asked the First Commissioner of the Railway Board why the office of inspector general of railways, so essential for the information and guidance of the board, had not yet been filled up? It was now five months since Sir Charles Pasley's services were dispensed with, and the responsibility now rested with the former assistant inspectors without any increase of salary.

said, the reason why no officer to be called the "inspector general of railways" had been appointed was, that no such officer, hearing any such title, was required to be appointed under the Act for the regulation of railways. That Act required that two officers should be appointed, and in consequence two gentlemen, called inspectors of railways, had been appointed, who were very efficiently discharging their duties. He did not know whether the senior officer was termed simply inspector or inspector general; but no individual had been appointed under the latter designation. In the Railway Department of the Board of Trade there was an officer called the inspector general; but it was thought better, under the new board, to appoint two officers to be called inspectors. The hon. and gallant Member, however, might rest assured that either in the appointment of the officers, or in the fixing of their salaries, care would be taken that the duties were discharged.

, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill for the hotter administration of charitable trusts for the benefit of Her Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, stated that he would take the discussion of the measure on its second reading.

considered the subject of the Bill of great importance; and if the hon. and learned Gentleman had consulted and obtained the sanction of the Catholic clergy of England to bring in a Bill which would materially affect their jurisdiction, he (Mr. J. O'Connell) would give it his most earnest support; but if the consent of those right rev. gentlemen had not been obtained, then he hoped a distant day would be fixed for the second reading, in order that they might be consulted.

rose to move for the appointment of a Select Committee to take into consideration the present state of our commercial relations with China; and observed, that he felt himself excused from the necessity of intruding at any length on the attention of the House, from finding that the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government had no objection to the appointment of the Committee. The motives which had induced him to undertake this subject were these: he found among his own constituents, and also among a great many other parties connected by commerce and manufactures with the newly opened trade between this country and China, a strong impression prevailing that the advantages which would result from that trade would be of a very limited extent, unless a considerable reduction of the duty on tea were effected; for so long as a heavy impost of between 200 and 300 per cent was levied upon the only article that they could receive in return for their exports, it was impossible to expect that trade to any large extent could be carried on with China. Indeed, the duty on tea was considered by our merchants as a complete obstruction to our trade with China. This consideration would, of itself, naturally enough induce those parties to bring the subject before the House; but there were other considerations of a financial and pecuniary nature that would make it desirable that the whole state of our connexion with China should undergo an investigation with a view to ascertain more largely whether there were circumstances arising from our relations with that country which, independent of the duty on tea, obstructed and limited the extension of our trade. He had no doubt, that an investigation of this nature would be found highly advantageous, considering the peculiar circumstances of the case. Placing our communication with China upon an open footing, was altogether of a recent date and entirely experimental. The result of our victories in China having put us in possession of five free ports on the Chinese coast, and also given us possession of an island in the Chinese seas, a very unusual state of things had arisen, which must necessarily make it the duty of that House to examine into the whole subject, with a view of ascertaining what was the real cause of the obstruction which appeared to exist in the conducting of our trade with that country. He therefore begged to move that a Select Committee be appointed for the purpose of instituting such an investigation.

objected to the very indefinite terms of the Motion, and expressed his extreme regret that the Government should have so readily consented to the appointment of the Committee.

moved—

"That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the conduct of Captain Wynne, during his employment in the county of Clare in November and December, 1846, and January, 1847, as Inspecting Officer under the Board of Works, and into the statements contained in the printed Letters of the said Captain Wynne and Samuel Gamble, Esq., addressed to the said Board, and laid upon the Table of this House, and Report thereon; and also to inquire into and report whether the said Board of Works have or have not suppressed certain Letters or Reports made, or alleged to have been made, by the said Captain Wynne to them on investigations held at Ennistimon on the 10th, and at Liscannor on the 17th day of December, 1846, and also certain Letters in the possession of the said Board connected with these subjects."

The hon. Gentleman was understood to declare, that the charge which Captain Wynne had made against the gentry of the county of Clare, and particularly against the representatives of that county, was most calumnious and unfounded; and that the only object which Captain Wynne could have had for making such a charge was to hold the landlords of Ireland up to the execration of the people of this country. If the charge against him could be made out, he would not continue in the House five minutes. He had been a general supporter of the Whigs for fifteen years, and so had his Colleague; and this was the way in which he had been rewarded by one of their officers. All he wished for was a searching inquiry into the imposition which had been practised on the House and the country by Captain Wynne; and he hoped, notwithstanding the unfavourable disposition of the Government towards him, that the House would grant him a Committee of Inquiry.

seconded the Motion. He could confirm the statement of his hon. Colleague in all respects.

regretted that the hon. Gentleman had not postponed his Motion for a very few days. On the Motion of the hon. Gentleman, certain documents had been ordered by the House, which were now in the course of printing, and would be in the hands of Members the day after to-morrow. Those documents would throw a great light on the whole of these transactions; and in his opinion, the House would act more correctly if they did not grant this Committee before those papers were in the hands of Members. The hon. Member had stated that the Government had received a general support from himself and his Colleague for a length of time, and that this was the ungracious return which they met with from him (Mr. Labouchere). Now, he really thought it was impossible for the Government to have taken a different course from that which they had taken in this matter. It was no desire of his to estrange any supporters from the Government. The Government had not so numerous a body of supporters in the House of Commons, as to make him anxious, as a Member of the Government, to alienate any one from their side; but on a question of this kind, if he were to alter that line of conduct which in his conscience he felt bound to pursue, when the proceedings of an officer of the Government were brought in question, and if he shrank from the defence of an officer of the Government in such circumstances when he thought that officer was deserving of being supported by the Government, for the purpose of conciliating votes in the House of Commons, he should think himself disgraced. He contended that a servant of the Crown had no choice in such a case, but was bound to defend in the House of Commons any officer of the Government who might be assailed there, when it was clear to the Government that such officer had discharged his duties to the best of his ability and according to his conscience. He could not, therefore, allow himself, out of regard to the consideration alluded to by the hon. Member, to alter the course which, on deliberation, he had found it his duty to pursue. No time whatever had been lost in producing all the papers bearing on the subject; and when those papers were presented, then it would be the time for the House to consider whether it were right or not to grant the Committee for which the hon. Gentleman moved. Saying this, however, he was very far from meaning that when the papers were before the House, it would not be right to grant the inquiry, if those papers were not satisfactory to the House; for grave charges had certainly been made against the Members for Clare, and it might be that the House would think it right to investigate them; but be could not assent to an inquiry moved in terms which reflected on the conduct of Captain Wynne. He maintained that there was no such primâ facie case against Captain Wynne as could justify the House in dragging him before a Committee as a criminal; and if they did, it would operate as a discouragement to officers employed in the service of the Government in Ireland, who had arduous and important duties to perform, and who, if this Committee were granted in this form, would be naturally much more anxious in future to shape their course so as to avoid offending Members of Parliament, than to discharge their duties boldly and conscientiously. As to Captain Wynne, he would say again, as he had said on a former occasion, that the opinion of the Government was not, that on every occasion Captain Wynne had acted with perfect discretion; but that in circumstances of a most difficult nature, and amidst opposition the most formidable, he had acted with the most conspicuous courage, and with entire integrity. That was the opinion of the Board of Works in Ireland; that was the opinion of the Lord Lieutenant, and of every Member of the Irish Government; and he would not shrink from declaring it. He had recently seen Captain Wynne for the first time in his life; and that officer had said, that, although he could not retract one word of what he had said, yet that nothing was further from his intention than to impute to the Members for Clare a deliberate design of procuring his assassination. He (Mr. Labouchere) wished the sentence had been otherwise worded; but some allowance must be made for the circumstances under which people acted; and, making a fair allowance for a man writing under those exciting circumstances in which Captain Wynne was placed at the time, he (Mr. Labouchere) did not think that such an interpretation could be fairly attached to it. The words used by Captain Wynne were these:—

"I and the other officers of your board have strong reasons to complain of the conduct of the two county Members."

Now, he must say, that if a man meant to say that another had attempted to get him assassinated, it was a very mild way of stating that to say he had strong reason to complain. The letter went on—

"Who appeared to come to the meeting for the sole purpose of holding us up one and all to assassination, and hallooing on a mob of a thousand of the worst description who were present. Can it be wondered that the stewards and overseers will not discharge their duties, and that the men on the works are doing literally nothing but what they please?"

He had the express authority of Captain Wynne for giving a public assurance to the two hon. Members for Clare, that, although he still maintained his opinion of their conduct, which he thought, in the state of public feeling in the district at the time, was reprehensible, and such as he had a right to complain of; yet that he never intended to impute to them designedly the purpose of assassination. He was bound also to say, that in the county of Clare, there had been a gross neglect of duty on the part of the relief committees; and he would tell them what another officer said; Captain Fishbourne said, that about 60,000 persons were employed on the public works, being almost all the adult population; and that he believed one-half of the money which had been expended in the county of Clare in furnishing employment, would have provided for the whole destitution, if the relief committees had done their duty; but, as it was, there still remained many who were in a state of destitution, and many persons were starving, whilst farmers, and others of a like class, had been put by the relief committees on the public works. He mentioned this injustice to Captain Wynne, to show the difficulties with which he had to grapple in the county of Clare. He would not enter into the subject further than to state, that Captain Wynne bore the highest character for his personal conduct and his public exertions; and that Sir Lucius O'Brien, the Lord Lieutenant of the county, and others, bore the highest testimony to his merits; and to express a hope that, under the circumstances, the hon. Member would withdraw this Motion for the present; and if the papers, when produced, should not be satisfactory, such an inquiry should be instituted as would afford an ample opportunity of investigating all the circumstances connected with this case.

had made no allusion to the support he had given the Government; but what he complained of was a want of courtesy in the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland, in not communicating to him the charge of meditating assassination made against him and his hon. Colleague.

said, that though the right hon. Gentleman had asked for the indulgence of the House, he had shown very little towards the hon. Members for Clare, who had been paraded throughout the country for the past two months as instigators of assassination. He would ask whether the English language could in a more pointed manner, convey such a charge? And, if it could not, what could be more fair than for the hon. Members to say, "We challenge investigation, and we court the fullest inquiry?" With regard to the terms of the Motion, he was sure that the hon. Members would take the Motion in any terms which might be assented to. Of Captain Wynne he knew nothing, and he was glad to hear of his brother's testimony in his favour; but there had been a delay in producing the papers, and there was good ground for inquiry.

said, that his right hon. Friend did not object to an inquiry into the statements which had been made; but he had said that the papers which would enable the House and the Committee to judge of the subject, had not yet been printed and delivered to the House, and, therefore, that it was not yet the time for the House to come to a decision on the question; but if the hon. Gentleman would frame his Motion in such terms as were unobjectionable, and if the naming of the Committee were deferred till the papers should be delivered and in the hands of the Members, there would be no objection on the part of the Members of the Government to the appointment of a Committee.

said, that an inquiry was due to the character of that House, as well as to the hon. Members themselves.

said, it was quite clear that if it was intended to allow a Committee to be appointed, the less preliminary discussion there was, the better would it be for the ends of justice. He thought it better upon that occasion to abstain from any allusion to the conduct of Captain Wynne, and that the inquiry should be unprejudiced by anything which passed now; and he suggested that such an alteration should be made in the terms of the Motion that it should not prejudice any party, and should be now agreed to.

had no objection to the appointment of a Committee, if it were done in such a manner as should not cast any imputation on any parties.

said, it was quite clear that the matter could not rest where it was, and that the question was only one of time and form. Serious charges had been brought, in official documents laid upon the Table of that House, against two hon. Members: they had come forward and demanded an investigation, and he therefore thought that a Committee of that House, for the purpose of a full and fair investigation of all the facts and circumstances of the case, could not be refused. As an observation had been made by the hon. Member for Coventry (Mr. Williams), reflecting upon the course taken by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Labouehere), he (Mr. Shaw) felt bound to say that he admired the manliness and high feeling with which the right hon. Gentleman had defended an absent public servant, acting subordinately to his department, who, he believed, had acted honestly and uprightly. He had no personal acquaintance with Captain. Wynne, but he had heard him highly spoken of as a public officer. The Motion could not be agreed to in its present terms, for they implied a censure of Captain Wynne's conduct, as well as of that of the Board of Public Works. He therefore would suggest the convenience of withdrawing it for the present—and then letting it be brought forward at the end of the night as an unopposed Motion—the hon. Member for Clare (Mr. C. O'Brien) and the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Labouehere), having in the mean time agreed upon words which would not cast an imputation upon any party, but simply ensure a full inquiry into the whole transaction.

suggested that the whole object would be met by appointing a Committee—

"To inquire into the Statements contained in the printed Letters of Captain Wynne and S. Gamble, Esq., addressed to the Board of Works, and laid on the Table of that House, and report thereon."

thought that the hon. Member for Clare was right not to give way; this was a grave charge, and, as they had only to settle the terms of the Motion, to put off such an investigation after such a charge, would not conduce to the dignity of the hon. Members themselves or of that House; for if a public officer who made such a charge were to be protected by delay, the Members of that House would be placed in an invidious position; and he therefore trusted that the hon. Gentleman would press the Motion in the terms suggested by the noble Lord.

said, that if the terms of the Motion were strong, the charge was strong also. No doubt the character of Captain Wynne was very high, but the character of his hon. Friend was equally high; and he must remark, that if some check had been held over the officers of the Board of Works, he thought it would have been better. He should certainly support an inquiry.

said, that in satisfaction to the feelings of the hon. Members, he was sure the right hon. Gentleman would accede to a Motion now appointing the Committee. He agreed that it was the duty of the right hon. Gentleman to defend a public servant who had done his duty, and that some allowance was to be made for doubtful language; but as a Committee was assented to, he would suggest that the terms of the Motion should be—

"That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the statements contained in the printed letters of Captain Wynne and Samuel Gamble, Esq., addressed to the Board of Works, in reference to the county of Clare, and to report thereon; and into the circumstances connected therewith which may appear to them fit subjects for investigation."

said, the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment opened the door so wide, that he had no objection to it.

moved for leave to bring in a Bill to amend and continue an Act of the last Session of Parliament for making provision, until the 1st day of September, 1847, for the treatment of poor persons afflicted with fever in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman said, that the Act referred to in the Motion, was introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the late Secretary for the Home Department; and although it contained some valuable provisions, yet Her Majesty's Government, and especially the Irish Government, were of opinion that in the present condition of Ireland, and with the prospect which, he feared, there was before them of a great deal of fever in that country, not only would it be right to continue it, but to make some considerable alterations in it. The principal alterations proposed to be made were, first, to transfer to the relief committees appointed under the Bill now going through that House, the powers hitherto intrusted to the boards of guardians. It had been found by experience that it was necessary to have a more summary mode of proceeding than was applicable with the machinery of the poor law. It required some time to levy the poor rate and to force on the boards of guardians, who might be reluctant to carry that or other Bills into effect, the operation of any particular law; but the machinery of the relief committees was more extensive, and had this advantage over that of the poor-law guardians, that these committees were distributed far more generally throughout the country, and were able to deal with their particular localities in a more immediate manner than the poor-law guardians. Another alteration proposed was, that the expense should be thrown entirely upon the general fund. The object be had in view was paramount to every consideration of money, namely, to prevent the spread of disease and pestilence in Ireland, which, under the circumstances, he thought there was but too much reason to apprehend. It would, however, be better to postpone any discussion upon the subject until the Bill was in the hands of hon. Members.

did not rise for the purpose of creating any discussion; but he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman a question with respect to the statement he had just made, and which he (Sir J. Graham) had not clearly comprehended. The charge of this measure, as the Act now stood, was devolved on the poor rates exclusively, and was borne, therefore, entirely by the local funds, except the salaries of the public officers. He had understood the right hon. Gentleman to state, that it was his intention, by the Bill he was about to introduce, to change, not only the man- agement, and to transfer it from the poor-law guardians to the relief committees, but also to make some change with reference to the funds out of which this expense was to be borne, and to throw it from the poor rates on to the general relief fund. In the first instance, it would no longer be borne by the local rates, but by that part of the public money which contributed to those relief committees; and, in the next place, if he understood rightly, one moiety of that would be thrown on the public funds altogether, whilst the other moiety only would be thrown on the local funds. That was a most important change. It was a transfer to the taxpayers of this country of a moiety of the entire charge, which, as the matter now stood, was borne by the local funds.

said, the right hon. Gentleman had stated correctly the change that was proposed to be made by this Bill. All he would say, then, was this—that it was justifiable to throw on the general relief fund the expenses of this measure, rather than on the poor rates. He could not conceive any charge more important than that of providing the funds for enabling them to check fever amongst the people of Ireland, which he feared was too certain, in consequence of the great destitution from which they had suffered.

supposed the measure was not to be permanent—if intended only as a temporary one, he would not object to it.

said, it was only a provision of a temporary character, until the 1st of September, 1847, and thence until the end of the next Session of Parliament.

said, that ever since he had been in that House, fever had existed in Ireland to a very great extent, and the expense had always been borne by the rates of that country. If they admitted the principle of this measure, he knew of no charge that might not be thrown upon this country. They ought to have more explanation about it; and he would, therefore, propose, that the matter should be postponed until there was an opportunity of discussing it.

rose, pursuant to notice, to put a question. He wished to ask the Secretary for Ireland if it were the intention of Government to introduce, or assist the introduction of, into the Irish Poor Law Bill, any provision to give additional facilities in the workhouses for religious worship; and also, any provision for obviating the recurrence of the disputes and interferences on religious matters which had been complained of under the present law? There were, unhappily, to be found in Ireland many instances of interference with the religious feelings of the inhabitants of workhouses; and he regretted also to state, that divine worship was often performed in the eating-hall of the workhouse, or in the common room where the paupers were accustomed to assemble for purposes of recreation.

replied, that the Government had no intention to introduce any clause of that kind; at the same time, if the hon. Member himself, or any other hon. Member, whenever the House went into Committee, should propose a provision having such an object in view, he was not prepared to say that he should oppose it. Of course, he felt, as fully as any one could, that it was most desirable there should be no interference with the religious feelings of paupers.

moved, that the House, at its rising, do adjourn to Thursday next; which Motion was put and agreed to. He then went on to observe, that it was the intention of the Speaker to be in the House at a quarter before Eleven o'clock to-morrow to meet such Members as wished to accompany him to attend divine worship. With respect to the proposed adjournment to Thursday, he regretted to be obliged to ask the House to meet at Twelve o'clock, and he should not have done so if public business of importance did not render it necessary.

presumed that the House would adjourn precisely at Twelve o'clock.

said, a quarter before Twelve.

wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland, whether that statement was correct in which they were told that the number of labourers employed upon the public works was 700,000? He should also like to know whether he was right in supposing that those labourers had earned, and were earning, at the rate of 1s. per day, the money so received by them, raised by the taxation of the people of England? He wished also to know whether those persons were to work upon the fast-day, or whe- ther they were to be considered entitled to receive payment from the country for not working upon the fast-day?

said, that, if his recollection served him right, they had, upon a former period, a fast-day in Ireland, when similar public works were going on. The question raised by the hon. Gentleman was then maturely considered, and it was thought right that these labourers should continue to work upon the fast-day, and of course to be paid for so working. They were of opinion, considering that it was the public money, and the money of the counties and the baronies of Ireland, that paid for these works, that it would be, on the one hand, an improper thing to pay these persons without receiving some equivalent from them in the shape of labour; and on the other, that it would be inconsistent with the principle of humanity and religion to allow them to starve upon this one particular day.

was glad to hear the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman, because it would otherwise appear to the working classes here that the fast to be imposed upon them was not to be maintained in other parts of the kingdom, or that they were to be placed in a different position to that of the labouring classes of Ireland. Although he did not see any of the law officers of the Crown present, he wished now to ask whether the working classes of this country, in case they followed their ordinary avocations to-morrow, would, under the peculiar circumstances of the general fast, be subject to any penalty, or be considered guilty of any infringement of the statute law of the country?

said, he would be the last person in the House to say anything against those religious observances which appeared to meet the views of the people; but with respect to the fast of to-morrow, he believed the order for observing it would have no effect on a large portion of the people of England—he meant those who did not assemble for worship in the Established Churches. It would have no effect on the people of Scotland, nor on the people of Ireland, according to what had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Labouchere). He (Mr. Bright) thought the Government might, had they not regarded old precedents, have drawn up the proclamation more wisely. Instead of doing honour to the Deity, the document was an insult to religion, and calculated to engender, on the one hand, gross superstition, and gross infidelity on the other. He had, since that proclamation appeared, spoken on the subject to persons of almost all religious persuasions, and did not see anything like a feeling that the affirmations in the proclamation were proved, or that there was any reasonable ground, from Scriptural authority, for believing that any advantage could come to this country from a fast ordered by the civil power. He regarded the fast as a useless ceremony which reminded him of days gone by, but which was not in accordance with the enlightened opinions of the present day.

hoped the House would not go into a discussion upon the subject. His opinion was, that the fast ordered was in accordance with the opinions of the present day.

thought that the Government had, in ordering this fast, acted in accordance with the feelings of a large portion of the people. He belonged to a religious persuasion that did not admit Her Majesty to be the head of the Church; but they admitted that the fast was sanctioned by Holy Writ, in which repeated instances were found of national humiliation. The bishops of his Church had sanctioned the fast, though they did not recommend it as coming from regal authority, and recommended to-morrow as a day of special religious observance. They had so far acceded to the national wish, as to recommend that the "Miserere" for more special strictness should be observed to-morrow.

The morning organ of the Government, The Times newspaper, in its Irish intelligence this morning, states that the order made regarding rations in Ireland is as follows:—

"One ration may consist either of ½lb. of bread, or 1 lb. of biscuit, or 1 lb. of meal or flour, or any other grain, or one quart of soup, thickened with a portion of meal, according to any known receipts, and one quarter ration of bread, or biscuit, or meal, in addition. Persons above nine years of age to have one ration—under nine years, a half ration in the day."

I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Ireland, whether it be a fact that the rations of those employed on the relief works in Ireland have been diminished to half a pound of bread per diem?

said, he had not seen the document alluded to, and was, therefore, unable to answer the question. The important question as to what manner food could be distributed to the people so as to be mostly conducive to their health, and go furthest, had been duly considered by the Board of Health. They had gone fully into the subject, and, among other things, they recommended some variety in the food. The subject had also occupied the attention of the Irish Government. They had been in communication with the Board of Health on the matter, and they would, no doubt, adopt that course which they thought best.

remarked, that, as the subject was an important one, as it regarded the Government of Ireland—

thought the officers of the Board of Health better judges of the subject than he. He had not seen the document referred to. Things of that sort frequently got into the newspapers much sooner than they came to the Irish Office. When he saw the document he should have no objection to lay it before the House.

said, his object was to have the poor chargeable to the respective parishes to which they belonged. The electoral divisions in Ireland were so large that it was impossible to carry out the great objects of the Bill. By increasing the number of those divisions, the landlords of Ireland might be stimulated to give employment to the poor; for the more they limited the sphere of taxation, the more the landlord would be inclined to have the poor usefully employed upon his property. In Ireland the population was 8,000,000, and the acreage 19,000,000. In England the population was 17,000,000, and the acreage 37,000,000. Yet in Ireland the electoral divisions were only 2,000, while in England there were 15,000 parishes. His plan was simply to substitute parishes in Ireland for electoral divisions, and that wherever a parish exceeded 6,000 acres in extent, the Poor Law Commissioners should have the power of sub- dividing it, taking care that in no case the property of individual proprietors should be separated. This plan would involve no difficulty, as no now valuations or computations would require to be made. It might be argued against him by those in favour of union rating, particularly by the hon. Member for Limerick, that if they narrowed the electoral divisions, or narrowed the responsibilities of the landlord, they would give a premium to landlords to eject the poor from their estates, and drive them into the towns, where they would congregate and increase the rates. That objection was met by the Amendment introduced by the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) in the 10th Clause, which provided, "that whenever the rating exceeded 2s. 6d. in the year, then the surplus should be charged on the union at large." This Amendment would compel landlords to support all such of their tenants who might apply for relief at the workhouse within three years after they had ejected them, and that, he thought, would be a complete bar to the danger which was apprehended by the large towns in reference to this Bill. The hon. Baronet concluded by moving, as an Amendment to the clause—

"That all relief given under this Act be chargeable solely to the parish where the person relieved may have resided for the three preceding years; and in case the said parish should exceed six thousand acres of land, that then and in such case the said parish may be divided into two or more divisions, by the order and under the direction of the Poor Law Commissioners, in such manner as not to place in separate divisions any property belonging to one and the same proprietor; and when so divided, then that the person so relieved be chargeable to the said division of the said parish where the said person may have so resided."

said, the proposition of the hon. Baronet seemed to him so essential to the working of the Bill, that he could not see how the great purposes of a poor law could be met without it. If the House expected by this Bill to make the whole poor of Ireland into paupers, they would not pass it; they would not wish to throw two or three millions of people permanently upon the poor rates; but they hoped to produce a state of things by which a new stimulus would be produced to industry. Unless, therefore, the Bill stimulated to new action the landlords of Ireland, who were the only agents through whom the country could be regenerated—for they only, and nobody else, could be everywhere—he did not see how any other effect could follow than that of converting a set of circulating beggars into fixed mendicants. In the first instance, whether the revolution in the employment of industry took ten or twenty years, every man must have as strong an interest as possible to exert himself, and to sacrifice anything for the purpose of confining attention to the land. It was quite clear that the divisions under which it was proposed to administer relief were too large to have that operation; they extended over too wide a surface, and the stimulus was not strong enough upon landlords. At all times it was required that an Irish landlord should be something more than a common man—he ought to be almost more than an heroic character, for he had to overcome more difficulties, with more enfeebled means, than any man on the face of the earth. He (Lord Sandon) did not say the proposition of the hon. Baronet was precisely the one he should have made himself; but the principle was so essential, that he could not but hope it might be adopted. It was said that it would be a premium upon ejectment, and that it would be a return to some portion of the feudal system. There was by the existing system a strong premium upon ejectments. Ejectments were going on, into the highway, into the large towns, and into England, so that even if it had this effect, we should be no worse off than before; but the objection was met by the proposal of the hon. Baronet the Member for Waterford, for giving the right of settlement upon the land from which the party might be ejected. From the first mooting of the question, it had appeared to him that this principle was almost the only one of importance in the Bill. Without it the Bill would be a total failure, and beggary be continued. Subdivisions like those proposed would make both existing and future landlords—for some change in the property of Ireland must take place—exert themselves to make the Bill a blessing to the country, instead of a burden.

admitted that under any poor law it was not desirable for the area of taxation to be so large as to deprive proprietors of all inducements to a proper cultivation of their property. At the same time, in his opinion, it would be a false principle to arrange a poor-law system so that each proprietor should take care only of the poor upon his own particular estate, without consideration as to what was going on beyond. He had upon a former discussion used the word "feudal," with reference to the parochial division; but he only intimated thereby that he did not think it suitable to this Bill. The principle adopted was to take the electoral districts as the area of taxation. The electoral districts were not so enormously extensive in Ireland as his noble Friend seemed to imagine. In some instances they were not more than 6,000 or 7,000 acres; there might be some larger; but the average population of the whole, he believed, was but 15,000. There would be great inconvenience if the parochial division were adopted. That was a very old division; the parishes were of the greatest variety in size, whilst they were not more numerous, for there were but 2,500 parishes in Ireland, whilst the electoral divisions amounted to 2,600. There was no machinery adapted to the parochial divisions as there was to the electoral districts. The object, however, of the Motion of his hon. Friend was apparent, for he proposed that where the parishes were large they should be subdivided, that every proprietor might provide for his own poor without regard to any other. The State must consider communities and not individuals—a principle familiar to the English poor law. In the parishes of England no inquiry was made as to which property the poor belonged; the principle was acted upon of dealing with communities and not individual proprietors. The divisions, too, were not so large as to prevent proprietors from exerting themselves for the interests of the poor; and there would be the utmost advantage to Ireland, by obliging the proprietors to meet together and combine for a common purpose of relieving the poor. It would produce the greatest benefit to the operations for relief, and socially there would be great advantage from the mingling together of men of different classes, religion, and politics. The principle of combined exertion for the relief of the poor was one which had many advantages, and was, in his opinion, greatly to be preferred to the system of individual proprietors exerting themselves singly for a similar object; and feeling that it was so much superior, he should be sorry to do anything to discourage it. He hoped, therefore, that the House would not encourage the contrary principle, and he could not agree to the Amendment.

did not think it possible for the Commissioners to arrange the area taxation of Ireland with reference to every particular property, however desirable it might be to alter the system. They should necessarily allow the Poor Law Commissioners great discretion in this matter. He would not go at further length into the question on this clause, as the question relating to the principle of electoral divisions was to be raised on the 10th clause. He was in favour of small area divisions of taxation, and opposed to large ones.

said, that the proposal of his hon. Friend the Member for Waterford, would, if carried into effect, place a large number of persons on the union at large, and consequently would not effect the object which it had in view.

said, that a measure had been introduced which would be a great pressure on Ireland. They should, in looking to the proposition before them, consider the practicability of remodelling any of the electoral divisions which required it.

concurred in the principle of charging the rate upon the smaller area. But the division by electoral districts had been already established by the Irish Poor Law; and upon the whole he thought it better than the parochial division. He considered some of the electoral divisions too large; but the number of electoral divisions and of parishes was not materially different; whereas parishes varied much more in their size, and were of a more straggling form than the electoral divisions. They had also less regard to the ownership of property, as the electoral divisions had been formed with a view of not separating properties. He would, therefore, recommend the hon. Baronet (Sir H. W. Barron) not to press his Amendment, but to reserve the consideration of the question of a union or a smaller rating to the next, the 10th Clause.

replied. The right hon. Gentleman who had last spoken, and the hon. Member for Northamptonshire, had both expressed themselves favourably towards the principle of smaller divisions; but neither of them had proposed any means to the House for carrying out that principle. If either had pointed out any way in which the system of smaller divisions could be established, he (Sir H. W. Barron) was ready to give up his proposition, and adopt a better. The plan which he proposed was one that had the advantage of requiring no new valuation, and no new trouble, and would be found much better than the existing system of electoral divisions of taxation. Some of the electoral divisions under the existing system were so large, that he knew one which contained no less than 30,000 acres. He would ask the House if such a division as that placed proper responsibility on the landlords, or was calculated to give each sufficient stimulus for the employment of labourers to keep them from going into the workhouse. If the House adopted his plan, they would, take a course which would be calculated to carry out the object of this measure, namely, the employment of the people, and thus, as it were, forcing every landlord to employ the poor on his property. The Amendment which he proposed would tend to make this a wholesome and efficient measure; but if it were not adopted, he believed that the Act would break down in its operation, or turn out not to be a wholesome and efficient measure. He was confident that unless the House adopted the principle of his Amendment in some shape, the measure would fail in its operation.

called the attention of the Committee to the inconvenience which would arise in carrying the Amendment into effect, in consequence of the great length of some of the parishes in Ireland.

said, that the great object of the Bill was to induce the landlords of Ireland to give employment to the poor, and that would be best done by establishing uniformity of interest and uniformity of rating. Some inconvenience might arise in particular cases from that uniformity of rating; but, generally speaking, it would be found advantageous in carrying out the object of the Bill.

trusted his hon. Friend would withdraw the Amendment.

said, that there were in Ireland 2,500 parishes, of which there were between 600 and 700 that could be divided, and thus the whole number of divisions would be 3,500 instead of 2,600, as at present.

rose for the purpose of submitting to the House the Amendment upon this Clause of which he had given notice—an Amendment which he was induced to bring before the House solely from his conviction of the great importance of the subject to which it related. As the representative of a county which, contained very few towns, he thought it more especially his duty to bring forward this Amendment, the effect of which, if carried, would be to place the taxation for the relief of the poor not on those smaller divisions of which they had heard so much to-night, and understood so little, but upon the union divisions at large. When the Poor Law Bill for Ireland was first passed, an attempt was made by Mr. Lucas, then Member for Monaghan, but he was defeated by a large majority. In the other House of Parliament a proposition for that rating was soon after brought in by the Duke of Wellington; and as his influence was reckoned irresistible, the Ministry acquiesced in his proposition, contrary to the course which they had taken in that House, and contrary, as he understood, to the advice of the Poor Law Commissioners. The proposition was defended on the ground of the great advantage which would arise from encouraging the landlord in Ireland to take care of the condition of those on his property, and of rewarding the good and punishing the bad landlord. It did not need much argument on his part to prove that it had not succeeded, for he believed that every one in that House who had advocated district rating now wished that the districts were smaller; but he would quote one paper which had been sent to him by Sir M. Chapman, and which would afford very convincing testimony of the effect of the system. The paper to which he alluded contained resolutions drawn up by the grand jury of the county of Westmeath, and, with the exception of a fanciful notion of taxing fundholders for poor rates, was very well worthy of attention. The grand jury of Westmeath stated, as the result of their experience, that the system of rating by electoral divisions was not a just and equal system of rating, and that it had failed in securing that adequate supervision of the poorer tenantry which ought to be the object of a good system of poor laws. If, then, it had not produced the beneficial effect of securing the supervision of the farmers in the district, what had been the effect of the system on another class of the community—a class more entitled to consideration than any other? What had been its effect upon the towns, and upon the rural districts encompassing them? He would read a petition from the union in which he himself resided, to show what that effect was. The petitioners stated that while the provision in question had not stimulated local employment, it had subjected the electoral division of Killarney to taxation for the support of three-fourths of the paupers in the union. [An Hon. MEMBER: Does the petition proceed from the guardians?] It did not, but from the landowners, inhabitants, and ratepayers of the Killarney electoral division, and had 900 signatures attached to it. The charge for that district of the union for the year ending the 5th of March, 1846, was 311l., while the charge for the whole union was 478l. He would also call the attention of the House to another petition, which had been presented by his hon. Friend on his right. It was from the guardians of the poor and the ratepayers of the Thurles division, and they complained that Thurles was rated at 3s. 1½d. in the pound for the support of the poor, while the adjoining division had not been rated one farthing. The hon. Member for Northamptonshire said triumphantly the other night, when opposing the principle which the Amendment which he was about to propose would embody, that in no case could an instance be found where two electoral divisions had been joined together for the purposes of rating, although the guardians had the power of uniting them. No doubt that was true, for those who paid little for rates were not likely willingly to take a fair share of their neighbours' burdens; such superhuman virtue was not to be expected in these times. He feared, however, that if these inequalities continued, they would lead to fearful disturbances in many parts of the country. He feared that they might lead to collisions and breaches of the peace, quite as bad and more dangerous than any which had been seen of late years in Ireland. He had endeavoured to show how unequally the present system of rating operated, and he would in a word or two show how unjust its operation was. The ejected tenants who were driven from the rural districts became in their destitution a burden not on the district which they had left, but on the towns in which they had passed a small part of their time. The Westmeath gentlemen to whom he had alluded before, adopted the plan of charging the rate for the relief of the in-door poor upon the union; and where out-door relief was given, it was charged upon the townland division to which the pauper belonged. The grand jury of his (Mr. M. J. O'Connell's) own county stated that they preferred that the electoral districts should be reformed, or be subdi- vided into relief districts. For his own part, however, he could not see any means of providing proper machinery in such a case. If the area of the present electoral division were to be diminished one half, it would only inflict an injury on some of the best landed proprietors of Ireland, and make a dozen Cholesburys in every union in Ireland. He was inclined, therefore, to come to the conclusion that the simplest and best plan was the one which he proposed, of charging the rates to be raised for the relief of the poor on the entire area of the union. He admitted that the proposition in the Bill, which directed that all expenses beyond a sum of 15d. in the pound should be charged on the union at large, was a considerable improvement on the present law; but he thought that it would lead to carelessness in the management of the rates when they fell below that amount. The attempt to localise responsibility had failed; and the best way was to make the circle of responsibility and the circle of taxation co-extensive. He knew he had no chance of enforcing his views in the House at present, as he should be opposed by hon. Members opposite, and he was afraid by hon. Members on his own side of the House also. He should, however, take the sense of the Committee on the subject of the Amendment, which he would now propose. The hon. Member then moved that the words after the word "that" in the clause should be omitted, and other words inserted, charging all expenses to be henceforth incurred for the relief of destitute poor persons in Ireland, whether under the provisions of the present Bill, or those of the Statute 1st and 2nd Victoria, c. 56, upon the union at large.

was understood to oppose the Amendment, although he admitted that in the country districts of Ireland in particular there was a strong, but he thought fallacious, feeling in favour of the Motion of the hon. Member for Kerry.

supported the clause. There was only one union in Ireland in which a general system of rating prevailed, and, which, when the out-door system commenced, was forced to have recourse to the electoral system. Did the question come to division, he felt sure that there would be a large majority in favour of the clause as it stood.

, in support of the Amendment, cited a number of instances in which the rates in the towns were ex- ceedingly high, whilst those in the rural districts were merely nominal. He would cordially support a union rating. The hon. and gallant Gentleman referred to a letter which he held in his hand, and which he had received from the hon. Member for Mallow. The letter stated that the writer had found, upon going to a place called Churchtown, to collect information relative to the removal of tenants, that twenty-four houses had been pulled down, and that others were awaiting a like fate. The consequence would be, that upwards of 300 human beings would be cast upon the world, and have a legal claim to be charged on the Mallow electoral division. He must caution the Committee that there already existed an almost insupportable pressure of local taxation in the towns, and that if it were proposed still further to increase the burden, the most serious consequences would arise, leading to the greatest difficulty in the collection of rates.

understood that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kerry intended to divide the House upon the Amendment which he had proposed; otherwise the very important question which it involved could be with more convenience discussed upon the Motion of which his hon. Friend the Member for Northamptonshire had given notice. The Irish Members would, however, he hoped, pardon him for stating his opinions upon the subject before he gave his vote. He feared that on the eve of the great and alarming, although perhaps unavoidable, experiment to be tried in Ireland, the landowners of that country would derive but small consolation from the discussion of the point now at issue by English landlords, who, notwithstanding their experience of the operation of the poor law in this country, would be found to differ materially from each other. Indeed, as far as he was concerned, he was bound to confess that even his own strong opinion had recently been changed as regarded the subject before the House, by the experience which he had acquired. As to the Irish Poor Law itself, when it was first introduced by the noble Lord the Member for the city of London, he had given it a very anxious and hesitating support. He doubted then whether any material benefit could be derived from its operation when no right to relief was conferred by it, and neither settlement nor power of removal had been introduced. These had been his objections to the measure. The noble Lord combated these objections; and in candour he felt bound to state that the noble Lord was right, and that he had been wrong. His experience led him to the conclusion, that, considering the distressing circumstances of Ireland, great public advantages had been gained by the poor law which had been passed, imperfect as at the time of its introduction he had deemed it. What were these advantages? Ireland was divided into districts, perhaps not of the most convenient extent possible, but still well fitted for the purpose of administering relief to the poor. In the centre of each of these districts was a workhouse. In each of these districts there was a mixed representative body conversant with the system of distributing relief to the poor. There also existed a central controlling authority in Dublin; and, besides this, an equal valuation of property for poor-law purposes existed all over Ireland. These were the principal advantages of the enactment; but there was advantage not only in what the noble Lord had done, but in what he had avoided doing, although he (Sir James Graham) doubted at the time whether the noble Lord was right in the course which he had pursued. The noble Lord had not introduced any law of settlement, nor had he given any power of removal. Now, subsequent experience had made him (Sir J. Graham) think, so far from assimilating the Irish to the English Poor Law, that the time had arrived when the law of England, in respect to these important features, must itself be reviewed; and when it might be found expedient, if not to abolish, at least greatly to restrain, the law of settlement in connexion with the law of removal. Having made these acknowledgments, he must say that he experienced distrust in his own judgment in coming to any conclusion upon the important point now before the House. At all events, it was a choice of conflicting difficulties, let their decision be what it might. Much was, no doubt, to be said in favour of the Motion of the hon. Member for Kerry; and what could be thus said, had been well and pointedly urged in the address of the hon. Member to the House. He (Sir J. Graham) was, however, quite convinced that under the law of rating in Ireland as now established, in many cases towns were exposed to suffer great hardship. It could not be denied that what had been called good management of an estate in Ireland, and that at a day not long gone by, consisted in diminishing the population upon that estate—in clearing it; and the effect of those clearances had been, to drive the poorer portion of the population from the rural districts to the towns, thereby considerably adding to the amount of pauperism in the towns where the ejected tenants were thus congregated. On the other hand, the rural districts had, with reference to the union rate as now collected, a fair primâ facie ground for complaint. Although, undoubtedly, there was a general analogy between the union charges in this country and in Ireland, still there was this important difference—the union charges were here defrayed out of an union rate, which was based on the average of contributions of each parish to the poor for three years antecedently to the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act, and the union rate was levied with a reference to the past pauperism of the subdivisions of the union. Such was not the case in Ireland. The system of collection had reference, not to the pauperism, but to the wealth, of each subdivision of the district. There the rate was levied with reference not to the number of the poor, but to the rental of the landed property of the district. Amid the conflicts of these rival interests, it was very difficult to arrive at any conclusion which should not contain in itself some germ of evil. To the proposition of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kerry, that we should subject all the unions to an uniform poundage-rate, there were insuperable objections—objections which be could not state more clearly than he found them mentioned in a letter which he held in his hand from Mr. Gulson, a gentleman whose experience and authority on the question would be universally admitted. The evidence of Mr. Gulson before the Settlement Committee was in the hands of hon. Members. In that evidence, as related to England (the circumstances of which country were widely different from those of Ireland), Mr. Gulson was in favour of a change of parochial to union rating; and he assigned very strong reasons in favour of such a proposal. But, with respect to Ireland, he wished to refer to Mr. Gulson's remarks as to the working of the present system of electoral divisions, and to the incalculable advantage which was derived in making it the self-interest of each of the landowners and occupiers in the electoral division to make the amount of pauperism as small as possible. Mr. Gulson, writing at Drogheda, on the 2nd of February, 1843, says—

"I see an incalculable advantage at work with reference to the care exercised over electoral divisions, both by guardians, ratepayers, and landlords, which would cease when self-interest no longer prompted them to exertion. I see work offered to men by the agent, and by the ratepayers, interested in a particular electoral division, solely because the man and his family would otherwise be applicants for admission into the workhouse. It not unfrequently happens at the boards in my district, on a man applying, that the warden says he will find the applicant work in the division at fair wages, and I often see the guardians exerting themselves legitimately to find employment for those who would otherwise be destitute; because, if taken into the workhouse, the persons would be a charge on the ratepayers of the division. Only last week this occurred in the cases of two applicants at Monaghan, for both of whom employment at fair wages was found. If cases of this kind come under my own eye, it is fair to conclude the same goes on in a tenfold degree where I know nothing of it. Throughout my district, the large farmers, and the guardians, and the agents, are very active in keeping down the expenses of their several divisions; and I constantly, in private, hear them consulting as to the best mode of employing the people, rather than let them go (able-bodied) into the workhouse. If the electoral divisions were done away with, all this stimulus would cease to operate."

When the Government introduced the Bill containing a clause abolishing the electoral district charge, and substituting the union charge, he was bound to say that he had thought the arrangement, as then proposed, on the whole the best. He did think, that in the case of towns there was so much hardship under the present system of rating in electoral divisions only (though he was not insensible to the advantages pointed out by Mr. Gulson), that on the whole it was necessary to enlarge the area on which the new burden should fall. He thought the circumstances of England and Ireland with reference to the employment of labourers from the rural districts not only dissimilar, but in many cases swayed by opposite influences, which should be well weighed and considered: and though he did not go the length of the noble Member for Liverpool (Lord Sandon), still he admitted there was much force in many of his objections. He did not believe that the best system would be the abolition of the electoral divisions, and the substitution of an universal poundage rate throughout the union. On the other hand, he must admit, that the fact of the towns being subjected to great hardship from measures often taken by the landlords for the clearing of their estates, and the consequent flocking of their ejected tenantry into the towns, was well worthy of careful consideration. On the whole, he did not think it possible to devise any course more just and expedient than the middle one now suggested for adoption in the clause as it stood in the Bill. He did not say that the maximum charge of 1s. 3d. for the half-year was precisely the amount which it was indispensable to retain. It was very important to consider what should be fixed in that respect, for the equity of the measure depended on that amount. He should state that there was an obvious objection to fixing the amount of the rating of the electoral division for a half-year, because by doing so, the principle of thrift in the administration of the law was altogether discouraged, inasmuch as inducement was held out to each electoral division to reach the maximum charge as soon as possible, in order to throw the surplus off the electoral division and on the union rate. He had heard it suggested that the converse of the proposal of the Government was that most desirable: that was, to begin by an union rate of a fixed amount for half a year, and to enact that everything beyond that fixed union rate should fall on the different electoral divisions. There was unquestionably the right principle of thrift in that arrangement, because it would be the interest of every electoral division to make the union rate go as far as possible, knowing that any charge beyond that amount must fall separately and distinctly on each electoral division that was found to have exceeded the sum fixed for the union rate. It was not for him to propose any such alteration; but if the Government thought it worthy of adoption, there were strong arguments in favour of such an arrangement. But if not proposed by them, seeing that they had the best sources of information, and the choice of difficulties being extremely urgent, he should be guided by the decision at which the Government might arrive. On the whole, he thought that the clause as it was framed was just in principle; and, reserving to himself the right of considering whether 1s. 3d. should be the maximum rating fixed on for the half year, in the main he gave his cordial assent to the Government proposal, and should, therefore, consider it his duty to resist the Amendments of the hon. Members for Northampton and Kerry.

said, the original proposal of Government was to allow the in-door relief to be provided for by the present electoral rating, and to enforce a union rating only as to out-door relief. Strong arguments were urged against that plan, and so great a preponderance of feeling against it existed amongst Irish representatives, that it was determined to abandon it. Under these circumstances it was necessary to adopt a course of providing for extreme cases, where there was such an inequality between one electoral division and another, that if an electoral rating only were adhered to it must become overwhelming, and the law must break down. As to the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman, which, though not made in the House before, had been suggested elsewhere, he thought the great difficulty in adopting it, would be to say at what amount the union rate should be fixed. If it were fixed at a very low rate, it would be inoperative as to electoral divisions; and if it were taken at a high figure, it would be in fact a union rating only, it being scarcely probable that any electoral division would incur a higher charge than that fixed for the union. As he said before, be thought 2s. 6d. a year would only apply to extreme cases, for there were only six unions in Ireland in which the average rate exceeded 1s. in the pound, and there were forty-one in which the average was under 6d. Under these circumstances, he thought the clause met fairly extreme cases.

would vote in favour of rating by electoral districts, rather than by unions at large. He should, therefore, oppose the present Amendment, and support that of his hon. Friend the Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Stafford O'Brien), for omitting the present clause. The hon. Member for Kerry (Mr. M. J. O'Connell) had referred to the course be (Mr. Shaw) had taken on a former occasion, when Mr. Lucas had proposed a law of settlement for Ireland; but he thought that he could easily vindicate the perfect consistency of that course with the one he was then about to pursue. He had, since the allusion of the hon. Member, referred to Hansard, for what he (Mr. Shaw) had said on the occasion of Mr. Lucas's Motion; and, with the permission of the House, he would read one sentence of it to the Committee. It was as follows:—

"He (Mr. Shaw) still held the opinion he had expressed in the discussion of the Bill of last year, that it would be simpler, and in all respects better, that there should be neither a law of settlement, nor a right to relief. The terms were not quite convertible; but still he thought it easy to show, that the law of settlement, and the right to relief, were so inseparably connected, that the adoption of the one must inevitably lead to the establishment of the other."

Well, then, up to the present time there had been no right to relief in Ireland, and he therefore had objected to any law of settlement; but by that Bill the Government proposed—and the House had determined—to give a right to relief in Ireland with a vengeance. Therefore, although he was not yet prepared for the English law of settlement with all its complication, still he thought the approach to that law which the charging the rate on the electoral division, in preference to the union mode, was essential for the protection and encouragement of those who managed their properties well, and looked after their own poor. He had always been of opinion that the poor law should have been introduced in Ireland very gradually, and by cautious steps in the right direction; whereas he thought that the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) who had first introduced it, was then of the same opinion, but was now taking immense strides in the wrong direction. He had proposed in 1838, and divided the House upon it, that relief in poor-houses should be confined to the aged, the infirm, and the sick; but in that he was overruled, and a discretion was allowed the guardians of granting in-door relief to all the destitute poor whether infirm or able-bodied. Now, that had been extended by conferring the right to in-door relief on all—of out-door relief, without qualification, to the whole class of the permanently disabled, and of out-door relief to the able-bodied labourer, with a qualification which he feared would be no practical safeguard. He, therefore, would grasp at any protection which the rating upon the smaller area could afford; and although he knew it was a question of great difficulty when applied to towns and densely-peopled districts, still it would be no argument to one who took the view that he did to say that those particular localities could not bear up under the limited local rating. He admitted that; but then he said further, extend it to the unions according to your proposed system of out-door relief to the able-bodied; and they will break down too, and even go beyond that, and perpetrate the injustice to the more advanced parts of Ireland, of making the rate in the end a national one throughout all Ireland; and still he believed the national property would sink under it. The noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) said, that his arguments were based upon a supposition that the present calamitous condition of Ireland was always to last. No, he trusted that it would not; but his argument was, that by the present legislation during that state of things, the noble Lord was doing all he could to make it last. For, while nearly half the population of Ireland was receiving public charity, and before they could be weaned from it to any independent subsistence, the Government held out to them the promise of out-door relief as a permanent system under the poor law, which must operate as a temptation to them to continue in dependent pauperism, which it would be contrary to reason and experience to expect them to resist.

said, the union of Cork comprised fourteen electoral divisions; the rating was 370,000l., and of that there fell on Cork 200,000l., nearly two-thirds of the whole. And what was the proportion of the rating? Six-sevenths of the entire rating of the union fell on the city. This arose from the fact, that from the rural districts near the city, tenants had come into the city who had been displaced by their landlords—had endeavoured to get employment, and had, after twelve months, become chargeable to the city, where they had been resident for that period. At the last audit, accounts for 50,000 rations were approved of, and there was an electoral division on which two rations only were chargeable, although there were several persons from that division receiving relief in the city of Cork. They were dealing with a new system in Ireland—not with the poor law which had existed in England for a very long series of years—and the fair, just, and honest course was to distribute the burdens as equitably as possible.

did not see that there was any argument against the suggestion made by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Dorchester. It offered many advantages; and as to the amount of the rating, he had known cases in which the rates in England had increased to 17s. in the pound, and he saw no reason why they were to expect a different result in Ireland.

said, that it was an error to suppose that the principle of electoral divisions was in the Poor Law Bill as it was originally drawn up. It was carried by way of Amendment in the House of Lords. It was there but an experiment; and he must say, that it had been stated to him, by all descriptions of people in the city which he represented, that the working of this principle pressed most unfairly. There had been several public meet- ings of the inhabitants, of the corporation, and of the ratepayers, and all with one accord pronounced the present system to be iniquitous and unjust. It was supposed that some good might have resulted from bringing the guardians together, in order to fix the quota payable by each electoral division; but the contrary was the result. The opinion of the country had been clearly expressed on this subject by the petitions which had been presented to the House. They found Drogheda, Enniscorthy, Wexford, Mallow, the barony of Leitrim in Galway, Ardee, Thurles, Kilkenny, and Monaghan, petitioning in favour of union rating; whilst, on the other hand, only Waterford, and two or three places of no importance, had forwarded petitions against it. A clergyman, who was well acquainted with his parishioners in the neighbourhood of Cork, on being removed to that town, declared he could recognise upwards of 1,000 paupers living there who by right should be chargeable to his former parish. This was a gross injustice to the ratepayers of the town, and he feared such cases were too common. Whenever a poor man came into a large town, he had nothing to do but apply to the first parish, and was sure of relief. The fact was, that the poor were engendered on the estates of the landed proprietors, and the towns suffered for it. He defied any hon. Member to point out one solitary instance in which a landlord had endeavoured to keep the poor people who had been bred on his estates, or to relieve them; and it appeared to be the sole object of the landlords to drive them out of their land. He wished he could induce the Government to adopt a system of rating which would operate more equally and justly on all classes of the community.

declared that he had always maintained the opinion that it was most desirable to make the proprietors responsible for the employment of the people; but there were great difficulties in carrying out the system in Ireland under the present circumstances. Many districts were overburdened with paupers, and he felt that some means of relief must be afforded to the landowners; but, under all the circumstances, he thought the proposition of Her Majesty's Government afforded the most reasonable compromise between both parties, and, while he intended to adhere to the principle of local responsibility, he found himself called upon to support the Bill as it stood, The only thing on which he was not fully satisfied was the quantum of the rate, as he thought the maximum might have been fixed at a higher amount; but that could be corrected hereafter.

opposed the principle of union rating. He resided in what was called a low-rate district, and yet each pauper in it cost 50l. a year. They had six paupers in the house, and they had to pay 300l. a year for them. So far from agreeing with hon. Members that pauperism was to be attributed to the country, he thought that the facilities afforded by towns for labourers to go away and leave their families, who supported themselves by begging (exchanging the produce of their vocation for small luxuries in the villages), gave great encouragement to mendicancy. He thought union rating would be most injurious to the country at large, and instead of six, they would have innumerable paupers in his own district.

replied: Nothing had occurred in the course of the discussion to shake his opinion on the subject, except the quotation of Mr. Gulson's authority by the right hon. Baronet (Sir James Graham); but he was not the least surprised at that quotation, when he heard it was made in 1843. He could not see on what principle Gentlemen should advocate union settlements and rating in England, and say that Ireland required a different system. He did not trust the predictions they had heard, of injury to the landed interest, particularly when he remembered those which had been uttered in 1838, and were subsequently falsified; and neither those nor the arguments of hon. Gentlemen were sufficiently powerful to induce him not to press the question to a division.

said, it appeared to him important that the House, before proceeding further with the Bill, should consider the returns moved for by the Under Secretary of the Home Department, show- ing the proportion of the amount of rates collected to that which remained uncollected. In Skibbereen, where the misery was said to be so fearful, 437l. 14s. was the amount of rate collected during the past year, whilst the amount of rate uncollected was 1,242l. 17s. 1d., being just three times the amount of rate collected. This was in the place of which he had heard horrors enough to make the blood run cold. For the whole of Ireland the proportion of rate uncollected to that collected, was 243,632l. to 46,442l. He wished to ask his right hon. Friend, whether he would be inclined to insert any additional powers of compulsory rating, to give the Commissioners power to compel boards of guardians, when they had themselves struck the rate, to proceed to enforce it?

said, the Commissioners had already power to apply for a mandamus, by which the collection of the rate could be enforced; and there was one instance in which that power had been exercised.

rose to move that the clause be omitted. He, and those who agreed with him, deprecated the addition which this clause would make to the change now proposed, regarding that change as in itself a great evil. There was already a power existing to transfer the charge of maintaining a pauper, in case of necessity, to the union; why then, he would ask, needlessly disturb an arrangement so salutary for the purpose of introducing a regulation which must be applied under all circumstances? Some hon. Gentlemen maintained that the misery of the towns was caused by the clearance of estates, and the determination of the landlords to drive the miserable paupers from their own neighbourhood into the towns; but he would contend that the official correspondence, as well as the Acts of Parliament which had been passed, showed that the landlords were not fairly chargeable with pursuing such a line of conduct. By keeping the districts of moderate dimensions, the Legislature would preserve a stimulus to the landlords to afford employment. If this principle were to be abandoned and another substituted, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would tell them what it was. Could it be said that 540,000 acres formed an area sufficiently small to maintain that stimulus? In spite of all that was said and written, it was far easier to swamp the property than to relieve the poverty of Ireland. Unless you preserved at some hazards and difficulties the improving landlords, unless you kept them as your seed-corn, if he might use the expression, their difficulties would be worse. The greater the misery and poverty were, the greater the chance that you would swamp the whole union, rather than relieve the electoral division. One great reason why he pressed the right hon. Gentleman to retain the electoral divisions was, that he firmly believed if you altered them at the present moment, the difficulty of collecting the rates would be immeasurably increased. It had been said that this was a question between the towns and the country. If that was the case, were they prepared to sacrifice the greater interest to the less? Was the effect of this clause to be, that the great interest, the mainstay, the prime hope of Ireland, was to be sacrificed? It was of the greatest importance to secure the attendance of farmers at boards of guardians; but if they enacted a union rate, they would inevitably throw the whole management into the hands of the ex-officio guardians. If they sacrificed electoral divisions, they must abandon the principle so strongly recommended to their adoption by the Poor Law Commissioners, of making it the interest of a landed proprietor to look after his own property. What principle did the right hon. Gentleman propose to substitute? The question of a national rate had many arguments in its favour—that of minute divisions had also many advocates; but if they took all the indifference of a national rate, and did not at the same time give the justness of its operation, how could they expect to derive any advantage from the change? He recollected that the present Irish Poor Law was brought forward by the noble Lord at the head of the Government, and that it was improved by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Dorchester (Sir J. Graham); it was then sanctioned and approved of by both parties in the House; and all he asked of them now was, not to disturb that arrangement. The men who requested them not to disturb that arrangement were the men who were connected mainly with the great stay and prop of Ireland—its agriculture. The change was sought for by those—respectable doubtless as they were, and entitled to be listened to with attention—but who, he insisted upon it, represented the smaller interests of Ireland. He, therefore, asked of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite to consider well before they disposed of this question. They were about to bring in an Act—or he believed it had been already brought in—to facilitate the sale of land in Ireland. That, he conceived, would be one of the most excellent and useful Acts introduced this Session; but he asked the Government not to nullify that Act. What English capitalist would avail himself of that Act—what other capitalist would avail himself of that Act—and purchase land in Ireland, except he knew what he had to encounter? If a man purchased property in England, he knew the burdens that were on the estate; but take a man to the neighbourhood, suppose of Limerick, to buy an esstate, he could have no notion of what burdens would be on it, and there would be a very small inducement to him to carry out the bargain. Let it be recollected that he now proposed no diminished area of taxation. He believed that the electoral divisions were in many places too large, and in no place too small, yet he did not suggest that any change was necessary, save what might be worked out by the existing law. It had worked well, and he hoped it would work better, through the instrumentality of the board of Commissioners which it was proposed to appoint; and he asked of them to leave in the power of that board and of the guardians the same discretion which they now possessed. Nothing, he felt, remained for him now to do, consistently with his duty, but boldly to move the omission of this clause.

said, the hon. Gentleman had asked upon what principle it was Her Majesty's Government had made this proposition with regard to the area of rating; and he could inform the right hon. Gentleman that Her Majesty's Government had not adopted the extreme of any of the principles that had been urged upon their consideration. They had not assented to the proposal of those hon. Members who were connected with towns, that the area of taxation should be in all cases the unions; and they had, on the other hand, agreed to the proposal made by hon. Gentlemen and others connected with the landed interest, that in every case the electoral districts—without reference to the interests of towns—should be adopted. He was aware that this was a difficult and complicated subject. There were some very specious, and possibly some solid arguments that could be urged with reference to it; but all he could say, was this—that on full consideration of the matter, and having consulted with those whom they thought most competent to give an opinion upon it, Her Majesty's Government had come to the conclusion that the course they now proposed, and which was a compromise between the two opposite principles that had been urged upon them, was, on the whole, the most just course that could be proposed to the House. There was certainly one advantage in the principle of the proposal of Her Majesty's Government, namely, that it was a self-acting principle, and he greatly preferred a principle of that kind to leaving a question of this sort to the discretion of any boards of guardians, who might have very contrary interests from one another. He thought it better to adopt some fair principle, which should be self-acting. The hon. Gentleman had said there were difficulties in the way of this proposal, but that there were no difficulties in the way of the proposal he had made. Now, if they adopted the proposal of electoral districts in all cases, how, he asked, would they provide for the paupers in certain cases in towns in Ireland? He found no man, however anxious he might be for the principle of electoral districts in the abstract, who did not admit, if that principle were introduced into this Bill, that there must be some special means adopted to provide for the burden of taxation in the towns in Ireland. He had heard various proposals on the subject; some persons said the taxation should be thrown on the counties at large; but all of those proposals, when they came to be analysed, seemed to be liable to greater objection than the course which Her Majesty's Government had proposed to take. Any person who heard the statements made by the representatives of the various towns, must see that an enormous burden was thrown on the towns, in comparison with the country districts. It appeared that in towns the rate would amount to 2s. or 3s. in the pound, when the adjoining country districts did not pay more probably than so many pence in the pound. He did not agree in the statement that there was no connexion between the gentlemen in the country and the paupers in the towns. In many instances it occurred that gentlemen, when improving their properties, got rid of a number of their poor tenants, and they very possibly swelled the mass of paupers in the neighbouring town. It was impossible to suppose, in the present condition of Ireland (and he hoped, if such were the case, that it would be effected gradually and humanely), but that there would be a diminution of cottier tenants on estates, who would, of course, when removed, flock into the neighbouring towns. Therefore he conceived they were bound to take this principle into their consideration, if they wished to establish a fair principle of rating in that country. The question now under discussion had been previously discussed, he knew not how many times. It had been brought before the House in various forms and shapes. All he had to say about it was this—he acknowledged to the hon. Gentleman that they were not acting upon any of the extreme principles urged urged upon them, but they adopted a course which they thought was a compromise between those extreme principles, and the best calculated to do justice.

was glad the Government was not going to give in to this very transparent landlord job. He thought, however, that the sum of 2s. 6d. in the year was rather too high, and it would be fairer if it were 1s. 6d.; but, even as it was, it was an improvement on the present plan, which was a very great grievance to towns.

opposed the Amendment and supported the clause.

wished to press upon the House one consideration, namely, that it was for the interests of the towns, especially in a place like Ireland, that the country should be in a state of prosperity; and how could the country be in a prosperous state except by means of improvements on the part of the landlords? It would be a short-sighted view, indeed, if they thought it would be of advantage not to give to the landlords of the country every possible inducement to improve their estates; and he could not conceive the case was well understood if they did not give to the landlord the full benefit of any improvements he made. He should, therefore, support the Amendment of his hon. Friend.

said, that last year there was scarcely a union in Ireland in which the workhouses were full. The great expense hitherto had been the building the workhouses, and these were now nearly completed, therefore the increase of the rate to one shilling would not fall so heavily.

said: I beg to remind the right hon. Gentleman that we have just granted an advance of ten mil- lions to Ireland. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman, what becomes of his shilling rate, with an advance of 10,000,000l. sterling on 13,000,000l., and whether he expects ever to see a rate of a shilling in the pound in Ireland again? By every calculation that can be made, it is clear that you have to provide for 275,000 families permanently. Yes, permanently. It is admitted that the potato is done away with. I do not know what prospect there is of potatoes being grown in Ireland this year or the next; and if that be so, what is it you propose to do? To improve the cultivation of the soil, and thereby employ and feed the people? Why, if you were to reckon five men for the cultivation of every hundred acres, you will find that you still have to provide employment for 275,000 able-bodied labourers; and that being the case, the Government now proposes a measure, by which those 275,000 labourers, representing, with their families, a million and a half of people, would have a permanent provision made for them out of the poor law. The hon. Members for the cities of Dublin and Kilkenny have complained grievously of the inroads of rural paupers on the cities they represent. They state that, in consequence of the pauperism of Ireland, Cork and Kilkenny are devoured by the paupers of the country. I should like them to compare the state of the cities with that of the rural districts. First, we will take the city of Cork, which is rated on 195,000l. value with a population of 92,000. Let them stop across the boundary into the next union, that of Skibboreen, and they will find that union is rated at 98,000l. value, with 104,000 people to maintain. I want to know, then, what proof there is that the city of Cork is devoured by the paupers from the union of Skibbereen? The same applies to the city of Kilkenny. That city has, I think, a population of 23,000 inhabitants, and its valuation is about 48,000l. Is, then, Kilkenny an example of a city eaten up by the agricultural population? If our consideration is required by the one or the other, it is for the agricultural districts. My opinion is, that it would be the best thing that could happen to the rural districts were they and the town unions to be amalgamated. Look at the union of Ballina, embracing an area of 792 square miles, and a population of 120,000 persons, with only 95,000l. to maintain them. Do you not think that in an amalgamation of the city of Cork with Ballina, the latter would be the gainer? Take Dublin, or any other city if you will. Dublin has 303,000 persons to maintain upon a valuation of 900,000l.: and would it be no advantage to the rural unions in its vicinity to be united to it? Take the towns where you will, and let their unions be amalgamated with the rural unions, and the latter will be the gainers and the former the losers. My object is to put an efficient control over the expenditure, and one way to do that is to support the proposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Northamptonshire, by which we should reduce the districts over which the rate is to spread. I am convinced that is only by a system of self-reliance that any beneficial results can be arrived at; and as one means of inculcating such a system, the proposition has my hearty concurrence. We have been told to-night by the hon. Member for Kerry that the author of a similar alteration in the Bill, when it was proposed in 1837, was the Duke of Wellington; and I believe the noble Duke's argument was, that if you entered too widely the area over which the union is spread, every man would strive to put his hand into his neighbour's pocket. This argument is as good now as it was then: and therefore I support the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland has discovered to-night in the Bill what he calls a "self-acting principle," but which last year was called the "sliding-scale." Those who supported the "sliding-scale," had not last year the hon. Gentleman's company; although he is now attempting to carry a "sliding-scale" for the people of Ireland.

said, one reason why he would support the Motion of his hon Friend the Member for Northamptonshire was, that there was no law of settlement in Ireland. Nothing, he conceived, could be more unwise than extending the area of taxation; for such would make it impossible for the guardians to be personally cognizant of the justice of the applicants for relief. He thought the Government would have reason every day to regret more and more their rejection of the proposition of the noble Lord the Member for Lynn, for the establishment of a, really reproductive system of labour. The hon. Member briefly stated the amount of rateable property in England and Ireland, and also the comparative expense of the support of a pauper in each country, as follows:—

Population—England and Wales	16,000,000
Rateable property	63,000,000l.
3l. 18s. 9d. per head.
Population—Ireland	8,000,000
Real property	13,000,000l.
1l. 12s. per head.

The rateable property of England available for the sustenance of her population, was greater than the rateable property of Ireland available for the sustenance of her population, by 125 per cent. Supposing, therefore, that the pauperism of Ireland bore no greater proportion to the population, than did the pauperism to the population, of England, to maintain the Irish paupers as the English paupers were maintained would require that the rates in Ireland should be more than two and a quarter times heavier than the rates in England; but they knew that there was very much more pauperism in Ireland: the rates, therefore, to maintain the Irish paupers in the same position as the English paupers, must press very considerably more upon the resources of Ireland, as compared with the pressure of the rates in England, than was indicated by the proportion of more than two and a quarter to one—most likely, as three to one.

, as he intended to give his support to the Amendment, was anxious to explain, in two sentences, his reason for doing so. He was the more anxious to state his opinion, on account of the manner in which the hon. Member for Kilkenny characterized the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northamptonshire. The hon. Member said, that the object of the Amendment was to help the landlords; and he designated it as a landlord's job. He had not the advantage of being an Irishman; and, therefore, he was not an Irish landlord. He could assure the House, if he viewed the question as between the Irish landlords and the Irish people, he should have much hesitation in supporting the Amendment; but he could not view it in that light. He could conceive some cases in which a few landlords might get an advantage by it; but there were many cases in which the advantage of the Amendment, as regarded the difference between electoral and union ratings, would be, not for the landlords, but for the great body of the ratepayers. He could not admit that this was merely a question between the towns and the landlord. He thought that the hon. Member for Wycombe had conferred a great benefit by the returns which he had moved for, and which were laid before the House yester- day, respecting the valuation for rates in Ireland. From this return the effect of the rating on electoral districts was clearly shown; and as to the allegation, that by such rating the pauper population of the rural districts would be thrown on the towns, it was shown by this return that such a statement was entirely groundless. It appeared from this return, that the value of the property in the town districts was much greater than in the rural districts. He thought that this was a sufficient answer to the argument as to the superiority of their having the rating in union districts, in contradistinction to electoral districts. It had been stated by the right hon. Secretary for Ireland that the result of the Amendment would be to encourage the clearing of estates in Ireland. This might be the case in individual instances; but the right hon. Gentleman dwelt too much on this point. The right hon. Gentleman might advert to the fact of one individual landlord having cleared his estate, and thus thrown a considerable burden on the other districts; but then, he should, on the other hand, take well-managed estates, where no such undue advantage could arise for the landlords, but in which the landlord was entitled to see that an undue burden was not thrown on him by the proposed mode of rating. He was convinced that by either plan individual cases of hardship would be inflicted; but they should look to the interests of the country at large, and not to the landlords alone. He was convinced that the system of union rating would take away a great inducement to individual exertion for the improvement of the country. He should support the Amendment, therefore, on the ground that by the electoral divisions they would be much more likely to obtain that desirable object than by that proposed in the Bill.

hoped that he should be better enabled to confine what he had to say within two sentences than the noble Lord had been. The noble Lord, as well as the hon. Member for Northamptonshire, argued as if this was the question of union rating; but it did not apply to it. With regard to the union rating, the House had already disposed of it in the Amendment of the hon. Member for Kerry. This proposal was for a very different form of rating.