HL Deb 07 March 1843 vol 67 cc338-50
Lord Teynham

rose to move certain resolutions respecting the administration of the Poor-laws, notice of which he had given to their Lordships, and in which he hoped to have their concurrence. As that was the first time he had ventured to address their Lordships, he trusted he should meet with the in- dulgence usually given to a young Member. He asked it, not on his own account alone, but also on the account of the thousands and thousands of the poor of this country, whose interests were deeply involved in the matter he was about to bring under their consideration. He pleaded before them the interests of thousands and thousands of the poor, not those who could complain of the deprivation of the comfort and the quiet of domestic life, but of those whose very domestic existence had been annihilated — of thousands and thousands who, if a census of the poor were taken, would be compelled to be returned as having no domestic existence whatever; he pleaded before their Lordships not only for those, but for thousands more who were fast sinking into penury, who had not only the miserable expectation of having to endure cold and hunger in their own homes, but who had no other expectation than to suffer with their brethren the utter annihilation of domestic life; nay he did not think it improper to say, that he appeared before their Lordships on behalf of millions of the poor yet unborn, and he prayed on their behalf that they might not be born to such a miserable inheritance. He felt great encouragement in presenting the resolutions to their Lordships for their adoption, because the language in which they were couched spoke to our common nature—to the heart, the thought, and the feeling of every man; and whatever reason of state, whatever private thought or feeling, might be thought to warrant an opposition to them, he felt sure, that the feelings of every heart must be in their favour. The first resolution declared, that the separation of man and wife was an exceeding evil, and the cause of evils A large and helpless portion of the community found themselves treated contrary to those principles which they saw guided every day life. On that head, he would lay before their Lordships several facts upon the matter. In the first place, every one acknowledged that the principles which regulated the law and practice of divorce were wise and just; the result was, that the number of divorces was very few. Perhaps they ought to be more numerous, as was shown by their proceedings last night in the case of a noble Marquess In that case, the question of divorce did not turn, as it ought to have done, upon the conduct of the husband to the wife, or the wife to the husband, but simply and improperly upon the state of feeling between a son and his father. The law of England recognised only two kinds of divorces, the divorce a mensâ et thora, and the divorce a vinculo matrimonii. To the former of these the poor were subjected. On entering the workhouse, they were ipso facto divorced. There was no shame attaching to that divorce, but there was more pain attendant on it than if the divorce had been consequent upon the conduct of either party The pain which they endured was a thousand fold augmented by the fact, that there existed no cause for their being divorced. If their Lordships only looked at the number who entered the workhouse never to return—if they looked to the number who actually died in the workhouse in a state of actual divorce, they could but feel that the law was most cruel and unjust in its operation. The law said, that there should be only two kinds of divorces, but the authority of those who had the care of the poor decreed that there should be many kinds of divorces. If the one portion of our law were just and equitable the modern legislation, which gave authority to the commissioners at Somerset-house, must clearly be most cruel, unjust, and oppressive. In granting divorces, it was most wise, that their Lordships should, in every possible case, see that there was no connivance between the parties, no pretence, but clear, manifest adultery, before they would say "content" to any divorce bill. If any man came to the workhouse and said, "I am poor; I have no means of subsistence; I wish to be admitted;" then the answer to that man must be, "You cannot be admitted unless you submit to be practically divorced from your wife." The system of practical divorce went on day by day, and every day; and when a poor man was thus debarred from the society of his wife, how could it be expected that he should regard that as a paternal Government which so treated him? Again, the House well knew, that there should be no divorce granted to a man who had himself been guilty of cruelty or adultery. In such cases the courts would not interfer; but the workhouse authorities attended to no such nice distinctions; men and their wives might live together upon the best possible terms, there might be endearment, there might be purity; but instead of their being kept together by a kind law, they were torn from each other's bosoms; what was the character of that law which sepa- rated man and wife for no other crime than poverty? Cases from time to time came before the courts of law in which persons were found acting not according to nature; children suffered from cruelty or from neglect, and the courts always treated the unnatural act as a crime; but here the Legislature interfered to produce the commission of unnatural acts, they not only divorced husband and wife, but they separated parents from children. It was no uncommon thing for women to be imprisoned for neglecting their children; but here people were imprisoned, because they wished to take care of their offspring— how could those two laws stand together? A bill was, a few days ago, laid on the Table of their Lordships' House, which was objected to on the ground that it went to introduce a new crime; but the Poor-law never seemed to have been objected to on that ground, although, unquestionably, it treated as crimes, acts which, in all previous time, had been regarded as praiseworthy. There were acts which imposed as penalties three months' imprisonment, or three years', or transportation for life, and the wisdom of the judge was often shewn by the manner in which he apportioned the punishment, and the result of that wisdom was, that there often appeared a wide interval between the actual sentence and the maximum of punishment; but in the workhouse, there was nothing of that sort— no limit to the punishment inflicted on the poor. A man and his wife presented themselves at the door of the workhouse and requested relief; he was immediately taken in, and subjected to a punishment— there was no descending scale— nothing left to the wisdom and clemency of a judge. How contrary was all that to the received maxims of English law! In the ordinary courts of justice, a man or woman was brought up and sentenced according to the nature of the offence, and according to the character which they might have previously borne. If that character were good, the witnesses recommended them to mercy, the jury recommended them to mercy, and the judge listened to that recommendation, and the amount of punishment was awarded accordingly; but in the workhouse the honest man and the thief met upon terms of equality. The poor man, for no crime but poverty, was imprisoned like a ruffian, and kept in confinement all his life. In an ordinary prison, if an offender were sentenced to any given duration of con- finement, or a convict were sent to the hulks, some attention was paid to his conduct. If he complied with the rules of the house, and evinced submission to authority, a report in his favour was made, and some portion of his punishment remitted: but not so with the inmate of the workhouse. The convict sentenced to ten years' might get five off, but men who had committed no crime must go into a workhouse and expect no mercy. In a well-regulated community the state of the law ought to be such as to meet every emergency that could come within the scope of legislative enactments; but there existed no power whereby the evils of which he had been complaining could be remedied. Suppose a man, his wife, and their children presented themselves at the door of the workhouse. They said they had no food, no money, no employment, and they asked the master of the house to give them food and employment. His reply would be, "You shall have it if you will come into the house." What would they rejoin? They would naturally say, "We are lawfully married; our children have been born in wedlock; we love each other and we lore our children; will you give us employment and bread without separating us?" He answers, "No." Then they reply, "We cannot accept relief on your terms." They retire; but hard necessity soon compels them to return, and again they are repulsed. Then one dies of want. Surely the officer— the legal officer — the man acting under the law, who has refused them relief— has not that man committed a crime, and ought he not to be punished? Time would soon show that the Poor-law was not a piece of legislation which could be acted up to. He questioned very much whether it was wise that any law should so assume the form of a tempter as this Poor-law did. Was it right that any portion of the law of the land should be so framed as that it should offer a temptation for the destruction of all domestic ties, and that the bribe which it gave should be a loaf of bread? A single man might bear the brunt of bad times; he might accept the remedy offered to him, or he might reject it; but the case was different with a man and his wife. What a painful case of conscience it would be for them to consider, after they had gone into the workhouse, what amount of torture they ought to have endured before they accepted relief! Then, in the case of man and wife, a question would arise as to who ought to be the first to propose going into the workhouse. He had wooed her, he had asked her to become his wife; ought he to be the first to propose divorce to a virtuous woman? She took him, and vowed to be his wife till death did them part; and how was she to suggest a dissolution of the matrimonial union? Then, where was it to begin? The new law, however, came in as a tempter, and offered them bread if they would separate. Then, let the House for a moment examine the grounds on which parents and children were separated. The only just ground besides neglect and cruelty would be immorality and irreligion; but when there was neither immorality nor ungodliness, surely nothing could be more unjust or unnatural than the separation of parents from children. He begged of their Lordships for a moment to remember the pains which they took for the improvement of their tenants, for the cultivation of domestic virtue amongst them, and for exciting in their breasts an attachment to home. Let them recollect the pains which they took to render their cottages comfortable, the prizes they gave for successful horticulture, for flowers, and for plants. Then, with what consistency did they, acting in that manner as individuals, stand forward collectively to support the new Poor-law? There yet remained to be considered the fearful evils which a rigorous separation of the sexes produced; the wife never experienced the support or the protection of the husband, he was never gladdened by her smiles, nor comforted by her ministration. Were their Lordships, willing, then, that tears should flow, and hearts should break, and mind and body give way? It was dreadful to think that their Lordships were incurring such a responsibility. In addition to all this, the want of classification in the workhouse was a fearful evil; the weak, the aged, and the emaciated were mixed with and jostled by the robust, the strong, and the rude; and those who shrank from contact with immorality and profaneness were thrown into the very midst of it. Again, the children of the poor in the manufacturing towns were weakly things, and wanted much of a mother's care; yet those that most wanted that care were the most liable to lose it, and those who had the greatest need of sympathy enjoyed the least. There was a great difficulty experienced by poor persons in large towns in keeping their children uncontaminated by the vice around them—in preserving children who knew no crime from other children in the streets; but, however a poor man, residing in a cottage, or in a room in the city, might succeed in keeping his children from evil communications, as soon as he was driven into the precincts of the workhouse, his children were plunged at once into the mass of wickedness which it was the great object of the parent to keep them from. Their Lordships knew how largely the good of society depended upon a mixture of the sexes in families, of brothers and sisters; they had been at school, and they remembered the happy ideas which home inspired, and of a father's, and mother's, and sister's smiles; but here were children who had committed no offence shut out from the common sympathies of our nature. One word as to this separation being the cause of evil. He looked at the amount of heartfelt agony endured by parents at the bare prospect of this separation as one of its most painful incidents. He remembered going to a cottage and perceiving a poor woman weeping. What was it for? She feared that her husband, who loved his children, would go out of his mind from the agony he suffered at the idea of going into the workhouse. How many were there who, having wrought up their strength of heart and courage to the pitch of going into the workhouse, found they could not bear the separation, and returned into the world to struggle with all the distractions of poverty, rather than endure the misery of separation? If the amount of domestic affection had been diminished — thanks to this law. If vice had been disseminated — thanks to this law. This separation was an evil, and the cause of evil, and if their Lordships came to this conclusion, the next thing to be done was to abolish it. He asked for no opinion upon the general merits of the Poor-law; it was one single point only— the operation of that law as it affected domestic life,—that was the sole subject of consideration to-night, and it was on that ground only he asked for their Lordships' votes. If a law were wise, just, and benevolent, and because it was so, they supported it, and if in carrying out the enactments of that law it was overstrained in one point, it ceased to sustain that character, and it became unwise, unjust, and unkind. If therefore their Lordships thought that the Poor-law Amendment Act was on the whole wise, just, and kind to the poor, but that upon this one point it had a contrary character, although they were willing to support the law, they would not support that portion of it. The noble Lord in conclusion, moved the following resolutions:— 1st. That it is the opinion of this House, that the separation of man and wife, of parents and children, which takes place in the union workhouses, is an exceeding evil and the cause of evils. 2nd. That its abolition ought therefore to be forthwith sought. 3rd. That by a judicious administration of outdoor relief, the use of the workhouse for married paupers, except for casual poor and cases of exigency, might be and ought to be abolished.

The Duke of Wellington

It has always been the habit of your Lordships' House to listen with the utmost attention to what falls from a noble Lord who addresses your Lordships for the first time, and who has for a short period only been a Member of your Lordships' House, and I am happy to congratulate the noble Lord upon having received the utmost attention from your Lordships during the address he has delivered on this occasion, and I am convinced that your Lordships will have been satisfied of the zeal and anxiety of the noble Lord on the subject on which he has addressed you. The noble Lord has done your Lordships justice in stating that you would give the utmost attention to every question in which the interests and happiness of the people are involved; and you have given your anxious attention to such questions; you have frequently done so on former occasions, and you will do so on future occasions; and I am extremely concerned that it falls to me, in the execution of a public duty I have undertaken, to warn your Lordships against being led away by the eloquence of the noble Lord, and by the topics he has urged, to adopt the resolutions which the noble Lord has laid upon the Table. I say "laid upon the Table," for, in point of fact, in the whole of the able address of the noble Lord he has not stated one word in reference to the execution of the measure he has recommended to your Lordships to adopt. He has endeavoured, very naturally, to excite your Lordships' feelings in respect to some parts of the execution of the Poor-law; but he has not stated one word in respect to the carrying into effect of the measure he has recommended to your Lordships in the resolutions he has brought forward—we are left wholly in the dark as to the manner in which the measure is to be carried into execution; and I think that in the course of the noble Lord's speech I perceived that he was not exactly aware of all the circumstances attending the matters to which he has drawn your Lordships' attention. For instance, that which the noble Lord called a "divorce," and argued upon as in fact, a divorce, is, in truth, no separation at all, except so far as regards sexes; the parties reside under the same roof; they see each other at all hours of the day; it is only as sexes they are separated. The noble Lord appealed to your Lordships, and asked what would be your Lordships' course of conduct, supposing such a proposition were made to one of your Lordships. Why, my Lords, I apprehend that your Lordships are—I know some are—liable to have that proposition made to you; such of your Lordships as are members of the naval and military professions are liable to suffer that very privation. Take it that this separation of the sexes is very lamentable, if you please; it is very lamentable that parties should be obliged to go into the workhouse; it may be very lamentable that it is impossible to carry on that system of out-door relief which was in existence ten, twelve, or fifteen years ago; but it was very lamentable that the abuses should have existed which did exist ten or fifteen years ago, and for which, though they attracted the attention of some of the greatest men in the country, they could not devise a remedy. Mr. Pitt, Mr. Whitbread, and Mr. S. Bourne were sensible of, but could not find a remedy for the evils resulting to the poor, to the lowest class of the poor from the system of out-door relief under the old Poor-law. If the noble Lord had considered the subject, he would have seen that this was the fact. But what I wish to call your Lordships' attention to is, that the noble Lord now calls upon you to legislate by the way of a resolution on this subject. My Lords, some short time ago, in the present Session of Parliament, in answer to a question put to me on the subject, I had the honour to state to the House that a bill to amend the Poor-law was under the consideration of her Majesty's Government, and would be introduced into Parliament in a short time. That bill has not yet been introduced, because there have been so many other subjects under consideration, some of which have been introduced, and others are about to be introduced, that it has not been possible to bring it forward; but the measure will undoubtedly be brought forward in a very short space of time, probably before the Easter recess. Under these circumstances, I venture earnestly to recommend to your Lordships not to think of agreeing to these resolutions, which can be binding on nobody; they cannot be binding on the House; they may be on the noble Lord and on those who may support him; but they cannot be binding on the House itself, and your Lordships may support the measure which shall come up to you —it may pass and become the law of the land, though it may be inconsistent with these resolutions. Under these circumstances, I recommend your Lordships not to vote for these resolutions, even though the noble Lord should propose some measure to carry them into effect, and he has yet done no such thing. You will shortly have the whole measure of the Government before you, and if you propose any amendments—and I entreat you to do so if you think fit—J shall be ready to discuss whatever amendments any noble Lord may propose; but I entreat you not to stultify yourselves by passing resolutions which cannot be binding on yourselves—which can, in fact, bind nobody —but that you will wait till you have the whole measure before you, and then decide upon the course you will take. In the meantime I move that this House do now adjourn.

Earl Stanhope

said, he saw only two noble Lords opposite (the Marquess of Lansdowne and the Earl of Auckland, who, besides Lord Teynham, were the only Peers on the Opposition Benches), and he could not help asking what had become of the pretended friends of the people? It was not for him to say what would be thought of the absence of those noble Lords; but if, peradventure, there should be present on this occasion any person or persons who had not the honour of a seat in that Assembly, which he did not presume to be the fact—he spoke hypothetically—it would then go forth to the world that only two noble Lords on the other side of the House, were present on the discussion, a matter affecting the comforts and morals of a million and a half of permanent or temporary paupers. The present Poor-law was intended as a stepping-stone to having no Poor-law at all, this was confessed by a noble Earl (Earl Fitzwilliam) connected with the county of York. He would say that this was the ulterior object of the law, as described in a document which had happened now to see the light, though studiously and carefully concealed from public observation, for the non production of which shuffling excuses were made, and which, when dragged from its obscurity, did appear the most flagitious and execrable paper that had ever been exhibited before a public assembly, he would not even except the National Convention of the French Republic. It was proved by this paper, and avowed by the authors and supporters of the law, that the object was to put an end to giving relief to the poor. But, with regard to the particular subject before their Lordships, he agreed with the noble Lord as to the separation of families in workhouses, more appropriately entitled prisons. Upon this point there did appear to be a remarkable discrepancy between the statements of the supporters of the law. When the late Duke of Buckingham, with reference to a petition from Stoke Poges, inquired of the noble and learned Lord then on the Woolsack (Lord Brougham), whether it were or were not intended, as seemed to be apprehended, that such separations should take place under the new law, the noble and learned Lord (whose absence he regretted) replied, that the wildest imagination of the most distracted mind could not possibly have conceived such a project; but when the bill was brought forward, the long-suffering people of this unhappy and ill-governed country submitted, as others would not have done, to this atrocious injustice. When the bill was before the other House of Parliament, a Colleague of the noble and learned Lord, the then Secretary of State for the Home Department (Lord J. Russell), declared that this was an essential and integral part of the law, and had been always intended to be so. He considered it, with the noble Lord opposite, as a great evil, and the cause of many evils; he would say, that it was a flagrant and intolerable injustice, and that the forcible separation of man and wife was a direct violation of the holy Scriptures, and could not be justified, as his noble Friend (the Duke of Wellington) supposed, by any fanciful analogy with the military and naval services. Officers in those services were not obliged to enter them. [[The Duke of Wellington: What do you say to im- pressed seamen?] Impressment was an evil defended only by State necessity; but no person was legally liable to impressment, unless he was a seafaring man, and, being so, he was as much separated from his family on board a merchant vessel as in the royal navy. He protested still more strongly against the use which the noble Duke had made of the clarum et venerabile nomen of Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt, to his immortal honour be it spoken, proposed a mitigation of the laws relating to the poor. If that great man had done nothing else, that would be an imperishable monument of his benevolence, patriotism, and profound wisdom. What would Mr. Pitt have said, if he could have seen the puny statesmen of the present day who assemble at Pitt clubs, men not fit to wipe the dust off his shoes— what would Mr. Pitt have said if any man had dared to propose a measure of this nature? It was the boast of the friends of Mr. Pitt, that he had been able to guide the vessel in safety through one of the most perilous storms that ever threatened the welfare of the State— that he had preserved to us the dominion of the seas, not by starving the people, but by watching over their interests. In 1803, the weavers of Lancashire applied to Mr. Addington to introduce some law for the purpose of regulating their wages. The application to Mr. Addington having been unsuccessful, they then applied to Mr. Pitt. When Mr. Pitt heard that Mr. Addington had said, that the wages could not be regulated by law, Mr. Pitt exclaimed:— Gracious Heaven! have I lived to see the day when an English Chancellor of the Exchequer says that nothing can be done to protect the wages of the manufacturer? He (Earl Stanhope) hoped that the noble Lord would not be induced to withdraw his resolution. He thought that if the noble Lord had gone more at length into the consideration of the third resolution, he would have been able to establish that the system of out-door relief was not only more in conformity to the wishes of the poor, but that it would be more economical to the rate-payers. The condition of the poor in the union workhouses was more intolerable than that of the prisoners confined as criminals in our county gaols. Unless some measure of relief was introduced he thought that the peace of the country would be seriously endangered. He, in common with the noble Lord, entertained a strong, deep, and well-founded impression that in the course of time, and indeed in a short space of time, the evils to which a reference had been made, and in fact many others, would be for ever removed. That removal might be effected by means to which he would not more particularly allude. The signs of the times were written in large and legible characters —that he who ran might read. None but those who were wilfully blind could avoid seeing the handwriting on the wall.

The Duke of Wellington.

—The noble Earl has referred to a document which has been represented as having formed the basis of the Poor-law bill. Knowing, as I do, my Lords, that no such paper ever existed, I will venture, in this House, to deny the assertion altogether. I again repeat that no such document ever existed.

Earl Stanhope:

Of course, I am bound to believe what the noble Duke has said, but I never before heard that the existence of the document was denied, or even doubted.

Lord Lyltleton

was not quite satisfied with the explanation which had been given of the principle upon which man and wife were separated in the union workhouses. He said that, if a workhouse system were established, such a separation of necessity followed. It had been urged that the main and essential principle of relief was, that the residence in the workhouse should be altogether temporary. Under such circumstances, he could not see any inherent hardship in the separation of man and wife.

Lord Colchester

wished briefly to draw their Lordships' attention to the relaxation of the strict rule which had a reference to the administration of out-door relief. There was a class of persons coming within the description of ablebodied labourers, who could not earn sufficient for the maintenance of themselves and families. He hoped, that whatever law was introduced, the case of such persons would be taken into consideration, and that partial relief would be afforded, without compelling them to enter the workhouse.

House adjourned.