Lords Sitting of 27 February 1871

MINUTES.
— SELECT COMMITTEE — Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments and Office of the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, The Earl of Kimberley added.
PUBLIC BILLS — Second Reading — Pauper Inmates Discharge and Regulation (16).
Third Reading—Provisional Order Bills (Committees)* (25), and passed.

PAUPER INMATES DISCHARGE AND REGULATION BILL—(No. 16.)
(The Earl of Kimberley.)
PAUPER INMATES DISCHARGE AND REGULATION BILL—(No. 16.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, he would take the opportunity of entering more largely into the question of vagrancy than was necessitated by a simple exposition of this measure. Those who had attended to the question were probably aware that scarcely any subject had occupied to a larger extent the attention of the Legislature. The first statute was of as early a date as the 14th century, having been passed after the great pestilence. Its object was to punish or discourage vagrancy, and it enforced the principle that every able-bodied poor man must labour for his living; and it contained a provision that no person, on the colour of pity or almsgiving, should, on pain of imprisonment, give anything to encourage vagrants in their slothful disposition. This showed that our forefathers considered indiscriminate charity as one of the most fertile causes of vagrancy. The other statutes, of which an interesting synopsis had been given in a lecture by a Poor Law Inspector, were not of so lenient a character. The stocks, bread and water, corporal punishment, the pillory, cutting off the ears, branding with a hot iron, slavery, transportation, and hanging had been tried at various periods; and when these cruelties were abandoned, we had been content to employ the milder punishment of the treadmill or the tramp-ward. Recent legislation had been chiefly based on an Act of George IV., which, with few amendments, had remained the principal statute on the subject. In 1864 an important measure was passed, known as the Houseless Poor (Metropolis) Act, the chief object of which was to increase the accommodation provided for that class, and to charge the expense of their lodging and maintenance on the "common fund" of the metropolis, instead of on the several parishes or unions. It was, no doubt, a useful Bill; but it was one-sided, looking rather to the benevolent treatment of the vagrant than to the repression, as far as was consistent with

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  humanity, of vagrancy. The result, therefore, as might be expected, was an immediate and considerable increase in the number of vagrants relieved in the metropolitan workhouses. In May, 1864, prior to the operation of the Act, the nightly average was 612; in May, 1865, it rose to 1,106, and in May, 1866, to 1,203. Now, there was some misconception in the public mind as to the existing number of vagrants. The number actually relieved in the workhouses of England and Wales was not so large as was popularly imagined. Taking the night of the 1st of July, when it was usual to take a Census, the number relieved in 1866 was 1,086 in the metropolis, and 4,075 in the rest of England and Wales. In 1867 the numbers were 1,573 and 5,248 respectively; in 1868, 2,085 and 7,946; in 1869, 1,802 and 6,692; and in 1870, 1,760 and 6,630. Taking the 1st of January, the numbers in 1866 were 1,501 and 4,469; in 1867, 1,452 and 5,027; in 1868, 1,673 and 6,129; in 1869, 1,802 and 7,020; and in 1870, 1,627 and 5,430. These figures showed that as the country had recovered from the commercial depression there had been a considerable diminution in vagrancy. They did not, however, show the whole number of vagrants in England and Wales. As far as could be ascertained by the police, the whole number on the night of the 1st of April, 1867, was 32,528; and in 1868, 36,179. No later Returns had been published; but it was believed that such Returns would show a diminution corresponding with that exhibited by the Poor Law Returns. Turning to the remedies which had been suggested to meet this evil, he would first allude to the proposal that the relief of vagrants should be entirely in the hands of the police. This he, at first sight, thought would be very advantageous, for it might be expected that vagrants would have a salutary dread of the police, and that applications for relief would be discouraged. There were, however, serious and, as he thought, fatal objections; in the first place, the police would be taken away from their proper duties; and, in the next, the building of separate sets of wards in connection with police-stations would involve a considerable expense. While rejecting the scheme for these reasons, he admitted that the police might be employed with advantage as assistant
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  relieving-officers—that was, might be entrusted with the temporary relief of vagrants. A second plan, entitled to careful consideration, was that of "way-tickets," to be given to a vagrant at one workhouse as a passport to another, in the absence of which he would be treated as a professional tramp. This, however, was not consistent with the cardinal principle of Poor Law administration—that the necessaries of life should be afforded to all persons absolutely destitute, but not to such an extent as to encourage them to live at the public expense and to discourage honest labour. Under this system, every person of good character who might set out on his travels in search of work would be entitled to food and lodging at the public expense, and this would be an encouragement to a large class of persons to subsist by such means. It would, moreover, encourage the officers of a union to give away tickets to any persons who might be likely to fall on the rates, and, while holding that every obstacle to the free migration of labourers should be removed, he doubted the policy of offering an artificial stimulus to such migration. Another difficulty was, that if vagrants were divided into two classes, honest wayfarers and professional tramps, the latter would be refused way-tickets, and would yet be punishable if they slept in the open air or in outhouses or farm buildings. A respectable person, on account of nobody knowing his character, might thus be refused a ticket, and consequently be unable to obtain shelter. Such persons would necessarily fall on private charity, which would be called forth by the knowledge that there were persons unable to obtain shelter in the workhouses. The Poor Law did not say that persons of good character should be relieved, but that all destitute persons should be relieved. He deprecated, moreover, the introduction of a passport system, the evils incidental to which on the Continent were well known. Passports were easily forged, and could always be procured by the dishonest; while a respectable man was sometimes unable to procure them. The object to be kept in view was to err neither on the side of humanity, nor on that of severity; but this system would err in both directions—in the latter as regarded the honest wayfarer, in the former as regarded the professional tramp, who

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  would be liable to imprisonment as a rogue and vagabond. He ventured to say that the magistrates would not carry out such a law. It was better to adhere to the system hitherto pursued, with such ameliorations as appeared advisable. One of the defects of the present law was that the Poor Law Board had no power of securing uniformity of treatment as regarded food, lodging, and the labour test. Nothing could be worse than what now happened; that the treatment was comparatively inviting in one Union and deterrent in another. The object of the Bill was first to deal with a class which, though not vagrants, were of a similar class—namely, paupers who were in the habit of taking their discharge from the workhouse, and after a very brief interval of returning to it. It not unfrequently happened that inmates—generally persons of bad character—left in the morning, passed the day in immorality or crime, and returned in the evening. The Bill consequently provided that if a pauper, who had not previously discharged himself within one month, gave notice to leave the workhouse he might be detained, by order of the guardians, for 24 hours; that if he had discharged himself once or oftener within a month, he might be detained 48 hours; and that if he discharged himself more than twice within two months, he might be detained 72 hours. Nobody conversant with the administration of the Poor Law would object, he thought, to this regulation. With regard to vagrants, they had a great objection to being detained in the workhouse beyond the single night they slept there. The Bill provided, not only that they should not be entitled to discharge themselves before 12 o'clock, and before they had performed their allotted task, but that persons who at frequent intervals habitually entered the workhouse should not be entitled to discharge themselves before 9 a.m. of the third day after their admission. This, it was believed, would prove a considerable check upon such practices. The 6th clause enabled the Poor Law Board to issue orders securing uniform diet, lodging, and work throughout England and Wales. By the 7th and 8th clauses any vagrant absconding from the casual ward before he is entitled to discharge himself, would be dealt with as an idle and disorderly person under the Act
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  5 Geo. IV., c. 83, s. 3; and anyone who has been previously so convicted, or anyone who shall wilfully destroy his clothes, or injure the property of the guardians, was to be dealt with as a rogue and vagabond under the 4th section. The 10th clause provided that where, as in the metropolis, an Asylum Board existed, it might be intrusted with the carrying out of the Bill. The object in view was that where, as in large towns, separate establishments might be built for vagrants, where they might be relieved at smaller cost, and where a separation might be made between the professional tramps and other vagrants, the Boards which under a recent Act managed Asylums for the sick and other classes might manage the vagrant wards, thus avoiding a needless multiplication of Boards. The uniform treatment which the Poor Law Board, if the Bill passed, intended to secure, the separation of the vagrants into two classes, the sufficiently severe task of work, and the power of detention would, he believed, prove great improvements in the present law, without introducing that excessive severity which defeated its own object by stimulating indiscriminate almsgiving.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl of Kimberley.)
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, that he would reserve the discussion of the details of the Bill till the next stage, but having had some experience of the issue of way-tickets, especially in his own county of Hampshire, he would make a few remarks on what the noble Earl had said in reference to that subject. The promoters of that system had urged it as a provisional measure, in the hope that the Government would take up the question. They had been placed in considerable difficulty. Vagrancy had been increasing for many years, and each county had been more or less thrown on its self-defence. In this position the system of way-tickets was, he believed, the best; but he was glad that the question was likely to be made the subject of legislation for the whole country, with a view to a uniform system. As for the hardship apprehended by his noble Friend, to those who for various reasons might be unable to obtain tickets, such persons would be treated just as tramps now were, and would be deprived of the

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  advantages to be enjoyed by the honest wayfarer. The system had been in force in Gloucestershire, and one or two other counties, and he was not aware that tickets had been forged in a single case. He doubted, indeed, whether it would be worth while on the part of anybody to forge them. As to the system encouraging vagrancy, the best reply he could give was that during the last few weeks it had been in operation in Hampshire, and had almost cleared the county of that class of professional tramps. He agreed with his noble Friend in the propriety of detaining vagrants till noon, for he believed nothing would be so much disliked by them as interfering with their habits and throwing them out of their plan for the day. Under the ticket system the honest wayfarer in search of work obtained the privilege of a slightly better diet, was insured food and lodging at the different workhouses along the route, and in a few days was passed out of the county, and so far expedited on his journey. There was no chance of repressing vagrancy, unless the public were satisfied that every fair provision was made for the honest wayfarer, for they would otherwise indulge in indiscriminate almsgiving and thus encourage professional vagrancy; but if the public would determinedly support the movement he thought satisfactory results might be brought about. As far as he was yet acquainted with the provisions of the Bill he was disposed to concur in most of them.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, he entirely concurred in the Bill to which the noble Earl had asked them to give a second reading. At the same time, he must point out to his noble Friend (the Earl of Carnarvon) that no scheme could be effectual which was not applied to the whole country. It would be very unsatisfactory to have way-tickets in one county and not in another. He cordially approved the Bill, especially the power of preventing the worst class of paupers from leaving and returning to the workhouse as frequently as they chose. As to the statistics quoted by the noble Earl on the subject of vagrancy, he understood his noble Friend to infer that vagrancy was on the decrease. Now, so far as his own experience went, it was steadily increasing — of late, indeed, to an alarming extent; and he would ask whether the latest Returns
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  showed a decrease as far as the whole kingdom was concerned?
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYexplained that with an improved state of trade the number of vagrants fell from 7,946 in 1868, to 6,692 in 1869, and 6,630 in 1870; but he had not wished to draw any inference as to a steady decrease of the evil.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, he was not about to take that occasion for criticizing the Bill. He wished to observe that it was a great inconvenience to the labouring class that they could not travel at an expense in any degree corresponding to the advantages enjoyed by other classes. He believed that honest vagrancy would be materially diminished by a slight alteration in railway law. It would be easy to carry labouring men about from place to place at very trivial charges, either by trains specially designated for the purpose, or even by goods trains, at all events with much less danger and hardship than at present. This should be accompanied by the condition of their being allowed to renounce their claim to compensation in case of accident. If any person had a power of renouncing at the railway station his right to compensation for accidents, the companies could carry passengers at a very much cheaper rate than was now practicable. He believed such a provision would gradually introduce an entire revolution in the mode of travelling of the labouring class, and would remove a grievance from which they now suffered greatly, while it would almost wholly remove the existing difficulty of distinguishing between the honest labourer and the professional vagrant.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, he was much obliged to the noble Marquess for the suggestion, assuring him that the point had not escaped the attention of the Government, though not in connection with the present Bill. The Board of Trade had a plan under consideration last Session. He did not go so far as to think that railway companies should be allowed to kill as many labourers as they pleased.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, they would have the option of renouncing claims to compensation or not.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYthought that practically they would have no chance; they would either have to go at

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  very inconvenient hours and at high fares, or accept this onerous condition. He did not think such a provision would be popular, and he was sure it would not be adopted by the Government. He admitted, however, that the law required some revision, and, without speaking for the Government, it had always been his opinion that in case of cheap trains, there should be a reasonable limit to compensation, thus enabling railway companies to offer cheap fares without being exposed to exorbitant claims.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER.—QUESTION.
THE EARL OF HARROWBYasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Whether he would have any objection to lay upon the Table of the House a Return of the Items of Receipts and Expenditure of the Duchy for the Year 1870? The noble Earl said that very recently a right hon. Baronet had, in "another place," made a charge of extravagance and corruption against the management of the Duchy. The imputation met with very little consideration on the part of the noble Lord the Chancellor of the Duchy, and that, as he had been happy to observe, the charge of corruption had been distinctly withdrawn. Such charges, however, left a sting behind them unless they were directly met by persons conversant with the matter, and as the management of a Public Department was in question, he would ask the noble Lord to place on the Table a Return of the Receipts and Expenditure of the Duchy for 1870. There was a high officer at the head of the Duchy, who was frequently a Member of the Cabinet, and there was a Vice Chancellor, who exercised important functions in one of the most populous parts of the country. The expense incurred in its administration must not, therefore, be measured by the same standard as other landed estates.
LORD DUFFERIN: It is impossible for me at once to comply with the noble Earl's request, inasmuch as the accounts of the Duchy for the past year have not yet been closed and audited. As soon, however, as this is completed they will in due course be presented to both Houses of Parliament. The noble Earl's
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purpose will, perhaps, be equally well served if I take the opportunity of communicating to the House the chief items of receipt and expenditure on behalf of the Duchy during the year 1869, which do not greatly differ from the corresponding items of the past year. I do so with the greater pleasure, because I am certain that a very few words and figures will completely rectify the misapprehensions to which the observations of a right hon. Gentleman (Sir Robert Peel) in "another place" may have given rise, not only among your Lordships but the public at large. Those observations were brought under my notice by a noble and gallant Earl (the Earl of Hardwicke). I felt at once either that my right hon. Friend must be labouring under some great delusion, or that his words had been misunderstood and misquoted by the reporter; for knowing, as I did, his kind and generous nature, I was sure he would be the last person in the world deliberately to prefer so grave a charge as corruption against a number of public servants who, as I can testify from my own experience and knowledge, are not excelled in their zeal for the public service and in personal trustworthiness by those employed in any public Department with which I have had the honour of being connected. I am happy to think that my appreciation of my right hon. Friend's character has been amply justified by the generous, frank, and handsome manner in which on the very first opportunity that presented itself he came forward—unsolicited by me—and at once withdrew that very obnoxious phrase, which, as he himself has admitted and as I can readily understand, has as it were slipped into his speech during the agony of rhetorical parturition. But although the characters of those immediately concerned have been completely exonerated, there may prevail in some minds a suspicion that the affairs of the Duchy have not been conducted with due regard to economy, and it is desirable, therefore, that I should proceed to explain the exact circumstances of the case. The statement made by the right hon. Gentleman was to the effect that whereas the gross income of the Duchy amounted to £50,000 a-year, only £25,000 a-year ever found its way into the Privy Purse. Now, the net revenue of the Duchy paid over to the

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Privy Purse in 1869 was £31,000; and another sum appears in the accounts, which must have escaped the attention of the right hon. Baronet — namely, £7,000 placed to the credit of the Duchy as a cash balance; so that the actual amount of net revenue may be placed at £38,000. There still remains, however, between the sums of £50,000 and £38,000 a margin of £12,000, sufficient to challenge investigation and to require explanation. Of this £12,000 there is an item of £1,800 which at once disappears down the capacious throat of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the chape of income and other taxes. That, of course, is an item which is very unpleasant, and it is one which everybody concerned, from the Queen down to the humblest clerk in the Office, would be very glad to see diminished; but it is an item on which we cannot expect to make any considerable impression. Then comes an item of £2,000 expended on the part of the Duchy in donations to local charities, subscriptions to schools and churches, and to those objects which Her Majesty, in common with every landed proprietor, feels it incumbent on her, as the owner of a large landed property, to promote. Then there comes an item of £1,000 a-year expended in annuities and superannuation grants. Upon this item, of course, no impression can be made as long as the recipients live. There is, further, a small sum of about £200 paid to the Judges, in consideration of a portion of their services given to the County Palatine. These sums, together with the salary of the Chancellor, who, being a public officer, can scarcely be regarded as receiving it absolutely in consideration of his management of the property of the Duchy, amount to £7,000 a-year. The remaining £5,000 is left for the payment of expenses, whether in the shape of land agency, office expenses, establishment expenses, connected with very important functions discharged by the Chancellor in London, the audit of the accounts, travelling expenses, estate improvements, and the expenses incidental to the exercise of manorial rights. All these complicated functions, necessitating the employment of a considerable staff of officers, are discharged for £5,000 a-year—that is about 11 or 12 per cent of the total income of the Duchy. Your Lordships' experience,
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connected extensively as you are with landed property, will be able to say whether, taking into account the fact that there is property of the Duchy in almost every county in England, and that its estates are dispersed over the kingdom, £5,000 is a large sum. Having thus, as I trust, satisfied your Lordships that the revenues of the Duchy are managed with due economy, I would recall your attention to the gratifying circumstance that, while on the one hand, its revenues are continually increasing, the expenses of management during the last few years have been continually decreasing, and I am in a position to state that arrangements have been made whereby, in the course of a few years, as the persons entitled to receive certain sums disappear, there will be a diminution in that item also. I would, further ask the House to remember that the post which I have the honour to fill is an office which has been held by a great number of distinguished persons, in many of whom the country has placed such confidence as to entrust them with the discharge of the highest functions of the State, with the management of the Army, the Navy, Finance, and Foreign Affairs, and that all these arrangements, so severely criticized, have passed under the consideration of each one of them, and have from time to time received such improvement at their hands as they needed. I would observe, further, that my immediate predecessor was a gentleman peculiarly experienced in the management of landed property, and possessing exceptional advantages as regards the Duchy estates, from the fact that he had conterminous estates of his own in the Duchy in the County Palatine. It is also a great pleasure to me to pay a well-deserved tribute to the permanent officer (Mr. Gooch), the Clerk of the Council, who, as the noble Earl (the Earl of Harrowby) well knows, is a gentleman of very large experience and very great ability. As everyone who has had the good fortune of coming into official relations with him must have remarked, he brings to the consideration and management of the Duchy affairs an amount of precision and conscientious labour such as, I am certain, is nowhere surpassed. Having said this much on the financial management of the Duchy, I may perhaps be permitted to say a word on behalf of the

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Chancellor himself. He is popularly regarded as a fortunate personage, who, though shut out from that august Olympus where the Dii majores of the Ministry sit and deliberate, nevertheless enjoys in a peaceful and secluded region a kind of semi-divinity, unembarrassed and unimpeded by those weighty cares and responsibilities which engross the time and industry of his more dignified Colleagues. My own experience has not realized this picture. So far from resembling an Epicurean divinity the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster seems to me to be a kind of charwoman or maid-of-all-work to the Government; at the behest of one or other of the Secretaries of the State he is perpetually being saddled with all manner of work, foreign to his office. Within my own short experience he has been employed during the whole of one year in reorganizing the military education of the Army; during another year in reconstructing the schools of the children of soldiers and in improving the education of the schoolmasters of the Army. He has very narrowly escaped being called upon to preside over the Contagious Diseases Commission, and at this moment his thoughts are, day and night, occupied with the heavy responsibilities connected with the construction of war ships. Perhaps I may better illustrate what is really the position of this supposed sinecurist if I give an account of a single day's work I had to accomplish. In the morning at an early hour I had to present myself on the seat of justice, appropriately robed, and narrowly escaping a full-bottomed wig, and there I had to sit while the Lord Chief Justice delivered to an astonished Bar what he was pleased to call my judgment on the case. As soon as these weighty matters were concluded I had to hurry off to Chelsea Hospital, and in the capacity of Paymaster General of the Forces expend considerable time in admitting pensioners to that asylum, and in considering the claims of applicants for military pensions; thence I had to go to the War Office and employ the rest of the afternoon in examining general officers and colonels in matters requiring much consideration; and after that to attend in your Lordships' House to explain the intricacies of some important piece of Irish legislation. On one occasion I had to conclude 16 hours important public service
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by being pilloried for a couple of hours on the Woolsack as the locum tenens of the Lord Chancellor of England, while a dilatory House of Commons was putting its last touches to a Bill which noble Lords opposite assured me would greatly depreciate the value of my property in Ireland. I trust that, after this explanation, we shall not hear again that the management of the finances of the Duchy of Lancaster forms a gross instance of extravagance and financial mismanagement, or that the Chancellor of the Duchy, whatever criticisms may be addressed to the individual, is a useless or unnecessary functionary.
THE EARL OF HARROWBYexpressed his obligation to the noble Lord for the satisfactory explanations he had made, and hoped, with him, that the charge of extravagance and mismanagement would not be repeated, or that his noble Friend would be again considered an Epicurean and sinecurist. He wished to know, however, the occasion for the cash balance of £7,000, and what policy the noble Lord was pursuing with regard to outlying estates?
LORD DUFFERINstated that the cash balance was placed to the credit of the Duchy to meet those charges which it was known would accrue before the revenue of the Duchy became payable. As regarded the question of outlying estates, he had continued the policy pursued by his predecessors, and had never hesitated to sell such estates whenever occasion offered for doing so to advantage, while he had been extremely cautious about purchasing property except where it so lay into Duchy property as to make its acquisition clearly desirable.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER.—QUESTION.

  OPPOSED PRIVATE BILLS.
  The Lords following; viz.,

  M. Lansdowne.

  L. Colville of Culross.

  Ld. Steward.

  L. Skelmersdale.

  were appointed, with the Chairman of Committees, a Committee to select and propose to the House the names of the five Lords to form a Select Committee for the consideration of each opposed Private Bill.
  House adjourned at half past Six o'clock, 'till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.