The Marquis of Salisburyrose to move for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the Administration of the Poor-laws. He had always been of opinion that the population of the country, although it might at some period exceed; the immediate means of support, was generally by no means too great. The experience of last year had convinced him that the population engaged in agriculture was not too great. With respect to wages, also, it would be found on inquiry that wages at present were not only equal to those of former days, but superior. Comparing the present price of labour, with reference to the price of provisions, with the price of labour from the beginning of the seventeenth, to the beginning of the eighteenth century, it appeared that it 688 was a third higher now than formerly. Since the war the reduction of the price of corn had been considerably greater than the reduction of wages, except in cases in which the perverse system had been adopted of paying the wages out of the poors' rates. Looking at all the circumstances, distressed as the agricultural labourer was, his wages were higher now than at former periods. One great evil which the labourer at present endured was, the extravagant rate of house-rent. Another was the absence, in consequence of the improvements which had taken place in manufactures, of all sedentary employment for his family. The great object to be accomplished was, in his opinion, to procure a regular and steady and sufficient supply of labourers, and at the same time to take care, that the supply did not become greater than the demand, and the condition of the labourer reduced beyond that of comfort and competent subsistence. The course pursued in this country in effecting improvements in agriculture had, he was sorry to say, tended much to deteriorate the condition of the peasantry. In former times it was the custom to give the peasants employed in the culture of the estates of the landed proprietor or the farmer, a cottage to live in, and a garden and a piece of ground to cultivate; but every considerable proprietor of late years had directed his attention to what was called clearing his estates, so that the peasantry were driven together to occupy hamlets in herds, and their allowance and means of subsistence reduced to the lowest sum on which it was possible to eke out their existence. The great object to which he wished to direct the attention of their Lordships was, to devise some means for procuring and supporting a body of men, who would prove sound, good, laborious, and virtuous assistants in the labours of the farmer, and who would at the same time be enabled to live comfortably on the produce of their labour. At the present moment he feared, much that the process of clearing the farms had produced a state of things among the peasantry of this country somewhat similar to that which was represented elsewhere to have taken place in the neighbouring kingdom of Ireland, but represented in terms which he hoped, for the honour of humanity, would be found to be very much exaggerated. In the inquiry which he meant to propose to their Lordships, he hoped 689 that the law of settlement would be taken into full consideration, and he felt very sanguine in the expectation that some measures might be devised, by means of an alteration of that law, which would raise the labourers from their present deplorable state, and give hope to those who had now almost abandoned themselves to despair. He also thought, that the Government might be induced, by proper inquiries, to direct its attention to the colonies, and that regulations might be made with respect to the present expensive military corps employed in them, which would tend materially to forward the object he had in view. The great end, however, which he proposed, through the labours of that committee, the appointment of which he required from their Lordships, was to remedy the evils of the Poor-law system, and correct the errors which flowed from the mal-administration of that admirable and beneficent Act, the forty-third of Elizabeth; because he conceived that the greater portion of the offences perpetrated in the disturbed districts had arisen from the low rate of wages at which the peasant was compelled to work through the operation of the Poor-laws. He felt, that he had already trespassed too much on the time of the House in explaining the objects of a motion for a committee, which he understood was not to be resisted; but he could not help expressing a hope, that through the labours of that committee, in a zealous and anxious examination of the present system of administering the Poor laws, they might ultimately succeed in bettering the condition as well as raising the moral character of the peasantry; and he trusted that, in the event of its being found necessary, the pecuniary assistance of the Government would not be wanting to carry the recommendations of the committee into effect. There was only one other topic to which he would at that moment advert, and that was the state of the bastardy laws. He conceived the laws on that subject to be extremely defective. According to the present system, no person in the humbler stations of life could escape imprisonment, as the consequence of not making provision for his offspring, unless he consented to marry the mother, and thus improvident connections, and all their consequences on the parents, increasing unnecessarily the supply of labourers, were actually made a subject of legislative provision. After observing that it was 690 his intention to bring before the House all the evidence which could be collected relative to the state of the country, and the condition of the labouring classes, the noble Marquis concluded by moving for a Select Committee, to take into consideration the present state of the Administration of the Poor-laws, and to report thereon to the House.
§ Earl Greysaid, it was not his intention to make any objection or to offer any opposition to the motion of the noble Marquis, and he therefore should not, at that moment, trouble the House with any observations on the questions which that motion involved, further than to say, that there could not in his opinion be any more important subject brought before the attention of a committee of that House, than an examination of the method of administering the Poor-laws, with a view to the amelioration of the condition of the labouring classes. He hoped, therefore, that their Lordships would acquiesce in the motion of the noble Marquis without entering into any detailed examination of the subjects which it embraced. For his part, he could only say, that all the topics connected with the question would, in his opinion, be discussed with much more propriety, and much greater advantage, when they came to consider the recommendations contained in the reports of the Committee; and he thought, too, that under the present peculiar circumstances of the country, it was extremely desirable to avoid the danger of increasing the existing excitement, or of fostering expectations which it would not be in their power to realise. For that reason, among others, he trusted that at the present moment the Committee would be granted without any further discussion; but he hoped that the noble Marquis would prosecute his inquiries with a view to the result which he proposed. He wished to state then, without holding out any expectation on the subject, that if any measure should occur to the Government, which they might think necessary in the interval between the appointment of the noble Marquis's committee and the communication of the result of its inquiries to Parliament, the Government would feel itself at perfect liberty to propose such measures; but at the same time he should not feel justified in neglecting to avail himself of any evidence which the noble Marquis might have collected in the interim, but which he 691 might not have had an opportunity to lay before the House.
§ Motion agreed to, and Committee appointed.