presented a Petition from the Corporation of Liverpool, against the General Registry Bill. The petitioners feared the Bill would greatly tend to increase litigation, and cause much inconvenience to persons desirous to transfer landed property.

said, that undoubtedly the petition was entitled to consideration, but the petitioners were wholly mistaken in supposing the Bill would increase litigation. One of its great objects was, if persons would but observe ordinary caution, entirely to prevent litigation. Under the existing system, it was impossible for any person, even acting under the most skilful advice, to secure himself from litigation. When a Register Office was established, a purchaser, by inspecting the index, could obtain quite as much information relating to any property as the seller himself possessed.

maintained, that many of the provisions of the Bill were of a very injurious tendency—a fact which he would be prepared to shew whenever the measure came to be discussed. He believed that the evils would more than counterbalance the benefits.

did not think the hon. and learned Gentleman would be able to substantiate his objections to the Bill.

was of opinion that the Bill would occasion great inconveniences. There was no difficulty in making titles by the present system. He had bought and sold several estates, and had no cause to complain.

observed, that there was no civilized country in the world but England that was not in possession of some such institution. He therefore regretted that the hon. and learned member for St. Mawes had brought the weight of his authority against it, in a summary manner, without assigning his reasons. He was convinced that the adoption of the Bill would be a great public benefit.

claimed credit to himself for the purity of the motives by which he was actuated in opposing the measure. He did not dare, however, to consent to any change in our legal system which he thought erroneous, although he had a sincere desire to correct what could be proved to be wrong. He was as little in love with the abuses of our legal institutions as the hon. and learned Gentleman, and would endeavour to show that he was quite as competent to form an opinion of the merits of any scheme to remedy them. He knew something of the system of registration which existed in Ireland, from having had many Appeal cases to argue, and he believed that it caused a great deal of mischief.

was convinced, that the objections which had been raised against the Registration Bill were wholly owing to ignorance and artful misrepresentation. He would, at the commencement of the next Session, bring forward a Bill (it was then too late to persist in it for the present Session), and he hoped, in the meantime, that a better understanding of its provisions would remove at least the misimpressions of ignorance.

conceived the object of the Bill to be most desirable, but was not then prepared to say whether the present Bill was calculated to attain it.

said, the hon. and learned Member had said the Bill was opposed by misrepresentation. He hoped he was not liable to any such imputation.

said, he by no means intended to allude to his hon. and learned friend, but it was true, the Bill had been opposed by the grossest misrepresentation. It had been said, the Bill was to have a retrospective effect, that title-deeds were to be locked up in a mausoleum, and that London Attornies must be consulted in every transaction relating to landed property. These were all gross errors, but the opposition to the Bill was founded upon such delusions.

presented a Petition from Galway, praying for the extension of the franchise of that town to the Catholic inhabitants.

said, he availed himself of that opportunity, when petitions were presented relating to an alteration of the franchise, to declare, that though he had voted with the majority of last night, he was most anxious to have it understood that, his vote of confidence in the present Government was grounded entirely on the support which they had given to the Reform Bill. There were many points on which he differed from the present Ministry, and on which he must still continue to differ from them; but no man who supported them on all points would go along with them more heartily than he would in supporting the Reform Bill.

Sir, I feel anxious to be identified with my country men in an expression of confidence in the integrity of his Majesty's Ministers, and of gratitude for their great measure of Reform, carried so triumphantly through this House, on the final success of which mainly depend the security of our institutions, and the tranquillity of our country. Sir, although I wish to view the unhappy decision in another place in the most favourable light, yet I cannot divest myself of the impression of there being on the part of those who composed that majority, much of selfish and mercenary feelings. I shall briefly state why I consider the measure of Reform universally popular in Ireland:—Hitherto, as a Magistrate, I have witnessed scenes of oppression, which bound me in sympathy with the more humble, but not less virtuous class of my unfortunate countrymen. Their sufferings, their privations, were truly afflicting—their patience, their submission, although in a manner unbecoming the national character, were yet, under existing circumstances, beyond all praise. Was this an order of things to be endured for ever? Then did his Majesty's Ministers call for the Reform with the sanction of a patriot King. Virtuous men have, in the eleventh hour, wisely and boldly determined to save the country—they took their stand under happy auspices; they depended upon the people, and they have not been deceived. Theirs will be the triumph of virtue and of jus- tice over monopoly and corruption, and the hearts of a grateful nation will be their shield against the taunts and calumnies of an interested Opposition. Carlow, the county which I have the honour to represent, long subject to every species of oppression, did, on the first gleam of liberty, forcibly exhibit in the cause of Reform an enthusiasm which nothing can subdue; for ten days previous to the late election, all country business ceased—a bold, good-humoured mien, so characteristic of Irishmen, was conspicuous. Their motto "The King, the Bill, and the People.'' The game was quickly up. 30,000 people assembled on the first day of the election, free from the slightest tendency to riot or outrage, and had the poll proceeded, we should have had, on the following day, double that number of patriots to witness the triumph of the Reformers. Sir, this is not a statement of public feeling highly coloured, nor is it confined to Carlow; a similar feeling prevails in Kilkenny and Wexford; with these counties I am connected, and as I hold in them his Majesty's Commission of the Peace, am well acquainted with the character of the people, and I am bold to say, that there, as in the adjoining counties of Kildare, the Queen's County, and Tipperary, the spirit is now such, that the constituency would not support any candidate, whatever may be his other qualifications, unless he professed himself a decided Reformer. This being the general feeling in Ireland at this fearful crisis, I conjure his Majesty's Government and this House to conciliate that country, if they value the connexion. Its people wait with breathless anxiety the result of this all-important measure; in its details do them justice, and you ensure their invaluable attachment; treat them after the old fashion, and your tenure is not of value for one year's purchase. A faction in that country has long kept an unseemly position, which, as they cannot much longer maintain, so have they become desperate, and would, in the indulgence of their unhappy prejudices, goad the people to acts of outrage, then take fiend-like advantage of the chaos, even at the risk of being involved themselves in the general ruin. The Reform question has aroused the nation; it should be advanced with decision and confidence. His Majesty's Ministers have nothing to fear; the people of England are all with them, and if they but will it, and treat the empire with common justice, then, indeed, the enemies to freedom may prudently retire. I regret, Sir, to have trespassed so far upon the patience of the House; I feel sensible of its indulgence. Once more I entreat you to be firm and consistent.

was surprised that his hon. friend (Mr. George Robinson) had deemed it necessary to justify his vote. Last night every body knew he could have no reason to support the Ministers, except to promote the Reform Bill—a reason, by the way, for which he was disposed to oppose them.

presented a Petition from the Soap-makers of the city of Cork, praying that the drawback on soap exported from this country to Ireland may be repealed. He was most desirous to direct the attention of Government to the subject, and he now gave notice, that he should, next Session, move the repeal of this drawback, if it should not previously be considered.

said, the soap sent from England was sold considerably under the price the Irish manufacturers could afford to make it at. In his opinion, not a day should be lost in repealing the drawback.

said, he was very desirous to draw the attention of the House to one material allegation of the petition. He found it therein stated, that in 1824, no trade in soap was carried on between the two countries, but in 1829, the quantity imported into Ireland from England, was 1,500 tons, and in 1830, 2,900 tons, being a larger quantity than was required for the whole consumption of Ireland; the natural inference from which was, that the soap was merely sent across the channel, and then smuggled back into England. The drawback, therefore, operated most injuriously in two ways—it annihilated the Irish manufacture, and decreased the public revenue. He understood there was scarcely a packet came from Ireland to England but what had a venture in smuggled soap.

presented a Petition from Jacob Wintle, stating that he had been cruelly beaten by the bludgeons of the police last night, as he was crossing Westminster-bridge, at the same time with a number of individuals who were accompanying him (Mr. Hunt) from the Rotunda to the House. Jacob Wintle had nothing to do with those persons, and yet he had been beaten on each side of his head with the loaded bludgeons of the police, and so deluged with his own blood, that he could not identify the persons who struck him. He came, in consequence, to the House for redress. The hon. Member complained of the bloodthirsty conduct of the police on this occasion, to which, he said, that he had himself been an eye-witness.

protested against the presentation of a petition which could do no good, and might do harm, when no attempt had yet been made to inquire into the case of the petitioner before the ordinary tribunals. He could assure the hon. Member that there was no intention to screen the police when they used improper violence; at the same time, he must contend, that at all times, and under all circumstances, the police must be upheld by the Magistracy and the executive government. With regard to the mob in question, he had only to say, that its progress was very properly stopped on Westminster-bridge last night. The police had, with great difficulty, cleared the streets before the House; and just as that was done, at eleven o'clock at night, information reached them that a mob of 1,000 persons were coming from the Rotunda to the House with the hon. member for Preston. The police, therefore, warned the mob that they could not proceed further. The mob persisted in their intention to advance. The police determined to prevent them; resistance was made to their efforts, and in the struggle, it appeared that this petitioner, Jacob Wintle, was beaten by the police. The petitioner might be an innocent person; and if he was, then Gentlemen should consider how they collected mobs, as the innocent, by their presence, were often an assistance and protection to the ill-doers. He would do nothing to screen the police, and should be most happy to have a full inquiry instituted into this transaction before the ordinary tribunals.

entirely agreed with the hon. Member, that the House was not the tribunal before which cases of common assault ought to be brought. He must bear testimony to the general good conduct of the police; which was a sufficient reason why the House should not listen to such trivial complaints. He did not wish to oppose the reception of the petition, and hoped the hon. Member would withdraw it.

bore testimony to the firmness, good conduct, and resolution of the police in the transactions of Westminster-bridge, which he accidentally witnessed. He was glad that the hon. Under Secretary thought it injudicious to collect great crowds. He recollected a procession to the King which was justified by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and which was neither legal nor judicious. He had heard that a similar procession was to take place on Wednesday next, and he hoped that the observations which the hon. Gentleman had just now made, would tend to discourage the repetition of a procession which, though it now only shouted and lauded the King, might hereafter turn to other and more dangerous purposes.

said, that there was no act in his official life of which he was more proud, than of the institution of the Police Force. He hoped, however, that the House would not encourage the presentation of such trumpery petitions, as the remarks which they elicited from hon. Members, would have a tendency to prevent that Force from performing its duty in that able and resolute manner which the public tranquillity required.

said, the services of the police were, upon all occasions where he had witnessed their conduct, most exemplary and praiseworthy, and he had great pleasure in thanking the right hon. Baronet who had spoken last, for having established that force.

asked the right hon. Baronet, whether he intended to propose the institution of any inquiry as to the comparative expense of the old and new system of police.

thought, that the subject referred to by the hon. member for Middlesex was a very fit subject for inquiry. He should have no objection to have a Committee to overhaul, and thoroughly examine every species of expense connected with the establishment.

said, he very much approved of a Committee being appointed, but he thought the system would be improved, if there could be some sort of co-operation and superintendence on the part of the parishes.

could not permit this opportunity to pass without expressing in the strongest manner his objection to these discussions. That House was not the tribunal for every petty question of riot and assault; if there were no other tribunal that could render justice to the parties, it would be well enough to bring the question here; but he must say, that while there were other tribunals to decide such questions, it was an actual waste of time for the House to discuss them. The House ought to put down such practices. He agreed with the right hon. Baronet, that this petition ought not to be received. He was a friend to the popular right of petitioning, but this was an abuse of that right. He must take this opportunity, too, of adverting to an unfair practice of the hon. member for Preston, in attempting again to speak after the reply of a Gentleman who had introduced notice of a Motion. The hon. member for Preston had a right to do so; but it was a rule of courtesy observed by all other Members of that House not to enforce that right; and that rule of courtesy had been observed by all the Members, until the hon. member for Preston came into it.

did not know that that was the rule; and he did not recollect one instance in which he had done what the hon. Member complained of.

rose to submit to the House his Motion for bettering the condition of the Labouring Poor, and began by observing upon the great importance of the subject, and the necessity of treating it in detail. He therefore, though very reluctantly, felt himself obliged to divide the subject; and, deferring to another occasion, and the first that might occur, the consideration of a measure in behalf of the manufacturing poor, he should then principally address himself to the state of the agricultural poor, with a view to ameliorating their condition. He disclaimed, in taking up these subjects, any pretension to superior benevolence, and in stating the reasons which had induced him to address himself, of late, principally to such matters, he must express a hope that the House would do justice to his motives in so acting. The subject, he maintained, was of paramount importance, however, com- pared and considered. Paley had asserted it to be the first duty of the Legislature to take care of the poor; and a benevolent writer of a former century had emphatically declared, that, were a whole Session so employed, it would be spent more to the honour of God and the good of society than on any other subjects in which the noblest patriots could engage. "If this," continued the hon. Member, "were true in former times, and under ordinary circumstances, how stands the case at the present period? What is now the condition of your poor; and in the first place of your agricultural poor? It is a condition, the consideration of which you cannot evade if you would, and ought not if you could. Let those fears which have been but recently allayed, if, indeed, they can yet have subsided, teach us in time an impressive lesson. It would be a gross and fallacious libel upon the character of the industrious peasantry of England, heretofore the most contented and meritorious class of society among us, if the insubordination which has been but recently, if yet fully subdued, and which exhibited them at once reckless of crime and fearless of its punishment, has not a cause answerable in its character to the calamitous consequences it has occasioned. To doubt this, would be to give way to a grosser infatuation than any to which they have unhappily yielded. Let me illustrate this by one of the most striking and appalling incidents latterly recorded in our history. At a previous and hardly more alarming period than we have just witnessed, a similar spirit broke out among another important class of our countrymen—I allude to the time when the Navy of England became mutinous. How did you act at that most trying moment? You put down, indeed, and with a strong hand, the alarming insubordination. But that done, you entered upon that which was equally your duty, and one which you ought previously to have discharged, when it would have spared the country the fear and shame with which it was then overwhelmed. You inquired into the wrongs of the British tars; you found them to be numerous and insupportable, and you redressed them. The rest need not be told. You performed your duty, and they did theirs—how nobly, can never be forgotten: they went forth and wreathed the brow of their country with fresh and unfading laurels; they won those triumphs which had never previously been equalled, and which will never be surpassed while England shall continue to have a name or a place among the nations. Sir, the agricultural peasantry are now prostrated: this then is the time to listen to their just complaints; this is the moment to redress their grievances; and it is a duty which sound policy, as well as humanity, will not allow to be postponed. Delay will render the attempt more difficult, and at last hopeless. No subject, I will venture to affirm, however important in itself or momentous in its results, is at all comparable in its urgency or magnitude to this—the serious and timely consideration of the deplorable condition, with a view to its permanent amelioration, of the millions of our labouring, but suffering and degraded poor. What, Sir, is that condition? I have spoken, I think, of the difficulties of my present attempt, and I feel them most sensibly; but, alas, the making out my case, that of the sufferings and degradation of our labouring poor, is not one of those difficulties. Many other classes of society have, it may be hoped, advanced in the general career of human happiness and prosperity: this class, however, has visibly and lamentably retrograded; till at length few of those who compose it have anything left to surrender, anything further to fear. We live, Sir, in a period of great changes; but none of them, whether completed or in progress, and which still agitate society around us, at all equal in anything but name, the revolution which has taken place in the state and condition of our agricultural poor in many parts of the country, and which has hardly 'left a wreck behind' of all their former prosperity and happiness. Long placed in an enviable situation compared with those of any other country, from them our moralists drew their proofs of the equal dispensations of human happiness—our poets, their loveliest pictures of simple and unalloyed pleasures—our patriots, their best hopes as to the future destinies of the country; while their humble abodes, the cottages of England, surrounded by the triumphs of their industry, were as distinguished by their beauty as were their inmates for their cheerfulness and contentment. Hope still brightened this humble, but happy condition, and the prospect of advancement in life was then ever open to the peasant's persevering industry, and the means were within his reach. I need not trace this progress step by step; the path of prosperity was open to him, or to those dearer to him than himself, his children, whom his exulting heart often beheld advancing to the very summits of society, to which they added dignity, the dignity of virtue and merit. Yes, Sir, I need not remind the House how many of those who have rendered immortal honour to their country—how many of your greatest merchants—how many laurelled and mitred heads, have sprung from the cottage? Such, then, was the situation of this class; what is it at present? The "bold peasantry of England, their country's pride," are, generally speaking, now extinct. An ignorant and selfish system of spurious political economy, dictating first to the mercantile, and then to the agricultural interest, had at length triumphed, and these are its consequences. I shall attend to some of its dicta hereafter; meantime, let me now contrast the present condition to which the agricultural poor have been reduced, with that which I have described as enjoyed by them till its heartless dogmas prevailed. The system of demolition and monopoly, which has, in the emphatic language of the inspired volume, "laid house to house, and field to field, that they may stand alone in the earth," has left no place for the poor, none for the little cultivator; none for the peasant's cow; no, not enough, in one case in ten, for a garden. The best of the cottages have been demolished—"spurned indignant from the green," as the loveliest of the poets of poverty, Goldsmith, sings. The lonely and naked hut into which they are now thrust, for which is exacted an exorbitant rent, is destitute, both without and within, of all that formerly distinguished their humble abodes, is often unfit to stable even quadrupeds, and frequently so crowded by different families, as to set not comfort merely, but decency at defiance, and render morality itself an impossible virtue. Thither, then, the unhappy parent, when employed, carries his wages, which, with the exception of a few short weeks in the year, are utterly inadequate to supply the necessities of a craving family. Wages did I say? Parish pay! He is, perhaps, sold by auction, as is the case in certain parishes, where he is actually reduced to the condition of a slave, or driven to the workhouse, where he is often treated worse than a felon. Labour meant to degrade and insult him is often prescribed to him; or, wholly unemployed, he sits brooding over his miserable fate; winter labour, whether for himself or his wife and children, having been long since taken away. Perpetually insulted by false and heartless accusations for being a pauper, when his accusers have compelled him to become such; for being idle, when his work has been taken from him; for improvidence, when he can hardly exist—he feels these insults barbed by past recollections which fasten in his heart—which utter hopelessness withers within him. The very sympathies of his nature become reversed: those who would once have constituted his comforts and pleasures, his ragged and half-starved offspring, who cannot stray a pace from his hovel without becoming trespassers and being severely treated as such, they, with their wretched mother, increase his misery. He escapes, perhaps, from the scene of his distress, and attempts to lose the recollection of it and of himself, in dissolute and dangerous courses. Meantime, had some peculiar calamity, some inscrutable visitation of Providence reduced him to this condition, perhaps he might have sustained it with composure of spirit. But he knows otherwise. He can trace his sufferings and degradation to their true source. He knows they have been inflicted upon him, and he feels what would be their cure, and can calculate how little it would cost others to make him and his supremely happy. Meantime, the authors of his sufferings are those that insult him with demanding that he should be quiet and grateful, that he should be contented and cheerful under them! "They that have wasted him, require mirth!" Not only are the falsest accusations levelled at him, but even the feelings common to nature are imputed to him as an offence; his Marriage was a crime; his children are so many living nuisances; he himself is pronounced a redundancy; and after having been despoiled of every advantage he once possessed, he is kindly recommended as his best, and indeed only course to transport himself for life, for the good of his oppressors, and to die un-pitied and unknown in some distant wilderness. And this, Sir, is the condition at the present moment of thousands—of tens of thousands—of the labouring poor. Sir, I am neither following my imagination nor my feelings in this description—I am embodying facts. The picture I have hastily drawn is not the work of fancy, nor is it exaggerated for the occasion: its darkest features are those which have been already presented to this House and the country by reports published by Committees of Parliament, appointed to examine into and report upon the very condition in question. To some of these I shall speedily refer. In those public documents, Sir, are fully pourtrayed the degradation and destitution of the labouring poor in many parts of England, and the oppression and extortion under which they labour. And, Sir, have not recent events given their unequivocal and tremendous testimony to the truth of these statements? It is quite unnecessary for me to add my humble testimony to the truth of these representations; but having recently gone through several of the districts referred to, and often personally inspected the condition in question, I can safely answer for their truth. Imagination may depict, my language cannot, the scenes of distress accompanied by mingled despondency and irritation, which I have witnessed. Nor let it be concluded that this is the situation of the idle and profligate only, which too many are quite ready to call every unfortunate being who may happen to become poor and burthensome. No, Sir. It is one of the most dreadful characteristics of the present system, wherever it prevails, that the entire class are constantly confounded, and the whole of it doomed to one undistinguishable mass of misery. Finally, Sir, I must add, and I do so with unfeigned reluctance, but it is necessary to speak the real truth in order to rouse us to a sense of our duty, and quicken us in the discharge of it—this state of things is remediable—remediable by Parliament, which cannot, I fear, be held altogether guiltless of having permitted, if not produced it. Individually, I acquit them, and freely confess that in their personal and local sphere, the Aristocracy and landed proprietors of England are among the most attentive and benevolent individuals of the community; and that none are more anxious to prevent or to relieve the sufferings of the poor under their immediate notice and protection. But it is to those parts of the country, and they comprehend a vast proportion of its surface, which are far removed from their notice to which I particularly advert, where a false and pernicious system of management is suffered to prevail, and where the poor are consequently under the domination of a set of English middlemen, who often act as fully up to that character, and are as deserving of the name, as those of Ireland; and where a system of cruelty, oppression and extortion prevails, which has at length placed the labourers in different parts on the utmost limits of endurance, and in many instances pushed them beyond it. Meantime, the evil is rapidly spreading, and must be remedied, or we are undone. When, therefore, we contemplate the multitudes of our agricultural poor who are already plunged into the state I have been describing, and know that the rest are rapidly sinking into it—when we have been made to understand so fully, by recent and fearful experience, that it is a condition that cannot and will not be much longer endured—I think policy, as well as humanity, will urge us to attempt a remedy for the ills of this important part of the people; and may not I add to these motives, those of justice and gratitude? When we recollect that it is this class that affords us our daily bread, and spreads our boards with the plenty we enjoy, can we remain any longer insensible to their privations and sufferings, and consent to muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn, and see it abused and goaded in its labours to deeds of desperation and destruction? But let us now inquire what are the causes which have produced this lamentable state of things; and it is the more necessary to ascertain these, as I am fully persuaded that the false views which have unhappily prevailed regarding them, have dictated the policy which has produced the evils we have been contemplating, and will, if not rectified, withstand the application of their only remedies. In this inquiry I shall confine myself as much as possible to those authentic and official documents, which have been put forth by the authority of this House on these important topics. Sir, I hold in my hand the report of the Select Committee on labourers' wages—a document to which it is necessary that I should more particularly allude, as it pronounces upon the subject on which I am treating, with the express sanction and authority of this House. It is a document indeed of a most singular character, embodying evidence of a very important description, yet drawing from it, as it appears to me, deductions wholly irreconcileable with its general tenor. Premising that the miserable and degraded condition of the poor is fully set forth in this report, I will proceed to consider, as shortly as possible, the conclusions at which it arrived, and which it presented to this House and the public; and it is the more necessary to examine them, as they have long been held as incontrovertible, and are repeated as such in pamphlets, and reviews, and speeches, whenever the subjects of the English labouring poor and their distresses force themselves upon the attention of our writers and speakers upon political economy. And, first, this report attributes a great part of the evil it points out, to the mal-administration of the Poor laws. This is the inexhaustible source of declamation with those who vainly hope to cripple or destroy the national charity in this country, or to prevent its extension to the other divisions of the British empire, both of which attempts will prove equally unavailing. I am not about to contend, that the institution is perfect, or that its administration is in all cases faultless; but I will maintain, that both one and the other are more free from all just imputation than any other establishment in the country. The misapplications of the national charity are not attributable to the law; they are rather the result of a conspiracy among the wealthier classes where such evils occur to evade it; and even where its benevolent code is so wrested as to oppress and degrade while it relieves, still, even in such cases, it still stands between the proud oppressor and the prostrate poor, and shields the latter from still greater miseries than they endure—from Irish starvation! But, Sir, the official record before me, which, as I before mentioned, fully recognizes the miserable condition of the poor, assigning for it as a reason the supposed malversation of the Poor-laws, goes on to state, as the consequence, 'that thereby a surplus population is encouraged—men know they have only to marry.' Aware, Sir, that these notions are not only generally, but almost universally prevalent; that they are taken as so many truisms and repeated as such; that they embody the notions of the political economists on this subject, who however widely they may differ, and however warmly they may disagree, are, nevertheless, on this topic, unanimous; and being perfectly aware that any general attempt to better the condition of the agricultural poor, if these positions were true, would not only be entirely fruitless, but even pernicious in its ultimate consequences, it is necessary, before I proceed, to examine these confident assertions; and I pledge myself to this House to overthrow the whole of them, and exhibit them, as they in reality are, a set of the most egregious errors that ever darkened the understanding, or deadened the heart of man. I shall do this, not by reasoning, but by arithmetic—by matters of fact; not by the selection of certain instances to serve my purpose, but by taking those selected by the Committee, doubtless, with a view of advancing its own. It is asserted, then, in this report, that the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Lincoln, are nearly, if not totally, exempt from the malversation of the Poor-laws, which produce, according to its authority, these numerous marriages, and this increase of surplus population. The counties, on the other hand, where that malversation is stated to be most general, and where, consequently, the plague of marriage and population most prevails are particularised. They are these—Suffolk, Sussex, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Dorsetshire, and Wiltshire. Now, Sir, there were, during the ten years preceding the date of the last census, celebrated in the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Lincoln, 45,288 marriages, the arithmetical mean of the population being in that term 606,600, or rather more than one annual wedding to every 133 of the inhabitants. But in the six counties in which we are to look for this great excess of marriages, there were, during the same term, on a mean population of 1,046,350 souls, 76,949 marriages, or one annual marriage in 136 only. But this comparison, though it decides the dispute, does not give the real truth in its just proportions; the practice of so many marriages in the border counties of Northumberland and Cumberland being celebrated across the boundaries—a fact which Mr. Rickman has mentioned in those censuses (which are, in every point of view, an honour to the country as well as to his great industry and talents), as greatly diminishing the registered proportion of such marriages. To arrive, therefore, at a more just comparison, let us take, for instance, the county of Lincoln, which is stated to be free from the evils in question, and that of Dorset, which is particularised as one of those in which they are the most prevalent and oppressive, each of which, on the authority of an intelligent and humane witness, who had resided in both, deserves to be thus selected. Well, Sir, the marriages in Lin- colnshire, computed as before, had for the preceding ten years been rather more than one in 128, while in Dorset the proportion was not as much as one in 144; so utterly groundless then, so entirely opposed to facts, are the allegations of this report. But, Sir, I will place the matter in another and yet stronger light, by presenting facts, still authentic and official, of such a character that defy all contradiction or evasion, and which will dispose at once and for ever of the stale and senseless accusations against the poor of these counties, where they are at once grievously oppressed and cruelly misrepresented. The report in question says, that the misery it describes, is 'in great part to be attributed to the maladministration of the Poor-laws during the latter years of the late war.' Let us examine the exact facts in this case also. Taking then the whole period of its duration, namely, that from 1803 to 1813, including and dividing it into two equal parts, of five years each, giving half the intermediate year 1808 to each, we shall find that the number of the marriages in Suffolk, Sussex, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Dorsetshire, and Wiltshire, was 39,315 in the former half, while in the latter it amounted to 37,417 only. But the number of the marriages in the three counties which the Committee pronounce to be free from these malversations, advanced during the same period, from 22,081 to 23,227. If we take a still wider range in this examination, we shall find the results are precisely similar. Taking the average of the first two years of the late war (in order to avoid the casual fluctuations which might affect single ones), viz., those of 1803 and 1804, we find that the weddings amounted to 7836. I have already stated how much the marriages fell off in the latter period, in fact, in 1812 and 1813, the average number was 6774 only. And here I cannot refrain from pausing, to put a very important question. I ask, whether the malversation in the Poor-laws, and the consequent misery of the poor labourers, so strongly depicted in this report, namely, their living chiefly upon bread, or even potatoes, scarcely ever tasting meat or beer, or being able to buy milk, is a state justly attributed to the condition of agriculture during the same period—whether the profits of that pursuit, and the price of all its produce during the latter part of the last war would not have enabled the great cultivators, the farmers, to have afforded direct and sufficient Wages to their poor labourers, without degrading them as paupers, and partly starving them into the bargain? Shall I mention the average price of grain during this term. I need not. Let, however, this striking fact suggest to us this important conclusion, that no returning state of prosperity as regards the agricultural interests, will ever restore comfort and independence to the poor labourer, except this House comes in to his defence, and defeats a combination arrayed against him, compared with which he is utterly powerless. But when we extend the inquiry by a reference to the forthcoming census (which I have already diligently examined for this purpose), to the years immediately preceding the date of this report, those of 1822 and 1823, the average number of marriages in these two years will be found to be 7,767; consequently still less than it had been nearly twenty years before; and that of the terminating years of 1829 and 1830 will exhibit, I think, the same average as compared with the first—still almost precisely stationary, though they ought to have advanced to upwards of 10,000, without showing any relative increase; the population of these counties (exclusive of Brighton, throughout the whole calculation) during these twenty-eight years, having increased upwards of thirty per cent. So entirely opposed to truth, therefore, are the assumptions of our economists regarding the habits and condition of our labouring poor, and so utterly, therefore, do they err as to the only means of remedying their distresses. But not to dwell further upon these pernicious mistakes, I will now proceed to prove, and from the pages of the very report which has given its authority to so injurious an error, that, notwithstanding the discouragements to which labour has been subjected in this country, our rural population is not, even yet, redundant; and, in doing so, I will confine myself to the simple facts published in this report, and those will abundantly suffice to negative the conclusion at which the Committee unhappily arrived. We find it there stated that, even as early as April, all the healthy labourers are employed; that April is a very busy time; and that from thence to the termination of the harvest the demand for labour increases, need not be mentioned; so much so, indeed, that on turning to the agricultural surveys, I find that in the counties where so much is said of the redundancy of labourers, even the hay harvest could not be got in by the resident population without foreign assistance. But to come to the main question, and to determine it on the authority of the witness whom the Committee very properly place at the head of their list of witnesses, as having more minute and practical knowledge regarding what is called the market of labour, especially in the rural districts, than almost any other individual that could have been selected—I mean Mr. M'Adam. To the first question put to him he replies, that he has had very considerable experience in hiring labour in the country. The second query is this—'Have you found in general that it is very easy to obtain labourers?' The answer: 'Generally speaking I have, excepting during the harvest months; we then find a great scarcity of workmen.' And yet, Sir, the Committee talk about the redundancy of agricultural labourers! Nor is this all. The agricultural labourers are not only not redundant; they are too few! Were it not for a large accession of workmen at the period of the harvest, much of the product of the land would never be secured. In addition to the influx of hands from towns and manufacturing districts, an immense assistance is also demanded annually from Ireland, or the harvests of England could neither be reaped nor gathered in. I need not, I presume, bring proofs of this fact, otherwise they could be easily obtained. I have myself consulted some of the managers of our great steam-boat companies, and I find from them, that there annually leave Ireland for the harvest fields of Great Britain, a number which I cannot calculate at less than the entire male adult population employed as agricultural workmen in some five or six of our English counties, though they are dispersed, it is true, through the whole of our corn districts. And if your fields could not be reaped, I need not say they would never be sown. It is, therefore, idle, worse than idle, for political economists, whether in this House or out of it, to rant about the redundancy of labour. It is not merely abhorrent to humanity, to reason as they do, it is an insult to truth, and an outrage upon common sense. Does such an infatuated feeling prevail in any other case whatever? Does the sportsman deem his horses and his dogs redundant in the summer months—the General call his soldiers superfluous while in their winter quarters? In the very commonest concerns of life is any such delusion witnessed? But when we come to talk of our labourers, the political economist determines whether they are in excess or otherwise, not by the demand for them in the season of the year when they are essentially necessary, but in that in which he imagines he can dispense with them altogether—a method of computation which would make out a case against them as clearly as at present, were the population of the country reduced to a tenth of its present number. Nothing then can be more absurd and unjust than the present method of computing the alleged surplus of agricultural labourers. Under the best possible system, their labour will be less pressingly demanded in the winter than in the spring and harvest months. Nor is it, when duly considered, one of the least strikingly benevolent ordinations in nature, that the hardest and most essential operations of husbandry have to be performed in the finest periods of the year when the days are the most protracted and the weather the most temperate. Hence at all times, in every country, and under whatever system of cultivation, the ancient maxim will be found applicable, hyems ignava colono. In the natural order of things other industrious occupations have been reserved for this comparatively inactive and severe season, and have occupied it; of these, however, the industrious cottagers of England have been, in great measure, bereft, by causes over which they have had no control; and this circumstance, Sir, is it, that, among many others, has occasioned much of the distress under which they labour, and has furnished the apology for these perpetual declamations as to their redundancy. Still, however, as we cannot, in conformity with the new theory, annihilate them when we do not want their labour, because we cannot revive and multiply them when we do; and as nature has not indulged us with a human genus that can hybernate, or one which, after having secured the fruits of their industry, we can safely destroy when we have obtained its honey, as we once did their prototype, the bee; if, in short, we cannot gather in the kindly fruits of the earth, nor in due time enjoy them, without our full agricultural force, then, Sir, notwithstanding all a selfish and stolid theory may repeat, the labourer whom our present system has deprived of all his comforts, and degraded so deeply in his character and feelings, is, at the very season we have doomed him to idleness and want, and would bid him if we could, to be gone, as necessary to us as our daily bread. Let us, then, proceed to develope the real causes of this afflicting, and I, may indeed say, alarming state of things, with a view to their ultimate removal. On entering upon this important branch of the subject I shall again once for all, assert that it is to the deserving and industrious poor—those who always did, and ever would, most eagerly avail themselves of all those advantages which such once possessed, and of which they are now totally deprived that I exclusively refer. And let those who object to this classification, and wish to found an apology for the indiscriminate neglect and injury of the entire class, by confounding the character of the whole, point out in what respect the most meritorious of them have been favoured, and in what manner it is possible to benefit them under the present system; a system which dooms the whole to a state of indiscriminate suffering and degradation, because, as it assumes, some of them have deserved it. In tracing, then, the causes which have led to the present degradation of the labourers in husbandry, I must, however it may startle the prejudices of some, commence with the large farming system. Reason, it might have been supposed, would have dictated another course—that, as the population of the country increased, the number of farmers should have augmented, or, as old Hobbes said, that 'they should live closer and cultivate better.' Political economy, falsely so called, advised however directly to the contrary; and, appealing as it ever does to human selfishness, prevailed. But in this, however, as in most other cases, its principles have been falsified by experience, and its prophecies have totally failed. The land has become less productive in large divisions, as it ever does; less capital has been applied to it, for labour is capital. A less surplus produce has been obtained for the public; for this is determined by the fact that a smaller rent is received by the landlord, and that less punctually and certainly; and, after all, the expense of keeping up a few additional farm-houses has been far more than counterbalanced by the great addition to the poor-rates, which the farmer has taken care should at length fall upon the landlord. On this highly important and interesting topic I had collected a considerable mass of statistical proofs; but I cannot now presume even to enumerate them. I will, however, state, that the experience of every agricultural country is clear and full upon this point. In Flanders the size of the farms has been, consequently, long limited by law, but, as one of its most intelligent writers observes, the experience of the superiority of the minuter system has had the effect of still further curtailing their size and multiplying their number. In Italy, where the state of cultivation is presented in such wide extremes, an able practical agriculturist of our own country comes to this conclusion, that 'every state in the Peninsula is productive or otherwise, in proportion to the number of farmers on a given space of land of equal quality.' In France such also is precisely the fact, as I can confidently assert, having most accurately examined the Cadastre for that purpose. This fact is beginning also to be seen in England, and will be demonstrated more clearly every day, even by pecuniary considerations alone. I am not arguing that farms here should be limited by law, or that they should all be reduced to one, and that a small extent; far otherwise. What I would contend for is the superiority of that moderate and mixed system of husbandry, which leaves the deserving peasantry of the country the opportunities and hopes of ultimate advancement; and this I believe to be far the most profitable state: that it is the happier one, as regards the great bulk of the people, not a doubt can exist. Hence Paley classes among his deeds of benevolence the splitting of farms. But, Sir, what I have to do with the question, at present, is, to show that the system of 'engrossing great farms,' to use Bacon's expression, has been among the first of a series of connected causes which have led to the present degradation of our labouring poor. I shall not advert to past times, when the same practice is described by our authentic historians as having led to such fatal consequences; the present are sufficient for my purpose. No one can take up the work of any agricultural theorist, if published some time ago, but he will find the most pressing recommendations to the land-owners to increase the size of their farms, and the most tempting calculations to induce them so to do. Meantime, there was an equal unanimity as to the advantage of such a course, even to the little cultivators themselves; they were to do abundantly better as labourers than as small farmers. They valued, indeed, their independent state; they were reluctant—agonized I may say, in every instance—at the thought of being driven from their holdings, but they were compelled to submit. The village Ahabs seized upon the vineyards of their industry, and their destruction was complete. The numerous class of little cultivators, or as they might be called, independent or free labourers, being thus extinguished, let us trace their condition into that class whose numbers they greatly augmented—the dependent or servile labourers, as I fear they may be too justly denominated. Two ranks only existing, let us see next how these labourers have been treated to whom such large and consoling promises had been held forth. Why, Sir, still the plea of public improvement was advanced, improvement of which they were again to be the sole victims; I now allude to the manner in which the inclosures of the commons and wastes of the country were carried into effect, which comprised, within a comparatively short period of time, so large a part of the entire surface of the kingdom. I am not about to contend, that inclosures should not have taken place; on the contrary, I would have had them become universally prevalent; one general inclosure Act, as was often urged, ought to have been passed for that purpose; then, it was often said, the ancient and sacred rights of the poor labourers would have been secured, and just reservations made for them in mortmain placed under the management of every parish—the only way of preserving their rights and privileges as a class; but, alas, all such inclosures were made by the wealthy and interested parties, and their humbler rights, equally recognised by justice and sound policy, were totally disregarded. Sir, I contend that the poor cottagers and labourers had an equitable, if not a legal right, agreeable to the known principles of the British law. If it be argued that their claims could only be founded, in many cases, upon usurpations, as the law would denominate them, so, it should be recollected, are all the rights of property among us, at least as expounded by a fiction of that law. The tenants in capite encroached upon the Crown; the lesser upon the greater Barons; the smaller proprietors, especially the copyholders, upon the Barons. Indeed, it is calculated by Barrington, in his work on our Ancient Statutes, that not many centuries ago, half the lands of England were held upon the degrading tenure of villeinage; and, though the state that term implied, or the galling conditions it imposed, were never abolished by statute, it gradually ceased by force of long usage. Thus has custom ratified those rights of possession which grew up imperceptibly among us, prescribing accordingly the appropriation of all property not yet in severally. Thus, if a royal forest has to be inclosed, the contiguous parishes, or rather proprietors, demand their share, on the ground that they have depastured upon it. They urge their claims, "and have those claims allowed." But shall we not blush for ourselves and our country, when we observe at what precise point it is, that this principle stops—that those essential rights, interests, advantages, call them what you please, which ought on every plea, whether of justice, humanity, or policy, to have been liberally considered and fully secured, have been altogether slighted and sacrificed; that land which had not been appropriated since it was created, was, when divided, dealt to the wealthy alone, and in shares proportioned to their wealth, to the total exclusion of the claims of the poor; and that in those cases where, according to Locke's doctrine, they had obtained a sort of natural right to their little cot, with its inclosure, by having obtained it by their own labour, and in some sort created it—even then, as he indignantly exclaims, the rich man, who possessed a whole county, seized when he pleased upon the cottage and garden of his poor neighbour, in contempt of what, had they been as fully traced, and as well asserted, would have been found to be rights which ought to have been as sacred as his own. I am aware that I am now taking a most serious view of this subject. God forbid, however, that I should pursue this course with any other view than that of inducing the Legislature to look into this matter, and then it will, I am sure, make some restitution (and moderate, indeed, will be all that I shall propose, and involving no sacrifice of property whatever) for the in- juries sustained by the poor in this to them important matter. I shall, therefore, persist in showing, on authorities as well conversant with the common law of the country, and the rights in question as any, I think, that now exist, that the Inclosure Acts, as they have been carried into effect, have been inconsistent with the principles of law as well as with equity and mercy. I will first quote the earliest legal author who wrote specially upon inclosing, or, as he expresses it in the legal phrase which still survives, approving; and one who was also a practical agriculturist—Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, the celebrated lawyer and Judge. He thus lays down the law on the occasion, in his book of Surveying. 'Every cottager sal have his portion assigned him, and then sal not the ryche man overpresse the poore man.' Sir Robert Cotton, of the same profession, and who also wrote expressly upon the subject—inclosing, speaks thus:—'In the carriage of this business there must be much caution to prevent commotion;' he recommends, therefore, that plots shall 'be devised to such inhabitants, and at and under easy values.' Lord Chancellor Bacon, strenuously urging the same agricultural improvement, couples, it however, with this momentous condition—'So that the poor commoners have no injury by such inclosures.' The total neglect, however, of their rights in all such proceedings called forth the strongest reprobation of a succeeding Chancellor, who termed the system as pursued—"a crime of a crying nature." I have adverted to Locke's energetic expressions on the subject, and shall pass over many others, only adducing one more authority of a modern date, and of an official character. It is that of a report drawn up, I believe, by the excellent and patriotic Sir John Sinclair, whose long life has been devoted to the service of his country, of a select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed for the special purpose of considering the subject, which clearly recognises these rights of the poor, and most strongly recommends that they should be secured. 'If' says the report, 'a general bill were to be passed, every possible attention to the rights of the commoners would necessarily be paid. The poor would then evidently stand a better chance of having their full share undiminished.' I will not multiply these authorities; suffice it to say, that all such have held the pri- vileges the poor formerly possessed in the light of sacred rights, and have earnestly contended for the necessity of their preservation; these, however, have been now almost entirely wrested from them by a series of private inclosure bills, inflicting upon them, as a class, the most irreparable injuries. Inclosures, indeed, might have been so conducted as to have benefitted all parties; but now, coupled with other features of the system, they form a part of what Blackstone denominates a "fatal rural policy;" one which has completed the degradation and ruin of your agricultural poor. Formerly the industrious labourer had this means of advancement; to this remaining privilege, also, the ejected little farmer could resort, but at the same time, and under the same system that some village monopolist seized upon his fields, he drove him also from the waste.

"If to some common's fenceless limits strayed,

He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,

Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,

And e'en the bare-worn common is denied."

Now, Sir, it was from the first so obvious, notwithstanding all the interested and selfish declarations to the contrary, that inclosures, as they were carried into effect, would be greatly injurious to the industrious poor, that it hardly seems necessary to prove how truly these fears have been verified. I will, however, just mention that the report of a Committee on inclosures, in 1808, states, that the results which were the subject of examination in a tour of 1,600 miles, made for that purpose, proved that they had been clearly injurious to the poor. An intelligent witness informs another Committee of this House, namely, that which sat to inquire into the high price of provisions, that he had himself been a Commissioner under twenty inclosure Acts, and states his opinion as to their general effect on the poor, lamenting that he had been thereby accessary to injuring 2,000 poor people, at the rate of twenty families per parish. I fear, sir, the reply of a poor fellow to Arthur Young, the great advocate of inclosures (though under regulations which would indeed have rendered them a benefit to all parties) recorded in one of his agricultural surveys, is true to a more or less degree of every industrious labourer in England, wherever these improvements have taken place. To his query as to whether the inclosure had injured him, he replied, 'Sir, before the inclosure I had a good garden, kept two cows, and was getting on; now I cannot keep so much as a goose, and am poor and wretched, and cannot help myself, and still you ask me if the inclosure has hurt me!' Nor, Sir, has the system in question stopped even here. Another, and if possible, a still deeper injury which it has also perpetrated, still remains to be noticed. Not only has the little farm been monopolised, the common right destroyed, the garden in many instances seized, but the cottage itself demolished; and the plough-share now drives over many a little plot where once stood the bower of contented labour. A few blooming shrubs are still seen twining round in the fence, and here and there a flower, tenacious of the soil, blossoms in its season upon the spot which was once the abode of peace and happiness; like those which grow upon the grave of some forgotten, but once loved being though the hand which planted them is also gone for ever. I am presenting, Sir, no imaginary or solitary cases—no, these demolitions have been, as Lord Winchilsea observed in his communications to the Board of Agriculture, many years ago, most numerous; and, not content with the opportunities these inclosures gave them, the great agriculturists have, in not a few instances, combined and subscribed to forward this work of destruction; and it has even been gravely propounded as a question in this House, or at least in its Committees, whether direct legal means ought not to be employed to hasten it forwards. There has been no occasion—the work is accomplished. Those have prevailed who have pronounced the labouring poor to be redundant, and whose nests, therefore, as human vermin, were to be cleared; hence their humble abodes have been demolished. The foxes, indeed, might have holes, and the birds of the air nests, but these Christian philosophers would not let a poor man have where to lay his head. Three results have followed, any one of which is perfectly decisive as to the condition of the poor. First, Sir, their present cottages are often of a most wretched description; "spurned indignant from the green," they are placed at a distance, so as to "screen the presence of contiguous pride;" miserably deficient in necessary accommodation, almost always destitute of a good and sufficient garden; in a word, the wretched inmates, and the hovels into which they are thrust, are worthy of each other—miserable to the last degree. Secondly, and to this I call the most serious attention of this House and of the country, as an evil demanding an instant and effectual remedy, if there be any sense of decency or humanity left among us, these huts, miserable as they are, are rendered still more miserable by being deficient in number: there are not enough of them; hence more than one family are often thrust into the same dwelling, to the utter destruction of all peace, comfort, and decency. Sir, on this most important point I proceed to prove what I assert—namely, that we have, by the operation of causes which I have been enumerating, most cruelly diminished the accommodation for our poor labourers; and I shall do so, not by vague authorities, or opinions in pamphlets and books on political economy, but by authentic and indisputable facts, which at once decide the subject. I shall take the first county which is presented to us in the report, and which seems, on the testimony of one of the witnesses, to be well entitled to that bad pre-eminence—namely, Suffolk. Suffolk, Sir, has, in the course of 120 years, increased in population, including the great increase of some of its towns, as much as eighty per centum, and rather more. What has been the increase in the accommodation for the poorer part of the population? Why, Sir, in 1690, there were 47,537 houses in that county: in 1821, then, there ought to have been at least 90,000 houses. But, alas, Sir, there were in the latter year only 42,773 inhabited houses, the absolute number being eleven per cent fewer than 130 years before. The whole of the six counties so selected exhibit a result, in this respect, not quite so appalling, but sufficiently distressing, however regarded. Their population, had from 1701 to 1821, advanced upwards of seventy-five per cent, but the houses for its accommodation less than twenty-five. It is unnecessary to remark on what class the misery of such a state of things would be made to rest. Even in counties supposed by this Committee free from this state of things, "th' infection works." I hold in my hand the invaluable pamphlet of the Vicar of Alford, in Lincolnshire, who enumerates fifteen neighbouring parishes in which he found, on diligent inquiry, that the comfortable agricultural cottages demolished since 1770 amount to 176, and that nine only have been built since that period. But to return to one of the former counties: I will present to this House, in the instance of a single parish, and that not one selected for the occasion, the facts and consequences of such a system. It is described in a letter from the Vicar of a place which I shall not name, but an extract from which I shall read to the House. It is situated in one of the disturbed districts. 'During the last forty years,' says the reverend Gentleman, 'four cottages only have been built by ^****, and even these in lieu of the same number taken or fallen down. The accommodation for the poor is far more confined than it was some years past. The old parsonage, which I rebuilt when I came to the living, I found inhabited by four pauper families. There were also, a short time previously, five pauper families in two farm-houses, now occupied again by farmers. The want of room, therefore, has created the greatest difficulties to the Overseers, and has rendered their office peculiarly painful. For several weeks they have been compelled to quarter a poor family at the public house, two of the young men being under the necessity of sleeping in a barn. In some of the cottages the poor are so huddled together that the sight is most distressing, and the effect, of course, very demoralizing. The following is a specimen:—

Cottage.	Families.	Persons.	Accommodation.
No. 1	2	10	1 ground floor, 2 bed rooms.
2	2	8	1 room only 12 feet square.
3	2	7	1 room ground floor, 12½ ft. square. Two girls obliged to sleep on ground.
4	1	9	1 room ground floor, 1 bed room.
5	1	7	1 room only 12 feet square.
6	2	11	1 room ground floor, 2 bed rooms.
7	—	11	Different individuals, all females, except a youth of 18, and a young boy. 1 room

			ground floor; 1 bed room
8	—	9	Different individuals.'

He goes on to say, 'Most of these cottages are in a sad state of repair; and all, with the exception of the two last, which are parish houses, belong to the lord of the manor.' He says that he made application to the non-resident proprietor (to whose intentional benevolence, however, he bears testimony), and to his agent, but could obtain no redress of this grievous state of things; as the latter had come to the determination (a very usual one) that not an additional cottage should be built—of course giving the orthodox reason for the refusal. I cannot refrain from quoting him a little further, as what follows has a most special reference to the only apology which can be urged for this mass of misery—a supposed surplus of numbers. 'The Overseers assure me,' he adds, 'that there are not more labourers than the cultivation of the land requires—nay, that should the use of the threshing-machine be discontinued, there would not be sufficient.' He proceeds to make some most pertinent and touching remarks upon this state of things, and its inevitable consequences, and concludes by suggesting a measure of relief, which I had long ago regarded as essential to any plan whatever which contemplates the bettering the condition of the poor—namely, a restoration of their cottages to some extent. He intimates that the condition of the poor in the neighbourhood is, at least, quite as bad, and must, sooner or later, produce the most lamentable and alarming consequences. Sir, I will beg the House to consider some of these consequences. Not only early and general depravity, but crimes of the most fearful nature are thus generated. But not to dwell, said he, on this horrid subject, what, I ask, must be the usual consequences, when different families are thus thrust into the same hole as a sleeping apartment; and, immorality out of the question, how can decency be preserved, especially under certain circumstances, in the family in such cases? But, Sir, I will pursue these revolting descriptions no further. Hurried away by my indignation at this cruel and indecent usage of the poor peasantry, I had almost forgot one revolting feature of the system of oppression to which they are now subjected. For these accommodations, wretched as they are, the most exorbitant rents, exorbitant in reference to what they are worth (that is often, literally speaking, nothing) or for the little patch of garden ground when they have any, are exacted; a fact which has been fully verified both by agricultural reports and surveys, and by witnesses before your own Committees, and is fully known and undisputed. Indeed, it has necessarily happened, that the more the cottages have been diminished in number, the more have their rents been increased (a consequence which the economists themselves will allow to have been inevitable) till they have, at length, compared with every other species of property, become exorbitant, compelling the wretched tenant to resort to the parish for the means of paying them; leaving him, therefore, the disgrace of being a pauper, but, depriving him at the same time of the relief he should receive as such. I now come to another principal branch of the subject—namely, that which concerns the wages and employment of the poor. But on this point, important as it plainly is, time will compel me to be short. When the improvements, as they have been called (and might have been rendered), in the agricultural system took place, and the labouring classes were deprived of their little holdings, their commonage, and often their good gardens, they were told, that the demand for their labour would be so greatly increased, and its wages, consequently, so much advanced, that they would be infinitely better off under the new plan. But, Sir, it no longer admits of a dispute, that while they have thus been deprived of their independant labour, that which they yield to others is rendered, as far as possible less necessary and worse remunerated. In summer or harvest, as I have before shown, their work is indeed demanded; but it is to the winter, the trying season to the poor, that I am now about to advert. First, Sir, the altered practice of hiring servants by the week, instead of, as was formerly the case, by the year, has had a pernicious effect on the winter employment of the poor. The report I have so often alluded to, when referring to the northern counties as those in which the condition of the poor is still comparatively comfortable, should have stated (had the Committee known it), that this practice still prevails in the border counties of England, to the equal comfort and ad- vantage of all parties. Secondly, the threshing-machine has, as far as possible, dispensed with a great part of the winter employment of the labourers, and, all the incidental expenses duly considered, without, as far as I have been able to calculate, any advantage whatever to the farmer, or to the public. I speak not thus as an apologist for the attacks that have been made upon this description of property; far otherwise; but with the hope of inducing the agriculturists to count well the costs before they sanction (where it is unnecessary) that which will inevitably distress and pauperise the poor. Lastly, and to this particular I would draw the attention of the House, as of infinite importance in any view of the causes of the distress of our rural poor—the improvements of the machinery of this country, and the consequent transference of the simplest processes of manufacture to the large towns of England, have had the inevitable result of depriving the female part of the cottagers' family of that profitable employment which presented itself, indeed, at every vacant hour throughout the year, but which secured to them a constant occupation in the winter season. A late Flemish writer exults in the circumstance of the winter cottage labour in that country being still preserved in great measure; and he attributes to that fact the comfort of their rural population. That is no longer the case in England, nor perhaps can ever be again. Let us, then, be the more anxious to consider how we may compensate this great and necessary class of the community for this connected series of deprivations and misfortunes, which have occasioned the misery which now overwhelms them. Thus, then, have our rural poor been successively deprived of every advantage which they formerly possessed, and of every chance of improvement which they once were so eager to avail themselves of. But I will no longer fatigue the House by these details. I may, however, be, perhaps, permitted to present in a single instance, and that not a selected one, the state to which I would draw the attention of the House. I have personally inspected the condition of the agricultural poor in some of the districts I have alluded to. I remember the last cottage I entered, and it was by no means the deepest picture of distress that might have been selected, on the contrary, there was nothing in it of peculiar disease, calamity, or sorrow. In this I witnessed a fair but instructive example of the general state of many of the agricultural poor in that neighbourhood. All the furniture consisted of a few utensils for cooking, and a few three-legged stools, evidently of home make, and a large one of the same description, which answered the purpose of a table, and from which they took their meal. That meal was cooking, and it consisted of a few potatoes boiling over a handful of sticks. I went into the remaining apartment—I was about to call it a bed-room—but there was no bed; a few rags were lying upon a little straw in one corner, and there the whole family, several of whom were nearly grown up, rested without taking off their clothes. The wretched parent had no work, but the threshing-machine was resounding close at hand. I remarked, however, that he had a garden, though a small one; but I was soon told, that what I saw belonged to three cottages, and that his share was marked by a row of sticks, and it was certainly not the size of this floor. But I will not recapitulate the sad, but true complaints of this wretched peasant: his want of a garden and a pig. His father had a cow. There was no winter labour for either himself or family. His wife and his daughters (two females nearly full-grown) no longer wove lace, or knitted, or spun, as his mother and sisters had done. All was wretchedness and despair. On inquiry, I found his rent was 3l. 6s. per annum—one shilling was taken weekly, and the rest made up in the harvest months. He was, of course, like the rest of his poor neighbours, a pauper. The parish, however, employed him, but so as to insult him. He and others had to carry stones of a certain size backwards and forwards, a distance of about three miles, twice a-day. The land was evidently deteriorating for want of due cultivation; but, in the mean time, neither by the proprietors, nor by the farmers, could he be spared so much as a rood for a garden plot. He was perfectly stupified by his condition, and if he did not proceed to outrages which many others were committing in that neighbourhood, I speedily found that it was not because he was insensible to his sufferings, or at all afraid of the consequences of resenting their infliction. But I will not dwell upon the melancholy subject; this deplorable and desperate condition was that of the neigh- bourhood—I fear, of the district; nor would I have alluded to the subject at all, but that I am firmly persuaded there are easy and effectual remedies for this strange and alarming state of things. What, then, are those remedies? Sir, the measure I am about to propose, is not, if I may so express myself, a tentative one, a plan of mere experiment: it is founded upon no new discoveries in human nature or policy; no novel or untried expedients; no distant or doubtful remedies. It does not contemplate to send off the thews and sinews of the country to the antipodes, the equator, or the pole, in search of relief. Nor does it include the locating of our labouring poor upon our waste lands, though that scheme, carried into practice to a certain extent, I hold to be a much wiser and patriotic scheme than many usually recommended regarding them. As a general plan of relief, I think it is, however, liable to some objections, which I shall not now state. The plan I propose contemplates to repair the injuries which our labouring poor have sustained in the scenes where they have been inflicted, to the equal advantage of every class of the community; and by means, as I hope to show, perfectly simple and practicable, and imposing, permanently considered, no burthen whatsoever upon us in its execution. Sir, there will be no novelty in any of my propositions, except that of requiring that Legislature, which has been, in some measure, an accessory to the injuries of the poor, to afford those facilities which shall render them universal, and the miseries of your agricultural poor, and the insubordination which they occasion, are at an end. First, I propose that a certain number of cottages should be rebuilt in those parts of the country where they are most wanted; which being the only part of the measure demanding an outlay worth a thought, I had for some time meant to have postponed, but after due consideration of the subject myself, and having had numerous communications with others most impressed with the present condition of the poor, I came to the conclusion that no plan whatever, for the relief of our agricultural poor, has the least chance of affording them any adequate relief, if this proposition be omitted. A cottage, according to a calculation I have made, might be erected, and have, at least, its rood of ground around it as a garden, and let to the cottager at 50s. per annum, and still pay a higher interest than any other description of real, or even funded property among us. Still less would be the cost, were Government, without sacrificing any real income, to facilitate the measure as I shall hereafter suggest. Here there is accommodation of an infinitely superior kind to that now usually enjoyed, affording a rent which would allow ample reservations for repairs or other purposes, at one half, nay, one third, of the sum usually paid to the thoughtless sub-landlord, or griping speculator, whom the present system allows to live upon the poor-rates, rather than the pauper labourer whom he makes his agent for that purpose. The erection of even a very few of these cottages, where they are most needed, would not, I am hardly required to say, merely afford so many additional and improved accommodations to the degraded poor, and even in doing that, the benefit would be incalculable—but, Sir, these would inevitably have a most surprising and gratifying effect upon the rest, in improving the accommodations, and consequently, morals and comforts, of the poor; secondly, in greatly lessening their extortionate rents; and thirdly, in proportionally reducing the poor rates, a large part of which, in many places, goes to make good these infamous exactions. The difficulty of raising means, in this land of wealth and humanity, for so humble an effort, I will not for one moment regard. Four methods I have contemplated, all of which, I am confident, would be available, and any one of which would amply suffice for the purpose; but should those all fail, where would be the difficulty of Government, granting a small loan, secured by the respective parishes at the usual interest, which parishes would possess the property, to their own great and obvious advantage, as well as to that of the poor? For this plan, so important to the poor in every possible point of view, not one farthing then would be given, not one farthing risked by either the parish or the country. The second feature of my measure, Sir, is still more easy; it is this—the giving, or rather restoring, by the means, and in the manner I shall speedily point out, to the labouring poor, at least to those deserving and desirous of an advantage—gardens, not gratuitously, indeed, but at the full value at which the lands are let where they are situate, and no more. Sir, this simple restitution would effect of itself wonders in their behalf; the revival of cottage horticulture would yield additional employment to the peasant, and especially at those seasons of the year when he is now often without it; it would increase his comforts, and go far to restore to him plenty at all seasons. By gardens, I mean not the barren and overshadowed patch that may be still sometimes left at the back or in front of some of the ruinous cottages of the country, sufficient, perhaps, to grow a shrub or two on which the wretched inmates can hang a few rags to dry:—such, Sir, only mock and tantalize the industry which they can neither excite nor reward. Such will, and ought to be, neglected. I mean by a garden, a good and sufficient garden. The circumstance of any of the cottagers of England being devoid of these, especially in the present condition of the country, would not be credited, were it not so notorious a fact as no longer to excite curiosity or remark. Certainly, such a circumstance, were we unacquainted with the real cause, would be attributed at once to the disinclination—nay, refusal—of the poor to avail themselves of the employment and advantages which horticulture affords. And, Sir, when we consider the state of the poor, their involuntary idleness and wretchedness, and the moral and political consequences of their condition, and know that this one pursuit would relieve them and the country of many of the evils under which both now labour—were the poor destitute of any wish to avail themselves of it, no national sacrifice could be too great, hardly any sum (burthened as the country is) too vast, could a decided taste for horticulture be purchased for our agricultural poor. Sir, the poor of England have this taste—passion, I may even call it, in them, for gardening, beyond any other people upon earth. Sir, what will they not do to gratify it, even now, when the in closures in every part of the country have rendered it almost impossible for them to find the means of gratification? Who has not seen the thousands of little strips which the poor labourers have taken in by the road sides in this country, the labour of inclosing which, estimated at the lowest wages, is often many times the amount of the worth of the narrow plot thus obtained; though the industrious peasants know that they are at any time liable to have their plot seized, and are certain that, at some time or other, it will be so? Few of the poor, however, have the opportunity, or would have the permission, to obtain even this little advantage; it is true, the great farmer may allow them occasionally the temporary possession of a distant headland, on which to plant a few potatoes. But, Sir, this, wherever situated, is not the advantage I ask for this class; it is the garden, properly so called, which the husbandman can call his own, in which he can display his taste and cultivate as he pleases; and where, surrounded by his family, he labours not only for present but prospective advantages; where the feelings of hope and the consciousness of prosperity are alive within him, rendering him as happy as his master—feelings which, alas! are seldom gratified. But I will proceed upon this subject no further. The poor, every one must know, have the taste in question. They are fully aware of the pleasures and advantages attending its gratification; and they bitterly complain of having been dispossessed of the possibility of obtaining small spots of ground for cultivation. They have, in thousands of instances, besought their superiors to restore to them their garden, as in other days. They have constantly prayed for this great favour. It has been denied! "They mourn in their prayer and are vexed." Sir, I have here a calculation, made by one of the ablest of our agricultural writers, of the advantages, estimated in the most moderate way possible, of a good garden to the industrious labourer: but I have not time to enumerate them, interesting and important as they are. But I would not rest here. No advantages, however valuable, if indiscriminately extended, would fully answer the ends we ought to have in view regarding this class: nor, indeed, can any rank of society, no, nor any individual, whatever be his pursuit, be incited to those becoming exertions, on which human prosperity, individual and national, depends, without holding forth further adequate inducements and rewards to successful efforts. I would then propose, as a reward and distinction to the deserving poor, what would indeed be to them no empty honour, but the highest possible advantage, though still it would involve no pecuniary sacrifices whatever, I would propose to restore to such the opportunity of keeping a cow, on customary terms. These cottagers would have to be selected for their good conduct, industrious habits, and honest endeavours to bring up their families without parochial relief. They would have to be admitted tenants of little intakes, or to depasture upon a general allotment, and they must have a meadow appropriated for the purpose of providing them with hay. Either of these plans might be adopted, and both of them have been so with great success; that, however, which gives the cottager his own share in severally is undoubtedly to be preferred. I have contemplated the difficulty which, in certain instances, the most deserving and industrious of our labourers would have in raising sufficient money for this purpose. This difficulty, however, is more apparent than real, and may be obviated, as I will on another occasion show, when I hope to enter more into the details, and less into the principle, of the measure, with equal advantage to all parties, A point far more material to mention is, that the measure contemplates securing the advantages proposed, whether for keeping the cow or the garden, at the current and usual terms of land of equal quality in the same district, and let by the same owners. And I am ashamed of acknowledging how necessary is this provision; otherwise that extortion to which the poor are now exposed would pursue them again. I have ascertained beyond all doubt, that in those few instances where the poor now obtain, or have been suffered to retain, the advantages in question, they too frequently pay for them, on the average, more than double what is demanded from the larger tenants in the immediate neighbourhood. If these advantages be secured to the little cultivator, I will engage for the effects. Happiness will be conferred upon the class in question, and their superiors will also be rewarded; for to the arguments which justice and generosity suggest, those which self-interest supplies may be fairly added. This plan would diminish the burthen of the poor-rates, now so heavily felt in many of the agricultural districts of this country; and this most important consequence, I proceed to shew, would take place, from instances in which a similar plan has been put into operation by means of private benevolence. The instance I shall first adduce is that which occurred in the parish of Long Newton, in the county of Gloucester, where the excellent and benevolent father of the present member for the University of Oxford, the late Mr. Estcourt, stated that, out of 196 persons, thirty-two families, consisting of 140 persons, were poor, and indeed in the depth of extreme poverty, to use his own words. The poor-rates amounted to 324l. 13s. 6d. In order to extricate them from this state of misery and wretchedness, he adopted a plan in some respects similar to the one I now propose; and what have been the consequences? An immediate abatement in the misery of the poor; the most gratifying improvement in their character and morals; and a progressive diminution in the poor-rates down to 135l., in 1829 (the last year reported), amounting to 10d. in the pound only, on the valuation of the parish in 1815. In Skipton-moyne, an adjoining-parish, where the same course is pursued, I find the poor-rates have diminished between 1813 and 1829, from 367l. to little more than 209l. on the average of the last three years. In the small parish of Ashley, where the present excellent, member for Oxford University has also pursued the same course since 1812, I find that the poor-rates, which then stood at 89l. in the year 1813, have now dropped to 55l., or 10¼d. in the pound. In other parishes the same effect is taking place under the same auspicious direction. But, perhaps, it may be said, that every plan of benevolence, of whatever character or description, is found to answer under the warm and enthusiastic management of its patron. To show that this system of benevolence does not depend upon mere superintendence, I will, lastly, give another instance where the cottagers have been allowed these privileges for at least 200 years; for at that time an in closure took place, and the then owners had the good sense and humanity to reserve a small allotment for the purpose of letting it to the cottagers at moderate rates. A gentleman who communicated this fact to the Board of Agriculture, above thirty years ago, through Lord Winchilsea, says, as a natural consequence of such a system'—'We can, therefore, 'hardly say that there are any industrious 'persons here who are really poor, as there 'are in places where they have not this 'advantage.' This communication was made in 1796, and I have been anxious to see the effect of this system, imperfect as it is in some respects, on the poor-rates. I find that, on the average of the last seventeen years, namely, during the period in which we have had annual returns, the amount averaged 25l. 4s. 8d. only; or, on the valuation of 1815, rather more than 4½d. in the pound; or perhaps 1d. in the pound on the value of the whole produce of the parish. Would the most parsimonious manager of the poor require a less demand upon the national or parochial funds than this? In two other instances, one a village in Lincolnshire, and another in Worcestershire, the same management has produced equally beneficial results. I had meant to have given some equally authentic proofs of the individual happiness this system creates wherever it has been partially introduced; but time will not admit. To the poor in particular, to use the language of a most intelligent correspondent of the Board of Agriculture, 'the advantage is so great, as to baffle all 'description.' May it be the business of this House, as it is its evident duty, to make that happiness universal! One other provision I would propose in favour of the poor in districts where it would be needed. I have said much of the want of winter labour for the poor, and of the depression of wages, and consequent pauperism and degradation which exists in consequence of this state of things in several parts of the country. Gardens for the whole, and homesteads for a part, of the labouring poor, would, I am convinced, do much, very much, to remedy these evils at once; perhaps, however, not enough to protect those from the pernicious custom, which degrades, in certain parts, the labouring poor, to whom work, after all, is bread. Employment might, therefore, in certain cases be still wanted, and, in far more, adequate remuneration for the employed, and these are objects, as I take it, very easy to be accomplished. The celebrated law of Elizabeth, I need not say, prescribed that labour should be furnished for the able but unemployed poor; and to effectuate this, it contemplated the establishing parochial manufactures on the domestic system. And this was then a wise and practicable plan, as most of the manufactures of the country, at least in their initial stage, were then pursued in the cottage. And see, Sir, what a vast and expensive task our ancestors undertook in their measure of providing employment for the poor. They contemplated the general advance of capital, the purchase of stocks whereon to employ the numerous unemployed poor, and that superintendence which was necessary for realising such a scheme. Compared with all this, the plan I should pro- pose, would be easy, and the burthens it would impose upon the community would be indeed light. But to return; all the writers on this great subject, for at least half a century afterwards, such as Sir Joshua Child, Sir Matthew Hale, John Locke, and many others, placed their projects on the manufacturing basis, properly so called. The workhouses first erected in considerable numbers about a century ago, proceeded upon the same idea, and have led to greater evils, and occasioned a greater additional expense, in managing the poor, than any other part of the existing practice. Fully aware that they are occasionally well and humanely managed (and an exemplary instance occurs in the town where I reside), still, on the whole, the system is a crying evil, and demands immediate revision. Manufacturing labour (properly so called) being, therefore, totally out of the question, it follows, that what Montesquieu emphatically calls "the universal manufacture," the culture of the soil, is the only resource that remains for this important purpose, and happily for us it is of all others that which is most adapted to the peculiar wants and condition of the country. We have lands enough, and, as some contend, hands too many; surely, then, there can be no hesitation whether, or in what manner, we shall employ those whom we are otherwise compelled to sustain in idleness. The desiderata on this branch of the subject are these: first, to increase employment without improperly interfering with the general market of labour; secondly, to sustain at a just remunerating price the value of the labour of those who are willing and anxious to work for their subsistence; thirdly, to compel those to labour who would otherwise seek to be maintained in voluntary idleness. All these objects, each of which are so desirable, might be secured by taking a parochial allotment of land, and cultivating it by spade husbandry. To the employment thus created, the unemployed might and would repair; those also who were offered totally inadequate wages, such as would eventually send them to the parish to make them up to a living amount, would resort to the same lawful means of avoiding pauperism and oppression; and, lastly, those who wish to subsist without labour on the parochial funds, would be by this means prevented so doing. In such a country as this, demanding as it does so enormous an importation of the necessaries of life, the only market of labour really interfered with by this plan would be that of foreign countries, and the only persons who would be otherwise than sensibly benefitted would be the idle and profligate paupers. I had prepared myself more particularly for this part of the measure, but the time is gone. The ease with which it could be executed, the certainty of its success, the employment it would create, and the wages it would distribute, principally at the seasons of the year when labour is not supposed to be the most scarce, the advantage to the parishes of the country and to the public at large, these formed a large part perspectively of the subject which I have this night brought before the House; but upon these topics, for the reason I have stated, I must not enter. I shall now proceed to the means by which I propose to put this measure into execution; and this also I must, for the same too obvious reason, touch upon with very inconvenient brevity. The necessary machinery, then, for executing this plan I would take, in the first place, from the parochial officers already appointed by law—the Churchwardens and Overseers of the poor, who are, as a body, a most useful and meritorious class; but I would not, however, resign the duty to them without control, as it might, and sometimes would, so happen in the country parishes, that they would have been parties to the mischiefs of which I have been speaking, and therefore not the most proper, or perhaps willing persons to remedy them. To them, therefore, I would add another important parochial functionary, to be created by law for this purpose, whose duty it would be to see, that the various provisions of the Act were truly and impartially carried into effect; conjointly with the present parochial officers, if that might be; but, if the latter should withstand the execution of the measure in the manner or spirit in which it is proposed to be carried into effect, then proceeding on his own authority, subject, however, to an appeal to the Quarter Sessions as to the propriety and fairness of his decision. This office would probably fall upon the resident, or, as he is sometimes called, the working clergyman, and, if so, from all I have witnessed or read in Committees or reports of this House, the better, generally speaking, would it I think be for the poor. He was the individual contemplated in the Bill of the present Lord Chancellor when he proposed his benevolent measure touching education, to this House, which demanded local superintendence and management; but perhaps the appointment should not be thus fixed by law, but left to the parishioners, the poorest, however, in this case having their votes, or to the Magistrates of the division, as the farmers might overawe the poor in their choice; but this I leave to the wisdom of this House to determine. The office, by whomsoever undertaken, would be a thankless and unprofitable one, but its best and indeed high reward would be, the consciousness of largely administering to the public prosperity, as well as serving to an almost indescribable extent the deserving and industrious poor. Its conjoint duty would be, to select sites, and cause the erection of a certain number of cottages necessary for the decent accommodation of the labouring poor of the parish; to see that these and the cottages already in being had good and sufficient gardens attached to them, adjacent if possible, or at a convenient distance; if otherwise, to determine upon those labourers, according to the qualifications already stated, who shall have the advantage of keeping their cow, and to fix upon the conveniences for their so doing; to apportion, where such a measure would be found necessary, a plot of land as a work-field for the unemployed poor; and lastly, to ascertain that all these advantages were obtained at a current and reasonable rate as to rent. This officer I would denominate Guardian, or Protector of the Poor, investing him with powers to carry these propositions into effect, but imposing upon him no duty as to receiving or disbursing any of the sums required for realizing the measure. That this plan shall stand clear from a multitude of frivolous, or even from some real objections, is more than I anticipate. I defy, however, its opponents to advance any objections against the measure in the slightest degree comparable in magnitude to that of allowing things to remain as they are, to the utter destruction of the comforts and morals of the poor, and the imminent peril of the peace of society. I will only take up the further time of the House while I anticipate one of these, and it shall be that which I think will alone be put forth, and worthy of a moment's consideration; it is that founded upon a rigid view of the rights of property. I will speedily dispose of this objection, so as to convert it into an argument in my favour, if there be any longer an honest intention to deal equally in matters of law and equity with the different ranks of society amongst us. In pleading for the restitution of the humble privileges of the poor as I have done, be it recollected that I have not asked for an indemnity for past spoliations, nor for any eleemosynary grants in lieu of them. I merely wish to put it to the House as a simple question of law and policy, whether the demand I make can be with the least colour of justice rejected. Sir, the rights of private property, ever since they have been recognized, have been made to give way to public necessity, or even convenience, not indeed by way of sacrifice, but for a reasonable compensation. Thus in the country the public road is projected, and when created, widened, shortened, or changed in its direction, or even a man's field broken into to obtain the necessary materials, whether in grass or tillage; the canal is dug, or the railway driven through an entire district, principally for the benefit of distant places and persons, so far interfering with the rights of property, and often inconveniently, in hundreds of parishes. In our cities whole streets are demolished, bridges erected, new approaches formed, nay, extensive alterations often carried into effect, whose sole apparent object is ornament and display; yet all of these demand, and on such terms as the law prescribes, the surrender of private property, and the often unwilling removal from their accustomed situations and established means of subsistence, of numbers of individuals. Now, I deny that while the object in any such instances, however proper in itself, is at all comparable in importance to the one at issue, however regarded, yet I maintain, that the liberty taken with property in any of these cases is infinitely greater than that which I propose; and yet that is never urged as a valid ground of objection against extensive and important improvements. Show me then an improvement in any one point of view at all comparable to that which promises to give happiness, peace, and prosperity to millions of the people; which would beautify instead of deforming the face of the country; which would increase its value and multiply its resources; in a word, which should restore to the poor, and upon just and adequate terms, the privileges which they once gratuitously possessed, and without which it is impossible that they should subsist in comfort, or continue in peace, and which would effectuate all this by the slightest possible sacrifice—by none whatever, indeed, when properly computed. Sir, I would fain hope that in this House the condition of the poor will still meet anxious consideration—that here their wrongs will find redress. The suggestions of private benevolence, aided indeed by the soundest views of policy and interest, have long been urged in vain; their wrongs have gone on increasing, and will never be redressed except this House interfere. Let it do so then, and without delay. Let wealth allow that poverty which incessantly labours for its benefit, a comfortable abode wherein to rest. Let those who demand their summer toil, give them the means of employment and subsistence in the winter season; let the cry of them that reaped our fields come up before the Lord of the harvest, that Deity who is no respecter of persons, or, if he be, who is the respecter of the poor and needy. If feelings of justice and gratitude no longer sufficiently prevail, let those of just apprehension and of awakened fear be added. Recollect the mighty power with whom we have to deal. Like another Sampson we may deem it blind, and doomed to grind at the mill for our pleasure and convenience, but let the economists and politicians take care how they sport much longer with its awakened feelings, lest the spirit of vengeance and of strength return upon it, and it bow itself mightily against the pillars of your unrighteous system, and destroy the social structure, though itself perish in its ruins. But, Sir, I hope and believe that this House will listen to the suggestions of kindness and benevolence;—that it will support a measure which demands the permanent sacrifice of none of the property of the country, but which, on the contrary, would greatly lighten the burthens it now sustains, and, above all, would give prosperity and peace to our rural poor. Let the House, then, assume its noblest character, that of the protector of the poor, and, seeing that the suggestions of humanity, and the dictates of policy have been long disregarded, let the law once more interpose its sacred shield, and protect the defenceless and the wretched from the miseries which they have too long endured. With these observations, I beg leave to move to bring in a Bill, having for its object, to better the condition of the labouring poor.

said, he seconded the Motion with great pleasure, as he hoped it would lead to beneficial results. He believed and hoped the hon. Gentleman was generally correct in the views he had taken, but there was one point in which he in some degree differed from him. He could not altogether agree with the hon. Mover in the view taken of the effects of large enclosure acts. He believed that great benefit had often arisen to the poor from the in closure of waste lands, inasmuch as it had made that which was previously of little value, worth much more by the labour which had been employed upon it, and by these means, as well as by capital laid out upon it by the proprietors in the vicinity, who were interested in its improvement by the additional value which thereby attached to their former properties; the land in such situations was rendered more useful and productive. Another question, however, in which he fully concurred with the hon. Mover was, that there was little doubt but that, were the labour upon our farms done solely by English labourers, there would be no redundancy of the labouring population felt. There was as little doubt, too, that one of the severest evils this class experienced was in the deficiency of houses and cottages for the poor in respect of number. Much comfort and health would result from a fair and proper apportionment of garden ground to each tenement. The garden ground should not be so large that it would afford occupation altogether to the labourer, so as to render him independent enough to decline hiring out his services upon the farms in the neighbourhood. It was difficult to say whether the object could be in this instance best accomplished by the interference of Government itself, or by the voluntary efforts of land proprietors, throughout those counties to which allusion had been so feelingly made by the hon. Mover.

said, that he entirely concurred—as, unfortunately, he was obliged to do—in the hon. member for Aldborough's description of the distress of the poor; and he had been very anxious to hear what the remedies were which the hon. Member proposed to alleviate that evil. Those remedies, as he understood, were to give habitations to the labouring poor, and to attach small portions of ground to them as gardens. He was inclined to think, that providing small gardens to be cultivated by the poor was a desirable thing; but he thought that benefit could not be so well attained by legislative enactment as by private arrangement. The mode in which the hon. Member intended to effect his object—namely, by an Act of Parliament—appeared to him not to be free from considerable difficulties. At the same time, as the hon. Member had bestowed such pains on all matters connected with this subject, he thought ft desirable that the House should agree to give him leave to bring in his Bill. The Bill would then be placed on the Table and printed, and hon. Members and the country would have an opportunity, before another Session, of considering how the law would operate.

expressed his gratitude to the hon. Member for Aldborough for the pains which he had taken with this subject. He doubted, however, whether the hon. Member had explained the whole cause of the mischief to which he had directed the attention of the House. The hon. Member had represented the condition of the peasantry of this country to be one of great depression and degradation. He admitted, with regret, that in some parts of the Kingdom their condition was deplorable; but that was not the case in all parts of the country. There was a marked and distinct difference between the condition of the peasantry in the orthern and in the southern portion of the country. He believed that the cause of the depression of the poor in the southern part of the country was the abuse and mal-administration of those laws which were intended to protect and support them. To provide a remedy, then, for these evils it was necessary to go back to those laws, amend them where they were defective, and, above all, provide for a due administration of them. He should have hailed the speech of the hon. member for Aid-borough with unmingled pleasure, but for the hard terms with which he was pleased to assail the political economists of the day. To have held that class of persons up to the detestation of the country, as ungifted with the sympathies of humanity, was not following the candid course which he should have expected from his hon. friend. He agreed with him as to the necessity of affording better habitations for the poor; although he was of opinion with the hon. Member who spoke second, that it would be a very great evil to increase them to too great an extent. Upon the question of redundancy he should not say one word. He believed the laws of population being imposed by nature had best be left to themselves. He might observe, however, that if the Poor-laws were so administered as to place the married man in a better situation than the single man, they did interfere with the natural check to redundancy which would otherwise exist. With regard to the proposition for making allotments of small portions of land to cottagers, there could not be the least objection to it; on the contrary, it was now universally admitted, that the adoption of a general measure of this nature would be most beneficial. Not merely a feeling of benevolence and humanity would dictate the course marked out by his hon. friend, but even when the matter was regarded as a question of self-interest, the inducement was strong to embrace the measures he recommended. If the poor man had his small piece of land to cultivate, a powerful stimulus was held out to his industry, and he was raised from his present depressed condition, which had, in many parts of the country, completely demoralized and debased the character of the peasantry. By adopting this course, the poor-rates would, in a short time, be reduced materially, and thus a service would be rendered both to the landlord and the tenant. Nothing could be more absurd or pernicious than to suppose that it could be beneficial to the landlord or tenant that there should be a high poor-rate and a low rate of wages. He entreated the attention of the House for a few minutes to a paper relative to the local taxation in three of the southern and three of the northern counties of England. In the southern counties the bad system had been acted upon of placing the labourers upon the poor-rates, and making an allowance in proportion to the man's family; and in some of these counties the poor-rates were, according to the official returns, more than double, and sometimes triple the amount of the rates assessed upon the parishes in the northern counties of England. This was particularly the case in Sussex, where the system prevailed to the greatest extent, and where the condition of the peasantry was worse than in any other county in England. He would ask any one, who had any doubt on this subject, to refer to the evidence taken before the Committees of 1824 and 1829, who were appointed to inquire into the condition of the agricultural poor. From the returns it appeared, that in the county of Sussex the amount of poor-rates, measured by the property-tax of 1815, was 6s. 9d. in the pound, in the county of Bedford it was 6s. 2d., in the county of Buckingham it was 5s. 5d., in the county of Kent it was 5s. 8d., and in the county of Suffolk 5s. in the pound. Now for the counties in which no such abuses had existed. In the county of Northumberland the poor-rates were but 1s. 7d. in the pound, in the county of Westmoreland 2s. 4d., in the county of Cumberland 2s. 1d., and in the county of Salop 2s. 4d. Thus, taking the average of the rates in the counties where the system prevailed, and that of the other counties he had mentioned where it did not, it appeared, that the poor-rates on the latter were not quite equal to one-fourth of what they were in the former. And independent of this great difference in the rates, the difference in the comforts and happiness of the poorer classes of the two districts was most striking. It was now generally admitted that, in proportion as the wages were good, so would be the conduct of the labouring classes. The system of reducing the rate of wages to the lowest possible grade, had done more to demoralize and corrupt the lower classes of this country than all other circumstances together. The only way to remedy the evils which prevailed in the southern parts of England was, to restore the peasantry of those parts to the same condition of independence as the peasantry of the north, to go gradually back to the original administration of the Poor-laws, and let the labourer work out his own independence. The gentlemen of England were interested in the highest degree in promoting any measure for the amelioration of the condition of the peasantry, and, unless effectual steps were taken, not only would the poorer classes continue to suffer from privation, but the higher and middle ranks of society would also be materially injured. A subject of greater importance than the present, namely, the removing the abuses of the Poor-laws, and the promoting the welfare of the labouring classes, could not be pressed upon the attention of the Legislature. He rejoiced, therefore, that the hon. member for Aldborough had brought forward his motion, and although he did not agree in all points with him, he should be happy to give his humble assistance in any endeavour to remove those evils and errors in the administration of the Poor-laws; and this might be done by returning to the Poor-law in its original enactments and in its spirit.

was understood not to offer any opposition to the introduction of the Bill. He would not follow the hon. member for Aldborough through the details of his plan, for he thought it would be as useless to discuss the causes of, or the remedies for, the distresses of the labourers, with a Gentleman who disclaimed all knowledge of the science which treats of the condition of the people, as to argue about grammar with the professor who should avow his ignorance of the theory of language, or about an operation in surgery with a man who boasted his contempt for the study of anatomy. The hon. Member seemed to imagine that he had made a valuable discovery in the laws which regulated the increase of the human species, and which he appeared to think should be compared to the discoveries of a Galileo or a Newton. The hon. Gentleman had found out that a small population would increase much more rapidly than a large one; that was, that 200 persons would increase much more rapidly than 400. He certainly could not compliment the hon. Member on the result he had arrived at, for, had he extended the analogy a little further, he would have arrived at a most extraordinary conclusion. He did not intend to offer any opposition to the introduction of this Bill, but he certainly should, if it were persisted in next Session, endeavour to point out some of the inconveniences that would result from many parts of it.

felt called upon to make a few observations on this subject, to which he had paid considerable attention. He was not unfriendly to the principles of political economy, but they had been erroneously applied to the present question. Many who were most anxious to improve the condition and add to the comforts of the labouring population of this country, were opposed to the proposition for giving small detached portions of land to the peasantry, on the ground that it would tend to multiply and increase their number. Now, as far as his experience went, and his knowledge was more of a practical than of a theoretic nature, the result was of a directly contrary description. In proportion as the comforts of the labouring classes were increased, they were made less reckless of the consequences of their conduct; and a spirit of industry was excited, and the desire which was so fruitful in man, of bettering his condition, was increased. In what country in the, world had population increased more rapidly than in Ireland? And had not that arisen from the dependence and low condition of the peasantry, who were aware that, by no exertions of their own, could they better their condition? Although, therefore, he could not give his approbation to all the plan of the hon. Member, he should be most favourable to any proposition for apportioning small pieces of land to the cottages of the labouring poor. The system of paying wages out of the poor-rates had had a most pernicious effect upon the morals and character of the peasantry of the parts of the country in which it had prevailed. He held in his hand the reports of the Overseers of two large parishes, situated in the county which he had the honour to represent, of the state of the, poor in those parishes. He should like to be in possession of such documents relative to the condition of the labouring classes in all parts of the country; for, by means of the in formation to be derived from such papers as these, the Legislature would be able to arrive at a much more correct conclusion than it now could do as to the real stale of the people. He had received a number of similar reports from the Overseers of other large parishes in the county of Surrey, and they all confirmed the conclusions he derived from them. In the first, of those parishes there were between ninety and a hundred married, and between fifty and sixty single labourers; the number of persons receiving relief from the parish in winter was fifty-live; and of these, forty were constantly dependent on the poor-rates for support. The amount paid in poor-rates was, in summer, about 30l. a month, and in winter 50l. In this parish there were from ten to fifteen labourers who had small pieces of land annexed to their cottages. In the other parish the proportions in every respect were higher, and the condition of the labouring classes was worse, and there was this additional circumstance, that in not a single instance was a portion of land annexed to the cottage of a poor man. Not only the happiness and well-being of the peasantry would be promoted by a measure, having for its object the allotting small portions of land to the agricultural labourers, but also the landowners and farmers would be gainers in the great improvement that would take place in the morals and character, and habits of industry, of those classes. He regretted that the bill which was introduced by the Duke of Richmond into the other House, relative to the, condition of the poor, and which was now on the Table of this House, could not be passed into a law before the prorogation. He regretted that the laudable example of the Sussex landowners, who entered into associations for the purpose of giving small portions of land to the peasantry, and for other measures to improve the condition of the poor, had not been followed in other parts of the country. He trusted that the example would not be lost on the gentry of the county he had the honour to represent, and he was determined to give his best exertions to form such associations in those districts with which he was connected. He was convinced that this object would be much better effected by private arrangement amongst country gentlemen, than by any legislative enactment. It was most painful to the Magistrates to have continual applications made to them by able-bodied labourers, both married and single, who were both able and willing to work, but, not withstanding all their exertions, were unable to procure it. If each family were allowed a small patch of land, parishes would be exempt from those distressing cases which were now continually occurring. He trusted that effectual steps would be taken without delay, and that, a large distribution would be made of land, which was at present uncultivated, to the agricultural population of the country. If active measures were not taken at once, the whole character of our peasantry would be deteriorated, and only a multitude of paupers would remain.

was anxious something should emanate from Government, to show to that class of the people to whom allusion had so eloquently been made by the hon. Mover, that the Government was desirous to alleviate and remedy, in part, at least, the effects of a highly injudicious system of dispensing the Poor-laws in the south of England. The subject was one which must at last be taken up by Government itself. The measures of Mr. Sturges Bourne had done much at the time; but Government must again interfere, and that shortly. He was grateful to the hon. Mover for the attempt to introduce the Bill he had described, and prefaced with so eloquent a descant on the acknowledged inconveniences and sufferings of the labouring poor; and though it was too late to expect the Bill should go through the House this Session, the introduction of the subject could not fail to be productive of benefit to this most interesting class of the people.

expressed his approval of the measure proposed by the hon. Member, and said he was of opinion that, unless something were speedily done to relieve the sufferings of the poor, evils very affecting and serious in their consequences must soon occur. He regretted that this measure had not been made to occupy the attention of Parliament at an earlier stage of the Session; it would then have been received with more satisfaction, and obtained a degree of attention more commensurate with its importance.

, in answer to an observation which had fallen from the hon. member for Aldborough (Mr. Sadler), said, that the maxim which had been quoted from Lord Bacon—namely, that in all alterations of the allotments of land, the rights of the people should be carefully preserved—was strictly attended to. Those rights had been most sacredly attended to in all Inclosure Acts. If what the hon. member for Aldborough had stated were the fact—if the poor were oppressed and deprived of their rights under those Acts, then, surely, the hon. Member ought to become a Reformer in order to assist them in recovering that of which they were said to be unjustly deprived. Where a man possessed a little garden, or had the privilege of depasturing a cow, here he admitted there was a right which ought to be protected: but he would ask, when gipsies took up their residence on a common, to the annoyance of the surrounding neighbourhood, did their sojourn give them a right which ought to be protected? In different parts of the country an idea prevailed, that if a hovel were erected and afire lit in it, the individual who performed these acts obtained a right to the soil. But such a principle was wholly contrary to law, and its fallacy ought to be generally known.

entirely approved of the proposed measure. It related to a subject which, though so long in making its appearance, was of great interest and importance to every Gentleman in that House, He had no doubt the hon. Gentleman would obtain his Bill; he hoped he would, and he trusted that at an early stage of the next Parliament, the Government would take it into its immediate consideration, and propose such amendments as were necessary; for he did not think the measure of the hon. Gentleman likely to supply more than a very partial remedy to a very general evil. That something ought to be done, and that speedily, the House must agree with him. No situation, of any' amongst the most unfortunate of human beings, was more pitiable than that of the poor honest man, who was willing and anxious to work for his bread, but was forced to submit to the degradation of subsisting in idleness upon a pittance below that of felons. The poor deserved the attention of that House, and that House was bound to afford it them. Before he concluded, he wished to call the attention of the House to a circumstance which he must consider a reproach to them. It had long happened that in this House the attention of the Members of the Government was engrossed, until nearly the close of every Session, by some one great measure, which left them neither time nor energies sufficient to enable them to proceed with matters even of the most vital importance to the interests and well-being of society. He hoped, however, that early in their next meeting the Government would take into consideration some comprehensive and complete measure for the relief of the present great hardships under which the poor were labouring.

said, that when the hon. and learned member for Stafford stated that no inclosure bill was passed which did not contain a provision to protect the rights of the poor, the hon. and learned Member forgot to state how that provision was carried into effect. There was, in each inclosure bill, an enactment, imposing on the Commissioners the duty of dealing with the property. They were either to let out the property itself, or, if it was sold, they were to in- vest the money produced by the sale in the public funds. Still it was true, that the rental derived from the one course, or the interest which accrued from the other, was misapplied. Many individuals, who had claims upon property of this kind, were, at the present moment, receiving little or no benefit from it. The amount of the rental, or of the interest were not given to those who were struggling for independence—who were anxious to escape from being placed on the parish books. If, was carried to the general fund, to relieve the landed proprietors, instead of being granted to those to whom it really belonged. Against the advance of money by Government there were a thousand reasons, political and fiscal. Little benefit could be derived from the advance of 100,000l., which, in its commiseration, the public might be willing to grant; but immense good might be effected by pursuing the inquiry which was now going forward, and which, he hoped, would rescue millions of money, applicable to the relief of the poor, from the situation in which it was at present placed. The hon. member for Oxford had regretted that, even in the present Session, a measure had not been brought forward to soothe the feelings of the people. Such a measure had been brought forward—such a measure would be again brought forward—he spoke of the measure of Parliamentary Reform, which was, as regarded the people of this country, infinitely more powerful and infinitely more beneficial than any measure on the subject of the Poor-laws that had ever emanated from either side of the House.

felt greatly indebted to the hon. Member who brought forward this subject. He totally differed from the hon. Member who spoke last, for he was of opinion that this subject was of much more importance to the people than the Reform Bill. It was a delusion to hold out that the poor would derive any benefit from the Reform Bill. He was sure, that even the anticipation of such a measure as that now proposed would give comfort to the people. He had received a letter last week from a clergyman in the country, stating, that in his parish there was a family consisting of twelve persons living in one apartment, thirteen feet square; a man, his wife, two daughters and their husbands, and six children. Was there anything so miserable as that even in Ireland? It was to be lamented that the hon. Member should have had the mortification of addressing his excellent speech to a House not containing many more than fifty Members. If the Slave-trade had been under discussion the benches would have been filled, but the condition of the peasantry of England excited little sympathy. If his Majesty's Ministers had sent down Commissioners to inquire into the cause of the burnings instead of inquiring into the boundaries of boroughs, they would have saved hundreds from transportation. The poor were driven to thievery and roguery by the bad treatment which they have experienced. He begged to call attention to some regulations made in the year 1822, in the county of Wilts, and which demonstrated that the agricultural labourers were then in the most wretched condition. The allowance for a labouring man, his wife and two children, was from 4s. to 5s. 6d. a week, or a gallon of flour and 4d. per head were allotted to those persons, according to circumstances, and thus were these unfortunate people left without lodging, clothing, or fuel, and nothing given them but a bare allowance of bread, not equal to half the allowance given to a felon. Where the children increased in numbers, the allowance per head was reduced. Was it then a matter of surprise, when starvation had driven these people to madness and despair, that they looked upon their landlords with enmity and upon the operation of the laws with horror, and that the public should not consider themselves safe from the re-action of such deplorable circumstances? He thought the great danger to which the country was exposed, arose from the situation and condition of these people, and he hoped that something efficacious would be done to remedy it.

said, the document alluded to by the member for Preston never regulated the price of labour in the county of Wilts. The only object of these regulations was, to make some provision for the surplus unemployed population. The wages at the time they were made were 8s. or 9s. a-week. The hon. Member was mistaken in supposing that such regulations gave rise to the late disturbances in Hants. He went, as a Magistrate, for the purpose of dispersing one of the meetings, and arresting some of those concerned. The meeting consisted of 1,500 persons, most of them fellow parishioners of his, and there was not one of them out of work, and not one who had not a good cottage. In fact those were most forward at the meeting who were best off. One of them, the leader in breaking his machines, was a carpenter who had worked for him twenty-five years, and never earned less than 25s. a-week. His gardeners also, who had good wages, left their work and joined the rioters. When asked afterwards what their reasons were, they said they could give none—that it was infatuation. That was sufficient to show that the disturbances did not originate in the cause mentioned by the member for Preston.

begged also to return his thanks to the hon. member for Aldborough for the manner in which he had brought this subject forward. He was persuaded that he had not exaggerated the miserable condition of the labouring classes in England. It was such as every humane man must deeply lament. No doubt much of the misery of the poor arose from the altered state of society, by our becoming a manufacturing from an agricultural country. He fully agreed with him, that it was the absolute duty of the Government to endeavour, if it could, to restore to the poor man his former advantages either in substitute or in kind. His hon. friend proposed to restore them in kind, and he went with him to the full extent of his wishes, although he must confess, that he did not think his measure would effect all the relief he anticipated. The poor man could never be comfortable unless there was full employment for his labour. He carried to market a strong arm and a willing mind, and expected in return a comfortable subsistence. The only effectual remedy, then, for the distress of the poor man was, by a proper system of legislation, to encourage the capitalist to employ him to a greater extent than he now did. No pains bestowed on this subject could be bestowed in vain; for any improvement in the condition of the labouring classes was not merely beneficial to them, but highly advantageous to all the higher classes. What induced him as much as anything else to vote against the Government of the Duke of Wellington, nearly as much, perhaps, as his refusal of Reform, was, although he came there inclined to support him, the answer of the right hon. member for Tamworth, when asked whether it was intended to institute any inquiry into the condition of the labouring classes, he answered that question by saying, that nothing could be done—that they should only embarrass themselves—and that it would be useless to excite expectation. That was not the answer that ought to have been given. The present Government had come into office under a pledge that they would inquire. But it would be unreasonable, fully occupied as their time had been by the Reform Bill, to expect that they could now bring forward a well-considered measure. They were about, however, to have a period of repose, and he doubted not that they would turn their minds to this subject. It was most essential that they should do so, for he was satisfied that the consequences would be dangerous, if some effective measure for the relief of the lower classes was not brought forward.

stated, his hon. friend did not say, that it was the design of the hon. member for Aldborough to inflame the people; but he did say that his speech had a tendency to do it. If there could be a speech calculated to convince the poor that a careful regard to their interest and rights was had in that House, it was the speech of the hon. member for Aldborough. The hon. and learned member for Stafford denied the legal existence of the rights of the poor; he who asserted those rights was charged with exciting the people to discontent, instead of that charge being laid upon him who denied them. This was a subject of great and paramount importance—of an importance infinitely superior to that upon which this House had been so recently and so long engaged. He could not refrain from expressing his satisfaction at witnessing the House of Commons, at length, resuming its proper duties and its proper business—that of inquiring into the situation of the people—that of looking into the state of the country. If that state was such as it was described to be by the hon. member for Aid-borough, by the hon. member for Preston, by the hon. Member who spoke last, and such as no one had denied it to be, it presented a scene of misery, suffering, degradation, pauperism, and crime, which could not long exist with security to any interest. This was the real subject of paramount importance, for although the other was described to be so, it. was not a subject peculiarly adapted to the present state of the country, or which, in the present emergency, could relieve existing distress. He did not intend to open afresh the debate on Reform; but taking the late Bill to be all that was said of it by its friends, would it have relieved the people? Yet were the people labouring under a dangerous delusion in that respect, which it became every honest man in that House, of whatever party he might be, to endeavour to dissipate. Would any man say, that that Bill could have relieved the distresses of the poor, or indeed, have been of service to any man? No, it was useless. If the state of the people was such as was I described, ought the exclusive labour of the House of Commons to have been directed to a speculative system of improvement, which at some future period might be of benefit, but which could not affect the existing generation? Whilst they were discussing the speculative improvement, the present generation might die of famine, and that which was to come to enjoy the benefit of this improvement, be bred up in pauperism and in crime. In the course of the Debate of last night it had been said, that the people were under the guidance of dangerous leaders, and that the remedy was, for hon. Members to become the leaders of the people. No doubt they should be; but what was the method pointed out by which they were to become so? By telling them that they might have confidence in the Representatives of fifty counties and of all the great towns. But were men, whose children were perishing for want of bread, to reckon the counties that sent Representatives to that House, which had exhibited a spectacle of non-attention to their crying sufferings rarely seen? If the House desired to lead the people, and have their confidence, it must inquire patiently and deliberately into the causes of their distress, and make that their first business. One of the expressions of the Prime Minister, when he first came into office, was, that an hour should not elapse without an inquiry being instituted into the condition of the people, with a view to their relief. They ought to inquire till the means of relief were found, or till they had the melancholy satisfaction of determining that the cause of the evil was beyond their reach. That was the course by which they might assuage the troubled waters of discontent. He did not despair that, the debate of that night, exhibiting to the people, as it would, the spectacle of the House of Commons engaged in an inquiry suggested by his hon. friend, in a speech full of philanthropy, eloquence, and philosophy, would go far to convince them that the House cared for their interests, and would go a thousand times further than the Debates which had lately excited and agitated hon. Members as well as others.

thanked his hon. friend (Mr. Sadler) for the motion he had brought forward. He did not, however, blame the present Government for not originating it. He hoped his hon. friend would persevere, and not resign the subject into other hands. No man was more capable than himself of prosecuting it with success. Let the House and the country bear in mind, that while the borough of Aldborough, the unfortunate nomination borough, was hooted and hunted down—while the Government and the House of Commons were wasting four or five months in barren speculation, his hon. friend, who represented that calumniated borough, was employing his weeks and months in laborious and diligent inquiry, to prepare himself for bringing forward this important Motion. He defied them to show any county Member, any Member for a town, however large, who could surpass, or even equal, his hon. friend in the industry, the ability, the information, the resources of heart or understanding, which he displayed on this occasion. The hon. Baronet (Sir T. Baring) told them, that some of the misguided men concerned in the recent disturbances, when asked their reason for taking a part in them, said they did not know—that they were infatuated. It would, ere long, be the same with Reform; and when those who were now so strongly excited should be asked the cause, their answer would be the same—they did not know what they were doing—they were infatuated. The agitation they had witnessed for Reform arose somewhat from the same spirit that exhibited itself in the more formidable risings of last winter, and as then, when asked the cause of this dissatisfaction, the same negative answer would be given by the people. They knew nothing of the advantages they would obtain from Reform. They were perhaps in want of bread, perhaps in want of clothing; they were perhaps in deep distress, and for these evils, his hon. friend the member for Aldborough proposed an efficient remedy; but the Ministers, whose business it was to remedy these evils, were hunting after the applause of noisy political assemblies, and they only proposed to cure hunger and cold, that the Parliament should be reformed. To the people, Reform could be of no use, and in fact, they would be as satisfied by the loss of the Reform Question, as they would have been by gaining it. It was a great injustice to accuse his hon. friend of an intention to cause a rising amongst the people. It was not usual for Tories like his hon. friend, for the Representatives of these decayed and scanty boroughs, to disseminate in that House, or elsewhere, opinions on the subject of the comforts of the poor, in such a manner as to be chargeable with spreading anything like dissatisfaction; that was not a Tory vice. That, however, was the only defect the hon. and learned member for Stafford was able to find in the plan of his hon. friend. With respect to his objections to his hon. friend speaking of the rights of the poor, he must beg to inform the hon. and learned member for Stafford, that he did not use them in the strict and narrow sense in which they were interpreted in Maule and Selwyn's reports; or, according to the definition that would be applied to those rights in the Court of King's Bench. His hon. friend spoke of the rights of the poor in that civil, political, moral, and religious sense, in which they must always be spoken of in every civilized community. He did not say, that those rights had been invaded by the system of inclosures, but he did say, that if in its progress more attention had been paid to the practical amelioration of the condition of the poor, they would not have been in the state they now were. The hon. member for Colchester had truly observed, that there had been cases where the possession of land ought to have been specifically and directly secured to the poor. He did not propose to enter at large into all the topics introduced by his hon. friend, but he was of opinion, that the two main principles he had contended for, had been completely established by him. It would be a great advantage to cheapen the cottages of the poor. They were fifty or perhaps 100 per cent too dear. This, with a small allotment of land, would be a great benefit. The rights of the poor ought to be better secured in all future inclosures. Let it go forth to the public, and let it be remembered, that often as the Duke of Newcastle's name had been heard in that House, bandied about from one hon. Member to another, and by some members of the Cabinet too, vilified, cried down, reverberated as it were from the depths of Cacus's cave, as the owner of the nomination borough of Aldborough—let it be remembered, that while Government could spare no time from their speculations to attend to this philanthropic plan, it was digested, prepared, and ably brought forward by the member for the close borough, the rotten borough, of Aldborough. When the tumult and agitation now excited by those who called themselves the friends of the people had ceased, when the people were allowed to take breath and reflect a little, they would inquire, not who represented the largest town, who had the most constituents, but who brought forward plans most likely to prove beneficial to the country.

said, the true source of the evil was, the want of capital, without which the working classes could not possibly have adequate employment. Now, the Question of Reform came directly home to this point, for what caused the want of capital but the overwhelming load of taxes laid on by those insatiable monsters, the boroughmongers? To this it was owing that the poor-rates, which in the time of George 3rd were only 700,000l. had increased to 7,000,000l.

wished to notice a few of the observations which had fallen from the hon. member for Leicester, without mingling political considerations with a subject it was most desirable to keep clear of. With respect to the hon. Member's statement of the amount of the poor-rates at the beginning of the reign of George 3rd, did he not know, that the returns upon which he founded his assertion were acknowledged to be inaccurate? It was matter of historical notoriety that they were, at the time they were made, thrown aside as utterly useless. There was, however, a document drawn up in the reign of Charles 2nd, by a man of great talents and industry, from which it appeared that the poor-rates then amounted to 800,000l., or half the revenue of the country. He would challenge the hon. Member to deny the fact, that the cost of sustaining the poor had, in reference to every other branch of expenditure since then, constantly exhibited a diminishing ratio. Since our returns upon this subject had been more perfect, this fact had been clearly established; and it appeared from them, that every individual who now paid 9s., a few years back paid 13s. He would cast no reflection upon true political economy, but upon that spurious political economy which laboured to deteriorate the condition of the poor, which constantly attacked the feelings so beautifully described by the hon. member for Colchester, which sought to abridge the rights and privileges of animal existence, whilst it protected the rights of the rich. That sort of political economy he should always attack. As to his having obtruded any theories of his own upon the House, he could only say, that he had never done more than refer to matters of fact, which were open to all alike. He was to be set right, as the hon. and learned member for Stafford thought, on a point of law; but he conceived, notwithstanding that hon. and learned Member's illustration of legal technicalities, that he was right, and the hon. Member wrong. He spoke the language of the highest law authorities—not his own. None of the facts he had brought forward had been impugned. It could not be denied, that the ploughshare now made its way where once stood the bower of content, the site of which was now only marked by a few flowers twining up the fence, memorials of humble domestic happiness. It could not be denied that, in many instances, the poor had no habitations in which to dwell. How could the expense of erecting them be objected to, when the rental of the village, which the clergyman he had referred to mentioned, was 700l. a-year? Four or five additional cottages would make all the difference between each family having its own dwelling, and several now living together in that crowded state, which always rendered decency, and sometimes even morality, impossible. The cost of building these cottages, compared with the amount of happiness they would occasion, was so small, that he could not think the Government or the country would refuse to grant the trifling boon now asked. They must remember how large a portion of the revenue of the country came from the poor, before they thought a trifle like this too much to grant them. Something was said by the hon. member for Leicester about the poor being rendered comfortable, only through the means of high profits to the manufacturer and agriculturist. He would ask him whether, during the latter years of the war, agriculture was not prosperous? Yet, in the report on labourers' wages, it was found, that it was at this very time, when the returns on agricultural capital were so large, that the pernicious system which now degraded our labourers took its rise. If they must wait before they were to do anything for the poor till those prosperous times returned again, they must never look forward to doing anything for them at all. The capital wanted for his plan, they had already. He wanted sinews, muscles, and hearts willing to work. These they had, and, by a proper use of them, the produce of the country might be increased, and the character of the whole empire improved. The importance of this plan was underrated by hon. Members. Let them consider the numberless individuals who would be benefited, the happiness that would be diffused, and the improvement that would be occasioned by it, and he was sure its importance would be increased in their eyes, and the difficulties in the way of its execution vanish. He regretted it should have been thought that he had said anything to irritate the feelings of the country. Such was far from his wish; but the agitation which had been occasioned by the present distress could not be calmed without going at once to the bottom of it. The surface of society might be calmed, but the mass of suffering and of distress beneath would heave, and, if not counteracted, lay prostrate all existing institutions. He regretted to hear, since he had entered the House, that the fires were rekindling. He hoped it was not so; but to prevent it, let them make haste to kindle other flames, namely, the flame of gratitude in the bosom of the poor. Let them be told, that their situation was known, and that the House was anxious to afford them relief. Let them be taught again to entertain feelings of respect and affection towards their superiors—feelings which, he must do them the credit to say, he believed they were anxious to renew. In the statement he had made he had much curtailed what he had intended to say; but temporary indisposition, and fear of the House becoming impatient were the cause of it. He had intended to bring forward the plan in the last Parliament, but the pressure of other business had prevented him from doing so. He now begged to thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer for his kindness in allowing him to introduce this measure, and the House for the patience with which it had listened to him.

, in bringing up the Report of the Committee for the improvement of the House, observed, that the bad state of the atmosphere, and the exposure to unequal draughts of air had already caused the death of several hon. Members in the course of this arduous Session. He had to state, that three architects had been consulted—Sir Geoffrey Wyattville, Mr. Benjamin Wyatt, and Mr. Smirke. He would first state in what they agreed, then in what they differed. They all agreed, that the accommodation in the House at present was altogether inadequate to the number of Members, and that two feet was the least space which ought to be allotted to every Gentleman who had to sit for a number of hours. He had admitted, that in the theatres a space of not more than eighteen or twenty inches was allowed. In the House, as it then stood, there were only 700 feet of accommodation; therefore, only accommodation for 350 Members. Now, Sir Geoffrey Wyattville's plan was, on either side to open a recess between the piers of thirty feet, and to cover it with a flat roof, which should not in the least interfere with the building as it then stood. These recesses would afford accommodation to 140 Members. But he considered the plan liable to objection, inasmuch as Mr. Speaker would have great difficulty in seeing hon. Members in those remote recesses; and they would find it scarcely possible to make themselves heard by all the House. Mr. Benjamin Wyatt's plan was, that the House should be projected into the Lobby, and that beyond that another and more extensive Lobby should be constructed—a plan to which he himself inclined, and to which all persons who voted on the late division must, he should imagine, feel well disposed. By this addition to the House there would be accommodation afforded for 100 more Members than at present. According to the usual allowance of eighteen inches space for each person, there would then be in the House accommodation for 590 Members, and for 450, at least, that ample space in which a man of ordinary dimensions might sit, in a comfortable position, for a number of hours. The plan of Mr. Wyatt he considered might be carried into effect at a small expense. His estimate was 344l.; Mr. Smirke's was 350l.; and he thought this plan would give all the accommodation required. The next points to be considered were hearing and ventila- tion. The first might be materially improved by the construction of a new roof, framed and lined with wood; and by the adoption of the ordinary measures, the ventilation might be made infinitely better. These improvements might be effected without any essential alteration in the form of the apartment, for which he had the greatest veneration. Interruption, too, to the Speaker might be avoided according to Mr. Wyatt's plan, by constructing a passage round the apartment, from which doors should open upon every gangway; so that an hon. Member, in taking his place, need never pass over the floor of the House. Nor need there ever be that accumulation of Members at the bar, which now gave rise to such noise and interruption to the debate. The alterations would afford increased accommodations to the Members, would increase the she of the House, would enable them to have it better ventilated, would improve the hearing, and facilitate the means of communication from one part to another, and all this would be performed for the sum of 6,900l. This statement was exclusive of the roof, which would make the sum amount to 10,OOOl. In making the statement, he was bound to tell the House that the Committee appointed to investigate this matter had not agreed with him, and that the Report he had made as their Chairman was of course made according to the wishes of the majority, but his own opinion remained the same as before. The gallant Colonel then proposed that at the beginning of next Session the Committee should be renewed, and should receive at the same time instructions as to which of the plans they should adopt—that of altering the House in the way he proposed, or that of building another, as was suggested by the Committee. He moved that the Report of the Committee be received this day three weeks.

said, that he thought that something ought to be done directly to remedy the inconvenience which was felt From the west window when the wind was blowing in that quarter. He also suggested, that as many hon. Members had their boots shod with iron, and frequently walked or rather trotted, or rather went in a bog-trot amble across the House, a carpet should be put down to diminish the noise.

said, that one observation made by the gallant Colonel in- duced him to say a few words to the House. They were told that, this proposed plan would improve the hearing. He should be glad of that, for it was often said, that members, and he for one, could not be heard; it was so said by the corrupt, hired, and perverted Press. He stated that without fear of what might be said respecting him by that corrupt Press. He had asked for better accommodation for the reporters, who now made excuses for not hearing. All he asked was, not, to be misrepresented. He desired the House to consider this subject attentively, and unless they were satisfied that the proposed alteration would be sure of producing the expected advantages, he should, for one, say, that he should be more willing to lay out. 60,000l. for building a new House, than to expend 6,900l. for alterations that might not be sufficient.

stated, that the Committee, after carefully examining the subject, had come to a conclusion the opposite of that, adopted by their hon. Chairman. He himself was perfectly convinced that, if they attempted to make the proposed alterations, they must, expend a much larger sum without obtaining adequate accommodation, and that in every respect it would be better to have a new House.

said, there was one attempt they ought to make, and that was, to alter the mode of geting fresh air into the House. He understood that they were now at a great expense to pump in fresh air, as it was called, but the chief place from which that fresh air was obtained, was one from which the air sent into the House, at the spot near which he sat, was most mephitic and offensive.

hoped, that something would be done to remedy the present, acknowledged inconvenience of many of the offices attached to the House.

fully agreed with his gallant friend who had introduced this question, that the further consideration of the Report ought to be postponed for three weeks; for, as within that time the prorogation was likely to take place, it would amount to an entire postponement. He was, indeed, a little surprised and disappointed that an hon. Member, with whom he had had the pleasure of voting for the last six months, should now appear as the advocate for reforming this House, and should begin his advocacy by proposing, like the Radi- cals out of doors, to remove the piers. He must oppose him in this Reform, as he had opposed others in one of a political kind, the object of which was also to remove the peers. His hon. and gallant friend had told them, with an odd combination of expressions, that no man could sit comfortably in that House without "two feet;" and had proceeded to calculate their seats by "running measure." This was, indeed, a Reform on fundamental principles, and might not be without its advantage if they saw any prospect of such a union of parties as would form a broad-bottomed Administration. But he thought, under present circumstances, it would be fitter to argue the case à priori, and consider whether they were not very well as they were. It was a remarkable instance of the blindness with which one favourite object or theory will affect the clearest intellects, when his hon. and gallant friend chose this particular moment to produce his proposition for the enlargement of the House. They had last night agreed to a measure that was equivalent to a diminution of the numbers of the House, and on that, the following night, a scheme was offered to them for rendering it capable of containing a larger number of Members. The hon. Gentleman apparently forgot that this House, which had so long been found tolerably convenient for 658 Members, must surely be large enough for a much smaller number. It had been said, that they had not room enough for hon. Members; but the benches were seldom fully occupied, and certainly a greater number of Members could not be expected to attend when the numbers of the House were reduced. On this occasion, which concerned them all, they had but a scanty attendance; it was, therefore, clear, that it was not places that they wanted. He did not blindly reverence the mere antiquity of the edifice; but he could not forget that it was the place in which the Cecils and the Bacons, the Wentworths and Hampdens, the Somers's and the St. Johns, the Walpoles and the Pulteneys, the Pitts, the Foxes, the Murrays, and the Burkes, had "lived, and breathed, and had their being." He did, he confessed, however weak it might appear to the strong-minded Reformers of the day—he did feel the influence of the religio loci; and as long as the human mind was susceptible of local associations, he could not disregard the beneficial effect that might be felt from their continuing to assemble on the scene where so many illustrious actors had performed such splendid parts. If patriotism could grow warmer on the plain of Marathon, and piety amid the ruins of Iona, the zeal and talents of British senators might also be exalted by the religious and legislative sanctity with which time and circumstances had invested the ancient chapel of St. Stephen. The hon. Member complained of the disorderly assemblage of Members about the bar during a full House: it happened rather unfortunately for this argument, that while the hon. Gentleman was speaking they were repeatedly compelled to call upon hon. Members to take their places, and to cry out "Bar! Bar!" although there was sitting-room for 250 Members vacant at the moment. It was not places for seating an audience that they wanted, but the power of commanding attention. He was sure that those who had attended to the Debates in that House would agree with him, that whenever a Gentleman rose to whom the House was desirous of attending, he had always the power of making himself heard. He doubted whether any architectural alteration that could be made would ensure either the attention of the House when it was not disposed to listen, or the power of any Member of commanding that attention. Another grievance alleged against the present House was, the narrowness and inconvenience of its benches; but he was inclined rather to admire the House for the peculiarity of its benches; for he knew that if they were uneasy to sit upon, they were still less formed to gratify the propensity which their speeches might occasionally produce, as it was almost impossible to sleep upon them. They knew from the example of Eutychus, that a greater orator than even that House had ever produced, had occasionally set some of his auditory asleep: and, even in this short Debate, the House might see that no additional convenience was necessary to invite hon. Members to repose [one or two Members were observed to be asleep on the back benches.] Another part of his hon. friend's proposition was, to afford wider gangways, and greater facilities of moving about. But he doubted whether that would turn out to be any material advantage, as, at present, many hon. Members kept their places from an indisposition to disturb their neighbours; and were sometimes induced to attend to a, perhaps, tedious duty, and listen patiently to a debate, from which, with easier means of egress, they probably would escape. With the facilities which his gallant friend's plan proposed, they would continually have Gentlemen of locomotive habits moving about, to the obvious interruption of the business of the House and the country. The Irish House of Commons and the French Chambers, which were built according to all the rules of architecture and all the theory of acoustics, were the worst constructed buildings forbearing that was possible, while the English House of Commons, patched and pieced as it was, contained nearly all the advantages a Legislative Assembly could desire. They might make a building as large as Westminster Hall without ensuring attention, for that depended on the speaker and his auditors, and not on the place. He therefore did not think it would be necessary to enlarge the House, though there were some parts of its interior to which the attention of the Board of Works ought to be directed. He should, on the whole, oppose the further consideration of this subject, which he thought quite needless to be introduced at this moment, and which he did not believe could at any time be beneficially arranged on the principles proposed by his hon. and gallant friend.

said, he was particularly unhappy that the right hon. Gentleman had made him the subject of his wit and sarcasm. He was utterly unable to follow the right hon. Gentleman in these respects. He was afraid that he had made a statement which the right hon. Gentleman could not understand.

said, he should feel very sorry if his hon. friend supposed he had meant any personal offence to him; on the contrary, he had the greatest respect and regard for him, and was perfectly aware of the purity of his hon. friend's taste in architecture. All he had ventured to suggest was, that the building they then possessed, notwithstanding many apparent defects, was, in fact, admirably fitted for the great purposes for which they assembled in it.

moved, that the Bankruptcy Court Bill be committed.

rose reluctantly to address the House on a subject of such great importance at so late an hour of the night; but he was obliged to do so in consequence of the determination of his Majesty's Ministers to submit a measure of this importance to the consideration of the House at that period of the Session, and at so late an hour. Before he proceeded to make the observations with which he should have to trouble the House on the present occasion, he wished to guard himself against being misunderstood upon two points. In the first place, he desired anxiously not to be understood as considering or treating this as a party question. It was a question of great importance as affecting the general administration of justice, and he should be ashamed of himself if he could be actuated by any other motives than those which ought to influence a man in the consideration of such a question. He would take this opportunity of saying, that if he considered the present measure as one calculated to advance the interests of the community, with reference to the subject to which it related, it should have his humble support from whatsoever quarter it might come. He was also anxious not to be understood as contending, that the present state of the bankrupt-law was one that might not usefully receive some alteration. He agreed with all, or almost all, of those who had considered the subject, that there were several points in which this branch of the law, as well as most branches of it, might usefully receive some alteration. Admitting, therefore, that there might be points in which the bankrupt-law of the country might receive useful alterations, the question was, whether the Bill now before the House, would produce that alteration which was called for, and whether legislation, to the extent proposed by this Bill, could be usefully adopted for the general benefit of the community. He certainly felt some regret at the manner in which this subject was treated by his hon. and learned friend, the member for Winchelsea, and by the hon. and learned member for Newark, neither of whom, treated the subject in that tone of moderation and temperance which the nature of the question required. The hon. and learned member for Winchelsea during the observation which he addressee to the House on this subject, repeatedly diverged from his course, for the purpose of making general observations, tending to the depreciation of that important Court, of which bankruptcy was a separate jurisdiction. He did not wish to allude more particularly to those observations because they were foreign to the matter then in hand. But whenever the question should arise to which those observations should be relevant, he should be quite ready to meet that hon. and learned Gentleman, if possible, to concur with him; and, if differing, to state the reasons on which his opinions were founded. The hon. and learned member for Newark went, if possible, a great deal further, because he thought himself warranted in saying, that the present system of the Bankrupt Laws was one which received the general execration of the public. How his hon. and learned friend, speaking from the very heart of the House—speaking, to a certain extent, as the organ of Government, could bring himself so to characterize the whole system of commercial law, which it. was very possible might remain unaltered, in its present state—how he could bring himself to make such a declaration, he was at a loss to conceive. It might be very well to make such statements when something like proof could be brought for ward to support them; it might be very well to state facts of any kind; but to speak thus of a system which had grown up and gradually improved under the superintendence of the first and best men that had ever sat on the bench in this country—to speak of such a system as a subject of general execration, was something far beyond what he ever expected to hear in that House, and certainly far beyond any observation he ever anticipated hearing from the hon. and learned Gentleman himself. The bankrupt-law of this country was not a law introduced in dark and barbarous times, or in times when institutions were totally foreign to those under which we now lived: it was introduced in the reign of Elizabeth, was amended in the reign of James, and received its grand improvement, under which it continued to be administered for so many years, from one of the greatest and best Judges that ever sat in this country, Lord Hardwicke, under whose auspices that great statute which amended the Bankrupt Laws was introduced. The principle of that statute was, to put the administration of the affairs of bankruptcy under a species of Chamber tribunal, much more competent to investigate matters of account than an open Court not invested with the whole administrative care of the estate, which tribunal was assisted by trustees chosen by the creditors at large for the use and benefit of the estate, and from the decisions of that tribunal appeals were given to the first Judge in the country—namely, the Lord Chancellor. Had it ever occurred to any of the eminent Judges who had held the Great Seal in this country, to change such a system—had it ever occurred to my Lord Hardwicke, that the system was in its nature a proper subject of execration, and that it was a system of law under which a commercial country could not exist, the case might have been different. But did it ever occur to any of them? Did it ever occur to a great man since that time not unfriendly to Reform, not indisposed to change—he meant Sir Samuel Romilly, than whom no man ever existed more desirous to improve the administration of justice. Among other improvements which that great and public-spirited man introduced into the House, there were certain measures which were considered by it with the greatest degree of attention, and which were introduced after the greatest deliberation, for the purpose of improving the Bankrupt Law of the country. These alterations did improve it most materially; but were they of a nature to strike at the whole system? were they of a nature to level with the ground all that Lord Hardwicke had raised on the foundation of his eminent predecessors? Were those alterations of a nature to affect the whole administration of the commercial laws of the country, or to introduce a new system of law, which he would undertake to say, in point of detail, would require at least a twelvemonth to learn, even if then it could be correctly understood? What would be the consequence of launching this new system upon the community, with all its great, and extensive alterations, in lieu of an old system with which the commercial world had been familiar for so many years, he, for one, was at a loss to conjecture. This, however, he could see, that it must produce confusion, to a degree almost indescribable, until the various and extensive new provisions of this Bill, in detail as much as principle, should come to be correctly understood and applied. Having taken the liberty of shortly alluding to the general nature of this Bill, he would now pro- ceed, as shortly as he could, to notice some of the inconveniences of this system which had been pointed out—inconveniences to which the learned and eminent persons to whom he had alluded, were not blind, but against which they endeavoured to guard carefully and sufficiently without unnecessary expense. One inconvenience was the want of judicial power to enforce that respect which ought to be paid to every tribunal. It was discovered that, as the law stood for a considerable time, the Commissioners, sitting to dispense justice, might be treated with insult and contumely, and yet might not be able to protect their jurisdiction by a proceeding in the nature of contempt—that lack of power which had been, if he correctly understood those hon. Gentlemen who had spoken on the other side, one of the causes of the objections which existed to this tribunal. Why, this objection had been already removed; by the existing law, the Commissioners had the same power of enforcing respect as any other Court had. There could be no fair reason for supposing, that since the passing of enactments which had produced that effect, the Commissioners' Court should not be attended with as much decorum and respect as any in existence. Then, it was said, that the lists of Commissioners were composed of improper names; but whose fault was that? It was the fault of the Lord Chancellor for the time being: it was not the fault of any past Lord Chancellor, but of the Lord Chancellor for the time being, who had the power of removing them at his will and pleasure—

"A breath unmakes them as a breath has made."

The Commissioner's was no patent place; he did not hold by warrant of the Crown. The Lord Chancellor handed to his secretary a list of names to whom a commission should be directed, and he, at his own will and pleasure, at any one moment, could direct that no commission should be issued to any one particular individual, and that another name should be inserted. If the Lord Chancellor on coming to the Great Seal, or during the period he administered justice in the Court of Chancery, should find that in this jurisdiction there was an incompetent or improper person, it was not only in his power, but his absolute duty, to decide that no more commissions should be issued to that person. It was said, however, that some of these Commissioners were unfit. He believed they were; but generally speaking, the Commissioners were men eminently fitted to discharge some at least of the duties of their situation alone, and without advice, and certainly qualified, with the assistance they received from those more experienced Commissioners who were always joined in the same list, to perform all the duties of the office in a satisfactory manner, in which manner, according to his judgment, and according to the proofs they had upon the subject, they had discharged them. But probably some proof upon this point, some result of experience might be applied, as a mode of ascertaining the manner in which these Commissioners had exercised their functions. He was, of course, now arguing the case only with reference to the London Commissioners, because one of the peculiarities of this Bill was, that it made a wide distinction between London and country Commissioners; on which latter point he should have a word or two to say presently. From the returns which had been made of the number of appeals prosecuted from the decisions of the Commissioners, it appeared that the average number of bankrupt petitions set down for hearing in the course of the year was, in round numbers, about 600. It must not be supposed that these were all appeal petitions: how many of them did the House suppose were appeal petitions? He had been furnished, from an authentic source on which he could rely, with an account of the number of petitions in bankruptcy in a given half-year,—the half-year from October 1828 to March 1829, both inclusive. The number of petitions in bankruptcy presented in that half-year were 318. Of these 318 petitions, only fourteen were upon questions that had been before the Commissioners; these fourteen, including appeals from the country, as well as from the town Commissioners; and yet this was the jurisdiction that had been branded as incompetent, which had been branded in the face of the country as execrable, and which had been boldly stated as unfit and improper to discharge the duties confided to it. This, however, was not all the information they possessed upon the subject. His learned friend, Mr. Montagu, an authority eminently competent to judge on this subject, as both sides of the House must admit, than whom a more strenuous opponent of this Bill did not live, and who was very properly quoted upon certain points by the hon. and learned member for Newark, in his publication, entitled, "Letters to Sir Robert Peel on the Chancery Commission," gave this information. At a certain period, his honour the Vice-Chancellor, now Master of the Rolls, adopted a plan of classifying the petitions in bankruptcy, that was, taking them under different heads, and taking the different heads in rotation, as he judged most convenient: this afforded an excellent opportunity of ascertaining what these petitions were. Now, the number of petitions set down for hearing before the Vice-Chancellor, Sir John Leach, under that arrangement in June 1826, amounted to 190—of these the number of appeals from the Commissioners amounted only to twenty-three, including appeals from the decisions of the country Commissioners. In the following month of July 1826, the number of petitions set down for hearing was 253, and of these only twenty-seven were appeals from the Commissioners. The proportion, therefore, of appeals was astonishingly small; and it should be recollected, that according to the present system—a system which he wished to see altered as much as any man, and which he would lend his humble aid to alter, if necessary, in any reasonable manner that could be suggested—the case was not heard before the Court of Chancery in the same state as it was heard before the Commissioners, but it was heard on additional evidence. This, however, was a mischievous practice, which might easily be corrected without the assistance of any Act of Parliament, and which he hoped to see corrected before he was six months older. When it was recollected that the number of appeals was so exceedingly small, though many of them were heard on additional evidence, he would ask, how could it be fairly inferred that the Commissioners so exercising their jurisdiction, were an incompetent tribunal? He might be told, that the expense and delay of proceeding prevents the parties from appealing in many cases. He utterly denied that, if that course operated at all, it could by possibility operate to any thing like the extent that would produce this proportion. It was perfectly absurd to suppose that it could be so. He certainly could bring no other warrant for what he stated—no other qualification for this discussion than that of having been for some years practically conversant with these matters, having been employed in them, and the other business of the Court to which he belonged from morning to night. He was enabled to state, that the cases cited by the learned Attorney General, the hon. and learned member for Newark, and the hon. and learned member for Winchelsea, were but a few out of a very great number, and therefore they gave anything but a fair and correct idea of the general state of bankruptcy. The cases which had been cited were those in which very great and complicated accounts had given rise to questions and disputes, which were by no means cases of ordinary occurrence. Now the House should recollect, that these hon. and learned persons had spread their inquiries in picking up these cases over a very long space of time. The case of Martin Thomas was in progress at the time when he (Mr. Knight) was first called to the Bar, a good many years ago: the case of Bartholomew Thomas was nearly as old. In a period, therefore, now spreading over a good many years—his learned friends had been able to select only a very few cases of this description. Apply this period as a criterion to any other branch of the laws of this country—for risks and vexation are not confined to any one branch of it—and see whether similar cases had not occurred in other Courts; were there no litigiously contested suits, no expensive actions in the other Courts of this country? Were there no other instances in which the spirit of litigation could be shewn to have succeeded in causing delay and expense? Were there no other cases in which peculiar circumstances had given rise to waste of time and expensive proceedings? He used the expression courteously, but really this was hardly a fair or proper mode of argument. It was not a proper way of bringing before the House the whole state of this branch of the law, to select three, four, or five instances of litigation extending over a period of something more than fourteen years. It might be urged that the cases which his hon. and learned friends had selected were fair samples of the whole. He denied that, from his own personal knowledge: but he did not ask the House to believe the fact because he stated it. He was sure his hon. and learned friend opposite would do him the credit to allow that he believed what he said, or, at least, that he had some knowledge upon the subject, and some experience, and he would assert, that the cases which had been cited afforded nothing like a fair representation of the general nature of cases in the Court of Chancery. Having been concerned in most of the petitions in bankruptcy before the Vice-Chancellor, he had had the means of acquiring information on this subject, and he considered that they were generally far from being voluminous or encumbered with affidavits, and those which were always the most voluminous and contradictory, cases of concerted commissions, would be materially improved by one part of this Bill, of which he very much approved. It was proposed by this Bill to put an end in future to all objections to Commissioners on that ground, and the consequence was, that these voluminous petitions would be done away with. So much, therefore, with regard to the conduct of these Commissioners. The appeals had been wonderfully few. According to all his experience, the parties had not been prevented from appealing by the expense of the proceedings; because, the majority of the cases were those in which the bulk of the affidavits and the expense were not considerable, because the proceeding by which a petition in bankruptcy was prepared was short and simple. It might, perhaps, be stated, that, the parties were prevented from appealing from the decisions of the Commissioners by reason of the delay which took place. No delay with regard to bankrupt petitions ever existed in the Vice-Chancellor's Court; there was at one period a considerable number of very bulky petitions, of great weight and importance, in the Lord Chancellor's paper, but in the Vice-Chancellor's paper—his Honour's being the Court in which they were originally heard—there never was any considerable delay, and there was now none at all. A petition might be heard as soon as it was presented. The number of petitions which stood in the paper of the present Vice Chancellor when the Court rose for the vacation, was very trifling. None had been presented more than two months, and every one would be heard before November was over. But when a bankrupt petition was pressing in its nature, the Court invariably advanced it on the paper. Those who talked of the interminable delay and expense of this proceeding, ought to know, that if any counsel could state to the Court that a bankrupt petition was in its nature pressing to be heard, the Court instantly ad- vanced it—he himself had been repeatedly engaged in cases where there had been a decision of the Commissioners on one day—say Monday—it had been pressing in its nature, the Vice-Chancellor or the Lord Chancellor had been applied to, to advance it; he had done so; it had been in the paper on the following Wednesday morning, and sometimes heard on that morning; or, if time had been required to answer affidavits, it had been heard before the week was out. It was, therefore, the fault, either of the party himself or of the agent, if a case of pressing importance was not heard directly, because the Court was always open. One word more on the subject of affidavits. Nothing tended so much to increase the bulk of affidavit evidence as delay, because the parties often thought that they never could sufficiently add to that description of evidence. Some fact, or some admission, occurred to the recollection or imagination of the individual, which it was supposed might be of importance, and accordingly, it was embodied in an affidavit: this was met by another, and so they went on with affidavits in the shape of assertion and contradiction from time to time, until the bulk of the evidence had, in some few cases, become enormous; but, under the present system, this was prevented, because the petition was set down in its turn to be heard, and those affidavits only were required which might be thought material to the decision of the case, and a vast multitude of facts which were subsequently remembered or imagined, and which were, more or less, material to the issue between the parties, were not given in evidence, accordingly the bulk of affidavits in bankruptcy became less and less every day. He had been induced, in the observations he had made on the Commissioners, to remark on the subject of the jurisdiction by affidavit, to which he must presently again refer, but this would prevent his enlarging much upon that topic, and he had shewn that the affidavits in the Court of Chancery need not be very bulky or expensive. Objections had been urged to a jurisdiction by affidavit generally, and he was quite ready and willing to admit that, there were objections to that mode of investigating questions; but it should be recollected that the proceeding by affidavit had one material advantage—namely, that it enabled them to have the statements of the parties themselves upon oath; and one of the most useful modes of investigating the truth was, to observe narrowly how far a party shrunk from asserting a fact, or from repudiating an assertion—this was an advantage belonging to such a jurisdiction which was not easily redeemed. But the question had been argued as if bankruptcy were the only jurisdiction which decided upon affidavit. Every Court in the country decided upon affidavit to a greater or less extent. Were there not important, cases in which the King's Bench decided on affidavit? He had himself seen cases in the Court of King's Bench decided on affidavits which had exceeded in bulk anything he ever saw in the Court of Chancery; and on questions relating to a new trial, where, in general, the case was discussed wholly on the evidence given in the Court below. In support of this assertion he could mention many cases, and cite one in particular which occurred on the western circuit some years ago. His hon. and learned friends opposite were perfectly aware of the multitude of cases in which both the King's Bench and Common Pleas daily decided on affidavit. This was the case, too, in all matters of lunacy in the Court of Chancery; in cases affecting the guardianship of infants, in questions by which the most important rights in this country were litigated and decided; and, therefore, the House would not here enter into any observations, affecting the general nature of the propriety of the jurisdiction by affidavit without impairing the whole jurisdiction of the country; and if the jurisdiction of bankruptcy was to be objected to on this ground, they must go round to all the Courts in Westminster Hall, and remodel and reform every one of them. They must not be told, then, that the general impropriety of the jurisdiction by affidavit was a reason for introducing an Act of Parliament with respect to bankruptcy; it had nothing whatever to do with it. There were two cases in which the jurisdiction must be by affidavit, must continue to be by affidavit, and in which there were objections to all other modes of proceeding. But why need there be any affidavits at all? If the jurisdiction by affidavit, generally, be so objectionable—if his hon. and learned friends were prepared to bring in their separate measure for destroying the King's Bench jurisdiction by affidavit—and to be consistent with argument they must go that length—then the Lord Chancellor must give his directions, or, if there was any doubt on the subject, a short enactment would do it in a moment, that the parties should proceed before the Court upon the same evidence on which they proceeded in the Court below, and then they would have all they required. The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite seemed to forget, that the Commissioners had the power of examining witnesses vivâ voce. Their depositions were taken down in writing from the mouth of the witnesses, from questions put to them; if it were known by the parties that the case would be tried by the Court above, upon the same evidence as that taken before the Commissioners, they would arm themselves with their witnesses before the Commissioners—they would take the greatest pains to have the latter properly brought before the Court below, and there would not then be so many appeals from their decision. Did all this render this Act of Parliament necessary? What was the nature of the present tribunal? It was established in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; it was amended by Lord Hardwicke; it was improved again by Lord Thurlow, and his great successor; no part of it was attempted to be subverted by Sir Samuel Romilly; and these alterations were proposed under the auspices of a Judge of whom he wished to speak with all possible public and private respect; but who, for all that, had not been at the head of that jurisdiction yet barely twelve months. Under this jurisdiction, questions were, in the first instance, mooted before Commissioners selected by the Lord Chancellor, who was responsible if they were not properly qualified; for, he might change all, or any of them, at a moment's notice. The examination of the witness was vivâ voce, he was confronted with the person to whom he was opposed, and, in the event of a party appealing from the decision of the Commissioners, he had his option of going either before the Lord Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor. He had shewn that this jurisdiction might be relieved from all the inconveniences of affidavit evidence—if affidavit evidence was generally inconvenient, which he was sure no lawyer in that House would say—without being prepared to go this length. He had shewn, that delay did not exist, and that affidavits, if affidavits were to be used, would necessarily be brought within a rea- sonable compass and a reasonably short space of time. He had shewn that every pressing case might be, and was, heard immediately, and that every case which was not pressing might be heard within the space of two months after the petition was filed. This was the actual state of the case. Another objection was made to the present system, namely, that the Commissioners did not attend to their duty—that they had to attend to several commissions at the same moment. If it was as the learned Serjeant, or one of his hon. and learned friends told them—if a Commissioner were so to misconduct himself as to be busying himself with a newspaper when he ought to administer justice, could it possibly be supposed that a Judge who so misconducted himself would not be instantly removed by the Lord Chancellor, who had at any time the power of taking up his pen and striking him out of the list? If there was any real cause of complaint—if it really were a mischief that the Commissioners at public meetings at Basinghall-Street, which place was now substituted for Guildhall, should attend to several meetings at the same time—why did not the Lord Chancellor prevent it? Why did he not—as he might—issue an order that only one commission should be attended to at a time, and that a given portion of time should be allowed for each commission? He had the power, and, if it was required of him, he ought to exercise it. Why had no Lord Chancellor done so? Because it was not requisite to be done: if it were requisite, the number of appeals would be somewhat greater than he had mentioned: he had stated what proportion the appeals bore to the decisions; and could any one suppose that, if the business were so improperly transacted, the number of appeals would not be considerably increased? In point of fact, however, the business at public Meetings was generally of such a nature that, without any inconvenience, two or three Commissions might go on at the same time; because, if it should turn out that the matter was one requiring grave deliberation and discussion, it was adjourned to a private meeting. He was not going round about to avoid mentioning the evils of this subject. He was shewing that it was not inconsistent with the due administration of bankruptcy that considering the nature of the business transacted at Basinghall-street, three or four public meetings might be held at the same time; if this was not the case, and if this were an evil, whose fault was it? Why, it was the fault of the Lord Chancellor; and if any Commissioner should not think it worth his while to remain in a commission, in respect of which he should be so occupied and so restricted, the numbers might, if necessary, be diminished and so reduced as to make these offices worth the attention of a sufficient number of competent individuals. He did not mean to defend the practice of taking several commissions at the same time; but if there was any practical mischief in it, it was for the Lord Chancellor to correct it. He would, while on the subject, trouble the House with the evidence given before the Chancery Commission by his learned friend Mr. Roots, known by most of them as a very experienced and judicious Commissioner of Bankrupts, who had been a Commissioner in the year 1825—when that gentleman gave the evidence to which he was about to refer—upwards of twenty years, and who had practised in the bankruptcy business in the Court of Chancery for a period now extending over a quarter of a century. He was asked, 'Would it not be a very material improvement to have the Commissioners distributed in such a manner as to ensure their attention?' His answer was, 'I do not think that, in general, such an arrangement could be made, so as to be productive of benefit, for one reason, among others, as I have already stated, that there is not enough business in each Commission to employ the whole of the Commissioners, and therefore one Commissioner might sit for an hour and have nothing at all to do.' He meant to shew, before he sat down, that the new Judges to be appointed under this Bill would, during three-fourths of the year, have nothing whatever to do. The former gentleman stated, in answer to a question put to him, 'I doubt whether any very material benefit would arise from that, if the Commissioners take care not to hold too many meetings together.'—'Then you think no improvement, would result from that?' ' No; because it is but seldom that any Commission in itself requires so much exclusive attention, unless in an extraordinary case—the failure of a very large house, for instance, in the course of which you have most difficult matters to inquire into. But it is very seldom that one Commission is so complicated that it is difficult to do anything else: at the same time, when a large failure takes place, it is the practice to devote the meeting to it exclusively.'—'Then it is your opinion that you can attend to the business to be done under Commission A as well as B?' 'Under A it may happen that there may be nothing to be done; and, in that case, I may as well attend to another: it hardly ever happens that three Commissions at the same time have the same quantity of business.' He had now shewn, from the evidence of Mr. Roots, than whom a more experienced Commissioner did not exist, that more than one Commission could be attended to at once, and this shewed why the Lord Chancellor had not interfered. Before he left this part of the subject, he would shortly address himself to the number of meetings held under Commissions. Observations had been made on the temptations to which these gentlemen were exposed, to neglect, a proper performance of their duty, and to increase the number of meetings, on account of the profits arising from them. It happened fortunately that they had the means of ascertaining the average number of meetings held under Commissions in London, and the result of that average at once precluded the possibility of the justice of any such observation. The number of London Commissions opened in the course of a year, taking an average of twelve years, was 650. The average income of the London Commissioners, derived from fees at meetings alone, might be safely taken at. 26,000l. a-year; that sum divided among fourteen lists came to exactly 40l. a Commission upon 650 Commissions, and 40l. a Commission would give, as near as possible, thirteen meetings under every Commission; that was the average under London Commissions of a considerable number of years. Of those thirteen meetings, some were public and some private. Among the public meetings were included mere matters of course, the execution of the assignment, for instance, and other matters of that description, which were inevitable under all Commissions; therefore he was taking it at a fair calculation, when he said, that the average number of private meetings under every London Commission, did not exceed six, or at the utmost seven. Could the House consider this as a very large proportion, when the great and important mercantile interests involved in the administration of London Commissions were taken into consideration? Could any man living say, that an average of six or seven private meetings under each London Commission was more than was proper? He really was surprised and astonished when he received this information from authentic sources, to find that it was possible to transact such important business with so small a number of private meetings. What became, then, of the taxation and oppression of private meetings? What of the argument with respect to those extraordinary cases of twenty or thirty meetings under one Commission? He had shewn to the House, that the average number of meetings was six or seven; and considering what this business was, and considering that the whole expense of these meetings was so very small, was there any occasion for legislation on this point? There were no practical grievances which could not be remedied by an order of the Lord Chancellor; the expense was much less than it had been stated to be; but it was again stated, as an objection, that in many instances enormous masses of affidavits were thrown away, because the Court, when it came to hear the case, declared itself incompetent to decide it, and directed an issue to be tried; this, the hon. and learned Gentlemen on the other side declared to be a case of frequent occurrence. He would tell those hon. and learned Gentlemen, and one in particular, that this was a subject of which he could know nothing, never having practised in the Court. Out of 600 petitions set down for hearing in the course of a year, not more than ten on the average were sent to a Jury. Really, anybody who had heard the hon. member for Winchelsea, would suppose that this enormous expense was incurred in almost every case. In fact, issues were only directed at all in those cases where the Court, in endeavouring to satisfy itself on conflicting evidence, thought that justice might be better administered by that means, and where it did happen that the questions to be investigated were of such a nature as to require the examination of witnesses in open Court. It was also said by the hon. and learned Gentleman, that many questions ought to be sent to a Jury which were not now so disposed of. He did not know on what ground this argument might be founded, but he did know, that most eminent lawyers from the common-law Bar, who had come to preside in the Courts of equity, and who, of course, were most competent to deliver an opinion, said, that highly as they valued Trial by Jury, invaluable as it was in this country in some cases, yet in the majority of mercantile questions it was not the most satisfactory tribunal, because the verdict of a Jury was liable to be influenced by a powerful advocate. He would not endeavour to deprecate Trial by Jury, but in such cases as these it was not necessary to extend the number of issues. The Bill, in the first place, established a Court in Bankruptcy, to consist of four Judges, who were to form a Court of Review, and were always to sit in public, "except as otherwise directed by this Act," there being no such direction in any part of the Bill. If this Bill should ever find its way into Committee, there was no doubt that this part must be amended. All the jurisdiction in bankruptcy that was now exercised by the Lord Chancellor or the Vice-Chancellor, was given to these Judges. There might be cases in which issues might be directed most advantageously to the interest of all parties concerned. At present, country cases were tried at the nearest assizes, and the witnesses being resident on the spot, of course the parties were not put to any very great expense in bringing them before the Court; but under this new Bill, on every petition in bankruptcy, whether it was in a country case or a town case, the issue was to be tried by one of the Judges of this Court, in his own Court here, and nowhere else. Supposing this part of the Bill were to remain in its present state, he would beg to ask those hon. and learned Gentlemen who talked of the expense of the present system, whether they did not think the expense would be increased to an enormous extent? This was clearly a lapsus; but he could shew five hundred other points for the purpose of bringing under the consideration of the House, the manner in which this Bill, by which the whole commercial law of the country was to be altered, had been brought forward, and on which Bill he was driven, at that late hour of the night, and at the very expiration of the Session, to address the House. In addition to the Judges of this Court, there were to be three clerks and a secretary appointed; and all costs of suit between party and party in this Court of Review were to be taxed by one of the Masters in Chancery. So that this Court was not even to tax the bills of its own practitioners, but they were to be submitted to the revision of another Court. The mode of preventing both delay and litigation was this. Commissioners were to be divided into two subdivision Courts—of course three in each, for the purpose of taking examinations, and questions which were referred from a single Commission were to go to these Courts, unless the Commissioners should think fit to direct otherwise. What this otherwise was to be, nobody knew. These subdivision Courts might sit in public or private, as occasion might require; and the Act directed that it should be lawful for one or more of these Commissioners to exercise all the duties vested in the Commissioners of Bankrupts, provided always that the single Commissioner should have the power to commit any bankrupt or other person examined before him, unless as directed by the Bill. Now, at present, three Commissioners had the power of committing a bankrupt. The Act, with a laudable anxiety for the liberty of the subject, provided that that should be the case. But the effect of this Bill would be, that one Commissioner could exercise that important duty which was now vested in three. This was most objectionable. The proceeding before Commissioners of Bankrupts at the present time, was well known and understood by the House. The Commission was in common use, and contained words to which successive times had applied a meaning; but this Act struck away the Commission, and produced something in the nature of a fiat, which no one could understand from the provisions of this Bill. It was enacted, that in every case in which the Lord Chancellor had power to issue a Commission under the Great Seal, it should be lawful for him so to do, and also for the Master of the Rolls, the Vice-Chancellor, and each Master in Chancery, and so on—in short, the effect of this provision was, to alter a power which, from the reign of Queen Elizabeth down to the present time, had been committed to the Lord Chancellor alone. At present, if there was the slightest doubt on the docket paper—the paper on which the Commission issues respecting the owing of the debt, and so on—it was submitted to the Lord Chancellor, but in future it was to be submitted not only to him but to those Judges whom the very principle of this Bill deprived of all knowledge and experience. He might be wrong, certainly, in the view he took of some parts of this Bill, but so he understood them. The Bill then went on to say, that the country Commissioners should be selected by a Master in Chancery, who was to exercise his discretion as to fit and proper persons. It was not to be forgotten that this Bill gave the power of committal to country Commissioners, that was to say, to country attornies; and was it to be endured, that the whole commercial law of the country was to be exercised in this way, by individuals selected in this manner? The Bill then proceeded to the enactment of a new oath to be taken by Commissioners in the country, and afterwards to a long and laborious provision with respect to the manner of proceeding, in case the bankrupt should dispute the adjudication. 'That if any trader adjudged bankrupt shall be minded to dispute such adjudication, and shall present a petition praying the reversal thereof to the said Court of Review, such petition to be presented within two calendar months from the date of such adjudication, if such trader shall be then residing within the United Kingdom, or within three calendar months from the date aforesaid, if then residing in any other part of Europe, or within one year from the date aforesaid, if then residing elsewhere, &c.' A commission of bankruptcy was an ex parte proceeding, and a man might be made a bankrupt without having any previous notification of it. According to this Bill, although at the time of his being made a bankrupt he might be at the extremity of Russia in Europe—still he was to have no redress, if the adjudication was an improper one, unless he proceeded within the space of three months. A commission of bankruptcy might be taken out against a man the moment after he had sailed for India: he might be totally unaware even of the probability of such a thing occurring; the Commission might have been sued out under the most vexatious circumstances; yet, according to the provision of the Bill, if the adjudged bankrupt did not, within the space of twelve months—which, in most instances, would be impossible—institute proceedings in England to dispute the adjudication, he would be declared a bankrupt for ever. These considerations convinced him (Mr. Knight) of the necessity of considering the provisions of this Bill fully and minutely, and of the impropriety of proceeding with so important a subject at this hour of the morning. The next clause related to the power of the Lord Chancellor to annul the fiat. It provided—'That it shall be lawful for the Lord Chancellor, upon the reversal of any adjudication of bankruptcy, or for such other cause as he shall think fit, to order that any fiat issued by virtue of that Act shall be rescinded or annulled; and such order shall have all the force and effect of a writ of supersedeas of a Commission, according to the existing laws and practice in bankruptcy.' This involved a direct contradiction to the preceding provisions of the Bill—a contradiction which it was perfectly impossible for him to reconcile. At this time, however, it would be vain and idle to dwell upon it. Then, by the 23rd clause, an alteration was proposed, for which a good reason might be given; but which, as at present informed, he was totally unable to understand the necessity of. The clause provided—'That it shall be lawful for any Commissioner, who shall make any adjudication of bankruptcy, to appoint two or more public meetings, instead of the three meetings directed by the said recited Act, for the bankrupt to surrender and conform, the last of which said meetings shall be on the 42nd day by the said Act limited for such surrender.' Under the existing system three meetings of creditors were held. At the second, the assignees were chosen; and at the third, the bankrupt's accounts were investigated. If there were to be but two meetings held, and no assignees chosen at that time, how were the bankrupt's accounts to be investigated? This was a point of importance, and deserving of infinitely more attention than at this time of the night it was possible to bestow upon it. The appointment of the official assignees belonged to a distinct head of observation, which he would pass by, and the next provision could, in his opinion, lead only to delay and expense. By the 34th clause it was enacted—'That any one of the said six Commissioners may adjourn the examination of any bankrupt, or other person, to be taken either before a Subdivision Court, or the Court of Review, or, if need be, before both Courts in succession, and may likewise adjourn the examination of a proof of debt, to be heard before a Subdivision Court, which said Court shall proceed with such last-mentioned examination, and finally, and without any appeal, except upon matter of law or equity, or of the refusal or the admission of evidence, shall determine upon such proof of debts. Provided always, that in case, before the said Commissioner, or Subdivision Court, both parties, the assignees or the major part of them, of whom one to be the official assignee, and the creditor, consent to have the validity of any debt in dispute tried by a Jury, an issue shall be prepared under the direction of the said Commissioner or Subdivision Court, and sent for trial before the Chief Judge, or one or more of the other Judges; and if one party only apply for such issue, the said Commissioner or Subdivision Court shall decide whether or not such trial shall be had, subject to an appeal, as to such decision, to the Court of Review,' Under this clause, every creditor would be driven to the necessity of either having his case tried before a Jury, or of having it decided in the first instance by the Subdivision Court, without any appeal. The House would judge of the propriety of such an enactment. By the next clause it was provided—'That if such Commissioner, or Subdivision Court, shall determine any point of law or matter of equity, or decide on the refusal or admission of evidence, in the case of any disputed debt, such matter may be brought under review of the Court of Review, by the party who thinks himself aggrieved; and the proof of the debt shall be suspended until such appeal shall be disposed of, and a sum not exceeding any expected dividend or dividends on the debt in dispute, in such proof, may be set apart in the hands of the said Accountant-General until such decision be made.' If there was any one proposition more generally acknowledged and acted upon than another in bankruptcy, it was, that the Accountant General received no money. Sums were lodged in the Bank under his name, but he actually received none. That was a principle which the Bill would invade. By the next clause it was provided—'That if the Court of Review shall determine in any appeal touching any decision in matter of law, upon the whole merits of any proof of debt, then the order of the said Court shall finally determine the question as to the said proof, unless an appeal to the Lord Chancellor be lodged within one month from such determination: and, in case of such appeal, the determination of the Lord Chancellor thereupon shall, in like manner, be final touching such proof; but if the appeal, either to the Court of Review or the Lord Chancellor, shall relate only to the admission or refusal of evidence, then, and in that case, the proof of the debt shall be again heard by the Commissioner or Subdivision Court, and the said evidence shall be then admitted or rejected, according to the determination of the Court of Review or the Lord Chancellor.' This, again, was a provision which, by multiplying the number of appeals, by involving and perplexing the mode of proceeding, and by increasing expense, must, if carried into operation, amount almost to a denial of justice. The next clause related to the new trial of issues; and it provided—'That after any issue, by this Act authorized, shall be tried, a new trial may be moved in the Court of Review, which new trial shall be granted or refused according to the rules of the Common Law, and the practice of the Courts of Westminster, in granting or refusing new trials.' The fortieth clause surprised him not a little, after what he had heard with respect to the mischief of affidavits. It enacted—'That the said Judges and Commissioners of the said Court of Bankruptcy shall, in all matters within their respective jurisdictions, have power to take the whole or any part of the evidence either vivâ voce or by affidavits, to be sworn before one of the said Judges or Commissioners, or a Master ordinary or extraordinary, &c.' So that power was given to the Judges or the Commissioners to receive evidence in this obnoxious and objectionable mode. The conclusion he came to upon reading the provisions of this Bill was, that it would multiply expense, prolong litigation, create doubt, give rise to obscurity upon matters of detail, and throw great and general difficulty in the way of administering this branch of the law. In that part of the Bill which contained provisions for appointing the official assignees, a remedy was provided against an evil which had ceased to exist, or which, at least, was already provided against by Act of Parliament. In order that the estate of the bankrupt might be properly managed, the Commissioners were o ave the power of appointing an official assignee, who, whether he was acceptable or not to the creditors, was to assume the management of the estate. What respectable merchant or tradesman in the city of London would consent to become the assignee to a bankrupt's estate, if, in doing so, he must be linked with a stranger? It was by no means uncommon for respectable persons to say, "I will act with A or B as assignees, but I will not act with C or D." By the provisions of the Bill, which related to the official assignee, it would be enacted, that no other should act as assignee, without being linked with a person of whom, perhaps, he knew nothing. Then the official assignee was to receive all the bankrupt's property. This was one of the most objectionable parts of the Bill. The official assignee, having received all the property, was not only to pay the money, but also to transfer all stock in the public funds, or of any public company, and monies, Exchequer-bills, India bonds, or other public securities, and all bills, notes, and other negotiable instruments into the Bank of England, to the credit of the Accountant General of the high Court of Chancery. The money and other property having been thus paid into the Bank of England, how was it to be got out again? Was the Court to be applied to for its order on every occasion that any portion was required? The expense and the enormity of inconvenience arising from such a provision would never be endured by the commercial world. This provision of the Bill must be perfectly nagatory. No respectable merchants and bankers of London would consent to accept the office of assignee under such a Bill as this. The only object that could be assigned for appointing this official assignee was, to prevent an evil which seldom occurred—namely, the failure of an assignee. A more unsatisfactory mode of preventing such an evil could not be suggested. The official assignee being, in the first part of the clause, invested with a positive, and a superior or paramount power, was in the latter part of it fettered by the following proviso—'That nothing herein contained shall extend to authorize any such official assignee to interfere with the assignees chosen by the creditors, in the appointment or removal of a solicitor or attorney, or in directing the time and manner of effecting any sale of the bankrupt's estates or effects.' With such a proviso what could the official assignee really have to do? He was to give security. The clause enacted—'Such official assignee to give such security, to be subject to such rules selected for each estate, and act in such manner, as the said Chief and other Judges, with the consent of the Lord Chancellor, shall from time to time direct.' It was perfectly monstrous to suppose, that an assignee should, in every case, find security to the full amount of the probable value of an estate. But even if called upon only for a portion—in all probability, weeks, nay, months, might elapse before that security could be completed. Such were the means by which the evils of delay were sought to be avoided by this Bill. The official assignee was to derive an income from the estate by a percentage on all he collected. That was a totally new source of expense, because hitherto the assignees had never been paid. While the average expense of each Commission amounted, under the existing system, to 50l., under the new one it would amount to 60l. or 80l. He agreed with the hon. member for Winchelsea, that where the administration of the law was the object, expense should not be thought of. But this would not be an improvement, and therefore he objected to every additional expense which it created. Economy had been placed in the front of this Bill, as one of its great recommendations. In his opinion, however, economy was a recommendation which it did not possess. How were the Judges and Commissioners to be paid?—out of a fund to be raised by a tax upon the bankrupt's estates. These officers, too, were to have retiring salaries. That being the case, it was doubtful whether there would be at all times funds enough to pay them; and then, as a matter of course, a call must be made upon the country. At present, the average time occupied by the Lord Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor, in hearing bankrupt cases, was sixty-eight days; and as it was most probable that the number of appeals would be greater than at present, it was not likely that a greater time would be required for that purpose than was now found necessary. But suppose that a hundred days were to be occupied in this way. As the Vice Chancellor now got through all the bankrupt appeals, and was able to perform a considerable portion of other business, it was impossible to see what the suitors would gain by the new Court. He had not the least doubt that the ultimate effect of these changes would be, to get rid of the Vice Chancellor's Court, which would be a most objectionable measure. The Bill was considered by the profession to be wholly uncalled for, and inadequate to the purposes for which it was framed; and he trusted it would not be persisted in at this late period of the Session. He did not deny, that improvements might be made in the machinery and working of Bankruptcy Commissions; but the Bill did not comprehend those improvements. Instead of amending defects, it would increase the difficulties in all questions of this nature, and add materially to the expense. It would create doubts and obscurity where the law was at present clear; and would weaken the confidence which it was highly expedient should be maintained between the commercial interests and the Judges in bankruptcy.

had strong objections to urge against this Bill, but as he could not urge them then, he wished the Debate to be adjourned.

said, that he would use an expression of Lord Brougham's on another occasion, and say, that this Bill stunk under his nostrils.