Sitting of 5 February 1847

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBERS SWORN.—For Middlesex, Rt. Hon. Lord Robert Grosvenor.—For Chester City, Earl Grosvenor.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Mr. John O'Brien, from Limerick, for the Abolition of Ministers' Money (Ireland).—By Captain Pechell, from Shipowners of Arundel, for carrying into effect the Recommendations of the Select Committee with respect to Lighthouses.—By Mr. Wodehouse, from Norfolk (3 Petitions), for the Repeal of the Malt Tax.—By Mr. Hume, from Distillers in the counties of Forfar and Kincardine, and by Lord John Manners, from Distillers in Scotland, against the Proposed Reduction of Duty on Rum.—By Lord John Manners, from Landed Proprietors, Farmers, and others, against the Use of Sugar in Distilleries.—By Sir Thomas Esmonde, from Wexford, for the Repeal of the Duty on Tea.—By Mr. Ferrand, from Inhabitants of Cropland, for Repeal of the Anatomy Act.—By Mr. John O'Brien, from Limerick, for Alteration of the Bread Law (Ireland).—By Mr. Hume, from John Mackenzie Lindsay, of Dundee, for Inquiry respecting Dundee Harbour.—By Lord John Russell, from Joseph Bentley, Aldine Chambers, London, suggesting a Plan of Education.—By Lord John

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Manners, from William Stidolph, of Chelsea, for placing the Education of the Blind under the Superintendence of the Government.—By Mr. Vernon Smith, from Northampton, for Alteration of Law in relation to Extra-Parochial Places.—By Mr. Ferrand, from a great number of places, in Favour of the Ten Hours Factory Bill.—By Mr. Sharman Crawford, from Guardians of the Drogheda Union, for Alteration of Law respecting Landlord and Tenant (Ireland).—By Mr. Vernon Smith, from Northampton, for Alteration of the Lunatic Asylums and Pauper Lunatics Act.—By several Hon. Members, from a great many places, for Repeal or Alteration of the Poor Removal Act.—By Mr. Brotherton, from London, for Abolition of the Punishment of Death.—By Mr. Pattison, from John Williams, suggesting a Plan for the Construction of Sub-Arches (London).

CORN DETAINED AT ANCONA.
DR. BOWRINGrose to put a question on the subject of the detention of corn and maize by order of the Pope. The House was aware that the port of Ancona was one of the great receptacles of the corn of all nations; and, it being a free port, a considerable quantity had been collected in the granaries there. Very considerable purchases had been made at that port for English account, and they were intended to be shipped to this country. It was stated, that an order had emanated from the Pope by which the export of grain was prohibited, that many cargoes had been detained in that place, and that in other cases ships had not been allowed to load. He was desirous to ask, whether the subject had come under the consideration of the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary, and whether he had taken, or was likely to take, any measure in regard to it?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONhad received several representations upon the subject some little time ago, and had on that very day had an interview with a deputation from the city of London, who came to him upon the same matter. In consequence of the former representations he had issued an instruction on the 22nd of January to the British Minister at Florence, to remonstrate with the Roman Government upon the subject. The interdict proceeded, as he believed, not from the Government at Rome, but from the local authorities at Ancona; and, as he was informed, it applied not to corn coming from other parts of the world and deposited at Ancona, but to corn the produce of the Roman States, purchased on English account, some of it already deposited in the free port of Ancona, and some of it on its way. The matter was of very considerable interest and importance, and he could assure the hon. Member that the Government would use their utmost endeavours to persuade
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the Roman Government to exempt from that order all corn purchased or intended for this country.

BOAT OF THE HIGHFLYER.
DR. BOWRINGhad another question to put to the noble Lord. A boat's crew, belonging to the Highflyer, was reported to be lately abandoned by that ship on an island near the coast of Abyssinia; it was said that four persons were left there, among whom was a young man in the service of the Peninsular and Oriental Company; their fate was unknown. There was some suspicion that the boat in which they were had been lost; but, on the other hand, there was some reason to believe they had been captured by some of the savage tribes in that neighbourhood, and conducted into the interior of Africa. No doubt the noble Lord had taken all proper steps; but it would be satisfactory to the families of these unfortunate persons, as well as to the public, to be assured by him that such was the fact. He begged to ask what had been done?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONhad had the circumstance brought under his notice some little time ago, by a representation from the father of one of the officers of the ship. He gave orders for an inquiry to be made by our Consul General in Egypt, and had received since that time a report from the India House, with a very circumstantial detail of an inquiry made by order of the political agent at Aden, who sent an expedition to investigate the transaction on the spot. They examined minutely the island where the parties were landed, and several adjacent islands, and they were satisfied that the boat's crew had not been taken prisoners, but that there was every reason to fear that, having started from the island, they had been driven out to sea by a gale of wind, the boat had foundered, and they were lost at sea.

THE PENINSULAR MEDALS.
SIR A. L. HAYasked the Secretary at War whether any steps had been taken to carry into effect Her Majesty's gracious intention of granting medals to the officers engaged in the Peninsular war?
MR. FOX MAULEreplied, that it was quite true that Her Majesty had expressed her gracious commands that a mark of distinction should be conferred upon the officers who served in the Peninsular war; but, in carrying those commands into effect, the details had been found some-

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what difficult. He could, however, assure the hon. Member and the House, that no unnecessary time should be lost in conferring upon those gallant officers the reward which Her Majesty had been graciously pleased to bestow.

THE HERRING TRADE.
SIR A. L. HAYrequested to know whether any correspondence had taken place with the Government of Belgium, Russia, or any other country, relating to their tariff in regard to herrings exported from Great Britain; and, if so, whether it were likely that the differential duties, which in some countries were almost prohibitory on the introduction of herrings from this country, would in any of them be relaxed?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONanswered, that several representations had been made to him from Scotland upon this subject, and instructions had been given to our Ministers abroad to endeavour to obtain some modification of the tariffs. Of course, however, each country held itself at full liberty to regulate its tariff for its own interests, either real or supposed.

THE BLACK CAT.
MR. MUNTZasked the noble Lord under what Act of Parliament the English vessel Black Cat had been for several days, and still was, detained in the river Thames, and all explanation refused by the Customs?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONreplied, that the Black Cat was detained by the Board of Customs, in consequence of an application made by the Portuguese Minister, who represented that she was lading with military stores, intended for purposes of hostility on the coast of Portugal, and therefore equipped and fitted out in contravention of the Foreign Enlistment Act. He did what was his duty in a case of that kind; he made a communication to the Treasury, and suggested that the Treasury and the Board of Customs should take such steps as the legal advisers of those departments thought proper, and the Black Cat had in consequence been detained. Whether the detention would be authorized by further investigation, so as to lead to permanent detention, or whether the owners could produce such proof as should satisfy the Customs that there was no ground for detaining the vessel, he was not able to say; he had done all that his duty required, in referring the application
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of the Portuguese Minister to the proper quarter.

MERCHANT SEAMEN'S FUND.
MR. AGLIONBYinquired whether there were hopes that the evils and hardships at present connected with the administration and collection of the Merchant Seamen's Fund would be remedied?
MR. WARDinformed the hon. Member that a commission would be appointed, in the hope that it would lead to the preparation of some measure upon the subject.

NAVAL COURTS MARTIAL.
MR. W. WILLIAMSasked whether the Admiralty intended to effect any improvement in Naval Courts Martial, aud the regulations as to punishments on board ship?
MR. WARDcould assure the hon. Member that those subjects had been under the most serious consideration of the Admiralty, and no board was ever more anxious to check the abuse of the power of punishment on board a ship. On the Motion of which notice had been given for next week, he hoped it would be in his power to give an explanation upon the subject which would be satisfactory to the hon. Member and to the House.

SUGAR REFINED IN EUROPE.
MR. RICARDO,believing that the question had arisen between the Governments of Holland and this country, begged to ask whether refined sugar was admissible here under our navigation laws as the manufacture of the country where it was refined?
MR. M. GIBSONanswered, that according to the navigation laws, manufactured goods were to be deemed the produce of the country of which they were the manufacture, and if sugar refined in Europe were to be deemed a manufactured article, no doubt it would be admissible in this country as European produce. Of course, that question would be decided by the Customs when the sugar should be presented for admission.

NAVAL PAYMASTERS.
CAPTAIN PECHELLbegged to remind the Government of petitions which had been presented last Session, and the Session before, on the part of the paymasters in the Royal Navy. They complained that, a commission having been specially appointed to investigate the matter, they had not received the addition to their pay which that commission recommended. They

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had abandoned large per centages in expectation that such an addition would be granted; and he now wished to ask what steps had been taken in regard to those petitioners, and whether any satisfactory arrangement had been made?
MR. WARDthought, the best answer he could give the hon. Gentleman was, that it was the intention of the Board of Admiralty to carry out the recommendation which had been given by the Commission of 1841; and an amount sufficient to meet the addition of 1s. a day would be included in the Estimates of the present year.

MILLBANK PRISON COMMISSION.
On the Motion that the House, on its rising, adjourn to Monday,
MR. T. DUNCOMBEinquired whether the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department had received any report from the third commissioner for Millbank Prison?
SIR G. GREYhad not received any document on the subject.
MR. B. ESCOTTobserved, that the right hon. Gentleman knew he might have the report at any time. Last Wednesday, the difference between the right hon. Gentleman and himself turned on the question whether he ought to report to Her Majesty under Her Majesty's commission, or should express his opinion in the form recommended by the right hon. Gentleman, of a letter. That was not a form which he had felt authorized to adopt; but, admitting that the right hon. Gentleman was more likely to be well-informed upon that point than himself, he had thought it proper to take professional advice upon the subject; he had gone to two very eminent members of the bar, who were extremely conversant with matters of the kind. The first expressed a very clear and distinct opinion in favour of the course he had adopted; but as that gentleman did not wish his name mentioned, he had gone to Mr. Sergeant Manning, whose opinion was, that not only was the course he had adopted a proper one, but that it was the only proper one; and that had he adopted any other course, he would have been acting in opposition to the Queen's commands. Under these circumstances he did not see what he could do but persevere in sending in his report. Mr. Sergeant Manning had mentioned two cases in which commissioners had disagreed from the majority of their respective commissioners. These were the Common Law Commission and the Bankruptcy Commis-
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sion; and in each case the commissioner who did not agree with the others sent in a distinct report under his hand and seal.
MR. T. DUNCOMBEremarked, that in consequence of a punctiliousness on the part of the right hon. Gentleman and the construction put by the hon. Gentleman on the terms of his commission, the House was unable to get the document. The one would not receive a report; the other would not write a letter. The question ought to be settled one way or another, and therefore he begged to move, as an Amendment on the Motion of adjournment—
"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that She will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, a Copy of the Report made by Bickham Escott, esq., one of the Commissioners for inquiry into the state of Millbank prison."
SIR G. GREYwas quite ashamed that he should be called upon on the Motion now made to answer that no such document was in his possession. He had to apologize to the House for repeating what he had stated the other day, that it was the uniform and constant practice in regard to commissions of this kind for a commissioner who did not concur in the report of his colleagues to send a letter stating the grounds of difference. He had expected certainly that the hon. Gentleman would have put him in a position to place his opinion verbatim et literatim before the House. But at present all he (Sir G. Grey) could say was, that he had no document in his possession in regard to Millbank prison which had not already been laid upon the Table of the House.
MR. HUMEobserved, that there was no objection to give information. But what did it signify whether it came as a report or as a letter?
MR. T. DUNCOMBEunderstood that the right hon. Gentleman (Sir G. Grey) was now in possession of the document.
SIR G. GREYstated, that he was then in possession of a paper which had been put into his hands in a very unusual mode by the hon. Member for Winchester; but being there not as Secretary for the Home Department, but as a Member of the House, he had only to say, that he had not been able to read one word of it.
MR. ESCOTTdisclaimed any intention of doing anything discourteous. He had taken the opportunity to remove the technical difficulty which had been alleged, the right hon. Gentleman having declined to

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produce the document, on the ground that it was not in his possession. A great deal too much had been made of this matter.
Amendment withdrawn. Motion of adjournment agreed to.

DESTITUTE PERSONS (IRELAND).
On the Order of the Day for bringing up the Report on the Resolution to make provision out of the Consolidated Fund for the Temporary Relief of Destitute Persons in Ireland,
VISCOUNT CLEMENTSsuggested the adoption of measures for rendering dormant charities effective. Such a course was especially advisable at a time when so great demands were made on the Government. He should be glad to know whether anything had been done in reference to the Reproductive Loan Fund. Some provisions in the new measures of Government would do more injury than the system of public works. There were 2,050 electoral divisions in Ireland. Double the number of boilers for soup would be required on the lowest calculation; and a staff would be needed not only for the purpose of giving out soup, but of persons competent to keep accounts. All these matters would fall to be arranged by a central committee; and the scheme would be found so utterly impracticable, that he must beg Her Majesty's Government to reconsider the nature of the Bill. He felt that, at least as regarded the western part of Ireland, it would be found utterly impossible to obtain a staff requisite for carrying on these kitchens in any satisfactory manner. What he would suggest was, that the operations should be carried on through the means of the assistant commissioners, who had some experience in the working of the poor law, rather than the parties indicated in the Bill. There was also a material point, which seemed to have escaped the attention of Her Majesty's Government. It would be necessary, in pursuance of this measure, to form new districts throughout the whole of Ireland. According to the third clause of the Bill, it was proposed that the Lord Lieutenant should
—"give orders for the constitution of a relief committee in any one or more electoral divisions of a union formed for the relief of the destitute poor in Ireland in which it shall appear to him that this Act should be put in force."
Now, the very first thing that would require to be done would be to decide upon those districts. This would require persons
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of considerable experience, local information, and sound judgment; and he did not see any machinery in this Bill sufficient to enable the Lord Lieutenant to come to a just decision. He had objected last night to any one connected with the constabulary in Ireland being a member of the proposed board. The other members named were objectionable on another ground, that they could have little time to bestow upon it. He confessed that, pro formâ, Colonel Jones, the head of the Board of Works, might properly enough be chosen a member of the board; but he did not see how it was possible, with the mass of business which Mr. Redington, Colonel M'Gregor, and Colonel Jones had on their hands, that, however willing they might be, and willing he was sure they were, they could spare time to carry out so important an arrangement. He hoped, that in going into Committee the Government would not consider themselves bound to admit anything else but what was already in the Bill; but that they would have recourse to some other machinery, so as to make the scheme work if possible.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERthought it would be infinitely better to postpone discussion on these matters till they got into Committee. He rose merely to answer a question which his noble Friend had put to him. If his noble Friend had referred to the correspondence which had been published on the subject, he would have seen that 5,000 l. of the money in the hands of the Irish Reproductive Loan Fund had been voted for the encouragement of the fisheries on the western coast of Ireland, to be expended under the direction of the Board of Works.
Report received.
MR. WILLIAMSwished to know from the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it was his intention, with respect to all the moneys which were to be advanced for carrying out the objects of this Bill, to take the votes specifically, as he was doing in the present instance?
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERreplied in the affirmative.
Resolution agreed to; and instruction accordingly given to the Committee on the Destitute Persons (Ireland) Bill.
On the Question that the House go into Committee on the same Bill,
MR. HUTTsaid: Before the House shall proceed further with the Bill for relieving destitution in Ireland, I am desirous of saying a few words on a subject which,

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although referred to the other evening by the Government in a tone of disparagement, I conceive to have a very important relation to the question before us. It is a subject which has for many years engaged my attention, and in connexion with which I once held a public employment under a commission from the Crown. I allude to the subject of colonization. I am led to notice it the rather because of the appeal made to me in this House on Monday last, by my hon. Friend the Member for the county of Limerick (Mr. Smith O'Brien). Several years ago my hon. Friend and I were engaged in a laborious attempt to ascertain the value of the colonial dependencies of the British Crown as seats for the location of the suffering population of the United Kingdom. Since that time my hon. Friend has been involved in pursuits in Ireland, with which, as he knows, I feel little sympathy; but it was a source of real gratification to me to observe him in the hour of his country's distress turning, for practical relief, to those measures of colonization which, at an early period of our lives, associated us in a common study. In all that my hon. Friend has said and written on the subject, in reference to the present state of Ireland, I heartily concur; and I am the more anxious to co-operate with him now, because I know that, in recommending colonization to his countrymen, he is following anything but the vulgar path of popularity in Ireland. I rejoice at it. Of my hon. Friend, at all events, it will not be remarked, however lamentably true of other Irish proprietors, that when multitudes of his perishing countrymen were looking to him for counsel and assistance, he thought he had discharged every duty towards them by voting inflammatory resolutions at public meetings, or by making clamorous demands on the Imperial Government for impossible relief. I concur, too, with my hon. Friend in regretting that the noble Lord at the head of affairs, when pointing out the means of Irish relief, should have spoken of colonization in terms of only qualified approval. To me, Sir, it appears indisputable, that systematic colonization is not only one of the best means to which we can have recourse for mitigating the destiny impending over Ireland, but I believe it is the only means by which the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland can escape the calamities attendant on the sudden transition of the whole Irish people from potato to corn as the staple article
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of their food. Do not suppose that it is only the famine of 1847 with which you have to contend—that it is the pressure of instant want alone which you are required to relieve. It is a something far more formidable; it is a great moral revolution; it is a fearful dispensation, not only unexampled in the history of the world, but one which, I believe, was never before contemplated in the speculations of man—the sudden and compulsory transfer of pauperised millions from a cheap to a dear system of diet, without any alteration of their wages. I am not raising the question whether it be more desirable for a nation to subsist upon potatoes, or upon corn: no one doubts about that. I am asking you how you will provide for the people of Ireland while they are in the state of inevitable transition? That is what I want the Government, and the House, and the country to consider. The noble Lord at the head of affairs, in the course of his masterly speech the other evening, referred for important facts connected with Ireland to the commissioners appointed some years since to inquire into the condition of the labouring classes of that country. No higher authority could be appealed to. A report, sanctioned by such men as the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Whateley, the Catholic archbishop, Dr. Murray, and Mr. Anthony Blake, must always carry with it the weight of unquestionable authority. It is of a peculiar value now, if for no other reason than this—that it enables us to estimate the magnitude of those difficulties with which the noble Lord and the Government have to grapple, and which I am sure we all hope they may be enabled to overcome. Now what says the report? That in 1831 there were in Ireland 1,131,000 agricultural labourers, and half that number of labourers non-agriculturists—the heads of families—who existed on the verge of starvation, at wages varying from 2s. to 2s. 6d. a week, by means of a potato diet. Well! the potato diet is at an end. It is impossible to read the papers on the Table of the House relating to Irish destitution without seeing that the potato crop, to which the population of Ireland have so long looked for their almost only food, will never again be resorted to for that purpose. Upon what then must they now rely; to what mast they resort for their subsistence? They will go naturally to the lowest, the cheapest description of grain. But they cannot resort to grain of any kind, not

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even to meal of Indian corn, without a considerable augmentation of their wages. They must be swept from the face of the earth, unless, with a corn diet, they can obtain 6s. or 7s. a week. But what does that fact mean? It means that it is impossible for the present population of Ireland to exist, unless something like 15,000,000 l. can thenceforward be added annually to the fund from which they derive their wages. From what source is this sudden and prodigious demand to be supplied? From Irish estates? I know that there is an opinion prevalent both in this House and throughout Great Britain, that the property of Ireland ought to support the poverty of Ireland. But look for a moment to the report of Archbishop Whateley. He tells you that, in 1831, the whole rental of Ireland was less than 10,000,000 l. sterling; (oven the assessment recently made under the Poor-law Act showed it to be less than 13,000,000 l.;) that is, less than would be sufficient to provide the labouring population with the lowest and coarsest description of cereal produce. What must they do in such an extremity? Must they draw upon that fund in aid of their wages which goes to the annual replacement of capital expended in cultivation? I need scarcely remark that, if they do so, they will necessarily diminish agricultural production in Ireland, and enormously increase the difficulties of meeting their present destitution. Let us hear no more, then, of the doctrine, that the property of Ireland most support the poverty of that country. It is a wild and a mischievous delusion; seeing that the whole rental derived from the soil of Ireland would be insufficient, in the sudden disappearance of the potato plant, to supply the people with the cheapest description of food. Perhaps the emergency at which we have arrived may be yet more strikingly represented. The whole annual production of Ireland—all that is distributed in wages, rent, profit, and replacement of seed, &c., is estimated by Archbishop Whateley's commission at 36,000,000 l. Now let us suppose that you abandon the whole of the annual production of the country to the people (who are taken at 2,000,000 of families)—that you give it all; you would not by that means provide each family with more than 7s. a week; but the inevitable consequences of such a wild partition would be to convert the whole island into a universal charnel house. The truth is, that the de-
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struction of the potato plant in Ireland has made it impossible for that country, in the actual state of its agriculture—utterly impossible—to feed its actual population. Say what you please, devise what you may, unaccompanied by improvements for creating a larger production of food, the poor law, giving a right to out-door relief, which, in some shape, you are going to pass, and to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Poulett Scrope) seems to turn with so much hope and expectation, never can be carried into practical effect. And for this simple and manifest reason, that the gross revenue derived from the land in Ireland would be inadequate to the rate necessary for the maintenance of the aged, infirm, and destitute population. The great, the all-absorbing consideration is, then, how to increase the quantity of food attainable from the soil of Ireland. The report, to which I have so often referred, will of itself suggest by what means this work can be achieved. It is stated in the report, that Great Britain, with 34,000,000 of acres of cultivated land, obtains an annual production which is estimated by the commissioners at 150,000,000 l.; that Ireland, with 14,600,000 of acres, produces an annual return estimated at 36,000,000 l.; or, to state the comparison more simply, the production per acre in Great Britain is four times as great as it is in Ireland. What is the cause of so startling a difference? The climate of Ireland is not less favourable, the soil of Ireland is not less fertile than that of Great Britain; with an equal system of cultivation equal results might be ensured. The question, therefore, is, how to introduce into Ireland that mode of cultivation—that beneficial combination of capital and labour which prevails in this country? To any such introduction—there is no doubt of it—the present subdivision of land-holdings in Ireland presents insurmountable obstacles. It appears by one of the volumes connected with Irish distress laid on the Table of the House, that the greater portion of the whole area of Ireland is cut up, not into small properties, as in France and the Rhenish provinces of Germany, but into small holdings varying from two or three roods to ten acres in extent. Now what style of farming can be carried on when land is let out in these miserable shreds and patches? What kind of stock can be kept? What sort of drainage can be executed? What rotation of crops can be observed under such a sys-

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tem of agriculture as we have here? With the present subdivision of land among occupiers, it is impossible that any combination of labour and capital can be applied to cultivation. But industry performs her miracles only when many hands are employed at the same time on the same work. The British farmer, with more or less of capital, cultivates his farm by means of combined and therefore effectual labour. The Irish peasant, almost destitute of capital, makes the most of his miserable holding by means of his isolated and unassisted exertions. The consequences are before you. It requires four labourers in Ireland to raise the same amount of produce as is raised in England by one. My argument may therefore be thus summed up. The present population of Ireland cannot be maintained by the soil of Ireland, without a large increase of its production. Increase of its production is unattainable without improvement in the system of Irish cultivation; and no such improvement can be looked for without a consolidation of the holdings into farms of a moderate extent. What is to become of the crowd of tenants who must necessarily be dispossessed by the formation of farms of—I do not say 500 or 1,000 acres as in England, but of—fifty or sixty acres each? How can we provide for them; or rather, how can we place them in circumstances to provide for themselves during the season of transition? The noble Lord has referred to two modes: home colonization, by the redemption of waste lands in Ireland; and foreign colonization, by settlement in the ultramarine possessions of the British Crown. Home colonization would afford them present employment in the work of reclamation, and afterwards as labourers on the recovered lands when divided into farms. Foreign colonization would also open out new fields for their industry, with this additional and important advantage, that it would, at the same time, diminish the demand for food at home. Home colonization must be very gradual in its progress. The reclamation of waste lands could not, until after the lapse of a considerable time, alter the relation between the quantity of food in the country, and the people to be fed. It may be doubted, indeed, whether, until the vicious system of parcelling out small patches of land to occupying peasants shall have been eradicated in Ireland, the reclamation of waste lands will have any tendency to remove the inherent evils of Irish society; whe-
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ther the new lands, under whatever restrictions they may be disposed of by the Crown, will not quickly become as crowded with cottiers as the old lands now are; and whether the only change which we shall effect by the proposed outlay of British treasure will not be a wider extension of the same barbarous modes of cultivation, and of the same wretched condition of the people—the creation, in fact, of a larger Ireland. Foreign colonization, however, might be undertaken on a scale sufficient to effect a sensible alteration in the proportion between the demand and supply of food, even during the present year. Nor is this all. We at the same time plant the colony and prepare the way for progressively increasing immigration to its shores. The demand for labourers at this moment is intense in the colony of South Australia. Five thousand men could probably at this moment find employment, at high wages, in the mining operations of that colony alone. There are, moreover, in that flourishing province, nearly half a million of fertile and lightly timbered acres already surveyed, marked out, and mapped, and in a state for immediate occupation. A considerable body of labourers would find a welcome reception in New South Wales: and I have no doubt whatever, that under the wise and energetic administration of the noble Earl at the head of the Colonial Office, the same prospects will soon be developed in the magnificent islands of New Zealand. On the eastern shores of South Africa there are millions of acres of the finest soil in the world, wanting nothing but industry and capital to support a large and prosperous community. I know not what amount of labourers might be comfortably located and provided for in Canada, under arrangements which might be instituted between the Colonial Office and that valuable portion of the British dominions; but of this I am quite certain, that the British dominions comprise, at home and abroad, unoccupied land sufficient to support generations yet to come, of the constantly increasing population of the United Kingdom. I come now to the question of cost. We are proposing to expend 10,000,000 l. this year on temporary expedients of relief, or at best on undertakings which have but a remote tendency either to secure the permanent amelioration of Ireland, or to prevent the recurrence of the present distress hereafter. The future is dark and threatening. The present palliatives deepen

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its forebodings. Much of the expenditure in Ireland on the part of the Imperial Government, however necessary by reason of the utter destitution of the peasantry, has a demoralizing effect on their minds. It teaches them the dangerous lesson, to lean for support on anything but their own prudence and exertions, and to prefer abject fawning on the pity of others, to manly self-reliance and honourable independence. Moreover, the sacrifice by which this is accomplished is prodigiously great. It is surely a strong recommendation of the measures I am advocating—home and foreign colonization—that they might be undertaken without any eventual cost at all to the Imperial Treasury; that if engaged in with prudence and guided by experience, we have the certain assurance that they may be made to defray, within a brief period, the whole amount of their outlay. We know that the reclamation of waste land in Ireland, if judiciously conducted, would remunerate the undertaker: this is an inference drawn from a comparison of the charges of reclamation, and the market value of land of similar quality. But when I say that foreign colonization would reproduce the whole of its cost, I state it not as an inference merely; it is the result of operations of which I have had practical experience. I was a member of the commission which planted the experimental colony of South Australia. I shall always remember with deep gratifition, that, in co-operation with one of the most valuable philosophical writers of our age and country—I mean Colonel Torrens—and generally in subordination to his superior intelligence, I assisted at the foundation of that important and remarkable colony. I entreat the attention of the House to these facts. We sent out a population of 15,000 persons to South Australia—at that time a wilderness not only uninhabited, but positively unexplored. The presence of the population gave to the wilderness such a value, that we were enabled to sell 225,000 acres of Crown land for a sum which exceeded by 85,000 the whole cost of the emigration. Startling as this statement may be, it is not all. We raised on the security of the future revenue of the colony, a further sum of 85,000 l. for the purposes of the outfit and government of the colony. The loan was effected wholly independent of the Government, but it was afterwards assumed by the Treasury, on conditions of its ultimate repayment out of the colonial revenues.
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That condition is now being fulfilled. By a recent order of the Treasury, the interest of the loan is no longer borne by the Consolidated Fund; it is paid out of the growing surplus of the revenue of South Australia. And thus you have the spectacle—one perfectly unexampled in the history of the world—of a colonial dependency which has not only defrayed all the cost of conveying its population from across the globe, but which is actually replacing all the charges of its original outfit and early government. Now, such has been the result of a first experiment in an untried field of improvement, amid all the embarrassments, the difficulties, and the errors which are incidental to such undertakings. It would be comparatively easy now to plant another South Australia—to lay open, without cost to the Parent State, in one of its distant dependencies, a new and a happier country for those whom the inscrutable dispensations of Providence have visited with suffering and privation here. Are we not to have recourse to this expedient? I wish to guard myself against misapprehension. I am not stating that any plan of home or foreign colonization, however judiciously devised and executed, could give very extensive immediate relief to Ireland. My allegation is this: that unless timely measures are adopted by the State to carry out systematic colonization on a comprehensive scale, it will be impossible to surmount the difficulties occasioned by the sudden and forced transition of a whole population from a cheap to a comparatively dear description of daily food, all of which will probably be of foreign growth, without the possibility of any corresponding augmentation of their wages. I desire to have it borne in mind, that without withdrawing the cottier occupants you can have no improvement of agriculture in Ireland, and, consequently, no increase of its present inadequate production; that unless production be promptly increased, the population of Ireland must be supported on imported food at the expense of this country; and that just, humane, and generous as the people of this country unquestionably are, they possess neither the will nor the power to pay 10,000,000 l. for successive years to support Irish destitution. The very proposal to contribute another such amount would, I am persuaded, be fatal to any Government. I trust that the present Government, of the general principles of whose policy I have always been an adherent, while pressing

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forward those measures of temporary relief which are contemplated in the present Bill, and in others announced by the noble Lord, will seriously consider whether it may not be possible, by adopting a plan of systematic colonization, to rescue property in the United Kingdom from confiscation, and the people of Ireland from the horrors of long-protracted pestilence and famine.
SIR G. GREYwas fully sensible of the importance of the subject which his hon. Friend had just brought under their consideration: so important was it that it ought not to be discussed incidentally in the shape in which his hon. Friend had just submitted it. His hon. Friend had fairly stated that his proposal was not applicable to the present urgent distress in Ireland. The Bill now under consideration was a measure which would more effectually meet the existing pressing day-by-day distress which prevailed throughout many parts of Ireland. It must be obvious that it would be advantageous that this Bill should be brought into operation at the earliest possible time; and he hoped, therefore, that it would be allowed to proceed without intermingling with its discussion other important questions.
MR. STAFFORD O'BRIENhoped that he should be excused for rising to call the attention of the House to a subject which was intimately connected with the present condition of Ireland, namely the propriety of establishing smaller territorial divisions in that country for the purpose of poor-law rating. To effect this object no Act of Parliament was necessary, for the Poor Law Commissioners were invested with the necessary authority under the 18th clause of the Irish Poor Law Act. The tendency of the present system of large territorial divisions was to remove the superintendence of the poor from authorities in the provinces to authorities in the towns. In other words, it favoured the principle of centralization; but there was no country less adapted than Ireland for the application of that principle, which was directly opposed to its social system, and to the character of the people. He thanked the hon. Member for Stroud for the benevolence which he had displayed upon the subject of the poor laws; but when he read in the hon. Member's pamphlet that townlands in Ireland were analogous to parishes in England, he apprehended that no one practically acquainted with the former country, would be inclined to attach much weight to the hon. Member's opin-
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ions. Unlike most measures which were brought forward respecting Ireland, his present proposition would excite no religious or political feeling in that country; but he must declare at the outset that his object was to array two classes against each other, and he claimed the attention of the House whilst he attempted to describe those two classes. The House had voted, and it was about to vote, millions for Ireland. Whether it was right or wrong to do so, he would not then stop to inquire; but after the money had been given, the ever-recurring, never-ending question remained to be answered, "What are you to do with the Irish landlords?" Public attention had recently been directed towards the Irish landlords more pointedly than usual. It must be difficult for English Members to decide between the conflicting statements which were made in that House respecting the Irish landlords. On the one hand, they were attacked for their rapacity, cruelty, and oppression; whilst, on the other, were recounted instances of great self-denial, extraordinary exertion, generous philanthropy, and patient perseverance. Still the question recurred, "What are you to do with the Irish landlords?" He should have no difficulty in answering that question, if he were not aware from experience, and from the history of Ireland, that there was no body of men in any country more completely divided into two classes than the Irish landlords. Never were two classes of men more unlike each other in feelings and wishes. One of them still longed for what he must honestly call the unpopular and disgraceful past; the other looked for better days for Ireland, applied themselves benevolently to get at the root of the social evils which afflicted her, with the view of applying a remedy, and shrank from no exertion or self-denial to accomplish that great object. He stood there to call upon the House to draw a distinction between those two classes of men in all their legislation. It would become the House to show that it did not hold in equal favour those who stretched to the utmost the rights of property, and strained within the narrowest limits its duties; and those, on the other hand, who made the possession of property instrumental to promoting the happiness of all around them. The great objection to more minute territorial divisions for the dealings of the State with the poor, would be that urged by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland, in a

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letter published in the Correspondence with the Board of Works, relative to the relief of the destitute poor. The right hon. Gentleman had received a letter from the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland, calling for smaller territorial divisions than the electoral districts. That letter was not printed with the correspondence, though the right hon. Gentleman's answer to it appeared there: this he regretted; it was possible to put a sinister interpretation on its absence. It might be said that the letter of the society contained arguments which it was not at all easy to answer. But one of the arguments used against their proposal was, that it would give a stimulus to clearances. But the estates on which emigration had been encouraged for a number of years, and where the population had been kept down, would not be benefited by clearances: very few estates were so cleared now; fewer still would be cleared hereafter; and, if they were, the evil would be far less with the proposed extension of the poor law. There could not, then, be much stress laid upon this argument. It might also be said that the smaller divisions would act as a restraint upon labour. That might be true in England, with its complex law of settlement, but was of little force in Ireland, where, practically, there was no law of settlement at all. Neither as to the encouragement of clearances, the fettering of labour, or entailing greater expense, was there any difficulty that could not be overcome. The right hon. Gentleman further stated, as a reason for preferring the present divisions to smaller ones, that it brought together larger and more variously constituted bodies of proprietors, with good social and moral effects. [Mr. LABOUCHERE: That is not my letter.] The statement appeared in a document printed in page 301 of the Correspondence with the Board of Works on the relief of the poor, and dated December 4, 1846; it was official, and if the right hon. Gentleman did not write it himself, he must at least be prepared to support the views it took.
MR. LABOUCHEREexplained that the observations which the hon. Gentleman had quoted, formed no part of his letter; that letter was published along with a great many minutes and remarks, and both letter and minutes were included in the papers laid on the Table. The observations were drawn up by a gentleman connected with the Government; they contained a very sensible report on the subject,
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and without pledging himself to particular expressions, he would certainly avow his general concurrence with it.
MR. STAFFORD O'BRIENunderstood, then, that it was a document inserted among the correspondence, but not a letter, as it was written by an unknown hand, and sent nowhere; that it was not a communication to the Board of Works or any public department; and that the book was altogether a peculiarly Irish correspondence, since it omitted all that were letters, and put in all that were not. On those observations, then, he would make no more remarks; but the argument the right hon. Gentleman concurred in was, that the meeting together of the gentlemen of a large district was a desirable thing. If there were no proprietors but those who did attend such meetings, this might be true; but when he had attended the meeting of a committee in any district with which he was acquainted, he found that those who ought to have been foremost lent them no aid, did not lead them, and gave them very little assistance. It had been proposed to levy an absentee tax in Ireland; whatever might be the merits of that tax, at present it would be ill timed. The Government were bringing forward a measure that would be heartily welcome, to facilitate the sale of incumbered estates. They were inviting the English capitalist to invest his money in Irish land, and it would be unwise to tell him before he had done so that he would immediately be taxed as an absentee. They were spreading their nets from the other side of the Irish Channel, and it would be better to let the capitalist invest his money and fall into the trap, before they showed him the uninviting hook that was laid for him; before they told him, that this said Irish Channel should be as Styx to him, over whose waters there was no return. He did not wish the Government to turn land jobber and agent, to make itself the gaoler of Irish landlords, or to dictate what should be drained, or enclosed, or purchased, or sold; but the Legislature ought to draw some distinction between the landlords who did perform their duties and those who neglected them. What had the whole of the present debate turned on? On the differences between Protectionists and Free Traders, or between Whigs and Tories? No; it might be fairly and truly said to have turned upon the question he was now pressing on the attention of the House. He thought it unfair to press heavily on

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the landlord who had improved his estates, employed labour, and invested capital, for the misdeeds of another who had neglected his duties. Let him, for the purpose of illustration, take England for one townland, and Ireland for another. Ireland was miserable, suffering, destitute, and discontented. Did not English Members say, it was unfair that England should pay for the misdeeds of Ireland? They said, if Ireland was miserable, discontented, and wretched, it was because in past times its landlords had been improvident, neglectful, and unimproving; because they had not availed themselves of their opportunities; because they had not done justice to what was their own. He was not prepared to say these charges were without foundation; he had never, since he had paid any attention to the subject, been able to disguise from himself that the landowners of Ireland had much, very much, to answer for. To a great degree, though not altogether, perhaps, they were liable to the charges brought against them. Whether this were the case or not, taking Ireland and England separately, the whole course of this debate had resolved itself into a great "townland" discussion. England says, as she might justly say, "Let the property of Ireland support the poor of Ireland; England cannot be perpetually burdened with Irish poverty." However willing to meet the present great emergency, yet England must insist on its being no precedent for continual relief; but that for the future the property of Ireland must and shall support its poor. If then they gave up the system of entire centralization, he was fairly entitled to ask them to draw a definitive distinction between implacable enemies and those who necessarily would best aid and co-operate with them. If they were disposed to charge the poor rate on the Consolidated Fund, his argument fell to the ground; when they once admitted the expediency of a territorial division, then let them carry out the true principle, and take care that the property of the townland in Ireland shall be responsible for its poverty. Hon. Gentlemen were eager enough to cry out "Help yourselves;" and the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, had, not for the first time, pressed on the attention of Irish landlords the expediency of taking care of their own interests; but something more was apparently to be understood in that advice—that the Irish landlords were bound to help their neighbour also. And
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when the adoption of that advice really was made compulsory, he called on the Government not to accumulate difficulties, and to separate in Ireland the good from the bad landlord. They must do this, for it was out of their power to strike an average. The Irish people were called a lawless people, and certainly the Irish people did reject the laws which had obtained the sanction of the constitution; but they had, in defence, created a code of their own, and it should now be the duty of the Legislature to win them from their allegiance to their dark and unwritten doctrines, to a system which should be more palpably based in justice, and better tending to their happiness and welfare. How could they better begin than by acting justly and fairly towards those whose interests were intermixed with the interests of the people? He had had opportunities, frequent and sufficient, of comparing the character of the peasants of Ireland with that of the agricultural population of Scotland and England; and the result of his examination convinced him that, peculiarly and especially, the Irish peasant was governed, more than the peasant of any other country, by territorial and ancestral influence. He did not mean the influence of rank; he meant, that when a landed proprietor exercised his power over those below him justly and benevolently, that man possessed more influence than could be given to him or kept from him by any law. And if that were the case, it was incumbent upon the Legislature to strengthen so serviceable an authority. As far as relief was concerned, the more minute territorial divisions were made, the more suitably and easily relief could be administered. The personal influence of landlords was of the greatest value. They all saw in every paper tales of violence, which no one could palliate or defend; but they did not see there the many acts of friendship and gratitude which the recent difficulties had called forth between landlord and tenant. They did not see in the papers how much had been done by the presence of a respected Irish landlord in times of great pressure and distress. He called on the House to strengthen the hands of those men, who, being the friends of the peasantry, were necessarily the friends of that House. He was, however, far from seeing any design or tendency in Government to diminish the area of taxation; he beheld in the Bills before them a very ominous sign of an intention to enlarge it.

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If they succeeded in doing so—if they enlarged the present divisions made for the purposes of the poor-law rating, or, in other words, if they substituted unions for electoral divisions—he would abandon the matter in despair. Every one must admit that the Labour-rate Act had been, pro tanto, a nullity. The collection of large masses of men in one spot, and their abstraction from agricultural pursuits under that Act, was in itself a great evil; but the landlords had hoped there would be an end to it, and he sincerely regretted that the announcement of the intention of the Government on the townlands question, which had been so anxiously expected by those who had co-operated with the Government in all its difficulties, had not been made. A man might be very willing to pay for improvements on his own estate, but he could not pay for those on the property of his absentee neighbour. Every person acquainted with Ireland must know that this objection was well founded. He feared, however, they were going to resist the principle he advocated, and were prepared to persevere rather in the extension than in the diminution of the area of taxation. But they would not do so unopposed, and without his entering his solemn protest, that as far as the forms of the House would allow him, he would persist in objecting to this—he would not say vicious and dangerous, but to this—fatal principle. If the Government were by such means, applied to the permanent poor law of Ireland, about to discourage benevolence, to weaken responsibility, and to foster selfishness, at least they should not do so without a warning from one who had attentively studied the character of the Irish people. He feared, when he sat down, that he would remember something that he could have wished to state to the House; but he would conclude with observing that, if his experience of Ireland were worth anything, they could not give to the landed proprietary of Ireland a more heavy blow and greater discouragement than would be inflicted on them by enlarging the area of taxation.
MR. LABOUCHEREwas very unwilling to detain the House one moment from going into Committee on the Bill; but in consideration of the great importance of the question brought forward, and because otherwise it might have appeared as personal disrespect to the hon. Gentleman, or as insensibility on his own part to the importance of the subject, he felt it his duty to make one or two observations. This
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was no new question; he had had this townlands question, as the hon. Gentleman called it, urged upon him over and over again while he was in Ireland, by the hon. Gentleman himself and by others, landed proprietors, who entertained a very strong opinion on the point, and whose station in the country demanded from any Member of the Government that they should be listened to with deference and respect. But the more he had considered, the more was he convinced that very important principles were involved in the question now before the House — that it involved one consideration on which it would be impossible for the Government to give way. They had felt all along the great necessity, so far as practicable, of carrying with them the cordial co-operation of the landlords in the efforts they were making to rescue the people of Ireland from the effects of the calamity which had fallen upon the land; but they had, nevertheless, come to the conclusion, that the proposal on this subject was of such a nature, that, in their duty to the Irish people, taken as a whole, they could not comply with it. Now, what was this principle thus pressed upon their attention? He had never heard it stated so plainly, so nakedly, so broadly, and he would add, so honestly, as by the hon. Gentleman that night: it was neither more nor less than that, in providing for the destitution of Ireland, they should deal, not with communities, but with particular properties. That was the question, though it had never before been so nakedly explained. It was in a very different shape; it had been urged by the Agricultural Society when applied in the controversy on the Labour-rate Bill. It was then said—
"When we ask you to adopt the townland division, the principle of individual properties, we admit it is not fair for the proprietor to say he will take care of his own poor, and will not look over the hedge to see what is being done by his neighbour; we are willing that the assessment should be levied so as to affect all the property in the electoral district for the support of the poor; we are willing to expend that money in providing for the destitute on our own estates, and even beyond the limits of our own estates; but we ask, when we have done this, that we shall be allowed to employ the people on our own estates, and that we shall not then be subject to any further taxation."
He thought there were very great objections to any such arrangement. He would not now repeat all the arguments he had used on the former occasion, because the case was not now entirely before the

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House; but it was clear that the hon. Gentleman asked neither more nor less than as had been stated. The hon. Gentleman objected to the electoral districts as the unit of taxation. Now, he would tell the House what an electoral district was. There were 2,050 electoral districts in Ireland, each from 10,000 to 15,000 as an average of acreage. This was not an enormous tract of country; it was a district in which it was reasonable to expect that the proprietors would act together for the public good. But still the hon. Gentleman objected to the system: he wanted the Government to go further—to go down to the townlands; there being 60,000 townlands, and in almost every instance coterminous with private property. The hon. Gentleman wanted them to deal with individual proprietors in their individual capacity; he desired they would not deal with the community. That, however, was a principle in which they could not safely acquiesce; it was dangerous, and it might often prove unjust. The hon. Gentleman asked if they would deprive proprietors in Ireland of all motive to take care of the condition of, and to employ their own people resident on, their own properties, by swamping them with an immense mass of destitution from the surrounding district? His (Mr. Labouchere's) belief was, that in this question a medium must be aimed at, and that the extreme of either principle was decidedly mischievous. He thought it wrong, in making divisions, to make them so large or so extensive as to deprive the proprietors of any district of all motive to interest themselves in the welfare of the surrounding poor. He considered that it was an excellent provision in the poor law which gave encouragement to landowners to employ the poor in their neighbourhood. This he fully admitted; but it was quite another thing to restrict the principle so far as to throw upon each individual proprietor the charge of taking care of the resident poor on his own property, and not to insist upon his combining with persons in his neighbourhood in the responsibility of relieving the destitute of his district. He looked upon that as an inadmissible principle; it was not, so far as he knew, admitted into the poor law of any country in the world; it was not the principle applied to an English proprietor in an English parish. The English proprietor was not permitted to say that if he employed the poor in one form, he was not to employ them in another. They told the
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English proprietor that he was bound to take care of the poor of the parish in which he lived. They told the different proprietors of a district that they must concert and combine and co-operate in this object; and they forbade him to deal alone in his individual capacity. He believed, without wishing to say it in an invidious sense, that it was a principle not built upon anything applicable to the present day. It applied to a state of serfdom; it was founded on the feudal principle. The noble Lord opposite, the Member for Newark, cheered that sentiment, and he (Mr. Labouchere) knew that the noble Lord liked the proposal of the hon. Gentleman all the better for being based on the feudal principle; but to him it was a great objection that it was a feudal principle, and that it was not at all applicable to the condition of England and Ireland in 1847. He had stated that he had an objection to the principle of the Motion of the hon. Gentleman; but, even if the principle were conceded, he held that it would be found quite impracticable in detail. He believed that if they had subdivisions of 60,000 townlands all over the country, with separate machinery at work, and separate officers to carry out the objects of this Bill—or even if they had only one-half or one-fourth of that number of townlands, it would be utterly impracticable to carry it out. But he would not go into that, as his objection was to the principle of the Motion. He ought to say here, that he thought the proposed measure would operate most unjustly in many cases. Take the case of a great proprietor who had a large property on which there was scarcely any population at all: because such a man undertook to support his own poor—though scarcely a single individual lived on his estate—was he not to be called upon to aid in supporting the poor creatures who lived upon an estate adjoining? Such a thing was perfectly inadmissible, and he believed would not be listened to for a moment in that House. But there were other reasons, peculiar to Ireland, why the proposal of the hon. Member would work most unjustly. He thought every encouragement should be given to improving landlords; he thought the man who improved his property and gave employment to the people was a benefactor to his country, and ought to be encouraged; but there were cases in Ireland where men had improved their estates, but who nevertheless turned off and manifested no concern as to what became of

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the people who had lived upon those estates. Now, he thought it would be a monstrous injustice if persons who so acted should profit by such a scheme as that of the hon. Gentleman; while those who, on neighbouring estates, from motives of humanity, had allowed their people to remain, should be burdened with the support of those thus left upon their hands. He must also say that the plan of the hon. Gentleman was altogether inapplicable to the case of towns. The minute subdivision of the country which he proposed, would throw an intolerable burden of taxation on many of the towns, and large villages even, in many parts of Ireland. He could assure the hon. Gentleman, that if he had come to this conclusion with regard to his plan, it was not without serious consideration, or without having availed himself of every opportunity, while in Ireland, of communicating with parties most interested in the subject. And he must say that, considering the way in which the population of Ireland was at present constituted—how the people were, in particular places, huddled together—considering the mischievous manner in which the population was, from particular causes, distributed at the present moment, he was convinced that such a course as this — that each townland, or each collection of a few townlands, should support its own people, and not be called upon to contribute to any larger division—would have the effect of exempting many who ought to bear the expense from the burden of maintaining the people; while, on the other hand, a crushing weight of taxation would be thrown upon particular townlands in many parts of the country. [Mr. S. O'BRIEN was here understood to say that he did not mean to make townlands the principle of division in all cases, but that he considered the electoral divisions too large.] He understood the hon. Gentleman to plead for the principle of townlands—for the principle of dealing, not with communities, but with the property of individuals; and he repeated that he did not think such a principle applicable to Ireland at the present day. He thought the hon. Gentleman very much underrated an advantage derived from managing these matters in local districts—he meant the advantage of co-operation in those districts. He knew that the hon. Gentleman had great experience on this part of the subject. He had exerted himself with most praiseworthy activity in the district in which he lived as a member of the local
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committee; and he feared that the hon. Gentleman had not met with the support and co-operation which he ought to have done. But in Ireland, generally, there had of late resulted the best effects from the combination of all classes which had taken place for the purpose of giving relief to the people. They had met in the relief committees and in sessions who had never met before. The Protestant and Catholic clergyman, the landlord, the tenant, the cess-payer—men of different creeds and different politics, were forced together by the pressure of circumstances, and learned to act together, to know one another, to understand one another, and to appreciate one another. The system which had been pursued promised to confer the most lasting advantages upon Ireland; and he should therefore regret to see it in any degree stopped, or that any course should be adopted to discourage it. He thought that in asking the people of Ireland to meet in the electoral districts, they were conferring great advantages upon themselves, while they were thus enabled to give their support to Parliament, and to render material assistance to Government, in the great work they had to perform; a work which, they would readily believe him when he said it, required the co-operation of all classes of the community. Now, he thought the principle of the hon. Gentleman would put a stop to all this; and therefore for that, and other reasons, he considered it his duty to oppose it. He had made these observations with reference to the Bill before the House; and he would not be tempted to enter upon the question, whether the system of electoral divisions or the system of unions, as applied to rating, would be best under the poor-law relief measure. That was not the question before them; but, when it did come under their notice, he hoped it would receive from the House a careful and dispassionate consideration. Of course, Her Majesty's Government would approach it with a full sense of its importance, and with an earnest wish to take that course which they considered would be most for the advantage of Ireland. The question before them at present, was not whether they would make the electoral districts smaller or larger; but it was, whether they should desert the principle of dealing with communities, and go down to the principle of dealing with individual properties. To that he was decidedly opposed. He had come to the conclusion that they could not

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justly or safely accede to the proposal of the hon. Gentleman; and he hoped the House would not give that proposal their sanction.
MR. M. O'FERRALLexpressed a hope that Government would not oppose this proposal when the Poor Belief Bill came to be discussed; and, in that case, he would suggest that the House should waive all discussion of the subject for the present.
MR. LABOUCHEREwould deline giving any pledge on the subject.
SIR H. W. BARRONregretted exceedingly the tone adopted by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Labouchere) on the present occasion. Nine-tenths of the experienced men in that part of Ireland in which he resided, said that the electoral division was much too large, and was exceedingly dangerous to the rights of property; and that it did not stimulate the landlords sufficiently to watch their own interests or the interests of those located on their property. If they extended the poor law in Ireland, and did not at the same time contract the territorial responsibility, they would commit an enormous and incalculable mischief on the landed proprietors in that country. It was quite a mistake of his right hon. Friend below him to say that the principle propounded by the hon. Member for Northamptonshire would require new machinery. What the landed proprietors required at present was, some measure which would have the effect of stimulating them to employ their tenants in the improvement of their property. Let them narrow the responsibility, and bring home to each landlord, in the plain manner pointed out by the hon. Member, the duties which he was required to perform towards his tenantry and the poor around him. They must be told that they would be required to employ their poor in useful works on their own property, or feed them in the poorhouse. Was it not plain that every landlord, no matter how negligent, no matter how ignorant, or how unwilling he might be to employ the people around him, would, as a matter of necessity and self-defence, say, "Why, I would rather, of course, have some labour, some productive work from the men that I am obliged to support, than be compelled to feed them in idleness in the workhouse." He thought, therefore, that the deduction was clear, that the principle suggested by the hon. Member for Northamptonshire would have the effect of stimulating the landlords, as a matter of necessity, to employ the poor in the improve-
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ment of their own estates. The great argument, in fact the only tangible argument, that had been brought forward against the principle of the hon. Gentleman, that he could understand, was, that it would have a tendency in stimulating landlords to clear their estates; but he was surprised that it did not strike his right hon. Friend that against such a procedure there would be a complete remedy; and it was this: the landlord would be bound for three or five years (the number of years was of no great interest) to employ or support the parties whom he might have ejected; that was to say, if they should happen to apply to the union workhouse. It would be, of course, left to the board of guardians to decide whether applicants for relief had been ejected from estates in the townlands where they applied for support. That, in his opinion, was a complete answer to the objection raised by the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the principle proposed was not in accordance with the custom; but he begged to state most distinctly—and it had been already again and again stated, and could not be too often repeated—that the custom which prevailed on this subject in England, had been handed down from one generation to another. And if that custom had been found to work evil, for Heaven's sake let them not inflict the same principle upon Ireland. It had manifestly worked incalculable mischief for England. The Irish landed proprietors believed that it was their duty to support the poor on their own property. The right hon. Gentleman had talked about theories, but what the hon. Member had laid down were practical measures; and as long as he could meet with such measures he would throw theories to the wind. Let them make every landlord accountable for the pauperism which, by his neglect, by his ignorance, his absenteeism, or bad management, he had brought upon his estate. By so doing they would compel every landlord, in self-defence, to take care of his people, and to manage his property to greater advantage than he did at present. That was plain common sense, and he was surprised that theories had been brought forward as objections to the principle laid down by the hon. Member for Northamptonshire. But he begged leave to ask whether the poor in England were supported on the electoral division system? He believed that they were not. He believed that the law in England was, that every parish should support its own

913
poor; and if that were the law, let the same be introduced into Ireland, if the plan of the hon. Member were rejected. Let them not be tormented in Ireland with some newfangled system that might be of incalculable mischief to it. A parish in England was, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, only one-fourth the extent of an electoral division in Ireland, and the law in the two kingdoms was, therefore, not analogous. He knew an electoral division in Ireland which extended sixteen miles in one direction, and ten miles in another. Let them make property accountable for the pauperism that was upon it. The Legislature had now a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper as it were, for their legislation. If they adopted the system now propounded by the Government, he believed in his conscience that it would amount to a confiscation of the property in Ireland. He implored the Government not to persevere in their present measure. He felt strongly upon, and was perfectly acquainted with, the whole of this matter; he had also had the benefit of the experience of some of the most practical landed proprietors in Ireland; and they believed with him, that unless the Legislature narrowed the responsibilities of property, the greatest mischief would be inflicted upon Ireland—that this measure would, in fact, tend to involve the whole of that country in one common ruin.
MR. BELLEWsaid, there was no doubt that this measure would have the effect of confiscating some of the landed estates in Ireland, but he thought that such confiscation would be richly deserved. He would ask whether such confiscation would not also be highly serviceable to the country? Believing that the measure was calculated to administer to the wants of the poor of Ireland and the food of that country, in many respects, he would give it his support.
LORD J. MANNERSwished to ask the practical gentlemen of the nineteenth century whether they were prepared to oppose the principles laid down by the hon. Member for Northamptonshire, merely because the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Labouchere) said that he had a great objection to anything which related to feudalism? Why, did the right hon. Gentleman ask what was the principle of feudalism, of which he had talked in so strange a manner? His idea of feudalism was, that it involved the performance of mutual duties and respect for mutual rights. He might be right or
914
he might be wrong in his view of the principle of feudalism; but the view which the right hon. Gentleman had taken was totally opposed to the principle that property had its duties. Now he might be wrong, but his first conviction was that the community would best be served when individual rights and individual duties were properly maintained and performed. But, as an English Member, he thought that he might be pardoned if he took a part in the discussion of this question, because the right hon. Gentleman laid down this principle that the duties of the community were to be regarded in the first instance; and in laying down such a principle, he thought that the right hon. Gentleman had opened the door which might at no distant period lead him to march on for the increase of the area of local taxation in England. If the right hon. Gentleman meant anything, he meant that the areas for local taxation in England were at present too small; and when he saw that this was an undecided question, he thought that English Gentlemen might be pardoned if they criticised a little the important position taken by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He thought that they ought to look very carefully into this matter, and he as an English Member would be prepared, whenever this Bill came to be discussed in Committee, to pay the utmost attention to the practical statements of the hon. Member for Kildare, the hon. Member for Waterford, and those other hon. Members who would not, he trusted, be led away, or suffer the House of Commons to be led away, by the expression of opinions upon feudalism or anything else which had really nothing to do with the question at issue.
MR. BERNAL OSBORNEwas not about to enter into any discussion of this measure at present, although he might say that he believed that if the plan of the hon. Member for Northamptonshire were carried out, it would lead to a national rate. He thought that the hon. Gentleman had been misrepresented in the course of this debate. He did not understand the hon. Gentleman to say that he recommended the townland division, but that the proposed division was too large. His (Mr. Osborne's) immediate object in rising was to warn the Government of the necessity of narrowing the bounds of the responsibility of landlords in Ireland with regard to the relief of the poor. He gave the Government every credit for kind and good intentions, and

915
thought that, except the poor people who were starving, no body of men were more to be pitied than the Government. However, he must, in justice to his own conviction, say that he believed this Bill would prove a complete failure. There would be two systems going on at the same time if it were adopted—the Labour-rate Act and the Act for the Temporary Relief of the Destitute. Thus there would be two continuous drains from this country, which he, for one, was anxious to avoid. It was estimated that 500,000 of the population were employed upon the roads; and the object of the present Bill was to turn the surplus labour towards agricultural pursuits. Now, let them just see what an expense the maintenance of those 500,000 involved. There were five in each family, or, in all, 2,500,000. The lowest estimate for the support of each was a bowl of soup, which cost one penny. Now, even this scanty maintenance cost more than 70,000 l. per week, or something above 3,000,000 l. per year. The Government said they had given attention to all these things, and that their anxiety was to promote the cultivation of the country. But men fed upon this soup were not able to work as men ought to work on the farms. Medical men said it was a great mistake to suppose that the human frame could endure much labour upon such diet. Supplies of meat were exceedingly scanty, and in many of the workhouses deficient. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland had stated on a former occasion that there were 1,500,000 acres of potatoes planted, and that the value was 10 l. per acre, making a total value of 15,000,000 l. Three-fourths of the ordinary crop was lost, amounting to 11,250,000 l. And the right hon. Gentleman continued to observe, that of 4,000,000 of acres of oats annually cultivated, the value of which was 14,000,000 l., a loss of one-third had been sustained, or about 4,600,000 l. Thus, by the failure in the crop of potatoes and oats, a total loss of 15,916,000 l. had been incurred. The total loss in weight was calculated at 11,250,000 tons of potatoes, and 2,270,000 quarters of oats. He believed these estimates were accurate, and that if there was a failure in cultivation there would be a want of double the present deficiency, or somewhere about 30,000,000 l. sterling. He must enter his protest against this Bill for the temporary relief of the destitute, because he thought it would not accomplish the object the Government had in view.
VISCOUNT BERNARDwas of opinion that the Bill should be passed as soon as possible, so that it might come into operation at the earliest possible day.
House in Committee.
On Clause 1 being proposed,
MR. FITZSTEPHEN FRENCHobjected to the appointment of the inspectors under the relief commissioners being in the hands of those commissioners, and proposed an Amendment giving the appointment to the Lord Lieutenant.
SIR G. GREYsaid, that great responsibility was entrusted to the relief commissioners, and it was but fair that the selection of those agents should be vested in them.
VISCOUNT CLEMENTSobjected to the constitution of the commission altogether. If the Bill was to be properly carried out, let commissioners be appointed who had time to fulfil their duties, and he thought the official persons to be appointed had already plenty to do.
MR. LABOUCHEREadmitted that a great stress of business fell upon these gentlemen; but, at the same time, Sir John Burgoyne, Sir Randolph Routh, and Colonel Macgregor were in a position to render most efficient service, with occasional assistance from departments. The board was constituted in the manner in which it was thought it would work most effectively.
MR. B. OSBORNEcontended that it would be impossible for Sir J. Burgoyne and Sir Randolph Routh to get through the duties the Bill imposed upon them, and argued that the business ought to be done by the local boards.
VISCOUNT CLEMENTSthought that this part of the Bill ought to be made part and parcel of the poor law, and the duties given to those who would act as Poor Law Commissioners.
Amendment withdrawn.
On the 3rd Clause,
MR. S. O'BRIENmoved an Amendment to the effect, that all magistrates having property in the electoral division (as well as resident magistrates), all subscribers of 20 l., and clergymen of all religious denominations, be members of the various relief committees.
MR. F. FRENCHobjected to this proposal. The clause as it stood, secured the proper administration of the law.
MR. BERNAL OSBORNEwas decidedly of opinion that clergymen of all denominations ought, ex officio, to be mem-

917
bers of the committees. The relief committees which had heretofore been in existence, would never have been able to get on had it not been for the individual services of the clergy, both Catholic and Protestant. They hindered jobbing, and in all respects rendered most essential service. Were it not for the Catholic priests, no business at all would have been done. Votes of thanks had been passed to ladies and others; but certainly sufficient compliment had not been paid to the united efforts of the clergy, Protestant as well as Catholic. One clergyman of each denomination, at the least, ought to be on every committee.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the constitution of the committees was vested in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant, who was, no doubt, deeply sensible of the value of the co-operation of the clergy, and would take care practically to testify his appreciation, for he had the discretion of appointing whomsoever he pleased. The third clause merely specified the persons who were to be members as of right.
COLONEL CONOLLYwas in favour of making all magistrates members of the committees, who had property in the electoral division. If the rule were to be restricted merely to resident magistrates, he should himself be cut out of five electoral divisions in which his estates were situated.
MR. J. O'CONNELLthought that the clergy of all denominations ought of necessity to be members of the relief committees. They had rendered most invaluable services already, of which he could speak both from his personal experience and from the testimony of every gentleman who had been connected with them.
VISCOUNT CLEMENTSwas also in favour of the appointment of the clergy; and he particularly objected to the matter being left to the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant, who merely spoke as Sir Randolph Routh or Mr. Redington directed him.
The EARL of LINCOLNsaid, if it were a question of paying a compliment to the valuable services of the clergy—services which he knew to have been most efficient—he should be most desirous of doing it. But he did not think that was now in dispute; and he agreed that it would be much better to leave the matter to the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant. The committees being intended to check the existence of gross abuses, it was desirable that they
918
should not be too extensive, for if forty or fifty members were appointed on one committee, it would be apt, especially with such an eloquent people as the Irish, to degenerate into a debating club.
MR. SHAWthought the proviso either went too far in defining the persons who were to be ex-officio members of the relief committees, or not far enough. First, as regarded the justices, it should be not only the justices resident in the electoral divisions, but also those having rateable property in the electoral divisions. Secondly, as regarded the clergy, whom his hon. Friend the Member for Limerick proposed should be ex-officio members, he (Mr. Shaw) thought it very desirable that there should be at least one clergyman of each denomination; but if, instead of specifying any ex-officio members, the Government preferred that the whole should be left to the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant, he (Mr. Shaw) would not object to the proviso being omitted altogether. In reference to an observation of the noble Lord near him, the Member for Leitrim (Lord Clements), that a Lord Lieutenant was nobody, and you never could fix him with any responsibility, he (Mr. Shaw) must, in justice say, that the present Lord Lieutenant was no nonentity, or mere pageant, for, if there ever was a Lord Lieutenant, in reality as well as in name, who did his own business, and shrunk from no responsibility which that involved, it was the present Irish Lord Lieutenant.
MR. LABOUCHEREobjected to leaving in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant such a wide discretion as to place in his hands the appointment of all the members who were to distribute the funds of the ratepayers. He was certain that no slight was intended to be cast upon the clergy by the omission of their names in the Bill; but a clear distinction was made in it, by placing in the Bill the names of those only who now had a constitutional right to distribute the funds, and they ought not to go any farther. He had no doubt whatever that the Lord Lieutenant would do this year what he had done last, place on the committees the clergy of all denominations.
MR. SMITH O'BRIENwithdrew his Amendment relating to the justices of the peace; but said he would persevere in the Amendment, that the clergy of all denominations officiating in such electoral divisions should be members of the relief committee.
The Committee divided on the Question, that the words proposed be inserted:—Ayes 32; Noes 128: Majority 96.

List of the AYES.

Acton, Col.

Kelly, J.

Aglionby, H. A.

Lawless, hon. C.

Archbold, R.

Martin, T. B.

Arundel and Surrey, Earl of

Miles, W.

Norreys, Sir D. J.

Barron, Sir H. W.

O'Brien, C.

Bellew, R. M.

O'Brien, T.

Chapman, B.

O'Connell, Dan. jun.

Cole, hon. H. A.

O'Connell, M. J.

Conolly, Col.

O'Ferrall, R. M.

Corbally, M. E.

Osborne, R.

Dawson, hon. T. V.

Rice, E. R.

Grattan, H.

Shaw, rt. hon. F.

Grogan, E.

Smithwith, R.

Hamilton, J. H.

Somers, J. P.

Hamilton, G. A.

TELLERS.

Harris, hon. Capt.

O'Brien, W. S.

Hayes, Sir E.

O'Connell, J.

List of the NOES.

Aldam, W.

Forster, M.

Allix, J. P.

French, F.

Arkwright, G.

Gibson, rt. hon. T. M.

Baillie, Col.

Godson, R.

Baine, W.

Gore, hon. R.

Barclay, D.

Goulburn, rt. hon. H.

Barkly, H.

Graham, rt. hon. Sir J.

Baring, rt. hon. F. T.

Grey, rt. hon. Sir G.

Barnard, E. G.

Harcourt, G. G.

Bateson, T.

Hastie, A.

Berkeley, hon. Capt.

Hatton, Capt. V.

Berkeley, hon. H. F.

Hawes, B.

Bernard, Visct.

Hay, Sir A. L.

Blackburne, J. I.

Heathcoat, J.

Blake, M. J.

Henley, J. W.

Bodkin, J. J.

Hope, Sir J.

Bowring, Dr.

Howard, hon. C. W. G.

Brocklehurst, J.

Howard, hon. E. G. G.

Brotherton, J.

Hume, J.

Brown, W.

Hutt, W.

Buck, L. W.

James, W.

Buller, E.

Jervis, Sir J.

Bunbury, W. M'C.

Labouchere, rt. hon. H.

Clay, Sir W.

Lambton, H.

Clements, Visct.

Lincoln, Earl of

Colebrooke, Sir T. E.

Lockhart, A. E.

Collett, J.

Lygon, hon. Gen.

Coote, Sir C. H.

Macaulay, rt. hon. T. B.

Corry, rt. hon. H.

Mackenzie, W. F.

Courtenay, Lord

Mackinnon, W. A.

Cowper, hon. W. F.

Maitland, T.

Craig, W. G.

Mangles, R. D.

Crawford, W. S.

Manners, Lord J.

Damer, hon. Col.

Maule, rt. hon. F.

Deedes, W.

Morpeth, Visct.

Denison, J. E.

Morris, D.

Dickinson, F. H.

Mostyn, hon. E. M. L.

Duncan, Visct.

Mure, Col.

Duncan, G.

Napier, Sir C.

Dundas, F.

Newdegate, C. N.

Dundas, D.

O'Brien, A. S.

Ebrington, Visct.

O'Conor Don

Egerton, Sir P.

Ord, W.

Escott, B.

Parker, J.

Evans, W.

Plumridge, Capt.

Ferguson, Sir R. A.

Power, J.

Finch, G.

Protheroe, E. D.

920

Pulsford, R.

Vane, Lord H.

Rawdon, Col.

Verner, Sir W.

Reid, Col.

Vesey, hon. T.

Repton, G. W. J.

Vivian, J. H.

Rich, H.

Waddington, H. S.

Roebuck, J. E.

Walker, R.

Ross, D. R.

Warburton, H.

Rutherfurd, A.

Ward, H. G.

Scrope, G. P.

Wawn, J. T.

Seymour, Lord

Williams, W.

Sheridan, R. B.

Wood, rt. hon. Sir C.

Somerville, Sir W. M.

Wood, Col. T.

Spooner, R.

Wyse, T.

Stansfield, W. R. C.

Yorke, H. R.

Stewart, J.

Young, J.

Taylor, E.

Thornely, T.

TELLERS.

Troubridge, Sir E. T.

Tufnell, H.

Turner, E.

Hill, Lord Marcus

Clause agreed to.
On Clause 7,
VISCOUNT CLEMENTSbegged to call attention to Clause 18, which must be read together with the 7th. He had no doubt that this Bill would pass nearly in its present form; but he, nevertheless, felt it his duty to point out the dangers which they incurred in passing it. As he had already stated on a former occasion, the ill effects of the Labour-rate Act had arisen from the neglect of the Government to define who were to be relieved and who not. The same defect appeared in this Bill; as it stood, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland might himself go and receive relief. The effect of this Bill would be to cause a scramble for relief; and the farmers would receive relief to the exclusion of the poor man. There were many more difficulties in the Bill than the Government expected. In his own parish, there was not a single individual capable of keeping the accounts of the soup required to be kept by this Bill; and unless the Government reconsidered this clause and the 18th, they would find the difficulties insurmountable. If the commissioners were the most honest and the most clever, as well as the firmest, men, they would be unable to resist the pressure which would be made upon them. Under the Labour-rate Act, the Government had adopted as a test a rating to the amount of 6l., which any person who was acquainted with Ireland must know to be absurd. The duty of the Government was, in the first place, to define who were to receive relief; some rating test must be laid down, and he would humbly suggest a 4l. rating as the pivot. No person rated to that amount should by the Bill be allowed to receive relief under it.
MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, that the

921
question raised by his noble Friend on this clause was, whether the distribution of relief should be left to the committees, or whether the Bill should give an exact definition of the persons to be relieved; and it would be, in his opinion, extremely unwise in the House to lay down any such definition. It would, he believed, be impossible to do so without the greatest mischief; and he thought that it would be much better to leave it to the discretion of the commissioners. He acknowledged that under the Labour-rate Act shameful abuses had been practised, and that in too many instances the relief had been given to those who were able to procure subsistence for themselves, and so far, therefore, to the exclusion of the really destitute. He was not sanguine enough to hope that under the present Act all abuses of that kind would be avoided; but Government had framed the Bill with the greatest consideration; and unless they were assisted by those who had local knowledge and influence, let them do what they might, let them employ what staff of officers they would, he was afraid they would not succeed. He would say, however, that obviously there was not the same temptation to abuse when the relief was given in food; and he did hope that the Government would receive the cordial support of the local committees. His noble Friend had said, that it should be an invariable rule to give no relief to the persons rated to the poor rate to the amount of 4l.; but he (Mr. Labouchere) believed that in some districts, if any such strict rule were laid down, many persons so rated might perish from starvation. It was true, as had been noticed by the noble Lord, that as a general, though not an universal rule, under the Labour-rate Act, they had adopted a 6l. rating test; but he knew, from his own experience, that even that test, if adopted as an universal rule, would have left many really destitute persons without relief. He therefore objected to any such definition as the noble Lord desired.
MR. F. FRENCHcould, from his own experience, confirm the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland as to the 4l. test.
MR. BELLEWsaid, that it was not, in his opinion, desirable to establish any definite line, beyond which no relief should be given. As to the Bill in general, he thought it would have been better not to have had any such temporary measure, but to have relied upon the permanent
922
poor law, because, at the expiration of the period for which the measure was to last, there must be an interregnum, during which there would be a strong necessity for some similar measure.
Clause agreed to.
On Clause 8,
COLONEL CONOLLYthought it very hard that the guardians should be required to find money which notoriously they had not received. He had received a letter from a guardian in Ireland, stating that they could not collect the rates; and he thought it a very unjust thing to make the guardians, under another Act, responsible for the rates which they could not collect.
MR. BERNAL OSBORNEsaid, that this was a money question, and could assure the House that not one farthing of these rates could be collected—not until after next harvest at all events. He begged therefore to suggest to the Government, whether it would not be wise to let the guardians of unions charge interest on money which they advanced.
MR. ROEBUCKbegged to ask the hon. Member how they could expect to borrow money, when they were told that not one farthing of these rates would be levied. That was a statement which he had made on a former occasion, and not a single Member from Ireland had omitted to abuse him for making it. Shortly, the House would have another clause to consider, which pledged the money of this country upon the faith of these rates, that would never be collected. He had before warned the Government and the country that the money so advanced could not be repaid; and when he made that statement, the hon. and gallant Member for Armagh (Colonel Rawdon) said that it was a direct attack upon the honour of Ireland. When these matters came out, they were of great interest to the people of this country. Let them not be persuaded by one set of Irish Gentlemen that they were lending money which the high honour of these Gentlemen would compel them to pay; and by another class of Irish Members, quite as honest, but rather more plain-spoken, that they were quite willing to receive the money, but that they never intended to repay it. He had one other remark to make, in reference to one observation of the noble Lord opposite, which was this, that this money, like that already expended, would be expended, not on the suffering poor, but that all the charity of England would

923
go to minister to the grasping desire of those who were trading on the miseries of their fellow-countrymen. Such was the statement of the noble Lord in substance, though, perhaps, not expressed in language so strong; so that they had these two clear propositions, that the money advanced by this country would be spent, not only uselessly, but corruptly; and that the money of his honest and industrious fellow-countrymen was not on any occasion to be returned to that Exchequer from which, under false pretences, it had been withdrawn.
VISCOUNT CLEMENTSadmitted that the statement of the hon. and learned Member was in the main correct. He (Lord Clements) asserted most positively that the money had been mis-spent, to the knowledge of the Government; that the farmers had received the relief, and the poor man had been defrauded. In the poor-law union of which he was himself one of the board of guardians, the board had been obliged to levy a new rate before they had succeeded in collecting the old. In fact, there was 1,000 l. of the old rate due at the time. With respect to the present measure, he could assure the House that his solemn conviction was, that in the main it would be impossible to collect the rates till the next harvest, if it would be practicable even then. He was quite aware that what he was saying would prove unpleasant to many Members, but a sense of duty compelled him to say that the consequences of the calamity were only beginning to be felt. His conviction was, that there would be no crops next year; he held it to be physically impossible that one half of the land could be cropped, and for this simple reason, that no manure had been collected. The land was exhausted, and even the burning system had failed. The people were altogether broken down, and he had himself presented a petition to that House, signed by 2,000 poor people, praying to be enabled to emigrate as a dernier ressort.
MR. ROSSthought that the hon. Member for Bath had misunderstood the remarks made by Gentlemen opposite as to the non-payment of rates. These Gentlemen did not mean to assert that that portion which fell upon the landlords would not be paid. He emphatically denied the imputation which had been made, that hon. Gentlemen connected with Ireland came before the House to solicit assistance to save them from ruin. He would like to
924
see the man who would attempt to prove that because Irish Members supported measures calculated to give employment to their starving countrymen, through the instrumentality of pecuniary advances, they were actuated by mercenary motives. For himself, he lived in a part of the country where no human being was in danger of perishing from want of food; but this did not make him the less anxious to assist in procuring relief for less favoured districts. With respect to the landlords, he did not know so much about those of the south as he did about those of the north; but of the latter he could say that many of them were an honour and credit to the class to which they belonged.
MR. STAFFORD O'BRIENwas surprised at the ignorance which had been displayed on the part of some Members of the Government as to the relative circumstances of occupying tenants in Ireland. Why, many of those persons whose holdings were rated above 4l. were neither paying their rents nor cultivating their lands. He was convinced that in many parts of the country, he would not say in all parts, it would be next to impossible to collect rates at all, with the exception of what was payable by the higher classes. Members connected with Ireland had distinctly told the House that much of the money about to be advanced could not be repaid, and that in many cases the assistance which was intended to be rendered to the poor would be diverted into other channels. With regard to the manner in which the public money granted for the relief of the distressed people had been expended, there had been much cause for well-grounded complaint. A system of intimidation had prevailed. The farmers who had the management of the affairs had, in some districts placed themselves and their relatives upon the relief works: and the disturbances which had taken place had not been committed by the poor, but by those clamorous persons who had established and acted upon a regular System of intimidation. He recommended the House to leave as little as possible in the power of such persons. Let the difficulties which presented themselves be settled in the House, and be provided for in the Bill before it passed. At least, if it were not done, let no one say they had not been sufficiently forewarned.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the picture which had been laid before the House of the present

925
condition and future prospects of Ireland, afforded little encouragement to the Government to persevere with the present or any other measure. Still it was not till they had taken the whole subject under most painful consideration, that the Government had arrived at the conclusion that the present measure was the best which could be proposed under existing circumstances. As to the abuses which had prevailed under the Labour-rate Act, in some districts the relief committees must bear part of the blame. In Clare, Captain Wynne, the officer employed under the Board of Works, struck off, in two weeks, from the list of persons employed on the public works, no fewer than 6,000 names. He was not sanguine enough to believe that all fraud or abuse had been effectually guarded against; but it was believed that the best check which could exist was the one adopted—that of placing the working of the measure in the hands of those who had to bear the expense of it. He believed in some parts it would be next to impossible that the rates could be collected; but the portion due by the landlords would be realized, and he had no doubt that a considerable portion of what was payable by the tenants would also be paid. Nothing was so false as to say that an indisposition to fulfil pecuniary engagements prevailed throughout Ireland. He believed, that in many instances where rates had not been collected, the fault lay with the parties whose business it was to make the collection. Under the present Bill, more summary power was given to enforce payment than previously existed. The hon. Member for Donegal had stated, that in requiring the guardians to collect the rates under the Bill, the Government were asking them to perform a duty which they were not called upon to perform. This was a mistake. The guardians were bound to collect all rates for the benefit of the poor, and this would include the rates imposed under the present Bill. In the case of the Castlebar union the parties in arrear were not the poorer ratepayers, but large holders of land; and the fault of allowing the arrears was attributable to the guardians. To guard, however, against the imperfect performance of duty by such parties, the Bill now submitted contained a provision for superseding them, and appointing a paid board. He thought, that, although the probability of repayment was to some extent doubtful, still it was the duty of the Government to persevere in its
926
efforts to afford relief to the starving population. Such was the object of the Bill; and he was sure that if an appeal were made to the country, the course pursued by the Government would meet with general approval.
MR. BERNAL OSBORNEdid not agree in thinking that the relief afforded under the Labour-rate Act had been abused by the circumstance of the small farmers, or their sons, having availed themselves of its advantages. These persons were driven by distress to the Government works. He hoped that what had occurred in the county of Clare was an exception to what had been generally experienced; he was sure that such was the case at Castlebar. As to the payment of the rate, he had never asserted that non-payment would be universal; he had always excepted that part which was payable by the landlords.
MR. C. O'BRIENaccused the persons connected with the Board of Works of unfair dealing and favouritism. The object of these persons, he said, was to keep themselves and their numerous cousins and favourites in employment, no matter whether the works were profitable or not. The people of the county of Clare, who were remarkable for their attachment to the principles of civil and religious liberty, had been represented in the reports of the officers of the Board of Works as savages, and everything that was bad. As to the payment of the rates, he could state, that in the remote district where he had lived for the greater part of his life, and where he had endeavoured to do the utmost good in his power, the rates had been paid. He could state this from personal knowledge; for he was the chairman of the board of guardians. The ratepayers would no doubt have to contend with difficulties between the present time and the next harvest; but abundant security existed that the Government would be paid. He hoped that an official inquiry would be ordered into the allegations made by the persons connected with the Board of Works.
MR. P. SCROPEhoped the House would not be led away from the main subject by matters of subsidiary interest. The question for consideration was, first, how were millions to be saved from starvation; and, in the next place, how was the money of the people of England to be protected from being wasted and squandered in jobbing. After the warnings which had been given by the Gentlemen opposite, as to the

927
non-collection of rates, the House would do well to consider how far it would be serviceable to place a larger portion of the rates upon the landlords. That suggestion had been made to him by many of the landlords themselves. If an effort were made to collect the rates from the small occupiers, a recurrence of the scenes which took place in 1834, when the Government was forced to employ horse and foot to assist the civil power in the collection of tithes, might be apprehended. The resistance then offered to the payment of tithes resulted in fixing the burden upon the landlord. He thought it would be well to follow that precedent under present circumstances. Were this course pursued, the landlords would take care that no jobbing occurred.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERrose to explain. In referring to the county of Clare, he had merely spoken of it as an exception to what had occurred generally in Ireland. Let it be remembered, that it was in Clare that the Lord Lieutenant was obliged to issue a letter discontinuing the works, in consequence of the conduct of the people; and also that it was in that county that a murderous attack was made upon a person entrusted with the discharge of a public duty. For the satisfaction of the House, he would read the letter of Captain Wynne, which communicated the fact of his having struck off an immense number of persons from the relief works. In this letter, the Captain stated that he had struck off three thousand persons, and expected to strike off an equal number in the following week. This act had effectually stopped the mouths of thousands of clamorous persons, whose only claim to employment was, that persons employed on the works were as well off as they themselves were. The disbanding of the persons had led to their departure, and the departure of the other candidates to their farms. These were matters of fact which could not be controverted.
MR. C. O'BRIENrepeated his charge against Captain Wynne and the other officers of the Board of Works, and called upon the Government to grant a Committee of Inquiry.
MAJOR MACNAMARAremarked, that Captain Wynne had never visited the relief committee, and was not, consequently, conversant with the facts.
MR. J. O'CONNELLconsidered that the statement which had been made as to the abuses which had existed, were exag-
928
gerated. In regard to the rate, there was, no doubt, great peril that they would not be collected in many parts. But what was then to be done? They could not get money from those who had none; at the same time, he was persuaded that the landlords would pay their share of the rate. For his own part, however, he was of opinion that the Government should resort to a large loan to Ireland, in order to keep the people alive.
MR. SMITH O'BRIENsaid, it would be impossible to collect the rates in certain parts of the country; but there were large portions of it in which he was sure there would be a great and honourable disposition to pay them. He would suggest that the Government should, however, give up all idea of collecting rates from the smaller occupiers.
MR. DISRAELIsaid, that the hon. Member for Clare (Major Macnamara) had complained of the conduct of a public functionary, Captain Wynne; but, in the correspondence which had been laid upon the Table, there was a letter from that gentleman, a passage from which he would read to the House. It was as follows, and was dated Ennis, December 5, 1846:—
"I regret to say that matters are not improving with us in this district, nor can I expect them to improve so long as yesterday's scenes continue to be enacted daily.
"The extraordinary presentment sessions at Ennistimon, held yesterday, were a second edition of those at Corofin. Major Macnamara, M.P., was in the chair, supported by Mr. Cornelius O'Brien, M.P., MR. J. O'Brien, M.P., &c. The two first hours were occupied in attack and defence, without ever once touching upon the business of the day. It was obvious that it was not to transact business they had come there, and the result of course was that nothing was done, and nothing can be done till another extraordinary presentment sessions be called. This must lead to considerable inconvenience, as on many of the works in the barony the funds will be very soon exhausted, and the men will be obliged to go four or five miles to others, for which there remain presentments. All this, together with the evil consequences of leading the people to expect to be turned into their own gardens to till, I explained all to no purpose. I therefore had but one course to pursue, that of protesting against the entire proceedings, in which I was followed by Mr. Hill and Mr. Gamble. I, and the other officers of your board, have strong reasons to complain of the conduct of the two county Members, who appeared to come there for the sole purpose of holding us up, one and all, to the assassin, and hallooing on a mob of the very worst description who were present. Can it be wondered at, that the stewards and overseers will not discharge their duties, and that the men on the works are doing literally nothing but what they please? When I give directions to any of them, they resign,

929
rather than carry those directions into effect; and, I confess, I can scarcely expect any other course from any of them not gifted with strong nerves in the present state of county Clare society."
Now this letter should be read by every Gentleman in the House. He would say nothing as to the rights of the case; but he had thought it but fair and proper that that letter should be made known.
MR. C. O'BRIENsaid, that nothing that fell from either his hon. Colleague or himself, on the occasion referred to could have led Captain Wynne to write that letter, which, in fact, was written by him with a view to get himself into the favour of the board. The committee over which his Colleague had presided was not at Ennistimon, but at another place; and he must say that it ill became Captain Wynne to talk of his Colleague and himself as he had done; for Captain Wynne had lately had a transaction which ought to have unfitted him for any place of authority. Captain Wynne, however, was absent, and he had no wish to say anything behind his back that he would not say before his face; and he would now only add that, if the House would grant him a Committee, he would undertake to prove before it that what he had said was true.
MR. LABOUCHEREregretted the introduction of this personal question; but after what had been said of Captain Wynne, he did feel it to be only due to a public servant, who was absent, to add his testimony to that of his right hon. Friend (Sir C. Wood) to the fact, that it was the opinion of every Member of the Irish Government acquainted with Captain Wynne's conduct in the discharge of his public duty in Clare, that, though many officers of the Board of Works had distinguished themselves by the manner in which they had performed their duties, there was no man whose conduct had been more conspicuous under very difficult circumstances, or who had played a more gallant part than Captain Wynne. He had never seen Captain Wynne in his life, and he only bore this testimony to his public conduct from a sense of justice. He did not enter into the disputes between that gentleman and the hon. Member for Clare; but after what had been said of Captain Wynne, he felt it due to him to say that, in regard to the general scope and tenor of his conduct, the course he had pursued entitled him to the gratitude of that county and of the country, for the manner in which he had secured the public peace. He agreed that
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there had been many abuses in connexion with the public works; but it was most unjust to argue, from their prevalence in particular cases, that abuses had been the general rule in respect of these works. In many places—as in Wicklow, &c.—the public works had been very well conducted, and the destitute had been employed; whilst those who ought not to be upon the works had been kept off. He did hope that the House would now be permitted to proceed with the Bill before it without further interruption.
MR. C. O'BRIENcontended that he had a just right of complaint against Captain Wynne, for printing a letter full of abuse of his Colleague and himself, whilst he suppressed the report in which they were acquitted of what had been laid to their charge.
MR. SHAWsaid, that he felt much of the previous discussion to be very degrading to Ireland, and calculated to convey a most unjust impression to the public mind in England, as regarded both the persons to be relieved by the measures introduced by Her Majesty's Government, and the prospect of repayment of the money to be advanced for that purpose. He did not deny that there had been some abuses and mismanagement under the Labour Act; and, considering that a new machinery had to be, as it were in a moment, applied to the supply of food for millions of persons who had lost their usual means of support, it was not surprising that there should have been some abuses, and some blundering; but it was unreasonable to argue from the abuse of a system against the use of it, and to make the exception as if it were the general rule of the country. There was great confusion in the minds of English Gentlemen as to the term "farmers" in Ireland; for when it was said that there were numbers of farmers getting employment on the public works in Ireland, what kind of farmers were they? Why, unfortunate holders of two or three acres of ground, who had lost in their potato crop their whole winter's supply of food, and who, with their families, must inevitably have starved if they did not by some means earn wages as labourers. He (Mr. Shaw) would not for a moment defend the abuse of a substantial farmer, or his family, being so employed; but he did not believe there was a more destitute class in all Ireland than that of the so-called farmers, whose case he had been describing. The noble Lord (Lord Clements)

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spoke of perhaps the most distressed county in Ireland, the county of Leitrim. A gentleman possessing property there had told him (Mr. Shaw) within the last two days, that finding his local agent was unable to collect any rent, he had sent a very active and intelligent agent from another part of Ireland to report to him upon the case. That agent assured him, that where 700 l. should have been collected in the ordinary course, he could get but 5l.; that he had visited the house of every tenant; that there was in them scarcely an article of furniture, or a morsel of food; and that, so far from asking them for money, it would be absolutely necessary to give them, not only seed to sow their land, but food to prevent their families from starving. Such persons must be relieved, and, no doubt, could not for the present pay either rents or rates; but still, he hoped and believed, that in the greater part of Ireland the rates could be levied; and sure he was, that no party of men ever made greater exertions or sacrifices than the abused and maligned landlords of Ireland were doing at the present time to alleviate the distress that surrounded them. They were ready to meet the call that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other Members of the Government had so frequently made upon them that night, cordially to co-operate in carrying out the remedial measures that might be passed by that House; and they would be no parties to any fraud upon the public treasury. For his own part, he (Mr. Shaw) deeply regretted that there had been a necessity for any appeal to the charity or generosity of England; he had at one time hoped and expected that Ireland, by a great and independent effort, could have righted herself; but a vast calamity had overtaken them, for which they were not answerable. It was a national calamity; and it was not unjust to England, or degrading to Ireland, that it should be met by the national resources.
Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
On Clause 12 being proposed,
MR. ROEBUCKmoved that the Chairman report progress, and ask leave to sit again.
Motion agreed to, and Committee to sit again.
House adjourned at a quarter past Twelve o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—2a Buck Wheat, &c. Importation.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. From Stockbridge, for the Repeal of the Poor Removal Act.

RAILWAYS IN IRELAND.
LORD BROUGHAMmoved—
"For a Return of the Premium on Exchequer Bills on each Day from the 1st of February to the 5th of February, 1847. Also an Account of

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the Dividends actually paid upon all Railway Stock in England, Scotland, and Ireland, for the two Years ending the 1st of February, 1847. Also an Account of the Names of all Persons holding Stock in Irish Railways on the 1st of February, 1847."
The noble and learned Lord observed, that as a return of this kind had been granted with reference to railways in this country, he presumed there could be no objection to place the proprietors of Irish railway stock on the same footing with shareholders in similar undertakings in England. He saw that a measure had been introduced into the other House of Parliament for the promotion of railways in Ireland; and that measure was advocated on the ground that it would enable Irish railway shareholders to turn their shares into money, which might be applied in advancing the general welfare of that country. But those who supported this measure seemed to forget that for every 100 l. of capital withdrawn from railway shares, another 100 l. would be invested in those speculations; so that he did not think the result they anticipated would be produced. At any rate, let it be known for whose benefit Parliament was about to legislate. He was sorry at all times to complain of misrepresentation; indeed he was seldom called upon to do so; but these were times when the opinions of a public man ought to be properly understood. Since he had last addressed their Lordships, he had received numerous letters charging him with a desire to make bread dear for the people, and accusing him of taking part with the farmers to keep up the price of bread. And the poor farmers were to be charged with this! They were charged with keeping up the price of bread by withholding supplies from the market. He could only say that a more unjust and ridiculous accusation he never heard against any class of the community. It was important, especially at this time, that the opinions of men on such a subject should not be misrepresented; and he might therefore explain that what he had said was this, that if there was no scarcity, corn would very soon come to the market, and so be cheap; and that, if there was a scarcity, the best thing that could possibly happen would be that corn should be dear. The Puke of Norfolk, or the Duke of Rutland, to whom it signified little what the price of corn was, could, in a period of dearth, reduce the consumption of their families by a certain amount: the community at large, however, could not enter into a bond to
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effect such a reduction; but a high price would operate upon them, and would prevent a scarcity from being changed into a dearth, and a dearth from becoming a famine.
LORD STANLEYentirely concurred in the observation of his noble and learned Friend, that this was a time, of all others, when public men ought not to be subjected to misrepresentation with regard to their motives, and particularly when their motives and actions had reference to the relief of public distress, in whatever part of the empire that distress might exist. It was his entire concurrence in that observation which led him to notice a remark that fell from the noble and learned Lord, conveying, unintentionally of course, an entire misrepresentation of the motives and intent of the measure which had been introduced by a noble Friend of his (Lord Stanley's) into the other House of Parliament. His noble and learned Friend had stated that the object of his noble Friend (Lord George Bentinck) was to introduce a measure, the effect of which would be to raise the price of Irish railway shares, and enable railway proprietors to make large profits.
LORD BROUGHAM: No; the effect, no doubt, would be to raise the prices; but the intention was, to enable shareholders to sell out, and to improve their estates.
LORD STANLEY: The noble and learned Lord intimated, at all events, that the object of the measure introduced by his noble Friend (Lord George Bentinck) last night, in the other House of Parliament, was to advantage railway proprietors in Ireland, by enabling them to sell the shares they possessed. Now, he was certain that his noble and learned Friend could not have heard the able, the eloquent, the statesman-like statement delivered by his noble Friend (Lord George Bentinck) last night when introducing the Bill. He was convinced that his noble and learned Friend could not have read that statement; for, if he had done so, the monomania of opposition to railways, which in many cases biassed the judgment of his noble and learned Friend, could not have caused him to misunderstand the object of a measure which, whatever its intrinsic merits, was undoubtedly introduced with a feeling which commanded the attention and sympathy of all parties in Parliament, and which, he believed, also commanded the admiration and approval of a great portion of the community of this country. The time might

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come when that measure might have to be argued in their Lordships' House, unless some extraordinary exercise of the prerogative of the Crown should be made to stop its progress; but he must assure his noble and learned Friend, that its object and intent were not to raise the price of railway shares, or to facilitate their disposal by those who now held them in Ireland. The object of the measure was to interpose the credit of Great Britain—without the loss of one single shilling, or the imposition of one single shilling of taxation upon the people of this country—to stimulate and facilitate employment in a country more than all others, and especially at this time, in want of employment; to carry out works of great public utility, and which, without the intervention, not only of the aid, but of the credit of the State, must be abandoned; to facilitate communication in Ireland, which, next to the employment of labour, was most necessary to the well-being of the country; to improve the condition of the agricultural labourer in that country; and to furnish the means of constant employment to a large portion of the population for the next four years at least, without withdrawing them from agricultural employment by tendering too easy or too well-paid work; and to facilitate the application of capital—for the expenditure of private capital was now checked by the political position of the country. The intention of the measure was to render assistance to Ireland under securities and guarantees which would insure that the people of this country would not, by the advances which they would be called upon to make, be liable to one single shilling of ultimate expenditure, or to any immediate addition to their burdens, for the purpose of effecting what was proposed to be done by the interposition of the State. He had little thought to have said a word upon the subject at the present time; but with the respect and regard which he felt for his noble Friend in another place (Lord George Bentinck), and for the opinion and weight of authority of his noble and learned Friend in that House (Lord Brougham), he could not permit the statement which had been made to go forth upon the high authority of his noble and learned Friend, namely, that the scheme propounded by his noble Friend (Lord George Bentinck) had for its object private benefit, when his (Lord Stanley's) firm conviction, belief, and certainty was, that it had for its object, and would produce as its effect,
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great national improvement and great public advantage, and that without entailing public loss or inconvenience upon any portion of the subjects of this empire.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, his noble Friend who had just addressed their Lordships had misunderstood the observation he had made. He (Lord Brougham) had never said that the measure introduced in another place was for the purpose of benefiting individuals. He expressly avoided making any such statement. What he had said was, that the measure of the noble Lord (Lord George Bentinck) had been supported on the ground that it would facilitate the application of capital to improvements in Ireland by enabling the holders of railway shares to dispose of them; and upon that fact he (Lord Brougham) remarked, that the persons who thus argued seemed to have forgotten that for every 100 l. of capital sold out of railway stock, another 100 l. must be invested, and that, consequently, the noble Lord's measure could not possibly have the effect it was intended to produce, namely, that of setting free any amount of capital to the general improvement of Ireland. His noble Friend (Lord Stanley) had observed that he (Lord Brougham) had not been present in the other House, for which he entertained as much respect as any one could do, when the noble Lord (Lord George Bentinck) brought forward the measure to which reference had been made. He (Lord Brougham) had certainly not heard the statement of the noble Lord, for he had not been in the other House since the 20th of November, 1830; and he had not read the statement, because he did not often read the debates. But he had seen a person who did hear the noble Lord's speech, and who told him that the friends of the measure—though he did not particularly mention the noble Lord—advocated it on the ground that it would enable the holders of railway shares to sell them, and would so give them an opportunity of investing their capital in labour fer the improvement of the land. His (Lord Brougham's) reply was, that a more Irish view of the subject he had never heard of; and he remarked, as he had already observed to their Lordships, that for every 100 l. of stock sold out, another 100 l. would be bought in. His object in moving for these returns was to put the sister kingdom on the same footing with this country; and, above all, to enable those Gentlemen in the other House, and

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those noble Lords who, in the multiplicity of their engagements, might forget that they held shares in Irish railways, to see their names alphabetically displayed, and so be reminded of their position. No one could expect that any noble Lord, or any hon. Member of the other House, would vote for a Bill that was to raise the value of his own shares. That was quite impossible. His noble Friend (Lord Stanley) had said that he had a monomania with regard to railways. What he (Lord Brougham) wanted was, that railways, like other similar undertakings, should be carried on by people from their own funds, and not with the aid of the public funds. He had no phobia whatever against railways: he risked his limbs on them every day; but if they were to be made, he wanted them to be made with the money of the shareholders, not that of the public. He had much less interest in the matter than his noble Friend (Lord Stanley), who had in all probability much longer to live than himself; but he could assure that noble Lord that he had no objection to railways or railway works in Ireland, and he hoped every facility would be afforded for their prosecution.
The DUKE of RICHMONDexpressed the great satisfaction he had felt at the measure which had been proposed in another place last night by his noble Friend Lord George Bentinck. He thought it was a measure much more likely to be of permanent service to Ireland, than any measure that had ever been brought forward since he had occupied a seat in Parliament. The measure of his noble Friend appeared to him to begin at the right end; its object was to induce capital to flow from this country into Ireland. He believed that if they afforded employment to the people of Ireland, and gave them fair wages, they would do much to improve their moral condition; that the people would consume a much larger quantity of exciseable articles; that they would be able to live upon the produce of their own agriculture, and to purchase our manufactures, thereby extending that home market which, in his opinion, was the foundation of the prosperity of the great mass of the operatives of this country. He felt that there could be no objection to the production of the returns which had been moved for by the noble and learned Lord; and he hoped when they were produced, it would be found that there was a very large body of English and Scotch Members of Parlia-
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ment who had nothing to do with railways who would carry the measure of his noble Friend (Lord George Bentinck). He entertained the firmest confidence that the people of England would well understand that they were not called upon to pay one single shilling by the measure of his noble Friend, which would give food to above 500,000 of the population of the sister kingdom, whose distresses they all deeply deplored. Temporary measures were necessary at this moment, but more permanent measures were also necessary to insure the prosperity of Ireland; and he thought his noble Friend (Lord George Bentinck) had shown himself to be a statesman by the Bill which he had last night introduced in a most forcible speech to the other House.
EARL FITZWILLIAMcould not help regretting the tone which this conversation had taken, though he was not surprised at the tone of it, considering the nature of the Motion which had been made. It might occur, not to him, but a passing thought might glance through the minds of some of their Lordships, that his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) might perhaps have some other sidelong view besides the mere view of placing before Parliament the names of those persons who were possessed of shares in Irish railways. When he looked that morning at the Votes of the House of Commons, he observed that a Bill had been presented for facilitating the employment of people in that country by the encouragement of railways. This was the first entry in the Votes. He had then looked with an anxious hope to see that this Bill had been brought in by his noble Friend the First Lord of the Treasury. Greatly was he disappointed to find that the Bill was in other hands, and those hands not official, though not less active. He found, from what he had read in those unofficial records to which their Lordships were in the habit of referring, that the noble Lord who had already been alluded to (Lord George Bentinck) had exhibited a degree of zeal, intelligence, and industry, which he thought entitled him to the gratitude not only of Ireland but of the United Empire. He wished that this measure had been in the hands of his noble Friend on his left. He wished that they had had the credit of this addition to the useful, but notwithstanding, as he thought, the small and imperfect measures which they had already brought forward. He was in hopes that this great crowning measure

855
would have been, in other hands than those in which it was placed, because sure he was that a measure of such importance to the community could never be usefully carried through Parliament but through the medium of the Executive Government. He trusted that there would be no improper—as he should consider it on this occasion—interposition of the prerogative to prevent the progress of this measure. He trusted, and indeed he felt perfect confidence, that in the hands of his noble Friends, who represented that historical party in the State whose efforts had always been directed rather to curb than to pamper and flatter the prerogative, the country would be safe against any such attempt being made. He had come down to the House with a firm determination to express his sentiments on this subject; and considering the relation in which he stood towards most, if not all, of those who composed Her Majesty's Administration, he had felt it his duty to communicate to the head of the Government what he intended to do, because he could not conceal from himself that as his noble Friends had not been the authors of this measure, it might not perhaps be entirely agreeable to them that he should express his satisfaction at a measure which had not proceeded from Her Majesty's Government. But let the measure come from whom it might, he would give it, when it came to that House, his undivided and strenuous support. Not that he thought this the most advantageous Bill that might have been propounded. Not but that he thought that the machinery which it contemplated ought not to be in the hands of private individuals and companies, who might look more to their own interests than to those Irish and national interests which he had so much at heart. He thought that the direction of the system ought to be in the hands of the Government. He had an original and rooted opinion that the whole of our railway system should be in their hands. He hoped, therefore, that his noble Friends would take this measure into their own keeping, In their hands it ought to be, and he hoped that in their hands it would be brought to perfection. He was sure that it would work more for the benefit of Ireland, and if for the benefit of Ireland, for the benefit of the United Kingdom, than any other measure which could be presented for their Lordships' consideration. With regard to the other measures relating to Ireland which had been brought for-
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ward by the Government, unless there were something with which to follow them up, he thought that they would fail in their object; and he would tell their Lordships why he thought so. These measures contemplated the improvement of Ireland through the medium of the landlords of Ireland. He was not going to express any opinion either for or against the landlords of Ireland; but he thought that measures which contemplated the improvement of Ireland through the instrumentality of one class of persons, and that class of persons one on whom something like a penal poor law was to be imposed, were not likely to lead to results which their Lordships would like to anticipate. He thought, that in connexion with railways, a system of emigration, if not carried on, ought at least to be largely assisted by the Government. He thought, also, that persons employed on railways by the Government ought to have an opportunity of emigrating themselves; and he considered that gradual emigration ought to go on from the whole surface of Ireland. He did not, however, wish to see any symptoms of clearing estates; on the contrary, if a landlord came to him, and he found that his object was to clear one, or two, or three townlands, he would refuse any assistance towards emigration. He had no doubt that a good system of emigration, connected with this measure of railway employment, would make Ireland capable of bearing a large portion of the burdens of this country; and upon this ground it was that he formed his opinion, that, instead of carrying this measure into effect through the medium of private companies, it should be taken in hand by the Government itself. These were his opinions; and he should not have acted fairly by the House—he should not have acted fairly by his noble Friends, or by those who had introduced the measure in the other House of Parliament, if he had refrained from expressing his sentiments upon that occasion.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEhad not originally entertained an intention of expressing any opinion upon the topics to which his noble Friend who had just sat down had adverted; because his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) did not mean, nor, he was sure, did he desire, that his Motion should lead to any discussion on the very important question with which that Motion was collaterally connected. To that Motion he (the Marquess of Lansdowne) saw no objection; and the noble

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Lord opposite (Lord Stanley) saw no objection to it; and till his noble Friend (Earl Fitzwilliam) spoke, he had no intention of saying anything on the subject. But after what had fallen from his noble Friend, with regard to that prerogative of the Crown of which he said he deprecated the exercise, he must say, that the prerogative in question was one of the most constitutional prerogatives vested in the Crown; one which it would be injudicious and unwise to abandon in any instance; and one of which he was confident that his noble Friend would not wish to deprive the Crown when a necessity arose for its exercise. Now, there was no occasion, perhaps, more necessary for the exercise of that prerogative, than when a large expenditure of the public money was in contemplation, and when that expenditure was inevitably and necessarily connected with a wide field of speculation. It was in the proportion that, in the opinion of the advisers of the Crown, such a speculation might be useful to the country, or lead to mischievous effects, it became the duty of Her Majesty's Ministers to make use of that prerogative upon their own responsibility. That was not the time or the place to state whether that prerogative would be exercised or not. This, however, he might say, that it must be evident to his noble Friend, and to the House, that this prerogative had not been needlessly or hastily interposed to prevent discussion on the subject. He could state from authority, that it was the anxious wish of his noble Friend in the other House of Parliament to make no use of that prerogative which could interfere with the full discussion of the measure. The noble Lord who had been referred to (Lord G. Bentinck), was entitled to bring the measure forward; and he (the Marquess of Lansdowne) thought that it was for the public interest that he should be heard. To what length the discussion upon the mearure might extend, would depend upon the opinion entertained by Her Majesty's advisers upon its beneficial or mischievous tendency.
The EARL of WINCHILSEAentirely agreed in the sentiments which had been expressed by the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond) below him. No man more deeply felt for the situation of Ireland than he did, or felt more anxious in every way to co-operate with Her Majesty's Government in carrying measures which might bring about the permanent improvement of that country. The measures which they
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had already introduced were, in his opinion, of a temporary character, and would not meet the difficulties which had embarrassed that country for centuries. Whatever tended to the employment of labour there, could not fail to lead to the wealth and prosperity of the other parts of the empire. The Legislature, however, must now, at whatever cost, endeavour to relieve immediately the suffering population. An extensive scheme of colonization he had long advocated as a means of removing the surplus population of Ireland, and enabling them to go to parts of the world where their labour could be turned to better account. He gave full credit to the Government for the measures which they brought in, with a view to giving relief to Ireland; but he thought that further measures were necessary; for although he was aware that many persons were of opinion that the present population of that country was not too large for the resources in the way of employment which the land afforded, yet he did not concur in that opinion; and, therefore, he thought, that measures ought to be taken for effecting colonization, and giving permanent employment to the people. He was quite sure, that if the Government rejected the proposition of the noble Lord in the other House of Parliament, they would have to bring in some comprehensive measure for the relief of Ireland.
Motion agreed to.
Returns ordered.

EDUCATION.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE: My Lords, in moving the Order of the Day, I beg to ask your Lordships' attention for a short time previously to laying upon the Table a copy of the Minutes on Education lately adopted by Her Majesty's Privy Council. I might lay upon the Table those Minutes without making any prefatory observation, inasmuch as no extensive and comprehensive measure is to be founded upon them; but I consider it more respectful to your Lordships, as soon as possible after the adoption of those Minutes by the Privy Council, and as early as possible after the commencement of the Session of Parliament, to put this House, and the public through this House, in possession of the views which Government entertains upon the subject of education, and what it is proposed to do with regard to it. My Lords, in stating these views to your Lordships, I confess it would have been a

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source of the greatest pleasure and satisfaction to me were I enabled on this occasion to state to your Lordships that Her Majesty's Government are prepared to bring forward a plan of general and public education in this country of so large and comprehensive a nature as would at once, or by quick strides, place the population of this country in such a condition, with respect to education, as that in which the population of some parts of Europe are already placed, namely, a condition in which an uneducated child is almost a solitary exception to the general state of things, and where, it may be strictly said, that amongst the great mass of the people education is universally extended. My Lords, I am bound in the outset to state that, upon the fullest consideration, it did not appear to Her Majesty's Government practicable and advisable to at once carry into effect a measure for the extension of education upon so large and comprehensive a plan. Undoubtedly it might be attempted; but if the attempt were made, it would be met with serious if not overwhelming difficulties. We could not attempt a measure on such an extensive scale without having it strictly comprehensive, so as to include in the same schools, under the sanction of the Government, children of all religious denominations; and I must say, that the longer I have had occasion to observe the bearings of the whole question, the more I became convinced of the difficulties of attempting such a general and extended and comprehensive plan of education. The difficulties which present themselves in opposition to the introduction of such an extensive measure, are very important, and I may add that they are not new. Indeed, that they are not so, I may show by appealing to the judgment and experience of my noble and learned Friend on the opposite bench (Lord Brougham), who has for so long a time been anxious to spread education in this country; who has stood so honourably, and consistently, and perseveringly forward in the cause of education; and, notwithstanding all the energy, all the ability, all the authority and influence of the noble Lord, he failed in bringing the question to which they were applied in this case to a satisfactory conclusion. He failed in doing this—others have failed; and although it may be said in reply, that what individuals have attempted in vain, might succeed in the hands of a Government, yet that observation ought not to be made without reflect-
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ing that in this country any interference on the part of the Government with the ordinary habits and arrangements of the people, is calculated of itself to excite suspicion and jealousy with respect to those who undertake such an interference, thus creating at the outset a difficulty which it is scarcely possible for a Government constituted as ours is effectually to overcome. Such a wide and comprehensive plan as that to which I have alluded, is likely to be met by two classes of objectors: the first and most powerful class of objectors, those who, from motives the most virtuous and pious—motives which must be respected—dread even the contact at schools of young persons of different religious persuasions. However I may respect the pious feelings which lead to that objection, I will say that it is carrying such an objection further than I would carry it, being, as I am, full of confidence in the soundness and truth of the doctrines of that religion which I profess. However, many persons entertain that objection, to such a degree that they cannot be brought to consent to any system which would combine under the same roof and under the same system of instruction, individuals of different creeds and sects; and they form the first class of objectors to whom I have adverted. There is, my Lords, another class of objectors in this country from whom difficulties would be experienced by those who might attempt such an extensive system of education — it consists of persons not without power, and influence, and authority in this country — namely, persons who object to any interference at all with education on the part of the Government, and who consider that the same principle ought to be applied to education which they would apply to other subjects, namely, the voluntary principle and the voluntary system; and who also think that any interference of the Government on a large scale, would have the effect of damping and diminishing the efforts which individuals were now making in the cause of education, not indeed to a sufficient extent, but which they think would ultimately be made to an extent commensurate with the necessities of the case; and thus, to a certain extent, would injure the success which might otherwise follow the attempts of those individuals. When I state that these are the two principal classes of objectors, I am far from stating that they represent the universal opinion of this country; for though I am confident that no person in

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this country deserving of the name of statesman, or deserving of any authority, can have ever contemplated the establishment of a system of education on a basis which would not admit of religious instruction, or who would suppose it safe or expedient that the mass of the people should be invited to enter into the great field of general knowledge, and yet that they should be allowed to travel there without the light of religion—
… "Sola sub nocte per umbram
Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna;"
yet there are many religious and learned persons in this country who think it would be practicable to unite under the same roof, and in the same school, for the purposes of education, persons of different systems of religion, if the same system of secular instruction were common to all, and without at the same time providing the same religious instruction. There are also many persons in this country who, although they are jealous in general of direct interference on the part of the Government, and are apt to view it with suspicion and distrust, yet have proclaimed themselves willing to adopt this system, believing that it is amongst the paramount duties of a Government to provide for the younger members amongst all its subjects the blessings of education. Those are some of the principal objections which might be anticipated; but those who make these objections are themselves classes; and you will agree that it would be impossible at this moment to introduce a system of general education under the authority of the law, without meeting with those difficulties, those apprehensions, those jealousies and mistrusts of interference, which would materially affect the progress of the system, and introduce dissension with relation to a subject which, of all others, requires harmonious and willing co-operation of all descriptions and classes of society, in order to carry it out—which would tend to perpetuate dissensions, impair the efficacy of the plan, and prevent a peaceful and amicable action where it was most desirable that such should exist. For these reasons, I, and those with whom I have the honour to act, as well as the Goverment which has preceded us, have come to the conclusion that it is not expedient to introduce any extensive and comprehensive measure on the subject of general education at present; but, nevertheless, it appeared evident to us that it is perfectly practicable, and without any great interference with the resources of the country,
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to give, under various heads, to the extension and improvement of education in this country, an impetus beyond what it has hitherto received; and that provisions might be made, going beyond that restricted application of the means given by the public which confined them to the erection of schools and some other objects, which would so extend the efforts of those individuals who were concerned in the establishment and patronage of those schools, as well as those of the schoolmasters employed, as to be greatly beneficial, on the whole, to the general object which they have in view. I will now proceed to show to your Lordships, what it has been thought possible to effect with this view; and, in the first place, it is desirable that I should state what has been the operation of the system as it is, as regards the number of the schools, and of the children who are benefited by the education provided in them. It appears, then, that the Parliamentary grants made for the purposes of education, from the year 1833 to the year 1846, amount altogether to 490,000 l. The school-houses which have been erected, will, when all are completed for which grants have been made, provide accommodation for 550,000 scholars. In addition to these, there are about 3,500 schools which have invited inspection, and which give accommodation for 150,000 scholars. And here I may call attention to the fact, that so many schools, which have not been assisted by the Government, or received money from the public funds, have, nevertheless, applied for inspection, as a strong proof of the confidence entertained in the system; for I am desirous, at all times when I address your Lordships, to impress on you the extreme importance of inspection. I hold it to be a consideration of great importance, and I look upon it with peculiar gratification, that besides the schools which receive Government assistance, and in which Government inspection is indispensable, a large proportion of schools which did not require the aid of the Government, have, nevertheless, petitioned the Council over which I have the honour to preside, for the benefit of inspection and advice. Including the number of scholars provided for in the schools assisted by the Government, then, and the 150,000 who are provided for in schools established by private funds, but which have applied to be subjected to inspection, it would appear that there is at present provision for about 700,000 scholars. But I should be deceiving your

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Lordships if I allowed you to suppose that that number are really provided for; as, on a fair calculation, perhaps, 200,000 may be deducted, and still allow a provision for half a million of scholars. Besides these schools of a general character, there are also a great number of normal schools, all of which have received assistance. There are the schools connected with the Church of England in the dioceses of Chester, York, Salisbury, Ripon, and Durham; the British and Foreign normal schools; and the normal schools connected with the Church of Scotland—all of which receive assistance. I now come to a subject to which, I beg to say, I do not attach a particular importance, but on which I am about to ask your Lordships' approbation of steps which I believe you will admit are on a sound principle, and in the right direction, and which, as far as they will operate at all, will be likely to operate beneficially. In the first place, it is proposed to carry out further the system of inspection; that is to say, that the schools shall be more frequently inspected than they now are. I confess that my own opinion is, that the establishment for inspection should be sufficiently extensive to insure, with the industry and diligence of the inspectors, an inspection of every school once in each year. I cannot, however, say that even with the assistance of three or four more inspectors, that is an object likely to be accomplished. Hereafter it is possible we may be able to accomplish it; but at present the addition which we propose to the existing number of inspectors, is such as to insure an inspection of the most important schools, and an approach towards that most desirable object, a general inspection annually. The next subject which I have to bring before your Lordships' notice, is one to which I attach the greatest importance. Those of your Lordships who have read the reports of the Inspectors of Schools—many of which are written with the greatest ability, and all with the greatest attention to the duties of the station of the writers, must have found that one universal feeling existed among those who are placed in a situation which renders them competent to judge of the difficulties of the task of carrying out the system generally, to the effect that not only did the greatest difficulty arise from the want of schoolmasters, but also from a deficiency of assistant schoolmasters. You will find it stated that great difficulty has been experienced in
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finding persons properly qualified to support the master in discharging the duties of his important office. To meet this inadequacy, it is proposed, that in the case of all schools of which the reports shall be good, a power should be granted to the master of each school to take apprentices, who shall be allotted to such schools, after having been selected from among the best scholars, and trained with a view to their being ultimately made schoolmasters themselves. It is further proposed, the masters having been reported qualified to receive such apprentices, that an allowance shall be made for each apprentice so permitted to be taken, and who shall have been recommended by the guardians, the patrons, or the committees directing such schools. I apprehend that this is a provision which will not only afford to the apprentice the means of learning his future duties, but would also operate as a reward to the schoolmaster, whose acknowledged zeal and good conduct in his station entitled him to be selected as the instructor of such apprentices; so that, in proportion as the schoolmaster is reported to be qualified to give such instruction, and the pupil to receive it, each will derive an advantage under this arrangement. Beyond this, it is further proposed that, from the apprentices so to be trained, to add to the general stock of schoolmasters, of those who conducted themselves well, and who had usefully aided in carrying on the discipline of the schools during the time of their apprenticeship, a certain number shall be selected to be exhibitioners to the normal schools, so that they will make this a second step in their progress towards the station of schoolmaster from the moment they are so selected, whether under the denomination of Queen's scholar, or whatever other name they may receive. But, at the same time, as it is probable that out of the whole number who will have been prepared, or intended to be so, for the office of schoolmaster, there may be some who may not be considered finally peculiarly eligible for that office, and yet will have received benefit to a certain extent from their education, it is proposed to make an arrangement (in which I have the satisfaction to state my noble Friend at the head of the Treasury, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer fully concur) by which those young persons not being chosen as schoolmasters, shall receive employment in the great revenue departments. It is considered that by this

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arrangement a double fund of encouragement will be provided for these young men, and that while an increase in the number of qualified schoolmasters will be insured, those who may not be deemed peculiarly fitted for the office will not lose the benefit of their education. It is also proposed that there shall be a periodical examination by the inspectors, which, it is hoped, will have the double effect of securing the selection of those best qualified for the office of schoolmaster, while, at the same time, it cannot fail to have the effect of exciting general attention even among those who could not be directly interested in the result of such examinations. Attaching, as I do, great importance to these proposals, I now come to another subject which is also referred to in the Minutes of the Privy Council, and which I consider also calculated to produce an effect on the general cause of education: I allude to the condition of the schoolmaster himself. There is no class of men in this country who, from all I have read or seen, or that has been reported on the best authority, of their exertion on the one hand, and their condition in society in the other, are better entitled to the attention and favour of Parliament than they, the great mass of the schoolmasters of England, are. There is no class of society who are less likely to receive, in a worldly sense, the reward of their merits and exertions. They are a class of persons, many of them most meritorious, and who are mainly instrumental in advancing the fortunes and future interests of those who are committed to their charge, and whom they often afterwards see advancing to prosperity, and even attaining to wealth, while they themselves are chained down to their laborious duties, hopeless and without requital, trusting, no doubt, to their own conscience and virtue for the faithful discharge of their duties, but in many instances dispirited by the hopeless state of their old age, their hearts chilled by want, and their hopes checked by penury. They are men who are placed in immediate contact with, and performing some of their duties in common with, the clergy; but at the same time, while they take their full share in the performance of those duties, they receive a most inadequate amount of reward. I do think that any extension of the system of education in this country will be imperfect which does not, to a considerable extent, ameliorate the condition of this class, and excite their hopes of reward. It is therefore proposed that a pro-
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vision, small, undoubtedly, at first, but still which will be considered a very great object as a provision, however small, for old age, shall be made for well-conducted schoolmasters and schoolmistresses who shall be reported as having, for fifteen years, conducted unexceptionably schools of a certain size. Besides these retiring pensions, if I may so call them, it is proposed that a certain number of gratuities shall, on the report of the inspectors, be given to schoolmasters who have not retired, but who shall have been declared to have exercised their vocation creditably to themselves. This, no doubt, will prove a very useful stimulus. There is another provision, but of a different nature, which I think your Lordships will agree should be made when applied for. It has often made the subject of application to the Privy Council that the schools should be provided with a species of industrial apparatus, including that which is necessary for the cultivation of the soil, by means of which instruction might be conveyed to the scholar on subjects not usually included in any system of education. These plans the Government propose to follow out in the same spirit in which they have been commenced, but only to make the proposed advances where the local aid bears a due proportion to the Government grants; but at the same time to make advances freely to those schools which maintain a system of industry in connexion with their school system. In towns, it will necessarily be the most convenient course to supply the schools with industrial apparatus, and to hire workshops for their use; in agricultural districts, to hire fields for the exercise of industry and the cultivation of skill during the leisure hours of the pupils. This will be not only a great, and important, and a beneficial stimulus to great numbers of the children themselves, but a great benefit to the country at large. Such arrangements will not in the least degree interfere with the literary avocations of the children; and in my opinion there is nothing which would more reconcile parents to any system of education than that the children should, during their condition of pupilage, acquire the knowledge of some useful trade, by means of which they might subsequently obtain the means of being serviceable to their families. The effect of such a system would be, to remove the disposition which frequently prevails, of withdrawing children from school at too early an age, on the ground that their acquisitions there are of

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no substantial value. Nothing would so reconcile parents to the continuance of their children for a sufficient length of time at school, as the belief that they were not, all the time they spent there, engaged in the pursuit of unprofitable learning, or rather what their parents consider to be unprofitable learning. Prejudices of this kind do unhappily influence parents at the present day; but I hope the time is not distant when a very material improvement will take place in their mode of thinking. At present there can be no doubt of the fact—as I find from the reports of the inspectors—that those schools are most successful where the parents are made practically to understand that their children, while at school, are for a considerable and useful portion of their time engaged in acquiring knowledge immediately profitable, and of skill which they can speedily turn to pecuniary advantage. The direct utility of the knowledge acquired forms its chief recommendation to parents in general. In favour of these views I may call your attention to testimony which I consider to be of the highest order. It is contained in a pamphlet recently published by the Rev. Mr. Dawes, of King's Sombourn, in Hampshire. He relates in a most gratifying manner the conquest which he has obtained over the prejudices and feelings of his neighbours in a parish which had been remarkable for crime; and such was now the improved state of its morals, and striking exemption from crime, that many even of the higher portion of the middle class sought to have their children mingled with those of the lower in the business of education. Even some of the farmers of the surrounding neighbourhood sent their children to board in the immediate vicinity of the school, in order that they might enjoy those benefits of education which that school diffuses; the whole secret of its attractiveness being, that the children there are taught matters, in addition to the routine of school education, which their parents fully comprehend, and the value of which those parents are fully capable of appreciating. At that school, the children, out of their little savings, are permitted to purchase the books which have been used in the school; and in the fourth year of its existence there were as many as 158 children who so made purchases; the amount which they so applied being 15 l. These 15 l. worth of books the children were enabled to bring home to their own firesides, and preserve, to the great promotion of
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their own comfort, and to the great satisfaction of their parents. Those books were not only a great resource to the children at home, but the possession of them had the effect of rendering their parents sensible of the utility of the system of education which is pursued at the school. Mr. Dawes connected the education of the child with the pursuits of the parent; and thus, while he benefited the one, he secured the goodwill and co-operation of the other; and while the children are instructed in general learning and religious principle, they are also carefully instructed in that particular knowledge which enables them when they return home to render assistance in the pursuits in which their parents are engaged. Upon the utility of those industrial schools I presume that it is now unnecessary for me further to enlarge; and, having said so much, I feel that I have nearly concluded all that it will be necessary for me to address to your Lordships. I have gone through a statement of nearly all the various Minutes which have been laid upon the Table of your Lordships' House. There are, however, some special Votes of the House of Commons respecting schools in workhouses, to which I shall now proceed to call the attention of the House. Those schools are in workhouses institutions of the utmost importance; and it is desirable that there should be inspectors for aiding in carrying out the large and liberal plan of education which Parliament had last year sanctioned. This plan, into the details of which I need not further enter, will, I trust, place the workhouse system on such a footing as to render them models of perfection, instead of being, as I fear they now are in many instances, models of everything defective. Means will be taken in future to supply all these educational institutions with cheap books. The complaint has long been universal, that they cannot get books sufficiently cheap; therefore, no time should be lost in placing at the disposal of masters, for the use of these schools, a sufficient supply of elementary works. I have now, I believe, stated all that is necessary, though I believe—indeed, I fully feel—that everything which Government can at present do must fall infinitely short of that which ought to be included in a general plan for improving the state and education of the people; far short of what ought to be done for the great mass of our fellow-countrymen, whose scenes of unceasing toil place them far away from those elements of thought and

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means of intellectual culture upon which so much of their morality and their happiness depends. It falls so far short of what it ought to be, that I should almost despair of ultimate success, if from experience and observation I had not seen the zeal upon the subject of education which pervades all denominations of men in this country—if I had not witnessed the unceasing zeal of the clergy in that branch of their duties—if it had not come within my knowledge that scarcely a week elapses without applications and representations reaching my hands which show the steady and gradual mode in which the cause of education is advancing in every part of the country; while that most useful and respectable class of men, the schoolmasters, are improving their own condition, at the same time that they are advancing the best interests of their pupils. These circumstances united cannot fail, I hope, to result in effects most beneficial to the country, whilst they may, at some future day, lay the foundation of something more complete and more practically useful.
The noble Marquess then laid upon the Table of the House the Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education, in August and December, 1846.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, that nothing could be fairer than the statement which the House had just heard from the noble Marquess, who very justly and most properly disdained the paltry affectation of saying, that what he had stated to the House was anything like a plan of the Government. It was no plan; and the noble Marquess frankly stated that the Government had no plan, and as frankly gave his reasons why they could have no plan. That which the House had heard was merely a statement of the manner in which they intended to dispose of such grants as Parliament might make; therefore, the House was now merely engaged in conversation respecting that which really constituted a great grievance, the very imperfect substitute for a measure promised and expected, but withheld. It was a grievous calamity, that now, in the year 1847, being just forty-six years since the attention of the public was first directed to the subject of education, and above one and thirty years after Parliament took up the question, by the appointment of a Committee to inquire into that subject, we appeared to be almost as far off as ever from having any national general and comprehensive system of education established
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in this country. That was no fault of the noble Marquess; it was no fault of the present Government; it was not the fault of the late Ministry; it arose from the peculiar state of society in this country. He lamented, with the noble Marquess, that such a state of things should exist; and so long as its pernicious influence remained in full operation it must baffle all attempts to secure a beneficial system of education for the people. Far be it from him to say that education ought to be rendered compulsory. He had been asked, why not compel the people, as in Prussia, to accept the benefits of education? To that he begged to reply, that the people of England could not be compelled to accept that or anything else. Prussia was governed with military strictness; it was a country subject to rigorous discipline. The people of England could never be got to understand the Prussian system, which trained and drilled the whole community. If a man brought to Prussia a recipe written by Dr. Holland, or any of his learned brethren, no Prussian apothecary could prepare it; neither would they sell the drugs necessary for preparing it; they dared not; if they did, they would be sent to prison. In a case, the particulars of which he had heard, a patient holding a prescription from an English physician was obliged to order post-horses to go to the frontier and get his medicine compounded; he had no other means of saving his life. Such was Prussia. Would the English endure such a system? They could not. The greater the efforts made to force an Englishman to do something that he did not like, even if good for him, the more violent would be his resistance. To make education compulsory would be to make it hateful to the people of England; they even hated what was good when it was forced upon them. But there might be interference without force. This was a perfectly distinct question from that of free trade. He would not interfere with the supply of food, clothing, or furniture, for men would take good care to supply themselves with those necessaries of life; but it was not so as to knowledge: the ignorance of men prevented their knowing the value of knowledge; and thus the more they stood in need of education, the less they wished and would try to have it. If the Government provided cheap schools, the people would, by degrees, be induced to send their children to them. One of the great uses of privately sup-

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ported schools was, that they had the effect of inducing the neighbours of those who supported them to send their children to such schools, or to some schools. The Government, it was true, might establish some schools at their own sole expense; but to do so to any useful extent would cost great sums, and the Government had not great sums at their disposal—they had not much money to give, and it would be costly to mate the experiment. It therefore appeared to him of the utmost importance that the Committee of the Privy Council should not interfere except in aid of local establishments. If they did give help, it ought to be in such a way as to stimulate private beneficence. They should give half, or a third, according to circumstances. It was only in the year 1833 that the recommendations of the Committee of the House of Commons which sat in 1818 were attempted to be carried into effect. Over the inquiries of that Committee he had the honour to preside, and of the Government of 1833 he was a member; but the principle recommended by the Committee in 1818 was never adopted till Lord Grey came into office. The Government, as he had already said, ought to give assistance in proportion to local contributions; this was the resolution reported by the Committee. They might, for example, give outfits; but if they went the whole length of defraying all expenses, their attempts would not succeed. The resolutions of the Committee were the foundation of the measures adopted in 1833 by himself and his colleagues, and of the whole proceedings since that period down to the present time. Again, he could not help lamenting that the importance of education was not more generally acknowledged—that the principle had not struck its roots deeper, as well among the people at large as among thinking persons. The Christian pastor felt that education was the best aid to religion, and the greatest assistance to morals. Judges, Home Secretaries, justices of the peace, felt that the punishment of crimes had little effect in deterring those who were under the influence of temptation. Mr. Bentham and Sir Samuel Romilly, with both of whom he had discussed the subject, contended that if punishments were rendered certain, they would have the effect of preventing crime. If the thief felt assured that in eight and forty hours he must restore stolen property, he would cease to steal. But punishment never was
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certain; in the present state of society it could not be made certain; nor in any state of society could it be made absolutely certain. Men who committed crimes did not calculate—their minds were not in a frame to reason; if they looked forward to consequences they would not offend; lust was inflamed, and a rape was committed—jealousy was excited, and murder ensued — a bankrupt was guilty of forgery, and, if he did not intend to run away, he confidently reckoned upon being able to take up his Bill before it became due. Now that frame of mind precluded reasoning, prevented calculation, and incapacitated men from thinking rationally and calmly; and, therefore, the motives they applied to the law by the example of punishment were thrown away, because in such a state of mind the criminal regarded every thing, as the French called it, of a rosy hue. If the crime were a forgery, they expected money to meet the bill before it arrived at maturity; if it were any other crime, they expected that it would never be discovered; or, when discovered, that they would never be prosecuted; or, if they were prosecuted, they reckoned on the technical defects of the law, or upon the skill and ability of an eminent counsel; and, if that assisted them not, then they reckoned on the humanity of the judge to spare them; and if that failed them, they reckoned on a defect in the judgment and on a writ of error to revoke it; and, last of all, they reckoned upon making interest to get a pardon; and such sanguine views at the moment of wrong-doing got rid of all the terrors of punishment. Not that he said punishment was of no effect; it certainly was of some, but very little, compared with what it was thought and generally supposed to produce. His own judicial experience, and still more his experience as a Minister, had brought him to this conclusion, and he had found his noble colleague (Lord Melbourne) arrived at the same result from presiding over the police for some years. The operation of punishment was small in deterring from crime. Now, what was to be recommended in place of it? Why prevention of another kind: mending the character—improving the habits of the class among whom criminals were found. Train up a person in such habits that he never would think of committing those offences. None of their Lordships—hardly any one of the other House of Parliament—belonged to that class: he should say almost none in either

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House belonged to that class from among whom criminals were taken. They were not persons in their Lordships' rank in society, or in the rank of Members of the other House, with few exceptions. They did not raise a breed of criminals. If they had 1,500,000 persons in London, 200,000 or 150,000 of those persons were the miserable class from among whom came criminals; but not from the upper or the middle classes, or the more respectable portion of the artisans, or even from the more respectable of the day labourers; it was a very inferior class from amongst whom came all criminals. Now, if they could find the means of training the infants of that class—he did not mean the boys and girls, but the infants from three years of age to six or seven—to those honest and amiable habits which they acquired, and universally acquired, and without any exception acquired, at the common infant schools, they would eradicate, in ninty-nine cases out of a hundred, the seeds of crime, and make it all but impossible that those individuals should afterwards be guilty; because they were brought up with tender and kindly affections, with a horror of everything obscene and cruel, sordid and base—they were placed from the earliest age in the state of mind precisely the same with that which made it utterly impossible that persons in their Lordships' rank should ever go out on the highway, or commit any of those deeds to which he had referred. Those who had had any experience in schools knew full well that after children had reached seven, or eight, or nine years of age, their evil habits were deeply rooted, and it was almost impossible to extirpate them. It was by infant training that those great and blessed effects were to be produced, if at all. Now, if they established infant schools for all infants of a tender age, among the bad portion of a population of 1,500,000 in the metropolis, depend upon it they would do a vast deal more to extirpate crime, than with all their criminal courts, and all their executions, and all their transport ships, and imprisonments, and penitentiaries. That was his deliberate and firm opinion as a practical man. He did not give into any extravagant theories on penal law; he did not conform his opinions to the popular views and prevailing feelings on that or on any legislative question. He differed from many persons in his ideas of punishment; but above all he differed from those who
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said that there never should be capital punishment for any offence. It had been the punishment for forgery: but he had been one of those in the other House, perhaps the person, who had obtained that most excellent change in the law with respect to that offence. He said so to show he was not wedded to his opinion in favour of capital punishment where it was inapplicable. But he was not for giving up capital punishment, and the terror it inflicted, because it operated powerfully to deter men who looked forward with indifference to the lesser punishment, when stripped of its salutary and restraining effects. Thus he utterly denied that Scripture confined it to murder by denouncing it against murder. He utterly denied that its being irrevocable if erroneously inflicted, was a reason for never inflicting it. Every punishment was in a sense irrevocable—who can restore to a convict the fourteen years of his time spent in Botany Bay, or the six months passed on the treadmill? It was only a reason for being careful how you inflict it. These were his reasons for wishing for a public national and general system of universal education, beginning with infant schools, and ending with training schools, which he highly approved of when they were practicable in this country. But why could not such a system be adopted? He could tell their Lordships frankly, very frankly: it was because they had two classes of the community, for both of which he had the most profound and inviolable respect—he meant the members of the Church, and members of dissenting congregations, each in their sphere great promoters of education, and deeply interested in the training of youth. He was not speaking of the clergy, but of the community, although the clergy were most zealously bent on the promotion of education; and he should be most ungrateful if he did not acknowledge that in all his little efforts on this subject, they had been his most valuable and strenuous supporters, both when he was in the other House as well as in that House of Parliament. He never could forget that to every one of the 14,000 circulars which he had issued to the clergy during a dissolution, and so without compulsory authority, he received an answer—to their great labour, and his great advantage. Both Church and sects loved education much; but there was one thing which both the Church and the Dissenters loved more, and that was controversy, which made them neglect the

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great object of education, and made them prefer more than everything else—Victory; they lost sight of the main object in the glory of the victory: that was what he universally found. The Church would have education; but they would rather have a triumph ever the sects. The Dissenters would have education; but they far rather would triumph over the Church. In the contest for victory, they forgot the object in view. In their eagerness to outstrip each other, they did not care how far they fell short of the goal. They lost sight of the game in the heat of the chace. The Church would have no system which was so comprehensive as not to allow of any clerical interference; the Dissenters would not have any system which allowed the least interference on the part of the Church; and, therefore, unhappily, between the two, education went more or less to the wall. Now, he was quite prepared to support a comprehensive plan of education which gave some superintendence to the Church—and why? First, because there must be some superintendence, and the Church was established; secondly, because it was the Church of the majority; thirdly, because it was one, and the sects were many, and so it was possible, and any other impracticable. It was impossible to have such a system of supervision as would suit all Dissenters, so numerous were they; and his belief was, that it would be better to give the Church a proper superintendence, and leave the Dissenters to take it or not, as they pleased—the rational part of them would very soon come to like it. Although it seemed that they were not to have a general national system of education—the gain of which he thought inestimable—yet he was glad they were to have something approaching to it. He approved of that part of the system of the noble Marquess which related to inspectors; but he would suggest that the inspectors ought to be instructed never to let it be known beforehand what particular schools they intended to visit. He would have the inspectors, as it were, sporadic, to move about a little more unexpectedly. He would also say, let them get their money in the first instance, and then plant in York, Lancaster, Exeter, Maidstone, or perhaps Lincoln, or somewhere in the cast, training schools at which masters should be trained at the public expense. That would not require any exercise of private beneficence; and then let persons who were desirous of establishing schools in different
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parts of the country, send up teachers to be trained at those schools, as he himself knew, from the correspondence he had had, many were most anxious to do. By those means they would have the advantage of sending forth, every year 500 or 600 persons well trained for teaching. At present the ignorance of teachers in schools was only to be believed by those who had had personal experience and observation of it. There was another suggestion he wished to make, that they should endeavour as much as possible to encourage the taking of quarter pence from the scholars. It was the greatest possible benefit; it saved the independence of the parents, and next to that it saved the money and cost to the country, and, above all, it made the recipients value the education the more because they paid for it. He approved, also, of the plan of giving pensions to the best of those who were trained at the training schools by making them gaugers.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEsaid, he had alluded in that respect to those apprentices who had other merits, but were not fit for schoolmasters.
LORD BROUGHAM: Then his fear was that the schoolmasters would not desire to be successful, because they would prefer such a situation. But he entirely approved of a system of retiring pensions, but disapproved of the rule by which they were to be entitled after fifteen years' service.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE: They were not to be entitled to the pension merely by fifteen years' service, but before they became entitled to it it was requisite they should have served for that period.
LORD BROUGHAM: That was the same period as with the judges; but then the reason was this, that the judges were fifty years of age before they were raised to the bench. He therefore thought that in this case the period of fifteen years was too short a time for them to serve for the purpose of procuring a pension. It was highly important that a better kind of education should be attained. In the French schools reading, writing, and cyphering, were not considered enough. He had examined many of their schools, and he found that to those branches of education they added that of drawing; it was of the greatest use in after life; and, above all, it had the effect of leading to accurate habits of observation, and more to a distinct knowledge and mechanical facility than almost any other kind of manipula-

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tion. It was a sovereign remedy for correcting idle habits, and of the greatest benefit to the scholar; it was indeed a most admirable adjunct to education. He hoped, above all, that infant schools would not be kept out of view, and more especially because no controversial question could interfere with them. He had only risen to express his hope that the liberality, indeed the justice, of Parliament, would have been extended further, and to express his deep regret that it was necessary to abandon that plan of a national and universal system of education, which he had hoped to have heard proposed by the noble Marquess, though he admitted that the blame of abandonment did not properly fall on the Government, but upon the controversy in which the question was involved.
The BISHOP of LONDONwould trespass only a short time on their Lordships, to say but a few words on a subject which had provoked no difference of opinion; but he could hardly suffer the opportunity to pass without making one or two observations, and expressing the satisfaction with which he had heard the clear and candid statement of the noble Marquess of the views of the Government with respect to this question. He thought the course pursued by the Government was exceedingly wise and prudent, as it involved no unnecessary interference with the present system of education, while at the same time they proposed to take advantage of the existing system, and of the facilities it afforded to expand and improve it. The important features of the plan appeared to be an enlargement of the system of inspection, and the encouragement of those most important educational institutions, training schools. With regard to inspection, he was intimately convinced that no system of education, however wisely contrived, would answer its intended end, unless placed under effective inspection, and kept in a proper course of operation by a system of vigilant and regular superintendence, not the superintendence of idle curiosity, nor of suspicion, nor of unnecessary interference, but of judicious friends and well-wishers, whose only object was, that the means of education should not be diverted from the ends they were intended to answer, nor be wasted or flung away. When first the system of inspection was established, he had impressed on the clergy the great benefit and advantage they might derive by calling in the aid of the Government inspectors, in the way both of en-
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couragement and direction; and he was convinced that the prejudice which for some time prevailed among many supporters of the Church schools on the subject of inspection, was gradually giving way, if, indeed, it had not already entirely disappeared. And he felt bound in justice to say, as far as his own inquiry and observation had extended, that the Government inspectors of our national schools had discharged their duty, not only with courage and fidelity, but most judiciously, most zealously, and most unobjectionably. The testimony borne by the clergy and local managers of schools was uniform as to the good effect produced by their efforts; and as long as they persevered in the same line of conduct, as there was every reason to believe they would, so long would the clergy be anxious to welcome them in their periodical visits, and to avail themselves of their influence in keeping their masters and committees in a right direction; for the clergy would derive from the inspectors that weight and authority for their own suggestions, which could not be derived from any other source. With regard to the normal or training schools, their Lordships must be perfectly well aware that one of the chief difficulties to be contended with in the promotion of national education, was the want of effective men to work our schools. Whatever system they might adopt; under whatever name they might exist; whatever machinery they might employ—their utility must mainly, after all, depend on the character of the masters: such as the schoolmaster was, such would the school be; and there could be no doubt that institutions, to which theoretical objections might exist, would nevertheless be of more real benefit with good teachers, than others more perfect in theory which did not possess this advantage. He was satisfied, therefore, that the Government had acted most wisely in determining to promote and extend training schools. This he thought they proposed to do in a well-considered manner, and that they could not fail to do well whilst they trained up an improved class of schoolmasters. It would be a great advantage of the plan now proposed, that it would at once supply a succession of candidates for instruction in the training schools, and furnish a considerable part of the means required for carrying on those schools. He could not dismiss the subject of training schools without suggesting to the noble and learned Lord who had spoken with so much knowledge and so much feeling on the ques-

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tion, the expediency of paying a visit to some of their best normal schools, where he would have the satisfaction of finding that all the suggestions which he had just thrown out to the Government had been for some time past carried into effect, and were now in full operation. He would find, for instance, linear drawing, the importance of which, as a branch of education, he appreciated equally with the noble and learned Lord, taught not only in the normal schools, but also in some of the best national schools. His noble and learned Friend had suggested the establishment of normal schools in most parts of the kingdom; but he would find that they had them already in nearly every part. He would find them in Chester, in York, in Durham, in Salisbury, and in Exeter, as well as in the neighbourhood of London; so that, in fact; the great want to which his noble and learned Friend had pointed, was already partly supplied, and no doubt would speedily be more effectually supplied, and in the least objectionable manner. His noble and learned Friend had also advised that quarterly payments should be required for the education of the children; but, in point of fact, there was scarcely a national school in which these payments were not made weekly—a more convenient as well as a more sure mode of obtaining the object in view; indeed, in some places, a very considerable portion of the expense of these establishments was actually provided for by these means. His noble and learned Friend seemed hardly aware of the extent to which the system was carried out; and it would do his heart good to visit the Church training schools, and to judge, from personal observation, of what was already accomplished. He would venture to say that the students from the training school at Chelsea, St. Mark's College, as it was called, would pass an examination which would reflect credit even upon those literary and philosophical schools—to say nothing of the question of religion—which existed in that seat of learning with which the noble and learned Lord was most familiar, and which had been termed the Modern Athens. With regard to geometry and drawing, they were very accurately taught, and the doctrines of the Established Church were inculcated, not he hoped with any admixture of bigotry, but with a just estimate of their value as being derived from Scripture, and as being most important, as subjects of accurate knowledge, to the teachers of schools, beyond all other men
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except the clergy, to be inculcated by them upon the children entrusted to their care. There was one point in the speech of the noble Marquess, in its concluding part, on which he (the Bishop of London) wished to reserve his opinion till he had heard more of the proposal: he alluded to the workhouse schools. In dealing with that part of the subject, their Lordships must not forget that it was intimately connected with the subject of national schools; and that indirectly, though more seriously than could be at first conceived, the national schools would be operated upon by the workhouse schools. It had fallen to his lot to visit some workhouse schools, and one in his own parish; and he would venture to say there could not exist more happy or contented children, or any more sensibly amused. He could not but contrast the state of those children, carefully tended, kindly treated, and religiously brought up, with the state in which the same children would have been if they had remained under their parents' roofs. The workhouse schools might be of great advantage to the country if they were properly worked; but they would require a very careful system of management: if they were not well managed, they might discourage the national schools. With respect to infant schools, his noble Friend knew, that, for many years he had interested himself with reference to them; and that he had been instrumental in establishing some of the first of the Church infant schools. Nothing that could bear the title of "controversial" had been introduced into those schools, and he had ever looked upon the infant schools as the training seminaries for the national schools. Like his noble and learned Friend, he was deeply sensible, that if they were to produce a permanent effect on the understandings and the morals of the children of the poor, they must begin at the earliest possible age, at the very dawn of reason, because where the facilities were great of procuring remunerative employment for children, as they were in large towns, they could not expect the children to stay at the schools beyond the age of eleven or twelve years; and they must begin by saving at one end what they lost at the other. He had thought it right to express—and he spoke only individually—his thanks to the Government for the plan as far as he understood it, and to the noble Marquess for having made so clear and candid a statement.
LORD BROUGHAMhad been aware of the existence of the district schools, but he had not known that linear drawing had been introduced into the national schools in this country.
The BISHOP of ST. ASAPHonly wished to make one observation on the plan which met everybody's approbation. He thought he saw one slight objection; the tendency of the plan appeared to him to be that it would draw all the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses from the lowest order of society. He had no objection to raising a certain portion from that class; but he believed it would be a great evil to this country if all the schoolmasters were taken from the lower orders; and the plan would inevitably tend to that unfavourable result. If they took the present schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, they would find that they came from the rank in life of the little shopkeepers and the small farmers. He had lately asked at the national school for the training of masters, and he found that out of twenty persons under tuition only two were of the lower classes. This was the way in which the country had been supplied, and he wished to preserve some who were a little above the rank of the lower classes. The Government ought to encourage schoolmasters a little above that class, and for this purpose they ought to begin by reforming and improving the establishments called grammar-schools.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE: They are under the control of the Court of Chancery.
The BISHOP of ST. ASAPH: The Court of Chancery had machinery that could not touch these little matters, and he thought that by reforming and improving the grammar-schools of this country they would secure a good class of schoolmasters, better than by any other means.
The EARL of WINCHILSEAthought that a system of general education, connected with the Established Church, would meet with general approbation in this country, and he was prepared to contend that a large part of the worthy Dissenters would not object to such a plan; but national education ought not to be taken out of the hands of the clergy, on whom this most important duty rightly devolved. He was convinced, if they were to have an Established Church, that the clergy ought to devote themselves to the education of the great body of the people, and so save the expense of instructors. Great efforts had
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been made of late years to promote religious education; and he could bear testimony to the exertions of the clergy during the last twenty or twenty-five years to meet the religious wants of the great body of the country. It was one of their duties to meet fully the religious and spiritual wants of the people. They had met their temporal wants with an unanimous feeling; and, if England had done her duty, she would not have allowed an immense population to spring up without any means of religious instruction, without places of worship, and without the superintendence of religious pastors; and they ought not to have allowed, in a great country like this, large districts to remain in a state of infidelity and heathenism, which was a moral and a national disgrace to the country.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEexplained that it was not the intention of the Government to confine the selection of schoolmasters to the class of apprentices; but it was merely intended to enlarge the sphere of choice.
The ARCHBISHOP of CANTERBURYsaid, that his sentiments with respect to the measure had been so fully and so well expressed by the right rev. Prelates who had addressed their Lordships, that it was unnecessary for him to add anything, except to offer his thanks to the noble Marquess the President of the Council, for the great attention he had paid to the subject, and the evident care with which the materials on which the propositions had been founded had been prepared by Her Majesty's Government.
House adjourned.