§ Mr. ALDERMAN SIDNEYwished to put three questions to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board: 1. Whether it be the intention of Her Majesty's Government to propose any measure founded on the recommendations contained in the reports to the Poor Law Board, "on the laws of settlement and removal of the poor?" 2. Whether it be the intention of Government to introduce any Bill for the more equal distribution of the charges for the maintenance and relief of the poor? 3. Whether, in the event of no such general measure being introduced, it is their intention to propose such a measure relating to the unions of the city of London, within which the inequality more particularly presses?
§ MR. BAINESbegged to say, in reply to the first question, that the subjects of the settlement and chargeability of the poor had occupied the most serious attention of the Poor Law Board for many months, and that it was still under consideration. They were questions of great difficulty, upon which the opinions of the best-informed persons widely differed; indeed, the gentlemen who had signed the reports, though agreeing in opinion as to the defective state of the law, differed among themselves as to the remedy that ought to be applied. But, after the facts which had been brought out in those reports, the Poor Law Board felt it imperative to bring both subjects fully under the consideration of Parliament at the earliest period in their power. The present state of public business, however, precluded all hope of doing so during this Session; but he fully believed they would be able to do so in the next. With regard to the second question, he begged to state that, as the subjects of removal and settlement and chargeability were intimately and necessa- 1061 rily connected, he did not propose to bring forward, in the present Session, any measure upon the separate subject of charge-ability; and he should, therefore, be under the necessity of asking the House, in the course of this Session, to renew the Union Charges Act for another year. With regard to the third question, he did not think it would be proper for the Poor Law Board to introduce any measure confined to the city of London. The inequalities of rating which existed there were by no means peculiar to London; and whenever the subject was dealt with by Parliament, he should propose to deal with it by means of a general, and not a partial Act.