§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ THE EARL OF ST. GERMANSsaid, the Bill only proposed to amend the machinery of removal. According to the existing law the poor were sent over to Ireland, badly fed and badly clad, and often landed on a quay, and there left to find their way to their places of destination as best they could. A Committee of the House of Commons on the subject sat in 1854 and 1855, presided over by Mr. Baines, then Chairman of the Poor Law Board; and another Committee in 1858,1859, and 1860, presided over successively by Mr. Sotheron Estcourt, Lord March, and Mr. Villiers, the latter also Chairman of the Poor Law Board. The Bill was founded on the recommendation of both those Committees; it had passed the Commons, and he hoped their Lordships would also agree to it. This was peculiarly a favourable time to pass the measure; for whereas, in 1850, 77,000 persons landed at Liverpool from Ireland who were manifestly paupers, in the last year only twenty-one such persons from Ireland so landed at Liverpool. He meant not 21,000, but twenty-one individuals only. So that the cost of the removal of the Irish poor would now be exceedingly small. The object of the Bill was that they should not be left destitute on the quays, but be passed to their abodes.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.
§ In reply to Lord REDESDALE,
§ THE EARL OF ST. GERMANSsuggested that alterations, if needed, could be made in Committee.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House Tomorrow.
§ House adjourned at a quarter before Ten o'clock, till To-morrow, Eleven o'clock.