Lords Sitting of 11 March 1847

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Bankruptcy and Insolvency No. 2; Consolidated Fund; Loan; Markets and Fairs Clauses; Gas Works Clauses; Water Works Clauses; Commissioners Clauses.
3a and passed:—Custody of Offenders; Prisons.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. From Kingston-upon-Hull, for Assimilating the Poor Law of Ireland to that of England.—From Monaghan, against the Practice of giving Out-door Relief.—From Twywardreath and other places, for the Repeal of the Poor Removal Act.—From Stow-on-the-Wold, for Alteration of the Law of Settlement.

BANKRUPTCY AND INSOLVENCY BILL.
LORD BROUGHAMstated, that he had sent a copy of his Bankruptcy and Insolvency Bill to every commissioner in the country, with a view to eliciting their opinions on the subject. Those learned persons had suggested several alterations, which he had embodied in a new Bill. He therefore begged leave to withdraw the original Bill, and to substitute the amended one for it. The noble and learned Lord laid the Bill upon the Table, and it was read a first time.

POOR LAWS (IRELAND).
LORD BROUGHAMpresented a petition from the corporation of Kingston-upon-Hull, complaining that the ratepayers of that town, in addition to maintaining their own poor, were obliged to expend considerable sums in supporting Irish paupers. The petitioners alleged that the Irish landlords did not do their part towards the maintenance of the poor, and prayed that Parliament would compel them to do so by passing a permanent and effective Poor Law for Ireland. Lord Coke said that corporations had no conscience, and perhaps some of their Lordships might think the conduct of the present petitioners confirmed the justice of the remark; for, not content with praying for a Poor Law for Ireland, they prayed that its administration might not be intrusted exclusively to Irishmen, lest it should not be impartially carried into effect. It certainly appeared that the petitioners' apprehensions on this score were in some respect justifiable; for he had received a communication from a Baronet residing in the sister kingdom complaining of the unfair mode of rating adopted under the existing law, whereby the owner of 270 acres was made to pay as much as the owner of 1,000 acres. There were, he said, 4,677 acres in the district, of which 2,800 were not represented by any contribution to any fund for the relief of the poorer inhabitants; 3,500 had paid for that purpose, 1,039 were in Chancery, with no facility for contributing anything; and 1,500 were in the hands of absentees, who had only contributed to a very trifling ex-
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tent individually, and were not at all contributors to the dispensary or relief funds in the district. The noble Lord then moved for returns of the number of persons transported within the last ten years.

EXPORTS.
The EARL of ELLENBOROUGHsaid, that in moving recently for some returns relative to trade and navigation, he observed, that whilst our exports of cotton, linen, and woollen manufactures had fallen off during the last year, the exports of silk manufactures appeared to be stationary, if not to have increased in amount. He had since received information which induced him now to move for another return, to which he anticipated no objection. He was given to understand that a large quantity of bandanas was annually imported into this country, of which only about one-third was retained for home consumption; and the remainder, after being stained and stamped—a small process of manufacture—were exported. The bandanas thus exported, instead of appearing in the accounts under the head of colonial merchandise, were entered as British manufactures. The amount of bandanas thus exported was very large. The total value of the silk manufactures exported in 1844, 1845, and 1846, was 2,340,000 l.; but in that sum was included the value of the bandanas exported after being stained, which amounted to no less than 1,461,000 l. Deducting the latter sum from the former, it would appear that the total value of British silk manufactures exported in the three years 1844, 1845, and 1846, was only 879,000 l. It was worthy of observation that the principle on which bandanas were classed with British manufactures was not universally applied; for thrown silk, which underwent some trifling process of manufacture in this country, appeared in the official accounts under the head of colonial manufactures. It was desirable that the same principle should be applied in all analogous cases. In order that a correct statement of facts, as regarded the exportation of silk, might be brought before the House, he begged to move for an account of the value of manufactured silk exported in the years 1844, 1845, and 1846, distinguishing the value of bandanas.
The EARL of CLARENDONbelieved that the statement of the noble Earl was correct as to a large quantity of bandanas being imported into this country to be subjected to some process of manufacture

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which they could not receive in India, and afterwards exported as British manufactures. He believed that this was done in accordance with a legal decision. No objection existed to the production of the returns moved for by the noble Earl.
Returns ordered.

PUBLIC WORKS (IRELAND).
The DUKE of BUCKINGHAMwished to know whether the information which he had moved for on a previous evening, relative to public works in Ireland, would shortly be produced?
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEsaid, that he had been in communication with Colonel Jones, who informed him that the most material facts referred to in the noble Duke's Motion were already printed in the blue book. The state of the works was varying daily, and therefore it was obviously impossible to make any satisfactory return upon that point, for a return for one week would give no idea of the state of things for the week preceding, or the one following. The clerks in the department were already overworked, and it was desirable not to impose upon them the obligation of making returns of information which was already before the House in another shape. The noble Marquess subsequently added, that he had made further inquiries respecting Captain Wynne's statement, and had to state to their Lordships, first, that the returns which had been moved for of the names of the men employed upon the public works in the county of Clare who had been struck off the lists by that officer, could not be furnished, for this very sufficient reason—that the relief committees did not take the names of all the men so employed, and consequently could not possibly furnish the names of those struck off; secondly, that Captain Wynne, although not now employed in that part of Ireland, was employed in another part, namely, in the county of Galway, where he had the entire confidence of Government. He felt bound also to state, in justice to Captain Wynne, that two officers, one belonging to the Navy and the other to the Army, had been employed as inspectors in the commissariat department in the county of Clare, and had fully corroborated the statement of Captain Wynne.
LORD BROUGHAMsuspected it would be less difficult to furnish the names of those who had not been employed on the public works than of those who had.

JUVENILE OFFENDERS.
LORD BROUGHAMthen moved for a copy of the committal, and the examination upon which the committal was made, of four boys named Jones, Cook, Rogers and Langdon, who had been committed for trial by a magistrate in Middlesex for a felony. The felony consisted in having in a frolic taken a cap from the head of one of their comrades, a boy 10 years of age, and thrown it into a field; and the worthy magistrate, before whom the case was brought, thought he could not do better, in order to show how active he was in the discharge of his duty, than commit them for felony. They had been two or three weeks in prison when the case came on for trial, and the grand jury threw out the bill with indignation. He (Lord Brougham) would like to know the name of the magistrate; he was certainly unfit for his office if he was in the habit of exercising his discretion in such an injudicious manner as this.—Return ordered.

CUSTODY OF PRISONERS AND OF OFFENDERS BILLS.
EARL GREYmoved the Third Reading of these Bills.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he had great doubts whether transportation could be safely dispensed with in Ireland. He had been informed that transportation was regarded with salutary dread by the people of Ireland, particularly if it was speedily executed; that when the prisoner was removed from the dock on conviction and immediately consigned to transportation, it influenced the people of Ireland a great deal more than any other kind of secondary punishment.
EARL GREYremarked, that even if the Government were wrong in abolishing transportation permanently, it would be absolutely necessary to make a temporary provision for the reception of such convicts in the meantime, because, as he had already shown, it was impossible to accommodate them in Van Diemen's Land. The passing of the Bill now before their Lordships would give the Government power which they did not at present possess to send them to Bermuda and Gibraltar.
Bills read a third time and passed.
House adjourned.