wished to put to the Foreign Secretary a question, of which previous notice would probably not he required—whether the protocol was authentic, which appeared in that day's newspapers, respecting the arrangement entered into by this country with France, Spain, and Portugal, for an armed intervention in Portugal; and whether the noble Lord was ready to lay that protocol on the Table?

I hold in my hand a note which I have received from a noble Lord whom I do not now see in his place—the noble Member for Lynn—giving me notice that he meant to ask that question, and to follow it by two or three other questions upon the same subject. I have no difficulty in answering the question of the hon. Member, by saying that, as far as a hasty perusal enables me to judge, the protocol which appeared to-day in the papers is a fair and proper translation of that which was signed on Saturday week. The hon. Member asks whether there will be any objection to lay the protocol on the Table; and I answer, none whatever. It will be the duty of Her Majesty's Government to lay it on the Table.

wished also to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, whether it were true that the Geyser war steamer had sailed with shot, shell, and other ammunition; and whether it were for the general service of the fleet, or for the reduction of Oporto?

Whatever had been sent out was for the service of Sir W. Parker's squadron.

(who had just entered the House): I understand that my first question is answered. My second question to the noble Lord is, whether he is now in a condition to give a history to Parliament of the events, and transactions, and circumstances, which, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Ministers, have justified this armed intervention in the domestic affairs of Portugal? The third question which I have to ask my noble Friend is, whether he can state to the House of Commons the nature of those solemn declarations made in the course of the last summer by the Queen of Portugal to her people, the alleged infraction of which is set forth as the justification of the Portuguese people for rising in arms against the Government of their Sovereign? The last question I wish to ask is, whether the Government are possessed of any new information to the effect that the insurgents, already in possession of the whole country, up to the walls and gates of Lisbon, have been prevented only by the presence and interposition of the British and Spanish fleet from taking possession of the city of Lisbon itself?

In reply to my noble Friend, I have no difficulty in stating that Her Majesty's Government will lay before Parliament, with all possible expedition, papers setting forth the grounds upon which Her Majesty's Government have deemed themselves justified in taking what I admit to be the exceptional course which they have thought it their duty to adopt in the present state of Portugal. I will lay before the House any papers that I can, bearing upon those transactions of last year to which my noble Friend refers, though I cannot call to mind any particular paper which will distinctly show what he inquires about. With regard to the last question, I can only say, that there is a British naval force, and a Spanish vessel or two, in the Tagus; but there has been no collision between them and the insurgent forces south of the Tagus; but as to that question, it really must be left to my noble Friend to inquire what it was which prevented the insurgent forces from making that attack. I may as well observe now, that my hon. Friend (Mr. Hume) has given notice of a Motion for to-night upon this subject, probably imagining that the House would go into Committee of Supply; I believe that if there is any supply proposed, it will necessarily be at a late hour—too late for beginning a discussion of such magnitude and importance—and, as papers are to be laid upon the Table, perhaps my hon. Friend will postpone the Motion till the House is in possession of them.

had no doubt the House would be in a better condition to judge of the conduct of the Government when those papers should be laid on the Table; but he Was unwilling to postpone the discussion beyond Friday, with the understanding that it would be the first business of the afternoon, by which time he should hope the papers would be in the possession of hon. Members, His only object was a fair discussion, and to see whether the Government could justify their proceedings. He would, therefore, postpone his notice, taking it for granted that the Government would proceed with Supply the first thing on Friday.

had already stated that he should take the third reading of the Loan Discount Bill on Friday.

wished to call the attention of the Foreign Secretary to the circumstance that there had been rumours in town that a collision had taken place between Her Majesty's naval forces and the insurgent troops in or near Oporto; had the noble Lord received any information leading him to believe that there was any foundation for those rumours?

had not received any information on the subject.

must press his Motion that night, unless he had some assurance that a Committee of Supply should be moved on Friday; otherwise, the Motion would be thrown over into the next week.

should be quite ready, when the papers were in the hands of hon. Members, to bring on Supply immediately, or in any mode to allow the discussion to take place, and forward it in any manner in his power, but would not commit himself to a day for bringing forward this question if the papers should not be before the House.

asked whether the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary would state what papers there were that could not be prepared in a couple of days?

could promise that all possible expedition should be used; but the hon. Member might have an impression that more rapidity could be used in the way of preparation of papers than was really possible in transactions of this kind. A good deal of correspondence had of course passed in the last six or eight months; the matter should be condensed in as small a compass as possible, but it would not be just to the House, any more than to the Government, not to produce the papers necessary for enabling Parliament to form a fair and correct judgment upon the case.

was understood to say, that he should be satisfied if he had the protocol alone.

would certainly lay the protocol on the Table.

And also, I hope, the declaration or proclamation of the Queen to her subjects in June, I think, last year.

There is no objection to lay the protocol on the Table; but when other papers are asked for, I must say that the House could not come to any opinion upon this subject without knowing, not only what has taken place between the Queen of Portugal and her subjects, but also what has taken place with reference to appeals made by the Queen of Portugal to other Powers, and offers made by them to interfere in the affairs of that country. Unless the whole is laid before the House, the House cannot form an opinion, and I do not wish merely to lay on the Table the papers that suit the particular views of hon. Members.

wished his hon. Friend the Member for Montrose to give some pledge that the question relative to Portugal would be brought forward on Friday night. The House was left in ignorance whether the hon. Gentleman was resolved to proceed, or whether he might not listen to the persuasive tongue of the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and postpone his Motion. The armed intervention which was intended, would lead to most disastrous consequences; and it was neither more nor less than an intervention in the cause of despotism. It was all very well to speak of waiting for the production of papers; but British subjects at Oporto were exposed to the greatest risk, even to the sacrifice of their lives; and it was announced in regard to the Viscount Sa da Bandeira, that unless he immediately agreed to a suspension of arms he should be excluded from the amnesty. Was not the question, then, one which required to be dealt with immediately? He begged to call upon his hon. Friend to give some guarantee that the question would be brought before the House as soon as possible.

had already expressed his determination to bring forward the question on Friday. He had asked the Government to let him do so on going into Committee of Supply; but, if they refused, he should avail himself of another mode of bringing the question forward; though he regretted that in the latter case he would not be able to take the sense of the House. Nothing would prevent him from taking the course he had proposed; and he had only to put it to the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether, on Friday, one of the first Motions would not be that the House go into Committee of Supply?

could assure his hon. Friend that Her Majesty's Government had no wish at all to avoid the discussion. The better the facts were ascertained, the better would stand the case which Her Majesty's Government had to present. But it was not desirable that the House should enter on the discussion without becoming acquainted with the whole circumstances. The noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had said, that though it was necessary to give certain papers, he had no wish for delay. There were, however, some papers of very great importance, which ought to receive the attention of the House; and if these could be delivered in time, the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer would move to go into Committee of Supply on Friday; but he (Lord J. Russell) could not say that he wished to provoke a discussion unless the House was in possession of the requisite information.

documents or no documents, would bring forward the question on Friday.

expressed his intention to resist all Motions for Supply till the question was brought before the House.

thought one reason for not letting the matter lie over, was the tremendous effect which delay would produce in Portugal. The statement of the noble Lord (the Secretary for Foreign Affairs), that the document which had appeared in the public journals, quoted from the Paris papers, was a faithful transcript of the protocol, would produce a greater effect, and probably a more disastrous effect, than any armed intervention. The noble Lord had described the case as exceptional. It might well be called so, when they found England taking the side of a Queen who had re-established the Inquisition in a form more odiously terrible than that which existed in the middle ages. The noble Lord would, he hoped, hasten the printing of the papers.

inquired whether the noble Lord could not let the House have the papers in detached portions? If they were so voluminous as the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs had hinted, hon. Members could not otherwise expect to get them perused.

could only state that the papers would be produced as speedily as possible.

after referring to the new dockyard regulations, requiring the men selected for certain offices to undergo an examination in mathematics, &c, inquired whether Mr. Wallis had been appointed assistant master shipwright at Portsmouth, and, if so, whether he underwent that examination?

had stated, when he announced those regulations, that they were not intended to be applied so strictly as to debar the old and faithful servants of the Crown from that promotion which they merited; in fact, they were intended to have rather a prospective than a retroactive or even a present effect. The person alluded to had been thirty years in the service, had the highest testimonials from the officers under whom he served, and perhaps had taken a more active part in the construction of ships of war than any man now living; he ought not now to be debarred from promotion by the new regulations.

inquired what was intended to be done with (as we understood) the Health of Towns Bill.

In answering that question, I beg to remind the hon. Member that I stated on Friday, after having given notice what would be the business I should propose to take in the present week, that I would state further on this day what course we intend to take with respect to other Bills which are on the Table; and I think it will be better that I should take those different Bills in the order in which they now stand, than answer at once the question which the hon. Member has put. One of the first Bills in the Order of the Day is the Registering Births, &c. (Scotland) Bill. I stated with regard to that Bill, and another which is connected with it, before the holidays, either that they should come forward this day or be taken into consideration next Monday; but what I now propose to do is, seeing the state of business, and seeing the great objections that have been made to these Bills in Scotland, to fix them for Monday next as the first thing to be taken, and that my right hon. Friend who brought them forward should then state their general purport, and the reasons for which he thinks they are not liable to the objections which have been made to them in many quarters, and state also what is the shape in which we should wish them to stand; and, after that, we propose not to proceed with them during the present Session of Parliament, but leave them for further consideration in Scotland. With respect to another Bill which stands for to-night—the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Bill—I think it absolutely necessary for the duly carrying on the business before that Commission that some amendment should take place in the composition of the Commission; but, at the same time, I find that the particular mode in which we have proposed that that amendment should be made, has met with strong opposition from persons of the greatest authority in the Church; and, therefore, I mean likewise to leave that Bill for further consideration, and to see whether I cannot by some other mode, or, if necessary, by persevering in the present proposition, carry, in a future Session, a Bill for the purpose of amending the mode of conducting the business of that Commission, affecting, as it does, not only the property of the Church, but affecting great numbers of laymen in this country. Next, with regard to a Bill which has excited a good deal of discussion out of this House, and to which many objections have been stated, but which has been now put into another shape—I mean the Railways Bill—we propose to take the second reading of that Bill on Monday next, unless this urgent question respecting Portugal should interfere. On Thursday, in next week, we should propose to proceed with the English Poor Laws Administration Bill, which is already fixed for that day; and on the Monday following, the 14th, we propose to go into Committee on the Health of Towns Bill. Those are the principal Bills which now remain for the consideration of the House; and this disposes of the time up to the 14th of June, and answers the question of my hon. Friend. He asks whether, that Bill being liable to many objections in its details, we mean to persevere with it? My answer is, that we do think that Bill of very essential importance; and I trust that, although it may create a good deal of discussion in this House, the objections do not affect the principle of the Bill, and that we may be able to arrange the details in Committee; and I do hope to see it carried in this Session.

had heard with great regret that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Bill was to be withdrawn, and it made it necessary for him to prefer a request to the noble Lord. He had expressed his anxiety for a reform with the consent of the Commission, or through the intervention of Her Majesty's Government; but, as he had no hope of such a measure in the present Session, he trusted, considering the frequent postponements which had taken place to meet the noble Lord's views, that the noble Lord would still give him an opportunity of bringing forward his Motion for an inquiry into the composition and management of the Ecclesiastical Commission.

when there was so much business before the House, could not give the hon. Gentleman a day for the purpose of making that Motion; but he would afford the hon. Gentleman an opportunity of stating his views, if the hon. Gentleman thought proper on a Notice-day to bring the subject before the House.

wished to know whether Her Majesty's Government intended to bring in a Bill this Session for the appointment of an additional bishop or bishops; and, if so, whether the said bishop or bishops would have seats in the House of Lords?

begged to state, that it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce a Bill in the other House of Parliament repealing part of an Act by which the bishoprics of St. Asaph and Bangor were united, and making provision for the appointment of a bishop of Manchester. By that Bill it was not intended to enact that any additional seat should be provided for the bishops so constituted; and it was not intended that any part of the funds for the support of these new bishoprics should be derived from any other source than from funds now belonging to the Church.

In moving the Order of the Day for the consideration of the Lords' Amendments on a Bill entitled "An Act to make further Provision for the Destitute Poor in Ireland," I have to state, Mr. Speaker, that your attention has no doubt been attracted to those Amendments, and likewise to what passed on the 24th of July, 1838, when your predecessor, now Lord Dunfermline, occupied the chair of this House. Before proceeding further, I wish, Sir, that you would state what is the view you take of those Amendments as affecting the privileges of this House, and whether you think the view stated by Mr. Abereromby the correct one?

In answer to the question of the noble Lord, I have no hesitation in saying, that the Amendments made by the House of Lords on the Poor Relief (Ireland) Bill and the Landed Property (Ireland) Bill do infringe on the privileges of this House. On former occasions, when similar questions have come before the House—I especially allude to the cases which occurred in 1834, when the English Poor Law Bill was before Parliament; and in 1838, when the Irish Poor Law Relief Bill was before Parliament—the House of Commons did wave its privileges, and agreed to the Amendments made by the House of Lords; and it is for the House to decide whether, so far as regards the Poor Relief (Ireland) Bill, they will adhere to the practice which existed previous to 1834, or whether they will consent to wave their privileges in the present instance. With respect to the Landed Property (Ireland) Bill, I am not aware of any precedent in regard to a Bill authorizing issues from the Consolidated Fund, either by way of loan or otherwise, in which the House of Lords have been permitted to make Amendments, so as to divert the funds to any other object than that approved by the House of Commons. The Amendments made in the Landed Property (Ireland) Bill stand altogether in a different position from those made in the Poor Relief (Ireland) Bill. The charges imposed by this latter Bill are to be levied for local purposes, and administered by local authorities. The provisions of the former Bill impose a direct charge on the public revenue. Having now stated how far the privileges of the House are affected by the Amendments made by the Lords in these two Bills, I must leave it to the House to decide whether it will be expedient to insist upon them or to wave them on this occasion.

In moving the consideration of the Lords' Amendments on the Poor Relief (Ireland) Bill—and I propose to, confine my attention entirely for the present to that Bill—I shall state, first, the view taken by Lord Dunfermline of such Amendments, and the House will see that his opinion was entirely in conformity with that which they have heard expressed. In regard to questions of privilege, my Lord Dunfermline said, that—

"On referring to precedents he found two instances—namely, those of the English Poor Law Bill and the English Municipal Corporations Bill, in which Amendments were made by the House of Lords which were not strictly in conformity with the privileges of the House of Commons. Referring to those precedents, it was for the House to consider whether, in reference to the present Bill, they should throw out the Bill as amended by the Lords, and then introduce another Bill in which those Amendments might be incorporated; or whether they should wave the infringement of their privilege, and proceed to the consideration of the Lords' Amendments. As the authorized guardian of the privileges of the House, he had thought it right to explain his conduct on the present occasion, which he trusted would meet with the approval of the House; at the same time, he must add, that he thought the privileges of this House would be best secured by being not too far pressed."

There are, cases in which the strict rule may fairly be relaxed. In considering the present Amendments made by the House of Lords, I should be disposed to inquire, in the first place, whether they do not come within the general principle of those cases in which the House has consented to wave its privileges; and, secondly, whether it is expedient upon the whole that we should wave our privileges in the present instance. The former cases were cases of local taxation, in which the object was taxation, not for objects of the State, but for particular and local objects. With regard to the last of those cases, the chief object of one Amendment made by the House of Lords was to divide the taxation according to certain districts, to be called electoral divisions. That Amendment, made by the House of Lords, was agreed to by the House of Commons, though it is evident that by changing the area of taxation you change the burden of taxation. But, considering the object of this Amendment as the same with that to which I have referred, and as having nearly the same scope, I am not disposed to think we ought to press the point of privilege as against the Amendment made by the House of Lords in the present instance. The Amendment made by the House of Lords proposed to maintain electoral divisions in the same manner and according to the same area as under the former Poor Law, for the purpose of imposing burdens. The Lords have not proposed any new or distinct divisions, neither have they proposed that the burdens should be increased in any way for objects beyond what this House contemplated as general objects of taxation. But they say, admitting those objects of taxation, admitting the increased burden to be laid on property in Ireland for the relief of poverty—

"We are of opinion that the burden should be laid on according to the same districts as the former burden to which the House of Commons has already consented, and which is now established by Act of Parliament."

Such being the view taken by the House of Lords, I do not think that this is a case in which we ought to press our privileges. It is a case in which, to use an expression of Lord Dunfermline, we might, by pressing our privileges, "rather weaken than strengthen them." But it is another question whether, in point of expediency, we ought to agree to the Amendments. In that view, I must take into consideration in what state the House of Lords has returned us the Bill sent up from this House, making further provision for the destitute poor. That Bill was of a very important and comprehensive nature, extending relief, in the first place, to all old, disabled, infirm persons, whether in or out of the workhouse; and, in the second place, extending relief to the able-bodied poor in the workhouse, if there be room for them; and if there is not, still enacting that relief should be given to the able-bodied poor, to prevent their being actually starved out of the workhouse. As to those two great principles, the House of Lords have left our clauses untouched. They have agreed, then, to the great principles of this Bill. Generally speaking, I have found no Amendments seriously injurious to the objects of the Bill. There was one Amendment spoken of in public which it was supposed might have been affixed to this Bill, that is, an Amendment shortening its duration. Such a clause would have been most injurious. It would have been an indication that the House of Lords was disposed to try and get rid in the long run of this Bill. But no such clause is contained in the Bill as returned to this House. If such a clause had ever been proposed in the House of Lords, it is clear it must have been rejected. There was another rumour, that the clause proposed by my noble Friend the Member for Lynn (Lord G. Bentinck) which went to lay the burden entirely upon tenants, instead of dividing it between landlord and tenant, as now, was to be inserted in the House of Lords. But that rumour also has turned out to be without foundation, because there is no such clause in the Bill. As to the main features of the Bill, I am happy to say it has come down unchanged to this House. It is, therefore, with a somewhat different view that I look to this Bill as returned, then I should have looked if these clauses which have been introduced were accompanied by others which would still more injuriously affect the working of the Bill. It is quite true that provision is made for giving out-door relief; but I am of opinion that had the burden been restricted to the electoral division up to I5d. upon the half year, far better provision would have been made for the relief of the poor, and such a provision would have guarded against the danger to which this Bill is doubtless exposed. That danger is, that whereas a great number of paupers are to be found congregated in the suburbs of towns, a great burden would be imposed upon those places according to the Bill as it has come down; and the electoral divisions in which they might lie would be subjected to a far heavier charge than other electoral divisions. There is another provision introduced by the House of Lords which seems to counteract the effect of the clause to which I refer; because, instead of that clause, it is provided that "no person shall, after the passing of this Act, be deemed to have been resident in such electoral division, unless, during the three years before his admission into the workhouse or his receiving any relief whatever, he had occupied some tenement within such division for thirty calendar months," &c. This provision very much counteracts the mischief caused by the leaving out of the former clause; because it is quite evident that a landlord could not turn out his poor tenants into the neighbouring towns, and expect that the relief would be immediately charged to the electoral division, as the result would be, that not having resided thirty months within the electoral division, their case would fall under the provision of the Bill which was introduced by the Earl of St. Germans, and they would become chargeable to the union, and not to the electoral division. Considering this, therefore, as a change which is certainly somewhat injurious to the Bill; but yet, considering that with respect to its main features the House of Lords have agreed to the Bill as passed by this House; considering, moreover, the very great importance it is that Parliament should agree in the present Session to an Act by which the relief of extreme poverty in Ireland should be placed upon the property of Ireland, I am disposed to ask the House to agree to the Amendment to which I have alluded, but that it should be accompanied by the words, "for the purpose of charging the expense of relief to any electoral division." These words could not properly have been introduced by the House of Lords; but they are necessary for the public working of the clause. There is one other clause to which I have to allude, and it is this—the clause with respect to the appointment of magistrates as ex-officio members of the board of guardians. As the clause passed this House, a number of magistrates, equal to the number of elected guardians, were to be selected from among the magistrates. The House of Lords changed the latter part of the provision, and made it into a provision that there should be no elected magistrates; but that the highest rated magistrates—those rated upon the highest amount of property—should be the persons who should have a seat at the board of guardians to the number equal to that of elected guardians. I think that so far this clause is an improvement; but there is a further clause—saying, that where one of these highest ratepayers shall be non-resident, he shall have power to appoint his agent, and that his agent shall take the place of a proprietor rated to the higher amount, as proposed. Now, I think this is an injurious provision. It appears to me that it will give an advantage, an undue advantage, to the great proprietors who are non-resident in Ireland; and, moreover, that it must be grating to a country gentleman who is rated perhaps for 1,000l. a year, to see another person who is rated upon 200l. take his place, because he is the representative of a nonresident proprietor. I think it would occur to him to say, "I have been attending to all the duties of my station; I am constantly here, bearing all the burdens and exposed to all the fatigues, and. not only all the fatigues but all the dangers of a resident proprietor; and here is a non-resident proprietor who has the advantage over me of appointing a nominee and proxy to take my place at the board of guardians." This provision being very objectionable, I propose that the House shall dissent from it. The other alterations are mere matters of detail. I am happy to say that there are no essential alterations except those which I have mentioned; and I beg to move that all the Amendments be read, with the view of moving that they be agreed to, with the exceptions to which I have referred.

said, that as the Amendment made by the House of Lords was identical with a proposition which he had the honour to submit to the House of Commons when the Bill was before the House, it was naturally to be expected that he would approve of it. As the Government had taken the same course, he deemed it unnecessary to do more than to express his belief that the apprehensions of the hon. Baronet who last addressed the House would prove to be unfounded.

said, that the House did not seem disposed to attach so much importance to the Amendment now under consideration as he was bound to say he did. When the clause, which the Lords had omitted, was the subject of discussion in that House, he ventured to express his opinion respecting it, and he gave his cordial support to the form in which the Bill was sent up to the other House with the sanction of the Government. Upon that occasion he stated, that amidst the conflicting difficulties which environed the subject, the Government appeared to have taken a middle course, and that the clause in the form. which they had suggested, would carry into effect a wise and politic arrangement, and one which, upon the whole, was best calculated to meet the justice of the case. The right hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department also dwelt with much force upon the necessity of adhering to the arrangement proposed by the clause; and, if he (Sir J. Graham) mistook not, the right hon. Baronet said, that unless precautions should be taken against the casting of an overwhelming and intolerable burden on towns comprised in the electoral divisions in Ireland, the Act would break down in operation. He believed that he was not misrepresenting what had fallen from the right hon. Baronet on the occasion adverted to; and he concurred in the view which the right hon. Baronet took of the subject; but in what the noble Lord had stated to the House that evening, he in a great degree departed from the view which the Government formerly took of the question. The question which was now brought before the House for its determination was one of great importance, for he agreed with the noble Lord that it would be a most calamitous event, in the present circumstances of Ireland and the whole state of this kingdom, in reference to the destitution prevailing in that country, if the Bill should fail to be passed into a law during the present Session. But it appeared to him that this Amendment which the Lords had made in the Bill seriously affected its prospects of success. The noble Lord had truly stated that the Amendment presented itself to the consideration of the House in a double aspect, as a question of form and a question of substance. The rule of the Commons which disallowed any direct interference of the Lords in matters of taxation, whether local or general, though in strict phraseology it might be termed a matter of form, yet was it one of many privileges which were most valuable, and ought not to be suffered to be lightly invaded. The Speaker had that evening, with his accustomed precision, stated the question of form most accurately; and he might be pardoned for referring to a decision—reported in Hatsell, if he was not mistaken—of one of the Speaker's most distinguished predecessors, and who was held to be a high authority on the law of Parliament—he alluded to Lord Colchester. A question of privilege arose in 1808, in consequence of the Lords having altered the taxable limits fixed by an Enclosure Bill which had gone up from the Commons; Lord Colchester held that alteration to be an invasion of the privileges of the Commons, and advised the House to reject the Lords' Amendment. That was a case directly in point. The alteration which the Lords had made in the present Bill affected taxable limits. It was true, that by the advice of another great constitutional authority, the late Speaker, Lord Dunfermline, in a case strictly germane—the Irish Poor Law Bill, and also the Municipal Bill—the strict rule laid down by Lord Colchester was not adhered to, and the House consented to wave its privileges. Although the frequent repetition of such precedents passed over in silence might tend seriously to impair the future exercise of the undoubted privileges of the House; yet, taking into consideration the circumstances of the present case, and of the present time, he (Sir J. Graham) was not prepared to advise the House to take its stand upon the question of form only. The Lords' Amendment, however, involved a case of substantial grievance. It was impossible to deny, that in many rural districts in Ireland an immense influx of destitute persons had, of late years, taken place into towns, owing to the operation of clearances by landlords in that country. He did not state that as matter of blame to the landlords. They had been driven by the necessity of their position to seek the improvement of their property by exercising the rights of property in clearing their estates of the occupiers of small allotments and of wretched dwellings. That system might have led to the better management of property; but undoubtedly the first effect of the clearance of estates had been to drive into the neighbouring towns a large number of destitute persons. The noble Lord had referred to the introduction of an Amendment on the Earl of St. Germans' enactment, which he seemed to think compensated for the other Amendment made by the Lords; but the Amendment in question would afford only a partial remedy, for, as respected persons who had been driven into towns during the last four or five years, their maintenance would continue an unmitigated burden on the electoral districts. By the Earl of St. Germans' Amendment a residence of twelve months out of eighteen gave a claim on the electoral division; by the clause introduced into the present Bill the claim would not accrue until there had been a residence of thirty months out of thirty-six. He might observe, in passing, that the effect of the alteration made by the Lords showed the value of the privileges of that House, and the importance of maintaining them; for the Amendment effected a change not only with respect to taxation generally, but with respect to the incidence of the burden of taxation. In boards of guardians the representatives of towns would always be in a minority; and he therefore viewed the Amendment made by the Lords with great apprehension; and as to the alteration of the Earl of St. Germans' enactment, he thought the advantage anticipated from it would prove more illusory than substantial, and that the effect of the Bill as it now stood would be to relieve rural districts at the expense of the towns. The people of England, in the present state of affairs, took a deep interest in this question. If Parliament rendered the burden of supporting the destitute intolerable to the ratepayers in the towns of Ireland, as sure as that House was then sitting, the burden would be ultimately transferred to the people of this country. It was known that the passage of paupers had been paid to this country; it was known that they were flowing into Liverpool to the number of 2,000 or 3,000 weekly; that, since the month of January, 150,000 paupers had been landed; and that the number was daily increasing. It would again be found, in July, that instead of maintaining these unhappy persons, when an absolute claim would be given to relief, or instead of paying for the cost of emigration to distant colonies, a sum of money would be put into their hands, just sufficient and no more, to pay the expenses of their passage to England. Thus, by an alteration in the law, for which he felt himself in a great measure responsible—and he could not say that he regretted having assumed the responsibility—the power of removing Irish paupers was suspended; and when once they had arrived in England, and became chargeable, the cost of their maintenance would be a permanent charge. The effect would be, that that terrible destitution and pauperism which had tended so much to degrade the character of the Irish peasant, would be transferred to and be infused in the system of this country; and by unfair means the Irish pauper would be brought into competition with the labourer in England and Scotland, to reduce the wages of labour in England and Scotland to the average existing in Ireland. As sure as, by the hydraulic law, if they had a conductor of water from one vessel to another, the water flowing from a higher to a lower level would flow into both until the quantity in the one was equal to the quantity in the other; so certain was it that if the maintenance of the excess of Irish pauperism became dependent on England, and if the burdens were permanently shifted to this country, the result to which he had referred would follow—the destitution of England would soon equal that of Ireland, and evils would ensue such as he dreaded to contemplate, and such as would speedily require the most active intervention of Parliament. He viewed this Amendment as having a most dangerous tendency in that direction. He feared that by its operation the burden would be made unbearable in the smaller town districts in Ireland; and that inducements would in this way be held out to ship the paupers to England. He looked upon the arrangement originally proposed by the Government as a wise and good arrangement, and it was therefore to be deplored that this Amendment had been made in the House of Lords. He could not, however, say that he was at the present moment prepared to risk the loss of this Bill, or to express in a stronger manner his disapprobation. He had before candidly avowed his opinions as to the doubtful policy of the Bill, and, consequently, of the great impolicy and danger of the change which had been made; and he could not, therefore, have satisfied himself without now stating the view he took. He greatly regretted the alteration. He thought the noble Lord and the Government also regretted it; and he gave the noble Lord every credit for having, under difficult circumstances, come to a reluctant decision in the course which he had recommended the House to adopt. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department well knew that his (Sir J. Graham's) first impression in discussing this matter had been, that a change was required in the charge; that the electoral division should have been abolished; and that the change from electoral division to union rating would have been judicious. This now brought forward was a system directly in an opposite direction, of a most dangerous tendency, and one of which he could not approve. He had satisfied his own conscience in expressing to the House the opinion he had formed of it; but he trusted, nevertheless, that the hon. Gentleman would not press his Motion to a division. At a future time, at a more auspicious season, the subject would again be considered; and if the apprehensions which he entertained were verified, the question in the new Parliament would be forced on their attention. The evil, if evil arose, could then be inquired into and remedied; but now, though he believed all the arguments of the hon. Gentleman were sound, he hoped the Motion would be withdrawn, for if he succeeded in carrying it, the Bill itself undoubtedly would be lost.

said, the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had very correctly represented the opinions he had expressed of the clause when under discussion in that House; and he was bound to say, that the further consideration which he had given to the subject had not in any degree modified the conclusion to which he had originally come. He hardly differed in any respect in the view he took of the question from the right hon. Baronet. He had certainly felt—and it seemed to be the general impression of the House—that it was actually necessary, looking to the existing state of the electoral districts in Ireland, that some special provision should be made to meet the case of those electoral districts which had populous towns within them, and which might be overwhelmed by the burdens thrown on them under the operation of this Bill. But it appeared to him, that the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Gentleman behind him (Sir D. Norreys) had rather underrated the effect of the clause inserted in the other House. The definition of residence given by the Act brought in by the right hon. Baronet himself and the Earl of St. Germans would be materially altered by it; and "residence" now would be, thirty months out of thirty-six, without which the union, and not the electoral division, would be chargeable. It should also be borne in mind, that there was absolute power vested in the Poor Law Commissioners to alter the electoral district. His right hon. Friend would remember that, in Committee on the Bill, a clause had been proposed by the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Smith O'Brien), which would have made it imperative on the Commissioners to revise the divisions in Ireland, with a view to dividing the burden of taxation more equally between them. That clause, however, had not been pressed, on the ground that the power to do this already existed, and that it might be imposing on them, as. an unnecessary obligation, that which might very properly be left to their discretion. At the same time, he (Sir G. Grey) had given an assurance that he would call the attention of the Commissioners to the statements which had been made from various quarters, and especially to those made by the noble Lord opposite, with regard to the size of the electoral districts, in order that, if it was deemed advisable, a new arrangement might be made; and he had subsequently addressed a communication to the Commissioners on the subject. With regard also to unions, what was now the 18th Clause was inserted, by which unions might be altered by the Poor Law Commissioners without that consent of the boards of guardians which previously had been required. There was, therefore, now an unfettered power or discretion invested in the Commissioners; their attention generally had been directed to the subject; and he could not doubt that in those localities where the burden of taxation would be found, by experience, to be intolerable, the power would be wisely and beneficially exercised. The right hon. Gentleman had rather assumed, more especially at the close of his observations, that the result of the Amendment introduced in the House of Lords, supposing his apprehensions were realized, would be to throw the burden of maintaining the poor of Ireland on the people of this country. If the clause worked in the way anticipated by the right hon. Gentleman, that would inevitably be the result; but while admitting this, he felt that in such an event the law could not remain unaltered. He indeed felt it his duty to state that he would be unwilling to adopt this Amendment if he did not look forward to the probability of a further amendment in the law. He thought justice to the people of England required that, if they consented to a clause of which the possible effect would be to throw on them permanently a burden which, as in the case of Liverpool, had been borne this year with exemplary patience, but which they in that House, as the representatives of the people of this kingdom, could not desire to see perpetuated, they should let it be clearly understood that it was their design at a future period to effect that alteration which circumstances might at present render inexpedient. He was fully sensible of the danger and of the injustice which might be done by such a clause as this; but, as his noble Friend had pointed out, the importance of the Bill was so great, and the advantages it would confer on Ireland were so manifold, he could not give his support to any step by which risk would be run of losing it altogether. For those reasons, he would consent to the Amendment of the Upper House, but with the distinct admission that if the clause worked in the way apprehended, they would be imperatively called upon to reconsider the subject with a view to an alteration in the law.

thought that the apprehensions of the right hon. Gentleman and the fears of the Government were in a great degree, if not wholly, without foundation. The reasoning of the right hon. Baronet that the immigration of paupers from Ireland would render the burden so great in England, might very likely be conclusive against the measure if found so to act; but it seemed to him that under the present arrangement there was much less danger of such a result than if the Bill had passed in the shape in which it had left that House. By the former arrangement, no inducement would have been offered to those who levied the rate to cheek expenditure; and thus, as the whole union would have to have borne it, the whole union would have been pauperized. He quite concurred in the view taken by the right hon. Gentleman, that if this Amendment was conceived to be a defect, the consideration of it should be postponed to a more suitable period, in order that the general benefit, which would be conferred by the provisions of such a Bill, might no longer be withheld from the people of Ireland. There were great difficulties in the way of the operation of the measure; but if anything could facilitate it, it was, in his opinion, this Amendment, to which so many objections were now being urged.

conceived that the measure now under discussion was one in many respects distinct from the measure which had been agreed to by that House. It was not necessary for him to express any opinion on the Amendments made in the House of Lords; it was enough for him to say, that, whether for good or evil, they completely altered the character of the Bill. His right hon. Friend seemed to be cognizant of this; and, while he was willing to wave the question of privilege, yet as to the practical working of the clause, he anticipated so many evils in the Bill as it stood, that he felt himself called upon to tell the House that he should be prepared, under happier circumstances, to modify and to change the whole measure. [Sir G. GREY: If those apprehensions were to prove correct.] Of course, not unless they were to be verified; but if the right hon. Gentleman had not seen good ground for the apprehension, he would not have so readily committed himself by promising his consent to the prospective alteration. This, undoubtedly, was a moment of emergency; and there was no room for delaying a boon upon which the poor would have to depend; but if mischief and injustice were likely to be done, surely it was their duty to hesitate. Surely it was better to pause now and make the Bill as good as they thought it could be made, and as good as they considered it originally was, rather than run the risk of it working ill, and compelling them to come down in a future Session, perhaps in the next Session, of Parliament, and then to confess their error in having consented to that which they knew would operate hurtfully and injuriously. Considering, therefore, the opinions expressed in March on many different occasions in favour of the Bill, as it had been sect up, having since heard nothing in favour of the alteration made in the other House, and having heard from the Secretary of State for the Home Department that there was a possibility—a probability, to use no stronger word, of the measure doing injustice and dealing unfairly, it would only be the part of a prudent Legislature not to adopt a course of proceeding by which they made problematical a benefit which a good and well-considered law would have secured to Ireland. He did not think there would be any risk of endangering the Bill; if he saw such a chance he would silently acquiesce in the recommendation given by the noble Lord; but, under the circumstances, his advice was, that they reject the Amendment in the first instance, and then ask for a conference. Their Lordships would not object to the course, and, on further inquiry, perhaps, the grounds on which they had introduced this clause might be made to appear to them not so worthy of consideration as had been at first supposed; and, at any rate, that House, whatever the result, would only have done its duty in adhering to the decision to which they had come, after due investigation and debate. This was an alternative which had not before been suggested, which was most conveniently open to them, and which could not be inconsistent with the former practices of the House in similar instances of disagreement.

could not support the rejection of the Amendment, because he believed that would be tantamount to throwing out the Bill. He had no particular information of that which passed in another place; but rumours which had reached him had not led him to suppose that, if the House of Commons rejected the Amendment, there would be any disposition to pass the Bill deprived of that addition; and, for this reason, he was un- willing to adopt the advice of the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Inglis). There was much useful legislation in the Bill, and he should regret to see the Irish nation so injured as they would be by its loss. And the mere throwing out this would not reinstate the former clause. They therefore did not add to the value of the enactment; and, in attempting to gain a small benefit, they perilled the safety of the whole measure. He did not deny that the Bill, as it had come from the Upper House, had somewhat suffered; but to refuse to take what they could get, if they knew they could not get all they wanted, would lead to a still greater evil than that they desired to avoid; and he therefore hoped that the hon. Gentleman would rest contented with the manifestation made by the House, and abstain from pressing his Motion to a division. As a poor-law guardian, perhaps the House would excuse him saying a few words in reply to the attack on the body, as they were known in Ireland, which had proceeded from an influential quarter that evening. The expressions used had seemed to be occasioned by the supposition that there was an intense anxiety where there was a pauper case to shift the liability of the maintenance to some portion of the union in which the pauper had no claim. It had been his duty to attend at various unions; and he could safely assure those who had no knowledge of the exact facts, that this description of the treatment met with by paupers was not correct as regarded the majority of the boards of guardians. There was always a delay, but it was in consequence of an inquiry having to be instituted into the merits and particulars of the case; and as this was the duty of the guardians, they were not open to the censure which had been passed on them.

approved the course which the noble Lord had declared the Government would take. They had exercised a wise discretion, and he could not, under the circumstances, vote for the rejection of the Amendment.

was at a loss to understand how the tendency of the clause amended by the Lords could be to flood England with paupers. It could not matter whether the pauper was relieved by the union or by the electoral district. In either case it would be equally advantageous for the ratepayers on whom the pressure of his maintenance fell, to get rid of him by sending to some other country. If he thought that the clause could really have any such tendency as that ascribed to it, he would most assuredly resist it; but he thought the apprehension quite unfounded. That this country would be filled with Irish paupers until some employment was procured for the Irish people in Ireland, or until they were disposed of by some system of colonisation, he had not the smallest doubt. But it should be recollected that the noble Lord at the head of the Ministry, and his Colleagues in office, had exerted themselves, with, unfortunately, too great success, to prevent employment being secured to the Irish in their own land. The noble Lord refused to sanction a proposition which would have secured that blessing to them; and the effects of that refusal were now visible in the hundreds of thousands of Irish paupers who were hourly arriving in England to flood the labour market of this country. With respect to the question more immediately under discussion, he would observe that it was his opinion that the smaller the district over which the rate was spread, the greater disposition would there be to employ the poor in that district. As to the question of privilege, it certainly did appear to him that if that House were to strain at the present Amendments, after swallowing those proposed in 1838, they would expose themselves to the charge of being very capricious indeed with regard to their privileges.

regarded the Lords' Amendment as a very great improvement in the Bill. He was opposed to the system of union rating, and did not think there was any English Member in that House, unless perhaps such as represented town constituencies, who would commit himself to the assertion that such a system would be for the general interest of England. He was sure there was no Member who would approve of a union rating for the county of Cumberland. The system would be injurious in England, and yet more mischievous in Ireland, where the people were not organized into a proper poor-law system. In the county which he the honour to represent (Waterford), the farmers and the gentry were terrified at the prospect of the enormous rates that were about to be struck. They feared they would not be able to hold land nor to work it with such taxation upon them; and they thought there was nothing for them but to emigrate, and they were accordingly emigrating in very large numbers. The only way to remedy those evils in Ireland, was to narrow the limit of taxation, instead of increasing it; and this being his conviction, he did not hesitate to declare that he was very much pleased with the alterations introduced by the Lords. The alterations they had made by this Amendment, would, he had no doubt, tend very materially to the useful and practical working of the measure. Allusion had been made to the flooding of this country by thousands of the Irish poor; but the circumstance was not to be wondered at. The poverty of a country would infallibly follow the property of that country; and as Irish property to the amount of millions was expended in this country, it was idle to attempt to prevent the Irish poor coming over here in multitudes. As long as that anomalous state of things existed, they might as well try to keep a Yorkshireman from coming to London, as attempt to prevent the Irish poor from coming to England. That the Irish were unhappy, restless, and anxious for a repeal of the Union, was constant matter of complaint; but that they should be all that was not surprising, considering the insolent tone which was adopted by some Members of that House, by the public press, and by the public instructors of the age, towards the Irish nation and the Irish people—a tone only disgraceful to those who used it.

observed that he never had insulted the Irish proprietors; but he admitted that he had spoken of their conduct (speaking generally) with the greatest possible reprobation. He hoped and believed that there were many splendid exceptions to the rule of general delinquency amongst Irish proprietors; but, speaking as an English landlord, after all the sums given so lavishly and so generously for the use of Ireland, he could not help saying that it ill became an Irish proprietor to get up and make such a speech, as had just been made by the hon. Member for Waterford. If the hon. Baronet the Member for Mallow were to divide the House, he would divide with him; but he entirely concurred in the opinion expressed by the right hon. Baronet on his right (Sir R. Inglis), that there ought to be a conference with the Lords. For his own part he felt no particular affection for a small portion of the House of Lords—that section of them who would, if they could, shuffle out of any description of Poor Law whatsoever, and who would willingly have saddled the whole cost of supporting the Irish poor on the English people. He was not in the least sensitive about incurring the displeasure of that party in the Upper House. One iota of the privileges of the Commons he would not surrender to them, for he did not think that the House of Lords would dare refuse to pass the Bill.

was unwilling to risk the fate of the Bill by sending it back to the House of Lords with any alterations. He was averse to a conference, because the effect would be the substitution of a clause very little better in its nature than the present. Both the amended clause and the clause as originally framed, affirmed the principle of a rating on the electoral division instead of an union rating, and both were, in his opinion, on that account, equally liable to objection. It was very much to be feared that the towns in Ireland, and especially the seaport towns, would be only stages and halting-places from which the paupers would be distributed along the British coast, as opportunity served, unless the Legislature would step in and do something to prevent the mischief. Even at the present moment, while famine and pestilence were abroad, the clearance system was going on to a frightful extent in Ireland, and this it was that caused the towns to be overcrowded. He was in receipt of advices that very morning from Ireland, which showed that the system prevailed to a large extent, in spite of famine and fever, and that landlords in various parts of the country were resorting to all possible means to evict their tenantry, and drive them into the towns or to England, or any where in fact off the land. Some cases of eviction had been detailed to him, which were calculated to excite the deepest feeling of horror; but he would not trouble the House with the afflicting details. In the county of Mayo it was a thing of constant occurrence to see whole villages raised to the ground, the houses torn down, and the miserable population hunted about like brutes. In the county Cork, the same scenes were witnessed; and even in Skibbereen, of such melancholy celebrity, they were of not infrequent occurrence. One dreadful case in the latter place had been mentioned to him, where a landlord set fire to the house of a tenant in order to evict him, while the wretched occupant was lying within in a state of fever. Another case of still greater aggravation was reported to him as having taken place in the county of Waterford. It had been brought under his notice by a noble Lord in the other House, and he had been in correspondence respecting it, with the Rev. Dr. Fogarty, the Catholic priest of Lismore. It appeared that within the last three weeks or a month, no less than 140 houses had been thrown down on the estate of a Mr. Usher. [Mr. OSBORNE: Mr. Usher has contradicted the statement.] He had it on the authority of the Catholic clergyman of Lismore, who, he was sure, was quite incapable of a misrepresentation. That an eviction had taken place was beyond all question; and he believed that it was equally undeniable that some forty or fifty families had been turned adrift at the moment when famine and fever were desolating the land. They were earthed from their poor holdings, and could not take shelter in the cabins of any other tenants, for any tenant who accommodated them was sure of being himself evicted. While this unhappy state of things went on, a large number of destitute creatures naturally fled for refuge to the towns. The result, he thought, must be, that some measure must be passed for the protection as well of the towns of Ireland as of England. Was the hon. Member for Roscommon informed of the fact that authorities in Ireland of corporate towns had subscribed to load vessels with paupers to convey them to the shores of England, and that private subscriptions had been going on to a great extent for the same purpose? And so long as they could for the small sum of from 2s. 6d. to 10s. send paupers over to England, it was clear that it would be cheaper for them to send them to England than to maintain them in Ireland. He conceived it was not fair, or just, or tolerable, that the mass of pauperism in Ireland should be shifted in this unhandsome, underhand, and knavish way on the people of this country.

I am Member for the borough of Dungarvon, to which the hon. Gentleman has referred; and although it may be judicious on the part of the Government to prefer to retain the Bill as it now is, and to acquiesce in the somewhat territorial Amendment of the House of Lords rather than abandon the measure, I cannot help saying that I regret exceedingly this Amendment was introduced in the House of Lords. I think the Government were right in their original view, although, at the same time, it may be judicious on their part to avoid a collision between the two branches of the Legislature, especially in a crisis of such extreme difficulty as the present. At the same time I think it is not inappropriate on my part, as Member for the borough of Dungarvon, to enter my protest against the Amendment. I am connected with some property in the town of Nenagh, and with property at the distance from it of about twenty miles. In the town of Nenagh, a year ago, the rate was 4s. 6d. in the pound; and at the distance of twenty miles from that town, in the electoral division to which I am referring, the rate at the same time was only 2d. in the pound. What a monstrous contrast!—4s. 6d. in the town—a town surcharged with pauperism, a town pregnant with pestilence, and 2d. only at the distance of twenty miles from that town. In the town of Thurles, near which I reside, the rate is enormous; but at the distance of a few miles from the town of Thurles the rate is only a few pence in the pound. And here I cannot help saying that I think the interests of the towns in Ireland are not sufficiently represented; and I cannot help lamenting that there is such a contrast between the representation of England and of Ireland in that particular. The county representation of Ireland consists of 64 Members, and there are but 41 borough Members. In this country there are 144 county Members only, and there is a vast majority of the borough Members. Therefore, I remark, that while the interests of the towns in this country are always supported, the interests of the territorial proprietors in Ireland are sustained. Now, with regard to the county of Tipperary, I apprehend the worst results from this Amendment; in the town of Carrick-on-Suir with about 12,000 inhabitants, in Thurles, in Tipperary with about 7,000, in Nenagh with 11,000 or 12,000, in Roscrea, in Borrisokane, and in other towns in that county. There you have a large mass of population within narrow precincts, and requiring a large expenditure. Where are the means, I ask, for employing the pauperism of those towns? There are the means of occupying the people in the electoral districts in the country—the spade is to be used, the plough is to be used, the bog is to be reclaimed, the mountain is to be cultivated—but how are you to employ the paupers in the towns? What is to be done with the poor? I am convinced that the original view of the Government was right—that the Lords have made a most signal mistake; and I am sure there will be a call from the people of Ireland, in the next Parliament, to alter the Bill.

could bear out the very effective statement which had been made by the right hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the House, owing to the great inroad of paupers into the towns from the electoral districts; but he could not say he went with the right hon. Gentleman in all the views proposed by him. He thought if the right hon. Gentleman had so much at heart the ineffective state of the representation of the towns of Ireland, he was bound to come forward in that House with some definite measure regarding it, giving to Ireland a sufficient number of Members, which was one of the measures that had been so eloquently urged by that great man who was now no more. He (Mr. Osborne) did not rise to introduce into this discussion any ingredients of bitterness; but he had his suspicion that if this had not been the expiring year of the Parliament, they should not have had a Poor Law for Ireland in the shape in which it came under their consideration. Be that as it may, he was ready to take his share; he must endure the burden that was put upon him; but he felt very sure that the property of Ireland was mortgaged for the poverty, and that the creditors would soon walk in. His object in rising on the present occasion was to draw the attention of his right hon. Friend the Secretary for Ireland to the very unjust nature of the rating as related to mining leaseholders, or the leaseholders of mines. How stood the circumstances as regarded the Cornish mines? In England the rate was only levied on the lord's dues, not on the profits; in Ireland a different system was created; they not only levied the rate on the lord's dues, but also on the profits of the mines. The tendency of this must be to drive mining speculations entirely out of Ireland. In proof of this he had only to mention one circumstance, with regard to the Berehaven mines, in the county of Cork. They were the means of giving great employment; and he could state, on the authority of a proprietor of the Berehaven mines, that from that locality not one person was sent to the poorhouse; but he further stated that unless some alteration was made with regard to the rating of mines in Ireland, it would have the tendency of making him and others resign all mining speculations in that country. He did not know whether this subject had been brought under the consideration of his right hon. Friend; but there was no good reason why, when the Cornish miner was exempt from this tax on his property, the Irish miner should be subject to it. It was, in fact, offering a premium to the Cornish miner, to the detriment of the Irish miner. They were now about to pass this law in its present state; and whatever it might do in the north of Ireland, he asked what would be the case as regarded this Bill in the south of Ireland? His own impression was, the rates could not be collected; that they would have to come to Parliament for a total revision of the Bill; and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would, in all likelihood, be forced to come down and ask for a sum of money to increase the Army, to collect the rates. In some places there was a rate of 10s. 6d. in the pound; and Low could people pay that rate and give employment to the poor? The credit of bringing in this Bill was due, he thought, not to the Government, but to the hon. Member for Stroud. Through good and bad repute he had gone on, hammering at the subject night after night, and at last he had got the measure passed; but although he gave credit to the hon. Gentleman for the great ardour with which he pursued what he thought was right, he thought the hon. Gentleman was taking a great responsibility on himself, by coming down there with a sort of chapter from the terrific register, and telling them how a landlord had burned the tenement over the head of a person he wanted to turn out. He could take upon him to say that it was mere romance. The gentleman, Mr. Fogarty, to whom reference had been made, would not state what he did not believe; but he (Mr. Osborne) would take the denial of Mr. Usher, as given in the papers. He denied that he had ejected his tenants in the manner stated, or that he had pulled down the houses about their ears; and this was the first time he had heard it urged against him that he had burned the house of one of his tenants over his head. Now, the hon. Gentleman had come down upon other occasions and made statements against Irish landlords, among others against Lord Berehaven; and he believed the Secretary for Ireland had a contradiction of that case in his pocket, which he hoped he would that night lay before the House. He objected to hon. Gentlemen coming down to that House and making statements on the authority of people with whose information and motives they were not sufficiently acquainted. He did not talk about the "insolence" of these hon. Gentlemen, for he believed they often did not mean all that they said. There was the hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone; he was very unpopular on one occasion among his constituents; and he (Mr. Osborne) was told that if he had chosen to oppose the hon. Gentleman, he might have driven him out of Marylebone. He had not a single chance now, however. The hon. Gentleman stood out against that horrible race of men, the Irish landlords. A select vestry was called, and Sir Benjamin Hall once more became popular. He would be the last man to introduce anything invidious with regard to hon. Members, but he thought he had put the case rightly. Perhaps he might be permitted to tell the right hon. Member for Dungarvon (Mr. Sheil) that the territorial influence of the Irish landlord was something altogether Utopian; and here was an instance of it, for they were riding over them completely. As to what had been said about ejectments in Ireland, he very much questioned whether, if a commission were issued, they would not find as flagrant instances of ejectment on this side the Channel. In Sutherland, for example, they might find cases of ejectment quite as dreadful as any in Ireland. Where there was power, people would occasionally abuse it. The present Bill had been given as a punishment for their sins; but before another Session, he believed they would discover that the measure was a complete failure.

felt it necessary to trouble the House in consequence of the reference that had been made to him by the hon. Gentleman who just sat down. With respect to what he had said in reference to the rating of mineral property in Ireland, his attention had been called to the subject, not in the House, but in communications received by him; and he must allow, with his hon. Friend, that there was just cause for complaint, and that on the proper occasion it was right that the question should be considered. His hon. Friend had likewise referred to some observations which had been made on a former night by the hon. Member for Stroud, with reference to Lord Berehaven, and had said that he (Mr. Labouchere) had received a communication on the subject. He confessed this was not the occasion on which he would—if he had not been appealed to—trouble the House with that communication, for he was aware of the great inconvenience of introducing personal questions of this kind, and making the question before them more desultory than it would otherwise become. He thought, however, in the present case that it was but right to do what he conceived to be an act of justice to the nobleman referred to. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman who had just down, that it was not advisable on light grounds to come to that House and make observations with regard to the conduct of individual landlords in Ireland; and he was sure that those who did so were liable—without, he was sure, the least intention—to fall into great misconceptions. In making those statements, which were very widely diffused, the party who made them inflicted very great pain; if they were unjust, he inflicted a very great hardship; and such statements ought not, therefore, to be made, except on the fullest inquiry. He was sure his hon. Friend would be the last man to desire to make an unjust impression; but he thought he had been led to make observations calculated to give pain, when he made this statement regarding Lord Berehaven's conduct in his own immediate neighbourhood—a neighbourhood in the immediate vicinity of Bantry, which it was known had borne more than its share of the visitation in Ireland. He ventured to say, from the general knowledge he had of the character of Lord Berehaven, as well as from the impression made on him by communications he had received, that he would be indeed surprised if he found that Lord Berehaven had acted with the harshness that had been stated. He had received the following letter from Lord Berehaven, and after reading it, he thought the House would agree with him that Lord Berehaven had entirely acquitted himself. The following was part of the letter:—

"I really am very sorry to trouble you with so much about myself, but I think it right to mention the following facts, which I shall thank you to mention in the House of Commons, and I hope you will pardon my requesting you to do so. During my unavoidable absence from home, in consequence of the deeply-lamented death of Lord Thomond, I arranged with Mr. J. Payne (my father's agent), of whose head and heart I have the highest possible opinion, not to send me one shilling of the income I derive from the Bantry estate, but to spend the entire of it in the manner he thought most beneficial to the people of Bantry during my absence; and he has this day shown me his account, by which he has expended 800l, for that purpose. Before I left home, and during my constant residence here, my bills, paid punctually on every Friday (in order that the tradesmen and labourers might have their wages in time for Saturday's market) amounted to from 60l. to 80l. weekly, being all I received both from the Bantry and Berehaven estates. In consequence of the non-payment of rent, I have been obliged to curtail my expenses here, but I am employing, and shall still continue to employ, as many as I possibly can, and it will give me the greatest pleasure when I can again increase the number of my workmen, believing employment to be the best way of relieving them. It is unfortunately quite true that (with the exception of my attendance at church) I have not been able to go, I believe, outside this domain since my return home, caused by a painful attack of gout, which has prevented my going even to see my father; and on this account, as well as disapproving of the proceedings of the Bantry relief committee, I shall not attend meetings held in that town for that purpose. During my absence in London, Mr. J. Payne thought it right to withdraw his own donation, as well as mine, of 51. and 1l. monthly, to the soup-kitchen fund, and to establish other modes of relief that he thought more judicious. The curing station is in progress at Castletown, and will be of the greatest use there."

This was the statement of Lord Berehaven, and he thought the House would be satisfied that he had done his duty as a resident proprietor, and had done much towards the relief of the poor of his district. With regard to the question that was immediately before the House, he confessed that he agreed with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in the deep regret he had expressed for the steps the House of Lords had taken. He did think, that the clause sent from that House (the House of Commons) was as just and fair a compromise between the interests of the towns and of the country parts of Ireland as could he devised; and he apprehended that the alteration introduced by the Lords would interfere with the good working of the measure. However, he understood the course proposed by Her Majesty's Government, that they should acquiesce in the Amendments; but he did not understand the course proposed by the hon. Member for Oxford, that they should enter upon a conference with the Lords as proposed by him. On the whole, he (Mr. Labouchere) would not take upon himself the responsibility of risking the passing of a Poor Law for Ireland by rejecting the Amendments. He thought the wiser course was that which had been proposed by his noble Friend, namely, that they should acquiesce in the proposition of the Lords, hoping that no evil would result, and reserving to themselves the power, if necessary, of dealing with it hereafter. He did not think it necessary to trouble the House with any further observations on the Bill, or to go into the question of the merits or the demerits of the Irish landlords.

wished to say a few words in explanation, as to the case he had brought forward against Lord Berehaven. He hoped the House would recollect when he mentioned that case, that his object was to call the attention of the Government to the slowness and want of energy manifested in many parts of Ireland in bringing into operation the Relief Act. In bringing this general charge, the truth of which was admitted by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland, and by the relief committees, he incidentally mentioned the case of Bantry, where there was so much destitution, but in which not a single electoral list had been made out, which was absolutely necessary before relief could be administered; and he quoted the state of things that had been described in a Parliamentary paper in connection with the workhouse at Bantry. This he mentioned as a case of great neglect, and also stated that the district was under the control of Lord Berehaven's agent. When he made this statement, he mentioned that he did so on the authority of a letter which he had received that morning. He could have no doubt, now, however, as to the correctness of the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, as he had received it from Lord Berehaven. He had not made that statement upon any newspaper report, but from private information; and since then he had received communications, unsolicited on his part, from six gentlemen residing near Bantry, including some Catholic clergymen, who assured him that they could confirm and re-confirm the statement which he had made. In thus rising, he only wished to relieve himself from the charge that he had mentioned the case on mere newspaper report or on loose grounds.

before entering upon the subject immediately under the consideration of the House, could not resist saying a few words in reply to the hon. Member for Wycombe, who had thought proper to allude to him in the course of his observations. He had no fault to find with the expressions made use of, or the tone adopted by the hon. Gentleman; but as the hon. Gentleman had been pleased to say that he had been requested to come forward to oppose him (Sir B. Hall) in the borough of Marylebone, he would only assure the hon. Gentleman that he was at perfect liberty to do so. The difference between the hon. Gentleman and himself was this, that whilst he stood up and advocated the cause of those he had the honour to represent, the hon. Member for Wycombe was standing up for those whom he was desirous of representing; for if rumour spoke truth, the hon. Member intended to leave his English connexions, and attempt to represent an Irish constituency; and the new-born zeal in favour of Ireland, as exhibited in the course of the present Session, was in the hope of success in the country which the hon. Gentleman had taken under his especial care. So much for the hon. Member's conduct. With respect to the clause now under discussion, as sent down by the House of Lords, he agreed entirely with those who condemned the proceedings of those noble Lords who had introduced it; and he looked with great suspicion on any alteration made by certain noble Lords in that place. He thought the consequence would be to drive the pauper population into the towns, from whence they would be sent over to England. Now, looking at the position of this country in reference to Ireland as regards taxation, and seeing the great advantages possessed by Ireland, he thought that as an amount of taxation of not less than 10,417,000l., consisting of land and assessed taxes, income tax, window tax, &c, was paid by England, to which Ireland was not in any way subject; and as Irish Members were so fond of stating that their country should be put upon the same footing as England; the proper course would be, not merely to have a full and efficient System of Poor Laws, but that these taxes should be extended to Ireland; that there should also be a law of settlement, and a new Act of Parliament for facilitating the removal of Irish paupers to their own country, and charging the expenses of such removal on the property of that part of the kingdom. But with regard to the alterations made in the Bill, he looked at them with extreme suspicion, considering the quarter from whence they emanated. Those who had framed the alterations, and had failed in many others which they had attempted, were the opponents of an Irish Poor Law altogether. They had endeavoured in every way to defeat the measure as sent up by the House of Commons. The only hope of the Bill being efficient was to make it permanent. The great reliance the opponents of the measure placed upon defeating it, was to make it temporary; and if the report was correct, they had succeeded once in so doing, but their schemes were ultimately defeated. But let the House observe the nature of the opposition, and the quarter from whence that opposition proceeded. According to Parliamentary usage, he could only speak of the House of Lords as "another place," which always appeared to him neither very respectful nor very proper; but he had heard that the chief leader of the Opposition was a certain noble Lord, who most assuredly ought to be the very last person to offer opposition to Her Majesty's present Government. From the year 1830 down to the present period, he had enjoyed the most lucrative offices under the Whig Administration, and had now the office of Comptroller of the Exchequer, with a salary of 2,000l. a year and a seat in the House of Peers. His eldest son had also one of the best patent places that could he given, with a salary of 1,200l. a year. Another son had also an appointment; and if he pleased, he might enumerate other members of the noble Lord's family; but he would confine himself to the male portion of that family only. And it would appear from an account which he had made out, that the noble Lord and his eldest son had derived no less a sum than 63,450l. out of the taxes of the people; and yet that noble Lord led an opposition to an Irish Poor Law, and said to his poor countrymen, "You shall have no out-door relief; or if we are compelled to give it you, you shall have it for only one year and a half." That was the attempted legislation of the noble Lord. But he (Sir B. Hall) would like to put a question to the noble Lord, if it was in his power to do so. He hoped his voice might reach the ears of the noble Lord [Lord Monteagle was sitting under the gallery], and he would ask him if he was prepared that the same restriction which he proposed for the poor in his own country should extend to himself? Would he allow Parliament to consider the continuance of his salary at the end of one year and a half? And he thought it only right to say, that if it was to be so considered, he, for one, would vote for its discontinuance, as a species of out-door relief quite unnecessary and uncalled for. The seconder of the noble Lord was another noble Peer formerly a Member of the House of Commons, where he was not remarkable for any great degree of sagacity or eloquence; and that noble Lord suggested that if his noble Friend's proposition was not carried, it would be advisable to pass a clause to the effect that no person marrying after the passing of the Act should he entitled to out-door relief, and that his wife and children should be subject to the same prohibition. This proposition was received with laughter and contempt. But what would have been the effect of such a clause? A man might be the destroyer of female virtue, and have children, and he would receive the same relief as others; but only let him marry the woman whose character he had blasted, and whose reputation he did all he could to restore, and neither his wife, himself, nor the children of such a union would be entitled to relief. That was the wisdom of the second noble Lord. But what was the point at issue be- tween the supporters and the opponents of the Bill?—he ought rather to say, the ostensible point at issue, because he verily believed that the point at issue was the Bill itself, and that many of the Irish landlords desired that no such Bill should pass into a law. But the ostensible point was the question of out-door relief, to which he had referred; and let the House consider for one moment the conduct of the opponents of such a proposition. Did they object to it in point of fact? Not at all. Did they object to out-door relief being given? Not in the least? Did they object to the miserable suppliants for such relief obtaining it? Far from it: on the contrary, they encouraged out-door relief—they advised the poor people to take it—they did all in their power to secure it to the wretched beings who demanded it. That might appear an anomaly; but anomalies were not uncommon in Ireland. It might seem like contradiction; but it was a difference easily reconciled. The simple case was, that the objectors to out-door relief did not object to it in point of fact, but they did object to it in point of place. They desired others to give it, but they would not advance it themselves; it might be given in England, but it should not be afforded in Ireland—that was the amount of the difference. In former days, during the Rebellion, when the poor people were driven from the north of Ireland and sent to seek a shelter where they could find one, the cry used to be, "To hell or Connaught." That was not the case now; Connaught was full—full of misery and destitution; and the cry now was, "To death or Liverpool." "We give you nothing here, but you may get it there. It is true, we did all that lay in our power to promote population—we gave you power to divide and subdivide your miserable tenements—we found you useful then, but you are incumbrances now. The 40s. franchise no longer exists; you cannot add to our importance on the day of polling. The political purposes for which we fostered you, for which we cherished you, for which we countenanced you, can no longer be carried out; you are, therefore, an incubus on our hands. You look upon our workhouses as prisons, and will not enter them; but of out-door relief you shall have none, and we say, away with you to death or Liverpool." Now this was the substance of the conduct of certain proprietors in Ireland. He held in his hand a return made to the other House of Parliament which would show the number of ejectments and the system pursued; it was entitled, "A Return of the Names of Plaintiffs and Defendants in all Processes for Rent and Arrears of Rent due 1st November, 1846, brought to trial in the Sessions, 11th January, 1847, held at Ballina, County of Mayo." [Mr. FITZSTEPHEN FRENCH: Those are civil-bill processes.] He was quite aware of that; the hon. Member might call them what he pleased—might disguise the proceedings under any names he might think fit; but he was well aware that the effect of these civil processes was ejectment; that it was the object for which they were brought; and it was the mere cover for the design and subsequent eviction. That return showed about 600 cases; and, allowing five persons to each family, there was a clearance of nearly 3,000 souls; and it was to be observed, that the actions were brought in January for rent due about six weeks previous. Then, again, they had heard much of Skibbereen; would it be believed, that at the very last sessions—and on the first day only of those sessions—about 1782 persons were similarly proceeded against? But that was not all: what he had alluded to was the proceedings of private individuals; he would now show what was the conduct of public functionaries. He had already called the attention of the House to the conduct of the Mayor of Wexford. What had he done? The Mayor of Wexford, animated by the same feelings—a man in authority, exercising his high office as chief magistrate of that important city—raises a subscription, not for the purpose of relieving present want—not with the object of feeding the hungry and administering comfort to the afflicted, but to collect 250 of these wretched creatures—full of fever—some apparently stricken with the hand of death, and in a state to breed plague and pestilence wherever they go. He sends them off: and "to death or Liverpool" is the cry; and away the plague-ship sails; and on its arrival in Liverpool, thanks to the salutary regulations of his right hon. Friend (Sir G. Grey), the yellow flag was hoisted, and floating in the breeze, a sad signal of the fever-stricken freight. But, thanks to English feelings and English generosity, these poor people received that sustenance which their own countrymen denied them, and which their public functionaries declared they wore not entitled to receive. Was that a fact, or was it not? [Sir H. W. BARRON: NO, no!] If the hon. Baronet said "No!" let him get up and disprove it. The hon. Gentleman was very fond of saying "No, no!" when any statement was made; but he (Sir B. Hall) called upon the hon. Member to disprove it if he could. It was an admitted fact. The right hon. Baronet had admitted it; he had said that the Mayor of Wexford sent over these wretched people with a letter of introduction to the Mayor of Liverpool, recommending them to his tender mercies; and could it be denied that hundreds and thousands of paupers were sent over here by the landlords of Ireland, and were now spreading fever about the towns? [Mr. CALLAGHAN: I don't believe it.] The hon. Member seems very incredulous; but he would ask the hon. Member, did he not every day that he walked out see the streets crowded with his poor countrymen? [Mr. CALLAGHAN: I don't deny that.] He would not take offence at this mode of interruption—he would endeavour to treat the subject with as much good humour as was possible; but it was difficult with such constant interruption to carry out the thread of the argument, and to place the matter before the House as connectedly as he could desire. If, then, it was a fact that thousands would be sent over here because they would perish for want in their own country if left to the tender mercies of their landlords, then, he said, that such a state of things was not only a disgrace to the country from whence they came, but it was time when not merely a full and searching inquiry should be made into the circumstances, but that Parliament should provide full and efficient measures to cheek and overcome this crying and disgraceful outrage on humanity. Were they to be told that there were no means in Ireland, that there wore no resources there which could be made available for the maintenance of the poor? If such a cry was raised, he now approached those who raised it not with mere surmises but with facts. At the commencement of the Session they were told by some of those Gentlemen most eloquent as regarded the pauperized state of the Irish landlords, that the income derivable from that country was not more than 6,000,000l. But, thanks to the publication of accounts, it was now found that the income rateable to the relief of the poor was nearly 14,000,000l. It had also been admitted by many hon. Members who had spoken on the various debates in Ireland, for which the Session had been so remarkable, that the rateable value was much less than the real value; and his own impression was, from all he had been able to collect, that the income of Ireland was not much under 20,000,000l. That being the case, he could not help again exclaiming with Sir Randolph Routh, when he went to Skibbereen, and saw death, and famine, and disease, destroying the population, and some dozen landlords deriving an income of 50,000l. a year amongst them from the town and neighbourhood—"With such resources as these, ought such destitution to exist?" And he would ask, ought it to exist? Did it exist in any other country possessing the same wealth?—would it be tolerated for one moment? And why should it exist in Ireland—in a country more favoured, perhaps, than any other in the world—containing sources of wealth innumerable, and an abundance of labour unapplied? It was a disgrace to human nature that such a state of things should exist; and now that the people of this country were made acquainted with the facts, they would demand that the burthens should be properly adjusted; and that the artisans of this country, labouring under the heavy yoke of taxation, should not be made to bear additional burthens, which, in justice and common humanity, should not be placed upon them. But when these assertions were made, certain hon. Members, amongst whom the hon. Members for Roscommon and Waterford were the most prominent, exclaimed they were surprised at such anti-Irish feelings. But, he said, they had no anti-Irish feelings; they were ready to do all they could for Ireland; they would make any advances to meet existing emergencies; and they cared so much for her poor that they desired a full and efficient provision should be made for them in future. He wanted to instil into the Irish landlords feelings for their own people; and if he could not instil into them such feelings, then he was ready to proceed by Act of Parliament to make them do that which they wished to avoid. That was the front of his offending. But when hon. Members talked of anti-Irish feelings, where did they in fact exist? It was a poor return for the sacrifices made by the people of this country. Had they not looked forward to remission of taxation? Did they not earnestly hope that this year would not pass away without some relief? Many had hoped that the light of Heaven would no longer be restricted—they hoped that the English people might be put upon the same footing as the Irish in that re- spect; but it pleased Providence to visit the land with famine, and the English people were silent. Not only had they been patient under existing taxation, but not one murmur had been raised when his noble Friend had asked for millions upon millions to feed and save the Irish people—and yet they were accused of anti-Irish feelings. It was a charge unworthy of those who made it, and who should rather express gratitude for the cheerfulness with which every proposition had been met; and for the laudable self-denial which had characterized the whole conduct of the British public. But if these taunts were used, and these accusations made, of a want of feeling for Ireland, depend upon it they would recoil upon those who made them. The English public would perhaps exclaim, "Of what use has been this generosity—of what advantage has been these grants of millions upon millions—of what avail our sympathy, our self-denial, and our forbearance? Are the poor of Ireland the better off? Is their condition likely to be improved? Do we not see thousands turned from their homes, and driven from the land of their birth?" Depend upon it, that more stringent measures will be insisted upon; and it cannot be denied—for the fact is on record—that you have an income of from 14,000,000l. to 20,000,000l., and that income must be made available to the maintenance of the poor; and, careless and indifferent as those poor people are, the time will come when, if they are not more thoroughly cared for and considered, they will become alive to the abuses they have suffered under, and the privations they have endured; and the consequence will then be such that no one perhaps can really foresee, but may involve the country in most serious and disastrous difficulties. Intimations had been given that the Bill would be a failure, and broad hints had been held out that it would not and should not work well. If we found that those whose proper duty it would be to make the measure available for its objects, determined to defeat the intention of the Legislature by their own acts, he should be prepared to offer any support to the Government to meet such circumstances. He fully expected that the Bill must again be considered in Parliament; and then would be the time to determine how far more stringent measures might be necessary. He could not sit down without saying one word respecting the inhabitants of the metropolis, and offering his meet of praise to them. They were suffering severely. The price of wheat had risen to 120s. and 130s. the quarter, and other provisions were high in proportion. They were suffering severely: in the parish he represented, the richest district in the world, containing 140,000 souls, about 1 in 17 was receiving parochial aid. In another, containing nearly the same number, 1 in 15 were similar recipients. Notwithstanding all this, they had not raised a single objection to these enormous grants to Ireland; and yet they were to be accused of anti-Irish feelings: he hoped that charge would not be made again. It was unjust and unwise; and Irish Members, considering the admirable manner in which the English people had behaved, should show some gratitude, and join with himself and others in removing from the hardworking classes of this country the additional burthens which had been placed upon them. He would again express a hope that the subject of settlement and removal would be considered early in the next Session; and that measures would be introduced to enact the one and facilitate the latter, so that the expenditure might not be borne, as it now was, by this part of the United Kingdom.

was proceeding to make some observations upon the speech of the hon. Member for Marylebone, but was interrupted by

who said that the hon. Gentleman must confine himself strictly to an explanation of what had fallen from himself, not remark on what had been alluded to by the hon. Gentleman who had last spoken.

begged to be allowed to explain. What he had said was, that it was a pure romance that a landlord had burnt a house over a tenant's head in order to eject him.

begged also to explain that he meant nothing personally offensive to the hon. Gentleman (the Member for Marylebone), when he said that he did not believe the statement he had made. What he said was, that he did not believe that the poor people had been sent over from Ireland to be a nuisance to the people here.

must express his disapproval of the attacks which had been made upon individuals not having seats in that House. He should also deprecate the attacks which had been made upon the Irish people by hon. Members. He strongly disapproved of the right hon. Baronet's (the Member for Dorchester's) conduct, in coming down to the House and reading an offensive leading article from the Times newspaper; and the right hon. Baronet had been followed by the hon. Member for Stroud. The Irish people had a right to complain of the conduct of hon. Gentlemen in that House. But they did not complain of the conduct of the people of England. On the contrary, they had reason to be thankful to the English people for their generosity. But he denied that more had been done for the Irish than upon other occasions had been done for the people of England in times of suffering and distress. The noble Lord the Member for Lynn had already alluded to the measure brought forward by Mr. Pitt for the advance of 5,000,000l. to the people of this country; and he would also refer the right hon. Baronet to the annals of the year 1690, to see what had been done for his own countrymen. It had been stated that the landlords of Ireland were accountable for the acts of their forefathers; but he denied that the landlords of England had ever behaved with such generosity to their tenants as the landlords of Ireland had shown. He could state, if the opportunity were a fitting one, cases of oppression on the part of English landlords, that had never been equalled in Ireland. He had a letter in his pocket, which contained the statement of a case of great hardship: it was that of a man who farmed land which had been in the possession of his family for 500 years, and from which he was about to be ejected, having received notice to quit, after so long a tenancy. He asserted, the landlords in Ireland frequently gave great encouragement to their tenants, and often granted leases for three lives and sixty-one years. As to the hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone, he was trying to recover his lost popularity. He said to himself, "Ireland has no interest in Marylebone, the inhabitants of which district are oppressed by the poor rates;" and so he took up the question as a safe one. Under such circumstances, he thought his hon. Friend near him was quite right in treating the hon. Baronet's observations as a mere electioneering speech.

said, that the largest privilege of language with regard to persons either absent or present was the right of hon. Members of that House. They possessed many privileges, and when the noble Lord at the head of the Government had appealed to the Speaker that night for his decision, whether or no the privileges of the House had been infringed upon by the Amendments made by the House of Lords in the Bill before them, and that the Speaker had answered in the affirmative, and when the noble Lord had then recommended that upon that occasion those privileges should be waved, he (Mr. Stuart) applauded his wisdom. But the privilege of language used by the hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone seemed to him to be very extraordinary indeed. It appeared that two noble Lords had, in their proper places, used language not pleasing to the hon. Member for Marylebone; but it was relating to public matters, and having no reference to the hon. Member, and yet he chose to answer there that language so used in the other House of Parliament upon public affairs, and to hold up to public execration those noble Lords—to the execration, at all events, probably of the London public. There were some passages in the speech of the hon. Baronet that seemed to point out its having been prepared. It seemed, in fact, not to have been so much addressed to the Speaker or to the House—not so much intended to affect the votes or opinions of hon. Members upon the question before them—as to produce an effect out of doors. He thought it was a gross breach of the privileges of the House. ["Hear!"] If there were any other Gentlemen who thought it fair to use terms of recrimination towards those who were absent, let them avow it. For his own part, he disavowed it altogether; and he did not think that there were many people to be found in England, who would look with a favourable eye upon such conduct. The hon. Baronet had thought fit to describe, in unmistakeable language, two individuals, one of whom, he said, held a pension under the Crown; and he added that if any one would propose the repeal of that pension, or the withholding of the grant, whichever it might be, he would support him. [Sir B. HALL: It is an office.] Well, the stoppage of the salary or the removal from the office. The hon. Baronet was ready to support a Bill of pains and penalties against those two individuals, for the expression of their sentiments.

begged to explain that what he had said was, that he had heard a rumour that a certain noble Lord had proposed that the clause for giving outdoor relief should be restricted in its term of operation to one year and a half; and he had added, that if the noble Lord was willing to restrict the receipt of his pension to one year and a half, he would assent to his proposed restriction of the outdoor relief clause.

resumed: The hon. Baronet had described another individual as one who was not remarkable either for wisdom or eloquence. He believed that if that noble individual was present he would show that he possessed quite enough of either faculty to answer the hon. Baronet; and for his own part he should confess that he had not been deeply impressed by the wisdom or eloquence displayed by the hon. Baronet himself, There was another individual, not there present, who had also been attacked. He meant the Mayor of Wexford, who had been accused of having sent over to this country, to the town of Liverpool, poor people from Ireland to be a burden to the English people. Now, if the hon. Baronet had only thought it necessary to make himself acquainted with the facts of the case before attacking an absent man, he would not have made the attack at all; for how stood the facts? A vessel was proceeding from Liverpool to a foreign port with Irish emigrants, who had paid their passage out of Liverpool before they had embarked. They were shipwrecked on the Irish coast. They applied to the Mayor of Wexford for relief; and he, finding that they had paid their passage-money in Liverpool, sent them back there to those who had contracted and had taken their money to carry them to a distant part. Now, if that were the fact, the Mayor of Wexford would stand acquitted by every one from the charges brought against him by the hon. Baronet. The noble Lord the Member for Lynn had put into his hand a paper which, when the hon. Baronet should have heard read, he would hardly think his charges well founded. It stated that "the Rochester sailed from this port (Liverpool) on Sunday, the 11th instant, with 270 Irish emigrants on board, bound for New York. On the 13th she struck on Black water Bank, and shortly afterwards sunk. All the hands on board were saved, and the poor emigrants are now here in a state of complete destitution." Then followed names of persons by whom, and places where, subscriptions for these unfortunate people would be received. [Sir B. HALL: What is the date of the document?] The 23rd of April, 1847. It was dated at Liverpool, and stated the places in Liverpool where the subscriptions would be received, so that the people of Liverpool thought the case one which called for the exhibition of their sympathies. Now, unless the hon. Baronet was prepared to deny those facts, his accusations against the Mayor of Wexford could not be sustained.

said, that what he had stated with respect to the cargo of poor people sent to Liverpool from Wexford was taken from a petition sent to that House from Liverpool, and signed on behalf of the select vestry by Augustus Campbell, rector of Liverpool, chairman of the select vestry, and Charles Hart, clerk of the select vestry.

said, that although the hon. Member for Newark had made an address to the House, he (Mr. Watson) did not know at the close of the hon. Gentleman's speech more than before the beginning of it which side he was about to vote upon, or whether he thought the rating clause as sent down from the House of Lords should be allowed to remain or not. The question in fact was whether the whole weight of supporting the poor should be cast upon the small towns of Ireland, whilst the rural districts were to be relieved? The hon. Members for Marylebone and Newark were speaking to their constituents; but he was speaking for his constituents, upon whom destitution would be brought by the operation of the Bill as it stood. In the workhouse of the town which he represented (Kinsale), there were upwards of 1,100 persons at present, although the house had been originally constructed and was only adapted for 500. The rates were struck at 2s. 6d. or 2s. 9d. in the pound, whilst the rating in the electoral division was only two pence. As the rating went on, one of the consequences was that there were persons in the town who refused or were unable to pay the rate, and thus the expense of supporting the poor was thrown altogether upon those persons who could not bear to let them perish. The clause as it originally stood would have been advantageous to the towns; and he contended that it should be maintained as it had been sent up to the House of Lords. If it were allowed to remain as altered by the other House, the small towns would be utterly annihilated; and he called upon the Government to institute a serious and immediate investigation upon the subject.

rose and said, he was unwilling that the clause should pass without his recording his opinion upon it. When the noble Lord at the head of the Government had called upon the Speaker to declare whether the Lords in making the Amendment had invaded the privileges of the House of Commons, and when the opinion of the Speaker had been so clearly given in reply, he (Mr. M'Carthy) confessed he was not prepared to hear the noble Lord declare his intention of supporting that invasion. He had not heard a single reason from the Government explaining why they had altered their minds with respect to this clause. In fact they even still admitted that the Bill would be better if it were passed in the shape in which it had been originally introduced. He should, therefore, for one, insist on having the sense of the House taken with regard to this Amendment.

proposed an Amendment restricting, as we understood, the power of the auditors in granting certificates.

said, that the Speaker had already stated to the House that some of the Amendments in this Bill were such, that it would he inconsistent with the privileges of that House to agree to them; but there were others which he admitted to be improvements of the Bill. The power now given of applying a portion of the money to be advanced to the construction of grist mills and various buildings, for which it was not originally designed, was, he understood, one of the Amendments to which that objection principally applied. With regard to the construction of grist mills, he would only observe that the whole sum of l,500,000l. had already been applied for the original purpose to which it was destined, viz., the drainage and reclamation of land; and he certainly considered these latter as improvements of the greatest practical importance. If, however, before the next Session, there should appear any surplus, not applied for those purposes, it would then become a question for consideration whether that surplus should not be applied to the construction of mills, or works of that sort; but in the present Session, he thought it better to confirm the application of the loan to the great purposes for which it was originally intended.

said, that he understood from the right hon. Gentleman that claims had already been made to the full extent of 1,500,000l.; but he (Mr. French) asserted that it was totally unavailable to one-fourth of Ireland, as the right hon. Gentleman must know from the statements of the officers of the Board of Works. In the west of Ireland, where the distress was most pressing, and works most required, this measure would give no relief, because no portion of the west of Ireland could be made to exhibit an immediate improvement to the amount of 6½ per cent. He knew the fact from the statements of officers of the Board of Works, as well as from his own knowledge; and yet the Government would not grant the loan, except upon a report that an immediate and permanent improvement to the amount of 6½ per cent would be the consequence. The Bill did not expressly require it; but he understood that the right hon. Gentleman did not think it would be advisable, on the part of the Government, to make any loan, when such an improvement would not be the immediate result. And, besides, the Board of Works had a direct interest in reporting in favour of the works to be executed by themselves.

asked for a statement of the reasons why the Government proposed to negative the Lords' Amendments. He thought that the House had been taken by surprise with regard to the last vote.

said, that could hardly be, for the hon. Member behind him had actually spoken on the question; and he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had already stated that his reason for resisting the Amendments was that they violated, according to the decision of the Speaker, an important privilege of that House.

said, that he certainly had understood the right hon. Gentleman to move that the House do agree to the Lords' Amendments instead of "disagree;" but as to the merits of the case, there seemed to him little difference between the cases of the English Poor Law and the English Municipal Law and the case of the Irish Poor Law, though he entirely agreed with the Speaker that no precedent could be found. But there must be a beginning. Up to the year 1834, no precedent was to be found for admitting any alterations by the Lords in any Bill at all involving taxation; but at that time a precedent was formed with regard to matters of local taxation; and though this was the case of a loan, the other was the case of a tax upon the people; and all the language used on that former occasion by the noble Lord now at the head of the Government was perfectly applicable to the present case. It would be stretching their privileges to a most inconvenient extent, and would in effect prevent the House of Lords from ever improving any Bills of this sort, if they should refuse to assent to those Amendments, which could not, in any event, add to the taxation of the country or the amount of the loan, but only altered the distribution of it. The noble Lord opposite, on the occasion to which he had adverted, and on a measure which altered altogether the taxation of the country, had recommended the House to agree to the Amendments of the Lords, on the ground that they

—"did not alter the total amount of the burden, and that it would be very vexatious and very inexpedient to insist on their privilege on the ground of such an objection."

Whilst, therefore, he conceived that there was no precedent for this course; neither in 1834, was there any precedent for that then pursued; for formerly that House did not allow the Lords to introduce any alterations even into a Road or Canal Bill, and not a criminal penalty even to be added or altered. But the present Amendments were not intended in any way to add to the burdens of the people, but only to vary the distribution of a boon granted by Parliament, so as, in the opinion of a large portion of the representatives of Ireland, to add greatly to the value of the boon itself. For these reasons he was prepared to vote that they should wave their privileges, and assent to the Amendment of the Lords.

said, that if he wanted arguments for not waving the privilege of that House, he found them in the speech of the noble Lord. The noble Lord said, that there must be a beginning; that the House had relaxed its practice with regard to the application of local rates, and the noble Lord used that as an argument for further relaxation; but he, on the contrary, considered it the very strongest argument for insisting on their privileges, and he thought that it was of vital importance that they should keep in their own hands the application of money levied by general taxation. It was clear, that if they waved their privilege on that occasion, the House of Lords would on all future occasions exercise the power of altering the distribution of any tax which that House might impose; and he hoped that the House would refuse to depart from its ancient practice. He placed his resistance to these Amendments entirely on the ground of privilege, because, as to the question itself, he thought it of no very great importance whether the construction of mills, or even farm buildings in peculiar cases, should or should not be included in the purposes to which this loan was to be devoted; and his right hon. Friend had already stated, that though the money was exhausted by the applications which had already been made, if a surplus should arise, the question would then be open for consideration; but he did trust that the House would not part with that which was no mere matter of form, but a most substantial privilege of that House, involving largely the liberties and interests of the country. The distinction between the application of local rates and of the proceeds of general taxation, seemed to him very broad; and considering how constantly the House of Lords pressed upon them, whenever they waved any privilege, they ought to be warned by experience, and resist any such attempts as the present.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman had based his claim to the privilege of that House upon so narrow a foundation, that it could hardly stand. If their privilege rested on so narrow a ground, that they were bound to resist amendments as to local distribution of money, raised by general taxation, whilst they consented to amendments as to the application of rates so locally collected, the ground was unworthy of that House. He must say, that the indignation of the right hon. Gentleman seemed to him very uncalled for, because the principle of allowing the Lords to interfere in matters of local taxation had been often recognised; and although this particular fund was not to be levied by local assessment, yet taxation was the same, whether levied by local or by general assessment, and he therefore could not oppose the Amendments on any such ground.

could not agree with the view of the hon. Member for Warwickshire, for he thought that these Amendments did involve most seriously the most valuable privileges of the House. By the Bill as it went up to the Lords, there were certain purposes to which the money to be paid out of the Consolidated Fund was to be applied; but in the Lords, other purposes had been added, and particular amounts specified which it might be in the power of the Government to give, thereby applying to a service which was not intended, money which had been distinctly applied to another, and withdrawing it from that other. But let them see what would be the consequence. In any Appropriation Bill, the House of Commons might have voted 5,000,000l. for the Army and 5,000,000l. for the Navy; but if the Lords could alter that distribution, they might say, "We prefer giving 6,000,000l. to one and 4,000,000l. to the other service;" and if that were so, he asked any one who had considered the relative positions of the different branches of the Legislature, whether that would not be a most fatal violation of this important privilege? The effect of the argument used by the noble Lord was, that they had made a great mistake in allowing the Lords to interfere with questions of local taxation, and that, therefore, they had better proceed further, and give up the privilege altogether.

said, that the point under argument had been already decided upon the 4th Clause; and they were now upon the 28th Clause, giving the Commissioners power to allow two years to complete works, and he certainly did not think that that Amendment affected their privilege in any way.

said, that if this 4th Clause was so great a violation of the privileges of the House, what opinion ought that House to entertain of Her Majesty's Ministers in the House of Lords, who had made no objection to it, but had generally spoken of it as an improvement, although it was now said to be so flagrant an infringement of their privileges, The clause had certainly been passed under a misunderstanding, without the knowledge of the House; but if the present clause would raise the same question, he should certainly vote in favour of assenting to the Lords' Amendment.

said, that this clause would not raise the question, for it related only to the extension of time for completing works and making payments; and although it came within the objection stated by the Speaker, because it related to the distribution of the payments, it in no way bore upon the other question, as to the construction of mills and farm buildings. It would be useless, therefore, to divide the House.

Then what was the use of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of Ireland?

said, that the 4th Clause had certainly been decided; and with regard to the present clause, he objected to it on the merits of the Amendment, as well as on the ground that it was inconsistent with the privileges of that House.

admitted, that the attainment of the objects specified in the Lords' Amendment was desirable; but as he deemed the privileges of the House to be of greater value, he would vote for disallowing the Amendment, and he hoped that on a question of so much importance, hon. Gentlemen would not divide the House.

stated that it would be in the recollection of hon. Gentlemen that at an early period of the Session his noble Friend the First Lord of the Treasury intimated that measures would be brought forward as soon as possible to put an end to the system of relief in Ireland by public works, and that another system would be proposed to be carried out by a Relief Commission and relief committees, and by the distribution of food to destitute persons. An Act was passed for that purpose, and power was given to raise funds by way of loan, on the security of the rates to be levied, to an amount not exceeding 300,000l. He had himself subsequently proposed in Committee of Supply, that a sum not exceeding 500,000l. should be granted in aid of rates for the purpose of relieving the destitute poor until the harvest should enable them to be maintained from the produce of the soil. What he was now about to propose was, that a further advance should be made from the Consolidated Fund by way of loan on the security of rates to be levied: and in some future Committee of Supply he should have to propose that a further sum be granted in aid of those rates, in order to carry on the relief of the destitute poor from the present time to the harvest. On Friday last a return was moved for, stating the whole amount of loan and advances since the beginning of last Session of Parliament, which he had hoped would before this time have been in the hands of hon. Members. But he trusted it would be so to-morrow or next day. As to the advances made under preceding Acts, he believed that on former occasions he had stated the amount; and he was now prepared to state that the sum advanced under the Public Works Act, since August last, was 4,700,000l. He was happy to say that the public works system had, as nearly as possible, been brought to a close; and throughout the greater part of Ireland, with the exception of about seventy electoral divisions, the new system had been brought into operation. He was also most happy to say, from the reports received by Her Majesty's Government, that wherever the residents were active in the execution of the Act, it seemed to answer the expectations which had been formed as to its efficacy. It was found that the new system was a greatly improved substitute for the system of relief by public works. He was not sure that it was popular in Ireland; but neither was he sure that the want of popularity was a very bad sign; for the former system was to a very considerable extent abused by all parties concerned in its administration. As soon as it was announced that that system was about to cease, a rush was to a certain extent made on the public works. Upon those public works no fewer than 730,000 persons were employed in one way or another. The relief committees who ought to have sifted the claims of applicants, only added numbers upon numbers. No exertions were made by the superintending officers to apply a check. His noble Friend (Lord G. Bentinck) complained the other day of the number of persons employed in superintending; but he believed the noble Lord would find that there was no very considerable number so employed, taking into account the numbers admitted to relief. The number of overseers was little more than 11,000; the number of persons employed on the public works exceeded 700,000. The check-clerks were included; and, taking those round numbers, it would be found that there was only one overseer to a gang of sixty-six persons. It was not till the very strong measure was taken of ordering a forcible reduction on the 23rd of March, that any considerable reduction was effected. That measure was attended with complete success; it came at a proper time, when it was desirable that the people should be employed in the cultivation of the soil. The sowing of the spring crops was the result of discharging those persons. The measure was afterwards repeated, and a further reduction effected. A passive resistance to a considerable extent had been made to carrying out the new system; the committees were exceedingly slow in organizing themselves, and but for the vigorous measures which wore taken, it might be doubted whether the new system could have been carried into operation by the time fixed for its commencement. The result of that measure was that the expenditure of the Board of Works was reduced very considerably. For the week ending the 13th of March, the expenditure was 259,000l.; for the week ending the 1st of May, the expenditure was 151,000l.; for the week ending the 29th of May, the total expenditure for all purposes was 53,000l., including the drainage work, the relief work—everything, in short, carried on under the Board of Works. The sum expended on mere relief works for that week was about 40,000l. The expenditure, therefore, of the Board of Works had been reduced one-fifth of what it was on the 13th of March. The new system of relief was in operation in 1,981 electoral divisions, there being 2,050 in all; so that there were no more than seventy exceptions. Making a similar calculation as to the amount of rations issued, these averaged 2,223,000 per day. The expenditure had been kept within just limits; and results which he had not ventured to anticipate early in autumn had been realized. The accounts from all parts of Ireland tended to show such favourable results; and, at an earlier period of the evening, he would have entered further into details. But he must refer to a letter from Sir J. Burgoyne, stating his experience. The letter was dated May 29, and Sir J. Burgoyne said—

"There is a greater tendency to keep down the expenditure and the evil consequences of encouraging a loose system than I expected. The number of destitute to be provided for, will be, I think, much less than I first calculated, and our inspecting officers are generally working with zeal, activity, and, in many cases, with success."

He had also received letters from the north of Ireland showing that the same effects had been produced; and he would read a portion of another letter from a most intelligent magistrate, Mr. Stokes, of Tralee, who said—

"The ration system has certainly one very important effect. Its support, by the levy of poor- rates, brings home taxation more immediately to the landowners and landholders than the road system did; and their minds will, consequently, be sooner impressed with the conviction that the period has arrived when they must employ the people on their estates or farms, or support them in idleness from the produce of them."

It was to the extension of that feeling, more than to anything else, that they must look for improvement; and he might state, on the authority of another letter, that the new system of administration afforded an exceedingly good test of destitution; it was found that those who were not destitute, rather than live on the food distributed in a cooked shape as it was now given, were desirous to procure employment in ordinary labour. Generally speaking, such was the case; but he was sorry to say there were instances in which parties had been doing their utmost to extort money even beyond what could possibly be required for an electoral division. In one place it appeared that the relief committee had sent in an estimate for 2,000 persons more than were in the whole electoral division. He wished further to state, that, in the administration of the funds for the relief of the poor in Ireland, pains were taken to encourage, as much as possible, the voluntary exertions of parties themselves, and in many cases he was happy to be able to state that the wealthier ratepayers subscribed voluntarily for the purpose of relieving the less wealthy persons who were subject to to the payment of rates; and especially in the north had that principle been acted on in the most advantageous manner, and with the most satisfactory results; when the rates came up to a certain amount—when they rose to a certain amount in the pound—the additional grants were made for the aid of ratepayer, but not until then. The last report brought the statements up to the 10th of May, and from that it appeared that the loan with which the Committees had been debited, was 77,000l. As respected the whole of the sums to be advanced, the greatest security against lavish expenditure was, that the loans were secured upon the guarantee of the rates to be forthwith levied. This operated as a great inducement to the ratepayers to come forward for the purpose of excluding improper persons from the lists. Upon this part of the subject the Government had been furnished with the following report:—

"Bailieborough Union, May 15.

"The lists of those receiving relief were strictly revised, and the ratepayers evinced the most laudable zeal in unmasking any imposition that existed. They came forward in a body, and in con- sequence of their statements, which were fully substantiated by proof, the committee were enabled to strike off 100 persons improperly on their lists, being possessed of stock or money. The ratepayers retired, announcing their intentions to protect their own interests and assist the Government, by keeping a strict surveillance over applicants for relief, and immediately reporting any imposition. They received every encouragement."

The foregoing statements showed a striking change and a very manifest improvement upon the old system. There was another point to which it was here necessary that he should advert, namely, the abuses to which the distribution of raw food in many districts gave rise. The people representing themselves as distressed took all possible means to possess themselves of raw food, and the moment they obtained supplies of that description they lost no time in selling them, or exchanging them for spirits or tobacco. The distribution of cooked food was then resorted to with the most successful results. In fact, the distribution of cooked food was the most effectual method of guarding against the abuses which otherwise must have prevailed, and had also produced the best effect on the health of the poor to whom it was distributed. Mr. Fox, a largo landed proprietor, who, by the application of much time and attention, had acquired considerable experience in the distribution of relief to the people of Ireland, stated, in his report, that cooked food was not only the most suitable for the purpose of doing justice to all parties concerned, but it was the best calculated to promote the health of the recipients themselves. Cooked food had, therefore, been extensively supplied, and raw food had from that time forward been refused. Guarded by that check, he did hope that the system now in use would continue to be conducive to the health and welfare of the people for whose benefit it was intended; and he trusted that the operation of that system would leave the people in a better condition than that in which it found them. He now held in his hand a statement from Count Stryclycke who was one of the persons employed by the British Association. The statement referred to the Westport union, and was in the following words:—

"Westport, May 4.

"It shows that out of 78,000 souls, 26,350 are actually receiving daily rations; and that the double, but most probably 55,000, will compose the number of the next fortnight's daily issues. However surprising these numbers may be, the admirable adoption and work of the administrative machinery created for the distribution of the rations required, is not less so. The cost of this system of relief will be half of that which preceded it. For 55,000 rations of Indian meal, at 15l. per ton, amounted to 2,275l. weekly, which, with other contingencies, may reach 2.500l., while the relief through the public works was 4,700l., or thereabouts (weekly average of March), which with the grants made in money and food by the Government, the British and other associations, to five relief committees, and with the not less considerable private charities poured from England, will make a total much above 5,000l. of weekly expenditure. But the great recommendation of the present system, abstract of its comparative cheapness, is that besides being more systematic and capable of contracting and extending its issues from fortnight to fortnight, and thus of adjusting and adapting itself to circumstances, it is more effective; for since it came into operation, the afflicting and heartrending crowds of destitutes disappeared."

He ventured to say, that no report could be more satisfactory than that which he had now read to the House; as previous to the period therein referred to, no district could have been more destitute; and besides, it was not to be forgotten that the introduction of that system was attended with only half the. cost of a different plan. he believed that the course adopted by the Government had been attended with most beneficial results, and that by means of that system the misery which previously prevailed in Westport and other unions had been materially alleviated. He had now very little more to say. At the time when he made his statement on the subject, and took the first vote, he had warned the House that if the necessity of the case required further votes, he should from time to time apply to the House and take such further votes as circumstances might render necessary. The House, of course, at the time to which he referred, understood, and he might now repeat it, that the money was not all to be issued at once—that it was to be advanced by instalments, according to the need of the several districts. The right hon. Baronet concluded by moving—

"That provision be made, out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, for the payment of any sum not exceeding 600,000l., to be advanced by way of Loan, on the security of Rates to be levied in Ireland, to the Relief Commissioners appointed in pursuance of an Act of the present Session for the temporary Relief of Destitute Persons in Ireland."

said, the right hon. Baronet had explained his views pretty clearly; but there were two or three points which might require some further elucida- tion. There was to be, as he understood, a sum of 4,700,000l. for public works; one moiety of that had already been advanced, and only one moiety of it was to be repaid in twenty years. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: In ten years.] Well, in ten years; he wished to know was that to be so? He understood the right hon. Baronet to say, that there were 1,900 electoral districts in which the Relief Act had come into operation. He wished to ask whether the right hon. Baronet could tell what was the estimated cost of 2,200,000 rations daily? next, whether in every one of the 1,900 electoral divisions in which those rations were distributed, a rate had been struck? and whether in every one of those 1,900 a rate had been levied?

replied, that he could not answer at the moment what the daily cost of 2,200,000 rations was; but he might state that the estimate of the accountant of the Relief Commission was that each ration cost 2½d., and that the estimate of the probable amount required to be advanced by way of loan and grant in aid of the rates for this purpose from the 24th of May to the 20th of September, was 2,651,000l. With respect to the next question, he had stated that 4,700,000l. was the amount issued under the Relief Works Act of last Session, and that this sum was to be re- paid by twenty half-yearly instalments. He believed that the rates were struck, or notices given for striking the rates, in all the unions to which any sums had been advanced; but he had not seen any account stating that the rates had been actually levied. He had lately received a Kerry newspaper, containing an advertisement for a person to act as collector in the Tralee union; and he had a letter in his hand stating that the rate had been struck, and notices issued for its collection, in the same union. He believed that matters were in the same state elsewhere.

wished to understand if there was to be no second instalment made under the Relief Act without coming to Parliament, unless the rate was not only struck, but in progress of being levied? It would be highly satisfactory to understand this.

said, he had not stated that any such provision was in the Act of Parliament, What he had stated was, that the Government had intimated to the Relief Commission and to the relief committees, that no second instalment would be issued—with certain exceptions in the west of Ireland—until the rates were in the course of collection.

said, that though this was a subject in which he took much interest, he did not wish to interfere with the functions of Government; but he did wish to see a little more pains taken to ascertain the facts of the case. The amount of money raised for Ireland, whether by gift or loan, was frightful; and the manner in which the money was paid away was more frightful still. He did not believe that even Her Majesty's Government were aware of what was going on in that country; he did not believe that by reading the official documents transmitted to them they ever would became aware of it; and as for the other Members of that House, they knew less than nothing. There were large blue books issued which few people attempted to read, and the few who did attempt to read could not possibly understand them. As a member of a Committee at present sitting up stairs, some facts had incidentally come to his knowledge which showed that there was a scene of indescribable confusion at present going on in Ireland between the Government officers, the relief committees, and those who were getting relief—the Government officers issuing one set of instructions, and the relief committees issuing instructions diametrically opposite, hundreds of labourers without any work, applications not attended to, and people starving. If Government would institute an inquiry to receive viva voce evidence, that would give them a more complete insight into the working of the system than they could possibly have from written and printed reports. Without saying who was right and who was wrong, or how the matter was to be remedied, he would only repeat, that the confusion was frightful, the expense appalling, and the relief inadequately represented by the mass of money which was granted.

assured his hon. Friend (Mr. Aglionby), that for some time past the attention of Government had been constantly and unremittingly given to the subject to which he had just adverted. For his part, he had never attempted to conceal his impression, that in carrying into effect the system which they had devised for the relief of the destitution in Ireland, under the present extraordinary circumstances, there were the means of immense abuses. The House was his witness that he had never attempted to conceal this impression. He believed that abuses were the necessary concomitant of these extraordinary measures—measures which were justified by unparalleled circumstances. But, on the other hand, while making that admission, he felt bound to express his deep conviction that but for those measures the distress and misery would have been multiplied tenfold. The bounty of that House—which he had seen no reason to regret—together with the bounty of the country, had been the means of preserving the lives of thousands and hundreds of thousands of their fellow-creatures in Ireland, under the influence of a calamity of an extraordinary nature, the extent of which it was impossible to overrate. With respect to the efforts made to check the abuses, he had no fears of any searching inquiry on the part of that House. He was convinced that the more the matter was looked into, the more that House and the public would be satisfied that, considering the magnitude of the undertaking—which he believed was without a parallel in the history of the world—considering that, at one time, there were employed by the Government on public works no fewer than 730,000 persons; considering that it had been conducted without disorder, and that the peace of Ireland had been preserved all the time; considering all those things, he thought that, on the whole, they would be satisfied that this gigantic undertaking had been carried on as successfully and with as little disturbance as it was possible to conceive under the circumstances of the case. Undoubtedly it was at last found impossible to persevere longer in that system, and that it was necessary, under the altered circumstances of the country, to resort to a different mode of supporting the people. A system of supplying rations of food was again adopted; but it was as impossible for the Government of a country to undertake to feed so immense a mass of people as to employ them. Both of these operations were altogether out of the legitimate course of the Government, and were only to be justified by extraordinary circumstances. The task imposed on the Government could not be undertaken without giving rise to great abuse and evil; but the statement of his right hon. Friend would prove that the expectation held out to the House, that the system introduced would be free from many of the evils which accompanied the system of public works, had not been disappointed. Nothing could exceed the zeal and devoted manner in which the officers of the Board of Works had performed the extraordinary task imposed upon them; they had introduced as much as was possible of regularity and order, and their efforts had successfully checked the abuses which took place under the former system. He never had denied that he thought in very many cases the Government had not received that local support from the gentry of Ireland which they had a right to expect; but, on the other hand, he would never agree to those sweeping accusations which they sometimes heard against the Irish gentry, or that their conduct was universally to be reprobated. He thought that the House would be in error unless they believed that many great pecuniary sacrifices had been made by the gentry of Ireland. He held in his hand a return of voluntary subscriptions made in Ireland for one particular purpose since March, 1846, and he found that from the 25th of March to the 8th of August the voluntary subscriptions to the relief committees amounted to 100,000l.; and from September to the 22nd of May, 1847, to 200,000l. His hon. Friend the Member for Cockermouth, he was aware, was chairman of a Committee, the duty of which naturally led to an inquiry into the working of this Act in the county of Clare. He had ventured, on a former occasion, to say that that county was a part of Ireland where the Act had been worst carried into effect, and he did not believe that that county was a fair specimen of Ireland in that respect.

explained that he had expressed no opinion as to where the blame rested, neither had he made any "sweeping charges." All that he had stated was, that hon. Members should be more acquainted with the working of the system than they were; and the scenes of confusion took place which they could not imagine.

had on many occasions spoken of the Irish landlords as a class, and said they had not fulfilled the duties which devolved upon them as the persons possessed of the wealth of the country; and he thought the statements made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer would go far to justify the expressions he had made use of at the commencement of the Session. He then said that Government was travelling out of its legitimate functions in attempting to feed a whole nation. Finding employment for the whole nation was the first experiment, and that failed; and then came that of feeding them, and from all he could hear and see that was about to fail also. There was, however, one observation that he wished to make. Hon. Gentlemen did not consider the way in which this interference of Government—in which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Labouchere) said they were justified, but in which he could show they were not justified—with the people of Ireland, reacted on the people of this country. Government undertook to feed the people of Ireland; and they fed them on better and more expensive food than they were used to. This, perhaps, could not be avoided; it was the natural result of eleemosynary aid. The Government were unwittingly less economical than the people would have been themselves. If the people had had the same quantity of corn, they would have employed a fourth of it only for food, and the superfluous three-fourths would have been added to the wealth of the country. He believed Government had been anxious to perform its duty, and that the persons under them had also been equally anxious; but he was compelled to say that the morality—the immorality rather—of the Irish Gentlemen had met them on all occasions. There had been neither day nor hour in which the Government had not been crossed and thwarted by interested parties, anxious to turn to their individual benefit the aid of England, and eagerly grasping at all eleemosynary assistance. This state of things was inherent in the mischievous attempt made by Government to feed the whole. This scheme had also fostered the not over industrious habits of the Irish people, weakened the morality of their character, and had broken down or endangered the stability of the whole commercial arrangements of this country. A more dangerous course was never taken by any Government—a more dreadful risk was never run by any people. And he would besides assert and maintain that the Government was not justified in what they had done by the occasion. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by a general expression of distrust of the course which the Government had pursued.

was anxious to explain the motives which had induced him to put the question he had addressed to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was very far indeed from seeking to impugn the conduct of the Government in this great and dread- ful emergency; and he somewhat differed from the hon. and learned Member for Bath, when he said that the attempt to feed the people of Ireland was mischievous; that it was a signal failure; and that it was not justified by the extreme necessity of the present moment. But he must say, that, considering the effect which this unexampled effort had produced on the resources of the richest country in the world, now when this Session was drawing to a close, he thought it right that under present circumstances we should carefully review our position; and he must say, that he could not consider the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer a very cheering one. On the contrary, he thought the expenditure that would be still necessary under this Bill a most alarming feature in our condition. Two million rations, at 2½d. each, involved an expenditure at the rate of somewhere about 600,000l. a month, or 7,500,000l. a year. This was in addition to an expenditure of 7,400,000l. on public works, which were not yet brought to a close; for in addition to 600,000l. which would be required for alterations, there was still going on an expenditure of 300,000l. for public works. It was important that the position of the Irish landlords should be clearly understood. The whole of the expenditure for rations must be repaid by the landowners and owners of property in Ireland, as he held, immediately. The 7,500,000l. a year, or 600,000l. a month, was, by engagement under Act of Parliament with the people of this country, to be repaid by the property of Ireland. The repayment of advances for public works was to be a postponed payment, since by the Act it was not to be repaid for ten years, and that by instalments; but, on the other hand, he understood that under the Relief Act the amount of 600,000l. a month, as now expended, should be repaid forthwith. It was desirable that there should be no misunderstanding on that point. The expenditure was a large one; and, until the harvest should be cleared, it must go on about the rate he had mentioned. As rates would have to be levied in Ireland, he attached the utmost importance to a system of immediate commencement of levy, even if not to the full amount; yet, at all events, where relief took place, that a levy should be made to defray the expenditure. The question he had put was simply relevant to this point. He did not blame the conduct of the Government, much less did he dissent from those enactments to which he had given a reluctant but unlimited assent; on the other hand, he thought the Relief Act must be carried into execution immediately, and a levy of rates made without delay.

wished to put a question he had forgotten to put, of which he was reminded by what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman. In Ireland there was a Poor Law, with poor rates, and they had seen gentlemen and men of property openly resisting the payment of them; that had been proved over and over again to the satisfaction, he was sure, of the House of Commons. What he ventured to ask of the noble Lord at the head of the Administration was, if Government had formed any determination with respect to this class of defaulters, and had really brought their courage to the point of compelling the law officers of the Crown to carry into execution the law against those parties who thus openly and unblushingly resisted a charitable law, imposing on them the necessity of paying their quota to the relief of the poor? He need not recall to the recollection of the noble Lord that there was case after case of the kind he had mentioned.

I believe, that with respect to those cases—I do not think there was case after case, though there was more than one—where the rates could not be collected, orders have been given that the boards of guardians which did not order the collection of rates should be dissolved, and new boards embodied, which should immediately proceed to the collection of rates. Perhaps, as the hon. and learned Gentleman has stated his views of the subject, I may enter into the question he has again raised—whether or not the system we have been pursuing was, as he says, entirely mischievous. He thinks the relief we have given has completely failed, and that we ought to have entirely neglected or renounced any attempt either to employ or to feed the people of Ireland in this emergency. I do beg the House to consider—the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the Member for Dorchester, seems to have it fully present to his mind—what a very extraordinary case this was. It does not resemble any case that has ever happened in England of a deficiency in the harvest; it does not resemble any of those cases which we hear have given rise to riots and tumults in various parts of the Continent, where the supply of food has been less than that which is usually obtained, and the price of grain has been very considerably raised. The case of Ireland bears no resemblance to any of these; it was a case very considerably aggravated beyond all such cases. It was the case of a people, several millions of whom—say three, four, or five millions—were dependent, not on any regular wages, not on the purchase of food, but on the growth of the potato, which they themselves cultivated, and which in this year failed to an extent, we may say, of four-fifths or five-sixths, in some places more, of the entire amount. The state of society was one which did not afford any easy or prompt remedy for such an extraordinary calamity. Society in Ireland, I need not say, has within it various elements of discord; it has within it, I am sorry to remark, very few elements of harmony. It is not a granite rock with which you have to deal, it is a loose sandstone which forms the composition of society in Ireland. The gentry and landowners have but little hold—I will not say whether it is their fault or not—they have but little hold generally on the attachment of the people. The ministers of religion, again, who have the greatest command over the affections and opinions of their flocks, have but little connexion with, and little respect for, the proprietors of the land. The differences of religion, the differences of politics, are constantly setting class against class, and man against man. The people have been accustomed for many years—at first, I think, rightly accustomed, because it was necessary; of latter years, perhaps, unnecessarily accustomed—to great political agitation, rather to attendance on public meetings and hearing exciting speeches, than to take any practical measures for their own relief. It was upon such a people, and in such a condition of things, that this extraordinary calamity fell. It might have been expected, as it was found, that instead of all the landowners, farmers, and labourers assembling together and devising means whereby they might meet that great calamity, there appeared great apathy on the part of the landowners, very little concern on the part of the tenants, and amongst the unfortunate people themselves who wore struck by this calamity, a resignation which, in one sense, was very greatly commendable—a patient submission, which was much to be admired—but at the same time, a want of effort and exertion, which greatly aggravated that calamity under which they were suffering. I ask the House whether this is a state of things in which ordinary remedies could be applied? I ask them whether it is a state of circumstances in which usual rules could he adopted by a Government? If the answer of the House had been—"Let these people exert themselves; let those who have been united to us now for nearly half a century, find their own way out of these difficulties, and bear the calamity as they may"—if such, had been the answer of the House, I must say, that I believe that in such a state of society, if left alone, you would have had irreparable confusion—you would have had immense numbers of deaths, greatly beyond any mortality that has occurred, and such a state of anger, discord, and animosity of class against class, and of all classes against the Imperial Government of this country, that it would have been—I will not say impossible, but—almost impossible to bring society in that country into such a condition as to be recomposed until after a very long period had elapsed. Now, when I say, that such would have been the state of society in Ireland, if the Irish had been left alone, I do not mean to say that the measures proposed and carried into operation by the Government, were such as the utmost wisdom could have devised, or such as were best calculated to relieve the emergency which arose; but I do say that they were in some degree calculated to meet that emergency. For instance, the system of public works greatly resembled the mode of relief adopted in this country in times of extraordinary difficulty, when applied as a test of destitution. In Ireland, however, it has not proved a test of destitution. It has been found that a system which answers extremely well in England, has been a prolific source of abuse in Ireland. Parliament has tried, since the beginning of this Session, a different system, which seems to promise better results, as those who appear to be in distress do not come so readily to receive rations, as to receive money, and therefore the receipt of rations seems to be a more adequate test of destitution than any which we have tried before. At the same time, I do not mean to say that the objections which have been urged by the hon. and learned Gentleman have no weight. I do not believe that the Irish people are naturally averse to labour, but believing that the people are averse, from their circumstances, to labour, I consider that that indisposition to labour has been encouraged by what has occurred. I will admit, also, that with regard to many of the gentry, they are encouraged rather to promote those whom they wish to protect and favour, instead of distributing that relief they are empowered to give according to the most impartial arrangements. I quite admit that those abuses have sprung up, and I will admit further, they were abuses which a Government was bound to foresee, and which we could not well have avoided foreseeing in adopting any scheme of that kind. What, however, I say is, that even these abuses, great as they have been, calamitous in their effects as they may have been, are much less than the sufferings, evils, and confusion—than that demoralised state of the whole country—which we would have had to apprehend if we had not adopted these measures. More than this: after these measures shall have run their course, in future years there will be nothing which shall prevent Ireland being in a better state than she has ever before been at any former period. I consider myself, that if the people do not again place their reliance on the potato—if they do not remain in that low state of society which the exclusive use of potato food has produced, connected with other peculiarities in the condition of Ireland—if that is the case—if the Poor Law acts, as I believe it will act, beneficially, in connecting various classes in that country in one common duty—then I do believe that meeting a great calamity with imperfect remedies, and remedies which have been liable to many abuses, will yet have produced a good effect in that frightful state into which we have fallen, and will lay the foundation for a future condition of greater comfort and greater prosperity in that country. I am sorry to detain the House with these observations; but as the hon. and learned Gentleman so often takes the opportunity of passing these remarks, and as it might be considered and taken for granted that the Government admit their measures to have failed, and that they ought to have abstained—I wish to assert, that I am of the opinion still which I entertained at the commencement of the Session, that it was right to interfere; that I do not know whether it would have been possible for any other Government—it would have been impossible for us—without any experience of such a calamity, to adopt the measures best suited to that calamity and the character of the people of Ireland. And I think it was wise to incur a very great expenditure, even at the expense of the people of England—even though we have exposed them to very considerable sufferings, and to an enhancement of the prices of their food—rather than to have let Ireland fall into that state which, for my part, I cannot contemplate without the greatest horror, and which I should ever regret having occasioned. The right hon. Gentleman opposite has asked what check we have as to the future operation of the system? We have not, according to Act of Parliament, as he supposes, a check restraining any further sums from being issued without the levying of rates; but we have a certain discretion given to us, which discretion we shall exercise according to the best of our judgment. Where we find that, although the rates are small, and ordered to be levied, yet that they are not levied, and that the absence of levying proceeds not from the entire want of means, but a wish to avoid the payment, we have a discretion, which in such cases I think we are bound to exercise, in not making any further advances till satisfied that the rates have been collected from those whose circumstances admit of their paying them. In such cases the board of guardians, if they refuse to collect, may be dissolved, and a new board appointed, which shall be ordered to obtain such sums as may be required. I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman opposite that it would be right to use that power; and I do not think we ought to be satisfied that there is money in the Exchequer to be applied to Ireland, without considering what is the ability of the ratepayers in that country to meet the expenses which may be incurred. On the contrary, I think myself that, proceeding from a system of works which were entirely gratuitous, to that system which consists very greatly of advances, but partly of rates, we are accustoming the ratepayers to consider what the charge will be to them; and we are inducing them to look narrowly into the revision of the lists of distressed people. My right hon. Friend has given some instances in which that has taken place. I have seen a great many more letters from different parties, in which they state, that in this revision the ratepayers had been beneficially occupied; and I think, in proportion as the assistance from the Exchequer is withdrawn, and relief comes more entirely from themselves, in that proportion will the country be benefited, and those who are relieved be really destitute, instead of those who by some favour of a member of a relief committee have got places on the relief lists. I should therefore say, that while giving great assistance, great, large, and generous assistance, as I think this country has given, both by Act of Parliament and by spontaneous acts of individuals, in order to meet the calamity of the present year, we should at the same time take care to lay the foundation of a system by which hereafter such relief shall be afforded by those who hold the property of Ireland. My own belief is, that the produce of Ireland, the rents of the proprietors, and the profits of the farmers, are such as to enable them to support, not only the labouring classes, but likewise those destitute classes for whom hitherto they have not provided labour. My opinion is, that this New Poor Law will induce those classes to employ a greater quantity of labour, so that those few who are left to be supported by the poor rates will be in reality destitute; and in this manner, the future improvement of Ireland may be discerned through the gloom and darkness of the present moment. I hope the House will consent to grant these sums. I do not ask the House to grant them in any absolute confidence that the money will be applied without any abuse, and that the revision of the lists shall be so perfect that there will not take place any of the former misappropriations. All I can say is, the best exertions of all the officers of the Government, of those intelligent men at the head of those departments in Ireland as well as those serving under them, will be given to the correction of all such abuses; and in coping with so great and unprecedented a calamity, we ask excuses for the errors we have committed, and support in the efforts we will continue to make.

would like to know how far the Government would undertake to complete the public works in Ireland, or whether they intended to introduce any measure to compel the completion of those works? He firmly believed that the Government had the best intentions towards Ireland; but they had erred from the very commencement. It was urged upon them over and over to confine their efforts to smaller districts, where abuses could not exist without instant detection. Instead, however, of listening to those suggestions, they made the districts twenty, thirty, and forty miles in circuit; and the result was, of course, extravagance and abuse. he believed the future prospects of Ireland were of the most deplorable kind. He saw no means of getting out of the diffi- culties which encompassed it. It was said, "employ the people;" but, in the name of God, how were they to employ the people? What means had they? What capital could a country taxed to so enormous an extent devote to the purposes of employment? The position of Ireland required the most careful consideration of the Government; and, in his mind, measures ought at once to be adopted to make Irish property available in every possible way. They must lend money to Ireland, and spend money on her, and thus develop her resources, or a party would rise different to any other yet known in Irish history, who would compel these concessions. They must pursue a liberal course towards Ireland; and they must, without unnecessary loss of time, devise other means to enable the landed proprietors of Ireland to improve their estates, and release them from incumbrance. He wished to impress upon the House that Ireland was in a state when small measures were useless to her. The present Government commenced the Session promising many flattering measures calculated to benefit the country. One of those was to be a comprehensive measure for the reclamation of waste lands; but what had become of it now? Then, there was a railway measure; but even the small concession lately promised had not yet been finally conceded. He begged of the Government to give some comprehensive measures to Ireland.

denied that the course of legislation adopted this Session towards Ireland could be styled petty or peddling. Was the voting of eight millions of money a petty measure?