commissioners to retrace their steps, and the sum paid for medical relief throughout the country, which at first had been cut down to 130,000l. or 140,000l., amounted to 186,000l. in 1845. What did that prove? Why, that previously the poor must have suffered fright- fully from the restricted expenditure, or that gross injustice must have been done to the medical men, who were compelled by a sense of humanity to relieve the poor without being compensated for their exertions. As a further illustration of the subject of medical relief, he would call the attention of the House to the question of workhouses. With reference to this part of the subject, it was his intention to contrast the rules applied to workhouses and gaols. It was with extreme astonishment he heard the other night one so conversant with these matters as the right hon. Secretary for the Home Department venture to state, in reply to the hon. Member for Dorsetshire, that magistrates had the same power of making rules for prisons as the Poor Law Commissioners had of making rules for workhouses. The right hon. Baronet knew well enough that the power possessed by magistrates and Poor Law Commissioners was as much alike as a horse chesnut and a chesnut horse. The right hon. Baronet knew that in every essential particular Parliament had laid down what rules should be observed in prisons. In all great and essential particulars as regarded gaols, the Act of Parliament fixed the minimum below which the magistrates could not go; and the minimum which Parliament had established for criminals, far, very far, exceeded what the Commissioners had allowed the unoffending poor. He would prove his case, chapter and verse—for such an assertion as that made by the right hon. the Secretary for the Home Depariment ought not to have been advanced in that House—at all events, it should not pass without being exposed. It appeared to him that the circumstance of the Legislature having so strictly controlled the magistrates in the treatment of prisoners in gaols, furnished a powerful argument against intrusting the Poor Law Commissioners with almost unlimited power over the treatment of paupers, which experience had proved could not be exercised for the public advantage. He would now contrast the regulations observed with respect to chaplains and surgeons in gaols and workhouses. It would not, of course, be pretended that it was any part of the principle of the New Poor Act that the inmates of workhouses should not receive adequate religious instruction and medical relief. He saw that the right hon. Secretary for the Home Department was anxious to go away, and therefore he would proceed at once to state what the Act of Parliament prescribed with respect to chaplains of gaols, merely premising that it left a discretionary power to magistrates to make the criminal's condition better, but not to render it worse. He was about to quote from the 4th of George IV., cap. 64, which was still the law of the land, although successive Secretaries for the Home Department had, on their own responsibility, gone beyond it in bettering the condition of prisoners. The Act of George IV. required that prayers selected from the liturgy of the Church should be read to prisoners at least every morning by the chaplain or keeper of the gaol, and that portions of the Scriptures should be read to the prisoners daily when assembled for religious instruction. Then it was provided that the chaplain should go through the morning and evening services of the Church every Sunday, Christmas-day, and Good Friday; that he should catechise and instruct the prisoners—

SIR G. GREY

felt it necessary to remark that the hon. Member appeared to have misunderstood what fell from him on a former occasion. The hon. Member for Knaresborough had argued that it was constitutionally impossible for Parliament to delegate to the Poor Law Commissioners the power which they possessed; in reply to which he (Sir G. Grey) instanced the Prisons Act, which gave to the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London, and to the magistrates of the country generally, the power of altering the prisons regulations, and to the Secretary for the Home Department the power of making further alterations, if he should think fit to do so. He did not mean to say that the cases were identical, or that the power exercised by magistrates was equal to that possessed by the Poor Law Commissioners.

MR. HENLEY

had not the advantage of hearing the speech of the hon. Member for Knaresborough, but he did hear that of the hon. Member for Dorsetshire, and he understood the right hon. Baronet to refer to the case of the magistrates in answering the latter speech. The right hon. Baronet at the time made no distinction as to degree. The right hon. Baronet knew perfectly well that magistrates could do comparatively nothing with respect to prisoners, whilst the poor in workhouses were left entirely at the mercy of the Commissioners. To proceed with the reference to the enactments of the Prisons Act, it was provided that the chaplain should frequently visit every room and cell occupied by prisoners, and distribute amongst them books fitted to convey moral and religious instruction. Provision was also made for the religious instruction of prisoners who dissented from the Church. He would now show what provision was made for affording religious consolation to the poor, by reading some extracts from the orders of the Poor Law Commissioners. It was unnecessary to tell the House, that anything which the Poor Law Commissioners prescribed would be looked upon as the maximum point by boards of guardians. It was impossible to persuade them to go beyond what the Commissioners required; and, practically, all the poor got was the minimum of what was fixed. The rules of the Commissioners provided that there should be church service in the workhouse once (in the prisons it was twice) on Sundays, Christmas-day, and Good Friday. The chaplain was to examine the children in the catechism of the Church of England once every month; and he was required to make a report of the moral and religious condition of the inmates generally. He was also to administer religious consolation within the workhouse whenever called upon by the master. The House would observe that the chaplain was to furnish religious consolation only when he was applied to for that purpose by the master of the workhouse. The consequence was, that, practically, no provision was made for the spiritual instruction of the inmates of workhouses generally. The chaplain was not required to visit the inmates of the workhouse; and how, under such circumstances, he could make a general report, it was difficult to imagine. The chaplain's stipend was so miserable a one, that it would be extremely charitable to suppose that he would do more than he was actually required. To show how the system worked, he would take the case of a pauper, not of the most meritorious class, and of a criminal. They should be two girls, both with child, in the same parish, a thing which not unfrequently happened. Both were destitute and unable to maintain their offspring. One went into the workhouse, and was there delivered. The other was delivered out of doors, and murdered her child, or made away with it—a case of not unfrequent occurrence, he was sorry to say. This girl was tried before a jury, and, there being extenuating circumstances in her case, the jury took a merciful view of it, and found her guilty of concealing the birth, and she was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment. Now, he ventured to say, that if ever there existed an opportunity of bringing an erring woman back to honourable feeling, it was after she had endured the pain and misery which always accompanied such scenes as those to which he had referred. What provision was made for touching the heart of the woman in the workhouse by means of religious instruction? She was placed amongst the most demoralised class, and compelled to associate with women who had been guilty of the same offences as that which had brought her there. No provision was made for her receiving spiritual instruction and advice. She was not allowed to go outside the workhouse, not even to attend public worship in the church. She was even prohibited from going to church to have her child baptized, or, if a returning sense of duty should prompt her thereto, to take the sacrament. The girl who had made away with her child would be treated very differently. The chaplain would visit her daily in prison to administer religious instruction—he would supply her with books, and the sacrament would be administered to her, if her mind were brought into a fit state to receive it. When these two girls came afterwards to meet in their village, what would be the result of their communication? Necessarily this, that, according to the operation of the law, the greater the degree of criminality the lighter would be the penalty. Now, as regarded the case of surgeons. The Prisons Act required that the surgeon of a gaol should visit every prisoner at least twice a week; and he believed that by a subsequent Act he was obliged to make daily visits. In the case of the workhouse, the surgeon was required merely to attend at the workhouse at such times as the guardians should appoint. There was a double delegation of authority—Parliament delegated power to the Commissioners, and they delegated it to the guardians. The surgeon was also required to attend when sent for by the master in case of sudden illness; but—and it was a most important omission—no provision was made, as in gaols, for the constant watchfulness of a medical man over those who were not absolutely sick. Why was that? Because the Commissioners knew that if there were efficient medical attendance there must be more expense, and that they were anxious to avoid; for the system was bolstered up by the pretence of saving money. Take the kingdom through; 1l. out of every 5l. was expended on establishment charges. That was a heavy drawback, and it was the reason why the Commissioners made such scanty allowances to professional men. Could it be believed that if the law had been the same with respect to workhouses as it was with respect to prisons, public feeling would have been shocked by the sad case of the Bridgewater Union, or the still sadder case of the Sevenoaks Union, where sixty or seventy children were proved to have been in a state of glandular disease from the same cause, which had been a considerable time in operation unchecked? Here, again, contrasting Parliament law with Commissioner law, he could not hesitate to acknowledge the superiority of the former. What, then, was the reason for taking the power of making regulations for the poor out of the hands of Parliament? It was said that there were varying circumstances in different parts of the country which rendered it necessary to do so. He believed the late Secretary of State compelled the Commissioners to make some general rules, which were issued to nearly 600 unions. The orders for out-door relief were issued to 458 unions; the workhouse orders to 445: the medical orders to 587; the officers' orders to 572; the overseers' orders to 576. It was clear that these orders were to be universally applicable; the other places to which they were not sent were under separate management or local acts. But had any scheme been tried except the workhouse test, and giving out-door relief? [An hon. MEMBER moved that the House be counted; but more than forty Members being present, Mr. Henley continued.] He had endeavoured to show that the medical relief within the workhouse under these rules made by the Commissioners, had not conduced to the satisfactory working of the law, and would not bear comparison with what Parliament had done in this particular. He would take the opportunity of saying that much of the misery the poor had suffered, had been relieved by the humanity of the medical men themselves; much of the inconvenience that would have been felt in the workhouses from the neglect of the necessary requirements of the law, had been prevented by the zeal of the respective surgeons. He had shown, or endeavoured to show, that there were no such varying circumstances in the country as to require the power to be taken from the Legislature. While he wished the law to be carried out for the general benefit, both of the country and the poor, he was most anxious it should be relieved of what was the heaviest millstone round its neck. He was most anxious that everything good in the experience of the last thirteen or fourteen years should be taken hold of by the Legislature, embodied in an Act of Parliament, and the authority of law given to it. The people of England were an obedient and loyal people; if they knew the matter had received the consideration of the Legislature they would yield it a ready, cheerful, and patient obedience. But he knew a feeling prevailed among the poor, who, they would recollect, were not directly represented in that House, that the rich, who had had the legislation in their hands, not having the moral courage to enact such regulations in the face of the country, had delegated the framing them to others; they were equally inflicted on the poor, without Parliament having any discretion over them. That, he knew, was a very prevalent feeling among the poor; from many communications he had had on the subject, he believed that to be a settled opinion. He was anxious that no revision of the law should increase the difficulty of people seeking redress against it; and he could not but feel that the Bill did not take from the new Commission any power which had been injuriously exercised against the people under the law; and he found that the noble Lord did intend to relieve them from the necessity of complying with some of those formalities by the neglect of which the late Commission subjected itself to much and deserved blame. He found it was intended to include among the Commissioners three or four Cabinet Ministers. What would be the result? In any question brought before the House, in any case of grievance—and let them not imagine that, under any system, grievances would not arise—what chance of redress would the persons have against four Cabinet Ministers? By their every act the Government must stand or fall; it could not blame the Commissioners, the Act would be their own; four Ministers—a third part of the Cabinet—would have had a share in it—every question would be fought, tooth and nail, as a Government question. With the business now attached to every Cabinet office, it was impossible those Gentlemen could give their attention to the working of the Commission: what would be the result? One or two men would manage the whole business of the Commission; the Ministers would have nothing to do with it, yet they would be obliged to take all the responsibility. Then let them look at the vast political engine this might be made; there were some thousands of persons employed over the country under the Commissioners, every one of whom was liable to summary dismissal by the Central Board. In an election on any great political question, did they think that men liable to be so dismissed would not attend readily to the suggestions of those above them? What did they do in other cases? Did they allow excisemen to vote? If they were shut out, why should they give the right to those employed under the Commission? Suppose a case like that of the Worcester Union should arise, the board of guardians quarrelling with the Central Board about the dismissal of an officer. Suppose the place sent a Member to Parliament, and it was the interest of the existing Government to secure that seat; the board of guardians would probably be a very influential body. Was it likely, in such a case, the central authority would do its duty very strictly against that board? If they supposed it would, they had a very different opinion as to what men were from his. He did not care about one or two more men being in the Commission, and having a seat in that House. He thought they had Government men enough there. The bulk of the duties of the Board was mere matter of details—petty squabbles about the election of guardians, the appointment of officers, the dismissal of officers. Were these fit to be made Cabinet questions? They were not. He could not agree to such a proposition. He could not see in it any security for the prevention of abuses. All he could see was, a vastly increased power thrown into the hands of the Minister of the day. He had gone at greater length than he liked to do into these various matters. All he implored the House to do was, not to continue a system that left the poor of the country in their present state. He implored the House to take from the agitator and the demagogue that powerful weapon he did not scruple to wield, and which he was enabled to wield with truth, when he told the discontented they legislated for the poor in a mode in which they would not legislate for themselves; let them remember how hard and bitter the bread of legal relief was, to all who eat it—how liable it was to engender discontent under any system; let them recollect how readily the people of this country sympathized with those who were distressed; and also—and let them be thankful for it—how readily the Christian feelings of the people, while they so sympathized, led them to shut their eyes to the faults by which men might have reduced themselves to destitution. He implored the House not to shut the people from their inalienable birthright. By their legislation they now taught the poor to regard the Crown, or the Ministers of the Crown, as the direct means of the hardships inflicted upon them; instead of teaching the people to look up to the Crown, and the Ministers representing it, as the parties to whom they could safely look for redress from the local authorities, this law was contrived, and seemed even to be executed, by the Government itself; its own hand appeared to inflict their evils. Was that safe? was that wise? was that politic? He intreated them not to direct the whole stream of suffering from poverty against the Government of the day; they knew not what times they might have to encounter. Let Parliament by law give Ministers of the Crown—the brightest jewel in which was the prerogative of mercy—the power of relaxing the provisions of the Act when necessary. Let them preserve the workhouse test, if they thought it the best, or the out-door labour test, or any other, if they kept the power of relaxing it; they would then lead the poor to look on the Crown as their protector, their refuge, and resource, against any act of misgovernment that might occur. He did not wish to unsettle the present mode of relief; but he did wish the grave blots on it to be taken out. He believed they might preserve all that was valuable in the Bill, and make it a blessing to the poor and to the ratepayers; but if they gave the power which this Bill proposed to the Government, the poor would regard it as a hardship, and some day an end might be put to it in a mode they should all be sorry to see.

MR. POULETT SCROPE

thought the debate had included three or four different subjects not immediately connected with the question itself. First, there was the Bill before the House; next, there was the question raised by the hon. Member for Knaresborough (Mr. Ferrand); the merits of the Act of 1834; and, lastly, the personal conduct of the Poor Law Commissioners themselves. He should not go into the points raised as to the conduct of the Commissioners during thirteen years of of- fice; nor should he touch the case of the Andover Union. He was inclined to agree with the hon. Member (Mr. Henley) on many points. He regretted the Commissioners should have delayed their explanation of what they understood as emergency relief so long; it was discreditable in them to delay it till 1845. He thought the tender system of medical relief a bad one; but it would be bettered by the regulation for paying half the expense out of the Consolidated Fund. The discussion of some other points, such as the insufficient pay of chaplains to workhouses, and the contrast between the religious instruction provided in workhouses and gaols, might have been deferred to another occasion. The great question really was, should the Commission be continued or not? He did not agree in all the violent denunciations of the Poor Law and the Commissioners uttered by the hon. Member for Knaresborough (Mr. Ferrand); but he was not at all surprised at the violence of the feeling out of doors, when he recollected the circumstances under which the measure was proposed. It was framed partly by men. avowedly opposed to any Poor Law at all; and it was recommended to the House of Peers by a noble and learned Lord, then Lord Chancellor (Lord Brougham), in a speech occupying four hours in the delivery, which was one long tirade against the principle of a Poor Law itself. He was not surprised at the hostility with which the measure had been regarded, or that the placing the law in the hands of a Commission should excite alarm among the poor themselves, and those who looked on a Poor Law as the great charter of the safety of the poor, and the guarantee of the peace and security of the realm. He could trace to this, as one of the primary sources, the unpopularity of the law. The hostility with which it had been met, would have been mitigated, if it would not have been entirely avoided, had there been a distinct and unequivocal recognition by Parliament of the main principle of the measure, which had been referred to by the noble and learned Lord. What was the main principle of the law? That question would be answered by different men in very different ways; but he was inclined to agree with the hon. Member for Oxfordshire, that the true principle was the establishment of a central control for the supervision of local administration. To that principle he had given his consent at the passing of the Amendment Act; to that principle he still adhered; and he did not quite understand what the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Henley) would substitute for a central control. It was undeniable that many of the rules and regulations of the Commissioners were open to improvement; and it was equally unquestionable that the conduct of the Commissioners had not been exactly what it ought to have been, or, rather, what the House might have wished; but then, a change was now proposed in the construction of the Board; and he did sincerely hope that this alteration would have the effect of removing those objections which were now so generally made. The alteration was desirable; but it would be a very different thing to abolish the Commission altogether; and, supposing that that were done, he did not see where they would find the safeguard from those local abuses which the Board was instituted to correct. The hon. Member seemed to suppose that these local abuses were always in favour of the poor, and that the only purpose of a central control was to check lavish expenditure. Now, he believed, on the contrary, that the central control was chiefly required to put down abuses from which the poor suffered. There was no abuse of a local character from which the poorer classes had suffered so much as from the allowance system; that had been done away with by the Commissioners: had the local administration been irresponsible, that system would have continued to this day. Many such evils had grown up and gained strength under the old law; and were the central control to be removed they would again be rife. And it was because the object of the central control was to crush local abuses, that the Commissioners had become unpopular, and had encountered resistance and hostility. They had to deal with local jobbing and parish favouritism, and the result was that general odium had been attached to their offices, and that general ill-will had attended them in the performance of their duties. He highly approved of the alteration which this Bill would make in the Commission. It would make the Commissioners more directly responsible; it would relieve them from the anomaly of their present position, and they would no longer lie under the disadvantage of being unable before that House to defend themselves from the charges which had so frequently been made. The very fact of their having no opportunity of refuting unfounded allegations had invited attack. If anything went wrong, the Commissioners were made the scapegoats. If a squabble arose in any one of the 15,000 parishes, or if any one of the 1,500,000 paupers were reported to have been ill treated, or if any one of the 5,000 officers entrusted with the administration of the law committed a fault, the first and last cry was that the Commissioners were to blame. If they dismissed any one of the offending officers, or called the board of guardians to account for the misconduct of their servants, the tyranny of Somerset House was inveighed against for having interposed at all; the Central Board was accused of having interfered too much. The charges of interfering too much with the local authorities, and the charges which were also urged of not interfering enough, could not be generally true; the one refuted the other; and he was inclined to think, on the whole, that the Commissioners had exercised a wise discretion, and had steered clear of either of these extremes. The Commissioners could only exercise the necessary supervision by the aid of the assistant commissioners, who were always the instruments; and the number of those officers had been diminished to such a degree, that they were in the end utterly incapable of fulfilling their onerous and most important duties. The consequence had been, that the Commissioners found themselves unable to discharge those functions required of them; and as, in certain cases, their controlling influence did not seem to have been felt at all, it was perfectly certain that the accusation levelled against them, of having too frequently obtruded their power, was not founded upon fact. Another cause of the unpopularity which had attended the Commissioners arose from what he considered to be an unwise prepossession on the part of the Poor Law Commissioners, and on the part also, of the Commissioners of Inquiry, who recommended the Poor Law Amendment Act to Parliament, against out-door relief to the able-bodied poor in the shape of labour. The recommendation originally was to prohibit out-door relief to the able-bodied poor after a certain period, and to apply the workhouse test alone. He thought the evidence given while the inquiry was being made, did not at all justify such a recommendation. The Commissioners of Inquiry admitted that the principle of the Act of Elizabeth was to make labour the test; and they decided that the workhouse test was only applicable, and should solely be resorted to. The Commissioners had found themselves unable to carry out the recommendation, and had yielded to the resistance the attempt occasioned. Their peremptory order against out-door relief had been addressed only to a portion of the unions, and these unions had been chiefly rural. In 100 unions the principle had never been enforced, and where once enforced it had been from time to time relaxed. He did not believe that that exclusive mode of relief to the able-bodied poor had had the effect which had been promised, of raising the rate of wages. He thought, on the contrary, that the known unwillingness of the industrious labourer to enter a workhouse had been taken advantage of, and had tended to keep down the rate of wages. And what were the peculiar merits of this test? Mr. Joseph Livesey, guardian in the Preston Union, who gave evidence before the Settlements Committee, said— The only check at present is the workhouse check, which I consider not a sufficient check for numerous classes. It has been relied on, I think, a great deal too much; and the labour check, which I look upon as the best, has been undervalued. It is too severe upon the honest and industrious, and those who wish to be independent, and not severe enough upon the idle, profligate, and dependent. Mr. Beckwith, clerk of the township of Leeds, gave evidence of a similar tendency, and Mr. S. G. Osborne expressed himself strongly in favour of another test. Mr. Osborne spoke from the experience he had had in Dorsetshire; and it might be asked, if the warehouse relief had had any effect in the rural districts in raising wages, how was it that in this country, where corn was 80s. or 90s. a quarter, wages were only 7s. a week? Why had not the labour test been applied in the first instance at the discretion of the guardians, not as the sole but as an additional test? The testimony which had been given by intelligent and practical men demonstrated that the recommendation of the Commissioners to apply only one mode of relief to the able-bodied poor could never be acted upon; and their own experience would satisfy them that popular feeling would always frustrate any effort they might make to facilitate the administration of the law, to the injury of a very numerous class, by confining the test of poverty to the workhouse. In the opinion of those practical and experienced men, the labour test fulfilled all the requirements of a fit mode of relief to the able-bodied, namely, that it should deter the idle applicant—that class of cases alluded to so much by the hon. Member for Bath—that it should detect imposition, and place the pauper in a worse condition than the independent labourer. If this was true, why not then allow it generally, at the discretion of the guardians; prescribing, of course, and regulating the mode in which it should be applied? The workhouse was a harsh, and hard, and cruel mode of relieving the really industrious and meritorious labouring man, and it was very often an extremely bad test of idleness. Conceal it as they might, the workhouse had a penal character about it. Without calling it a gaol, still he must say it was not very easily distinguishable from one. The hon. Member for Bath said, "The difference is, a man can walk out of one if he chooses, and not out of the other." But remember, that if he did walk out of the workhouse he was not let in again; and the very fact of his admission proved, that, in the opinion of the guardians, he could not live out of doors without help. The labourer himself would almost as soon go into the gaol as into the workhouse; and he himself believed that they meant it to have a penal character, and to punish him for his poverty; He held in his hand an admirable little book, printed, but not published, by a gentleman who had long acted as a magistrate and poor-law guardian; and he could not refrain from quoting a passage or two on this point, because it expressed exactly his own opinion on this point. He said— The building shall be excellent; the situation airy and pleasant; the master, matron, schoolmaster, and doctor, all alive to their duties; the dietary liberal; the hospital well tended; yards, day-rooms, bed-rooms, beds and utensils, all as clean as the decks of a Queen's ship; in short, all physical conditions better than in the best labourers' cottages: still, there is a moral offensive-ness about the place intolerable to all decent men, and much more to all decent women. Of the many among your parish poor whom you never can persuade into the house, the worst shun it not for the worst reasons, and the best never fail to plead reasons which command your respect. The workhouse is a powerful check, but no test. The worst characters in every parish out of gaol are there exhibited as the union poor. But the most dramatic presentment of such persons and scenes should not make us forget that there are true poor in the land—Nature's poor and God's poor—worthy of all that society can do for them. Now, of the able-bodied who come to the board, the complaint of every one is, that he is out of work; and all he asks is to have work found for him. A more reasonable request cannot be made by any man in his alleged condition. The Statute of Elizabeth, therefore, found him work, and the principle was followed up by subsequent Acts. The being out of work is that which makes able- bodied men paupers. Then why not try the remedy which the malady itself suggests, and the patient himself asks for? Why not set him to work? Why may not the parish or the State step in and put tools into these vacant hands? Though their labour did not pay in a commercial sense, it might in many other senses of which political economy does not profess to treat. It must be some very recondite law of nature which prohibits all public employment of the poor out of doors, considering what the alternative is for them and for society. All unemployed hands, if not upon the parish, are still upon the country. They are private pensioners, or hospital patients, or borrowers, or beggars, or stealers. They are poachers, smugglers, coiners, prostitutes, outlaws, and convicts—unprofitable vocations all to the commonwealth. The workhouse itself pays nothing unless as a repellant; and the repulsed, if not driven back upon work, are driven upon some of the aforesaid substitutes for it. Again, then, why not 'take order for setting them to work?' 'Because,' answer the political economists—and this is the most popular of the economical objections—'it is unjust to the independent labourer.' Now, be it remembered that though 'in England poverty be infamous,' yet paupers have to live; and in whatever way they do live, their living must lower wages, if they be really supernumerary, because it must come out of funds that would otherwise be wholly applied to the wages of a smaller number. The best conceivable test is low-paid labour; since, if accepted, it not only relieves the poor and keeps them out of mischief, but makes them return something to the public stock. The out-door works should be, if not entirely productive, yet of a useful or necessary kind, of which there are always some in every district that are nobody's business in particular. The surveyors might employ none but parish labourers upon the highways. The cleansing of towns and villages, and draining of waste swamps, so material to the welfare of the poor themselves, if they only knew it; whatever in any parish would be conducive to public health, recreation, or convenience, might be undertaken by the overseers of the able-bodied poor. In truth, the real difficulty is not to find work, but to see it done. If this could be secured, there would be little danger of an inundation of pauper labour; and we should then have a better measure of the real amount of our surplus population than we have ever yet had. He had trespassed so long on the indulgence of the House that he should say no more than that he cordially approved of the Bill before the House, while he trusted that the Commissioners to be appointed under that Bill would relax the regulations of their predecessors in the mode he had pointed out, by admitting a well-regulated discretionary power in the guardians to relieve the able-bodied applicants by labour of a public character, and not limit them exclusively to workhouse relief. He believed that some general measure for the consolidated management of the highways of a union might be employed as an auxiliary for this beneficial purpose. He could not see any insuperable difficulty in organizing some public employment for this class of cases. The chief difficulty lay in the necessity of strict supervision. And that was a question chiefly of expense. But when they recollected that there had been found no great difficulty in employing this mode of relief, and that it had answered its end most successfully in places and at times when an extraordinary and sudden pressure of pauperism had occurred, as in the cases of the Bolton and Macclesfield unions in 1842, it could hardly be maintained that there would be any insuperable difficulty in adopting it with at least equal success under ordinary circumstances and in times when the pressure of pauperism was slight and moderate. [An Hon. MEMBER again suggested that the House be counted; but upwards of 40 Members being in attendance, Mr. Scrope continued.] The principles for the relief of destitution and the suppression of mendicancy and imposture, which he maintained, as well for England as for Ireland, as respected the able-bodied poor, were the same; and he gave them as his reply to the hon. Member for Bath. He would maintain three tests, or rather three modes of dealing with these eases according to the different classes into which on investigation they would be found to divide themselves—namely, first, relief in the form of public labour for the meritorious and industrious labourer, and also occasionally as a test of the willingness of the idle to work; secondly, relief in the workhouse to such cases as might be of doubtful character, and for which this mode of relief might appear the best test, though he thought they would be few; thirdly, the gaol for the habitual vagrant and mendicant. He thought they might trust to the local authorities a discretion in the application of these several modes of treatment to the uses to which they were best fitted. Such a mode of treatment would be consonant to the feelings of the great bulk of the people, who desired that the idle beggar should be punished, but also that the unwillingly idle and starving labourer should be relieved in that manner which was least repugnant to his feelings, and least prejudicial to his moral character and industrious habits. With this alteration in the practice of the Commission (and it was no very great departure from their present practice which relaxed the prohibitory order every winter in a number of unions), he thought the Amendment Act, especially with the changes proposed in the Bill before the House, would secure such an administration of relief to the destitute poor as was required by the reasonable and moderate friends of the poor throughout the country; who were as far removed, on the one hand, from the extreme and violent dislike of the hon. Member for Knaresborough to the New Poor Law, as they were, on the other, to the equally extreme Malthusian and anti-poor-law doctrines of those economists who had resisted the application of the English Poor Law to Ireland, and would, if they could, repeal it in this country.

Sir W. JOLLIFFE

said, in following the hon. Member for Stroud, there was very little to say regarding the Bill before the House, for his speech was chiefly a comparison between the old Poor Law and that of 1834. The hon. Member also said he should support this Bill, because he thought that the new Commission would act on a different principle in conducting the business of the Poor Law from that adopted by the existing Commissioners. The hon. Gentleman had, however, mistaken the hon. Member for Oxford, when he supposed that he objected to the central control. What the hon. Member had argued for was, central control accompanied by local administration. His hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, who spoke the last night, appeared to him to have gone somewhat too far in defending the Commissioners—he exculpated them on points where they were clearly wrong. But while admitting the offences committed in the Andover union, he said he was not prepared to fix the responsibility of those matters on the Commissioners. Nor was he (Sir W. Jolliffe) ready to do so; nor were the members of the Andover Committee. There was nothing in the report to bear out the assumption that they did. On the other hand, he did not coincide with the noble Lord (Lord Courtenay) who had presided over the Committee in justifying the conduct of the Commissioners towards Mr. Parker. The Member for Cambridge had rested his objections to Mr. Parker, and his defence of the Commissioners, on slender grounds, when he said that Mr. Parker had been convicted of having conducted the inquiry in a partial manner. [Mr. M. SUTTON had said that that was one of the grounds, not the only one.] The hon. Member had also laid great stress on the evidence of one of the witnesses—a clergyman—who was accidentally present, and who thought that Mr. Parker's conduct towards a friend of his (Mr. Westlake) who was under examination, was partial. He (Sir W. Jolliffe) must say that that witness impressed him with very little confidence by the manner in which he gave his evidence. It appeared to him also that what might appear to have been partiality in Mr. Parker's conduct, was very easily to be accounted for. He was sent down by the Commissioners to conduct an inquiry in his own district, where the accuser himself was looked on with mistrust by those who were associated with him (Mr. Parker) in the administration of the Poor Law. He fully concurred with the noble Lord (Lord Courtenay) in his opinion of the justice of the report of the Commissioner who afterwards investigated that case; but he went further than the noble Lord in condemning the conduct of the Commissioners. He thought their conduct towards Messrs. Parker and Day was not in accordance with the statute under which they derived their powers. With regard to the Bill itself, he entertained the same objection to it that had been expressed by the hon. Member for Oxford. He thought that the new Board of Commissioners would not only be a great inconvenience, but that they would also do a great deal of mischief. He hoped, too, that the House would modify that part of the Bill which related to the power of the Central Board over the inspectors. It would be impossible for those local officers to command the requisite respect if they were liable to be removed from their offices at the order of the Central Board. He had always seen grave and serious evils in the law, which he had encountered while attempting humanely to administer its provisions. Such evils must always exist in a system the principle of which was centralized.

SIR J. WALSH

, as a member of the Andover Union Committee, had dissented from the opinion of the majority. He did not believe that, at any time since the trial of Warren Hastings, any public men had been subjected to so hard and severe an ordeal as the Poor Law Commissioners during the course of that inquiry. The stringent nature of the New Poor Law Amendment Act necessarily subjected its administrators to unpopularity in proportion to the fidelity and rigidity with which they performed their duties. The Commissioners always had to contend with a powerful array of public opinion directed against the whole principle of the law. They had also to stand up against the powerful assaults of the most influential organ of public opinion in this country—an organ of opinion which, although in most eases it was supposed rather adroitly to follow and adapt itself to the prevailing opinion of the day, than to attempt to control or lead it, did, on this occasion, and on this particular question, take a different course. For it was well known that The Times newspaper had given the full force of its weight, systematically and consistently, against the principle of this law, and against the conduct of the Commissioners who were engaged in carrying it out. Of the Andover Union Committee, a large portion was composed of gentlemen of great talent, and well acquainted with the mode of conducting Committees, who were actuated by feelings of great hostility to the measure. One hon. and learned Member there was, who, as the advocate of Mr. Parker, took a most hostile course towards the Commissioners. It was impossible for any public men to be submitted to a more severe ordeal than they were. It should be remarked, also, that in consequence of their dispute with Mr. Parker, they were subjected to all the suggestions and the adverse use of all the information at the command of a person acquainted with all their acts, who was admitted to their intimate confidence, who was familiar with their whole course of conduct, and who, it must be said, was most unscrupulous in the use he was prepared to make of any information which he might thus have received in the strictest confidence. No communication, however private, no passing expression of opinion by any subordinate in the office, however confidently given, but Mr. Parker was prepared to bring it forward before the Committee, in violation of all those rules which it was of the utmost importance to the public service as well as to the security of private society should be observed. The office of assistant poor-law commissioner was never considered of so permanent a character as hon. Members appeared to think. They only held office so long as the Commissioners might require their services. If the House admitted a central authority at all, that authority must have power over its subordinates. If the assistant poor-law commissioners were never to be displaced at the discretion of their superiors, all practical control over their proceeding's would be at an end. The case of Mr. Day appeared to advantage before the Committee; but it was important that he should be removed during the insurrection in Wales, in which particular district his continuance in office as assistant poor-law commissioner would have been attended with the greatest possible disadvantage. If it were to be supposed that these were appointments for life, and that, except for special reasons, and for gross misconduct, Mr. Day ought not to have been removed from his office, then he would admit that Mr. Day had been treated with considerable hardship. But he maintained that the Commissioners would have been to blame if they had continued Mr. Day in office, after they were of opinion that he could not perform his duties any longer to the advantage of the Poor Law Commission. With respect to Mr. Parker, it was strange a resolution should be carried in the Committee, in which the opinion of the Committee was expressed that he had not conducted the investigation at Andover with impartiality, and yet that the Committee should, at the same time, feel surprised at Mr. Parker's removal from office by the Poor Law Commissioners. It was no great impeachment of Mr. Parker's character to be dismissed because he had not conducted the inquiry at Andover to the satisfaction of the Commissioners. Mr. Parker's character had been, in his opinion, much more injured by the course he had adopted after he had ceased to hold his office, than by the mere circumstance of not having been considered to have conducted that investigation with all the talent he might have done, and in not having in all respects conducted himself to the satisfaction of the Commissioners. It was not without considerable doubt and hesitation that he gave his vote for the second reading of this Bill. He had been from the first a supporter of the New Poor Law; and all the reasons which induced him to support that measure, led him to look with some distrust upon the present modification of it. He did not deny that the New Poor Law occasionally presented an appearance of considerable harshness. But it would be a great set-off to any advantages accruing from the presence of the Ministers responsible for the control of the New Poor Law, that the administration of the law would become a party question, and that the Minister of the day would be frequently assailed through it in that House. The Poor Law and the Ministry would be so mixed up that much injury to the beneficial working of the law would, he feared, frequently be the result.

MR. FLOYER

, in looking over the present Bill, could not see anything of a beneficial nature in it for those classes who were to come under its operation, or anything calculated to satisfy the anticipations that had been raised of a change in the present law. Remembering the speeches made by those who had obtained popularity upon the hustings by their opposition to the New Poor Law, he thought there were few Members of that House who had not stated it as their decided opinion that the Poor Law Amendment Act did require a very decided and material amelioration. It was humiliating, after a period of thirteen years had elapsed since the passing of the New Poor Law, after so many Committees of that House had sat, after so much money had been spent on Commissioners and assistant commissioners, that a state of things should exist in which a Bill like the present should be necessary. He thought this Bill did not fairly grapple with the subject; that it did not enter into the real fundamental principles and merits of the question. This Bill proposed to establish a Board, consisting of a President and two Secretaries, in lieu of the present Poor Law Commissioners and their Secretary. It was time that the title of the Commissioners was changed; but it was not their title that made the Poor Law Commissioners unpopular—it was the Poor Law Commissioners who made the name unpopular. If, therefore, the title of the Commissioners only was to be changed, they were doing nothing to meet the real exigency of the case. The Bill now before them also contained a provision enabling the Members of the new Board to sit in that House. He considered, in some points of view, that this was a beneficial provision, although he admitted that some strong objections might be urged against it. However, after the clear statement made by the right hon. Home Secretary of his views on this subject, he was willing to concede that upon the whole the balance might be in favour of the provision. There was another provision in this Bill, which, he thought, could hardly be called a beneficial provision; he alluded to the exemption of the new Board from keeping any Minutes of their proceedings when they might chance to differ in opinion. It was clear, from the evidence given before the Andover Committee, that the present Commissioners had kept their Minutes very loosely, imperfectly, and inefficiently; but that was no reason why such Minutes should not be kept at all. The Bill empowered the President of the new Board to sit alone; but the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and other Cabinet Ministers, were to be Members of the Board; and if they attended its sittings, perhaps the House had no right to expect that Minutes of the proceedings should be kept. He might be told, "If you have no other objection to urge against the Bill—if you think the central authority ought to be maintained—you ought to support the measure." It was true that the central authority must be maintained, at least as long as the Act of 1834 continued in operation. By that Act—or rather by the order of the Commissioners under that Act—the able-bodied poor man, except under peculiar circumstances of sickness or other emergency, was not entitled to receive any relief except in the workhouse. That provision might be necessary, just, and politic: it might be for the real benefit of the poor man; but he thought that no Member of that House would disagree with him when he said it was, under some circumstances, a measure of very peculiar pressure and severity upon the poor. That provision met the poor man when he was exposed to great and unusual difficulties; and if it were not for the power given to relax that rule under peculiar emergencies, it would, in many cases, involve the poor labourer in the deepest misery. He considered, then, that it was absolutely necessary the power of removing the severe pressure of this provision of the law should be continued; but it must be remembered that the power was merely that of mitigating and relaxing the existing law. It was contended, the other night, he believed, by the hon. Member for Cambridge, that if the central power was continued at all, it ought to be maintained in its integrity. He did not consider that argument of conclusive or unanswerable strength. The Poor Law Commissioners had the power of making laws for the regulation of workhouses. With reference to this point an allusion had been made the other night to the powers conferred upon magistrates of making laws for the regulation of prison discipline. The magistrates, it was true, had that power; but, on looking back to the several Acts sanctioned by the Legislature for the government of prisons, it would be found that rules were laid down with very considerable minuteness and at great length, with reference to that subject; and he thought no magistrates, nor even the Secretary of State for the Home Department, would venture, upon their own authority, to frame any rules for the government of prisons which were not in accordance with the provisions of the Acts of Parliament. They knew, however, that the Poor Law Commissioners had claimed an absolute authority to impose upon the board of guardians such regulations as they might be pleased to enact; and he thought the House would have done much for the benefit and comfort of the poor if a portion of its time had been occupied in framing rules for the direction and regulation of poorhouses, and for carrying out the law relating to the relief of the poor, in the same manner as they had prescribed certain regulations for the government of prisons. These were some of the points on which he thought the power of the Poor Law Commissioners might, to a certain extent, be supported; but the Commissioners had exercised other powers which he considered ought to be restricted. The manner in which the Commissioners had exercised their power for the formation of auditors' districts in the county (Dorsetshire) which he represented, had excited very strong and general dissatisfaction. There was another point to which he wished to call the attention of the House, because he thought it illustrated the effects of deputing unlimited powers to such a body as the Poor Law Commissioners. In 1839 or 1840 regulations were issued by the Commissioners, under which relief to non-resident paupers was very considerably limited. Those regulations provided that relief should not be given to paupers not residing in the unions, with some exceptions; and among these exceptions no provision was made for giving relief to paupers belonging to any union, but who might not reside in such union, in case of illness or any emergency of that nature. It was true that, in consequence of the opposition manifested to this regulation, the Poor Law Commissioners did not persevere in enforcing it; but the effect of that order, if it had been carried out, would have been to increase the number of removals to a very great extent. He considered, from the Poor Removal Bill of last Session, that it was the wish of the House to prevent, as far as possible, the necessity of removing the labouring poor, when it might be necessary for them to apply for relief; but the effect of the order of the Commission- ers to which he had referred, if it had been carried out, would have been entirely at variance with the wishes and intentions of that House. If a question of this kind were to be dealt with at all by the Government, he did think that it ought to be dealt with by them in a large, wide, and comprehensive manner. It was true that the present Government had been occupied with subjects which demanded great and immediate attention—subjects under which any Government less able and less courageous would have reeled, and sunk, and been broken up; and he hoped that if they did agree to the Amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Knaresborough, the Government would in another year bring forward a measure calculated to realize the hopes that were entertained in every part of the country.

LORD J. RUSSELL

Sir, it has been very justly said, in the course of this debate, that it is not one question, but three questions, we have under discussion, and those three have been mixed with various others which it is hardly possible to take sufficient notice of, much less to settle, on the present occasion. And yet I cannot avoid, before speaking immediately to the question of the second reading of this Bill, adverting in some degree to two very important questions, no doubt connected with it, and upon which some hon. Members have spoken at considerable length, scarcely noticing the provisions of the Bill. I mean especially the question of the Amendment of the Poor Law itself; and, secondly, the administration of that law under the Poor Law Commissioners, as brought to light by the voluminous evidence given before the Andover Committee. Now, Sir, with regard to the Poor Law Amendment itself, let Gentlemen consider a little what was the nature and description of that administration which the Poor Law Amendment Act was intended to reform, and how far it was liable not only to the objection of abuse, of corrupting the labourers of this country, and destroying property, but likewise to many of the various objections brought against the present system. We are told that here is an arbitrary power given to a Central Commission—that it is at variance with the constitution that any three men should have power to frame laws, regulations, and rules, by which relief is to be given to the paupers of this country. Why, Sir, what was that system of administration, to which it is well worth while to advert, because I am not without appre- hension that unless this House determines to persevere in the present system, at least to preserve its great outline, we may in the course of a few years again find ourselves falling into that same system of vicious legislation which we with difficulty got rid of. It unfortunately happened that the prices of provisions towards the close of the last century rose to a height far beyond any amount which they had reached for a century previous to that time; and the greatest difficulty was then felt by the labourer in his attempts to provide for his family out of his wages. What course was at that time adopted by those upon whom the administration of the law devolved? Certain justices assembled and made new laws in total disregard of the law of Elizabeth. By the laws which those justices then made, the distressed labourer, in addition to his wages, was to receive a certain sum out of the poor-rates to aid him in supporting his family, which amount was to be measured by the prices of the quartern loaf and the number of persons of whom the labourer's family consisted. This, I need scarcely remind the House, was completely at variance with the law of Elizabeth; the law of Elizabeth never contained any such provision. It provided for the maintenance of the poor, of the infirm, of the impotent, of the orphan—it provided, also, that able-bodied labourers should be set to work, that work should be found for them, that work should be made a condition of their relief; such was the principle of the law of Elizabeth, and such, also, was the text of the law as it has been recently read by the hon. and learned Member for Bath. The plan of making additions to wages out of the rates never formed any part of the law of Elizabeth. That those who were in private employment should receive out of the rates such an addition to their wages as would be sufficient to render those wages an adequate reward for their labour, was a principle which never entered into the composition of the law of Elizabeth. Such a plan is totally at variance with the letter and the spirit of the law of Elizabeth. Yet those who now complain should be made aware that this change was effected, not by an Act of Parliament, but by certain resolutions of a few magistrates. The first meeting at which resolutions of this kind were adopted was held in Berks; and other counties soon followed that example; and the manner in which they followed it out, consisted in being governed by no other rule than the discretion of the magistrates. They proceeded upon a principle perfectly arbitrary, though doubtless with a view to the benefit of the people. They thought it desirable to enable the working people to do something for the maintenance of their families beyond what their wages supplied; and this they did without allowing the ordinary rules by which wages are raised to produce their natural effects. They interfered with the beneneficial working of those rules, and their proceedings were solely regulated by their own views of the public safety. To whom were those magistrates responsible? No Lord Chancellor would think of dismissing magistrates for having pursued such a course—they acted with the best intentions. When they laboured honestly for the benefit of the poor of the country, no one would think of proposing that they be dismissed from the commission of the peace. There was nothing in their proceeding which could be considered as an unconstitutional abuse of power; and the magistrates having done this, let us for a moment consider what are those Commissioners, whose power is said to be arbitrary and unconstitutional. They can at any time be dismissed at the pleasure of the Crown, on the recommendation of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. If the Secretary of State should defend those Commissioners in their wrong doing, this House and the other House of Parliament can take the subject up. The Legislature has the power to interfere, and the Secretary of State is responsible to it. The power thus irregularly vested in the magistrates was by the Poor Law Amendment Act transferred to those of the Commissioners. It was then found that, although these legislative enactments were framed by justices at their meetings with the most benevolent intentions, yet that they led to gross abuse, as the statements supplied at great length in the evidence of the overseers given in 1833 and 1834 clearly established. It was then shown most clearly that abuses sprung up from the manner in which the vestries acted when they reduced the wages of labour to the lowest possible amount, and when they dismissed certain cases in which the farmers had refused to give employment for a day or for half a day. The whole effect was, that those who so altered the law of Elizabeth—that those who so employed the law of Elizabeth, did not raise the labourer; but on the contrary, reduced the independent labourer to the condition of a pauper. The whole country was in consequence overspread with men called labourers, but who were really deriving relief under the Poor Law, and who were for part of their subsistence dependent upon parochial relief and upon the resolutions passed at the parish vestry. They were dependent on the individual caprice of the members of the parish vestries, and dependent on men who often took a dislike or spite to a particular labourer, and who calculated according to their private feelings the measure of the relief which was given to the labourer, though that relief ought to have been given according to law only to those who were destitute. But when the Government of Lord Grey attempted to reform those abuses, it became sufficiently obvious that they could not do so without encountering—not merely while the measure was passing through Parliament; not merely for one year or for two years, but for many years—an opposition of the most formidable kind, and also a very considerable amount of obloquy. I will state, from Lord Althorp's speech in 1834, what he proposed to himself in the Bill he brought forward in the name of Lord Grey's Administration. Lord Althorp said— The House will see that the effect of this measure is to stop the allowance system, to deprive the magistracy of the power of ordering outdoor relief, to alter in certain cases the constitution of parochial vestries, to give large discretionary powers to the Commissioners, and to carry into operation further regulations which may be found essential in order to improve and bring into a good state and condition the present system of laws regulating the relief of the pauper portion of the community. Now, observe in this statement, what interests, what prejudice, what power Lord Althorp had to run counter to in the reform which he proposed. The first effect of the measure was to stop the allowance system, which went, as I have said, to degrade the labourer. Yet, on the face of it, it was a system of indulgence; still what interests, what power, what prejudices, were called into action for the purpose of opposing the alteration, on the ground that it stopped the allowance to the labourer. It was on the face of it a system of indulgence, and even though it might increase the amount of the poor rates, he felt it could not fail to be objected to, and to be represented as an injury to the poor man, and a design of the Government and the Parliament to benefit property at the expense of the labourer. It was next re- presented as a plan for depriving the magistrates of the means of affording the ordinary amount of relief, though the great body of the magistrates were most willing to part with that power. Many, perhaps not the best of the class, cherished the power which enabled them to induce the poor man not to seek relief in his own parish, and thus the idle and improvident labourer would often travel six, or eight, or ten miles, out of his own parish, in order to get an order against an overseer for relief from one of those magistrates who were called the poor man's friends, and who, by the course which they pursued in such cases, attained a certain degree of popularity in the country. All these magistrates were indignant at the alteration of the law, and did their utmost to provoke the opposition of the labourers to it. Then, as Lord Althorp observed, the new law proposed to alter in certain cases the constitution of parochial vestries, which in many instances had favoured the grossest abuses. In those vestries were placed men who ordered relief, and who afterwards made great profit by the contracts entered into—men who were most liberal and bountiful with the rates of the parish—who built a great many bridges at the expense of the county, who were always extremely generous in the parochial vestry, and who found their own incomes very much increased at the end of the year, in spite of the heavy rates which they passed. Here, then, was another source of unpopularity for the new law. Here was a great number of persons who had shared in this system of abuses, and who were afterwards greatly shocked by the inhumanity of the new law, and by its oppression towards the poor, meaning, thereby, their own deprivation of those unjust profits which they had previously obtained. Then came another object of the law, as stated by Lord Althorp, namely, to give large discretionary powers to the Commissioners. Now, it was absolutely necessary, as Lord Althorp explained, considering the different mode in which the law had been administered in different parts of the country, considering the difficulty and impossibility of carrying one uniform system into effect, to give large discretionary powers to the Commissioners. Nevertheless, such a proposition afforded the opportunity of raising an outcry against the powers granted to the Commissioners—of designating them as "unconstitutional" and "arbitrary "—of talking of the three kings and three tyrants which were set up, and of indulging in every sort of exaggeration and invective to which the grant of large discretionary powers might give rise. I think, then, I have shown from that single sentence delivered by Lord Althorp, declaring the intention of the law, what room there was for unpopularity, what probability there was, in carrying these objects into effect (and I believe, and I think the majority of the House believes, that Lord Althorp was right in carrying these objects into effect), of opposition to such a law, and of causing, in many instances, persons who clung to the abuses of the old law to unite and declaim against the tyranny and oppression of the new. It was a question, in proposing the law of 1834, to what body these discretionary powers should be entrusted; and I will speak presently as to the constitution which was finally adopted. But what I have at present to speak to is the question of the complaints which have been made of the particular administration of the law of late years. We have had certain resolutions entered into by the Andover Committee. I formerly stated, that if those who agreed in those resolutions thought it advisable to bring forward a vote of censure against the Poor Law Commissioners, founded on the report of that Committee, I should resist such a vote of censure. It, however, has not been thought advisable to bring forward any Motion of that kind. I do not, therefore, now mean, as it has not been thought advisable to adopt such a course, to enter into all those questions which were agitated before the Andover Committee, and only incidentally brought forward during the present discussion. The Andover Committee may have been right or wrong in adopting those resolutions. With respect to certain questions brought before them, I declare myself incompetent to form an opinion, on the correctness of which I could rely; and having general confidence in the character, attainments, and integrity of the Poor Law Commissioners—character and integrity not, in a general sense, questioned by that Committee—I am ready, confiding in those qualities, to suppose that the Commissioners acted with discretion in those particular instances; such as, I mean, requiring the resignation of the two assistant commissioners. I think the observations made by the hon. Member for Radnorshire extremely sound on that point. I cannot understand that the House would wish, as one hon. Gentleman in the course of this night desired, that Parliament should give the assistant commissioners a complete freehold in their offices, depriving those who were placed over them of all discretion and control with regard to their removal. With respect to the ordinary offices of the Government, I believe that it is absolutely necessary to have the power, though it might be seldom exercised, of insisting on the removal of those who act under the orders of the heads of departments. For my part, as Secretary of State, or head of a public department, if I were convinced that any clerk was incompetent, or that he did not perform his functions to the benefit of the public, I should feel it my duty to require his removal; and I cannot understand that any department can be satisfactorily carried on unless such a power is vested in its head. It has been said by the Andover Committee that there was no ground for the removal of Mr. Day and Mr. Parker; but I think that the Commissioners had far better means of ascertaining whether those gentlemen were discharging their duties for the benefit of the public than the Andover Committee, who had not experience of the conduct of those gentlemen under them for a considerable period. Now let us consider in what manner those gentlemen were appointed. Look at the case which I have put just now, of a clerk in a public department. If a gentleman at 18 or 19 years of age entered into a public department, and continued in it for several years, there is a great hardship in removing him; but when a gentleman has entered at once into the office of assistant commissioner, and when he has not abandoned any other profession for the purpose—when he must consider his employment as only temporary—I do think that the circumstance of his not having conducted his office according to the wishes of his superiors, and of his not having given satisfaction, constitutes a sufficient reason why such a gentleman should be called on to give in his resignation. But I am sorry to say that there is more in this part of the case than I should wish to have had so completely proved: it is, I am sorry to say, completely proved that there was in the Commission such a division—such a jealousy of the Poor Law Commissioners—such a wish to set up the assistant commissioners against those under whom they were serving, that it was almost impossible that there should not arise causes of difference of opinion between the Commissioners and the assistant commis- sioners; and this is, I think, that part of the question on which, if I thought that Mr. Chadwick, the Secretary, was in the right, I should say at once that it would have been the duty of the late Government, as it would be of the present Government, at once to dismiss the whole of the Poor Law Commissioners; because it is stated that it was the wish of the Commissioners to conceal abuses; and it is stated that they would not countenance any assistant commissioner who complained of abuses brought under his notice. Now, I look for some proof of so grave a charge; but I confess that when I look for that proof, I find it to be of the most meagre character imaginable. It is said that Mr. Parker made complaints with respect to Borne workhouse accounts—that in 1843 this complaint was made incidentally; and that, on repeating it, he was told that a Bill was brought into Parliament with a view of correcting the whole system, and therefore it would be better to wait until that Bill passed. The Bill was given up at the end of the Session, but was introduced again in the next Session; and because the Commissioners said that the system is bad at present, but it is better to wait for a general reform than to go against any particular case of abuse, is it to be inferred that the Commissioners set their face against the representation of abuses? So sweeping an accusation, on such an insufficient and meagre ground, never fell under my observation. But this I must say, that I do not think it was for the secretaries or for an assistant commissioner, such as Mr. Parker, entertaining that opinion, to go on acting under the Commission, neither resigning their situations nor making a complaint to the Secretary of State, to the effect that they were acting under Commissioners who did not perform their duty, inasmuch as they were anxious to screen abuses rather than to detect and investigate them. I think this was a great dereliction of duty on their part. It was their bounden duty, if they believed such to be the case against the Poor Law Commissioners, to have brought the subject before the Secretary of State, to have it investigated and decided on. It does not appear that they went before the Secretary of State and made any such complaint; and I must say, that there is no possible department, be it what it may, whatever may be its power and authority, which can be able to stand, if those who are its subordi- nates, instead of submitting entirely to their superiors, and instead of making representations when they have orders to perform to which they object, are undermining and countermining against those superiors. There is no department which under such circumstances can be expected to act efficiently and beneficially. It is that kind of house which we are told upon the highest authority shall not stand. I think, therefore, that while this charge is made—and made very loudly—there has not been any proof of it, and the Poor Law Commissioners are in my mind acquitted of this, the only grave charge against them. With respect to their understanding the law, it may have been different from that of their Secretary; that they conducted business in a way which some Gentlemen may think, and which all Secretaries of State have thought, was in conformity to the law, but which others thought was not in conformity to law; that with respect to certain individual cases, and more especially with regard to the case of the Andover Union, they exhibited a want of discretion; that several of their decisions with respect to that inquiry were not guided by sound judgment; that with respect to some other particular cases they may have failed to keep to that rule and conduct which would have been altogether the wisest—all these I consider as very minor charges, very inferior in importance, and I do not think that the Commissioners intrusted with a duty which I have shown to be so difficult, and which excites so much odium, ought to be arraigned upon accusations like those. I am told that, with regard to the working of the law, while no doubt there have been complaints in particular instances, yet that, generally speaking, the working of that law has been more satisfactory during the last two years; and that during the present year especially—and certainly I can answer for it ever since my right hon. Friend has been Secretary of State—the complaints, considering the number of unions, I believe 590, have been remarkably few, and that the guardians in general say that they are satisfied with having to receive orders of the Poor Law Commissioners; and that they would rather have some rule to guide them than be left to act entirely according to their own discretion in administering the law. The hon. Gentleman who opposed the second reading of this Bill, made various accusations both against the law and against the Commissioners; but accusations so extra- vagant, so far beyond anything he proved, so entirely resting on assertions, that I do not think it necessary to notice or to reply to those assertions. I have taken notice of that which I think a very serious charge—the wish to defeat or suppress complaints of abuses. With respect to those other matters, of conveying paupers to Manchester, and exposing them to misery and starvation—such charges rest upon so little authority, that I do not think them worthy of any serious consideration. I come now to that which is the third question under discussion, and which is properly the only question for discussion this evening, namely, whether the plan proposed in the present Bill is such as to deserve so far the sanction of this House as to allow the Bill to be read a second time. And here we must first ask the question, whether there should be any central control? Shall we have any central control at all? Shall we allow the Poor Law Commission to expire and leave the state of the law to be this, that relief to the poor shall be administered by unions and boards of guardians in those unions; but that those boards of gurdians shall each exercise its own discretion as to the mode of administering the Poor Law of Elizabeth and the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834? The result of the discussions, I think, shows that in the opinion of this House there ought to be some central control. I think it desirable, both in order to prevent oppression to the paupers, and likewise to prevent those abuses which are exceedingly favourable to the paupers, but most injurious to the labourers of this country. I consider that the boards of guardians would administer the law more strictly and harshly than if there were not an appeal to some central body, and that central body had to answer for its conduct to Parliament. Now, suppose with regard to the Andover union, or any other union, some Gentleman had discovered great abuses; this House might appoint a Committee to inquire into the abuses of that union; it might be found that the master of the workhouse in that union had misused his power, and had acted in a manner totally at variance with his trust; and the report of that Committee would be that such workhouse master ought to be dismissed, and that the poor-law guardians had acted very negligently in not dismissing him. But where could be found one person disposed to go through I do not know how many thousands of questions—to sit here day after day investigating such inquiries; and, perhaps, next year we might have five or six other unions, in which we might have to recommence similar inquiries of similar length, and end with a similar result. It is not an object which should so far attract the attention of Parliament, or which would so far induce Gentlemen to give their time to it, unless some whole system, or central system, were involved. We should not find that Committees of this House would enter into the details of the management of every union, and deliver their opinion as to the competency or in competency of each board of guardians, which board of guardians at the end of the year goes out of office, and some other persons are elected in their place, for that particular union. I think the House must be convinced that such a system, would not be any security for those who may suffer hardship under the Poor Law. As to its preventing abuses, I feel confident it would not. I feel confident that, if some boards of guardians were harsh, there would be others in which the allowance system would spring up again. We should soon hear of that system, disguised and palliated by every sort of excuse; and, there being no Poor Law Commissioners, or inspectors, or central board to refer to, these abuses would return in greater strength, and, in a few years, we should find ourselves no better off than we were in 1830, when a system of apparent indulgence and liberality ended in rural insurrection, and setting fire to the farms and houses of those who then administered the law, now called the good old system of relief. I come then to the conclusion that there ought to be some central control—a conclusion in which I have heard generally the Members of this House, though adverse to the present Poor Law, and still more adverse to the present Commissioners, concur. Well, then, what should be the kind of control? The hon. Gentleman the Member for Radnorshire, I think, said he remembered very well that Lord Althorp said he thought it was desirable to remove the Poor Law Commission from all party or political struggles, and to make them a body apart, as it were, from the usual dissensions of party. I believe that I was the person who induced Lord Althorp to take that view, because I know perfectly well, from the communications I had with him, that his original intention was to propose that the Secretary of State should form a part of the Poor Law Commission, and that he should hare a general superintendence along with the other Commissioners of the direction of the Poor Law. I stated to Lord Althorp what the hon. Gentleman has said Lord Althorp afterward stated in this House; and I succeeded in persuading Lord Althorp to abandon any plan placing the Secretary of State in the Commission. I had hoped that the removal of the Commissioners from party struggles, and the appointment of them, which, I must say, so far as I know, has always been the case, solely with reference to their fitness, and without regard to political party or attachment, or whatever their political feelings might be, would have prevented the daily administration of the law from being brought forward as an exciting topic in the debates of this House. But in that respect I must own I have been completely mistaken. The acts of the Poor Law Commission have been brought into this House; the Secretary of State has been obliged to defend those acts. If this House had not supported the Secretary of State in that defence; if they had disapproved and censured all that he had supported and approved; if they had condemned all which he thought worthy of praise, it is obvious that he would have been as much committed as if he had been himself an original member of that Board and of that Commission. The fact is, I believe, that in every instance this House, whatever Government was in power, has supported generally the resistance which the Secretary of State has made to Motions of censure, or Motions implying censure upon the Poor Law Commissioners. Therefore, we have not that total separation from the affairs of Government or from the Ministerial interests and connexions which it was supposed originally we should have. We have had certainly a freedom from party struggle, because I am happy to say, that from 1834 to 1837, with some exceptions, but those not exceptions of the chief leaders of party either in this or the other House of Parliament, the Poor Law has not been made matter of political contention. But the question then arises, whether, as it has been necessary for the Secretary of State to become aware of all that the Poor Law Commissioners have been doing, is it not better that the person who guides this machine, who directs and dictates the decisions, should himself be a Member of this or the other House of Parliament, and should be there ready to defend his own conduct, and give a complete instead of an imperfect explanation? I admit that in so doing we connect the administration of the Poor Law more directly with the Government. I admit that there are evils connected with that proposal; but let us see where we have arrived. We have arrived, if the House is agreed with me, at the point that there should be some kind of central control; and experience has shown that a control vested in persons who are disqualified from being Members of this House, does not prevent the Government of the day from being in a great degree responsible for the Poor Law Commission, but which does prevent that full inquiry and discussion in this House which it is so desirable to have. What then remains? What remains but to try that which we now propose? It is quite a subordinate question, whether we should have one Commissioner, with certain Members of the Cabinet joined to him; or whether, as the hon. Member for Dorsetshire proposes, a department connected with the Home Office should be responsible for the Poor Law Commission? With respect to the principle that I am now stating to the House, the two plans are identical. They both connect the poor-law administration with the Government of the day; they are both liable to all the objection, that by that means you invite party opposition, and by that means you get your party and Government support to that to which Members of this House might see reason to object. I confess, that being persuaded of these two points—being persuaded that you must have some central control—being persuaded that the system upon which we have gone since 1834 has had a great and serious defect in it—that that defect has been injurious both to the Government and to the Poor Law Commissioners—that the Government have Buffered for acts which they did not originate—that the Poor Law Commissioners have suffered for acts of which the whole history was not known in this House—seeing that such has been the case, I think there remains no alternative but to connect the poor-law administration with a department of the Government. I come, then, to that further question, whether we ought to connect it with an existing department of the Government, or whether we should make it a separate department of itself? I own I think that the Secretary of State, with his original powers as Secretary of State—with the various business that has been imposed upon him by Acts passed within these few years—with the attention that he must give to all the other business of a Cabinet, foreign and domestic, and to the business of this House—has already sufficient, if not more than sufficient, to absorb his time and attention, without connecting him, especially and solely, with the administration of the Poor Law. If that be the case, we must either have one person, like the Secretary of State, or we must have something in the nature of a Board. I confess I have no great preference for one plan or the other; I do not think the plan that we propose is liable to the objections that have been stated, and that were so well stated, by the hon. Member for Oxfordshire in the course of this evening. He said, "You will have this evil—the Members of the Cabinet will not be able to pay all the attention which is required in order to form a proper decision upon the points connected with the Poor Law that may come before them; and yet, being Members of the Board, they will consider themselves bound to defend those decisions when they are afterwards brought before Parliament." I do not think that the plan is open to that objection. It is, in fact, only adopting the method which, with regard to other departments of the Government, is found sufficient to secure responsibility—responsibility in one head—and yet to enable that head to get the assistance and counsel, if necessary, of other Members of the Administration. There is the Board of Trade. The President of the Board of Trade has various colleagues connected with him; he, in fact, is only President of a Committee of Privy Council for the affairs of trade; with respect to all minor points, he and the Vice-President would settle them without much reference to colleagues; if there should be a question of considerable importance, other Privy Councillors belonging to the Cabinet would take part in it; and afterwards, when the matter was brought before Parliament, they, either agreeing with the President in his opinion, or having persuaded him to yield to another opinion, are ready to defend the decision which has been arrived at. It is not very different with regard to the administration of the affairs of India, by a Board which includes the three Secretaries of State. But, as I said, I think this is a matter of detail, rather to be considered in Committee than on the second reading of the Bill; the real principle of the plan that we propose is, that there should be a head; that there should be a President, who shall be responsible for the administration of the Poor Law; that that head should have a seat in Parliament; and that he should be called upon in Parliament to defend that administration. I see all the disadvantages which I originally saw in connecting the poor-law administration with the Government; I quite admit that it exposes the Government to odium and to obloquy, to which a Government was not formerly exposed. I admit that it had a far easier task when every parish vestry decided upon every question of relief that came before it; and when a case of abuse, of harshness, or of cruelty occurred, the whole indignation of the public was turned against this particular vestry, and no part of it fell upon the Government of the day. But we have attempted to make a great social change in respect to the administration of the law. We attempted in 1834 to reform those abuses which had grown out of the deviations of the Act of Elizabeth in 1796. I think that those reforms cannot be carried completely into effect unless you have a central control, and that persons exercising that central control are responsible to Parliament. I believe in that manner you may get the machine to work far more smoothly than it did in the beginning; that you may get it to work so smoothly that the causes of complaint brought before this House may be very few, and that the answers to those complaints may take but little of the time of this House from debates. What I wish to see is that the Act of Elizabeth conferring relief should be carried into effect, in all its spirit, in the manner which is conformable to the state of society and to the institutions of the present day. The exact words of the Act of Elizabeth may hardly be applicable to a time when, if you set the poor to work upon any manufacture, they would either be competing—unfairly competing—with those who are independent labourers earning wages, or their work would be inefficient and useless work; but, that the workhouse system is in accordance with the meaning of the Act of Elizabeth, I entirely believe. That relief should be given—given largely and liberally—given in conformity with the spirit of that Act, I believe is necessary to the maintenance of the frame of society in this country; and therefore it is that I do not think the expenditure which is now incurred—an expenditure nearly amounting to the whole sum which is raised by the property and income tax in this coun- try ought in amount to be complained of, if the method of administration is that which it ought to be. I think that by adopting this Bill—admitting that it is an experiment—admitting that it is a change in the present law—admitting that no one can be certain that similar defects to those which were not foreseen in the Act of 1834 may not be found in the proposed Act of 1847—admitting all this, I think that this is an expedient course; in a path beset with difficulties I think it is a course which we can with most confidence ask the Parliament to adopt; and therefore, I am prepared to ask the House to consent to the second reading of this Bill.

MR. DISRAELI

observed: As I have very little to say on this Bill, I hope to compass my observations so that I may conclude before the midnight hour. The noble Lord has said that Lord Althorp suggested that this should be made a public appointment, and the head of the office be brought into the House of Commons, and that it was to the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) we are indebted for the suggestion not having been adopted. Though I admit that the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) is a great authority, I cannot admit that he was correct in the advice he then gave to Lord Althorp. The general business of the country must be brought under the control of the House of Commons. A certain interposition of factious sentiment, indeed, may occasionally be incident to such a process; but when we look at the nature of our Parliamentary constitution, we shall find that attempts to carry on the business of the country without the interference of Parliament—the palpable interference of Parliament—has always proved a failure. I beg, however, to observe this, that throughout the argument of the noble Lord, and of all those very numerous, and I admit important, authorities who agree with the noble Lord, this fallacious assumption pervaded the whole of their reasoning. They say, "You admit that control is necessary;" and then they and the noble Lord assume that this control must be metropolitan. The noble Lord always assumes that general control must mean a metropolitan control. There is no stage, no halting-place, in his philosophy between an obscure pariah and Somerset House. Now, I have never for a moment, or upon any occasion, expressed an opinion challenging the importance of having a control over the parochial administration of this country; and certainly after what has occurred, whatever our private opinions may have been, I think it would be unwise to assert the independence of parochial authority; but I cannot consent to the proposition of the noble Lord, and conclude, because it is demonstrated that a solitary parish cannot be left to itself, the control must be placed in the metropolis of this great kingdom. There is to be a central control, but central is a relative term—it may be answered by an authority in the centre of each county; and, as the administration of the law must be local, I cannot understand why the control should not be placed in each county. But there is to be nothing to choose between the maladministration in an obscure parish in the county, and the interference of the highest authority in the Ministry. That is the position of the noble Lord. I challenge that position, and that is the question really before the House; because, although the noble. Lord entered into a discussion of the administration of the Poor Law before 1834, circumstances have forced upon us the reconstruction of the system of central control then adopted. It is not the principle of the Poor Law which is now under discussion, and I shall not enter upon that discussion—I will take the Bill as one for the reconstruction of the central authority; its evils the noble Lord admits; he regrets the necessity, as he thinks it, of the interposition of the State in parochial affairs; he feels how injurious it may be to have the local administration of the country brought before the Imperial Legislature; but he says that it is impossible to devise any middle course, and he says that there cannot be an efficient control, except in the metropolis of this great empire. Now, I wish the House to devise a central control, but not a central control in this great metropolis; and I do not see why it should not be deposited with the chief central authority of each county. I do not see why, in reference to the poor of Shropshire or Buckinghamshire, the question should not be settled elsewhere than in London. You yourselves admit the evils of large unions, and yet the very basis of your system is an union larger than all, the central authority of which is in the capital of the British empire. You admit that all the evils have arisen from the want of local knowledge, and from the adoption of stringent rules in the absence of a knowledge of what is called "the custom of the country;" all these evils are freely dilated upon, and yet you will aggravate them by a system which places us under a metropolitan instead of a county control. Let us look for a moment at the scheme which is placed before us. The noble Lord is about to bring a Minister for the Poor into Parliament. A labourer suffers in some obscure parish in the country; he considers that he is injured; his case is brought forward by some guardian; he does not obtain relief from the board; his appeal is brought to London; his case becomes a question for the House of Commons: and who is it that will be responsible for the hardships of this single labourer? Why, Her Majesty's Ministers. The evils of bringing the parochial system under the notice of the Imperial Legislature will be immensely aggravated by your proposed system. "Well," says the noble Lord, "I have to congratulate the House on the absence of party feeling on these questions;" but I have heard the noble Lord at other times, in reference to them, make accusations and statements which bore an opposite character, though I hope they were wholly unjust; but it is possible that in a great social revolution, where men have much at stake, that there may not be such forbearance by men on all sides; and there is no shutting our eyes to the possibility of this being made the basis of a party struggle, and that, under certain circumstances, these matters may degenerate into party strife. Every objection to a metropolitan control, which you admit is inherent in the existing system, will be aggravated by the, present scheme. I do not, indeed, find fault with the scheme on the grounds which have been stated, and ably stated, by my hon. Friend the Member for Dorsetshire (Mr. Bankes); I have always believed that the power of the Crown has diminished, is diminishing, and ought to be increased; and, therefore, any increase in the patronage of the Crown is a proposition I would never oppose. I am sure that it will be better for the working classes of this country; and, therefore, I am surprised that the hon. Member for Fins-bury should have favoured the sentiment with a cheer so incredulous. I believe it to be historically true that the amount of taxation and the reduction of popular privileges have borne a proportion to the decreased power of the Crown. But I will content myself with saying, as it regards the Bill now before us, that I do not object to it because of its supposed tendency—which I do not think it will have—to increase the power of the Crown. As this is not a party question at present, I hope hon. Gentlemen, before they give their votes, will consider this matter well. I object to that system which makes the parochial constitution of this country a part of its Parliamentary constitution. I am certain that as long as you have a local administration, subject to that wise control which in every county you can establish, you will have the affairs of the poor administered in a manner more satisfactory to the multitude than by any other system. I am equally certain the moment you have a responsible Minister in this House, and have every detail brought before you, that all that time which is now devoted to the consideration of railroads, and what is called private business, will be nothing compared to the time which will be occupied on the administration of the Poor Law, when you have changed the Members of the House of Commons into a board of poor-law guardians. That is my objection to this law; a quarter of an hour has not yet elapsed, and I have stated it. There is only one other topic which I am bound to treat, and which I shall treat very lightly. It is exactly that topic which I could wish to have avoided; for it has nothing to do with the question before us. Why it has been brought into the discussion, it is not for me to inquire. Nobody, however, who has spoken during this debate has avoided the subject of the Andover Union Committee. Having been a member of that Committee, and having been personally alluded to in the course of the discussion, I wish to make one observation upon that subject. The noble Lord vindicated, not at too great length, but with the ability which distinguishes him, the Poor Law Commissioners, with reference to the result of the labours of the Andover Union Committee. Now, that Committee, as many Gentlemen know too well, lasted for a considerable time; I believe they continued their labours for nearly four months. The Committee included every section of opinion. There were supporters of the Poor Law; and there were opposers of the principles of the law, like the hon. Gentleman the Member for Knaresborough; there were also opposers of the system of administration of the law, like myself; and there were Members of the late Government, and some learned Gentlemen who did full justice to the case of their clients. But I am bound to say that, various as the Members were in opinion, and strong as they felt in different ways upon the subject before them, I believe every member of that Committee was satisfied with the perfect fairness of the conduct of the noble Chairman; and I believe also that every body will admit that even the result of that investigation was highly beneficial to the public. But the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) vindicates the Commissioners, and, treating our labours in a manner not at all disagreeable to any member of the Committee, the noble Lord says, "I cannot listen to these imputations, when I find an important officer of the Commissioners subterraneously working against his principals, and doing everything he possibly can to obtain public opinion in his favour upon the subject. When I find such an official acting in an underhand manner, with a view of creating and fostering public opinion against his principals, I am not at all surprised at the prejudices that have been excited against the Poor Law Commissioners." These were somewhat like the words of the noble Lord, and I think there is a great deal in what the noble Lord said. I think it is hard that the Commissioners should have had their principal officer acting in this underhand manner; but, at the same time, I think the noble Lord should have some consideration for plain men like myself, who, serving on that Committee, with sheets of foolscap and pens placed before us, and taking notes, and endeavouring to the best of our ability to form an accurate opinion upon the evidence that was presented to us—I think some consideration was due to us when this official, whose conduct has been designated by the noble Lord to-night as unfair and underhanded, came before us and sought to pervert that evidence and poison the very fountains of justice. But let me ask the noble Lord, is Mr. Chad-wick Secretary to the Poor Law Commissioners at this moment? The noble Lord nods assent; but I cannot believe it. Though the noble Lord is himself the mirror of chivalry, it is impossible for me to believe that this monster in human form—this man who has perverted all the evidence, and who has given a tortuous interpretation to it—I cannot believe that this fountain and origin of all this evil is absolutely the Secretary to the Poor Law Commissioners at this moment. I heard that gentleman described before the Committee of which I was a member, by the very best of evidence—by a gentleman who had been the principal Poor Law Com- missioner, and who is, even in this age of anti-aristocratic notions of hereditary succession, father to a principal Poor Law Commissioner—I heard that gentleman tell us that Mr. Chadwick was the most dangerous individual he was ever brought in contact with—that he was the most unscrupulous of men. And yet I am told, after having heard the Secretary of the Poor Law Commissioners thus denounced by one who had been the Chief Commissioner, and who is the father of one of the chief Commissioners—after having heard this man denounced by Sir Frankland Lewis as the most dangerous and unscrupulous of men, and after having heard him to-night described by the Prime Minister as the real cause of all this mischief—as the man probably but for whom we never might have had the Andover Union Committee, and probably also never have had this Bill, which the hon. and learned Member for Dorsetshire deems so unconstitutional—after all this, I yet am told that he is still the Secretary to the Poor Law Commissioners ! I ask the noble Lord of what secret of state is Mr. Chadwick the depository, that he has this mighty power? Why, Sir, if the noble Lord had said, "I know the prejudices that exist against the Secretary to the Poor Law Commissioners; I know it has been said even by a late Chief Commissioner of the Poor Law, that he was the most dangerous and unscrupulous of individuals; but such is my confidence in him, so convinced am I that he has done his duty, so highly do I appreciate the services of this man, that I will meet any danger and odium, even on the eve of a dissolution of Parliament, rather than abandon him." If the noble Lord had done this, I, for one, would have risen and said, "I admire the Minister and the man who is so honest and so brave, and who will not desert his convictions or abandon an officer under him whom he believes to have done his duty." But the noble Lord comes forward, and is ready to be a martyr for the man whom he denounces. He tells you, "I cannot defend the Poor Law Commissioners, though I believe them to be innocent. They are the scapegoat of circumstances; they are my offering to public indignation; I am obliged to make a new Minister of State with two Secretaries; I am obliged to change and revolutionize the whole of this favourite system of central administration in consequence of the underhand proceedings—of the too successful Machiavelian calumnies—of the Commissioners' own Secretary." The consequence is, that Mr. Chadwick remains the Secretary of the Poor Law Commissioners to this moment. Now, I am quite willing to admit that Mr. Chadwick is a man of ability. His productions are of great public use. His work upon the sanitary state of the country we all recognise the value of; but the most curious thing is that the only place where he appears to have been least industrious was in his own office—the secret recesses of his own cabinet. Let us remember, when we are called upon to deliberate upon this subject, the circumstances under which the Committee acted. When charges are made against the Andover Union Committee, I am bound to remind the House of the circumstances under which we deliberated, and the circumstances to which the Prime Minister referred as those under which he brought forward this measure. The hon. Member for Petersfield has put a copy of the resolution into my hand, which was passed by the Committee. I should not have referred to this circumstance if the noble Lord had not made a personal reference to myself. I will mention the terms of the resolution which I myself moved in the Committee:— Resolved—That the proceedings of the Poor Law Commissioners towards Mr. Parker and Mr. Day were irregular and arbitrary, not in accordance with the statute under which they acted, and calculated to shake public confidence in the administration of the law. That was the resolution I proposed, and it was carried by a large majority. It has been said, that the resolution was brought forward without sufficient thought, and carried under feelings of excitement. I do not think it necessary for me to defend the first proposition, "that the proceedings were irregular and arbitrary." The irregularity refers to a point of fact, and the arbitrary character of those proceedings depends upon the judgment of the country. But it is a remarkable truth that not any one Gentleman who has spoken upon the subject has contended that the proceedings were not irregular and arbitrary. Taking the case of Mr. Day particularly, they thought the proceedings arbitrary. But the noble Lord, our chairman, for whose opinion I have great deference, and for whose opinion the Committee justly had every respect, could not agree to this part of the resolution— that their conduct was not in accordance with the statute under which they were appointed to act. It is only necessary to indicate the grounds on which that part of the resolution was proposed. I found by that statute that the Commissioners were bound to keep a record of their proceedings. I found it was their duty to put on record every letter they received, and every answer they sent. They were bound, also, to enter a variety of details on their minutes in regard to the business of the board. The evidence laid daily before the Committee proved that they had not kept a record of those proceedings, that they had not transacted their business in accordance with the terms of the statute, but that a single individual, sitting in his private room, had assumed to act as the board, and had given it out that the board had been duly convoked, whereas he was merely scribbling memoranda at his own desk. Was I not then justified in proposing the second part of the resolution? What was the third part? That their conduct was such as to shake public confidence in the administration of the Poor Law. Is it necessary for me to bring any evidence upon that point? Here is my evidence—here is the present Bill of Her Majesty's Government. Is it not brought forward, as the language of the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government would lead us to infer, in consequence of the Andover Committee? Is it so? If their conduct has not been such as to shake public confidence, why change the mode of administration?—why make the confession made by the noble Lord early in the Session, and repeated to-night? The resolution which the Committee agreed to then was not an intemperate but a moderate resolution, founded upon facts, adopted upon weighing the evidence, and after summing up the result of our deliberations. No man could read the evidence or proceedings without arriving at the same opinion; as is proved by the fact that no one has, but by loose assertion, challenged the accuracy of those conclusions and the justice of that result. I ought to say one word of one gentleman. Why, I would say as to that one individual, that I believe he has no Friend in the House except myself; and no man ever had his name brought forward in so unnecessary and wanton a manner. The noble Lord has misunderstood the position in which that Gentleman was placed. Before I was Member for Shrewsbury, I had the honour of knowing Mr. Day. I knew him as a gentleman who was an excellent scholar, and who had no fault but that of being a Whig. The noble Lord seemed to speak as if an assistant commissioner was to look on his appointment as only giving him an opportunity of summer travel for the benefit of his country, and as if he was not to be surprised if his services were no longer required. The noble Lord did not seem to think an assistant poor-law commissioner should hold office de bene merito. [Lord J. RUSSELL: I said he had not a freehold in his office.] No, nor a Prime Minister has no freehold in his office; but he is not dismissed without reason assigned. All that Mr. Day ever complained of was, that he was dismissed without reason assigned, and that he was dismissed not in a public or in an official manner. Mr. Day was a country gentleman, a county magistrate, living on a moderate estate, though with a large family. He published a pamphlet before a reform of the Poor Laws was contemplated by the Government. He reformed his own parish upon the principle of the Act of Elizabeth. It became a model parish. He described it so admirably that, having no influence, having no single friend in public life, having no Parliamentary support, but publishing a pamphlet—which seems the last desperate effort a man can make, for every one who publishes a pamphlet must do so with the consciousness that no man will ever read it—he was recommended to the Government of the day, which to its own credit was then looking out for men of abilities who, to use the fashionable phrase, could "carry out" the measure. His pamphlet was read, and the country gentleman sent for. On his appointment he broke up his establishment; he became a most zealous officer; and in consequence of his abilities he was sent to that part of the United Kingdom which was stated to be incapable of reform, namely, South Wales. He reformed South Wales, and became consequently unpopular. In the course of his labours he broke his leg. He was three months confined to his house; and when he wrote stating, that notwithstanding a compound fracture, he was willing to discharge his duties as before, he received a letter recommending him, as a friend, to send in his resignation! That is the history of Mr. Day, who, I must remind the House, brought us credentials from all the boards of guardians with which he had been connected, expressing their re- gret and condolence. I shall state in one word the ground on which I shall give my vote. If I look to this Bill merely for the purpose of comparing the plan it proposes with the present system, I am not disposed to say it is not an improvement. It may or it may not be so. I give the Government credit for having fully weighed the subject, with a view to improvement. In a vicious system this may be an improvement. For that reason, I might myself be inclined to vote for the second reading. I am, also, disinclined to vote against a measure brought forward by Her Majesty's Ministers, because I am generally inclined to give my support to the present Ministers of the Crown. But is not this, in truth, a Bill intended to perpetuate that system of metropolitan control, which I believe to be so fatal—which has been characterized by such maladministration—which has created so much discontent throughout the country? It would perpetuate, by reconstructing, that system which I reprobate; and for that reason I feel it to be my duty to support the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman.

MR. BORTHWICK

then moved the adjournment of the debate.

LORD J. RUSSELL

had hoped that after three nights' debate, the House might have finished the discussion that night.

MR. FERRAND

could not imagine how the noble Lord could expect the House to follow the course he proposed after his extraordinary speech. It might be the wish of Her Majesty's Government to put a stop to the debate. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen might might cry "Oh, oh;" he heard them from the benches behind Her Majesty's Ministers; but he thought it his duty to have the question fully discussed; and he, for one, would throw every impediment in the way. The noble Lord had alleged that many of the statements he made on Monday were unfounded, and more particularly as to the labourers from the south going into the manufacturing districts. The noble Lord was, he considered, bound in honour to show that his statements were unfounded, instead of making a sweeping charge; and he asked the noble Lord now, as a Member of that House, to stand up in his place and that instant tell him what statement he had made which was unfounded? He would tell the right hon. Gentlemen opposite that his character was as dear to him as their characters were to them, and he thought he had a right to require the noble Lord to say in what way he had made any charges that were unfounded.

MR. VILLIERS

said, he would tell the hon. Member some unfounded charges he had made. One was, that the Poor Law Commissioners had made an arrangement by which it was said that they had bought men in the agricultural districts, and sold them in the manufacturing districts. That was one unfounded statement. Another was that the Poor Law Commissioners had put masters into workhouses who had murdered children. These were two of those statements, and there were many others of a similar character; and when the hon. Member talked of its being impossible to answer him, he thought he need not take the trouble to deny such statements as these.

LORD J. RUSSELL

said, the statements which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton had just alluded to were part of the statements made by the hon. Member for Knaresborough which he had considered to be unfounded statements. His belief was that the Poor Law Commissioners, knowing that there were labourers in some of the agricultural counties who received very low wages—not more than 7s. a week, for themselves and their families—and knowing that, at that time, very much larger wages were given, both to adults and to children, in the manufacturing towns, they thought it would be a benefit to the agricultural labourers that they should be informed of what were the wages in the manufacturing towns, and for that purpose they were informed, and they gave labourers the option of going there; and then the hon. Member for Knaresborough said they had been bought and sold, and treated like slaves, and turned out of the agricultural districts. When the hon. Member said he (Lord J. Russell) had attacked his character, he assured him that he had made no attack upon his character, and it was for the hon. Member to make what statements he pleased; but when he made statements so marked with passion and exaggeration as that the Poor Law Commissioners were such monsters that they took pleasure in the murdering of children, he did not think he went too far when he said that such statements were unfounded.

MR. FERRAND

, in explanation, observed, that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton had said, that he (Mr. Ferrand) had declared in his speech that masters of workhouses had murdered children. Such an expression had never come from his lips. The noble Lord had stated, that he (Mr. Ferrand) had said that it was the Poor Law Commissioners who had murdered children. [Lord J. RUSSELL: I said delighted in the murder of children.] He begged pardon. The noble Lord had charged him with saying that the Poor Law Commissioners murdered children—that was the expression which came from the noble Lord's lips. ["No, no!"] Well, "delighted in the murder of children." That expression had never come from his lips. He could tell the noble Lord what he did say. He had said that certain cotton spinners in Lancashire had been in correspondence with the Poor Law Commissioners, which he had read, and in which it was proposed that agricultural labourers in the south should be sent down to the manufacturing districts, there to be "absorbed"—that was the word used. He had repeated that statement on Monday night; and he could—and if the noble Lord desired it, he would—produce a Parliamentary document that would prove the fact.

Debate adjourned.