held in his hand a Petition, to which he felt a more than ordinary anxiety to direct the attention of the House, as well from the intrinsic importance of its prayer, as from the fact of its deeply involving the interests of one class of the community, in whose behalf, whatever differences of opinion might exist with regard to other points connected with the Church of Ireland, he (Mr. Emerson Tennent) believed there existed but one feeling of respect, and, he regretted to add, of commiseration; he referred to the working clergy of the Established Church in that country. Their present appeal was one directed, not to the feelings of the House as sectarians or partisans, but to their sense of justice as Legislators, and to their feelings of humanity as men; and he trusted although he was not prepared to bring forward any specific motion on the subject of the petition, this notice of its prayer would not be without practical and beneficial effects to the petitioners. It would be in the recollection of the House, that by an Act of 1803 (the 43rd of Geo. 3rd, c. 106), the Commissioners of First Fruits in Ireland, were empowered to advance certain sums of money without interest, to the clergy of the Established Church, for the erection and repairs of glebe-houses in their several parishes. The amount of these sums was to be calculated in proportion to the value of the respective livings, and never exceeded he believed one and a half or two years net income of the several incumbents, which was to be refunded by sixteen instalments of six per cent each, and one of four per cent, payable to the Treasury by the various recipients. This Act was amended by a subsequent one in 1823 (the 4th George 4th, c. 86), by which it was enacted, that all balances then owing, and all loans to be thereafter made, were to be repaid by twenty-five annual instalments of four per cent each, recoverable by summary process by the Commissioners of First Fruits; and thus the law at present stood, exclusive grants having under its provisions been made to numbers of the Irish clergy proportionally, as he before stated, to the annual value of their living. It was needless to remind the House, that since that period, immense reductions had by various events been made in the incomes of the Irish clergy, as well by the peculiar circumstances of the country as by the legislative measures for their relief, and particularly by the regulation of tithes and the heavy percentage payable on the advances made to the clergy under the Million Act (3rd and 4th William 4th, c. 100.) In numerous instances, these reductions had amounted to thirty per cent. He knew of one case in his own immediate neighbourhood where the reduction was thirty-four per cent, and he had reason to believe, that they had mounted so high as even fifty-six per cent on the net income of the incumbent. The House were likewise well aware that, even under these circumstances of decline in the amount, the clergy in several districts of Ireland, had found it impossible for some time past, more especially in the years 1832 and 1833, to collect even the residue of the nominal incomes, and that in numerous instances they had been reduced, with their families, to a state of houseless and literal destitution. During this period, the instalments of these loans from the Board of First Fruits had remained, and still remained, for the most part unpaid, and payment of these was now promptly demanded by the Board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Should this demand be enforced, attended as such a process must be by the costs of law proceedings, the results must be, to many of the clergy, of the most ruinous and disastrous kind. The petition which he had then to present, after briefly setting forth these circumstances, sought from the House what he conceived to be a most moderate and reasonable species of relief. With regard to the arrears accumulated during the last two years, the petitioners asked not for their remission, though even this he could scarcely, under such trying circumstances, consider an unreasonable request; but simply, that the payment, instead of being summarily insisted upon now, should be postponed to the end of the term, at which it was originally calculated that the whole sum should have been refunded, and that these two last years should be regarded altogether as anni non; in other words, that the term for the repayment of the sums advanced should be extended from twenty-five to twenty-seven years. As a mere matter of computation, the loss of interest on the debt which would thus be incurred, would be but trifling in comparison to the benefits which would result from the measure. The total amount of instalments due on the 1st of July, 1832, amounted to 7,564l. 19s. 4d. Of this a small proportion had been paid; as much, at least, as would be an equivalent for any increase to the original debt, by sums which had since been lent. So that he might fairly say, taking the amount due in 1833 to be the same as in 1832, that the entire arrears did not exceed 15,000l., which the Irish clergy asked an extension of time to enable them to refund. Under all the pressure of existing circumstances, and the admitted sufferings of the parties, he hoped that such a request would not be without its due weight in the quarter by which relief could be afforded. But the petition contained likewise another prayer, which on every principle of justice and of equity he considered to be entitled to consideration. By the intention as well as by the operation of the Acts of 1803 and 1823, the advances to be made by the Board of First Fruits were to be calculated in proportion to the existing annual value of the livings for the benefit of which they were designed; that was to say, that the sums thus expended were to be in proportion to the means and ability of the clergy for their repayment. Those means had now been diminished, chiefly by the operation of the law itself; and the petitioners now asked, as they were entitled to ask, that the instalments for which they were responsible should be reduced in a like proportion. The House would at once perceive, that this was a very different demand from that of any private individual who might wish to deviate from a previous contract for his own private advantage; for in this case the incumbent, who was in the position of a debtor to the Commissioners, was in reality contributing from his private income for the erection of houses which were hereafter to be the property of his successors in the Church, and in such a point it was the duty of the Government to lighten, as far as was just and equitable, the burthen of his contribution. The Petition contained likewise some suggestions for the regulation of some minor points connected with the subject; but, as he had alluded to its more important suggestions, he would not further trouble the House. He had felt it his duty to say thus much on behalf of a class of men whose merits, though much and deservedly extolled, were still, he believed, but imperfectly known—the really working clergy of the Irish Church. The reform which he would wish to see introduced into our Church Establishments would tend to give a permanent relief and an honourable independence to the men on whose exertions the maintenance of the Church and the extension of its doctrines really depended. And if, instead of proceeding to violate what he considered to be a legal and an equitable right—the right of the Church to its endowments and its property—if, instead of proceeding to violate this, and to secularize that which was designed by its donors for ecclesiastical purposes alone, the Legislature, as guardians of the trust, would make such a fresh appropriation of the property of the Church as would take from the pampered prelates and overpaid dignitaries of the Establishment, to bestow the surplus on the struggling clergy and the indigent curates, they would be effecting such a reform as the Church really required and the country had a right to demand. Nor did he believe, if that were effected,—if a fair and substantial independence were conferred upon every member of the Establishment,—that the funds of the Church would be found too ample for the purpose, or that any "surplus" would remain to excite the envy or give rise to the contentions of other sects. The Petition, in addition to other clergy, was signed by the Rectors, Prebends, and Vicars, and the Archdeacons, Deans, and other dignitaries of the dioceses of Down, Armagh, and Dromore.

before he moved the Order of the Day for the Committee on the Poor-laws' Amendment Bill, begged to call the attention of hon. Members to a proposition he desired to make connected with the business of the House. Though it had been settled that the mornings of Tuesday and Thursday should be set apart for the Committee on the Poor-laws' Amendment Bill, it did not appear to him that any very great progress had been made in the Bill during the morning sittings. It had also been determined that, during the present Session, Orders of the Day should on Wednesday take precedence in the order in which they stood on the paper; and as yet no request had been made to any hon. Member to postpone the consideration of any order fixed for Wednesdays, for the purpose of allowing the Government business to be brought on. Under these circumstances, he was induced to propose, that Government orders should in future have precedence on Wednesdays, as they had on Mondays and Fridays, with the understanding, that henceforth Government would not ask for precedence on the mornings of Tuesday and Thursday.

had no objection to allowing the Government to take precedence on Wednesday; but he wished to impress upon the noble Lord the absolute necessity of fixing some immediate day for the discussion of those measures which were of the most pressing public importance. The right hon. Gentleman opposite, on the 20th of February last, called the attention of the House to that part of his Majesty's Speech which referred to tithes in Ireland; and, though it was now the 13th of June, being a lapse of no less than four months, nothing definite had been done, notwithstanding the great public anxiety which existed on that subject. He therefore did hope that, whatever arrangement might be made with respect to the Poor-laws' Amendment Bill, the noble Lord would fix some early day in the course of next week on which the discussion on that question should come on. Another very important measure, relating to the admission of Dissenters into the Universities, stood on the paper for Monday next, and the general impression was, that the discussion on that Bill would then come on.

said, that the discussion of the principle of any measure must necessarily, by consuming the time of the House, interrupt the proceedings of the Committee on the Poor-laws' Amendment Bill. He, therefore, thought it desirable to finish the Committee on that Bill before any new business was taken up.

said, that if it was the general understanding that Government Orders should take precedence on Wednesdays, no other measures but those introduced by Government would have any chance of being discussed.

Wood said, he should be prepared to bring forward the Bill for the admission of Dissenters into the Universities in the morning sitting of Tuesday next.

objected to bringing forward so important a Bill as that mentioned by the hon. Member in a morning sitting. It was not to be expected that public business could commence before one o'clock, and at three o'clock the sitting must necessarily terminate.

said, that if those who had the control of that House wished to exclude professional men, they would proceed with public business in the morning. He did not think the plan of doing business in the morning any improvement on the old practice.

thought the House was already sufficiently pestered with lawyers, not to postpone the public convenience for their accommodation. It was extraordinary, that any set of gentlemen, however respectable they might be, should think that the House ought to prefer their particular interests to the public business. They ought to recollect, that many hon. Gentlemen in that House were obliged to come from the remote parts of Ireland and Scotland to attend their duties there. In his opinion, the House would never properly perform the business of legislation until it sat by day instead of by night.

was sure, that if the hon. and learned Gentleman's proposition of sitting in the morning were agreed to, the House would not be less pestered than at present with lawyers; but then they would be exclusively Irish lawyers.

admitted, that the noble Lord was entitled to every indulgence for carrying on the business of the Government; but he thought that some means should be adopted to prevent so large a mass of business from being thrown into the arena for discussion on every evening. It was a common thing to see twenty Orders of the Day and as many notices of motion fixed for one evening, and for a succession of evenings, though it was well known that a twentieth part of them could not be gone through. It was shameful to have the business of any deliberative assembly carried on in that manner. Much of the inconvenience would be obviated, if Ministers would bring on the public business at an earlier period of the Session.

did not see that Ministers were to blame. The estimates were brought forward at an early period, and occupied the House nearly the whole of the time, or at least a considerable portion of it, until Easter; and the other business of the Government was brought forward as soon as possible after.

thought, that these complaints were rather hard on the Government, one party complaining that the Government did nothing, and another section objecting that it did too much. No arrangement to save the time of the House and advance the despatch of business would be of any avail, unless hon. Gentlemen agreed to a curtailment of their frequent addresses to the House.

objected to the principle of passing a Bill founded on voluminous reports of Commissioners, the one-twentieth part of which not one Member in 100 had read. Was this the way in which the business was to be done in a Reformed Parliament? He thought, that in- stead of being called upon to pass this bill in a hurry, and without reading the evidence on which it rested, they ought to have at least 365 days to read that evidence; at all events, they ought to have before them an account of the expenses of these Commissioners; he would therefore move as an Amendment to the Motion for the Speaker's leaving the Chair, that there be laid before the House an account of all salaries, allowances, printing expenses, expenses of messengers, and expenses of every description occasioned by the Poor-law Commission; also a statement whether any of the Commissioners hold other Commissions, or fill any offices for which they receive pay out of the public purse, specifying what Commission or what office, and also specifying the sum or sums so received, and stating further, whether the secretary to the Commissioners holds any other public post of emolument, and what post, and the amount of such emoluments. Would the noble Lord object to this Motion? [Lord Althorp: No!] Then he should say nothing further.

had proposed an Amendment on Thursday, to enable overseers or guardians to grant relief in cases of emergency, without making beforehand a statement of the circumstances to the Commissioners. It would be unjust and cruel to deprive the poor of such a resource in case of emergency, and he therefore should press his Amendment.

said, that if such a power were given to the overseers without application to the general Board, it would defeat the whole object of the Bill. He had before admitted, that in cases of individual emergency there should be a power to grant relief by the overseer, but he considered that was already sufficiently provided for by the 45th Clause.

was glad that the noble Lord dissented from the Amendment. Such an Amendment would bring the vicious administration of the agricultural districts into the towns. The Bill would be inoperative if the necessary control which this and other Clauses gave to the Central Board were withdrawn.

thought the Amendment was called for. It was a mistake to suppose that there was no making up of wages by the poor-rates in manufacturing districts.

withdrew the Amendment.

remarked, that this Clause would place the labouring classes in a worse condition than they were at present. He trusted, that he should never see the system that was so much lauded, and so often referred to in the north of England, introduced into the south. With regard to the Clause itself, he would just say this—that they had now under their control three countries; one of them had meat and bread and knives and forks, the other had oatmeal and brose and horn spoons, and the third had only potatoes and paws. In the first country he had mentioned, a system of Poor-laws had been in existence for 240 years—in the second they had an inefficient system of Poor-laws—and in the third there were no Poor-laws at all, and the object of this Bill was, to reduce the first country to the condition of the last.

admitted, that the effect of this clause would take away the power of Magistrates to order relief out of the workhouse in places where workhouses existed, or in united parishes in which there were guardians of the poor. But, on the other hand, where there were no workhouses and no select vestries, the power was reserved to the Magistrates to order relief precisely as they now possessed that power.

contended, that the security of the pauper population for relief depended upon the reservation of the power to Justices of the Peace to order it. In this opinion he was supported by the provisions of every enactment relating to the relief of the poor which had passed during the last 300 years, commencing in the year 1536, and such powers were embodied in the statutes, 27th Henry 8th; 5th, 14th, and 23rd Elizabeth; 3rd and 4th William and Mary, and in every Statute down to the Act of 1796. He must, therefore, ask the House to pause before it consented to do away with the astringent and compulsory powers to order relief, and in their stead erect merely a voluntary and discretionary power in other individuals. He was borne out in this feeling by the answers which had been given to the queries generally circulated by the Poor-law Commissioners themselves. He must advert to one of the queries, which was in these terms—"What do you think would be the immediate and ultimate effect of making the decisions of the Select Vestry or the guardians of the poor final on questions of relief?" He begged the House to bear in mind the answer to that query, from at least two-thirds of those to whom it had been put, and who included not only Magistrates, but vestrymen, guardians of the poor, clergymen, and overseers. The replies had been—"Great injustice to the poor; the effect would be starvation, and the result of this change would be cruel tyranny and oppressive injustice upon the pauper population of this country." He was still further assisted in his opposition to this change by the opinions of no less than two of the sub-commissioners, Mr. M'Clean and Captain Chapman. The House ought not to forget, that, by the adoption of the last clause, they had already gone very far in trenching upon the vested rights of relief—rights which had accumulated during the last forty years, for it should be remembered, that the Statute of 1796 declared, that under all circumstances, the pauper was entitled to relief at his own home. He, on the whole, contended, that the power of a bench of justices, comprising three, four, or five, should still have the power reserved to them under preceding Statutes. He should, therefore, move an Amendment to the effect "of reserving a power to two Justices at petty sessions, after complaint upon the oath of the pauper, and after the summons and hearing of the overseer, to order relief."

conceived, that the Amendment deserved consideration. It had certainly occurred to the Government, on framing this Bill, that in order to bring the Poor-laws into that state in which they ought to be, it would be right to take away the power now contended for, under the supposition, that in practice it had led to many evils that had been complained of. He denied, that the clause took away the positive right of the pauper to relief, for which the hon. Member had contended, and still further he denied that such positive right existed under the present laws, for, on the contrary, the ordering relief was discretionary in the breast of any individual Magistrate. As to what had been said with respect to the severity likely to prevail on the vestries and the guardians of the poor, he must observe, that he did not think it at all probable they would prove as hard-hearted as was imputed to them. He considered, too, that the discretion given to these bodies would be at the least as well executed as that previously granted to Magistrates. At the same time, considering that the opinion of the House was in favour of the Bill as it stood, he should rather abide by its decision, than urge strongly his own views.

thought it dangerous to oust the old Magistrates from their jurisdiction, and to transfer their powers to bodies which might, like the Select Vestries, work well at first, but afterwards conduct the business ill and negligently.

thought it would be advisable to leave some mitigated power to the Magistrates.

was opposed to the Amendment, and ready to rely on private charity for meeting all cases of emergency.

said, the clause would deprive the Magistrates throughout the country of all their authority, and convert them into mere beggar-whippers, objects of contempt among those over whom they had hitherto exercised a very wholesome authority.

expressed his determination to support the Amendment, not with the view of maintaining the station and authority of the Magistrates, whom the hon. member for Oldham on the present occasion, no doubt most sincerely, applauded; but in order to preserve and cherish that community of feeling between the Magistrates and the lower classes of society which was so essential to the satisfactory administration of the Poor-laws.

had not heard anything to convince him of the propriety of the Amendment which had been proposed. He did not think the evils which some hon. Gentlemen seemed to deprecate, were likely to occur. The Board of Guardians was so constituted, that it would, in his opinion, lead to a most satisfactory and well-regulated provision for the deserving industrious poor; and as to the interference of the Magistrates, although in some cases it might have been advantageous, it was in no way generally essential, or even advisable in the administration of the Poor-laws.

maintained, that the clause would create a parcel of paid overseers, who would be the curse of the country. Paid overseers had produced all the riots and burnings in Hampshire ["No, no."] and so great was the aversion they had excited, that twenty of them had been carted by the people out of their parishes. ["No, no."] What hon. Member was there who dared to contradict him? [laughter.]

begged distinctly to contradict the hon. Member. He had himself been present at the trials in Hampshire, and the hon. Member was quite wrong in his assertions.

also denied the correctness of the hon. Member's allegations. If that hon. Member would look to his own writings he would find the true cause of the burnings and riots to which he had referred. Had that hon. Member forgotten the case of Goodman, and the confession made by that unfortunate individual previous to his ascending the scaffold, that the writings and speeches of the hon. member for Oldham had induced him to commit those crimes of incendiarism for which he was about to suffer?

denied having ever uttered the sentiments which the paper, purporting to be the confession of Goodman ascribed to him; and stated that 103 respectable individuals from Battle were ready to confirm his declaration. In fact, it had been proved at the trial that Goodman had set fire to several stacks from private malice, and had been stimulated by the parson and others to make the fabricated confession with the view of furnishing the merciful and gracious Whig Government with some pretext for bringing him (Mr. Cobbett) to trial. The whole was a base conspiracy; and even now he was ready to prove, that several individuals in Battle had actually received public money for carrying it on. The charge was as false as the hon. Member's assertions would be if he did not believe them to be true. The life of the individual, too, had actually been spared, because he had put his hand to the fabricated confession; while another unfortunate man had been taken from the same gaol, and, although not half so guilty, had suffered the extreme penalty of the law.

had seen the original confession, and to show that there had been no fabrication in the document, the first name appended to it as a witness was that of the sheriff of the place.

said, that his object was, to introduce a Bill, founded upon the Resolution of the Committee for the reduction of these dues, whereby the city of London would be benefited to the extent of 40,000l. a-year. He would not detain the House with the details, but would enter fully into them when the Bill was before it.

objected to the burglary Clause, which he considered would leave the law in a state of greater absurdity than at present. It was intended that no man should be punished with death unless he entered a house with his whole body, it being now sufficient, in order to constitute a burglary, that a pane of glass be broken. But the getters-up of burglaries, and the most guilty persons, aiding in the crime, if they abstained from entering the house, would escape capital punishment. It was well known, that the practice was, for those who planned the offence to induce boys to get inside, and thus the guilty would, if this clause were continued, escape the severer punishment. With every disposition to abate the severity of our law, he could not consent to this clause.

admitted, that there were and must be, unavoidable anomalies in dealing with the law upon this subject; but he trusted, that the hon. and learned Gentleman would not press his objection to this clause.

said, that, though the Bill might be open to some objections, yet upon the whole he thought there could be no doubt that the proposed alteration was preferable to the existing law.