Lords Sitting of 30 June 1857

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Married Women's Reversionary Interest; Sites for Workhouses.
2a Oxford University; Turnpike Trusts Arrangements; Insurance on Lives (Abatement of Income Tax) Continuance; Hanley Borough Incorporation.
3a County Cess (Ireland); Court of Exchequer (Ireland).

ALLEGED REVIVAL OF THE SLAVE TRADE—QUESTION.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he rose to ask a question of his noble Friend, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs relative to a subject which had excited much alarm among those who, like himself, were friends of the African race, and who hoped they had seen the end of that great scourge, the slave trade. It was understood that a body of West India planters had approached the noble Viscount at the head of the Government, and had urged him to facilitate the importation into our colonies of free negroes from the coast of Africa. It was also understood that measures of the same sort were contemplated by the colonial interests of France and Spain, and it was even stated that the Emperor Napoleon had given permission to a house
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at Marseilles to fit out an expedition for importing 20,000 free negroes, as they were called, into the French colonies. One vessel, it was alleged, had already sailed to Quidah, on the coast of Africa, well known as a slave-trading port—the very port, indeed, from which the King of Dahomey formerly carried on that infernal traffic. No wonder, then, that alarm had been excited at the prospect of such an expedition to the port of Quidah, with the professed object of inducing negroes to take ship and be conveyed over to the French colonies. It was well known that one of the most remarkable acts of the life of the first Napoleon, the only act of his in favour of human rights, was his decree for putting down the French slave trade—our ancient allies, the Bourbons, having altogether omitted to take such a course. He felt assured that the present Emperor of the French would not, by pursuing an opposite course, tarnish the glory of a policy which reflected so much honour upon his predecessor. It was also said that a similar movement was taking place in Spain, that the importation of free negroes into Cuba was to be encouraged by the Spanish Government. Now, there was, no doubt, a great difference between any measure having for its object the importation of free negroes into Cuba upon the one hand, and a measure, the object of which was their importation into the French or the English colonies, upon the other. In the latter case, of the French colonies, slavery had been abolished, so that free negroes could not be enslaved after their importation. But the free negroes who were imported into Cuba, might in reality be compelled to undergo a state of endless bondage; and he hoped his noble Friend the Secretary for Foreign Affairs would be able to give him some assurance that the new Governor of the Havannah was treading in the footsteps of those among its predecessors who had shown a disposition to put down the slave trade, and was not following the example of those by whom a contrary course had been pursued. That a disposition existed in Brazil to put an end to the traffic in slaves he entertained no doubt, and the course which the Government of that country had taken in reference to the subject was such as, in his opinion, redounded greatly to its credit. When persons emigrated from this country to the colonies care was taken that they should he provided with sufficient accommodation on board the vessels in

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which they were conveyed. Medical attendance was afforded them, and a vigilant superintendence was exercised at the various custom-houses in their regard, security being taken that they should be landed at the port to which they intended to emigrate. In the case of those free negroes, however, who were to be shipped on the coast of Africa no such precautions could be taken, and the consequence would be that the greatest abuses must arise. Such a state of things should not, he contended, be allowed on any account. Security should be taken that those negroes should be landed at the port for which they were bound, and that whenever they became dissatisfied with their new position they should be enabled to return to their own country. As this, however, was manifestly impossible, the whole scheme should be discountenanced. Since the abolition of the slave trade, what he might term the innocent commerce of Africa had increased to a considerable extent. In the year 1855 upwards of £1,500,000 worth of goods had been exported from this country to those ports in Africa which were not in our own possession or under the dominion of France, while goods to the value of £250,000 had been exported to Sierra Leone and other English settlements on the African coast. Now, nothing could have a greater tendency to cheek that growing commerce than the encouragement of the traffic in slaves, and he hoped, therefore, to receive from the Government some assurance both as to the intentions of the Spanish and Portuguese Governments, and as to the project which had been brought under the notice of his noble Friend at the head of the Government.
THE EARL OF CLARENDON, who was very indistinctly heard, was understood to say that he entirely concurred in the opinion which had been expressed by his noble and learned Friend, and was sorry he was unable to give a detailed answer to the various inquiries which had been made; because, although his noble and learned Friend had given him notice of his intention to put a question with regard to the slave trade, he had not given any intimation as to the precise nature of that question. A deputation had certainly waited upon his noble Friend at the head of the Government to propose some measure having for its object the importation of free negroes from Africa to the colonies, but he was not aware of the precise nature of the proposal, or of the answer returned
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by his noble Friend. He was quite certain, however, from all the antecedents of his noble Friend—from the fact that all his energies had been directed to the suppression of that detestable traffic—that no encouragement, either directly or indirectly, would be given by him to anything that could in the remotest manner lead to a renewal of that traffic. Portugal had set its face entirely against any attempt, whether by mercantile associations or otherwise, to import free labour from the African coast. As to the rumour that a licence had been given to a French commercial company at Marseilles, and that a ship had sailed from that port for Quidah, Her Majesty's Government had received no official information on the subject, and he thought it would have been impossible for such an expedition to have sailed without the attention of the Government having been officially drawn to it. His noble and learned Friend had not at all understated the progress of commercial enterprise in Africa, and it was to be hoped that industry had taken such a spring in that country as would lead to the most happy and beneficial results.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY BILL.

  SECOND READING.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONpresented a petition from the visitors of the Foundation of John Michel, Esq., in the Queen's College, Oxford, praying to be heard by counsel against the Bill. The noble Earl made some observations which were inaudible.
  THE EARL OF HARROWBYpresented several petitions in favour of the Bill, from the Provost and Fellows of Queen's College, and certain Fellows on the Michel Foundation. The noble Earl said, that one of the objects of the Bill was, to consolidate the fellowships on the Michel Foundation with the old Foundation of Queen's College, and the only parties who objected to the new state of things were these trustees. Every one was now agreed that nothing was so inconvenient as that in one college there should be two sets of Fellows established on a different footing. The question raised by his noble Friend was whether, irrespective of the merits of the Fellows, the state of things should continue. Parliament had given power to the Commissioners to deal with that question, and it was in the hands of the Commissioners, and they had thought it right to deprive the persons whom they had dealt

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  with of the undue advantages which they possessed. It was, however, provided by the Oxford University Act, that when the Commissioners should give notice to the parties concerned of their intention to make any alteration in the statutes, and when the ordinances were passed, an opportunity was given to the parties interested, by an interval of forty days, to ascertain whether they were approved by them, and their case, if any, was heard by the Commissioners. There was no reason given why fellowships in one foundation should be on a different footing; and he trusted their Lordships would agree to the second clause of the Bill, which provided for the consolidation of Michel's Foundation in Queen's College with the old foundation of the college. The first clause of the Bill asked for a prolongation of the powers of the Commission. In the last Session of Parliament he had asked for and obtained a prolongation for one year of the powers of the Commission; but it was found that the slow progress which had been made rendered it requisite to ask for a further prolongation this year. By means of such a prolongation all the duties of the Commission would be discharged. Already out of twenty colleges of which Oxford consisted statutes had been framed for fourteen, and of the remaining six there was a difficulty with only one, which he trusted would soon disappear, and that within the present year the whole business of the Commission would be settled. But as a certain time must elapse before an ordinance of the Commission could become law, namely, forty days after it was promulgated, it was not desirable that the Commission should expire before parties interested should have opportunities of objecting to any ordinance that might be passed. The Bill, therefore, asked for the prolongation of the Commission till July 1, 1858.
  Then the Order of the Day for the Second Reading of the Bill read.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.
  THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, his noble Friend had fallen into an error in supposing that he was obliged to make an application to Parliament last year to prolong the Commission, for in the original Bill a provision was inserted to the effect that the Commission should last for a certain period, and power was given to the Crown to extend that period a year longer if it should be deemed necessary. Therefore, in point of fact, this was the first
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  application to the House for a further prolongation, the Crown having availed itself of the power granted by the original Act. He did not rise to offer any opposition to the present Bill; but he hoped that this would be the only prolongation which would be asked for, as nothing could be more inconvenient than an indefinite prolongation of the powers exercised by the Commissioners. He wished to take this opportunity of calling the attention of his noble Friend to the provisions of one of the ordinances which had been laid upon the table by the University Commissioners. That ordinance had reference to Oriel College, and the complaint which he had to make with regard to it was, that it was at variance with the original intentions of the founder, and excluded all consideration of the pecuniary circumstances of applicants for fellowships. One of the provisions of the Oxford University Act was that the Commissioners should frame the ordinances of the several colleges according to the obvious design of the founder, but allowed them a certain latitude in abolishing or amending the existing statutes to suit the requirements of the present day. He did not deny that the Commissioners had a right by law to do away with all those preferences as to place of birth and founder's kin, and some of the capricious distinctions which had existed in favour of particular parties. He confessed he thought that Parliament had gone a step further than was necessary in that respect, because, provided the original intentions of the founders were not in themselves unreasonable, nor contra bonos mores, nor impracticable at the present time, he did not see that there was any reason for departing from them. Parliament had undoubtedly authorized the Commission to depart from the intentions of the founders, but he apprehended that that was only in cases where the preferences were founded on grounds which could not fairly be substantiated in the present day. That to which he desired to call their Lordships' attention was a provision of the founder of Oriel College, to which those objections were not quite applicable to a particular period, being one which was good for all time, and was at the very foundation of the objects of university education. According to the ancient statutes of Oriel College, three circumstances were required by the founder to be kept in view in the selection of candidates—first, the moral character of the applicant; secondly,

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  the pecuniary circumstances; and thirdly, the aptitude of the party for study and his desire for instruction. The original statute ran thus:—
  "Hoc etiam in eâdem domo specialiter observari volumus, ut circa eos qui ad hujusmodi eleemosynæ participium admittendi fuerint diligenti solicitudine caveatur ne qui prætor honestos, castos, pacificos, humiles, hidigentes, ad studium habiles, proficere volentes, et ritè electos recipiantur."
  Of course the Commissioners did not intend to set aside the primary consideration of moral character. So far, however, as these ordinances of Oriel College went, the sole condition seemed to be the test of scholarship as afforded by the University examination. That ordinance not only ignored the pecuniary circumstances of an applicant, but expressly stated that they should not be taken into consideration. There could be no words more strong than those he had quoted to indicate that it was the intention of the founder that those who were to have the benefit of the foundation should be persons of small pecuniary means. He knew that there was a difficulty as to the construction of the word indigentes, which occurred in the statutes of Oriel; but he did not think that difficulty could be urged by the Commissioners, as they had themselves undertaken to explain it. In this very ordinance they had, in his opinion, rightly interpreted the word as intending to denote deserving persons being in need of support at the University. The founder had undoubtedly intended to give eleemosynary assistance to promising youths desirous of education but unable by their own means to bear the expenses of the University. In his judgment that was not only a proper and judicious, but a laudable and beneficial provision. From the foundation of those statutes down to the present time nothing had tended so much to encourage liberal education amongst the middle and humbler classes of society as this eleemosynary system of education, which by the present ordinance it was proposed to do away with. Hundreds and hundreds of persons now living gratefully acknowledge the benefits they derived from that system, without the aid of which they would not have been able to cultivate their talents in the way they had done. The statutes of the founder provided for the exclusive education of persons of good character, though in indigent circumstances. The college did not go so far as that, but only wished that in taking into consideration the claims of the different parties to
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  fellowships, they should be allowed to have regard, as one element, to the pecuniary circumstances of the candidate. Nothing could be more moderate than such a wish, and it is rather remarkable that the Commissioners themselves should appear to entertain the same view. The ordinance of the Commissioners provides that no person should be ineligible on the ground of indigence. They admitted that; but refused to recognise the preference which the ancient statute awarded to indigence. But why, he knew not; but it was said that in consequence of the private communication from the members composing the minority of the college, the Commissioners subsequently altered the ordinance which the college had already accepted, and went so far as absolutely to prohibit the college from taking into consideration the pecuniary circumstances of the candidate, which the founder meant to form the great claim for eleemosynary assistance. The clause, as revised, ran thus:—
  "In elections to fellowships within the college no person shall be entitled to preference or be declared ineligible by reason of his place of birth, or by reason of any statute or rule limiting the number of fellowships tenable at any one time by nature of the same town, city, county, diocese, or other place, or by reason of his pecuniary circumstances."
  They absolutely prohibited that which the founder declared to be one of the main conditions on which parties should be admitted to participate in his bounty, by declaring that their circumstances should not be taken into consideration as a ground for preference. That clause, on being sent back to the college, was rejected on a division; but, nevertheless, it being persevered in by the Commissioners, it was ultimately accepted by the college. Now, that seemed to be, in the first place, a strange departure from the clearly-expressed and benevolent intentions of the founder; but it was also a strange mode of conducting business, to send down a statute, have it accepted, and then, when urged by a minority to make an alteration in it, and force it down the throats of the majority of the college, notwithstanding their opposition to it. Therefore, he said, they were injuriously affecting the character of the college and of the University by striking out the provision giving preference to the claims of poverty. What was the most prevalent complaint they had heard with regard to the University at the present day? The complaint was that the entrance was so expensive, that it was necessarily

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  confined to a small portion of the community. The wish of the founder of this college was, however, to diminish the expense, and to enable persons of small means to meet it. And with this complaint staring them in the face they diminished still further the narrow facilities afforded to persons of the humbler classes who were desirous of a University education; so that in effect it would appear, according to their notions, that property and not poverty should be the qualification for the possession of those intellectual attainments. Unfortunately the powers of the Commissioners were so ample, and the means of resistance on the part of the colleges so small, that whatever the Commissioners declare shall be the law must necessarily be the law. The colleges in this case voted against the acceptance of this provision; but they could not at the same time say that the provision would prove injurious to the college as a place of learning, because it was possible that persons more intelligent, more learned, and more brilliant than before might be educated under the new rule. Their main objection to it was that they considered it would interfere with the beneficial arrangements of the founder, and consequently there would be an abuse of the original intention of the founder in adopting it. It was true that the Commissioners recognised to a certain extent the rights of poverty, for there was a provision by which one-fifth of the fellowships might be suspended for a certain period of time, in order to provide emoluments for a small number of scholars of £60 each; but the provision made by the founder for this class amounted to no less than £4,500 a year. All that money was now taken away, and applied to the establishment of the professors of the University, and to the payment of the grants to fellowships. While for the humbler classes, the miserable pittance of £240 was distributed amongst four scholars, at the rate of £60 a year each; and that only when five fellowships had been abated. The ordinance had been laid on the table of the House, not for the purpose of being amended, for that could not well be done: the only power their Lordships had in respect to it was to address the Crown that the ordinance might not be sanctioned by the Crown. He, for one, had no wish to take that course. He had no wish, on the whole, that this ordinance should not be sanctioned; but it appeared to him to be framed in contradiction to the main
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  designs of the founder. It was also at variance with the original intentions of the Commissioners, and with that which the college had at first accepted. He did not propose to make any Motion on the matter, but perhaps the noble Earl opposite would explain under what circumstances that extraordinary change had taken place, and upon what grounds the Commissioners had decided that the comparative merits of the claimants to scholarships and fellowships should be decided altogether apart from their pecuniary circumstances, in complete defiance of the wish of the founder.
  THE BISHOP OF DURHAMsaid, that it was necessary for the Commission to take the general circumstances of the matter into their consideration. The words humiles alumni occurred in many statutes, especially in those of Merton College, and there was no more reason for retaining them in Oriel than in any other college. They knew that young men, in the days when the foundation was made, were elected fellows at thirteen or fourteen, for the purpose of gratuitous education. They were then educated by Professors, but now they were educated by tutors. Oriel College had deviated as well as other colleges from the express words of its founder, but it was only in order to make their foundation more conformable to the spirit of the age. Suppose there were several candidates, and the poor man was, intellectually, the worst qualified, and was to be elected Fellow, the consequences would be very inconvenient; and surely if of several candidates the most eligible in point of intellectual and other qualifications happened to possess larger pecuniary means than the others, that circumstance ought not to be held as a disqualification. The old rules as to indigentes et humiles virtually had become obsolete. They had not put the poor man in any worse condition than he was in before. They had increased the number both of exhibitions and scholarships, placing the poor young student much in the same position as he was in 1250, or the century when the foundation was made. The words of the ordinance gave a wide scope to the admission of every qualification, and the words were studied for that purpose especially, to introduce young men of high moral qualification. The pecuniary qualification for fellowships had been expressly abandoned on account of the difficulty and abuse to which it was subject, and that abandonment had been officially approved.

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  The Commissioners themselves explained that they had not precluded the college in other cases from admitting pecuniary considerations.
  THE BISHOP OF ST. ASAPHas one who, under God, owed all the advantages he had gained in life to an eleemosynary foundation, was desirous of stating generally the description of the foundations which, in his opinion, should exist in the University. He thought the noble Earl opposite would see there were reasons why pecuniary considerations should be entirely excluded from the selection of Fellows. University foundations were divided into fellowships, scholarships, and exhibitions. In the latter case he could not help believing there would be great advantage in making poverty an element of consideration in conferring them, and exhibitions might wisely be given to the sons of poor clergymen, to enable them to prosecute their studies at the University. This was an advantage which he had experienced in his own person. With respect to fellowships, however, the case was different; the Fellows were the governing body, and should be selected from the most capable men, without regard to their pecuniary means. In the intermediate step of scholarships be thought poverty ought not to be taken into consideration.
  LORD REDESDALEthought it was extremely desirable that foundations should be maintained for the encouragement of persons of small means to reside at the Universities, and complained that poverty was specially excluded in the words of the ordinance.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONconsidered that they were greatly indebted to the Parliamentary Commissioners for having done that which was found fault with by the noble Earl. If these colleges could carry out that which was required, and in every examination were to admit candidates on equal terms, and then at a future period to consider how much Greek was to stand against how much poverty, he thought the examination would be greatly injured. He did not mean to say that poverty should be altogether excluded from consideration, but what he contended was, that they ought to endeavour practically to carry out the intentions of the founders, and not by slavishly following the mere letter lose the whole spirit of the injunctions. The object of the founders was, no doubt, that poor young men should be enabled to
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  study in their early youth, and the Parliamentary Commissioners having those intentions in view, founded some exhibitions in which poverty would be assisted. The colleges, it should be remembered, had grown up to a position never contemplated by their founders; they had become the governing body of the University, furnishing the teachers and instructors; the Commissioners, therefore, were wise, as it appeared to him, in deciding that they would not permit teachers to be selected on the ground of property but only on the ground of merit.
  After some remarks from the Earl of HARROWBY and the Earl of DERBY,
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly; and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.

REMOVAL OF IRISH PAUPERS.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE rose to call the attention of their Lordships to the laws in force for the removal of Irish-born poor from parishes in England and Wales; and to ask whether it was the intention of the Government to propose any Amendment in those laws. In 1854 the Government now in office proposed a measure for the abolition of the law of settlement in English parishes. It was admitted by them that if Parliament were to enact that the power of removal of English paupers should cease, it would be highly unjust to continue to remove Irish paupers from English parishes, and that therefore such an extension of the principle must take place. The measure, however, was not persevered with, and the reason assigned for abandoning it was the decided disinclination on the part of English parishes to extend the provisions of the Bill to the Irish poor. Subsequently a Committee, composed of Members of the other House of Parliament, sat for two Sessions upon the subject to which it related. That Committee took a large amount of evidence, and agreed to a report in which, although they did not go to the extent which the evidence would have justified, they recommended that some relaxation should be made in the law of removal as it now stood. They had, in the first place, recommended that the warrant of removal should be made out in open court; secondly, that the depositions of the witnesses on whose testimony the warrant was granted, should be taken down in

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  writing; that a copy of the warrant and depositions should be sent to the board of guardians of the parish in Ireland to which the pauper happened to belong; and that power should be given to the union authorities in Ireland to appeal against the order, and to make use of the rates of the union in the prosecution of that appeal. They had also advised the adoption of other relaxations, and among them the reduction of the period entitling a pauper to the privilege of irremovability in this country from five to three years. Such was the report of the Committee; but without adverting to it further, he might inform their Lordships that the Irish poor law, in connection with the question of settlement, differed materially from that which prevailed in this country. In Ireland, indeed, there was no law of settlement at all. The Irish poor law enacted, that wherever a person became destitute there he should be relieved, no matter from what quarter of the world he might have come. The matter of chargeability had to be arranged afterwards between the union and the electoral division in which the pauper became destitute. But to revert to the system in this country, he should wish to point out to their Lordships the practical results of the mode in which it worked. Irish paupers came over here in large numbers, and were employed for harvest purposes and in the more severe forms of labour—indeed, their services in that capacity had now become necessary to England. What was the consequence? Young men and young women came over; they resided here for a period of fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years; they married and had families in this country; yet after having spent the best part of their lives in contributing to the increase of English capital and to the production of English wealth, they were, the moment that sickness or accident might have reduced them to poverty, liable to be told by the poor law authorities that in England they were not entitled to relief. Well, what was their position when they were sent back to Ireland after the lapse of the period of twenty or twenty-five years as he had just suggested? The great probability was, that when they returned to their native place they found that their parents were dead, that the other members of their family had emigrated—and he might state, of his own knowledge, that he knew instances in which paupers sent back to Ireland had been unable, in the neighbourhood in which
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  they had been born, to discover a single relative or friend. But that was not the only mode in which the present system of removal operated as a hardship. Sickness and misery of every kind were endured by those unfortunate persons on board the steamers and sailing vessels into which they were huddled. The way in which they were transported across the Channel was such as had that evening called for their Lordships' sympathy in the case of the African slaves, and when they arrived upon the Irish coast they were landed upon the crowded quays of Dublin, Belfast, or Waterford, frequently amid all the inclemency of a winter morning, and at a distance, perhaps, of 100 miles from the parish to which they originally belonged. Now, that was a state of things which, in his opinion, loudly called for the interference of the Legislature. He was perfectly aware of the difficulties standing in the way of Government dealing with this question; for he felt that if they meant to deal in a liberal spirit towards Ireland they must be prepared to oppose themselves to the narrow selfishness of the parochial authorities of this country. Owing to the great number of Irish paupers who had, during the famine of 1847, come over to the western coast of England, the poor-law authorities of Liverpool, Bristol, and other places similarly circumstanced, might object to any proposal by which they would be saddled with a population of that description. But 1847 was an exceptional period. The social condition of Ireland had since then been greatly changed, and, even though a famine should again occur in that country, it was by no means probable that that state of things would be brought about, of which the poor law authorities of Liverpool complained before the Committee. He trusted, therefore, that the Government would take the subject into their serious consideration. In the Session of 1856 they had proposed a measure with respect to it, in which he regretted that they had not persevered. That measure had, it was true, met with opposition from some Members of the other House of Parliament connected with Ireland, who did not think it went far enough. He was, however, of opinion that a different course should have been adopted upon that occasion, and that those Gentlemen should have accepted the Bill as an instalment of those improvements in the present law which they were

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  entitled to expect. He should, in conclusion, ask his noble Friend the President of the Council whether the Government had any measure under their consideration by means of which the grievances to which he had called their Lordships' attention might be removed, and the recommendations of the Committee of 1855 carried into effect.
  THE EARL OF DESARTtendered his thanks to his noble Friend who had just spoken for the manner in which he had brought the subject under the notice of the House, and expressed a hope that the Government would introduce some measure to amend the present law of removal.
  EARL GRANVILLEconcurred with the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Donoughmore), in thinking that great injustice was sometimes inflicted upon Irish paupers under the operation of the existing system. The Bill of 1856, however, to which the noble Earl had alluded, which had been introduced upon the recommendation of the Committee of 1855, and which had for its object the removal of that injustice, had been most violently opposed, not only by English and Scotch Members, but also by the representatives of Ireland, It had in consequence become quite impossible to pass it through the other House of Parliament, and he did not therefore think it would be wise upon the part of the Government, when many important measures were pending, to bring forward a Bill which would not be likely to obtain the support even of those whose assistance it was most natural to expect.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEbore testimony to the fact that great inconvenience resulted from the present state of the law. In reply to the observation of the noble Earl (the Earl of Donoughmore), that there was no law of settlement in Ireland, he remarked that such was not exactly a correct statement of the case, inasmuch as the chargeability of a pauper upon an electoral division operated to some extent as a law of settlement. What was required in Ireland, he contended, was not alone an alteration of the law of removal in the case of paupers sent over to that country from England, but in the working of the law within the limits of Ireland itself. As things now stood a pauper landed in Ireland became at once chargeable on the rates of the port at which he happened to disembark, notwithstanding that Mayo or some other county might
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  be the place to which he originally belonged.
  THE EARL OF CLANCARTYcomplained that while the English unions had power to ship off Irish paupers who had become chargeable, the Irish unions were in that respect quite helpless. The subject was one of great importance, and would, he hoped, be taken up by the Government.
  LORD STUART DE DECIEShoped that, as a member of a board of guardians in which the inconvenience arising from the present state of the law was heavily felt, he might be allowed to state two cases of great hardship. The cases to which he referred had occurred in the borough of Dungarvan within the last year. The first was that of a man who, having obtained an English settlement by residing eighteen years in one place, removed to another in search of temporary employment. Failing that, his right of settlement in his first place of residence was denied, he was shipped off to Ireland, and was now chargeable to the Dungarvan Union. The second case was that of an Englishwoman with a family of five children, who having been deserted by her husband applied to the union. The guardians were obliged to admit her, and were now maintaining her without the slightest power of sending her back to her own country. More than that, it so happened that she and her family constituted nearly the whole of the Protestant inmates of the workhouse, and application had been made by the Protestant chaplain, whose present salary was £10 a year, for an additional £10, in order that he might be the more able to administer to her spiritual consolation. But he believed that such cases were not uncommon, and therefore he concurred with the noble Lords who had spoken in pressing upon Government the necessity of taking the subject into their serious consideration.
  LORD MONTEAGLEsaid, that it would have been impossible to delay legislation so long on the subject, but for the wonderful improvement in the condition of the Irish people. The complaint was not now of the excess of Irish labourers in England, but of their scarcity, the improved scale of wages in their own country abating the temptation to emigration. But this afforded the strongest reason for taking the matter in hand, as a time of difficulty and distress would be the worst possible moment for legislation on such a subject.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, that the reciprocity argued for by the noble Lords connected with Ireland was a genuine Irish reciprocity, being all on one side. He would engage to prove that a vast deal more money was spent in the English unions on Irish paupers than ever was spent in the Irish upon poor from England. As to the case of the Irish labourer who had lost his settlement, the same would have happened to an English labourer in similar circumstances, as it was an incident of the law of settlement. In the case of English paupers in Irish unions, he did not think there would be any objection to a powever of removal; but with respect to the sea-ports, it should be remembered that burden was much more heavy in Liverpool and Bristol than it could be in Cork or Belfast. The question was one of great difficulty, but they might depend upon it the advantages arising from the present state of the law were all on the side of Ireland.
  THE MARQUESS OF WESTMEATH, alluding to the noble Lord's charge that the reciprocity in connection with the law of poor relief was a one-sided reciprocity, begged to remind him that if there was an influx of Irish paupers on our shores the cause was to be found in English legislation, which had deprived Irish landlords of the means of improving the condition of the Irish peasantry.
  House adjourned at a Quarter to Eight o'clock, to Thursday next, Two o'clock.