Lords Sitting of 1 August 1850

MINUTES,
A CONFERENCE. Parliamentary Voters (Ireland) Bill.
1a Administration of Justice in Court of Chancery Acts Continuance; Engines for taking Fish (Ireland).
Reported.—General Board of Health (No. 2); Small Tenements Rating.
3a Court of Chancery (Ireland); Canterbury Settlement Lands.

THE POST OFFICE—MONEY ORDER DEPARTMENT.
The EARL of ST. GERMANSwished to put some questions to the noble Marquess the Postmaster General, respecting the salaries paid to the clerks in the Money Order Office in the Post Office. It appeared that the clerks in that office were divided into several classes, according to the length of their service, whether seven, ten, or fifteen years, and that the highest of these classes received salaries of from 250 l. to 300 l. a year, the second class of from 200 l. to 240 l., the third from 80 l. to 130 l. There was a fourth called the probationary class, which received 70 l. or under, a year. The salaries paid to persons holding offices of similar trust in mercantile establishments or public companies were generally much higher. It was too much to expect that a person should be satisfied who was to receive only the highest of these salaries after being forty years in the public service. How could they expect young men to keep up a respectable appearance and maintain themselves on salaries of 70 l. a year? It was notorious that a great number of these clerks were driven by necessity to resort to the Insolvent Debtors Court for relief, and the Commissioners had often expressed their surprise at the smallness of the salaries paid. It was understood that a sum of 16,000,000 l. a year passed through the Money Order Department of the Post Office, which had now in effect become a banking establishment of great importance, and it required men of great application and intelligence duly to perform the duties entrusted to them. He would not say anything as to the risk incurred by paying such inade-

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quate salaries, but he would observe that he was satisfied no course was so impolitic as under-paying public servants. He hoped the noble Marquess would not say it was impossible to increase the salaries in this department of the Post Office, because the Office was not in itself remunerative; but if he did, he (Earl St. Germans) did not think that it would be considered as a valid objection against his suggestion. The first question he had to ask was, whether the noble Marquess was prepared to propose to the Treasury a revised scale of salaries for the officers of the Money Order Office specially, or for the Post Office generally? The other question was respecting a recent appointment of a person to be head of the department to which he had alluded. This had been made a subject of discussion elsewhere, where the noble Marquess had no opportunity of explaining the reasons which induced him to appoint the present chief clerk to the Money Order Office. It had been said in another place that the junior clerks in the Post Office were accustomed to rise to the head of each department by seniority. It was complained that, in this case, all the clerks in the Money Order Office in London bad been passed over, and a person from Edinburgh had been appointed to that situation. It was stated that several of them were the seniors of the person in question, and were very competent persons to fill the office. He thought that such a step ought not to have been taken. The only reason for it was said to be, that on a recent occasion the junior clerks had presented a memorial to the Post Office authorities representing certain grievances of which they complained. When a recent vacancy occurred, his noble Friend at the head of the Post Office was said to have called upon these clerks to retract the statements made in their memorial, and on their refusal to do so, had appointed to the vacancy a gentleman not connected with that department, though he was connected with the Post Office generally. If this were a misrepresentation, he had now given his noble Friend an opportunity of correcting it. He had also been informed that Lord Lonsdale had filled up four vacancies at the heads of various departments in the Post Office, by appointing the senior clerk in each to succeed. He would not say whether the principle of promotion by seniority was the best to act upon; hut still the practice prevailed, and he hoped
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some explanation would be given, as this appointment appeared to have given great offence to persons who had long been in the public service.
The MARQUESS of CLANHICARDEsaid, he had no objection to reply to the questions of the noble Earl—indeed he felt obliged to him for having afforded him an opportunity of replying to most erroneous statements which had been made elsewhere as to this appointment. First, as to the Money Order Office, he feared his answer would not be entirely satisfactory to the noble Earl. He agreed with him that it had been the custom in the Post Office, and other public departments, to raise the clerks by seniority; but circumstances might justify a departure from this rule. He had been called upon to provide a superior officer in a most important department of the Post Office, and in doing so he found he was obliged to look to other considerations than seniority; but he was not prepared to enter into an explanation of all the circumstances which led to the appointment to the office in question. As to the allusion that had been made elsewhere respecting the resignation of clerks in consequence of the lowness of the salaries paid, he had no doubt if any of them should resign he should have 500 applications to fill their places. He was ready to admit the salaries were low; but if these offices were considered so bad, why were such numbers desirous of entering them? He must also say, in fairness, that he did not think that the Money Order Office was exactly the department where the pay was the least, looking to the nature and character of the services to be performed. He did not mean to say that they were sufficiently paid; but he could state that the situation of the clerks had been amended during the last three months. It was only two months since he had recommended that the probationary class of clerks should have an increase of salaries, on the advice and recommendation of Mr. Rowland Hill. The business of the Money Order Office had so increased that it had been found necessary to appoint not less than 114 new clerks, cither by himself or by his predecessors in office. Since 1846 the following change had been made: at that period there were 128 clerks receiving only 70 l. a year, but at present there were only 51 in that class. So far he had, he thought, satisfactorily shown that the lower class of clerks had recently been

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put in a better situation than before.; With respect to the other question, no doubt an application had been made to him to appoint the senior clerk head of the Money Order Department, and that he had seen reason to appoint another person to that office. He was now happy in being in a situation to make a short statement, because, in another place, in consequence of this appointment, a most unfounded attack had been made on a most able and upright public servant. He conceived this to have been one of the most disgraceful proceedings that had taken place, for there was not the slightest ground for such an attack. He was sure the noble Earl would admit that the public service could not be carried on with efficiency, if gross and unfounded attacks were constantly to be made on gentlemen engaged in the service of the Government. As he had said before, that although they might admit that they should look to seniority, yet in particular cases it was necessary that other circumstances should not be overlooked. As for the case of Mr. Farmer, whose promotion had been cavilled at so much, he was the head of the Money Order Office at Edinburgh; he was senior to nearly all the clerks in London, and it therefore was almost a case of seniority. He was not prepared to state the reason for passing over any particular person, but in this case an attempt had been made to check the fair consideration of the subject by pure fabrications; and in regard to the memorial alluded to, although it was not the direct cause of any individuals being passed over, no doubt it had a certain effect. As had been stated, not less than 16,000,000 l. a year passed through the Money Order Office, all of which was in small sums. Such a department necessarily required a great number of clerks. He would here correct another gross misstatement which had been made in another place. It had been said that in 1844 Mr. Farmer had been considered disqualified to remain in this Office, or at least he was less qualified than others: there was not the least ground for such an assertion. At that time one of the chief officers in the Post Office recommended four clerks for promotion to certain places. The Earl of Lonsdale asked whether the senior clerks were not competent to these offices, and on his being told that they were, he appointed them. Immediately after this the Earl of Lonsdale appointed this gentleman to be the chief clerk at the Edin-
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burgh office. Where Mr. Farmer came from, or who his relations were, he did not know. In many instances applications were made to him with reference to the promotion of individuals in the Post Office, but he could safely affirm that Mr. Farmer owed his appointment to no private influence whatever. It had been said elsewhere that Mr. Hill had made very harsh regulations with respect to absence on account of sickness, and the necessity of providing a substitute. Now it happened that a person in the Post Office, who had been absent from duty fourteen months on account of illness, applied to him (the Marquess of Clanricarde) at the end of that time for further leave of absence. To this he consented, but at the same time he said that leave of absence could not be indefinitely prolonged, and that if at the expiration of the period the party was unable to perform his duty, his place must be supplied by somebody else. Mr. Hill then mercifully interposed, and obtained permission for him to allot his salary to another person at the expiration of the period in question, so that upon his restoration to health he might come back to the Office without affecting his standing. In consequence of that occurrence a regulation was made, that where a person's leave of absence had expired, he might, if unable to attend by reason of ill health, pay for a substitute. The regulation, in fact, was made for the benefit of the clerks, and was by no means calculated to oppress them. But then it had been said that the clerks had only three days' leave of absence. The subject, however, was looked into some time ago, and it was found that for several years past the average leave of absence granted to each clerk was twenty days. It was then settled that in future every clerk in rotation should have one calendar month's leave of absence. With respect to the Money Order Office, it had been said in another place that the auditor of the Bank of England had been called in, and that he had said he had never seen accounts in such a state. That was undoubtedly true; but where was the justice of saying so without adding that the auditor was called in for the purpose of examining the accounts, and that they had since been placed on a much better footing? They had been told that thirty or forty additional clerks would be required for three or four years to clear off the arrears, and that it would involve an additional outlay of 10,000 l. a year. No

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additional clerks, however, had been employed, and a saving of 11,000 l. a year had been effected. He was sorry that his noble Friend had alluded to the subject of a revision of salaries in the Post Office. That question had been a long time under consideration; but although he thought that the clerks in the Money Order Office might be better paid than they were, he was unable to hold out hopes of any immediate change being made.

LAW OF LANDLORD AND TENANT.
LORD MONTEAGLEsaid, he would call the attention of their Lordships to the Motion of which he had given notice; but he would endeavour to compress his observations within as small a space as possible. He had nothing to say against the constitution of the Devon Commission, or the competency of the individuals appointed under it to inquire into the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland; but at the same time, looking to the uses to which the report of that Commission had been applied, he must say that never was an inquiry productive of less good or greater evil. The point to which he wished especially to direct their Lordships' attention was, that there were peculiarities affecting the landed property of Ireland which distinguished it not only from the landed property of England, but from the landed property of every other European country. For the historical state of property in Ireland the English Parliament was at least as much responsible as the present holders of land. He would refer their Lordships to the Earl of Clare's speech, which was made in the Irish House of Lords before the Union, for the purpose of showing the difficulties which arose out of the circumstances of the country. He said—
"7,800,000 acres of land were set out under the authority of the Act of Settlement to a motley crew of English adventurers, civil and military, nearly to the total exclusion of the old inhabitants of the island, many of whom, who were innocent of the rebellion, lost their inheritance, as well for the difficulties imposed on them by the Court of Claims in the proofs required of their innocence, as from a deficiency in the fund for reprisal to English adventurers."
Even so late as the reign of William III., 1,800,000 acres were taken in the same way. What had been the consequence? As Lord Devon's Report said, the confiscations led in many instances to the possession of large tracts by individuals whose more extensive estates in England made them regardless and neglectful of their
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properties in Ireland. It had led also to the system of great middlemen, because the parties who lived in this country were more anxious to have security of tenure than anything else. By the penal code the Legislature excluded from the possible ownership of the soil, and from the profitable occupation of it, the whole bulk of the people of Ireland, who were reduced to the condition of serfs. Though those laws had been repealed, yet the effects of the penal code might be traced on every farm. The English public did not look back to these circumstances as the causes of the condition of Ireland, but attributed it to the existing race of Irish landed proprietors. It was these things which had led to the disorganised state of society in Ireland, and affected so injuriously the relations of landlord and tenant, which was the most unsound part of that disorganisation. When, however, Lord Devon and his Commission instituted their inquiry, they were enabled to say that all the elements of prosperity in Ireland were rapidly progressing. The Commissioners said in their Report—
"Our tour and an extensive intercourse with the farming classes enable us to say that in almost every part of Ireland there exist unequivocal symptoms of improvement, in spite of counteracting circumstances. Speaking of the country generally, with some too notorious exceptions, we believe that at no former period did so active a spirit of improvement prevail, nor could well-directed measures for the attainment of that object have been proposed with a better prospect of success than at the present moment."
The Irish people were extricating themselves from their difficulties in 1845, but they were visited afterwards by the most grievous calamity that ever befel a nation in modern times. The labouring classes were reduced to pauperism; and grieving, as he did, for the sufferings which they had endured, he grieved for their pauperised condition still more, because when pauperism was produced by law, the experience of England enabled him to say that there was, and could be, no escape from it, and that if, in 1833, their Lordships had not passed the poor-law, the pauperism of England would have sunk the country. Since 1845 there had been no effective legislation on the subject of landlord and tenant, though there had been several abortive attempts at it. He must say that it was most mischievous to hold out expectations of legislation, unless the framers of a measure were prepared to grapple with the difficulties which the subject presented.

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Probably it had not been dealt with on account of the want of that information which it was the object of his present Motion to supply. The result of his Motion would be to show what had been done both in England and Ireland, and would enable their Lordships to exercise sonic discrimination in their application of remedial measures to the existing state of things. The conduct of England towards Ireland had been described in a forcible manner by Mr. Greville. Speaking of the civil war in Ireland, he said—
"The surrender of Limerick terminated the civil war; the Irish people and the Catholic religion were laid in the dust—4,000 Irish subjects were outlawed rebels, and 1,100,000 acres were confiscated. The situation of Ireland at the revolution is unparalleled in the history of the world. If the wars of England had been carried on against a foreign enemy, the inhabitants would have retained their possessions, and their country been annexed to England as a province.….But the whole power and property of the country has been conferred by successive monarchs on an English colony, composed of three successive sets of adventurers; confiscation is their common title."
The present state of the law had been upon more than one occasion referred to in that House, and it would be sufficient for him to state, that under its operation some of the most valuable properties in Ireland had been destroyed. There were houses wanting tenants, and tenants wanting houses; but such was the state of the law, and such the difficulties in obtaining possession on the part of the landlords, that many of them preferred pulling down their cottages at once, to being put to the trouble and annoyance of getting rid of a bad tenant. Again, the law which compelled the landlords to pay the poor-rates without regard to whether they received rent from their tenants was a serious injustice, as it frequently happened that the tenant paying nothing to the landlord, left him still, by some Irish process, out of that nothing to extract that something wherewith the landlord was expected to pay the rates which ought to have been paid by the tenant. What he wished to obtain by the appointment of this Commission was a short report, not founded upon evidence, but upon such consideration as a few lawyers of eminence might give upon a careful consideration of the existing state of the law. He did not wish a single amendment to be suggested in the report, or any remarks to be made as to what the state of the law ought to be. He wished the report to be simply as a foundation for
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future legislation upon the subject, and to contain nothing more than a clear statement of the law of landlord and tenant as it at present stood. The noble Lord concluded by moving—
"That a humble Address be presented to Her Majesty for a Commission to inquire and to report upon the state of the law of Landlord and Tenant in Great Britain and in Ireland; showing the differences which exist in the laws as affecting the two parts of the United Kingdom."
The LORD CHANCELLORconsidered that it would be perfectly impracticable to obtain in useful form any report upon the subject referred to in the Motion of the noble Lord. It would no doubt be perfectly easy to give an abstract of the various statutes which existed on the subject; but even with such an abstract their Lordships would be exceedingly at a loss to understand what were the rights of either landlord or tenant under those Acts. They could only find out the meaning of those statutes by reference to whole shelves of law books, for their meaning would be best found in the recorded decisions of that House, and in the various courts of law. If their Lordships were to take up a book of the statutes, and suppose that they could understand from it what the law of the land was on the subject of landlord and tenant, it would be the greatest mistake imaginable. The law of landlord and tenant was perhaps the most complicated of all laws; and to arrive at any complete knowledge of the subject, it would be necessary for their Lordships to understand the whole of the bearings of the law of ejectment, the law of replevin, the law of waste, or what a tenant might do without forfeiting his term—which was in itself a most complicated branch of the question—the law of forfeiture as connected with waste and other circumstances, and a variety of other heads, a knowledge of which could only be obtained by a study of the decisions of the courts of law upon them. It might no doubt be possible to obtain a report upon the state of the law with respect to any one particular head; but to attempt any report upon the whole question would only be attended with the most unsatisfactory result; but when to that was to be added, as was proposed in this Motion, a contrast and comparison of the state of the law of landlord and tenant in both countries, it would be perfectly impracticable.
LORD MONTEAGLEthought that the noble and learned Lord had misapprehend-

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ed the object of his Motion, as he intended the report of the Commission to be confined exclusively to the actual state of the law, without reference to the decisions of the courts of law upon the subject.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEobjected to the Commission, for he thought any report upon the state of the law of landlord and tenant would be useless unless it were accompanied with the decisions of the courts upon the law itself; but, independently of that objection, he thought also that if the Motion were granted there would be great danger of misapprehension on the subject in Ireland, and that the more circumstance of a new Commission being issued to inquire into the law of landlord and tenant in Ireland, would inevitably he attended with the mischievous effect of creating an opinion there, amongst people whom the arguments of his noble Friend would never reach, that Parliament was about to review the old law on this subject, with a view to amend or alter the system that now existed. He was not prepared to say that some amelioration in the law might not take place; but, whenever it did take place, it must be based on the principle of property itself, which principle he held to be common both to England and Ireland; and whatever peculiar circumstances existed in those countries, or in different parts of them, it would be most dangerous to depart from that principle.
The EARL of GLENGALLfully concurred in the opinion just expressed by the noble Marquess, that it would he unadvisable to allow it to go forth that any change was contemplated in the law of landlord and tenant by the Motion of the noble Lord. At the present moment there existed in Ireland a considerable amount of ill-feeling on the subject of the relation of landlord and tenant. The feeling was not a new one; it had existed for many ages, and had its origin, he believed, in the unjust mode by which the landlords of Ireland had become originally possessed of their property. A great portion of the land of that country had been confiscated and handed over to persons representing English interests, and the tenants of Ireland could not bring themselves to believe that those parties had become honestly possessed of the property. At the present moment a similar process was going on in Ireland. A number of speculators from Threadneedle-street, had gone over to Ireland, and purchased property there at less
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than one-half, or one-third, of its value; and it would not be believed there that this was anything but another confiscation of the land; and those who thus possessed themselves of the property of the country need not be surprised if the treatment they receive was in accordance with that opinion. He regretted also to see that although facilities wore given to the public press to report the proceedings of that House, still whenever any Irish question came on, no matter how important—with the single exception of the Dolly Brae's debate—the debates scarcely ever met the public eye, or at best but a few words were given, and then most serious comments appeared the next morning in the public journals, on what was so imperfectly given, or not given at all. So it was when the correspondents of the newspapers went over to Ireland; did they go to the fertile counties in Munster, or to Wicklow, Wexford, Queen's County, Kildare, or Carlow; or did they go to Antrim, Down, or Fermanagh? No. They went to none of those places, where there was as good farming as in any other country. Why did they not go there? Because there was nothing to abuse—it would not sell—it would not pay. They went to four counties in the west, where, from the extreme badness of the land which is farmed, it never would have been cultivated, but that the high prices of corn during the French war had made it profitable. One half the places they went to were only stony mountains or black turf bogs; and were they to expect to see in such places comfortable houses? Did the persons who went from this country to Ireland to make purchases of land go to the western part of it? A person who went to Ireland for that purpose the other day went to the county of Wicklow, where he purchased a beautiful property covered with wood. That was the first adventurer who had gone to Ireland to purchase land. There was another class of persons who went to Ireland, besides the correspondents of newspapers; they were a set of bilious philanthropists, who amused themselves all day in reading blue books and making extracts from them. The bilious gentleman went over with his blue book and his portmanteau, and travelled instantly off to the far west. He went to those four particular counties, where he was sure to find matter for a pithy, spicy pamphlet. He got his information from the person who drove the car, or from an individual between a gamekeeper and a

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swell-mobsman, who lounged about inn-doors, and lay in wait for Saxon travellers. He gave him information, and referred him to Mister This and Mister That; and besides that, the correspondent had letters of introduction, and each man made him a greater fool than the one he had left. He (the Earl of Glengall) considered that much mischief had been caused by the operation of Pigot's Act, hut admitted that the present Attorney General had done something towards remedying the evils of that and some other objectionable enaactments. Every man in Ireland, who knew what the Attorney General had done during that Session for Ireland, ought to feel the deepest obligation to that officer for the great attention he had paid to Irish legislation, the ability with which he had conducted it, and the sound principles he entertained; and he only hoped that he would long remain Attorney General, and continue to devote his attention to the subject. In conclusion he would say that no country had ever made such strides as Ireland between 1835 and 1845 with respect to agriculture and the improvement of the habitations of the people.
Motion withdrawn.
House adjourned till To-morrow.