Lords Sitting of 28 January 1847

MINUTES.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. From Guardians of the Poor of the Hundreds of Lodden and Clavering, and from East Looe, for Alteration of the Law of Settlement.—From the Poor Relief Committee of the City of Cork, for the Encouragement of the Importation of Corn.—From Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of Cork, for Repeal of the Union with England.

POSTAGE CONVENTIONS.
The EARL of CLARENDONlaid upon the Table papers relating to the postage convention between Great Britain and Prussia, and additional articles relating to the postage convention between this country and France, and also copies of Treasury warrants relating to postage arrangements between this country and Denmark and Prussia.
LORD BROUGHAM, with reference to the subject of the papers laid on the Table, would call the attention of their Lordships to the mode in which the postage was regulated with some of those countries with which we had entered into conventions for the arrangement of postage. It was not now necessary to previously pay the postage of letters to France or Belgium, nor was it necessary to previously pay the postage of letters from those countries to this; and one result which he found to arise from that arrangement was, that he received every morning a large packet of letters from France without any previous payment, which he considered to be a great hardship in some cases. Those of their Lordships who might not have necessarily so much communication with France as he had, could not feel it equally; but he assured them that he felt it severely. Within the last four or five days he had received four or five letters which were superscribed in characters that looked like the handwriting

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of friends; but some of them were merely circulars describing goods which persons had for sale. He could not have discovered that fact until he had opened the letters, and the only revenge he could obtain was, to send them back directed to the parties who had forwarded them.
The EARL of CLARENDON: I paid 1s. 4d. this morning for a printed account of a styptic.

DISTRESS IN IRELAND.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, that it was very desirable that their Lordships should be furnished as soon as possible with a copy of the Bill for the further provision for the relief of the poor in Ireland. He had been obliged to leave the House before the conclusion of the debate on Monday night, and his noble Friend opposite (Earl Fitzwilliam), in alluding to that circumstance, said that he had gone off like gun-cotton, and left no residuum. He should be sorry to say anything unnecessarily to interfere with the simile of his noble Friend; but a simile should always convey a likeness, and in the simile of his noble Friend there was no likeness, inasmuch as his whole speech was founded on the residue which he had left behind him: for his noble Friend had chiefly dwelt on what he had said, and praised him for his suggestions respecting pastry, and for recommending economy in the use of flour. With respect to the poor law, he (Lord Brougham) was daily receiving communications from the country, and from parties friendly to the poor law, but wishing it to be amended, stating their anxiety that the matter should be calmly and deliberately discussed as soon as possible. They were on the eve of a dissolution of Parliament; and he feared the discussion would not be so calm as if it were taken at an early period of the Session. His noble Friend had stated that his (Lord Brougham's) speech had been de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis; but that would apply more correctly to the multifarious speech of his noble Friend himself. With respect to the state of the Irish poor, it was desirable that their Lordships should be furnished with the fullest information, and he was able to state that, from additional information which he had recently received, there were in Liverpool at present between 25,000 and 26,000 persons receiving relief at the soup kitchen, out of which number more than 22,000 were destitute Irish persons. He would not say much upon the subject of soup kitchens on that occasion,
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but would merely allude to the circumstance as a proof of the extent of the distress, and state a fact which he had been informed of in connexion with the management of the Liverpool soup kitchen. It appeared that certain persons of exalted station in Liverpool, had, from religious feelings on the subject of the observance of the Sabbath, chosen to prevent the opening of the soup kitchen on Sundays, and thus to deprive 25,000 persons of relief on that day, forgetting the example of the Redeemer, when the apostles were rebuked for plucking ears of wheat on their Sabbath; and that circumstance called forth the beautiful passage in the Scriptures in which the Saviour asked if a man's ox or his ass fell into a pit on the Sabbath, would he not relieve him on that day? He (Lord Brougham) dared to say that those misguided people, those zealots, who objected to the use of the soup kitchen on the Sabbath, had eaten comfortable dinners that day, and had allowed their servants to cook them. This mixing up religious fanaticism with the cause of charity and benevolence, was one of the greatest curses that could be experienced. An individual connected with agitation had been reported to have said that the money raised in this country for the relief of the destitute in Ireland, was to be used for the purpose of making converts from the Catholic religion whilst the people were suffering. That individual had denied the truth of the statement; but he (Lord Brougham) would earnestly direct the attention of their Lordships to the opinions which two individuals he should name held in reference to it. There was a clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Bickersteth, advocating a subscription of 20,000 l. to raise a fund for sending missionaries to Ireland, alleging that they should strike while the iron was hot, and that the present period of suffering in Ireland was a favourable moment for converting the Catholics to Protestantism. This was as bad a thing, nay, it was one of the most wicked things, one of the most diabolical devices for sowing dissension where only charity should prevail, that he had ever heard of. Then they had a banker of the city of London, Mr. H. Hoare, writing a letter to his friend Lord R. Grosvenor, in which he asserted that the present calamity in Ireland was a dispensation of Divine Providence for the part the Legislature had taken in reference to the Maynooth grant. Mr. Hoare had put his name to that letter, to that detestable

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letter, and had printed it. Now, Mr. Hoare would not pretend to be a more pious man than Mr. Addison, and he in one of his best papers in the Spectator chided and reproved those persons who were always finding out things to be judgments. The presumption of a man sitting in his morning gown, dealing out judgments upon fellow-mortals as weak and fallible as himself, and daring to scan the inscrutable ways of Divine Providence! Because the Parliament had agreed to certain measures in 1844 with reference to Maynooth, these persons argued that in 1845, 1846, and 1847, there came a famine in Ireland.
The EARL of CLARENDON: And in the Highlands of Scotland.
LORD BROUGHAM: Yes, and in the Highlands of Scotland also, where the people had strenuously opposed the increased grant to Maynooth. A friend of his had written a book to show that the battle of Friedland had been won by the French against Russia in consequence of their not opposing the slave trade with sufficient vigour. He (Lord Brougham) observed to his friend that the Russians, who lost the battle, had no colonies, whilst the French, who won it, had West Indian colonies, so that he did not see how his friend could attritute the loss of that battle to the slave trade; and his friend replied that he should not scrutinize the ways of Providence; but he answered that he was not inclined to scrutinize those ways, and that in fact his friend had written a book for the purpose of scrutinizing them. And were these miserable reasoners, who talked of judgments, to frighten their fellow-creatures from works of charity and mercy! He protested against mixing up sectarian prejudice and fanatical feelings in such a manner. If these persons protested against giving charity on Sundays, that was the true way of making the Sabbath unpopular and odious, instead of making it beloved, as it ought to be.
EARL FITZWILLIAMsaid, it was desirable that they should have the information with respect to the destitute poor in an official form as soon as possible. With regard to the judgment of Providence, which it was said was apparent in the distress that prevailed in Ireland, he would ask who were the criminals? Why a Parliament principally Protestant. And they, who were the real criminals, had been exempted from the evils which fell on others.
House adjourned.