LORD BROUGHAMpresented a petition from the inhabitants of Bradford, in Wiltshire, stating that they attributed the increase of pauperism, which was now going on in this country, to the increased price of provisions and the distressed state of trade; and they proceeded to make a most important statement, to which he (Lord Brougham) wished to call the particular attention of the House, namely, that they having heavy rates to pay for the support of their own poor, did emphatically object to being also burdened with the support of the Irish poor, while the property of Ireland was allowed to escape the payment, not only of the poor rates, but the income tax, the assessed taxes, and other taxes. The petition concluded by imploring their Lordships to pass a law throwing upon Ireland the support of its own poor; and to take care in framing such a law that provisions were introduced to prevent abuse. He (Lord Brougham) would give no opinion upon this subject further than to say, that the longer he lived to see the 1229 present extraordinary state of things, the more he was impressed with alarm at its continued existence. He feared it would soon come to this, that if we sent 10,000,000l. to Ireland this year, we should require to send another 10,000,000l. or 20,000,000l. next year; and the consequence would be that our poor would be going over to Ireland to get a share of the money we were pouring into that country. He had been informed that 3,100 poor persons had landed at Liverpool from Ireland in a single day last week—the largest number that had yet arrived on any one day—many of whom said that they had received 2s. 6d. each to take them over here. He would tell the people of Bradford and others to take a leaf out of the Irish book, and give their poor 2s. 6d. each to take them over to Ireland.
§ The EARL of DEVONremarked, that the noble and learned Lord who had just spoken, had made one statement which he felt sure, when he came to consider it coolly, he would think he ought not to have made without some good foundation in fact, The noble and learned Lord had stated, as a fact which he appeared to wish the House to take upon his assertion, that hundreds upon hundreds of poor people had been sent from Ireland, who had received 2s. 6d. a head from the landlords of Ireland. Now, he (the Earl of Devon) begged to say that he did not believe there was one word of truth in that assertion; and the noble and learned Lord would perhaps forgive him for venturing to suggest that statements of this sort, containing imputations upon a large, and he would venture to add respectable body of men, ought not to be made without some more foundation than the noble and learned Lord appeared to have in the present instance.
LORD BROUGHAMI can only say that I firmly believe the statement; that I completely and entirely believe it; and I believe it because I have had it from most respectable persons.
§ The EARL of DEVONIs the noble and learned Lord replying, or explaining?
§ The EARL of DEVONI call the noble and learned Lord to order. He has a right to explain, but not to reply.
§ The EARL of DEVONI am speaking to order. I have a right to be heard; and 1230 I will take the sense of the House upon it.
LORD BROUGHAMWell, take the sense of the House. I have no objection. But I am speaking to order; and I have a right to interrupt a person speaking to order. [A pause.] So it turns out I am in order so far. Have I not a right—having made a Motion that the petition lie on the Table—have I not a right, I say, to reply? But even if I had not, have I not a right to make a second Motion, that the petition he referred to a Committee? How could the noble Lord pretend to know how I was to conclude my Motion? He says I have no right to speak, except to explain. How did he know but I was about to explain? He gets up, and states that he does not believe my statement, and that there is no foundation for it; does not that give me a right to reaffirm my statement? I repeat that I do believe that statement, and that I have perfectly good authority for it. The noble Lord impeaches that statement because he chooses to disbelieve it; but I restate that I believe the statement, and that I disbelieve the counter-statement. I beg to say, also, that a more offensive mode of expressing disbelief I have never heard since I was a Member of either House of Parliament. The noble Lord says he believes not a word of the truth of a statement which I am authorized by my informants to make. Now, my belief is, that every one tittle of that statement is strictly, correctly, and literally true. I have never stated that every one of the 3,100 of the persons I referred to came over with 2s. 6d. in his pocket. I expressly qualified, and limited, and restricted my statement by saying that at least several came over. I appeal to your Lordships if those were not the words I used; understating, as I always do, my case, for my belief is that a large number of persons come over at the expense of others. My information comes from persons in Liverpool, who have examined the immigrants who came over, and who have satisfied themselves from their own examinations of the truth of the statement. I shall give my noble Friend, who is a Member of the Committee that is now sitting on Criminal Law, an opportunity of examining and sifting the statement; for I am about to call, or rather I have already called, before the Committee, two or three of my informants, most respectable individuals in Liverpool, and who on oath will repeat their information to my noble Friend.
The EARL of DESARTsaid, if the statement of the noble and learned Lord (Lord Brougham) were true, the immigrants who came over from Ireland to England had been the most extraordinary and wonderful exception to the general rule. But he did not rise so much to speak of that, as to ask the noble and learned Lord to what end he made those continued imputations on the Irish, whether generally or individually? If he intended these imputations against individuals, he ought to give their names; for facts were not always so very closely or correctly stated as to lead the persons concerned in each particular case to conclude that they were the parties who had the misfortune to fall under the noble and learned Lord's censure. Why, he would ask, did the noble and learned Lord apply these perpetual stings, which could be only productive of irritation? When the noble and learned Lord rose up night after night to weary their Lordships with listening and replying to continual attacks of this kind, did he never reflect that it must be very hard upon Peers connected with Ireland, who could not boast of either the eloquence or the varied talents of the noble and learned Lord, to be obliged to force themselves on the House, and attempt to wield their feeble weapons of uninteresting expression, after the eloquence and sarcasms of the noble and learned Lord had delighted or amused the House? But even his varied powers could not invest a dispute of this kind with interest, and therefore he would call upon their Lordships to forget topics of recriminatien, and apply their energies and attention to the great measures relating to Ireland, which would shortly come before that House.
LORD BROUGHAMPerhaps I may be allowed, without being thought out of order, to answer the question put to me by the noble Earl. I am asked to what end I make these repeated attacks. I make them for one end, and one end only—to endeavour to awaken the Irish landlords and the Irish people at large to the absolute necessity of looking to themselves for the support of their own poor, and not of looking to England for the support of the Irish poor. And I have a second view behind that, upon the supposition, and, I will add, upon the assumption, that I shall fail in maintaining that object of making the Irish look to the sustentation of their own poor—that I wish to impress upon your Lordships and upon the Government 1232 the necessity of abstaining from the wild and visionary attempt to feed the Irish poor.
§ The EARL of CLAREreferred to the second allegation in the petition presented by the noble and learned Lord, that property in Ireland was allowed to escape from payment of the poor rate. In answer to that, he begged to state that he that day read in a Limerick paper a report of a meeting of the board of guardians of that city, in which the necessity of imposing a poor rate of 6s. in the pound was submitted to the board of guardians of that union. The discussion was postponed for one week, in the hope that it might not be necessary to impose so heavy a burden on the ratepayers of the electoral division. Their Lordships, then, would know what authority to give to the statement of the petition presented by his noble and learned Friend.
LORD BROUGHAMNothing could be more correct than the statement of his noble Friend, and nothing was more true than that there was such a statement in the petition. He had read it to their Lordships only as the statement of the petition; he had never given it as his own. There was a poor law in Ireland—he would not say it was a well-framed one. He had never given any opinion on the necessity of giving a new poor law to that country, or of extending the English poor law to Ireland. But his statement bore on the condition of Ireland in this extraordinary emergency.
§ The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEI desire to say only a few words on the subject to which your Lordships' attention has been called by what has passed to-night. I do not wish to be supposed to acquiesce in the statement of my noble and learned Friend, that the Government of this country have contemplated for a moment—either now or at any other time—an absurdity so monstrous, an absurdity so mischievous, as to suppose they could undertake the sustenance of the people of Ireland at the expense of the State, independently of the exertions of the people of Ireland themselves. I will say for the present Administration, that they have at no time entertained such an idea; and I will say on behalf of the Irish people and the Irish gentry, that they do not, as I believe, prefer any such petition. What the Government of this country has done, has been in an emergency—as my noble and learned Friend termed it—an emergency unparalleled. Seeing the poorer 1233 classes of this kingdom—for Ireland is a part of this kingdom—labouring under an amount of calamity from which it was impossible to extricate themselves, they have not thought it unbecoming the moral character, as well as the political situation, of the richer part of the United Kingdom, to come to the aid of the distressed portion, to carry them, as far as they could carry them, through that emergency. More than that they have not attempted—more than that they will not attempt. They have done perhaps what may be in some respects injudicious — certainly what, in some respects, has produced effects and consequences which could not be contemplated to the extent that have occurred, under the daily increase of the great calamity which has made itself known only by degrees; but they have the satisfaction of knowing that they have, at least, by that interference which my noble and learned Friend seems to deprecate—they have, at least, saved human life. Were I to be now drawn into a consideration of this subject, I could prove to my noble and learned Friend, and to this House, that had it not been for that interference, overwhelming as this calamity is, in which we have seen the angel of death spread his wings far and wide, from north to south, and from east to west, in that country, for the thousands who, I fear, have fallen victims to the stroke, there would have been hundreds of thousands. My Lords, for myself I cannot regret any part which I may have taken as one of Her Majesty's advisers, in endeavouring—not to extinguish, not to put a stop to the calamity, for that must depend upon the counsels of the Almighty—but to mitigate, as far as human means permitted, the intensity and depth of such a misfortune, as I pray to God the world may never witness again, as I know the world has rarely witnessed the like before. But in that we have constantly kept in view the necessity of rousing the exertions of the Irish people; we have made on our parts efforts, not as principals, but as auxiliaries, requiring, in every case where assistance was given, that local exertions should be made. I do not say that those exertions have in all cases and at all times corresponded with our expectations; but in a great many cases, I will say in a multitude of cases, they have. I am confident that at this moment the feeling of that part of the United Kingdom is more awakened to a sense of the duty that they owe themselves, than it has ever been at 1234 any other period. I believe that there is a rising spirit of exertion in that country; but exertions to be made by a people laid prostrate by the magnitude of the evil with which they have to contend, cannot be adequate; and I will not believe, in that mortal struggle in which they are now engaged, a British Parliament will censure Her Majesty's Ministers for having endeavoured to save them in the struggle, and uphold them through the conflict, the issue of which, as it affects the lives and fortunes of millions of people, remains yet to be seen. I need not tell my noble and learned Friend, that in making this temporary effort, we have not overlooked the necessity to which he has pointed, of providing for the future. I need not tell my noble and learned Friend, because he has himself adverted to it, that Parliament is at this moment engaged in framing a poor law, upon which he has abstained from giving an opinion; but from which, though declining to give any opinion of his own, he may at least collect the fact, that both Her Majesty's Ministers, the other House of Parliament, and the public, are prepared for the necessity of making such a law. When we come to see that Bill sent up to this House, it will be my duty to state what its provisions are; it will be my duty to invite the co-operation of your Lordships, to invite more especially the co-operation of my noble and learned Friend himself—and that support I am sure he will give—to make that poor law as perfect as possible. But in the meantime, let it be understood, that in the exercise, I will not say of generosity, but of generosity combined with justice, to that part of the United Kingdom, we are not overlooking the necessity of imposing a burden in which all will have their full share, and will be placed under the obligation of making some of the largest sacrifices that ever landed interest, or a wealthy gentry—ceasing for the moment to be rich, but having once possessed riches—has been called upon to make, to rescue the country in which they live from the misfortune with which the hand of God has visited it. I shall say no more till that Bill comes before us; but I desire once more to have it distinctly understood that all these measures do not proceed upon the principle of taking upon ourselves the principal part in the sustentation of the people of Ireland, but upon the principle of assisting them in the situation in which they have the misfortune now to be placed. I thought it 1235 due to the Government of the country—I thought it due to the liberality of vast majorities of the other House of Parliament, as evinced in recent discussions—I thought it due to that liberality, which beyond the doors of both Houses of Parliament has marked the public sentiment and general feeling upon this subject, to say this much as to the steps taken by Government, under a conviction that this was not the moment to call upon the poor to maintain themselves, when deprived of the means of maintaining themselves, but that it was the moment to administer a loyal, a generous, a just relief to those persons in their misfortune.
§ Petition read and laid upon the Table.
The MARQUESS of LONDONDERRYhaving presented a petition from a board of guardians in the county of Down, complaining of the present mode of assessment, said it was not his intention to offer a single observation upon the subject, to which their Lordships' attention had been called, after that most eloquent speech delivered by the noble Marquess. He hoped that what they had heard would at least have the effect of inducing the noble and learned Lord, in the interval before the new Poor Law Bill came up to them, to abstain making his animadversions night after night.