Lords Sitting of 15 September 1909

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 6) BILL.
Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Viscount Hood be proposed to the House as a Member of the Select Committee on the said Bill in the place of the Lord Abinger; read, and agreed to.
HOUSING, TOWN PLANNING, &. BILL.
Petition for amendment of Clause 44 of; of Leeds Building Societies; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

THE POOR LAW COMMISSION.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY*THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY rose to call attention to the Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws. The most rev. Primate said: My Lords, I ought, I think, to apologise to the House for the long time during which my notice to call attention to the Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws has stood upon the Paper and the repeated postponements which have occurred with regard to its coming forward, but these have not been due to any carelessness on my part but to the peculiar circumstances of a somewhat abnormal session and to what I was led to understand would be the general convenience of the House. I am glad to bring the delay to an end now.
It may quite reasonably be asked why it is that no Motion is proposed by me, and that I merely desire to call attention to the subject. Frankly the reason is this, that, if I may judge from such information as reaches me, the House is hardly ready for such a Motion just yet. Somehow or other people have been deterred from making up their minds upon this matter—partly, perhaps, by the supposed difficulty of the subject, partly by the mass of material which has to be mastered, and partly, possibly, by the knowledge that, massive as the material already is which has been placed before Parliament and the country, we have not yet had nearly all of it. The very sight of the volumes in their less merciful form—for there is here a merciful condensed reprint—is enough to daunt the stoutest heart. There are sixteen volumes already circulated, the
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first of which has 1,258 folio pages, and there are thirty-five volumes to follow, making fifty-one in all. Happily, those that are to follow are not of the same proportion as the volume, in every sense weighty, which has taken the lead.
My object this afternoon is to call attention to the importance of this subject as a whole, to the nature of the juncture in English history at which we stand, and to the practical possibility of dealing with the question speedily or at once. If nothing is soon done or promised I shall be perfectly prepared at the proper moment to move that definite action be taken—action which, I am confident, would have far-reaching consequences for good. I am certain that there is grave danger in letting a matter like this alone until people are able perhaps to say that the information now so carefully collected is out of date, and that new conditions have arisen. Therefore, my Lords, real mischief may arise from any prolonged delay in our dealing with the question which has been thus imperatively brought to our attention.
May I first call your Lordships' attention to the occasion and the circumstances in which these mighty volumes see the light? It has happened in modern English history that at successive great occasions in the national life people have felt it to be necessary that there should be periodical reconsideration of our responsibility for, and our duty towards, the weakest and the poorest, some say the most troublesome, part of our community. That has happened at a number of successive junctures in modern times. Stock has been taken as to what were the then facts about the weakest and poorest of our people, and as to what needed doing for the common good. I will give examples of what I mean.
Nearly 400 years ago, when, the changes which came about at the Reformation— using that word in its largest sense—brought a resetting in our national life, including the dissolution of the monasteries, which had meant so much for good or evil to the poorest part of our population, the country was overrun with poverty-stricken folk, some of them sick and helpless, but a vast number of them merely thriftless and idle. There is a very marked difference between the way in which those cases were approached then and the way in which we try at all events to approach them

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now. There was then an abundant inculcation of charity, and no doubt it was acted upon to a certain degree, but the main idea which underlay legislation on the subject at that time was rather how to get rid of the burden of inconvenient or troublesome people than how to ameliorate their lot or to accept responsibility for their care.
Accordingly a great number of Statutes, which some of us would now consider rather as blundering efforts in a confused sea of difficulties than as a coherent and consecutive endeavour to follow a definite policy, succeeded one another rapidly. At least thirteen such far-reaching and drastic statutes, some of which try to take the whole subject in hand afresh, were placed on the Statute Book in the sixteenth century within the space of little more than fifty years. Let me give an example. In the first year of Edward VI a Statute was passed which begins by recalling the wildly-fierce enactments of the previous reign and then recites as follows—
"That partly by foolish pity and mercy of them which should have seen the said godly laws executed and partly from the perverse nature and long-accustomed idleness of the persons given to loitering, the said godly Statutes have had small effect, and idle and vagabond persons have been Suffered to remain and increase, and yet so do";
and, as a milder punishment, enacts that—
"An able-bodied poor person who does not apply himself to some honest labour, or offer to serve even for meat and drink, if nothing more is to be obtained, shall be taken for a vagabond, branded on the shoulder with the letter V, and adjudged a slave for two years to any person who shall demand him, to be fed on bread and water and refuse meat, and caused to work by beating, chaining, or otherwise. If he run away within that period, he is to be branded on the cheek with the letter S, and adjudged a slave for life; if he run away again, he is to suffer death as a felon. If no man demand such loiterer, he is to be sent to the place where he says he was born, there to be kept in chains or otherwise, at the highways or common work, or from man to man, as the slave of the corporation or inhabitants of the city, town, or village in which he was born, and the said city, town, or village shall see the said slave set to work, and not live idly, upon pain, for every three working days that the slave live idly by their default, that a city forfeit £5, a borough 40s., and a town or village 20s., half to the King and half to the informer."
That, my Lords, was the mode of treating the able-bodied pauper, as we should describe him now, in the sixteenth century.
For those who were in genuine need, from real sickness or old age, the giving
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of help was not only offered to them, but enforced somewhat decisively upon the donors. In a Statute of the fifth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign it is enacted that—
"If any person of his froward wilful mind shall obstinately refuse to give weekly to the relief of the poor according to his ability, the Bishop shall bind him to appear at the next sessions; and at the said sessions the justices there shall charitably and gently persuade and move the said obstinate person to extend his charity towards the relief of the poor of the parish where he dwelleth; and if he will not be persuaded, it shall be lawful for the justices, with the churchwardens, or one of them, to tax such obstinate person, according to their good discretion, what sum the said obstinate person shall pay weekly towards the relief of the poor within the parish wherein he shall dwell; and if he refuse, the justices shall, on complaint of the churchwardens, commit the said obstinate person to gaol, until he shall pay the sum so taxed, with the arrears."
That was the mode of dealing with the non-able-bodied pauper, enforcing his care upon those who ought to see to it. So much for that period. Rigour gradually became less, and through the reign of Elizabeth, to begin with, we see a growing sense of what the nation owed to itself. A sense of common humanity and collective responsibility was the immediate and the efficient cause of the institution of the Poor Laws as we know them now.
I turn from that to quite a different period—to the age of the French Revolution. The whole subject was considered afresh at that time, and not, as we should now say, considered and dealt with very wisely or usefully; but it is interesting to find Pitt and Fox and Burke all speaking upon the subject and practically uniting in the legislation which was the outcome of their prolonged debates. Acts were passed in the last decade of the eighteenth century which laid down, strangely as it seems to us, that the farmers must, whether they liked it or not, find work, or, at all events, wages, for those who were unemployed, and that the several parishes must see to their own sick folk. Some of your Lordships may remember the memorable speech of William Pitt in 1795, a speech which formed the basis on which the legislation of the following year was laid down.
Then forty years later came the great Reform Bill and the new start which followed from it. It was a Parliament bent, as its members thought, on mending what they regarded as being amiss, and so in 1832 a Royal Commission was appointed to

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deal with the whole subject, and in 1834 its memorable Report was presented. That Report was commended to the House by Lord Brougham, then Lord Chancellor, in a speech of what I must call almost savage eccentricity, as unlike as possible to the eloquence which delights the House as it comes from the Woolsack to-day. It was a speech of portentous length, of extraordinary strength and originality, but of quite amazing dogmatism. If any of your Lordships will read that speech and note the way in which the House and the country were dragooned as to what they ought to do and how they ought to do it, the contrast to which I have ventured to refer will be apparent. In the debates that followed a very prominent part was taken by the Bishops of London and Exeter, the former of whom had been Chairman of the Royal Commission, and in 1834 the law was enacted under which in a great measure our system of poor relief has been administered to this day.
At each juncture, at each change in our national life, this subject has come afresh to the front, and now, more than seventy years after the Reform Bill legislation, we have again to face the old problem under new conditions, and to deal with what are, on the whole, I think, reasonable demands on behalf of the poor; and we ask legitimately how far what was done seventy years ago holds good to-day or corresponds with contemporary needs and facts. It is possible that some thoughtful person, say, in 1837, when Queen Victoria came to the Throne, may have anticipated the kind of advance since seen in industrial and social legislation, in extension of comfort in living, in sanitary science, in expansion of national wealth, and in general education, and if anybody did so foresee what changes were going to come about we can hardly doubt that he would, as a necessary corollary to that, have looked for a huge decrease in pauperism or in the need for the old-fashioned Poor Laws. The Commissioners of 1834 themselves said that their Report was mainly negative, and that to moral and religious education rather than to anything else they looked for amelioration in the existing conditions. In their summing up they say—
"The measures which we have suggested are intended to produce rather negative than positive effects; rather to remove the debasing influences to which a large portion of the labouring population
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is now subject, than to afford new means of prosperity and virtue. We are perfectly aware that for the general diffusion of right principles and habits we are to look, not so much to any economic arrangements and regulations as to the influence of a moral and religious education."
To such an observer and thinker, were he still alive—and it is not impossible, for Lord Wemyss is still a member of this House, and he was then twenty years old, and there has been no more keen observer than he—to such an observer what would be the impression which present-day facts convey as to the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the expectations then held out? Has there been a real decrease in pauperism, or in the need for legislative aid? Let me trouble your Lordships with a very few figures. Before 1871 the Poor Law statistics were compiled in a way that renders comparison with the facts of to-day almost impossible, but, taking the figures at that date and since then, the following would seem to be the facts. In the cycle of ten years to which 1871 belongs, the number of paupers, or persons relieved was, roughly, about 748,000 annually. In 1908 the corresponding number, again speaking roughly, was 772,000—an increase of 24,000. Of course, population has meanwhile increased by leaps and bounds, and when we compare the persons relieved with the population we find that, roughly, in 1871 there were thirty-one paupers per 1,000 of population, and in 1908 twenty-two per 1,000. That has the appearance of a change for the better, but our satisfaction is damped when it is remembered that in the first place to the twenty-two must be added a great number of people who are now relieved by public funds but not through the Poor Law. I refer to those who are helped by Industrial Schools, by rate-supported Infectious Hospitals, by the provisions of the Unemployed Workmen Act, the Law authorising rate-aid for child feeding, and in a great number of other ways. The whole subject of the treatment of lunatics has to be remembered in that connection, a large subject too complex for statistics. Then, too, voluntary charitable activity has increased tenfold during these seventy years, and ragged schools, waifs' and strays' associations, the Salvation Army, the Church Army, and countless other agencies all minister now to the relief of those who would in old days have had to rely upon the Poor Law. Adding all the people so relieved to the twenty-two

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per 1,000, the figures give little cause for satisfaction.
The Commissioners, in their Report this year, say—
"It is very unpleasant to record that, notwithstanding our assumed moral and material progress, and notwithstanding the enormous annual expenditure, amounting to nearly sixty millions a year, upon poor relief, education, and public health, we still have a vast army of persons quartered upon us unable to support themselves, and an army which in numbers has recently shown signs of increase rather than decrease. To what is the retrogression due? It cannot be attributed to lack of expenditure. Is this costly and elaborate machinery we have established defective, and if so where does it fail to accomplish its end? Is the material upon which this machinery operates becoming less amenable to the remedies applied?"
More than that, some of the legislation which has been carried through in quite recent years with the distinct object of ameliorating the lot and relieving the difficulties of the neediest has been somewhat two-edged in its effect. I quote again from the Commissioners' Report—
"It may be noted that the increase in male pauperism occurred chiefly during the cycle commencing in 1896. This period coincides approximately with the passing of two important measures of social reform. The Local Government Act of 1894 changed the character of the Poor Law authorities by the abolition of the property qualification for membership of boards of guardians and of the ex officio members whose influence had previously been considerable. And in 1896 the first of the series of Workmen's Compensation Acts was passed which, we are told by a large number of witnesses, has made it more and more difficult for a man to obtain work when thrown out in the later years of his working period of life. No statistics could be obtained to show to what extent these measures have contributed to the increase in the number of paupers."
Those are sentences which I am quite sure that it is well for us to take to heart when we are dealing with the subject on a large scale. All this is perplexing, depressing, and some of it may seem a little ominous; and it is well, therefore, to remember, that if we pass from statistics and endeavour to draw for ourselves a general popular picture as regards such undefined and non-tabulatable things as the prevalence of misery and neglect, or the reasonableness of our present-day modes of action, or the thoughtfulness of our modern methods of administration, beyond all question there is marked improvement all along the line.
I alluded a few moments ago to what seem to us now the strange, clumsy, ineffective, and even harmful enactments
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of the eighteenth century, making farmers and owners find work or wages for every loafer, and when one thinks of what must have been the demoralising effect of those provisions one wonders at the statesmanship, high and exalted as it was, that gave birth to such legislation. The Commissioners in their Report in 1834, after describing the doles with which wages were eked out, said—
"But it is more usual to give a rather larger weekly sum, and to force the applicants to give up a certain portion of their time by confining them in a gravel pit or in some other enclosure, or directing them to sit in a certain spot and do nothing, or obliging them to attend a roll-call several times in the day, or by any contrivance which shall prevent their leisure from becoming a means either of profit or of amusement."
That is a picture of a system still prevailing in the lifetime of many members of this House, and it is a curious revelation of what seems to us now at all events to have been the somewhat reckless or unreasonable manner in which legislation had tried to deal with the difficulties prevalent a hundred years ago.
Then, again, there was the "rounds-man" system as it was called, which the Commissioners in 1834 described thus—
"The parish contracts with some individual to have some work performed for him by the paupers at a given price, the parish paying the paupers. In many places the roundsman system is effected by means of an auction. Mr. Richardson states that in Sulgrave, Northamptonshire, the old and infirm are sold at the monthly meeting to the best bidder, at prices varying according to the time of the year from 1s. 6d. a week to 3s.; that at Yardley, Hastings, all the unemployed men are put up to sale weekly—
this, my Lords, was in 1834—
"and that the clergyman of the parish told him that he had seen ten men the last week knocked down to one of the farmers for 5s., and that there were at that time about seventy men let out in this manner out of a body of 170."
I think we may congratulate ourselves that those modes of meeting the difficulty are matters, not only of past history, but even of astonishment to people who cull them now from the records of what was happening seventy years ago. Again, take the kind of picture of Poor Law relief given in "Oliver Twist." The story was written, I think, in 1837 or thereabouts, and although no doubt over-coloured, it was based on a substantial foundation of what were then familiar facts. We have

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got rid of these things for ever; but none the less action upon our part now is, I am convinced, urgently called for. Some of the main recommendations in the Report of the Royal Commission now before your Lordships are merely a repetition of what was recommended in 1834, and for one reason or another has not been carried out.
It was the unanimous sense of the need of a new departure which led five years ago to the appointment of the Royal Commission whose Report is now before the country. I doubt if there ever was a Commission more capable of doing the work assigned to it, more representative in its character and in the different kinds of knowledge desirable in Commissioners, or which did its work more thoroughly or was presided over by a wiser or more capable chairman. The Order of Reference to the Commission was in two different sentences. They were to inquire—
"(1) Into the working of the laws relating to the ief of poor persons in the United Kingdom;
"(2) Into the various means which have been adopted outside of the Poor Laws for meeting distress arising from want of employment, particularly during periods of severe industrial depression. And to consider and report whether any, and if so, what modification of the Poor Laws or changes in their administration or fresh legislation for dealing with distress are advisable."
I am confining myself in what I say to-day to the first of these two, for a reason which I will give in a moment. Immense pains have been taken by the Commission in the collection of its evidence. The only question that may occur to some of us is whether it is not too voluminous, so voluminous as to make it almost beyond the power of an ordinary man to master it with any thoroughness. I find some natural satisfaction in noting the warmth with which the Commissioners express their sense of the great help which they derived from the information, furnished to them through the Bishops, from every diocese in England as regards the unique experience which the parish clergy have of the way in which these difficulties are met both by the Poor Law and without it. They say—
"The reports [from the clergy] give us an interesting account of the condition of different parts of the country in respect to poverty. The reports also contain independent and valuable criticisms of the efficacy of the existing methods and agencies for relieving distress.… The reports of the parochial enquiries form a most valuable body of independent local evidence which may be used for the purpose—
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and it is a purpose for which they are urgently required—
"of correcting the point of view of those actually engaged in the local Poor Law administration."
The Commissioners, as I have already said, have presented a most weighty Report, or, rather, brace of Reports, to the public on these questions. It is difficult to imagine that such a Report, embodying with virtual unanimity recommendations so important, so definite, so practical, and so feasible, will not speedily be followed by action, and yet there are great obstacles standing across the path when we look forward to such action. There are three groups of objections offered to our going forward. There are those who say—Things are not so very bad; on the whole, we get on fairly well. We want to screw up administrative efficiency and to keep an eye on sleepy local authorities; but the principles on which they are told to act and ought to act are sound, and it would be a great pity to disturb them. That has found expression in more than one quarter. Then there are those who say—The subject is so vast and the people who are anxious for reform present it in such a far-reaching way that we are not prepared to face it. A third class say—The propounders of the new plan are all at sixes and sevens; their recommendations are contradictory one to the other; let us wait till their counsels are practically unanimous. Each of those objections is capable of very definite answer, and I will say a word or two about each.
As regards the first, there are abundant pages in the Report which show how very fallacious and misleading is any such statement. There is much to be thankful for in every part of England. It is impossible to over-estimate what the country owes to the body of men who as guardians or relieving officers are giving themselves night and day to the consideration of a most difficult subject, and one which involves often most thankless work. Their work is beyond all praise, and, whatever changes are brought about, it would be vital that we should retain the help of such men. On the other hand, there are grave defects apparent everywhere, and defects not easily remediable; I doubt if they are remediable at all under the present law. There is first the unmeaning and unjustifiable variety of policy and manner in which outdoor relief is dis-

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tributed. There are districts in London, in East London particularly, where by simply crossing the street you will find yourselves under a régime entirely different from that on the other side. The odd numbers in the street are under one set of regulations and the even numbers under regulations completely different; and it is practically impossible that both of these for an identical population can be at the same time right. The same may be found through the country generally. The Commissioners in the strongest terms comment on the lack of any reasonably coherent or uniform principle. What they say on the subject is worth reading—
"The results of our investigations into the history of out-relief, of our own observation in visiting boards of guardians in different parts of the country, and of the evidence given before us, may be summarised as follows:—We have found a total want of principle and of uniformity in its administration, due, as we think, in part at least, to a lack of sufficient supervision. This want of uniformity does not necessarily arise from a difference in the circumstances of unions, but is generally the result of careless administration. We have been impressed by the inadequacy which often characterises it particularly in the case of widows with families, and by the absence of thorough knowledge of applicants on the part of boards of guardians, and sometimes even of their officers. We have had to record cases in which it was distributed with a complete disregard of sound policy, and, though rarely, on grounds, so far as we could judge, inconsistent with any high standard of administrative honesty. We have found that in few cases is any care or thought given to the conditions under which those who receive it are living. We do not recommend its abolition—
that is, the abolition of out-door relief—
"partly because we hope that, if our proposals are adopted, the need for it will gradually disappear, and, in any case, its mischiefs will be reduced to a minimum, and partly because we feel that time is needed for the development of a curative system of treatment, and that the abolition of out-relief might cause hardship."
That is their report as to the negative difficulties, but there are other parts of the Report in which they point out the harm which is being done in many regions by the way in which, free from any control, out-relief is being administered so as actually to foster and encourage things that are in themselves evil. They say—
"The following are some of the instances in which we have found that out-relief is being applied to subsidise dirt, disease, and immorality. An old Irishwoman, moving feebly about a room crowded with dirty lumber and herself in the last stages of dirt and decrepitude. She gets 3s. relief, pays 2s. 3d. rent, and has no other income except when
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she can get lodgers. She had two mill girls with her, one with a child, but the child was taken away with typhoid last week, and now she has no one. The place is hopelessly dirty and insanitary and ought to be closed."
It was kept from being closed by the relief given in that way. Then—
"The worst case on the list was that of an old man aged sixty-five, living with prostitutes, who boarded and lodged him at 2s. 6d. a week. The committee granted this man (although he did not appear) 2s. 6d. a week, but he was warned he must move into a more respectable neighbourhood."
The Commissioners proceed—
"T., married, with three children, is partly paralysed, and seems mentally deficient. His wife is crippled by rheumatism. The guardians allow 6s. per week for man and wife, and 6s. for the children. The tenement consists of two rooms … and there are living in the house, in addition to the foregoing, Mrs. T.'s mother, one male lodger, about forty, and Mrs. T.'s sister with an illegitimate child. In these two rooms, it will be observed, there are five adults, three children, and one baby. I was told by the relieving officer that the guardians do not attach importance either to cleanliness, sanitation, decency, or the ordinary standards of morality. As a result of my own observation I am prepared to endorse the statement."
I mention these cases, the importance being that these are not cases merely, as I think we can see, of ineffective, mischievous, or mistaken action in a particular locality on the part of particular men, but rather that the difficulties of mending them are inherent in the working of the system as we have it to-day.
Other things which the Commissioners call attention to are the almost chaotic lack of principle as to the mode of relieving widows with children, and, again, the meaningless and mischievous differences which are found in different parts of England as concerns the treatment of the aged. The workhouse accommodation for the aged is in some case so dreary as to be absolutely appalling, while in others it is palatial. If we take a rough generalisation it may be said that the country workhouses are dreary, and that the palatial houses—which are not necessarily more comfortable for the inmates—are mainly in the large centres. Alluding to the results which sometimes follow from the absence of any system of classification, the Commissioners describe one workhouse, a sample of many others, as follows—

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"The inmates, over 900 in number, were congregated in large rooms, without any attempt to employ their time or cheer their lives. There was a marked absence of any human interest, and though the superintendent and matron impressed us favourably it was impossible to avoid feeling that the lives of the inmates were not merely wanting in colour, but were aimless and listless. On more than one occasion there have been offers from outside to brighten the Sunday service, but they have been refused by the guardians owing to religious difficulties. It could not be better described than as a 'human warehouse.' The dormitories, which in some cases accommodated as many as sixty inmates, were so full of beds as to make it impossible to provide chairs, or to walk, except sideways, between them."
Then there is the overlapping—and here is, I think, the most important point of all, because it is a matter of principle—the overlapping of the existing authorities. Half -a-dozen public departments in one and the same area manage their work in different ways, absolutely independent of one another. There are the sanitary authority, the education authority, municipal relief works, and many others, all of whose work may be applicable to the same family. It has been pointed out that a widow with children may have five different and wholly independent inspectors visiting her house in one day, all of them doing their duty in particular water-tight compartments of the administration with which they have to deal. These are not mere questions of slack or careless administration; they are difficulties which, as far as I can see, are inherent in our existing system. They are only curable by a big new process, of which the first requisite is a greater enlargement of the area which is placed under one authority. Thus only can the two results be arrived at of having a fairly uniform system of outdoor relief—education, sanitary inspection, and the like—and the classification of the indoor poor, not in mixed institutions, but by special institutions. That was recommended in 1834, but as the law now stands the amendment is, speaking generally, impossible.
The Report speaks strongly on the subject, but I attach even greater weight to a quotation which the Report gives from the evidence of some of the best workhouse masters and matrons, who, on behalf of their association, say this—
"With proper classification of, and in, workhouses, it would be possible to treat each class of inmates on its merits, in more detail, with the result that to the deserving an almshouse system would present itself, while the treatment of the undeserving would be deterrent. If you give us
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all classes to look after as we have at present, you want expert knowledge on every point and expert administration on every point, and it is impossible, in the one house, with the one staff of officials, to get it. That is one reason why we request so strongly classification by workhouses as well as in workhouses."
In many cases the feeble-minded, the very old, little children, the sick, the immoral, all are lumped together under people who cannot possibly be experts in all those departments, but it is impracticable under our present system to manage them in any other or better way. I absolutely challenge the statement that these difficulties can be met except by a new system under a new law. The whole account which the Report gives renders it impossible to argue that all we need is a little stimulus and rather more administrative efficiency.
I do not think I need say many words about the next branch of objection to going forward—that the subject is so vast that we cannot face it. It is vast, but it is all departmented already. It is not like marching out into a trackless prairie or sailing over a sea that has never been charted. The thing is being dealt with and handled in departments already, although, for lack of legislation, not yet with much result in action. There has been a separate Royal Commission on the Feeble Minded; a Departmental Committee has reported on vagrants; the Government have promised to take up unemployment at once, and the speech of the President of the Board of Trade on that subject leaves us in no doubt that a Bill to deal with that particular question is actually on the stocks. It is not, therefore, a chartless sea or a vague wide area that we have to go upon, and I believe that once given the initial key to the situation which enlarged administrative areas would afford no practical difficulty need arise from the mere bigness of the subject.
One more point of objection frequently urged is that the Commissioners are all at variance, that their recommendations are widely contradictory, and that we must wait until they are more at one before we can follow their guidance. If we look at it practically, that allegation breaks down entirely. The main recommendations that are made are made by the whole of the Commissioners. Among these recommendations are—The enlargement of the area of administration: The abolition of

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the present boards of guardians as such: The ending of the system of ad hoc election to guardianship: and Classification by institutions and not in institutions. All these things hang together and are common to all the Commissioners. They are recommended by both the majority and the minority. Again, both bodies are in agreement in urging that the curative rather then the deterrent principle is the one which should always be kept in mind. With regard to existing voluntary charitable associations and efforts, the majority of the Commissioners attach more importance than the others to enlisting the co-operation and recognising the status of bodies and efforts of that kind, but on that point I can find no fundamental difference of principle whatever between the two.
The majority and minority do diverge absolutely when they come to the question of the constitution of the boards or authorities who are to administer the help in the coming days, and the difference between the two needs to be very carefully stated. I think it is this. The majority propose that the powers and duties of the guardians should be transferred to statutory committees of the county and county borough councils working in co-operation with the existing committees established by law for cognate purposes—health, education, and so on—and that the manifold organisations which exist for the purpose of charitable voluntary aid should be correlated under proper authority and given a legal status in each of the new areas of administration. The minority of the Commissioners, on the other hand, propose to distribute the powers and duties of boards of guardians as follows. So far as the non-able-bodied are concerned, they would be handed over to the existing committees of the county and county borough councils—for example, the existing education, health, asylums, and pensions committees; and their work is to be carried on under the supervision and, so far as I understand, the control of registrars of public assistance appointed by and responsible to the finance committees. The able-bodied are to be dealt with by a new organisation set up and controlled by the Board of Trade or a new Ministry of Labour.
Between these two I am not to-day trying to discriminate, although I confess that I do not see how the existing
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authorities, even if enlarged, can take over all these varied duties without bringing about another form of overlapping and a reversion to the small areas which every one condemns. For instance, there are now more than 1,800 different sanitary authorities in England and Wales—three times as many as the number of boards of guardians. The two rival suggestions—and I am very far from under-rating the importance of their differences on this particular point—are now before the country and before the Government. It is for the Government, when they come to devise a Bill, to decide which line they will adopt on that specific point.
I have, out of mercy and consideration to your Lordships, left untouched great tracts of the country which lies around the circumference of this subject, but about which there was plenty to be said had time and occasion served. Especially I am sorry to leave untouched the vitally important matter of the peril of our present plans of boy and girl employment, which are well called the blind alleys which lead to nowhere. May I read to your Lordships a few words from the weighty evidence that was given by our foremost thinker on such subjects, Professor Sadler? He said—
"Under the industrial and commercial conditions which now prevail, it is easy for a boy of thirteen or fourteen to find some kind of virtually unskilled work for which are offered wages that for the time seem high, and flatter his sense of being independent of school discipline and of home restraint. In this work there is often little mental or moral discipline, though it may involve long hours of deteriorating routine.….Such evidence, indeed, as is available, points to the conclusion that in some callings the uneducative use of adolescent unskilled labour is rapidly extending; but part of the apparent increase may be due to a growing sense of the importance of the subject and to the consequently closer attention with which it is being observed."
I should like to have dwelt on that subject. I am certain that nothing is more important as regards the bigger aspects of the whole problem we are dealing with. I have also put on one side all that concerns the question of adult employment. I have left that on one side because my object to-day has been to press for the necessity of action being taken with regard to the matter as a whole, and with regard to that branch of it the Government have already promised that action is shortly going to be taken.
That is all. I must apologise for having spoken at such length. Here is the Report. In my judgment no country can afford to ignore such a Report, containing on the one hand so grave a revelation of things that are seriously amiss and, on the other hand, recommendations so definite for mending these things. Is the country, is His Majesty's Government, going to ignore the whole subject and let things alone? Think, my Lords, of the number of people who, as the Report shows, are suffering needlessly every single week, every single day, that we are letting this urgent duty slide. I decline to think that such can be the intention of those on whom the burden—and it is a heavy burden—of central responsibility in these matters rests. I at least have tried to do my part by calling attention to the need of action in a matter vitally affecting the credit and the well-being of a Christian country.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF CREWE): My Lords, in rising to say a few words on this supremely important subject I am disposed to ask the indulgence of your Lordships. Placed as I am, with the daily duties of an office which certainly do not diminish in volume, added to special duties of this year, some connected with that office and some connected with the general business of the Government, I have been prevented from giving to the Report of the Poor Law Commission not merely that close study but what I think would be even more important, that careful thought which is necessary before it is possible to speak on it with any degree of adequacy. Therefore in the few observations I propose to make I shall confine myself in the main to general remarks arising out of what has been said by the most rev. Primate.
We have all, I think, listened with admiration to the very clear, and, if he will allow me to say so, masterly statement of the most rev. Primate on this subject, and in what I have to say I have no quarrel with him on any point whatever in the course of his speech. We are indeed grateful to him for bringing the matter forward, because he and the other occupants of the Episcopal Bench have the unique advantage of having been brought into close personal contact with the problem to an extent and with an intimacy which
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cannot be claimed by, I think, any of the lay members of the House, even though they may have served on boards of guardians. Consequently everything which falls from that Bench, and in particular from the most rev. Primate, on this subject must carry the greatest weight in all parts of the House. This is a vast subject, although I agree with the most rev. Primate in being hopeful that it is not too vast to be dealt with in the immediate future.
The risk which the most rev. Primate mentioned, that the magnitude of the question and the mass of official publications in regard to it may have almost a terrifying effect both on Governments and on the public is, no doubt, real. The aspect of the matter is rather like one of those great schemes of arterial drainage which are put forward from time to time, only to be perpetually postponed while the smaller cuts and canals are executed from time to time. But I do hope, my Lords, that as regards this Poor Law question the general sense of its urgency is so widespread that we shall escape the danger which was very properly pointed out by the most rev. Primate—namely, that any action will be deferred until it is possible to say that the conditions have so far altered that the inquiry is out of date and that some fresh investigation may become necessary.
The Royal Commission had its origin in the first place from the wave of unemployment in 1905, which produced the Unemployed Workmen Act passed by the Government of noble Lords opposite. That was the actual moving cause of the appointment of the Commission, although it is also true that there was a general sense that the time had come for inquiry into the entire subject. The Royal Commission was appointed at the close of the year 1905, and I desire to endorse everything that was said by the most rev. Primate of the debt we all owe especially to the chairman, Lord George Hamilton, but to all the members, who gave so much time and such endless labour, and who exhibited such remarkable sagacity in the conduct of the inquiry. It is true, as the most rev. Primate pointed out, that the mere preliminary of knowledge of the proceedings of that Commission demands the perusal of a volume of 1,200 large pages, and before anybody is entitled to say that he is really acquainted with the results

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of the inquiry he will have to read many other of those volumes enumerated by the most rev. Primate.
The most rev. Primate did not, I think, overstate the gravity of the existing position as pointed out in the comparisons which he drew, beginning from the year 1871 up to the present time, with the statistics of pauperism. He pointed out that there was in that cycle an average of some 747,000 paupers, and he might have added that in the ensuing cycle the number fell to 694,000; it was not until the cycle of 1896–1906 that it rose again to 718,000; in 1907 it was 769,000, and last year it was 772,000. It is also material to mention that although the number remains very nearly the same, yet the cost of maintaining these paupers has nearly doubled. In 1871–2 the charge was about £8,000,000; in 1895–6 it was £10,200,000; in 1905–6 it was upwards of £14,000,000. Those are serious figures and give food for serious thought.
The most rev. Primate also pointed out with great force what is, perhaps, the most disheartening feature of the whole situation—namely, the slight effect which our great moral and material progress in almost all other directions has had upon these statistics of pauperism. We now spend on education somewhere about £23,000,000. In the year 1905–6 the sanitary services of the nation cost another £16,000,000, and the cost of living, so far as food is concerned, has gone down. House rents, it is true, have not, but so far as actual cost of living is concerned there has been all through this period a diminution. And although it is one of those things which it is very difficult to prove, those best qualified to judge would say that, speaking generally, wages are higher. The statistics of thrift are in themselves satisfactory. Both the friendly societies and the trade unions show an increase. But in spite of all those encouraging symptoms we still have this great and undiminishing mass of pauperism. I also ought to have added that the statistics of illegitimate births—a most fruitful cause of pauperism as has always been supposed, have also steadily diminished without apparently affecting the general result. The only conclusion, I think, that can be reached from all this—and it leaps to the eye in the Report of the Commissioners—is that whatever may have been and whatever may be the merits of the system of 1834, that system has
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reached its limit. It has done all it can, and if you are to have any real improvement you must look for something else. The most rev. Primate spoke of the body of able-bodied paupers, the increase in whose number has been a disquieting feature, particularly of male able-bodied paupers, for although they only form a comparatively small fraction of the whole—about onetenth—yet the fact that they are so numerous as they are is, from the national point of view, one of the most serious features of the situation. Then there are paupers from old age, from sickness, from mental deficiency, and there are the body of sixty odd thousand child paupers.
I do not propose to dwell at any length upon the various recommendations laid down in the two Reports, but I am particularly grateful to the most rev. Primate for having called attention to the marked amount of agreement which exists in those two Reports. It has become a somewhat unfortunate point in the discussions that have taken place on this subject that it seems to be generally assumed that there is a sharp division, almost amounting to hostility, between the two Reports, and that impression may, I am afraid, have been somewhat strengthened by the naturally enthusiastic attitude of some of those who are in favour of the particular recommendations of one or the other. But I greatly prefer, with the most rev. Primate, to dwell on the marked points of agreement which both exhibit. The most rev. Primate enumerated many of them. There is the general agreement for the abolition of boards of guardians. The most rev. Primate spoke, if he will allow me to say so, wisely on the position of the boards of guardians. We none of us, I hope, fall short in the gratitude which we feel to those who have given for many years this unpaid public service, very often of an extremely disagreeable and painful nature; and I am the last to deny that in many cases both boards of guardians and individual guardians have deserved indeed well of their country. But that fact must not blind us to the deficiencies of the system, and nobody who has been through the Report or who has had any other opportunities outside of acquiring a general knowledge of the subject can, I think, doubt that in making this recommendation the Commissioners have done what was not merely desirable but what will prove to be absolutely necessary when the subject comes to be dealt with.

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Then the two Reports also agree on the abolition of general workhouses. They agree, in the main, in the character of the classification which ought to take place, and when the most rev. Primate reminded us that some of the recommendations of 1834 had not been entirely carried out in the long interval from that year to this we should remember that classification was one of those recommendations. It is also true that the general spirit of attempting to cure rather than deter is obvious in both the Majority and the Minority Reports, and both also lay stress on the necessity of investigating single individual cases by co-operation with private and other agencies. Both also agree in the necessity, in the last resort, that recourse must be had to compulsion in the treatment of certain cases of poor relief, and there are various other common grounds. It is no doubt true—and I think it is this feeling which has given rise to the general belief in the diametrically opposite character of the Reports—that there is a certain difference of approach evident as between the Majority and Minority Reports. I do not know that it would be more inaccurate than generalisations are apt to be if one were to say that the Report of the Majority in the main seeks to develop the sense of individual responsibility, while the Report of the Minority rather tends towards giving a stimulus to the consciousness of social obligation. But be that as it may, I think it is reasonable to conceive that the recommendations of neither Report may be absolutely perfect, that there is a great deal of the utmost value in both, and that when the time comes for the matter to be dealt with by legislation the recommendations of both ought to receive the most careful consideration of the Government who have to frame that measure, and I would venture to prophesy that it is not likely that either will be accepted in its absolute entirety.
I do not know that it is necessary to attempt to follow the whole course of the recommendations even in the broadest way. As regards the care of the children of the State, as they are sometimes called, both the Reports favour the adoption of the less formal and institutional methods which have been in vogue in the past. Attention is called to the fact that the system of boarding out within the union has been hitherto not properly supervised, and I mention that point in particular because it is—and I think this is important to note—one of those which can be dealt with by
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administrative action without having recourse to legislation. I say it is important to bear that in mind because this is by no means the only instance; and whereas the great bulk of the subject may, as I say, make it alarming, it is evident that the more that can, so to speak, be pared off that bulk by administrative action before there is any question of further legislation, the easier the subject will be to deal with. Therefore, as regards the question of boarding out, my right hon. friend the President of the Board is preparing a circular for the appointment of committees for the purpose of supervising children so boarded out, which I hope will have the effect of making their care as complete as that of children boarded out without the union, who as we know, can regard themselves as well looked after. Again, the Local Government Board have been able to remove a considerable number of sick and convalescent children from the care of the Poor Law and to place them under the Metropolitan Asylums Board, and I think some 500 have been placed in the children's infirmary at Carshalton within a short period.
Then as regards the pauperism of the aged, I need not remind the House of what has been done with reference to old age pensions. That, of course, does not, and even if extended will not, entirely extinguish the pauperism of old age so far as that pauperism is of an invalid character, but it does represent a serious dealing, as we all agree, with one important side of the question. The most rev. Primate carefully and explicitly left out of his speech the question of unemployment, and he did so on the specific ground that the President of the Board of Trade had announced in May last that His Majesty's Government hoped to bring forward a scheme for insurance against unemployment. That insurance, I may briefly remind the House, would be found by contributions from the workers and from the employers, supplemented by a grant from the State. The insurance would be by trades, and would be absolutely compulsory upon all workers in those trades. In addition to that, of course, we have the Labour Exchanges measure, which has already received the sanction of your Lordships and which we hope will do something to diminish the terrible evil of able-bodied pauperism. I think I may venture to say that so far as this important side of the matter is concerned we have been dealing, and are dealing, with it.

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I do not think that the most rev. Primate or the House will expect me to say anything very definite as to what our hopes may be of dealing with the whole question. I can assure him we are fully alive to all the considerations which tell against postponement and which he stated so forcibly, but we have to consider the somewhat varied and exciting Parliamentary possibilities of the situation, and under these circumstances I should be a very rash prophet if I were to attempt to say anything as to what our hopes may be of how or when we should be able to deal with the other side of this question. What I do feel is that the hopes that it will be grappled with—I will put it in that way and not say that we will grapple with it—are largely increased by the fact that it is in no sense a question which divides parties. I am confident that although noble Lords opposite might not apply precisely the methods of treatment which we should desire to apply, yet they are not less alive than we are to the necessity of dealing with the situation. And believing this, I do venture to express the hope that within what the most rev. Primate would describe as a reasonable time it may be possible to cover this field of action, vast, indeed, though it is.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: My Lords, I am sure every one in the House will have heard with satisfaction the words with which the noble Earl concluded his speech. Perhaps it will be almost paradoxical to say that the condition of the House this evening evidently justifies the most rev. Primate in the course he has taken in raising this debate, for to-night has not shown any very widespread public interest represented here; it has shown what I imagine to have been in his mind—the necessity of all of us in our different places steadily going on saying that the publication of this Report means a great opportunity and a great obligation and that it stands quite in the front rank of matters of public duty. I think it might be said, without exaggeration, that the good which in the judgment of one side of the House would be accomplished by the passage of the Budget, or the harm which in the judgment of the other side of the House would be done by the same event, would not be greater than what would be done, good or harm, by the effectual handling on the one side or by the neglect on the other of the issues raised by these Reports.
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The most rev. Primate, in the early part of his speech, took us back into regions where probably the historical knowledge of most of us was quite unable to follow, and produced for us certain singularly racy and interesting extracts from the earlier history of the treatment of this question. He gave us instances of the strange way in which charity at one period was made compulsory on individuals, and at another period the fanner was compelled to provide employment, and he asked us to note the very strange and ill-judged methods which were then employed. But I cannot help feeling that when we look back at events of that kind we are in somewhat the same position as those who when they are discussing modern warfare point to the clumsy old matchlocks or the curious swords that were once employed and say "We at any rate have got past that." It seemed to me that those instances brought home to our minds that in their old-fashioned way men of former generations had a stronger sense that matters of this kind must be dealt with, and dealt with by the community, than we find now. It has always seemed to me that, probably by reaction from some ill-judged methods of the past, there has been dominant throughout our lifetime in general opinion an idea that most things which affect poverty and so on come to pass, and that you cannot much affect them by anything that you do, except perhaps by the preaching of virtue and by all those influences which tend to raise public morality. It is there, surely, that we begin to see more and more that that was wrong, that we ought more and more to interfere; and what is very satisfactory is that we are not discovering this, if I see rightly, in a theoretical or doctrinaire way, but that we are largely learning it along the way of wholesome and successful practice—that is to say, in these Reports our attention is drawn to what probably only a few of the more expert among us realised before, namely, the amount which Parliament has done in the way of organised treatment of different parts of this subject.
The noble Earl who has just sat down said, if I understood him rightly, that he is very disappointed that, in spite of that, we find so little accomplished. I think probably that is really because we do not picture to ourselves what would have happened if those improvements in administration had not taken place. I allude specially to all the work of public health and the treatment

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in special institutions of those who need such treatment. Coming to the matters which seem now most to challenge administrative change, I think I am right in saying that first there is the country question. Nothing, I think, seems to come out more clearly than that it is impossible for bodies like boards of guardians to deal with large parts of this subject, which indeed cannot be dealt with on a small scale. Therefore, so far as that goes, we need not discuss pro and con how much of the eulogiums and how much of the strictures that have attached to the action of those bodies is justifiable, because whether they have done well or ill, it still is necessary to bring into action a larger authority which could deal on an ampler scale and so deal more systematically with the classification and treatment of the poor.
But the other question with which I have more to do is that of the towns. What I have felt, certainly since I have had to deal with the great masses in South London, is that probably outside people hardly realise what has grown up and what is inaccessible either to the forces of private effort or the unaided forces of municipal effort. I was talking the other day to a clergyman who had been working in the outskirts of one of our large towns, and he was very much struck with the change that had passed over his district within the memory of one generation. Thirty, or forty, or fifty years ago the place had been practically looked after by a great manufacturing family, highly thought of in the community, rich and benevolent in its action, and it was said that there could hardly have been a case of distress in that township which was not known to and probably assisted by this great house. But the town has grown to be one of the vastest in this country. The employers have gone to live outside, the personal house has been transferred to a company, and now you have on that same area a much larger population and a population which there is no like instrument to deal with efficiently. In South London, in dealing with the needs of the poor, I see—I was going to say not a little, but I think that word would be inadequate—I see a great deal of private charity both in money and in kind. There have been developed within my time organisations, such as settlements of educated men and women, to mention one example, which have done a great deal of the kind
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of work most wanted to be done. There is a great deal of that work and it is better organised than it used to be, but it is still very sporadic and very uncertain. But what I think is most important to recognise is this, that where there is action of that kind on the part of individuals and societies, efficient public action on a larger scale would be not least but most welcome. I think that if a foreigner were to read these Reports he would be struck with the fact that both of them alike were genuinely English in the way in which they rely upon, and propose that we should continue in the future to rely upon, such private benevolent action.
Municipal action among our London masses cannot be expected to go beyond a certain point in its range and reach. Everyone knows that it is very difficult to man the machinery. The number of men who are present there with leisure to give and the higher kind of training for the purpose is very limited. Men and women have done splendid work upon the local municipal bodies, but I cannot help seeing that the problems of London life—labour, poverty, disease, and so forth—are much too vast and complex to be dealt with except by the very best central strength that we have. Therefore I do want very much to see this putting out more power. In these times, when every day in every company the topic of Socialism is foremost in the minds of men, I wish we could resolutely distinguish between questions which concern municipalisation or nationalisation, or what not, of means of employment and other questions involving the steady, quiet increase of the action of the State in an administrative way. I am quite aware of the dangers that attend that action; I am quite aware of the danger—I hear it often spoken of in our London life in the field of education—of a bureaucratic system; but I cannot help feeling that those dangers are not so great as the danger of leaving undealt with things which can only be dealt with by a central authority.
We surely do want a great extension—here the Reports are most eloquent, and, I think, most touching—a great extension of curative action, which forestalls mischief and so saves to us physically and morally a great number of lives which are now wasted. Such a result as that, if it be

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possible—and I think it is possible—is surely well worth a little infringement of the principles of independence and so on, to which we sometimes, I think, attach not only their full value, but a little more. I was very much struck by the fact that a former chief magistrate of my own borough—the borough of Southwark—sent for me a little while ago and said he was so deeply impressed with the way in which phthisis was making havoc in the younger population that he wanted, if he could, during his mayoralty to do something to check the harm that it did. There was the case of a man very fully occupied with his own business and with the care of administration, but upon whose mind this had been borne home. I take it, therefore, that if we were resolute, and if we gave the right powers in the right way and quite in a line with what we have done in our action concerning health authorities, we could probably do a great deal to save life.
Speedy, thoughtful action is required from Parliament for the treatment of the whole subject of boy labour. Three or four years ago, when there was one of the special waves in the movement for social reform, I remember attending a meeting in a hall not far from here on the subject. The meeting was addressed by one who I think, in this or in any place, deserves the best tribute of admiration and gratitude that we can give—I mean Canon Barnett of Westminster. I remember well how he put aside all the vaguer propositions on which other speakers had dwelt and concentrated himself on the one subject of the wastage which went on between the years of school life and adult life. Ever since then I have felt with increasing conviction that Canon Barnett had put his finger on the spot, and I see that these Reports justify that to the very full. The Reports of the Commission touch all spheres of life. They touch the matter of unemployment, because every one who looks at the matter now agrees that it is largely this unskilled boy labour which is recruiting the ranks of the unemployed. Nothing has been more marked among Christian bodies of late years than the concentration of effort upon this class, but I think I shall speak for all the representatives of our religious bodies if I say that here again we feel that what we and those who work for us are able to do would be much more efficient if the whole subject were
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handled with more vigour by Parliament and public authorities. It is said that action of this kind would lead to a great deal of expense. I coast there along the edge of controversial questions, but I only do so to make the remark, which surely is an innocent and obvious remark, that we should there, if we spent a great deal of money, save a great deal of money too, and along with the money we should save we should save things which are more valuable than money.
I have not dared to speak at any length on the question of the unemployed, though I do not think that I should be faithful to my knowledge if I did not say that I am quite sure this question is gaining in genuine urgency. I use the word "genuine" urgency, because I am quite aware that it is a question into which a spurious and artificial urgency can to a degree be imported. I say it is gaining in genuine urgency in such districts as those with which I have to do. Nothing, I think, more stirs the indignation of one who at all knows the matter than the phrase, too often current upon men's lips, that the unemployed are really unemployable. That is an untrue saying, and it is a cruel saying. It is untrue because it turns a partial truth into a general truth. Of course, there are large numbers of unemployable among the unemployed, but workers in South London know home after home where the real, honest, genuine worker sits craving for work. But that is not the worst of it. They know the way in which, early and late, he pads the streets, wearing out the soles of his boots trying to find work. It is not only an untrue but a cruel saying, because many of those who are unemployable need not have been so. They are unemployable not only by their own fault, for there are many of them for whose condition the community are entirely responsible. These Reports show us how we of the community have made many of these unemployables, and therefore it is cruel to throw their unemployableness in their face. How much we can do I do not know, but I do feel most hopeful that if we can in the sort of way suggested by the Commissioners tackle the question of unemployment and break it up, we may be able to do a good to the community at large, and to the most hard pressed and suffering classes of that community greater, perhaps, than we at this time hardly dare to hope.

HANDLOOM WEAVING BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Pirrie, who was in charge of this Bill, I have the honour to submit the measure to your Lordships and to ask that you will give it a Second Reading. Although I shall not be able to do so with the knowledge of the subject possessed by my noble friend, I hope your Lordships will extend your indulgence to me while I state in the barest outline the object of the Bill. There exists in Ireland an industry of weaving in a handloom linen damask goods, and that industry is one which gives employment to a considerable number of persons, particularly in the North of Ireland. There is supposed to be, and there undoubtedly is, a superiority in these handwoven products over similar products made by power looms, and the practice of occasionally trying to pass off goods which have been made by machinery as goods which have been made by hand is not altogether unknown. I think your Lordships will appreciate that that practice is really a double deception, because the purchaser is deceived and the maker of these goods is also damnified by a competition which is unfair. The object of this measure is to provide a remedy for that state of things. The first clause provides that all those goods which are made by handloom shall be marked in a manner which will make that clear. The second clause provides that goods which are not so made shall not be so marked and that it shall be an offence to so mark them. I think the object of that should commend itself to the House. When I add that although this is an Irish Bill dealing with an Irish subject it has commanded universal assent in another place, I think your Lordships will believe that that is an overwhelming reason for according it a Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Earl Russell.)
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, as I am personally connected with the Province of Ulster and especially with the county of Down in which handloom weaving forms a prominent part of the important industry of the linen trade,
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I cordially support the Bill. Not only has the Bill passed unanimously through the other House, but it has received the support of the Unionist Members who represent the Province of Ulster. As the noble Earl has mentioned, handloom weaving is superior to that done by machinery, and consequently it is but right that those who purchase these goods should know whether the linen they buy has been made by hand or not. I do not know that there has been any great amount of linen passed off under false colours, but the present state of the law does give opportunities for that to be done. There is another reason why I support this Bill.
In the county of Down, where, as I have said, this is an important industry, we notice a very great decline, almost a decay, in handloom weaving. I have only this afternoon had placed in my hands some statistics which bear this out. In Waringstown, which is in the centre of the hand weaving linen trade, there were in the year 1881, 1,730 houses; in 1901 the number was reduced to 1,521. The population in 1881 was 7,902, but in the year 1901 it had been reduced to 6,036. These are serious figures as showing the decay in this trade. I think the Lord-Lieutenant a short time ago visited Waringstown and promised the people there that steps should be taken for the introduction of a Bill such as this. A number of the people who work at the handloom also have small holdings, but they could not live upon the holdings without the work of the handloom, and, consequently, if they can no longer obtain employment at this industry they will have to give up their holdings and make their way into the cities adding to the number of the unemployed or else emigrate from Ireland. The handlooms also give employment to old people who otherwise could not find employment, and if handloom weaving ceases these old people must eventually go into the workhouse. The Bill, therefore, is a useful one not only in the interests of honesty of trade but also in the interests of the population, and I hope your Lordships will give it a Second Reading.
LORD DENMAN: My Lords, I am glad to hear the cordial reception which the noble Marquess, who speaks with great authority on this question, has given to this Bill, and on behalf of His Majesty's Government I have only to say that we cordially support the objects which the Bill has in

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view, and will be glad to see it passed into law.
On Question, Bill read 2a and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

SIR R. WHITTINGTON'S CHARITY BILL.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXVIII. be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2a (The Lord O'Hagan); agreed to: Bill read 2a accordingly and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.

BRIDGEND (HOPE ENGLISH BAPTIST CHAPEL, &.) CHARITY BILL.
JOHN MARSHALL'S CHARITY BILL.
LICHFIELD AND LONGDON CONGREGATIONAL CHAPELS AND TRUST PROPERTY CHARITY BILL.
DEWSBURY AND BATLEY CONGREGATIONAL CHAPEL CHARITIES BILL.
WORTLEY CONGREGATIONAL CHAPEL CHARITY BILL.
Read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.

CROFTING PARISHES (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
Amendment reported (according to order), and Bill to be read 3a To-morrow.
SUPERANNUATION BILL.
Read 3a (according to order), and passed.

HAMILTON BURGH ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to Hamilton Burgh—Was presented by the Lord Pentland; read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, section 7) deemed to have been read 2a, and reported from the Committee. (No. 174.)
House adjourned at twenty minutes before Seven o'clock, till Tomorrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.