Lords Sitting of 27 February 1849

MINUTES.
Public Bills.—2a Consolidated Fund.
Received the Royal Assent—Inland Revenue; Habeas Corpus Suspension (Ireland).
PETITIONS PRESENTED. From Meath and Portarlington, for Inquiry into the Working of the Present System of the Poor Laws in Ireland.—From Maitland, New South Wales, that no Alteration may be made in the Constitution of that Colony—From Kilmadock, Campsie, and Glasgow, against the Marriage (Scotland) Bill; also, against Registering Births, &c., (Scotland) Bill.

THE IRISH POOR LAW.
LORD STANLEY: In conformity with the notice which I gave yesterday to the noble Marquess opposite, I rise to ask of Her Majesty's Government to explain the course which they are about to pursue with regard to the amendment of the Irish Poor Law, and to state at the same time that I
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am unable to reconcile the course which has been adopted by the Government in this and in the other House of Parliament, on a question with regard o which, of all others, there ought to be no manner of doubt or ambiguity. By way of placing myself in order, and for the convenience of such of your Lordships as may wish to take part in the discussion of this question, I beg to move that a Message be sent to the other House of Parliament, requesting them to communicate to us the first report which has been laid upon their table by the Select Committee on the Irish Poor Law. The noble Marquess, of course, may deal with that Motion as he thinks fit. I state at once that I move it for the purpose I have stated. Your Lordships will recollect that, at the commencement of the present Session, the noble Marquess moved for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the working of the Irish Poor Law; whether it required any amendment, and, if so, what the nature of that amendment ought to be. I stated at the time the objections which I entertained to this course being taken, though, in deference to the opinions of others, I abstained from pressing those objections to a division. But I stated that, as it appeared to me, the Government had put themselves into a dilemma, from which it was impossible to escape—that either they had made up their minds upon the subject, in which case there was no use in the inquiry, or else they had not made up their minds, in which case they were attempting to throw upon a Committee a responsibility which ought only to belong to Her Majesty's Government. But, certainly, I could not anticipate that which, if I am not mistaken, they have actually done. I hardly thought, indeed, that they could avoid one horn of the dilemma, but I did not think they had sufficient ingenuity to impale themselves upon both horns. Yet, unless I am misinformed, such has been the course which Her Majesty's Government have pursued. If Committees are appointed in both Houses of Parliament, I presume that the Committees in both would have the same object—to bring out facts which were necessary for legislation; and that, on those facts, before a measure founded on them is introduced, the Government should take the advice of Parliament. In pursuance of that view your Lordships appointed a Committee, and proceeded at once to take evidence and receive information on the subject. The Committee have had before

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them individuals who were personally engaged in the administration of the law. I hope the noble Marquess will forgive me if I am not quite regular in referring to what has taken place in that Committee; but the noble Marquess properly and fairly laid before the Committee certain resolutions, to which, however, he declined to pledge himself as measures on which the Government had positively concluded; but resolutions relating to a vast number of subjects connected with the Irish Poor Law, on all of which it was desirable that information should be received, and which would form a fit subject for the inquiries of the Committee. That appears, certainly, to be a reasonable and a proper course to pursue; but it is with surprise I learn that in the other House of Parliament a different course has been pursued, though it appears that in that House, as well as in your Lordships' House, a Committee has been appointed, and directed by, and to a certain extent composed of, the Members of Her Majesty's Government. We have the noble Marquess, a Member of the one Committee—we have the noble Lord the First Lord of the Treasury a Member of the other Committee. In that Committee, I understand, that resolutions similar to those which were laid on the table of your Lordships' Committee were brought forward by the noble Lord the First Lord of the Treasury—resolutions which were moved in a very different sense, and explained in a very different spirit, from those which were exhibited in your Lordships' Committee. So far from these being matters on which the Cabinet had not made up their minds, but which were matters of inquiry and investigation for the Committee, as was substantially stated by the noble Marquess in this House, it was declared by the First Lord of the Treasury that these were the resolutions which had been determined on by the Cabinet—that the Cabinet, as a body, were pledged to them—that this was the plan of the Government, and if it was not adopted by the Committee, that they would adopt it on the responsibility of Government alone, and on their responsibility would submit it to the consideration of both Houses of Parliament. A Motion was then made in the Committee by a Member not connected with Government, that before these resolutions were adopted, evidence should be taken—a course, it will be remembered, which was strictly in accordance with the recommendations of the noble Marquess in this
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House. But your Lordships will hardly credit the fact that this proposition, so proper in itself, and in such entire conformity with the course which has been recommended in this House by Her Majesty's Ministers—that this proposition was negatived by the Members of Her Majesty's Government in the Committee of the House of Commons, the noble Lord the First Lord of the Treasury taking the initiative in declaring that these were the resolutions of Government, on which he would permit no investigation to take place, and no evidence to be received; and by a division—in which the noble Lord the First Lord of the Treasury, the Under Secretary of State, and the Irish Secretary, voted in the majority—it was first negatived that upon such a proposition they should hear evidence; and then the Committee further negatived another proposition, that in the absence of evidence Her Majesty's Government should bring forward the resolutions on their own responsibility, Neither of these courses suited Her Majesty's Government. Before your Lordships' Committee they declare that they are not pledged to these resolutions—before the Commons they declare that they are. In the House of Lords their leader gives it as his advice that it would be a fit and proper course to take evidence—in the Commons their leader negatives a proposition to hear evidence; and the Motion to take evidence is negatived, with the support of the Members of Her Majesty's Government, and the resolutions, without evidence, are passed by the Committee. And not only that, but this resolution is reported to the House of Commons, and forms the first report of the Select Committee to the House; and the noble Lord has himself given notice that, I believe on Thursday next, he will move for a Committee of the whole House, to take into consideration this first resolution passed by the Committee of the House of Commons, with a view to found a legislative measure upon this resolution—a small part of the question on which, at the invitation of Her Majesty's Government, your Lordships' Committee are at this moment taking evidence and entering upon inquiry. Now, I must say it is difficult for me to reconcile this, either with the courtesy usually observed between this and the other House of Parliament, or with that feeling of delicacy which, with all respect for the noble Marquess, I must say would prevent the leader of a party in one House from contradicting the language

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used by the leader in another. This is not the time to enter upon the proposition so adopted. But there is one important point in it which it is necessary to approach with the utmost caution and circumspection—I mean the necessity of a rate in aid, an additional rate to be levied upon the solvent for the support of the insolvent parishes in Ireland. I may be personally interested in this question; but I hope your Lordships will forgive me, if I say one word with regard to it, because I have been told, with an air of triumph, that this Motion, about to be submitted to the House of Commons, is in point of fact a proposition which emanated from me.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE: No, no! not at all.
LORD STANLEY: I thank the noble Marquess for his promptness in exonerating me from this imputation. I am quite certain that it is unnecessary for me to disclaim such an imputation to any one of your Lordships; but to prevent the possibility of misconception, allow me to state how the matter really stands. What I did say, speaking for myself—and I believe speaking in the name of many landed proprietors of Ireland—what I said was this, that provided we could obtain such a division of the electoral districts as would give us the control as well as the responsibility of our own property, and free us from the responsibility of other properties—provided that you remove from those districts which are absolutely pauperised, the control in the election of guardians who prove themselves altogether inefficient—provided that these things be agreed to—and provided that any sums of money advanced as a rate in aid should be considered as a loan to be repaid by those districts in a more prosperous state of their affairs, I would be willing to pay this insurance upon my property in the shape of a rate in aid to the less prosperous districts, to the extent of a shilling in the pound. But the proposition now made is to take the superstructure which I proposed to add, without taking the foundation which I felt it necessary to lay. Not one of those conditions which I specified as indispensable—and which even then I should be unwilling to adopt—not one of those propositions which I put forward, is now referred to. I must apologise to your Lordships for mentioning these matters. The noble Marquess fairly and frankly says, that he did not misunderstand mo. I will not now discuss the question of a
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rate in aid. It is a subject to be approached with great calmness, deliberation, and forbearance; and I hope that when that proposition is raised—if ever it is so raised—I hope that it will not be raised unaccompanied with other conditions and standing by itself; for if you do, I cannot blame, I shall rather participate in the feelings of those who would give such a measure an instantaneous rejection. I think that the whole question should be at once laid before the House and the Committee—that we should know the whole extent of the subject with which we have to deal. But I earnestly hope that when it is brought forward, this measure will not be made the ground—which I am afraid there is some reason to think it may be—of mutual recrimination and angry feeling between representatives and noble Lords connected respectively with England and Ireland. I hope that those who are connected with the more prosperous districts of Ireland will not think it necessary to say, that they ought to be considered as a part of the empire at large, and that what they may be called upon to pay ought to be paid out of the British and Imperial funds. I hope that such a proposition as that will not be put forward, because, much as I wish to see England and Ireland treated as far as possible as one country, in all matters connected with legislation and taxation, it is clear that at present they are not so treated; and it would not be fair, or reasonable, or just, that the proprietors of Ireland should claim exemption from the income tax or the assessed taxes on the ground that they live in a distinct and separate country, and then that, on the ground of their community of interest, they should be entitled to impart their burdens—that they should on the one hand obtain the advantages of their separate position, and that on the other hand they should claim from their community of position that a community of burdens should be thrown upon this country. Therefore, I hope that if the other provisions of the Bill be fair and reasonable, we shall not hear of any exaggerated pretensions to escape from the burden of Irish distress; and, on the other hand, I must express my most anxious and earnest hope that the English representatives and Peers will not be led, by their impatience of taxation for Irish purposes, and by the frequent demands which are made upon them for the purposes of Irish charity, to seize upon any mode, without reference to its

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justice or practicability, by which they may escape from being called upon to contribute to Irish distress, and to throw the whole burden upon the whole area of Ireland. I beg to express no opinion with regard to the proposition itself; but I trust that Her Majesty's Government, if they have any intention of introducing such a measure, will reconsider the proposition which they are now disposed to make a separate question from the whole of the remainder of the questions—that if they do, they will not submit it to the consideration of Parliament in the most unfortunate manner for the attainment of their own objects, and in a manner which really will not give the Parliament a fair opportunity of judging of their measures for the amendment of the Irish Poor Law. But it is not too much to ask that the noble Marquess will either discharge your Lordships' Committee from their idle and useless investigation, or else that the rate in aid shall not be pressed in the other House of Parliament till your Lordships—from the evidence which your Committee has taken, but which the Commons are not permitted to hear—shall be satisfied whether this proposition, either standing by itself or weighed with other considerations, is of a nature to meet the necessity of the case. I beg to conclude with the Motion—
"That a Message be sent to the House of Commons, requesting them to communicate to this House a copy of the first report of their Select Committee on the Irish Poor Law."
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEcould perfectly understand the noble Lord's intention in making the present Motion; it was, no doubt, with the view of putting a question to him, which he could assure the noble Lord he was most desirous of answering most distinctly, though, at the same time, considering that the question was at present before a Committee, not only of their Lordships' House, but also of the other House of Parliament, the noble Lord, familiar as he was with the proceedings in both Houses, would see that he could only answer with a certain degree of reserve. With respect to what might have taken place in the Committee of their Lordships' House, he had no difficulty whatever. In that Committee, as those of their Lordships who were Members of that Committee knew, he had pursued a course which he had thought perfectly consistent with the particular position of that Committee. He considered he had fulfilled his duty in laying before the Committee the
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substance, and the substance only, of certain propositions which he had understood had been made, or were to be made, in another place. He had not laid these suggestions before the Committee in the form of resolutions; they had been communicated by him solely as the substance of suggestions made in another place, and had not been put in the form of resolutions, for a reason obviously applicable to the position of the Committee. He was desirous that the fullest opportunity should be given to their Lordships' House of examining witnesses upon the whole subject, and thought it would have been desirable that the fullest opportunity should have been also had elsewhere; but he begged their Lordships to consider what was the different position of the two Committees. He would proceed now to do what he had already stated he should feel some difficulty in doing—namely, explaining what had taken place elsewhere; because the question of the noble Lord not only called on him, after stating the course of his own (the Marquess of Lansdowne's) conduct there, to explain the conduct of one of his Colleagues in another place, but also called on him to that which it was impossible for him to do authoritatively, though he might do it hypothetically—namely, to explain the motives of Members of the other House of Parliament acting in Committee—acting sometimes in accordance, and sometimes not in in accordance, with the suggestions of one of Her Majesty's Ministers. It was notorious—he assumed it to have been so, at least—he possessed no special information on the subject which he could lay before their Lordships; but it was believed that a proposition which had been made by one of the most distinguished of the Colleagues with whom he had the honour of acting, had been assented to by a large majority of the Committee, while there was another proposition, also submitted to the Committee, to which a majority had also given assent. It was impossible, then, for him to explain the course so taken without assuming the motives—though he was not enabled to state them positively—which might have influenced both his noble Friend and the Members of the Committee. The proposition which had been laid before one of the Committees in the form of a resolution, and which had been communicated as such in substance to the other Committee, embraced a vast variety of topics connected with the whole state of the poor-law administration in Ireland, all

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of which—whether the decision upon any one in particular preceded that upon the others—formed a fit subject for inquiry. In the opinion of the Committee, one of those resolutions, which appeared to have been communicated by the Committee to the other House of Parliament, and which now stood for consideration before that House, was one of immediate necessity, and, in the opinion of the Committee, intimately connected with the immediate relief of a portion of the people of Ireland from a state of the utmost and most appalling distress and destitution; and he thought it might occur to their Lordships, as it did occur to him, as a reason for that course having been taken by the Committee, that, however anxious they might have been to obtain the fullest information upon every point connected with that important subject, there was one on which there was no room for delay—namely, that one which referred to the immediate subsistence of a portion of the people within the next few months. He had no hesitation in saying, that he wished no separation had taken place between that first resolution and those which should immediately follow; and he had also no hesitation in saying, that he thought that if anything in the nature of a proposition of a rate in aid was to be entertained by Parliament, it ought to be entertained in conjunction with another, the effect of which would be to establish a maximum poor-rate in all the counties of Ireland. He considered the establishment of a maximum rate in any way that was consistent with the preservation of the lives of the people, to be an object of paramount importance; and he believed that the absence of such a maximum rate, and the uncertainty attendant upon the amount to which the poor-rate might be collected in those unions, which had been mainly dependent for their support upon the productiveness of the potato crop, and which had been ruined by its failure, were questions of the very first importance, the consideration of which should be taken in conjunction with the first efforts which their Lordships would see fit to adopt on the subject. For he was sure that he was only stating that which was consistent with the knowledge of many of their Lordships, when he said that at the present moment in that country it was impossible to let the lands which had been abandoned, except in the most objectionable form that it could be let—namely, in small allotments—and that the
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effect of the poor-law as it now stood, and without some ratification, was to give a direct encouragement to that which all their legislation should be directed to discourage—the infinite subdivision of land in Ireland; in other words, the first source of that mischief which their Lordships were now endeavouring to remedy. For these reasons he certainly wished that the whole of the proposition—he meant those parts which related to the rate in aid, and the maximum rate, should be joined together. He had not authority to explain the motives of the individuals composing the Committee of the other House of Parliament, who had thought it their duty to separate those parts for the purposes of immediate legislation; but he could conceive that those Gentlemen, in the absence of any further plan for the purpose of affording immediate relief, seeing the necessity of providing some remedy which should touch the existing evil, might feel themselves justified in saying that they would report upon a remedy for the pressing evil; and that with respect to the maximum rate, while not objecting to it, they would take further time to consider what that maximum would be, and to what regulations it might be subjected. He offered that, not certainly on authority, as an explanation of their motives. But, with respect to the other House, and the usual course of business there, he could not bring himself to discourage any important measures which were likely to require long and serious consideration. The inquiry which had been instituted was going on upon this very subject; and so far from there being any intention to exclude it from the consideration of the Committee of their Lordships' House, which was now sitting, every opportunity would be afforded of prosecuting the inquiry, not only with respect to every other part of the subject, but this very point also. Considering, then, the position of their Lordships' Committee, they could not be called upon for some time to come to a conclusion on the subject; while, with respect to the other, they had only dealt with one portion of the subject, which was absolutely necessary to prevent starvation. Having said this much, however, he begged to add, that he agreed in much of what the noble Lord had said on the subject of rates in aid. He saw the greatest objection to such a project, if applied to the general state of society; and he had no hesitation in taking that first opportunity which offered of ex-

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pressing his opinion on this subject. He wished to state, that no consideration upon earth could have induced him to assist in carrying a measure, the effect of which should be to establish such a principle as a permanent system of relief. It was only as a temporary expedient, applied to circumstances which, perhaps, no other expedient could have met, that this measure of a rate in aid, limited in amount and limited in time, had received his support. Further than this he would not have gone; and, in agreeing to it, he trusted their Lordships would not consider that they were sanctioning a principle which, if permanently adopted, would prove most destructive to the interests not only of Ireland, but of England also—for England, also, must suffer in the end from the adoption of such a system. He had only to add, that in the discussion of the subject, both there and elsewhere, he trusted that it would be considered with that forbearance of which the noble Lord had just given so marked an example.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he had great pleasure in remarking the reluctance which his noble Friend had declared he felt in assenting to this proposition; and he hoped that further consideration would lead his noble Friend to withdraw even the scanty acquiescence which he had given. During all the discussions in Parliament on the subject, for the last twenty-five years, the impossibility had been generally admitted of maintaining a minimum rate, if the principle were once admitted. The tendency would always be to increase the minimum if the system were once adopted. As to the grant of 50,000 l., which was now before the other House of Parliament, he trusted that it would be the last that they should hear of. It was to be regretted that, by the absurd forms of the House, their Lordships could not object to this grant. In fact, they would probably not have the matter regularly before them until after the money would have been expended.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEsaid, he had not the least objection to the Motion, if the noble Lord pressed it.
Motion withdrawn.
House adjourned to Thursday next.