§ LORD EMLYI wish to ask the Lord President, Whether, having reference to the failure of the Labour Rate Act in 1847 to relieve distress and its mischievous and demoralizing effects, while the system of food distribution substituted for it was completely successful, the Government propose on their own authority to re-introduce into Ireland a system, which on account of its admitted failure was abandoned, without waiting for the sanction of Parliament? I need 488 hardly assure the noble Duke that the Question I put to him, and these remarks, are not dictated by Party feeling. In my opinion, the measures proposed by the Government to meet the distress in Ireland have been wise, with one single exception. In making the exception I believe I shall be joined by every noble Lord in the House, upon whatever side he may sit, who recollects the great Irish Famine. Neither can I accuse the Irish Government of delay. I know that it has been said, no thanks to the present Government if there has been no loss of life. What can be more certain, my Lords, than that the duty of the Government was not to step in until private exertions and private charity were unable to cope with the difficulty? What could be more demoralizing to a community than for the Government to take from the people all motives to exertion? I am bound, however, to say this—that from the accounts I have heard within the last two or three days, on undoubted authority, from the West of Ireland, especially from the counties of Mayo and Roscommon, that the time has now come for the Government measures, and especially the measure for out-door relief for the poor cottier tenant, to be brought into operation. I believe that the last potato in a great number of the houses of those poor wretched people is now exhausted, and upon this subject there should be no delay. Then, with regard to the loans that are being made to proprietors to enable them to give employment on their property; if there has been any delay in this matter, it has certainly not been occasioned by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, for he has shown the greatest sympathy and energy in pressing forward measures for the relief of the people, and I think to him we owe a deep debt of gratitude. His sympathetic energy has been appreciated by every right-minded man. I feel I should not be doing my duty if I did not also express the deep feeling of gratitude we also owe to the Duchess of Marlborough. I believe there is not a house in Ireland in which there has been suffering where the efforts of the Duchess of Marlborough will not be remembered with gratitude; and the attacks which have been made upon her and upon those ladies who worked with her, as well as upon the Lord Mayor of Dublin, who was assisted by the Catholic 489 and Protestant Archbishops of Dublin, breathed more of the spirit of Robespierre and Danton than any speeches which have been made even by the most violent agitators in our time; but the attacks are not doing what they were intended to do by those who uttered them for politicalmotives—drain up the springs of charity—but what they did do was to excite universal indignation. I come now to the order issued by the Lord Lieutenant to hold extraordinary presentment sessions for the purpose of commencing relief works. I hope it is unnecessary for me to say that if I believed this proceeding necessary to relieve suffering, whatever I may think of it in principle, I could not object to it; but I shall be able to convince the noble Duke, whose perfect fairness I know, that this system is not only mischievous but useless. A little more than 33 years ago the Government of Lord John Russell gave exactly the same powers to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was authorized to direct the magistrates and selected ratepayers in any barony in Ireland where distress prevailed to assemble in sessions and to present for making new roads, improving old ones, cutting down hills, fencing roads. The execution of the works was to be in the Board of Works. In the month of February, 1846, just four months after this system had been put in operation, Lord John Russell put an end to it. Why? Because it had already broken down. It had from the first been protested against by most men of intelligence and practical knowledge in Ireland, among the rest by my noble Friend the noble Viscount near me (Viscount Monck). All our worst anticipations wore fulfilled. Lord John Russell, four months after they had been commenced, put an end to the works because they had demoralized the people, and led to jobbery and waste; because they had cost extravagant sums of money; and, above all, because they had withdrawn the people from the cultivation of the land, and if continued beyond the month of March must have caused another famine in the ensuing year. Let mo read to your Lordships the account of the effect of this system given by Sir Charles Trevelyan, one of the ablest public servants I ever was brought into contact with, a man of unwearying energy and strength, and who had been 490 himself the chief organizer and controller of this system of relief.
Si Pergama possentDefendi dextrâ etiam haæc defensa fuissent.Where he failed, no one is likely to succeed. Here are his words—Thousands upon thousands were pressed upon the works. The attraction of money wages regularly paid from the public purse, or the Queen's purse, as it was popularly called, led to an abandonment of other descriptions of industry in order to participate in the advantages of the relief works. Landlords competed with one another in getting the names of their tenants placed on the lists, farmers dismissed their labourers, and sent them to the works, the clergy insisted on the claims of their respective congregations. It was impossible to exact from such multitudes a degree of labour which would act as a test of destitution. Huddled together in masses, they contributed to each other's idleness. If the people were retained on the works, their lands must remain uncultivated; if they were put off the works, they must starve.An English commercial traveller in Ireland gives this remarkable evidence to the same effect—The small cottier tenants seem to take no interest in the land, and have neglected the customary collection of manure. All flock to the public works at Boyle. Small farms are neglected. At Thurles potato grounds are left untilled—people all flocking to the public works. At Galway the fishermen have pledged all their fishing and sailing gear. Three thousand two hundred men, nearly all fishermen, are employed on the public works.The alarm of the Treasury was expressed in their Minute, 16th March, 1847—Continuance of relief works materially interferes with the prosecution of the ordinary agriculture of the country.I need not trouble your Lordships with further extracts. It is to me like a bad dream to find that this system, faulty in principle and condemned by experience, has been revived. The only difference between Lord John Russell's Labour Rate Act and the system of the present Government is that the former was to be carried out by the Board of Works—the latter by the county surveyors or contractors. I need not say that in districts where the famine prevails no contractor will be found to undertake works which will cost much more than if executed in ordinary times, and where men would be forced on them, not because they would work, but because they were in want. I ask for attention to two letters from two of these county surveyors, dated the 8th of February of this year. In the first the writer said— 491There is no use in blinking the question; it will he just a repetition of the misery of 1847 over again. I do not hesitate to say that anything more ill advised, more mischievous, and demoralizing than the whole proceeding never was conceived.The other, also writing upon the 8th of February, said—The great difficulty in this country will not be in selecting suitable, but in preventing a perfect avalanche of useless, wasteful works, by which the entire population may become demoralized. The applications up to the present are frightful—£8,700 in a barony valued at £18,000 per annum. They are much the same in two others. It is not possible to imagine anything more ruinous. Large sums are applied for on the islands where there never was a wheel or a pony, or anything more than a donkey. There is not a boreen in the country. They are not measuring, so we may look out for cross work at the sessions.There is another serious evil in this sort of relief—the baronies and the Poor Law Unions are not coterminous. The greater part of the barony in which I live is in the Limerick Union. A small portion of it is in the Union of Croom. Before I left home to attend Parliament I found that there was so much employment in my neighbourhood that strangers would have to be brought in to execute it. What was my astonishment a week ago to find that extraordinary presentment sessions had been ordered in my barony. I wrote to my noble Friend and neighbour, Lord Clarina, and to my agent, to inquire how there could be any want of employment there. My agent made inquiries through the barony, and informed me there was no want of employment. My noble Friend wrote to me to the following effect:—I was as much surprised as yourself on receiving the printed notice of the extraordinary baronial session, and am at an equal loss to know whom we have to thank for this, in my opinion, unnecessary procedure; for, considering that Mr. "Walsh, the contractor for the Barnakyle drainage, is unable to obtain half the workmen he requires, and that those he had struck for an increase of wages—although bad men were getting 9*. a-week and brats of boys 10d.per diem—this does not look as if there was much real distress in our neighbourhood. I gave the men my mind pretty freely as to the unwisdom of quarrelling with their bread and butter, and I believe a good many resumed work. I shall try and get home before the sessions.I remonstrated with the Government, and have been informed that the sessions were ordered because there is distress in the barony, which is in the Croom division. I do not believe this. My agent's 492 inquiries seem to me conclusive. At all events, the whole transaction shows the great inconvenience of having the providing for relief in districts not continuous and under separate jurisdictions. Why should the Limerick Union pay for the distress in another Union if it supports its own poor? All the stimulus to exertion which self-interest provides is removed by such a system. My Lords, I know it may be said this system of relief works answered in Lancashire during the Cotton Famine. It might as well be said that cotton planting would succeed in Ireland because it has succeeded in Louisiana. The whole circumstances of Lancashire and of the distressed districts in Ireland are different. In the one you have a numerous resident upper class of country gentlemen and manufacturers, and intelligent and middle classes with habits of business. In the other, a number of poor cottiers, with few among them of any class above their own. Take Lord Dillon's estate in Mayo and Roscommon, with a rental of £24,000 a-year, 7,500 tenants, of whom not 10 pay £100 a-year. Besides, the cotton labourers had no land to be taken away from. In districts such as I have described, if the labourers are taken from the land, the distress of this year will develop into famine next year. Then what is to be done? My Lords, what did Lord John Russell do when he found the measure which, with the best intentions, he introduced fail? Why, he withdrew it. It cannot cost you so much to withdraw it as it did him. It is not your progeny I ask you to destroy; it is a discredited bantling you have picked up. Fall back, I beseech you, on giving relief in food and rendering reproductive works. Give the wealthier classes the means of employing labour. If they do not make use of these means make them pay for feeding the people. By doing this you will effectually relieve distress, and you will save a sufficient sum to enable you to provide good seed. This is the really formidable question. You may bring people through the suffering of this year; but if their land is not properly cultivated, and if they have not good seed to put into the ground, the prospects of the ensuing year will be alarming indeed.
§ VISCOUNT MIDLETONconcurred in all that had fallen from the noble Lord. It was admitted that they should do 493 everything in their power to alleviate the distress which undoubtedly prevailed in many districts in Ireland; but he thought the lessons of the past would have been ill-studied if they revived the system of relief which had failed in 1847. He ventured to think that if there was one lesson that stood out more prominently than another in the records of that disastrous year, it was the utter inefficiency of public works to give relief to a starving population. He did not say that on his own authority alone. In the first number ofThe Edinburgh Reviewof 1848 he had had an opportunity of looking over a paper attributed to the pen of Sir Charles Trevelyan, than whom no man living had had better opportunities of judging or could speak with more authority. He would not quote from that article; but the sum and substance of Sir Charles Trevelyan's arguments, drawn from statistics, were—first, that the works were often of small public utility—so small, that many of them were subsequently abandoned; secondly, that where they were of any public utility they were shamefully and scandalously jobbed; and thirdly—a most serious evil—that no real work was done upon them. The system, moreover, operated prejudicially on the labour market, and it was proved in 1847 that many men preferred taking what they called the "Queen's pay" to doing their own work for their former employers, because they received the whole of the wage in coin, whereas when at work upon the land they had to submit to certain deductions in kind. The consequence of this was that on the estates of many landowners the farmers were completely denuded of labour. He could hardly conceive a system which was more demoralizing than this. He might be told that the checks which the presentment sessions would exercise would be sufficient. He did not think so. When the court-house where the sessions were assembled was surrounded by a hungry crowd it was not easy for men to stand up and resist applications which they knew themselves not to be really genuine. Nor would it be easy for a Government Board, which received applications from magistrates and associated cesspayers, to refuse to undertake works of the utility or inutility of which they could only judge by proxy. Experience had shown that the only way to deal with 494 a man who was really starving was to put nourishing food down his throat as early as possible. Where destitution existed over any great area the crisis could only be met by forming special agencies, and supplementing them in mountainous and remote districts by other agencies which Boards of Guardians and the relieving officers could supply. By so doing they would preserve the self-respect of the people better than by offering them a substantial wage for nominal work. What works were really useful could be instituted by sanitary authorities and by the landowners themselves, who could look after the expenditure, and who had already taken large loans for the purpose within the last three or four months. Ireland was not the only country in which this system of public works had been tried. It had been tried in France, in part of the Austrian Empire, and most extensively in Italy. He could appeal to any of their Lordships who had seen the manner in which public works had been carried out in Italy, whether, instead of being a benefit to the population, they had not proved a positive curse? The kind of machinery required to carry on public works in a proper manner could not be improvised or started at a moment's notice. Of course, matters in Ireland were vastly changed from what they were a quarter of a century ago. In the first place, there was a much smaller population; and, in the second place, the population had been materially raised in the social scale. No one could see the manner in which they were now clothed and housed without being very much struck by the improvement which had been wrought. The means of communication also, which at that time were very bad, had been greatly enlarged. In fact, the whole railway system might be said to have been created in Ireland since the time to which he had referred, and there would be now no difficulty in affording supplies to places at a distance from the coast. Mountainous and remote districts would be far better dealt with by having food brought to the homes of the people rather than by drawing men long distances from their homes to public works; and not only so, but the relief given by public works was not always applied in the way intended, and often when so applied, the food, when obtained, was not prepared in that wholesome and nutritious 495 manner which was necessary when the system had been reduced by privation. That difficulty could best be met by giving food instead of employment. He had been very much surprised, after the very sensible remarks with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer prefaced his statement of the measures of relief intended for Ireland, to find that the right hon. Gentleman afterwards said that the Government had it in contemplation to establish a system which had before proved so great a failure. If they were to sanction those extraordinary baronial sessions they would repeat over again the mistakes committed 32 years ago, and the results to a greater or less extent would be the same as they were then. He most sincerely hoped that those responsible for the welfare of Ireland would hesitate before following a course which had been attended by such disastrous effects.
LORD DUNSANYsaid, that his memory also went back to the year 1847, and he could fully confirm every word uttered by the noble Lord as to the demoralizing and injurious effects of the hasty undertaking of public works. It was not always those who most needed relief who received it. Very substantial farmers hired out their carts and horses, and they got fat upon the famine. There was a great deal of mischief done by public relief works. He could mention cases where roads, which were most un-picturesquely level, had been found by means of spirit levels to require levelling, and relief works were initiated for levelling them. The result was seen at the present day on the roads, which had been most successfully spoiled. But there was, no doubt, immense difficulty in employing very large masses of the people in times of distress, and he was not sure that they would be able to avoid resorting to presentment sessions. He hoped, however, that the Government would endeavour so to limit the proceedings of those sessions that they should not extend beyond a certain area. It was very desirable that there should be some regulation laid down as to who was to take the initiative. If it were intrusted to every occupier and fussy magistrate he would find plenty to do. There were places in which there was no distress whatever. In his own district, for instance, it was all nonsense to talk about famine. There were many places in 496 Ireland where there was a great deal of factitious distress. It was a great pity that any should exist; but there was a great danger lest it should be extended. With regard to the county surveyors, it seemed to be rather that they were to be the responsible authorities, in a great degree, for expending large sums of money. Their Lordships might not be aware that county surveyors, as a class, were not the right persons exactly to whom to intrust large sums of money.
Even the obvious and practical remedy spoken of by his noble Friend (Viscount Midleton), to supply food to the people, would not be altogether free from danger, for in that there might be jobbery and corruption, at which they were such adepts in Ireland. He took up a periodical calledTruth,and he found in it a statement that in some districts in Ireland, not named, the recipients of food were the people who least wanted it. In the words ofTruth,the rich man had the good things and the poor were sent empty away. When the last famine in Ireland was over it was found that the granaries were bursting with food, and that the supplies of food and clothing were more than ample; but the poor people were in such a state of exhaustion that they were unable to go in search of food. The conclusion he came to was that the whole difficulty of the problem was that it must be left very much to the discretion of Her Majesty's Government; and he thought they had shown by what had occurred in "another place" that they had established a great claim to confidence. There were two ways of meeting all dangers—one was the calm and patient way of watching its approach, and the other the ostentatious and fussy way of running out to meet it. Her Majesty's Government had adopted the former, and the result had been shown in a late division "elsewhere," when Ministers, with the Leader of the Opposition, and the Leader of the anti-Ministerial crusade went into one Lobby, while the other Lobby had in it only the small body of irre-concilables. Another point he would allude to, as inseparably connected with the subject. The first thing was to feed the starving people, and the next to prevent future famine. It was tolerably plain that the real cause of famine, in districts whore actual famine 497 exists, lay in the fact that there was a large population in places which nature had never designed for its maintenance. Let them look at the Highlands of Scotland, where the climate and soil were of the same kind as in the West of Ireland; and in Scotland there was no population, while in Ireland there was a dense population. According to Irish ideas, the people should be rooted to the soil, while practical people would say they should be detached from it. The idea was unfortunately not popular; bat in that House they could express it. It was a mistake to call the people in some parts of Ireland inhabitants, as they were no more inhabitants than were tribes of Arabs in the desert. These people spent eight months in every year away from Ireland earning wages in England and Scotland, while the women and children went on a bogging tour. If these people were wise they would emigrate to other parts of the world; but the misfortune was they were taught by their mis-leaders what was the worst thing for their welfare. He was not talking of those half-crazy demagogues who went about the country inculcating landlord robbery and resistance to law; but of persons who were better educated, and who talked about Ireland not being over-populated.The Nineteenth Centuryfor December contained a very intemperate article by Mr. O'Connor Power, M.P., which was intended to throw light on the agitation against the Land Laws in Ireland. Those Land Laws, it should be borne in mind, were neither more nor less than the laws which existed in this country. Mr. O'Connor Power told the public that the cause of all the distress was landlordism. To show the iniquity of the landlords, it was stated that they had driven 30,000,000 of Irishmen into emigration. It did not seem to occur to Mr. O'Connor Power that if the wicked landlord had not caused the emigration, Ireland, which was now over-populated, would have had a population 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 larger than at the present time, making cannibalism probable, and infanticide a necessity. Mr. O'Connor Power's remedy for putting an end to famines in Ireland was really too ridiculous to consider for a moment—namely, at an expense of some hundreds of millions, buy out the Irish landlords, and turn the tenants into landowners. 498 Such a proposal could not be regarded as serious. As little practical was Mr. O'Connor Power's scheme for cultivating waste lands—namely, land which even under the Corn Laws no sane man ever attempted to cultivate. He thought he had shown that it was not to "Irish ideas" nor to the leaders of popular agitation that their Lordships ought to look for guidance in this matter.
THE EARL OF DUNRAVENMy Lords, I think we ought to be exceedingly grateful to the noble Lord (Lord Emly) for bringing this subject before the House, as it is one of very great importance. Moreover, we have to thank the noble Lord for informing us that, in his opinion—and there is no one who is a better authority on the subject—the time has now arrived in which it is necessary for the State to step in and to interfere to save the people in some districts in Ireland from absolute starvation. It has been very difficult to judge of the depth and extent of the destitution in Ireland. Alongside of real poverty there exists a great deal of simulated poverty. The noble Lord said that, in spite of the disaffection existing in Ireland, the springs of charity had not been dried up. I can scarcely agree with the noble Lord as to that, for I think that the recent agitation in Ireland, if it has not dried up the well of charity, has rendered it exceedingly difficult to pour its waters into the proper and natural channels. The state of things in Ireland has rendered it almost impossible to tell whether or no private charity is sufficient to meet the requirements of the case, and whether there is any necessity for the State to interfere at all. Practically, I exceedingly dislike State interference in such matters. I look very jealously upon all State interference. I heartily agree with a very eminent Irishman—the late Mr. Daniel O'Connell—in saying that the law that compels the public to support the destitute affords the strongest inducement to scheming knaves to affect destitution in order to be supported at the public expense. I do not mean to say that I agree entirely with a sentiment aimed apparently at the whole plan of Poor Law relief. I am of opinion that there may be cases in which the State is called upon to interfere; but it should be very chary of interference, and when it decides it is 499 absolutely necessary to do so, it should be most careful that the interference should be carried on in the best possible way. I have been very glad to hear the repeated assurances of Her Majesty's Government, that they are keeping a watchful eye on the situation, that they have their finger on the nation's pulse, and are prepared and ready to act with promptitude at any moment in the event of any emergency arising requiring instant action. That is the proper attitude to assume. They have also acted very wisely in offering loans on exceptionally advantageous terms for the improvement of land. It has been objected that the loans should have been given to occupiers. It appears to me that would be impossible. The small farmers could not have given sufficient security. Their interests will, in many cases, be different from, or hostile to, the interests of their immediate neighbours. No works could have been undertaken on a largo scale of general utility. The money would have been wasted and misapplied; a great deal of trouble and litigation would have ensued among the farmers, and the country would not have received any permanent benefit from the outlay. So far the Government has acted very wisely; but, in this supplemental plan, this idea of special baronial presentment sessions, they have adopted a plan—with all the experience of the past to guide them—they have deliberately adopted a plan that on a former occasion led to the most disastrous results; and it certainly will prove equally injurious to the country now. It is true that the circumstances of Ireland are different now to what they were 35 years ago; but they are different in a way that renders it only more difficult for this system to be beneficial. Belief works might have proved useful when a superabundant population of labouring men were reduced to the extremity of destitution. It did not prove useful, but, on the contrary, most injurious; and there is not the smallest possibility or hope that it can be beneficial now, when the small farmers are those that are suffering the most, and when there is not an excess of labour in the country. At first sight this plan of relief works sounds as if it ought to be very good. It seems natural that if the State is to supply a man with the necessaries of life, it is well to exact from him some measure of labour as an equiva- 500 lent. It appears as if by that means a man ought to retain his self-respect; but, on the contrary, experience amply proves that it has diametrically the opposite effect. The plan was tried in 1847, and with what effect? The country threw itself upon the State. The whole nation became demoralized. Not only the labouring class, but all classes—owners, occupiers, small tradesmen, and labourers—scrambled for the public money. All other works were abandoned, the labour of the country was withheld from profitable employment upon the soil. "Works of great general public value, such as the arterial drainage of the country, were neglected. At one time as many as 3,000,000 of people—men, women, and children—were receiving wages on those public works—receiving wages for work which they were paid to do, but which they did not do. In many cases they were too enfeebled to work; in other cases they would not labour. The Government were powerless in the matter. They attempted to compel them to work, and failed; they endeavoured to institute task-work, and were unable to do so; their efforts only resulted in adding riot and disorder to the other evils from which Ireland was suffering. The State was expected to do everything for that country; to undertake the functions and business of the whole population—of all the individuals composing the various degrees and ranks engaged in any kind of business and trade. The result was inevitable. It was chaos and confusion. The worst of it was that the soil of the country remained unfilled. The same thing will happen again now. Ireland has enjoyed an exceptionally fine winter, spring operations are about to commence, and if the labour of the country is taken away from its legitimate employment in the cultivation of the soil much damage will be done to the country, and a heavy responsibility will be upon the shoulders of the Government. Relief works will produce jobbery, and be abused. I have heard of several instances already in which it has been abused. I know of a case in Limerick, a few days ago, where a gang of 50 men supposed to be reduced to the extremity of destitution were employed by the Corporation at 12s. per week. They all struck work for 14s.6d.per week and half-holiday on Saturdays, which does not look as if they were 501 starving, or anything approaching to starvation, and I have no doubt that many other such cases have occurred. But because such scandalous cases do occur, we must be all the more careful not to shut our eyes to the amount of distress that really exists. What is to be done to relieve it? The answer is very simple. The experience of the past teaches what is to be done. Whenever the people are starving, you must supply them with food—food so prepared that it cannot be used in any way except as food for the immediate sustenance of the recipients or their families. If a man is starving, the State must interfere and prevent him from starving by giving him food to eat. There is nothing demoralizing in a man receiving charity in such a way. It is not nearly, at all events, so demoralizing as giving a man labour which he pretends to do, but does not do, upon works which he knows to be unnecessary, teaching him thereby to defraud the State. The plan of relief works was, as I have said, tried in the Famine time, and it most lamentably failed. The other system of giving food was resorted to, and was entirely successful. The pamphlet, by Sir Charles Trevelyan, has already been quoted two or three times this evening; but I cannot refrain from quoting another passage in it. Sir Charles Trevelyan, speaking of what is commonly called the "Soup Kitchen Act," says—
This was the second occasion on which upwards of 3,000,000 of people had been fed out of the hands of the magistrates; hut this time it was effectual. The relief works had been crowded with persons who had other means of subsistence, to the exclusion of the really destitute; but a ration of cooked food proved less attractive than full money wages, and room was thus made for the helpless portion of the community. The famine was stayed. This enterprize was, in truth, the grandest attempt over made to grapple with famine over a whole country.If the land requires improvement, by all means give loans on easy terms to enable the owner to improve it. If the people are starving, by all means let the State supply them with food to prevent their starving. But do not attempt to mix the two systems. It has been tried and found to fail. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will think seriously on the matter before, to the many evils existing in Ireland, they add yet another, for the system of special 502 baronial presentment sessions cannot fail to produce evil in the country.
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONTo listen to the various speeches that have been made on this most interesting and important subject which we have had before us, one would have imagined that the one or principal mode of dealing with the distress and famine in Ireland which we have adopted was a return to that system of public works which prevailed at the time of the last Famine in 1846 and 1847. Quotations have been made from pamphlets written by Sir Charles Trevelyan, pointing out the very grievous way in which that system at the time failed, and how unwise it would be to revert to it. The line which Her Majesty's Government have taken in the matter under consideration is as different from the course pursued in 1847 as one system could well be from another. During the debate of four nights in the other House, Her Majesty's Government, instead of being blamed for bringing forward such a proposal as that condemned by those of your Lordships who have spoken, have been told that they have been at fault in not carrying it out to a greater extent. The noble Lord opposite (Lord Emly) lives in Ireland; but there are Members in the other House of Parliament who have quite as much right and knowledge on the subject as the noble Lord himself. In his Question the noble Lord puts forward two points to which I take the liberty of demurring altogether. In the first place, he assumes that we are going to do that which we are not going to do; and, secondly, he assumes that we are not going to do what we are going to do. The Question is somewhat a long one, and I confess—we all confess—with all respect to the noble Lord, that in going over it a first time it did not seem to be quite clear. The noble Lord says that—
Having reference to the failure of the Labour Rate Act in 1847 to relieve distress and its mischievous and demoralizing effects, while the system of food distribution substituted for it was completely successful, the Government propose on their own authority to re-introduce into Ireland a system, which on account of its admitted failure was abandoned, without waiting for the sanction of Parliament.I demur to the statement that we are really introducing a system into the country which has been proved to be a 503 failure by all people. That is exactly what we are not doing; and the former part of the noble Lord's Question would imply that we have done nothing, and taken no steps whatever with the view of meeting the distress.
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONI have quoted the noble Lord's Question, and I venture to say that the construction to be put upon it as a whole, is, on the one hand, we are not going to give food to the people, but that we are going to reintroduce a system which would make them paupers. I am sorry not to be able to read the noble Lord's Question with the same eyes he seems to read it himself; but the noble Earl who spoke last (the Earl of Dunraven) says he hopes Her Majesty's Government will abandon the system which they have introduced to meet the distress; but it is not a system, and what we are proposing to do by the measure to which the noble Earl has taken exception is merely supplementary to other proposals which we are bringing forward for the purpose. What have we done? We are proposing to grant loans to the landlords, and to local authorities, and it is no fault of ours that a Bill has not been introduced to indemnify us from the effect of proposals we have made, and from the instructions which we have given to local authorities. We have stated that the Poor Law may be amended in order that poor people may receive out-door relief, which they could not receive under the old Poor Law. We have considered the point, and have decided that the poor are to be taken into workhouses, unless the workhouses are full. That is the proposal which we have made. I will venture to call the noble Lord's attention to a letter which has been issued, in which it is stated that it has been represented to the Lord Lieutenant that in some distressed districts there is great want of employment for the labouring classes, owing to the inability of the landed proprietors to find employment, and in consequence extraordinary baronial presentment sessions will be called into existence, after other means have failed. [A laugh.] The noble Lord may laugh; but that is the fact. There is reason to anticipate unusual pressure and unavoidable suffering, which the 504 ordinary working of the Poor Law will not be able to meet, and after all these things have been tried and it is found that there is great hardship, then measures are to be called into operation to alleviate the suffering. The noble Lord behind me (Viscount Midleton), who took great exception to the conduct of Her Majesty's Government, says he has every reason to believe that the measures which we have taken will be adequate to the occasion. I say if the measures which have been taken are adequate to prevent the people from starving, then there will be no necessity for putting any supplementary measures into force. On the former occasion public works were executed at the expense of the Government; now these works are to be executed in districts under the supervision of county surveyors. If it is advisable that the works should be executed by contract, then the contractor is bound by the terms set out in this Paper I hold in my hands to employ the people in the district. I can only repeat what I said before, that the measure which has been so much found fault with by the noble Lords opposite and by my noble Friend behind me is not the one measure we bring forward for the alleviation of suffering in Ireland; it is merely a supplementary measure, and we should think ourselves unworthy of the places we hold if we did not endeavour, by the best measures we can adopt and by whatever supplementary means may seem necessary, to prevent suffering and stop that famine which at one time appeared likely to become prevalent in the country.
VISCOUNT MONCKsaid, that he had a share in administering relief during the Famine of 1847, and what he then saw would never be effaced from his memory. His noble Friend (Lord Emly) had approved of the measures of the Government; but he (Viscount Monck) would be sorry to commit himself to approval of them until he had seen their effect. He could say that he did not approve of the system of relief which was resorted to in 1846 and 1847, and which so signally failed. He did not understand what the noble Duke could mean by saying that this measure, which was to his mind simply a re-introduction of the Relief Works Act of 1847, was a mere supplementary measure to be brought into use after all the other measures of 505 Government had failed, because he believed that baronial sessions had been called into existence in many districts in which not an ounce of food had been distributed. He entirely concurred with his noble Friend who had spoken last but one, that the experience of 1846 and 1847 proved that the most effective and least demoralizing scheme of relief which could be adopted was to give to the people directly that of which they most stood in need—food, fuel, and proper clothing. It was very difficult to resort to any measures which would not be more or less capable of abuse; but of all the systems which could be devised that which was calculated to do most injury to the people was, he believed, the supplementary proposal made by the Government.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYhoped the Government would not resort to extraordinary means of relief in districts where the effect of the Poor Law had not been tried first, believing that if the existence of distress in certain districts of Ireland was made in any way a pretext for special measures being introduced into districts where no extraordinary distress prevailed, serious injury would be done to the country, by demoralizing the people. Where distress existed to a great extent the authorities should relax the Poor Law, as was done years ago in some parts of England, and he understood that the Government had allowed that to be done. With regard to what had been said about the Government extending the relief more widely than they had done, he trusted they would not depart from the attitude of firmness which they had taken up, and for which he gave them great credit, and would not, in their natural and just desire to relieve real distress, be carried away by popular feeling into the adoption of measures which, however benevolent or charitable they might appear in themselves at the time, might produce results which all would regret. As to baronial presentment sessions, he quite agreed with what had been said by his noble Friends, and he felt greatly afraid that if these public works were carried into effect by the several authorities bad results would follow. There were two safe modes of giving relief—one by carrying food to the people, and the other by inducing persons to find employment, and thus to relieve those who were in 506 distress; and he hoped that the Government, if they should think it necessary that presentment sessions should be held, would still re-consider their decision.
LORD DENMANsaid, that in 1836 he had been in Ireland, and that 6d.a-day was the pay then of a labourer in the county of Cork. He had seen a model farm in which drainage had been carried on with great advantage. The surface turf, which prevented water from percolating, was made use of instead of tiles, and he hoped the drainage was still open. It had turned fields on the side of barren heath into productive land. He believed that Irishmen would much sooner receive pay for work at a low rate, as suggested by Colonel King-Harman, than be fed in idleness; and if they could work only half a day at a time through weakness, that they would be satisfied with small wages. He was sure that such men as Colonel King-Harman and his friend Major Robertson, Assistant Commissioner in the Agricultural Commission, would prevent imposition; and after alluding to the industry of such Irishmen as were sober, as described by the late Mr. Maguire in his work on the Irish in America, he added that he quite approved of the precautionary measures taken by the Government, which he believed would tend materially to lesson the distress and advance the prosperity of Ireland.