said, he wished to put a question to the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) on the subject of which he had given notice. According to the report of Captain Drummond, the Russian fleet was not in Sebastopol, but in Kaffa Bay, which commanded all the coast of Circassia, as well as Batoum and Trebizond. He wished to ask the noble Lord whether the Admirals of the allied fleet had returned from Sinope to Constantinople, not having as- certained with any certainty the position of the Russian fleet, and whether the Ambassadors of France and England had thought it necessary, under those circumstances, to send a messenger to warn the Admirals that they were dissatisfied with their return, and that they must take upon themselves the responsibility of that act?

What has happened upon the subject to which the hon. Gentleman has alluded is this:—The Admirals were desired by the English and French Ambassadors to leave Beykos Bay and go into the Black Sea. They accordingly went into the Black Sea, and stayed in the harbour of Sinope for some days. The Admiral then wrote to say that he found that it would be dangerous to remain any longer in that anchorage; and that if the two squadrons were to remain in the Black Sea for two months, it would be the way to promote any wishes that the Emperor of Russia might entertain that the British and French fleets should be disabled. He therefore thought it his duty to return to Constantinople, intending to send out steamers and screw vessels of war from time to time, in order to obtain that command of the Black Sea which, by the instructions of the British and French Governments, he was directed to acquire. I believe that, although the Ambassadors Certainly required an explanation of this conduct on the part of the Admiral, that it will be found to have deserved the entire approbation of Her Majesty's Government and of the country at large.

said, he begged to ask the hon. Secretary for the Treasury whether any progress had been made towards carrying out the proposed measure for the reduction of the colonial postage to a uniform rate; and also, whether he could give the House any information as to the steps that were taking to insure a more frequent postal communication between this country and our Australian colonies?

said, the two questions put by the hon. Gentleman were of great importance. With regard to the first, he had to state that the Postmaster General, in April last year, had taken steps, with the sanction of the Treasury, to obtain the concurrence of those Colonies, over whose postal arrangements he had no control, to a general arrangement of this kind. The proposed arrangement was, that there should be an uniform postage of 6d. to every part of the world—one penny being paid for inland postage at home, another penny for the inland postage in the colonies, and the remaining fourpence as the ocean rate. With regard to the progress that had been made, the Postmaster General had received communications from Canada, Prince Edward's Island, and the West India Islands, except Barbadoes, all of them complying with the proposition, and steps were being taken to carry the arrangements into effect. With regard to the second question, as to arrangements for frequent postal communications with Australia, he had to state that there was at present a communication only once in two months by way of India and Singapore. The Postmaster General was now in communication with the Screw Steam Company, with a view to the carrying of the mails monthly round the Cape of Good Hope, and he hoped soon to establish a regular monthly communication by steam between this country and Australia. The Postmaster General had been able, in this case, to make a beneficial and convenient arrangement with regard to postal communications viâ the Cape. He proposed, and he believed the proposal had been accepted by the company, that they should receive threepence out of the fourpenny ocean rate for their labour, and thus the other penny would be a net profit to the Post Office, instead of their paying, as they did by the present arrangement, a larger sum than the amount of postage they received. He would also mention, that one of the conditions insisted on was, that the Post Office should be allowed to transmit any letters to Australia which the parties indicated a wish to send by any particular ship. Another condition was, that the Post Office should not be prevented from entering into any contracts with steam companies who might send their vessels by any other route, so that they would be at liberty to avail themselves of the Panama route when it was opened.

begged to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Act passed by the Legislature of New South Wales to regulate the inducting of assisted immigrants and others in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, and their employment in the colony for a certain time after their arrival therein, had been allowed; and if not, whether it had been left in operation, without confirmation or disapproval; or whether the provisions of the Act were left in abeyance?

said, the Act in question was to have come into operation some time ago, but it had remained in abeyance up to the present time, in consequence of there being no funds in New South Wales applicable to emigration; but very lately, the sum of 100,000l. had been received from that colony for the purpose of assisting to send out emigrants, and the Commissioners were endeavouring to carry on emigration upon the principle approved by that Act, namely, that emigrants should be sent to the colony, and on arriving there be required to make a money payment to defray the costs of the advance made to them, or else that they should enter into contracts of service for stated periods.

having moved that the House, at its rising, adjourn to Monday,

said: I have to ask the indulgence of the House while I make one or two observations preparatory to the question which I intend to put to the noble Lord the leader of this House, and of which I have given notice. The noble Lord, on Monday night—I will not say intentionally—appeared to misunderstand the object of the question which I then thought it my duty to submit to him. The question I then put to the noble Lord, and which now stands on the papers, was, whether, in the disturbed state of our foreign relations, it was the intention of the Government to recommend to the House to proceed with the measure proposed to be introduced on Monday next for amending the representation of the people of this country. I put that question to the noble Lord with no discourtesy towards him, and I received from the noble Lord a reply which I will not call discourteous, but which I may call curt. The noble Lord informed me that it was his intention to answer my question on Monday next. But the question which I put to the noble Lord was not whether it was the intention of the Government to introduce a measure on Monday next, but whether it was their intention to proceed bonâ fide with the Bill which they proposed to introduce. I think I had some justification in putting that question to the noble Lord, for, if I look at the incidents connected with the Reform Bill introduced by the noble Lord in 1851, and the treatment which that measure received from the noble Lord; or, if I look to the Education Bill of last year, which met with a similar fate at the hands of its cruel originator—these and other instances which I might mention afford me full justification in putting such a question as this. But my real justification for putting this question is, the present state of our foreign relations; for, though but a humble Member of this House, I agree with others whose opinions are of great weight, and who do not think that this is a moment to consider with great calmness a question of this nature, involving the extension of the franchise in this country, but that it is a moment when a wise Government would rather endeavour to rally around it the sympathy and support of all parties in this House to enable it to carry out with energy and vigour this war, upon which, I fear, we are unfortunately on the point of being involved. These opinions are held by men whose liberal views cannot be doubted, and among others I may allude to one who was once an ornament to this House, and who now sits in another place—I mean the noble Lord the son of the father of the Reform Bill of 1832 (Earl Grey). This, then, is my justification in putting the question to the noble Lord. I would ask the noble Lord whether this is not a moment when we should show to Europe at large that we are united—that the House of Commons is of one feeling and of one mind, and that there should not be thrown down before us a question that will necessarily give rise to differences of opinion—a question which, if we are to place any dependence on rumour, has not been brought this length without difficulties and differences even in the Cabinet. Then, I ask the noble Lord—and I trust the noble Lord will not think I am asking too much, or attempt to put me off with a bad joke—whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government bonâ fide to proceed with the measure, of which notice has been given for Monday next?

Sir, The question of the noble Lord is certainly somewhat different from that which I understood him to ask without giving me previous notice a few evenings ago—namely, whether I intended to propose on Monday next to ask leave to bring in a Bill on the subject of Parliamentary Reform. The noble Lord has now put on the paper a question of a different purport—namely, whether we intend to proceed with that Bill? My answer to that question, with- out going into any reasoning on the subject, is that I intend to ask for leave on Monday to bring in a Bill to amend the representation of the people in England and Wales, and, if I should be successful in obtaining leave to bring in that Bill, I propose to proceed on the 13th of March with the second reading, so that there may be no interruption whatever to the question of the Naval and Military Estimates which must come before the House. I certainly do not anticpate that there will be any reason why, when that period comes, we should not proceed with the measure. I need not enter into any discussion on the subject now. I gave some reasons on the first night of the Session, and will be ready, when the time comes, to state my views upon the subject. At present I will only say, that I see no reason why we should not on Monday introduce the Bill, and proceed with it in the manner I have described.

said, he wished to make only one observation. The noble Lord (Viscount Jocelyn) had alluded only to the House of Commons; but the question was, what did the people of this country expect from the Government? The noble Lord spoke as if the House of Commons were the only parties who were entitled to be considered in this matter. He would say that if ever there was a time when the Government should endeavour to rally the people round them by giving a measure of reform, the present was the time. The Ministers ought to bring within the pale of the constitution the greatest possible number, in order to obtain their support. The House of Commons was nothing without the support of the people; and, therefore, if the people were not fully represented in that House, it was an act of policy on the part of the Government to provide that they should be so. The Government could not draw back from the pledges they had given, and he hoped the remarks of the noble Lord would induce the Government to be more determined and to bring in a large and comprehensive measure of reform.

Sir, it may be convenient to the House, if I take the opportunity which this conversation allows me, to state the course which the Gentlemen with whom I have the honour to act, on this side of the House, propose to take on Monday next. With regard to a large measure of Parliamentary reform, if that measure be, as I fear from the speeches of the supporters of the Government it will be, a measure the object of which is to reduce the interest which the land already possesses in the representation of this House—an influence which, I think, has been already unjustly and unwisely diminished—I say if the large measure of Parliamentary reform about to be brought forward is of that nature, to that measure we shall offer an uncompromising opposition. We should oppose such a measure, if brought forward, on its merits, and also we should oppose it as brought forward at a season which we think very inopportune for a measure of that description. We think that a moment like the present, when the entire attention of the country should be absorbed and all its energies devoted to the consideration of our external relations, is not one in which a domestic agitation should be encouraged, nor one in which the energies of the country should be diverted from the perilous condition of our external affairs. I cannot help saying that I think the course of the Ministry, which may bring about such a result, is a reckless course, and we will not unnecessarily share in that recklessness; but, because we will not in any way divert the attention and the energies of the country from the consideration of the position of our foreign relations, we do not intend on Monday next to offer any resistance to the Motion of the noble Lord for leave to bring in his Bill. Such an opposition might protract the debate at a moment when the attention of this House ought to be solely devoted to the consideration of the means by which an impending war may be carried on most efficiently and with ultimate honour to the country. But, if on this 13th of March—that is now announced to us as the day on which the second reading of that Bill comes on—if, when that interval has elapsed, the noble Lord has not seen occasion to come forward and confess the error of his ways—if the noble Lord then asks us to consent to the second reading of a Bill for the reform of the House of Commons, of course there can be no further reserve on our part—we must give to such a proposition all the attention which it demands, we must enter into a consideration of the merits of the question; and if the country be agitated, if the attention of the House be diverted from the important subjects that ought to engross their consideration, then on the noble Lord must rest the responsibility of bringing forward a measure of such a description and at such a period.

said, the right hon. Gentlemen assumed that the country was at war. [Laughter.] Gentlemen might make light of that, and think that some party success might come out of it; but he could not congratulate them on such a frame of mind. They had had no intimation from the Government that such a calamity had actually occurred, and it was quite notorious to the House that there were men as well informed as any in this country could be of what was passing who had not yet given up hope that such an evil might be avoided. At any rate, even if the occurrence of war could be a justification for the Government withdrawing from their repeated pledges upon this question, still until war had taken place, or was absolutely and clearly inevitable, he thought it would be as wise not to make that an argument against a course which must otherwise be pursued. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of a reckless Administration. This was a term he had heard frequently used across the table; and a year ago, or rather more, Gentlemen sitting on his side had used these words, or others very like them, in speaking of the Government of the right hon. Gentleman. He believed that if the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends were now in office, they would be doing, as he believed the present Government to be doing, all they could for the purpose of preserving the country from the calamities of war. In the course which the Government were taking with regard to the reform question, he had no doubt that in proposing to redeem their oft-repeated pledges, they were acting in accordance with the opinions of a great majority of the people of that House. The right hon. Gentleman, who now protested against agitating the country, upon a question of internal policy, had himself been the great disturber of the country in agitating for a policy now admitted by himself to be mistaken. During the last seven years, and for some months previous to the meeting of Parliament, until a certain great delusion was exploded, it used to be the habit of Gentlemen opposite to agitate and disturb the country on a question a thousand times more dangerous than any which could come out of this reform measure. He considered it would be a grand spectacle to the world if we could show that whilst the country was in circumstances, if not of difficulty, yet of a state verging to war, its insitutions were so solid that it was possible for the Government to pro- pose, and for Parliament to consider, a measure which was not to restrict the rights of the people, or to increase military force in order to keep them down, but to extend the freedom and franchise of the community. He could scarcely conceive, amid such calamities as those of war, a more noble spectacle offered to the nations of the world. Gentlemen opposite were not the best advisers of Government on this question. He did not know that the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Viscount Jocelyn) was particularly known as a reformer. He did not know what the particular opinion of the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn might be upon this subject, for the noble Lord's opinions were generally of a floating and unsettled character on most subjects; but of this he was quite certain, that if a Reform Bill to the same effect as that about to be introduced by the noble Lord the Member for London was left to the tender mercies of the majority of Gentlemen opposite, it would be several Sessions, and several Parliaments, before they would give the country the benefit of any such measure. Let the Bill to be introduced by the noble Lord the Member for London be just and impartial, and let it fearlessly strike at the root of the evil which at present prevailed, and, although it might not go quite so far as many Members of that House might wish, yet, as far as it did go, he felt assured that the noble Lord would receive ample support, both in that House and from the country, to enable him to prosecute his efforts with success.

said, he was satisfied that a very little reflection would show the hon. Member who had just sat down, that the party with which he (Lord J. Manners) had the honour to act were influenced in the course which they were about to take by no such motives as had been ascribed to them. If they were anxious to seize upon an occasion for party purposes, he believed that no occasion could offer itself more favourable than the present. He was not surprised that the hon. Gentleman should, on this occasion, have stood forward as the apologist and approver of the course which Her Majesty's Government intended to take with reference to the Reform Bill—whether his marked approbation would conciliate support to their policy throughout the country remained to be seen; but he was not in the least surprised that the hon. Gentleman should come forward to stamp with his approbation any course that would divide the councils of the State, or that would prevent the Government and the people devoting their energies uninterruptedly to the prosecution of the great struggle which no one could now doubt was imminent. The hon. Gentleman and his Friends, no doubt, desired to see the people intent on internal divisions and strife rather than on a vigorous external policy, which would throw their strength into the conduct of the operations which would be required for that war in which it was but too probable that this country would soon be involved. That was the question in which the English people now felt the deepest interest; while if he were to judge from the number of petitions which had been presented in connexion with the new Reform Bill, no considerable degree of anxiety was manifested in its regard. In fact, it was remarkable that not a single petition had been presented in favour of this Reform Bill; and the hon. Member for Manchester could tell them, that, so far from the public voice being with him on this question, the hon. Member and his friends were no longer able to meet in vast pavilions or crowded halls, but were obliged to restrict their demonstrations to tea parties and to seek the shelter of a tavern parlour to pour their sorrows into the ears of the faithful few, to the exclusion of the once deluded but now undeceived many. His noble Friend (Viscount Jocelyn), who asked the question, had justly remarked that there were antecedents in the course of the noble Lord which might well make them doubt whether it was the intention of Government to persevere with this measure. The noble Lord only three years ago proposed a Reform Bill, which, at least, enabled him to make a great speech; that measure fell, not by a hostile division, but by the ladies of its framer. So also with his measure on education. He trusted that the noble Lord would yet be persuaded to reconsider his decision, which could only be regarded as a delusive bait to a section of the people with which the noble Lord and his Friends wished to curry favour. At all events, the party with which he (Lord J. Manners) was connected would have the satisfaction of knowing that they were not responsible for the course which the noble Lord seemed resolved to pursue, and that they had protested against it as calculated to prove injurious to the best interests of the country.

I rise, Sir, to ask for leave to bring in two Bills on the important subjects of bribery and treating, and the trial of contested elections, of which I have given notice. It, must be admitted on all sides that the corrupt practices which have prevailed of late at elections, have involved all parties concerned in them in disgrace, and have also tended materially to compromise the character of this House. The right hon. Gentleman whom I see opposite (Mr. Walpole) last year proposed to consolidate the laws on the subject of bribery, and I have derived great advantage from being able to study the proposals which he made on this subject. In explaining the course which I intend to pursue, I have first of all to remark that it is a very difficult task for the Legislature effectually to arrest the progress of bribery. With respect to that class of offences in which any person is directly concerned—such as assault or robbery—you have an individual who is interested, or who is at least impelled by his feelings to seek for redress, and upon whose assistance you may rely in carrying into effect the object and intent of the law. But with respect to other offences, such as that of smuggling, for instance, all the parties engaged in the offence have an interest in concealing the acts of which they are guilty. The person who sells the goods, the smuggler who conveys them across the water, and the customer who buys them, are all participators in the crime, and are all desirous of concealing the offence which they have committed. It is very much the same with respect to bribery. The candidate who engages in bribery, the party whom he employs as an agent, and the persons who receive the bribe, may all attain the object of their wishes, in the seat in Parliament, in the profit they receive, in the money which the voter obtains, and all are thus interested in concealing the bribery. I am happy, however, to say that, with respect to this subject we certainly may consider that we have made considerable progress in the last few years. The Acts which were passed to transfer the investigation of corrupt practices, where they extensively prevailed, from the Committees of this House to the places themselves where the offence was committed, and those Acts of Parliament by which the persons chiefly concerned—the candidates and their agents, and the persons who have received bribes—are all forced to attend and give evidence; these Acts, I say, have thrown a light upon the corrupt practices which prevailed, at least in certain boroughs, which never was obtained before. I should say, likewise, that before Committees of this House there have been greater facilities in obtaining evidence with respect to bribery than existed until within the last few years. Sir, in laying my proposals before the House, I should perhaps state first what is the general nature of the Statutes which have been enacted upon this subject. The Act of the 7 Will. III. is directed against persons who have received any money, or who give any money, or who give or receive food, drink, and entertainment, and it disqualifies the persons who are guilty of those offences. By the Statute of the 2 Geo. II. any voter asking or taking money to give his vote, or to refrain from giving his vote, is liable to a penalty of 500l., and is for ever disabled from the exercise of the franchise, and the person bribing is disqualified from being elected. An Act which passed in the 49th year of Geo. III. inflicts various high penalties on persons who endeavour by improper means to procure a seat in Parliament, and who offer any gift or promise, any reward or office, to persons who assist in procuring such seat. The pecuniary penalties involved are very high—1,000l. for one offence, and 500l. for another, that of receiving any office so given. Now, Sir, in proposing to amend these laws, I should say that generally I leave the offence of bribery as subject to the punishment of a misdemeanour—that of fine and imprisonment—but do not propose to keep up these high pecuniary penalties. I believe the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Walpole) took the same view with respect to these high penalties, and agreed with me in thinking that the attempt to inflict a fine of 500l. upon a poor voter who perhaps receives some five shillings for his vote, would be utterly impracticable, and that no object would be gained by retaining these penalties. After proceeding to define the offence of bribery nearly according to the manner in which it is at present defined, with the addition of some offences which I think have been omitted, I propose to define the offence of treating, and to deal with it nearly in the same manner in which it is at present defined by law. I then propose to define the offence of undue influence, and I will read to the House the clause which I shall propose, in case the House should allow this Bill to be brought in. The clause is in these words:—

"Every person who shall, by himself or by any other person on his behalf, make use of, or threaten to make use of, any force, violence, or restraint, or shall inflict or threaten to inflict any injury, harm, or loss, or in any other manner exercise intimidation towards any person on account of the manner of giving his votes, or in order to induce or compel such person to vote, or refrain from voting, shall be deemed to have committed the offence of undue influence, and to have incurred—penalty, [say of 50l.] together with full costs, to be awarded to any person who shall sue for the same."

The right hon. Gentleman opposite, the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), on a former night asked if I had considered that subject. I had already at that time given directions to have the clause drawn which I have now read to the House. Having thus defined these of fences, the mode in which I propose to check these practices, besides the one which I have already mentioned—that of misdemeanour, which is enforced as the law now stands for bribery—consists rather in debarring persons who aim to be elected by bribery, treating, and corrupt practices, from obtaining their object, than by the infliction of any very severe penalties. I think you are far more likely to attain your end by depriving such persons of the object at which they aim, than by the infliction of penalties which may perhaps never be enforced. I should propose, therefore, to deprive the candidate of the seat in Parliament, of which he is ambitious, and to deprive the voter of that vote of which he has made a corrupt use. I should propose, then, that persons guilty of bribery should be for ever incapable of being elected Members of Parliament; and that persons guilty of treating, or exercising undue influence, or making illegal payments, should be incapable of electing any Member for the same place and during the same Parliament. This is the penalty which now attaches by Statute to the offence of treating. I then propose that when there are any convictions for bribery and treating, a copy of these convictions should be sent to the Speaker and entered into the book of Parliamentary and election disqualifications. I propose, likewise, with regard to those electors who are guilty of bribery, that their names should be struck out of the register of voters, and, as I believe I once mentioned to the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Walpole) in conversation last year, that their names should not totally disappear from the register, but that there should be a separate list of names of persons disqualified for having received bribes, and that those names should be printed and publicly affixed in the same manner as those in the register of voters, so that they might for ever after appear as disqualified for the offence I have mentioned. I do not wish to go much into details with respect to these Bills, and therefore I will not go into various other provisions of the Bill to consolidate and amend the law with regard to bribery, treating, and undue influence. But the second Bill which I propose to bring in, and which I may as well explain at the present moment, is one of very great importance, the provisions of which are perhaps more susceptible of doubt and hesitation than those I have mentioned, but which, according to the view I entertain upon them, may be of considerable use in checking these debasing and degrading practices. I have frequently stated to this House (and it is an opinion to which I think all the Members of this House generally assent) that it is a great omission, at least in the spirit of our laws with respect to election petitions, that where a case is one of the highest public interest it is made one entirely of private concern; and thus candidates who have once by the most corrupt means obtained their return are very often, instead of being disqualified and rejected from this House, rendered secure in their seats by the inability of those who have opposed them to stand the litigation, the delay, and the very heavy expenses which must attend upon an application to this House for a Committee to try the validity of the return. Now, Sir, I do not find it easy to remedy that evil, because the House, I am sure, will at once agree with me, that while we ought to take care that there shall be investigation into such cases, we ought not to encourage or give any countenance to frivolous petitions. What I propose is this—That, with regard to petitions which state that bribery, treating, corrupt practices, or undue influence have been used and have procured the return of the sitting Members, all such petitions should, according to the Bill I propose, be sent to a preliminary Committee, which Committee should be in the nature of a grand jury. This preliminary Committee would consist of fifteen Members, to be chosen by the General Committee of Elections. They would hear the evidence on the part of the petitioners to prove the existence of malpractices. If they were satisfied that there was a sufficient case to proceed to an Election Committee, they would so report to the House, and an Election Committee would be appointed in the ordinary course. In proposing to consolidate this law, I do not mean to alter the general provisions. The Election Committee would then investigate the case, and, supposing they should find that the petitioner had proceeded with probable grounds, I should then propose that the cost should be defrayed at the public expense. If, on the contrary, they should find there was no ground, then the petitioner would be obliged to pay the expenses of the sitting Member whose seat was attacked. Sir, I think that by this method we should hold out some inducement to those who now in despair give up the prosecution of petitions to bring cases before the House where very flagrant bribery has occurred. No one who has watched the course of general elections can but be aware that, while there are a number of cases brought to trial, in certain cases where the candidate is rich, or where he thinks it worth his while to attempt to establish a permanent influence in the place, petitioning is carried on to its utmost result, and very great expenses are incurred; and that there are other cases in which bribery has been quite as flagrant, if not more so, in which there has been no investigation before this House, and no inquiry has taken place. But, Sir, beyond this proposal there is another method which I have in view, and which I once suggested before in another form, but which now in its amended shape may, I think, be entertained by the House. I mention these and other provisions, however, only as plans which I have endeavoured to form with the view to check these practices—not as plans which it is certain ought to be adopted by this House without very grave consideration. I propose, where it is declared by a candidate that he has reason to suppose that bribery and corrupt practices were used during the election, that in this case, if the numbers which he shall obtain at the poll amount to two-thirds of the number which the successful candidate shall obtain, and the successful candidate shall be proved to have been elected by means of bribery—in that case the Election Committee shall have power to return the candidate who peti- tions to Parliament as the elected Member. I once proposed, but without this limitation of two thirds, that in such a case the course I have now indicated should be taken. It is a mode of giving at least some inducement to persons to petition this House in case they have been rejected, and at the same time have had the majority of legal and unbribed votes at the election. There is another proposal I have to make, which is an alteration—not a very great alteration—in the law as it at present exists, in consequence of Bills which have been introduced in former years. I propose, where the Election Committee shall report that bribery extensively prevailed in any borough, that then, without any Address from this House and the other House of Parliament, the Speaker shall communicate that Report to the Secretary of State for the Home Department; that that Report shall be laid before the Crown; and that the Crown shall thereupon have power to issue a Commission, in the same manner in which Commissions have been lately issued. I propose, likewise, to alter the manner in which Commissioners have been appointed. Hitherto these Commissioners have been nominated by the House, with a view to prevent jealousy as to the exercise of undue influence on the part of the Crown. But I cannot help thinking that the dispersion among so large a number of the responsibility of naming these Commissioners, tends a great deal to prevent that due selection of persons which is necessary. I therefore propose, restricting the choice in England to revising barristers, or persons who have been nominated by the Judges in some former year to the office of revising barrister, to give the Crown the power of nominating these Commissioners. I believe that the Minister, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, acting under a sense of responsibility, is much more likely to make good appointments than can be made by this House in its collective capacity. There are various other provisions in the Bill with respect to the law of petitions, which are alterations of the present law of considerable importance, but which are too much matters of detail to make it necessary for me to enter into them now. But there is one very considerable alteration which, if I am allowed to bring in a Bill to consolidate the present law, we propose to make with respect to Election Committees. I have been always very much opposed to withdrawing the power of judg- ing of the persons elected to sit in this House from the house itself; but I think the law has been so much improved in that respect, and especially by the amendments introduced into it by the late Sir Robert Peel, that at least there is not any well-founded complaint at the present time of there being any party or corrupt influence in the decisions of Election Committees. I do think, however, there is still some reason to complain of the want of uniformity of decision, and of the want of that legal knowledge which would enable the Committees to decide in each case according to the known principles of law. In order to obtain that advantage, I propose that upon a dissolution of Parliament the Crown shall appoint ten barristers of ten years' standing to be assessors, for the purpose of being appointed to act in the capacity of assessors to Election Committees; that in every subsequent year one person shall be so appointed, which, probably, will be quite enough for this purpose; and that the General Committee of Elections, in nominating the Election Committee, shall at the same time name the particular assessor who shall attend that Committee. I propose to repeal the provision, of which I was myself the original author, that there should be a separate chairman's panel, and now I propose that the General Committee of Elections shall choose the whole Committee. In that way, and with the assistance of assessors, I think there would be a far greater uniformity of decision than there has hitherto been. With respect to prosecutions for bribery, I likewise propose, when a Committee has reported that any persons have been guilty of bribery, that, upon communication to the Speaker of the fact of such report, the Attorney General should at once prosecute the persons so reported as having committed this offence. I think it is desirable as far as possible to remove these questions from discussion and debate in this House, when we once have appointed a tribunal which is reputed efficient, and which has come to a decision upon the subject. These, Sir, are the general provisions which I propose to introduce in these Bills; but the House will have a far better view of them when they have seen the Bills and consulted their provisions. I can only say, for my part, that I shall be quite ready, when the discussion of them comes on, to listen to any suggestions which can arise, because I believe that the great majority of this House think that the time is come when we ought to endeavour, as far as possible, effectually to prevent and check these degrading practices; and if we succeed in that object, we shall succeed, likewise, in raising the character of this House. The noble Lord then moved for leave to bring in a Bill to consolidate and amend the Laws relating to Bribery, Treating, and undue influence at Elections of Members of Parliament.

said, he should not presume to go into the details of the two measures now submitted to the House, but there were two points which had caught his attention in the course of the noble Lord's address, upon which he wished to offer a few observations. The first related to the question of bribery. The noble Lord—so far as he understood—proposed that if a sitting Member should be deprived of his seat in consequence of his having carried on bribery at the election, or of his agents having carried it on for him, the Committee should have the power to seat the opposing candidate in every case where he had obtained two-thirds of the number of the votes of the sitting Member. Now, he very much doubted whether that could be called an entirely constitutional mode of election, because he considered the fact of a sitting Member losing his seat for bribery was no proof that the candidate opposed to him had a majority of the votes of the electors, and it was only on the ground that a person had a majority of the votes of the electors in favour of him that he could be entitled to sit in Parliament. He feared it would be extremely difficult to say that because A had been unseated for bribery, B therefore had a majority of the votes of the electors. He thought, also that considerable difficulty would arise with regard to the clause which attempted to define what was to be called "undue influence." Why, they all knew that sometimes a look or a frown was sufficient to influence a voter. It was perfectly impossible to define in the clause of an Act of Parliament what was undue influence, and the attempt would lead only to litigation of a very disagreeable character, without any successful result. Upon the question of undue influence and litigation he would refer the Government to the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay), who had laid it down most forcibly, that it was impossible to find any statutory remedy for intimidation, and that there was only one mode of meeting the evil, and that was to adopt vote by ballot. He would also refer the noble Lord most confidently on this question to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Southwark (Sir W. Moles-worth), his colleague in the Cabinet—and he was sure that that right hon. Gentleman must be of opinion that all attempts to deal with undue influence by the mere penalties in an Act of Parliament would be unsuccessful. He was glad, however, to find that efforts were to be made this Session to put down bribery. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for East Suffolk (Sir F. Kelly)—the county in which he (Mr. Gibson) resided—who, therefore, represented him in Parliament—had given notice of a Bill to put down bribery; and with the great legal knowledge of that hon. and learned Gentleman employed on it, he was sure that the subject would be discussed with considerable advantage. Bribery, perhaps, was more capable of being dealt with by legislation than intimidation; but still he had great doubts whether the real remedy for the whole mass of these evils was not to be found in vote by ballot.

said, that the existence of bribery and corrupt practices at elections was so clear and undeniable that he considered the country ought to be grateful to the noble Lord for having devoted his attention to this important subject. It would be easily supposed that he did not offer any opposition to the plan now propounded; on the contrary, he was rather desirous to assure the noble Lord, on his own behalf and on that of those around him, that every assistance would be given to the measures now proposed. He wished, however, to suggest to the House, even upon this early opportunity, some difficulties and objections which must have occurred to the noble Lord himself in relation to some parts of the plan which he had submitted to them. He agreed with the noble Lord that it was quite useless to add to the penalties by which the commission of bribery was now followed, either with respect to the voter or the candidate. They had seen that imprisonment, unlimited except by the discretion or mercy of the Judge, heavy pecuniary penalties, disfranchisement, disqualification to hold office, to vote or to sit in Parliament, and even the punishment of transportation where perjury had accompanied bribery, had been all inadequate to repress the offence; for they had found that the bribery and every species of corruption which prevailed at the last general election equalled, if they did not exceed, that which had ever been known at any former period of our history. Under these circumstances, he thought they must endeavour to prevent crime by affording at once to candidates, to agents, and even to voters, the means of easily performing their duties, and, yet, in such a manner, that if they violated the law, detection became certain. The definition of the offences would go far not only to facilitate the observance of the law, but also to aid and assist the Election Committees of that House in determining what were the offences which came under their jurisdiction, and which could be punished by them. There was much to commend in the measure as proposed by the noble Lord, but he thought that that part of the Bill which gave power to a Committee to seat an opposing candidate who had obtained two-thirds of the votes given to the sitting Member, in cases where the sitting Member was declared to have been elected by means of bribery, was a provision inconsistent with the constitution of this country. He could not but think that that would be a most dangerous power to in-trust to any tribunal, and it was nothing less than transferring the franchise itself from the electoral body to a Select Committee of that House. He must, however, express his satisfaction that the noble Lord had introduced at length into the constitution of Election Committees an element which he was sure would greatly raise their character—namely, the appointment of an assessor. It had been his misfortune to differ from many of the highest authorities on this subject—from the late Sir Robert Peel, and oven from the noble Lord himself—whether or not the extensive jurisdiction of these Committees should be transferred to Courts of Law. It was in vain, however, to contend against the prevailing opinion of successive majorities in that House; but the plan proposed by the noble Lord in this Bill, of appointing assessors to assist Election Committees, would go far to remove the objections which he entertained to the present mode of proceeding. There was nothing in the noble Lord's project which would at all interfere with the measure of which he (Sir F. Kelly) had given notice, and which he meant to submit to the House in the course of the ensuing week. He believed every one who had a seat in that House, or, indeed, any one who had paid any attention to the subject, would now be dis- posed to unite in one common effort to remove what he believed to be the greatest evil which existed in the constitution of this country.

said, that, although he entertained great respect for the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down, he had no intention of joining in the flattering compliment to the noble Lord opposite which the hon. and learned Gentleman had thought fit to pay him. Whatever might be the opinion and feelings of the self-called Peace Society, he thought the present was the most inopportune time that could possibly have been selected for the introduction of these measures. He considered this nothing more than a mode of evading that inquiry and that discussion which ought to have taken place previous to all others, with regard to what he would go so far as to call the gross misconduct of Her Majesty's Government in neglecting the measures proper for preventing—what he believed might have been prevented—a most unnecessary war. He looked upon it as an attempt to screen themselves behind these Bills. It was a manœuvre got up by the Government to screen their base and cowardly policy; but he would tear away the flimsy veil, and expose them in their true colours. Before the Government talked of purifying others, he should like them to look at home. When they began to stop their patronage and pensions, then he would believe that the noble Lord had some intention to put an end to bribery and corruption. Talk of bribery and corruption!—why the Treasury bench stunk of bribery; and yet they wanted to prevent men, such as himself, from performing the common Christian duties of life, except at the risk of being charged with bribery and corruption! If he saved a fellow creature from starving, he was to be held to be corrupting him! Thank God, however, he had feelings in his breast, and he told the noble Lord, in the face of a British House of Commons, and in face of the Treasury bench, that he had exercised Christian charity during the last winter, and that he would do it again, in spite of him and his bribery Bills. They were told by the right hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. M. Gibson), that the ballot was the only remedy for bribery and corruption; but of all the dirty things in this world, of all the un-English, disgraceful things, the ballot was the worst. He hoped that no constituent of the city which he represent- ed would consent to screen himself under such a mean cloak; he certainly would not thank such a man for his vote. He regretted to find that that side of the House intended to allow the Bill to be brought in without opposition. His motto was Principiis obsta, and he thought that the best thing would have been to throw it out at once. He hoped the Bills would all end in smoke, and he believed they would. As for the occupants of the Treasury bench, he protested against their paltry, disreputable mode of evading the more important question of our foreign relations; and he looked upon their conduct as an act of political cowardice which rendered them unfit to hold office, and unworthy to draw the public money, which might be far more profitably expended than when applied to their support.

said, he thought the House and the country were greatly indebted to any man who brought forward a measure to put down bribery and corruption at elections, because the value of that House consisted in a thorough conviction on the part of the people that it was a true representation of the whole country. No man in the House had made more efforts in this direction than the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell), and he hoped that he would profit by the experience of former attempts. There were two points to which he wished to call attention. He held that, in cases where pecuniary payments were made in the way of bribery, unless the agent acting on behalf of the candidate for whom the money was paid was punished, the principle the House was anxious to lay down would continue to be violated. He therefore approved that clause in the Bill of the noble Lord by which it was proposed to punish any man employed as an agent, who should be proved to be guilty of bribery. He also believed that it would tend to remedy the evil if a court could be established with summary jurisdiction, where offenders might be dealt with instanter, and he thought the punishment inflicted should be to deprive a person convicted of any voice in the election of Parliamentary representatives for a period of ten or twelve years. The proposition of the noble Lord to select gentlemen from among the revising barristers to act as Commissioners, was, in his opinion, weak and unsatisfactory. The revising barristers were generally young and inexperienced men, with little or no practice, and it would be improper to place them in the situation of judges of most vital and important questions. He submitted, also, that if it was desirable to appoint assessors, they should be men of experience and acknowledged ability, as he believed that would be the best means of promoting a uniformity in the decisions arrived at by the assessors. With regard, however, to bribery by pecuniary payments, he held that no measure could be adopted which would so effectually put an end to it as extending the number of voters and granting the protection of the vote by ballot. The noble Lord the Member for London had introduced most of the great and important measures tending to a reform of the representation of the country since he (Mr. Hume) had been a Member of the House, and he appealed to the noble Lord now to add a crowning triumph to his Parliamentary career by giving the country an opportunity of fairly trying the vote by ballot. He would suggest to the noble Lord the propriety of introducing a clause into the proposed Bill to enable the constituency to make a fair trial of the vote by ballot, providing two-thirds of the electors of such constituency requested a trial to be made. By pursuing such a course the House would have an opportunity of seeing how the vote by ballot would act, and the result of the experience thus gained would enable the House to decide finally upon the question hereafter. He himself had great confidence that the vote by ballot would be found far preferable to the complicated and expensive proceedings proposed by the noble Lord. By his experience, as the oldest Member of that House, he warned the noble Lord that the proceedings proposed to be taken would prove delusive, and that they would not procure the benefits desired by the country—namely, an honest, fair, and independent representation of the people.

said, he perfectly coincided with the noble Lord the Member for London that it was the duty of that House to endeavour to put an end to the monstrous evils which the Election Committees of last Session had brought to light. Difficult questions of law frequently arose during the inquiries of those Committees, and be thought that the noble Lord's proposition to introduce assessors into them would greatly improve their construction; but he was opposed to the adoption of a principle by which the duties now entrusted to Election Committees would be entirely taken out of that House, From his experience of Election Committees, he honestly believed there had never been an improper feeling on the part of any Committee in conducting the duties entrusted to it, and if any error had been made, it had always been upon a point of law. With regard to the offence of treating at elections, the evidence generally given before Election Committees came principally from the landlords and barmaids of public-houses. An election now only occupied two days—one for the nomination, and the other for the election; and he would suggest for the consideration of the noble Lord the Member for London, whether the treating usually accompanying an election, and the attendant rioting, drunkenness, and dissipation, might not be prevented to a considerable extent if the public-houses and beershops were closed upon the two days of nomination and election.

said, that he could not avoid thanking the noble Lord the Member for the City of London whenever he saw him taking the least progressive step towards reform, but was sorry to see that the strides of the noble Lord were so extremely scanty. In dealing with this question of the malversation of the franchise, it appeared to him extraordinary that the noble Lord, with his great intellect and his natural acuteness, could venture in the face of the intimidation constantly going on, to confine himself in the measure which he had brought before the House to merely physical intimidation. When the noble Lord talked of making punishable acts of violence, did he think that there was no other species of intimidation? Did not the noble Lord recollect the intimidation of landlords over their tenantry, and of customers over their tradesmen? and could he venture, after the proofs which had been laid before the House of this species of tyranny, to come forward with a remedy of so trivial a nature as that which he offered in his Bill? The noble Lord appeared to him to consider intimidation to be a constitutional proceeding, and to set his face against any attempt to put it down. The noble Lord had been three or four times upon the very brink of that measure which he (Mr. Berkeley) had so often advocated in the House; but he appeared to be afraid of Stepping forward, and never lost the occasion of drawing back whenever circumstances would allow him. He was fully Convinced that for intimidation there could be but one remedy, and that was by giving the voter the protection of secrecy at the polling booth. Intimidation could never be completely put down or eradicated, but a great deal might be done to diminish its extent and efficiency. No person who had studied the proceedings before the Election Committees of the last Session could fail to be struck with the circumstance that no person was proved to have received a bribe until after he had voted. The men who bribed would never trust those who were bribed. A stronger proof could not be afforded of the necessity which existed, in order to put an end to bribery, of taking away the means of knowing in what way the vote was given. In the course of the discussion which would take place upon the Reform Bill of the noble Lord, he would take occasion once again to lay before the House the question of the ballot. He felt convinced that the ballot was a measure of time—he knew it was a measure of justice, and felt certain that the day would arrive—it might not be in his time—when the people of this country would be only astonished that such an act of justice should have been so long denied.

said, he thought both sides of the House would admit that the noble Lord the Member for London was entitled to their greatest thanks for his present steps, limited though they might be, to put down bribery at elections. He would call the attention of the noble Lord to one or two topics which he had, and to one or two topics which he had not, adverted to in his address to the House that evening. The noble Lord, he regretted, had not proposed to allow an Election Committee to go into proof of treating without discussing the question of agency first. The want of power to deal in that mode with charges of treating, very often paralysed the action of Election Committees. A measure of that kind was once carried, he believed, in that, but rejected by the other House of Parliament. He trusted, therefore, that the noble Lord would embody it in his proposed Bill. With regard, however, to the question of intimidation, he trusted that the noble Lord would reconsider the determination he had come to, and make intimidation an indictable offence. If it could be proved that any persons leagued and conspired together—he cared not whether by religious or any other sort of influence to be brought upon a voter—such a proceeding he held to be a crime and a misdemeanour, which ought to be severely punished by the law, not by pecuniary fine, but by bodily imprisonment. Such an offence ought to be dealt with more severely than bribery, for he believed that intimidation had a greater tendency than bribery to degrade a man; because the man who received a bribe gave his vote voluntarily, but in that of intimidation it was given compulsorily, and with rancorous feelings against the intimidator, which were most prejudicial to the interests of society. As one means of preventing intimidation, he hoped that the noble Lord would consent to the introduction of a clause in his proposed Bill which would prohibit the publication of the polling books until six or twelve months after the heat of party contests at elections had passed away. Some of his own constituents had informed him that their customers resorted to the polling books after the elections for the purpose of ascertaining how their tradesmen voted, and punishing them for voting contrary to their, the customers', political creed, by withdrawing their custom from them. Now, the withholding of the records of the votes at elections for a considerable time after the elections, might go a great way towards putting an end to that kind of secret intimidation, With regard to the second Bill of the noble Lord, he apprehended that the proposed introduction of a quasi grand jury system, as a preliminary to inquiry by Committees into charges of corruption at elections, would be a great impediment to public justice. It was a matter which required a most careful consideration before it should be adopted. Every one who had had experience on Election Committees must know that if there were to be ex parte secret tribunals to ascertain whether or not a trial should take place, the Committee would be deprived of the advantage of having reluctant witnesses subjected to cross-examination by counsel. He believed that the result of the noble Lord's proposition in that respect would be a most cumbrous innovation—that it would be a practical disservice instead of an advantage. But there was one most important omission in the noble Lord's Bill—it was altogether silent as to the prevention of compromising election petitions. It was most scandalous to see at the commencement of the present Parliament the election agents of both sides of the House presenting petition after petition. As one petition was presented against the return of a Gentleman on one side of the House, another petition was presented against the return of a Gentleman on the opposite side of the House. Those who knew the secret mechanism by which those gentlemen worked, knew that that was their best method of compelling a compromise, and preventing a fair inquiry into charges of bribery and corruption. He thought that the noble Lord would agree with him that the presentation of those petitions was a matter of public concern, and that there ought to be a public prosecutor to sift those charges to the bottom. People ought to be no more able to compromise election petitions, than they could compromise charges of felony. Those who made charges of bribery and corruption at elections, ought to be compelled to enter into recognisances to prosecute, and then the public would be enabled to know whether these charges were well-founded, or merely frivolous and unjust accusations. He believed that the moment in which the Legislature should have declared that such charges must be publicly investigated, and that the persons proved to be guilty of them should be punished not simply pecuniarily, they would have advanced a great way in the direction of Parliamentary reform. He hoped that the noble Lord would not give the proposed election assessors any voice in the decisions of the Committees as to matters of fact. From the experience which he had had on these Committees, he must say that questions of fact were as ably and fairly decided by them as by any legal tribunal in this country. He hoped that the noble Lord would permit the proposed assessors to decide questions of law only. He objected to the noble Lord's proposition to take these assessors out of the class of lawyers called revising barristers. It was true, that, in many instances, the revising barristers were men of very considerable standing; but they would find on the Election Committees Gentlemen much better qualified than themselves to decide upon such legal questions as might arise in the course of the Committees proceedings. As there were many legal Gentlemen who were Members of that House, he did not see why they should not be made useful; and he would suggest that when an Election Committee was appointed, an hon. Member who had practised the law should be named upon it, possessing no vote or power except upon questions of law. The different legal Members of the House might draw up some regulations which should produce a uniformity in their decisions, such as never could be arrived at by the revising barristers. There was another point to which he would venture to direct the attention of the noble Lord. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midhurst (Mr. Walpole), and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for East Suffolk (Sir F. Kelly), had stated their intentions to introduce, during the present Session, measures for reforming Parliamentary representation. Now, in his (Mr. Phinn's) opinion, those Bills, as well as that proposed by the noble Lord, ought to be referred to a Select Committee, with the view of producing one good measure. A committee-room was a much better place than that House for the discussion of the details of those several measures. Having had some experience in acting as a Commissioner at St. Albans, he would suggest to the noble Lord the propriety of establishing local tribunal, for taking the evidence of country witnesses, in cases of controverted elections. The expense of bringing witnesses from a great distance to London was enormous, and the temptations to which they were subjected, on their arrival, were great. He hoped that a remedy would be provided to meet these evils.

said, that on listening to the noble Lord while reading his intimidation clause, it had struck him (Mr. Miles) that it made no provision against spiritual intimidation. In the previous Session he had been obliged, as Chairman of an Election Committee, to bring the question before the House, and he then understood the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Home Department to say that, although bygones were to be bygones, such intimidations as had disgraced the Sligo and Clare elections must never again disgrace the representation. He trusted that the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) would take particular care in the wording of this clause so as to meet the case of spiritual intimidation. He quite agreed with the noble Lord with respect to the assessors: he thought that they should be men of high standing and legal knowledge; and with these gentlemen deciding on law, and the Committee on points of fact, he thought that decisions would be obtained which would at length satisfy the country. He begged to thank the noble Lord for bringing in his Bill and hoped that he would consider the Bills of the right hon. Member for Midhurst (Mr. Walpole), and that of the hon. and learned Member for East Suffolk (Sir F. Kelly), at the same time, trusting that amongst them all a law might be obtained stringent enough to prevent such bribery and intimidation as had disgraced the last general election.

said, he must congratulate the House on the proposition of the noble Lord as to the appointment of assessors to aid the Members of Election Committees; but he agreed with the hon. and learned Member for Bath in thinking that the assessors should be men of greater legal standing than the generality of revising barristers. But he was afraid that, if there were to be so many as ten assessors, the Election Committees would not arrive at that uniformity of decision which was one of the great desiderata with regard to their proceedings. He believed that the reduction of Members "serving" on Election Committees to five, was a very beneficial change; since it had taken place, these Committees had discharged their important functions in a praiseworthy manner, but the great objection to their constitution was the want of legal knowledge to guide them in their decision, and he was glad to find that the noble Lord proposed to supply this want by means of an assessor. He regretted, however, to hear that their decision was not to be final, for he was afraid, if it were not, room would still be left for those party conflicts which were now carried on before Committees. He thought it would be a very useful arrangement to appoint a kind of Court of Assessors, to sit in the same way as a grand jury, and make a preliminary inquiry into a case before it could be submitted to the Committee, in order to ascertain whether there were bonâ fide grounds for investigation. This would put an end to all frivolous petitions. Three or four assessors, in his opinion, would be sufficient to go through the business satisfactorily, and being gentlemen of legal attainments and experience, they might prepare a code of precedents for the guidance of Committees which would enable petitioners to judge of the probable way in which cases would be decided, and do away with that uncertainty which now attended proceedings before these Committees.

said, that though he was glad the noble Lord had attempted to grapple with the evil of bribery and corruption at elections, he was afraid that his measures would not reach the more serious difficulties connected with the subject. He regretted that the noble Lord had not transferred the jurisdiction of the House with regard to election petitions to some more permanent tribunal. Every one knew the difficulty, if not impossibility, of eliciting at Westminster the truth in relation to matters which had arisen at places very far distant; and if the House would not part with its jurisdiction, all difficulties should be made to give way before the important object of an inquiry on the spot. The Members of the Election Committee themselves should go down, however inconvenient, and enter on the inquiry in the same manner and with the same powers as a Royal commission. He had no doubt some good would result from the appointment of assessors; and he hoped the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Bath, for the selection of gentlemen of higher legal standing than was proposed, would be taken into consideration. He did not think the second measure of the noble Lord would put a stop to intimidation. His firm conviction was, that the only possible remedy for intimidation was the ballot. It might not be so complete a remedy for bribery as for intimidation, but still it would greatly tend to discourage bribery. Another way of preventing improper influences being used was, not to allow the state of the polling books to be known during the day of the election, or until the declaration of the numbers; for, generally, the most bribery took place towards the middle of the day, when the parties could estimate by means of the returns the relative positions in which they stood. For this reason, as well as others, it would be desirable to adopt some other mode of taking votes than compelling electors to go to a booth, and there give in their names before, perhaps, mobs of people. Why not let a vote be taken at the voter's house, or allow him, on obtaining a proper certificate from the returning officer, on some day before the election, to fill it up and send it through the post or otherwise? Some such plan as this must be devised, if they wished to do away with bribery; but the ballot alone would put an end to intimidation.

said, he also begged to congratulate the noble Lord on bringing forward a Bill which, whatever might be its results, must command the approbation of every one who was desirous that the House of Commons should preserve that respect and confidence which would alone enable it to perform its legislative functions satisfactorily. As to the objects of the Bill, all lovers of truth and honour, to whatever party they belonged, must be united. There, were, however, points in connexion with the measure, in regard to which some difficulties might arise. In the first place, the appointment of assessors would not, in his opinion, answer the expectations of the noble Lord. The House always contained within it a certain number of men eminent in the legal profession, and it would be easy to select those of a certain standing, and form them into a body, and let one of them sit in each Election Committee, having previously agreed upon the points which should regulate their decisions. This would be less liable to objection than the introduction of assessors into these Committees, more particularly if they were to be taken as proposed by the noble Lord from the revising barristers. The noble Lord had proposed several stringent regulations against persons bribed, but he regretted to find that no notice was taken of those who bribed. In this respect the noble Lord had failed. He ought to have made every man who came into that House declare, on his honour as a gentleman, that there had been no bribery or intimidation on his part, or, according to his belief, on that of his agents, in order to secure his election. As long as measures were confined to the voter, the desired object would never be attained. He was not one who believed that it was possible to prevent bribery and intimidation altogether. Such was the state of society, that they would always more or less exist; but still, it behoved them to do their utmost to extirpate as much as they could an evil which was now eating into the very vitals of the community, and was deplored by all who valued the institutions of their country.

said, he was, perhaps, not well qualified to take a part in the present discussion, as there was scarcely a single Member of that House who had had so little experience of bribery as himself. Whatever the expenses of his election had been, they were defrayed by his constituents. He agreed with the hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. Warner) in some respects, but, as a Member of an Election Committee, he was under the impression that there was no town where more wholesale bribery had been committed than in Norwich. He considered that the suggestion of the hon. Member (Mr. J. Phillimore), requiring a declaration from every hon. Member, upon taking his seat, that he had, neither himself nor by his agents, been guilty of bribery or corruption during his election, would tend to create a degree of confidence in the House throughout the country, which, unhappily, did not at present exist. If such a declaration were required to be made, it would have the effect of raising that House more in the estimation of the country than any measure they could enact. He was glad that the noble Lord proposed to establish a preliminary investigation before a sort of grand jury for the purpose of conducting an inquiry into the merits of election petitions. If that was not a good plan, then the system adopted through the whole country, of having a grand jury in criminal cases, was not a good one. He believed, however, that everybody conversant with criminal trials knew how admirably the grand jury system operated in saving expense, reducing labour, and forwarding the ends of justice. The hon. and learned Member for Bath (Mr. Phinn) had suggested that assessors should be selected from Members of the House, and really, seeing there were so many professional men in the House, he did not see why the House should refuse to make use of them. Now, one of the worst features connected with Election Committees was the enormous expense and procrastination occasioned by the long and exhausting speeches of the lawyers engaged on either side; and what he would suggest, therefore, was, that the professional men in the House should take the part of counsel on those occasions. He really thought that his recommendation, if carried out, would be productive of beneficial results, for not only would it secure to sitting Members the best possible advocacy, but it would prevent a great deal of unnecessary delay, and also give a useful occupation to the multitude of professional gentlemen in that House.

said, he must complain of the attack made by the hon. Member on the city of Norwich, and would beg to explain that last Session nothing had been proved before a Committee of the House with regard to the existence of bribery at the last election.

said, he must tender his thanks to the noble Lord for the introduction of these Bills. He agreed with him upon all points except that touched upon by the right hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. M. Gibson) as to putting down intimidation. This he did not think would be accomplished by the noble Lord's Bill. The noble Lord was also too lenient with regard to agents. These persons ought to be punished severely for their acts, which frequently compromised Members without their knowledge. There was also a class of persons known at all elections, but, thank God, they were unknown in the metropolitan boroughs, who were called the attorneys of the town, and he would suggest the insertion of a clause, whereby these gentlemen might be struck off the rolls in the event of their being proved to be parties to bribery, corruption, or treating. Having frequently served on Election Committees, and also acted as Chairman, he could appreciate the value of the noble Lord's proposition to provide legal advisers to assist Committees in the prosecution of their inquiries. It had been stated before by an hon. Member that strict justice was done in these Committees with regard to the facts of a case, but when any difficult points of law arose, they frequently had to seek advice from counsel as to the course they should pursue—that very advice which the noble Lord intended to supply by his Bill. But, above all things, the noble Lord should avoid adopting the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Bath. Don't let them have an assessor who was a Member of that House. Let them have a person whom they could look to for legal advice only—a paid legal adviser. Before he sat down, he wished to make a suggestion to the noble Lord. As they had all one view in common, that of abolishing these practices, they should be desirous of obtaining all the information they could on the subject. Now, it appeared that the hon. and learned Member for East Suffolk (Sir F. Kelly) intended bringing in a Bill on the same subject in the course of the ensuing week. He (Sir B. Hall) would express a hope that the noble Lord would not take the second reading of his Bill until they had the Bill of the hon. and learned Member, so that they might see what his views were, and, if possible, produce a more perfect and effective measure by the amalgamation of both.

said, he wished to say a few words, in order to set the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. E. Ball) right with regard to the Election Committee which sat last year upon the return for the city of Norwich. No Committee sat last year with reference to bribery taking place in Norwich. The only Committee was one of which he himself was Chairman; but the subject of its inquiries was the withdrawal of the Norwich Election Petition. Certainly, it was stated before that Committee that great bribery had taken place in Norwich, and if the petition had been gone into, perhaps the charge would have been proved. So far bribery was referred to, but in point of fact no charge of bribery was tried. It was very satisfactory to hear that there was at least one Simon Pure in the House, and that he appeared in the person of the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire. But because his constituents returned him free of expense, it did not at all follow that there was no bribery at the last election in Cambridgeshire. The other party might have bribed, or the friends of the hon. Gentleman opposite might themselves have resorted to illegal means to procure his return. Cambridge, at all events, was not a very pure borough. It did not stand high in the list of boroughs which returned Members to that House; and it was just possible that some of the country people—some of the freeholders, for example—might have been tainted by what took place in the learned town of Cambridge. With regard to the propositions which had been laid before the House, the noble Lord had not clearly stated whether he intended to permit petitions complaining of bribery, when presented, to be withdrawn. It was proved before the Norwich Committee, last Session, that there were ten petitions "paired off" against each other, and he was afraid that such would be the case so long as they allowed petitions to be withdrawn at all. When a petition was once presented, it should be brought to an issue in some way or other; or, at all events, there should be another petition upon which that House, and that House only, might decide whether the original petition should be withdrawn or not. It ought not to be left to a Parliamentary agent, by merely writing a letter to Mr. Speaker, to say that a petition was to be withdrawn. The system was for Mr. Coppock to take a letter from Mr. Brown, and Mr. Brown to take a letter from Mr. Coppock; then these letters were sent to Mr. Speaker, and the House heard no more about the petitions, though they might contain charges of the grossest bribery against Members of the House. Some of the petitions might be frivolous; but he believed many real and bonâ fide charges of corruption had been paired off one against the other in the way he had described. How could the House hope to put down bribery so long as this system was kept up? The recognisance system also required reform. The Parliamentary agents said, "We don't care about your preventing the withdrawal of petitions; we will beat you with the recognisance system, if you allow it to remain as it is." The law required that recognisances should be entered into; but the agents would agree not to perfect the recognisances, and then when the examiner of recognisances reported that the recognisances had not been completed, the petition would be virtually withdrawn. Whatever they required, should be in the shape of a sum of money lodged in the Bank of England in the name of Mr. Speaker, and not allowed to be withdrawn until the petition had been tried, and some decision come to by the House as to whom the money belonged. He was sorry to hear that assessors were to be appointed. He thought that much of the delay which occurred in Election Committees was occasioned by so many lawyers coming before them, for all the mystification in Election Committees assuredly came from the lawyers. He was satisfied that five Members of that House would decide a case better than any lawyer whatever. In point of fact there never was a greater mistake than when they passed what was called the Grenville Act. Previous to that Act they possessed full power to remedy such defects by a Resolution of the House; but by the Grenville Act they had parted with that power, and, in point of fact, had submitted very valuable privileges to the House of Lords by requiring their assent to that Act, and made the subject much more complicated than before. Such was his opinion, and such was the opinion of many Members who opposed the Grenville Act; it was the opinion of Mr. Pitt and others who had no doubt with reference to it, and who stated that the House had lost the power over and the control of their own Committees. But if the noble Lord, even now, would repeal what was called the Election Petitions Act, and place the House where it was before the Grenville Act, the Resolutions of the House would be so framed for the trial and conduct of election petitions, that much more would be done in the way of preventing bribery, corruption, and intimidation, than if they were to continue the complicated machinery now in existence. With respect to the ballot, he did not see how that would be a cure; but it was supposed to be, at all events, some remedy against corruption and intimidation, though he did not believe it would be that effectual one that some hon. Members seemed to suppose. At the same time, he should like to see it tried; and, as the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) had suggested, let it be permissive. Infinitely superior, however, to the ballot would be very large constituencies and frequent elections—constituencies so large that few would have the power of bribing them; and even if they had the power of bribing them, it would hardly be worth their while, in consequence of the frequency of elections. He believed that would be as good a cure for bribery and corruption as any that had been suggested; and if the noble Lord would introduce it into the new Reform Bill which he was to bring forward next Monday, he would save himself a great deal of trouble in connexion with the Bills which he now proposed.

said, that having had some experience in the working of the present laws for the trial of controverted elections, he thought a much better method of trying those election petitions might be obtained, simply by adopting a suggestion which had been proposed—that recognisances should be abandoned, and a sum of money be deposited which should abide the decision of the Committee. They would thus obviate altogether the machinery which the noble Lord now proposed for the first time to create, introducing what he called a grand jury system into the trial of controverted elections. The action of such a grand jury system would be very dissimilar to the mode in which it acted in criminal cases. In those cases the grand jury Were simply called upon to decide whether sufficient cause appeared against a prisoner to justify sending him for trial; but in the case of a controverted election, the proposed grand jury would have the power of inflicting penal consequences, and would saddle parties with costs if they did not think there was sufficient cause to go on with the petition. If a jury of fifteen persons assembled, with closed doors, to inquire into the allegations of a petition, and hear evidence which was not upon oath, their proceeding would appear of such a doubtful character that it would be a dangerous principle to allow such a body to have the power of inflicting costs upon parties, without their having the power of appealing to the justice of the House. He thought the more efficient and simple course would be to adopt the plan suggested by the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. T. Duncombe). It could not be denied that there were many defects in the existing law, although he was aware that the Act of Parliament was drawn up with very great care and under the immediate superintendence of the late Sir Robert Peel; but during the last Session it was found in many instances to be defective, and he thought, in the outset, that the allowing a petition to be withdrawn, by simply writing a letter to Mr. Speaker, was one of the most glaring imperfections. The great principle which the House ought to uphold with regard to its own dignity was, that it should never be appealed to in vain, or upon frivolous pretences. It was quite clear that during the last Session a great number of petitions was presented with no other intention than that of pairing off; and although, probably, in some cases there were no grounds for the petition, in others there existed very serious grounds, which if the House had been made aware of they could never have permitted to have been withdrawn. Allusion had been made to the withdrawal of the Norwich petition. It was very doubtful whether a serious result would not have followed an inquiry into that matter, and he thought its withdrawal a most objectionable proceeding. Desiring again to express his concurrence in the suggestions of the hon. Member for Finsbury, he should conclude by observing that they would tend very much to simplify the proceedings and save trouble to the House, many of the Members of which, during the last Session, sat six months together on Election Committees four days in the week. He approved of some preliminary machinery, and begged to express his concurrence in many of the propositions of the noble Lord, being assured that any sound measure which had for its object the purification of that House and of the country in regard to election proceedings would meet with general assent.

said, there could be no doubt the object of the noble Lord was a good one. His Bill proposed to reduce the penalties, and although he (Sir J. Walmsley) doubted whether the lowest mentioned was not a great deal too much, yet he thought the proposition was one in the right direction. It was also proposed to strike off from the register any person who might be convicted at any time of bribery. That was another sound reform at which he felt gratified; but ho would venture to suggest whether, in these propositions, three entire questions had not been mingled. So long as it was expensive to get rid of bribery, they never would be able to do so. The mode of proceeding was to apply to the House by an election petition, which cost a very large and extravagant sum of money. The petition was to be discussed in Committee, and, on the decision of that Committee, measures would be taken for a Commission to issue to inquire into the state of the borough and the Dumber of persons who had been bribed. He apprehended the simple and easy course—if it were really intended to get rid of bribery—would be to afford facilities for an inexpensive inquiry. He thought there was sufficient intelligence and independence among borough constituencies themselves to remove bribery and corruption, provided the Legislature gave them a simple, easy, and cheap mode of removing the corrupt voters from the register. It might be done by an inquiry in a County Court, before the Judge alone, or before the Judge and a jury. Such a proposition might meet with objections from hon. and learned Members; but he apprehended it would be a simple and easy mode of proceeding, and he was persuaded in his own mind, from his experience in these matters, that it would prove a most effectual mode of removing bribery and corruption to a very great extent. Every hon. Gentleman present knew that in any borough there was a certain number of electors on each side. If a borough consisted of 1,200 electors, there might be 500 on each side who could not be bought, whom no persuasion or intimidation could induce to act otherwise than from their own convictions; but the lowest and smallest number, the remaining 200, who were open to corrupt influences, would turn the balance, and so elect the Member. Now, it would be the interest of every one of the independent persons in that borough, of the Members themselves, and of all connected with it, that those persons should be removed from the register; and if they could effect that in a simple, cheap, and easy mode, such machinery as might be required to effect that mode would be the best means of preventing bribery, and corruption. He should give the suggestions of the noble Lord a fair and candid consideration.

said, that the education of the people would be a more effectual cure for bribery than any that had yet been suggested. They might depend upon it that where the evil was moral, the remedy must be moral also. But legislation might do something, and they ought not to despise that something because they could not accomplish everything. By a late change in the law in Ireland, parties there were compelled to accept the franchise, and it was most important, therefore, that the electors should be protected at the poll in giving their votes freely. With regard to the subject of spiritual interference and influence, whether they could cope with it by legislation was a question of great difficulty and delicacy; but at all events they ought to adopt such measures as would enable men when they came forward at the poll to give their votes freely. He remembered a few years ago being down at an election in the county of Louth. Nobody was allowed to go about the town but himself, and the reason why he was permitted to do so was, that he had a short time before obtained the acquittal of several of the town's people in a Court of Justice. He observed that all the people were armed with sticks, and when the voters came forward to the poll, escorted by a military force, they were pelted and hooted by the mob, and suffered great violence. He hoped that such scenes would be prevented in future, and that voters would, at all events, be protected at the poll. He would give the Bills his best attention, and would be glad to assist the noble Lord in every way he could.

said, he was rather surprised to find the noble Lord had not taken the trouble to define what "treating" was, He thought the greater part of the House considered treating to a small extent was nothing at all, and he had seen it stated "that treating at Liverpool was not of a very extravagant nature." He did not know how any Gentleman could read those words without coming to the conclusion that treating to a small extent was not so illegal or objectionable as if done to a great extent. He was sorry, also, the noble Lord had said nothing with respect to the compromising of election petitions, a most important point which ought not to be forgotten. Last year an election petition was presented against his colleague and himself on what he considered perfectly frivolous and groundless circumstances, and for three months that petition was hanging over their heads, without the chance of disproving its allegations, until at length; without his knowledge or consent, it was withdrawn. Now, although the House and every one in it was desirous that all pos- sible facility should be given to the presentation of petitions against the return of any Member, he thought it ought to shut the door with jealousy against compromising and capricious withdrawing petitions after they had been presented, except after an explanation to both the House and the Member against whom a frivolous petition had been presented. He considered the present system of recognisances most unfair and absurd. For a petition against one Member, a recognisance of 1,000l. might be required, to be paid in cash, or sureties to be given; but, for a petition against two or against three Members, the same sum of 1,000l., or the same amount of recongnisances from sureties, was alone required. Surely it was only reasonable to suppose the sum in such cases ought to be increased; and it was ridiculous to imagine that if 1,000l. were required for a scrutiny of the votes in a place where the constituency was small, a larger sum would not be necessary where there were many thousands of voters. He must complain that while the sureties were taken without inquiry, the sitting Member had to employ counsel, and go to great expense to prove that such sureties were not substantial or proper men. As the law at present stood, a Member of Parliament was subject to accusations in a manner in which no other subject in the realm could be subject. He was charged with bribery and corruption, and at the end of many months the petition against him was withdrawn, without giving him the opportunity of vindicating his character, which was allowed to the greatest criminal. He believed there was not a single county contested at the last election in which theme was not treating to some extent, with time exception of East Surrey, the one for which he sat. In that county there was no treating, even to the extent of 6d., and he consequently felt exceedingly disgusted at the proceedings against him.

said, the whole matter was a question of agency, which it was absolutely necessary the noble Lord should clearly define. He did not mean the legal agency of one man acting at the request of another, but that description of agency which Committees had established, where persons had actively employed themselves on behalf of a candidate. That ought to be made more clear than it was at present, and it was the more necessary, as it had been held that a man was an agent who had been shouting in the same street with the candidate; and upon that, or very little more, a Member of the House had been unseated. He trusted that as the noble Lord proposed to disqualify any Member from holding a scat after he had been convicted of bribery by himself or his agents, he (the noble Lord) would guard candidates against the possibility of a man constituting himself an agent without any authority for doing so. He trusted the noble Lord would turn his attention to that point.

said, his hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Alcock) had stated very truly that the petition presented against him last Session was without any ground whatever; but he had not stated why and how it was withdrawn. The fact was, that when the parties who presented it, found they could not substantiate the charges contained in it, they immediately caused a petition to be presented against the Member for West Surrey, for no object whatever but that the two might be paired off against each other. He believed that one of the very best Reform Bills that could possibly be framed would be to summon Parliaments annually, as they were originally—as they were in all times, till the Whigs came in with their Septennial Bill.

said, that though differing on most points with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Napier), he was happy to agree with him in the claim he had preferred to-night for the protection of the Irish voters; but the agreement was not likely to go further, because the protection he desired was the protection of the ballot. Some years ago, at a county election in Ireland, he saw voters brought to the poll, surrounded by the agents of the landlords, and intimidated and deterred from voting, except in a particular way. As he took no part whatever in the last general election, he was not very conversant with what occurred then; but he was quite sure the most excited partisans of the Liberal party would not have the least objection to the ballot taking away any advantages they now possessed from public agitation, if it only got rid, at the same time, of landlord intimidation. They might go on legislating, year after year, but he was convinced they must come at last to the ballot, as the only remedy for the evils which now existed in the system of popular elections.

said, he would advise the House to receive the suggestion of the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. T. Duncombe) in regard to recognisances, with some caution. If adopted, he was inclined to think there would be great difficulty in presenting any election petition at all, because few men had 1,000l. unemployed to pay down as security, though they might render themselves liable to that amount for the prosecution of a petition.

said, that during the election at which he was returned, he had been obliged to retire from two towns in consequence of the intimidation exercised by paid bands of men in the adverse interest. He quite agreed with the hon. Member for Clonmel (Mr. O'Connell) that the best remedy for such a state of things was the ballot. He was satisfied that many of the evils of Ireland emanated from a corrupt and bad system of representation.

, in reply, said, that as several hon. Members had alluded to the withdrawal of petitions, he begged to state that the Bill would contain a provision on that subject. He could not say whether that provision would be satisfactory to the hon. Member for Finsbury, but he believed it would remedy the evils that at present existed. He also proposed, with regard to expenses at elections, that every candidate should appoint in writing one agent; that such agent should be the only person authorised to pay any money for the legal expenses of the election; and that he should be compelled to produce before an Election Committee an account of the whole expenses of the contest.

:^* Mr. Speaker, I beg very respectfully to ask the indulgence of the House, while I endeavour to bring before them a subject of great difficulty and complexity, and of at least equal importance. I believe it, indeed, to be of the utmost importance to all the interests of this great community; to agriculture and to commerce, to employers and to labourers, and above all, to that class, of whom, from the official station which I have the honour to hold, I must always consider myself as peculiarly the advocate in this House—I mean the class of the destitute poor. Within the last few years a very unusual degree of public attention has been given to this subject, and a greater amount of information has been accumulated respecting it than had ever before been obtained. In the years 1844, 1845, and 1846, earnest discussions upon it took place in this House. In 1847, a Select Committee of the House was appointed to investigate the whole subject of Settlement and Removal of the Poor. That Committee consisted of Gentlemen, most of whom were admirably qualified to conduct such an inquiry with ability and efficiency. As I shall have occasion hereafter to lay some stress upon the recommendations of this Committee, I hope the House will allow me to state the names of the Gentlemen who composed it. Mr. Charles Buller was the Chairman, and the other Members were—Sir James Graham, Sir George Grey, Mr. Henley, Mr. Miles, Mr. Bankes, Lord Harry Vane, Mr. Evelyn Denison, Mr. Poulett Scrope, Mr. Charles Villiers, Mr. Aldam, Mr. Bodkin, Mr. Thomas Duncombe, Mr. Round, and Mr. Borthwick. This Committee investigated the subject very thoroughly, and the examination of the witnesses was conducted in the most able and searching manner. Those witnesses were brought from every part of the country, and comprised a great number of persons who were practically most conversant with the administration of the poor-laws. In 1848, Mr. Charles Buller, who in the mean time had become President of the Poor-Law Board, determined, in order to obtain still further information, to send out into different parts of the country eight Gentlemen, all of whom were highly qualified for the purpose, to investigate upon the spot the operation of the Law of Settlement and Removal. They instituted, in fourteen English counties, chiefly agricultural, very minute and elaborate inquiries; and their reports, which were full of important evidence as to the practical working of the law, were subsequently laid upon the table of this House, and printed. Those reports were peculiarly valuable from the circumstance, that the Gentlemen making them had taken great pains to obtain their information from Chairmen and leading Members of Boards of Guardians, poor-law officers, and others best acquainted with the actual operation of the law. When all these reports, Parliamentary and official, were at length in the hands of hon. Members and of the public, an opinion was very naturally and generally expressed that, inasmuch as all the information had now been obtained which could be reasonably hoped for, the Government were bound to propose some measure of new legislation; for, though there was little of unanimity as to the proper remedy, all seemed to agree that the present law was thoroughly bad and indefensible. It was said plainly that, difficult as the subject confessedly was, the Administration could not shrink from grappling with the difficulty as they best might. Questions were repeatedly put in this and the other House of Parliament, as to the views and intentions of the Government. In the very last Session two distinct notices of Resolutions, affirming the expediency of abolishing removals and enlarging the area of chargeability, were given from opposite sides of this House, one by the hon. Member for Berkshire (Mr. Vansittart), the other by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Ashford Wise); moreover, a Bill for the purpose of carrying out those views was actually brought into the other House by a noble Baron, Lord Berners. It was only upon the distinct pledge of the Government that they would do their best to introduce a legislative measure in the present Session, that those notices and that Bill were withdrawn. Sir, it is in redemption of that pledge that I now present myself to the House for the purpose of submitting to them the measure, which the Government, after the fullest consideration, think it their duty to propose. I am quite aware that I have the honour of speaking in the presence of many Gentlemen to whom I could not hope to impart any new information upon the subject of the present Law of Settlement and Removal. Very much to the advantage of the country they take an active part in the administration of the poor-laws within their own localities, and are perfectly familiar with the whole. There are other hon. Members, however, who have not paid so much attention to the subject; and, out of doors, there is unquestionably much of ignorance and misapprehension respecting it. I hope, therefore, the House will pardon me if I endeavour, with the utmost plainness and brevity, and in language divested of all technicalities, to state the substance of the existing law. It is well known that in England and Wales, the area of chargeability, as it is called, that is, the district bound to maintain its own chargeable poor, is the parish —not always the parish in the ecclesiastical sense of the term, for in the poor-laws the word "parish" is used to designate every place maintaining its own poor, whether it be really a parish, a township (as is usually the case in the North of England), a hamlet, or any other district. Of parishes, in this sense, there are no fewer than 14,614. They vary infinitely in extent and population. In the county of Durham, for instance, there is one parish of fifty-five thousand acres, while in the adjoining county of Northumberland there is a parish of five acres. There are upwards of seven thousand parishes, the population of which is less than three hundred each; and there are nearly eight hundred parishes, the population of which is less than fifty each. These are facts very material with regard to the inquiry in which the House is now engaged. The present Law of Settlement and Removal originated in an Act of the fourteenth year of King Charles the Second (1662)—13 & 14 Car. 2, c. 12. The effect of that Act, combined with subsequent Acts, is, that if a person becomes destitute in any parish in this country, and is actually chargeable to it, he is liable to be removed to the place of his last legal settlement. A settlement, as the House is aware, may be acquired in a parish by various means—by apprenticeship, by renting a tenement, by ownership of an estate, and in some other modes, which it is unnecessary to particularise. And the law is, as I have just stated, that if a poor man becomes chargeable in any parish of England or Wales, except that of his settlement, he is liable to be removed to the latter, under a warrant of justices, and by force, if necessary. Many persons suppose that settlement gives a title to relief. This is a mistake. Destitution, not settlement, gives the title to relief. Persons who have no settlement, foreigners for example, and that large class whose settlements (if they have any) cannot be ascertained, must be relieved in any parish where they are actually destitute. In all cases of this kind removal is of course impracticable. If a person becomes destitute in the parish of his settlement, all that settlement can do for him is, not to give him a title to relief, for that he would have had without it, but to prevent his removal to any other parish; but if, while residing in a parish not that of his legal settlement, he becomes destitute, and receives a single shilling or a single loaf of bread at the cost of the poor- rates, he may be compulsorily removed to the parish of his settlement, though it may be at the other end of the kingdom. In such a case settlement, so far from being an advantage to the pauper, may be the greatest misfortune and curse to him. Nor does the hardship end with the removal. If he should venture forth again from the parish of his settlement, and return, though in the honest quest of work, to that from which he had been removed, and become again chargeable there, either from a stagnation of trade or any other cause, he is liable to be sent to gaol and kept to hard labour, under the Vagrant Act, as "an idle and disorderly person," unless he produces a certificate (which he may have no means of obtaining) from the churchwardens and overseers of his settlement parish, acknowledging him as settled there. (5 Geo. 4, c. 83, s. 3.) This, I believe, as I have now stated it, is really the sum and substance of the Law of Settlement and Removal as it now stands. Such, Sir, being the law, I now beg leave to draw the attention of the House to some of its undoubted effects, as shown clearly and abundantly by the Parliamentary and official reports, and in the numerous petitions from every part of the country. My own belief is, after looking most carefully and anxiously into the subject, that it would be difficult to point out any class in this great community which such a state of the law does not seriously injure. Look at its effects upon the relation between employer and labourer. It is proved, by a redundancy of evidence, that in a great many of the rural parishes all over the country, the dread of an order of removal keeps within the parish of his settlement, where his labour may be little or not at all wanted, the man whose labour would be valuable to an employer and remunerative to himself elsewhere. As it is, labour stagnates in one parish, while it is wanted in another. But there are other mischievous consequences of this law, which, with the permission of the House, I will illustrate by a supposed case:—A farmer wants a servant. Two persons offer themselves; one, an idle, drunken, slovenly fellow, a settled inhabitant of the farmer's parish; the other, an industrious, sober, skilful man, but either settled elsewhere, or having no settlement at all. What do the House think of a state of the law which gives the farmer a motive for taking the worse man and rejecting the better? The farmer knows that the worse must be main- tained either in the workhouse or out of it, and that the cost of maintaining in the workhouse the man and his family (probably a large one, as the law has encouraged him to marry before he had made the slightest provision) must fall in a great part upon the farmer himself as a ratepayer. He thinks it cheaper, therefore, to employ such a man at a low rate of wages than to keep him in the workhouse, and he accordingly engages his services, such as they are. Now, I beg the House to mark how this operates. First, the farmer gets a very inferior species of labour; and, when it is remembered that the same cause is in operation in hundreds and thousands of parishes, the House will see how much the progress of agriculture must thus be retarded, and the productiveness of the country lessened. Secondly, the labourer who has a legal settlement where he lives, is taught to rely for employment upon the accident of his settlement, and not upon the qualities of industry, sobriety, and skill. Thirdly, the non-settled labourer, who has all those qualities, even if he is not rudely repelled from the parish lest he should become settled there, is unable to get employment where he is really wanted, and where, but for this state of the law, his services would be gladly accepted. Surely these are all very serious consequences, both as they regard the productiveness of English agriculture and the character of the English labourer. Neither capital nor labour commands its proper return. Recent legislation has given additional importance to these considerations. Since the repeal of the corn laws, many petitions have been presented to this House, complaining that while the farmer is now exposed to "unrestricted competition" with respect to the commodities in which he deals, he should still be restricted by the Law of Settlement in his command of labour. I think such a complaint most reasonable, and I trust that the Legislature will deem it worthy of their immediate attention. As to the labourer, the only commodity which he possesses is his labour. How can he be said to enjoy the benefits of free trade under a state of the law which effectually prevents him from carrying that labour to any market he chooses? But, Sir, it is with regard to the residences of the labouring classes that the law is productive of the most cruel hardships of all. The House will see how the Law of Settlement gives a direct interest to the landowner to prevent the erection of cottages within his parish. Nearly every one of the present modes of creating a settlement requires a certain duration of residence in the parish. If, then, the residence of the labourer can be prevented, settlement will be prevented, and he cannot, at any future period, become chargeable to the parish. Such, indeed, is the jealousy, under the present system, with which any new comer is regarded, who may by possibility gain a settlement in the parish, that covenants have actually been introduced into leases, for the purpose of protecting the parish against such a calamity. An instance is recorded of an action having been brought on such a covenant, to enforce a forfeiture, for having "made two parishioners," which in that particular case was done by hiring two servants for a year, who by the law (as it then stood) thus became settled inhabitants. A similar motive is found to operate, in a very great number of parishes, to prevent residence on the part of the labourer; and in that large class of parishes, denominated "close," there is not only the will but the power to prevent it. By a "close parish," I understand one in which the whole of the land is in the hands of a single proprietor, or of some small number of proprietors, who, by combination among themselves, can effectually prevent the building of cottages for the labourers. In such a case, the unfortunate labourer, who works in the parish, is often compelled to reside at a great distance, and generally to seek a dwelling for himself and his family in some open parish, where, owing to the number of proprietors, combination to prevent the building of cottages is impracticable. This may be, and frequently is, three, four, or even five miles from the place of his daily labour. Most respectable witnesses, examined before the Committee of 1847, and before the gentlemen appointed by the Poor Law Board in 1848, give numerous instances, within their own knowledge, of labourers having to walk several miles to work every morning, and as far home every night. I beseech the House to mark the manifold evils of such a system. The labour which the farmer thus procures is, of course, deteriorated in value, as the work of a man who has to walk three or four miles from his home in a morning, and as far back at night, must be comparatively worthless. Here, again, then, is a cause which, operating as it does in hundreds of parishes, tells most injuriously upon the agriculture of the whole country, and consequently upon its productiveness. I do not dwell upon the gross injustice to the open parish, which, if the labourer should become destitute, must undertake the burden of his maintenance, while the close parish has had all the benefit of his work. But see the consequences to the unhappy labourer himself. In the first place, he is subjected to the cruel addition to his ordinary toil implied in walking such a distance to and from the place of his daily work. In the next place, the open parish in which he dwells is often so overcrowded with labourers, driven into it from the neighbouring close parishes, that the greatest evils—social, sanitary, and moral—are found to be the result. With the permission of the House, I will read a short but very striking extract from a report made to the Poor Law Board by a gentleman who was officially engaged in 1848 to investigate the working of the Law of Settlement and Removal in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex. The gentleman to whom I refer is Mr. A'Beckett, at present one of the most able and intelligent of the police magistrates of this metropolis. He says—

"It is, however, as to their command of their places of residence, and in the comfort and condition of themselves and their families, that the labouring classes suffer most severely from the operation of the Law of Settlement and Removal of the poor. It is almost impossible to imagine the misery, dirt, degradation, and consequent immorality in which a large portion of the labouring classes of this country are at the present moment living. If it can be shown, as I believe it can, that much of this moral and physical abasement is caused by the operation of the existing Law of Settlement and Poor Removal, the necessity for an immediate alteration of the law will be admitted on all hands. In almost every union, where the course of my inquiry has taken me, I have found some one or more densely populated parishes in the neighbourhood of others very thinly inhabited by labourers, and in some instances having scarcely any cottages at all. In the former the dwellings are, for the most part, wretched, damp, unwholesome, inconvenient, excessively high rented, and crowded with inmates to such an extent as to render it impossible that health or comfort could be enjoyed, or the commonest rules of decency observed. It is the general result of my inquiries on this head, that the labouring classes are, to a great extent, demoralised, and deprived of domestic comfort by the inducement, offered to owners of property in close parishes, to clear their estates of cottage habitations—an inducement for which the present Law of Settlement and Removal of the Poor must be held chiefly, if not entirely, responsible. The desire to shift the burden of parochial chargeability prevails almost co-extensively with the power, though I have met with some honourable exceptions; and in many cases I have heard the motive openly avowed, and the sanction of the law cited as a justification of conduct involving much unfairness, if not actual dishonesty, towards one's neighbours, and great oppression towards the labouring portion of the commuuity.

Had Mr. A'Beckett been writing now, when a formidable epidemic is threatening the country with renewed ravages of the most fearful character, he would probably have added, that scenes like those which he has here delineated are the favourite haunts of the whole tribe of infectious and pestilential diseases, with cholera at their head. But in considering the hardships which the present law inflicts upon the poor, I must beg the House to reflect what an order of removal is in itself, and what it implies. In a great many cases, I fear, it implies nothing less than this—a removal (by force, if necessary) from a place where a man's attachments and connexions have been formed, to another where his father or grandfather is supposed to have been born, or to have lived as a yearly tenant fifty or sixty years ago—where he may himself be a complete stranger, never having been there in his life before, utterly unknown to every human being, and wholly without hope of finding the only kind of labour he has ever been accustomed to. The probable result of such a removal must be his own pauperism for life, and the communication of the taint of hereditary pauperism to his children. Upon how many persons such calamities are inflicted in any given year, I have no means of accurately ascertaining. I find, however, by a Parliamentary Return moved for by the late Captain Pelham, and which comes down to the year 1849 inclusive, that in that year the number of orders of removal signed by justices of the peace in England and Wales was 13,867. If we take three as the average number of persons comprised in each order (and I believe it is a low average), the total number of poor persons liable to compulsory removal in 1849 was upwards of forty thousand. It may be that a considerable number of these orders were not actually executed; but no doubt a very large number were; and I beg the House to consider what an aggregate of human suffering and distress that must imply. Sir, the pernicious influence of this Law of Removal is seen not in its direct results, but in the manner in which it has frustrated and perverted the humane attempts which the Legislature has from time made for its mitigation. I will trouble the House with two illustrations of this. In 1795 an Act was passed—35 Geo. III. c. 101—which modified very materially the original Act of Charles the Second. The Act of Charles rendered a poor person liable to removal if he was likely to become chargeable; that of George the Third made him liable only in case of actual chargeability. No doubt this was a great improvement, but it was not altogether an unmixed good. The labourer who has lived long in a parish with which all his connexions have been formed, experiences a much more cruel hardship in being removed when actual destitution at last overtakes him, than he would have felt if he had been removed (under the statute of Charles) within the first forty days as likely to become chargeable. My right hon. Friend the present First Lord of the Admiralty, then Home Secretary, carried through the Legislature, in 1846, an Act (9 & 10 Vict. c. 66), preventing the removal of any person from a parish in which be has lived for five years without interruption. The object of this Act was most benevolent, and there can be no doubt that it has effected much good. But I will show the House how the humane purpose of the Act may be and is defeated. I am sorry to say that in many parishes constant efforts are made to cause an interruption in the five years' residence, or to prevent its completion, in which case the protection from removal does not exist. The cruel effect with which this system has been carried out cannot be better illustrated than by a short passage from a letter which I received some time ago from Mr. Doyle, the able Poor Law Inspector for Cheshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, and North Wales. With the permission of the House I will read it:—

"But all other injurious effects of the law," says Mr. Doyle, "sink into insignificance when compared with the sufferings to the poor of which it is the source. In putting upon paper the plain matter-of-fact details of one or two out of many cases that have come under my own observation, I can hardly hope to escape the suspicion of writing under the influence of exaggerated feelings. Last year, for instance, I was instructed by your Board to inquire into the circumstances connected with the removal of a man with a family of young children from a union in Lancashire to a union in North Wales. He had been in the receipt of good wages, some 25s. a week in the parish in which he was on the eve of completing his five years' residence.' From some cause his employment suddenly ceased, and he was compelled to apply for relief. The relief was at once granted, and, when accepted, an order of removal was taken out. In the meantime the man again got work, and was busy at his labour, earning the same wages as before, when he was literally forced away, removed to his parish, a place he did not even know, where he was utterly friendless, and where he had as little chance of finding the peculiar employment to which he was accustomed, as if he had been cast on a desert island. One of the witnesses in the course of the inquiry, happening to remark, speaking of this man, 'He was more like a madman than anything else,' he suddenly broke out, in uncontrollable passion, 'Yes, and I am more like a madman than anything else; it is enough to drive me mad to be dragged here with my family, as I have been.' I turned to the overseer of the removing parish, who was present, and asked, 'What induced you to remove this man under such circumstances?'—'To prevent him from completing his five years, sir.' It would be easy to multiply cases of this sort, characterised by more or less hardship to the poor, so as to prove that one grievous general effect of the Poor Removal Act is to stimulate officers, guardians, and ratepayers to have recourse to every means in their power to induce those who are liable to become chargeable 'to break their residence.' From this district, at least, complaints are constantly made to your Board of such proceedings, and, while investigating cases referred to me, I have seen quite enough of the means by which the provisions of the law are evaded, to know how hopeless it is to attempt to check the prevailing practice, so long as the inducement to it exists."

Another very serious evil connected with the present law, arises from the wasteful litigation which it engenders. This is owing, in no small measure, to the multifarious, perplexed, and obscure nature of the law itself. There are nearly forty Acts of Parliament, which either wholly, or in part, relate to this subject. They have frequently been passed to obviate doubts, and there is scarcely a single Act among them, which, in professing to remove one doubt, has not created two. As to adjudged cases, they are to be reckoned by the thousand, and I need not say to those who have had occasion to look at them, how confused and unsatisfactory the great majority of them are. It is the law, drawn from such statutes and such decisions, which the overseers of every parish in the country have to construe and to administer, as it were, in dealing with the chargeable poor. I beg the House to observe the ordinary proceedings in a case of removal. A poor labourer has become chargeable to a parish, say in Middlesex. The overseers believe or suspect that the man has a legal settlement in a remote country parish, suppose in Northumberland. They go before two Justices, and prevail upon them, sometimes on very scanty proof, indeed, to make an order of removal. The Northumberland parish, which, so far, has heard nothing of the matter, now receives a notice that the order is made, and that, unless notice of appeal to the Middlesex Sessions shall be given within twenty-one days, the pauper will be removed. Perhaps the country parish, terrified at the prospect of meeting a formidable Middlesex parish at the Middlesex Sessions, acquiesces in the removal as the lesser evil. If, however, it does appeal, the Northumberland overseers come up to the Middlesex Sessions, and there with counsel, attorney, and witnesses, encounter the counsel, attorney, and witnesses of the removing parish. Perhaps there is an outlay on each side of 50l., the whole of which the loser may have to pay If the Northumberland parish loses, it must take the pauper, and pay 100l. for its unsuccessful attempt to avoid him. If the Middlesex parish loses, it must keep the pauper, and pay 100l. for its unsuccessful attempt to get rid of him. A sum, probably far more than would have been necessary to maintain him and his family till he could have obtained employment again, has been completely wasted. A few years ago, the litigation in Courts of Quarter Sessions about the settlement of paupers, was of the most vexatious and scandalous character. In those days, cases were constantly decided upon technicalities in the formal proceedings, utterly irrespective of the real facts and merits. No parish had a case so good that it could be called safe; no parish had a case so bad that it could be called desperate. I had the honour of introducing a Bill which received the approbation of Parliament, and became law (11 & 12 Vict. c. 31), for the purpose of sweeping away those wretched technicalities. I had the honour of introducing another Bill, which also passed into a law (14 & 15 Vict. c. 105, s. 12), empowering the Poor Law Board, with consent of the parties, to arbitrate, in questions of settlement, between contending parishes, and so to save the whole, or nearly the whole, of the expense. These Acts, I hope, have done some good; but I consider them as mere palliatives, which have left the great bulk of the evil untouched. I fear, that in describing the proceedings upon an appeal against an order of removal, I omitted to mention that the parties frequently persuade the Sessions to state a case for the opinion of the Court of Queen's Bench; and then may be seen the Lord Chief Justice of England and three other Judges of that high and dignified court, engaged for hours in settling the question, whether some stable-boy, fifty years ago, was hired under an exceptive or a conditional hiring, or some other-question of an equally important character. This last proceeding, besides grievously wasting the time and lowering the dignity of the Court of Queen's Bench, tends, of course, to the further inflammation of the attorney's bill, the further waste of the money of the ratepayers, and the further annoyance of the unfortunate pauper, who is all the time wholly ignorant to which of the two contending parishes he is to fall at last. Sir, I have now drawn the attention of the House to some of the effects resulting from our present system of settlements and removals. I can say most truly, that I have made a minute search into the opinions of all who might fairly be considered as authorities upon the subject; but, from the reign of Charles II. downwards, I cannot find a single writer or speaker of reputation who has seriously defended the principle of the existing law. I find, on the other hand, authorities, which I venture to think deserving of the most respectful consideration of the House, and by which that principle is emphatically and unanimously condemned. In 1735, a Select Committee of this House was appointed to investigate the subject, and I find this account of their proceedings in the ninth volume of Hansard, Parliamentary History, p. 965:—

"March 27, 1735.—The Commons appointed a Committee, to consider the laws in being relating to the maintenance and settlement of the poor, and to consider what further provision might be necessary for their better relief and employment; and the said Committee having considered and examined this affair with great care and attention, came to several resolutions, among which is the following:—'That the laws relating to the settlement of the poor, and concerning vagrants, are very difficult to be executed, and chargeable in their execution; vexatious to the poor, and of little advantage to the public, and ineffectual to promote the good ends for which they were intended.' This resolution was reported to the House on the 2nd of May, and on the 7th of the same month was agreed to without amendment."

Fifty years afterwards, Adam Smith pronounced an opinion, which, I doubt not, is familiar to many Gentlemen, but which, I think, cannot be too frequently cited. In the year 1776, the first edition of his great work appeared; and in it we have the authority of a man, who was not only of unrivalled sagacity, but who, writing in Scotland, and calmly reviewing our English institutions, must be recognised as a most disinterested and impartial judge. He says—

"To remove a man who has committed no misdemeanour from the parish where he chooses to reside, is an evident violation of natural liberty and justice. There is scarcely a poor man in England of forty years of age, I will venture to say, who has not in some part of his life felt himself most cruelly oppressed by this ill-contrived law of settlements. …. Let the same natural liberty of exercising what species of industry they please, be restored to all His Majesty's subjects—that is, break down the exclusive privileges of corporations, and repeal the statute of apprenticeship, both which are really encroachments upon natural liberty; and add to these the repeal of the law of settlements, so that a poor workman, when thrown out of employment either in one trade or in one place, may seek for it in another trade or in another place, without the fear either of a prosecution or of a removal."—[Wealth of Nations, b. i., c. 10; b. iv., c. 2.]

Since the days of Adam Smith, wiser legislation has repealed those exclusive privileges of corporations, which operated in restraint of industry, and also the statute of apprenticeship, of Elizabeth, which prohibited every man from exercising a trade who had not served a formal apprenticeship of seven years. Two of the three obstacles to English industry, pointed out by Adam Smith, have been already swept away; it is for the House to-night to say what shall be done with the third. There is another very high authority regarded by many with implicit deference, and by all with the greatest respect, who has spoken most unequivocally upon this subject, I mean Mr. Pitt. In a speech delivered in the House of Commons, on the 12th of February, 1796, Mr. Pitt said—

"The laws of settlement prevent the workman from going to that market where he can dispose of his industry to the greatest advantage, and prevent the capitalist from employing the person who is qualified to procure hint the best returns for his advances. These laws have at once increased the burdens of the poor, and have drawn from the collective resources of the State to supply wants which their operation has occasioned, and to alleviate a poverty which they tend to perpetuate.…. I conceive, that to promote the free circulation of labour, and to remove the obstacles by which industry is prohibited from availing itself of its resources, would go far to remedy the evils and diminish the necessity of applying for relief to the poor-rates. In the course of a few years this freedom from the impolitic restraint which these laws impose, will in part supply the purposes for which these laws were instituted. The advantages will be widely diffused, the wealth of the nation will be increased, and the poor man rendered not only more comfortable, but more virtuous."—[Hansard, Parliamentary History, xxxii. p. 708.]

Another period of fifty years elapsed from the time when Mr. Pitt spoke, before the appointment of the Select Committee of this House, in 1847. That Committee, as I have already had occasion to state, investigated the whole subject most fully, and listened to and carefully scrutinised the evidence of witnesses from all parts of the country, including those best qualified to give the most valuable information. At the conclusion of their labours the Committee adopted the following Resolutions:—

asked if any alteration would be made with regard to Irish settlements?

said, that this Bill, as it related solely to the removability of persons, on the ground a settlement, in the parishes of England and Wales, did not enter at all into the subject of Irish removal, because that rested on a totally different principle. It did not proceed on the ground of settlement, and was in some measure incorporated with the Scotch law on the same subject. He thought the present law was in a very unsatisfactory state—and that, whenever that subject was dealt with, it would be found that the English and Scotch law must be dealt with in a very different manner. He had confined himself in this Bill to the subject, sufficiently large, of settlement in England and Wales.

asked how the right hon. Gentleman intended to work out the principle of equal rating in ten years?

replied, that in the first year he proposed to take one-tenth of the rateable value of the property ill each parish, and nine-tenths of the average, and the second year two-tenths of the rateable value, and eight-tenths of the average; in the third year three-tenths, and seven-tenths, and so on until the expiration of the ninth year.

said, he had listened with great satisfaction to the clear and able statement of the right hon. Gentleman. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman that he would meet with the most cordial support from him in carrying out the principles on which his Bill was based. The measure proposed was in accordance with the Resolution of the Committee of 1847, and he had voted in favour of those Resolutions in that Committee. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Walpole) had said across the table that the Resolutions of the Committee had not been reported to the House, but that arose from a Resolution being carried by a majority of one in the Committee not to report the recommendations to the House, the Member so voting being the hon. Member for Mahon (Mr. J. E. Denison), and that only because he differed with regard to some of the Resolutions; but the two or three most important resolutions relating to the evils of the present law were passed unanimously, and the only difference was as to the remedy. They had agreed that the power of forcible removal of a poor man ought to be abolished. He had risen to ask the right hon. Gentleman who hail proposed the measure, whether he had borne in mind one Resolution to which the Committee of 1847 had agreed, which was to the effect that if the principle of union chargeability should be adopted, it would be desirable, if not absolutely necessary, to make some alteration in the boundaries of the Unions? In the cases of small parishes in the neighbourhood of large towns, great hardships might result. He wished, therefore, to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he had it in contemplation to propose that power should be given to alter the limits of the Unions?

said, he believed that there was at present a power under the existing Poor Law to alter, if it should be found necessary to do so, the boundaries of the Unions; but if that were not considered enough, he would make the power more explicit in the Bill.

said, he was glad to have drawn that statement from the right hon. Gentleman, because if such power had not existed, or had not been asked for, the measure might have been viewed with some degree of alarm.

said, he merely rose to call the attention of his right hon. Friend to the subject to which the right hon. Baronet (Sir G. Grey) had just referred. Very late last Session he had been obliged to bring forward a case in which an urban parish was united to a rural one, and where two-thirds of the guardians were in favour of a dissolution of the Union, but had met with considerable obstruction from the remaining third. At that very moment (said the hon. Gentleman confronting directly the Treasury bench) he had two unions—the one in Gloucestershire, the other in Somersetshire—immediately in his eye—[Laughter]—he begged pardon, immediately in his recollection—dividing which was the city of Bristol, whose affairs were administered under a local Act. Now, that city being inhabited generally by a wealthy population, the poorer portion of them had been driven out into the suburbs, which contained all the working classes; and yet they were about to commit the gross injustice of throwing the burden of their support upon Unions in either Gloucestershire or Somersetshire, between whom and themselves their existed not the smallest identity of interests; at least, it was not surely the intention of his right hon. Friend to maintain the Unions in precisely their present dimensions. He could not help wishing that the right hon. Gentleman had taken a more enlarged view of the subject; for the course adopted in reference to poor-law litigation seemed to him to have been most objectionable. He felt that it was a great pity that at the first passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act, the Gilbert Union Act and all other local Acts were not swept away, and the whole country put under one law and one superintendence. If they would grapple with the great question of the poor-law, let it not be, as hitherto, after a piecemeal fashion—ever and anon passing small enactments affecting the law in some minute degree. His right hon. Friend, it could not be denied, had undertaken a very large question; but he might rest assured that he would never be able to carry his Bill through without its undergoing a thorough investigation in those features of it which were deemed prejudicial to the rights of property. He wished to know from the right hon. Gentleman when certain returns, which he had originally moved for in 1852, and which were subsequently asked for by his hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Mr. Knight), would be laid upon the table of the House; for it was quite impossible to enter thoroughly into all the facts of the question until they were fully informed of the different rating and different rates in parts of different parishes connected with Unions, nor would they otherwise be able to realise the promise contained in the Queen's Speech that in legislating on this subject injustice would be inflicted on none.

said, he begged to thank the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board for his clear and lucid statement, and to say that he concurred in a great deal of what the right hon. Gentleman said as to the hardship inflicted on the poor man by the present law of removal. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to certain Returns relative to removals moved for by Captain Pelham in 1849, and it would be satisfactory, before he called upon the House to discuss the proposed Bill, to have those Returns brought down to the present time, because, from his (Mr. Packe's) experience as Chairman of Quarter Sessions in a populous county, he would say that the condition of the poor had been materially improved in that respect, and the results which had been referred to might rather be considered as bygone matters, than as belonging to the present time. Another point most material in his mind, was the alteration of the area of rating; and he felt confident that in many parts of the country that alteration of the area of rating from parishes to Unions would be productive of the grossest injustice. Land had been purchased, and was being purchased, comparatively free from rates on one side of a hedge, while on the other side the land was burdened with poor, and there was consequently a considerable difference in the purchase money. Therefore it would be a gross robbery upon those persons who had been purchasing property on the understanding that it was free from burdens, if the right hon. Gentleman's Bill were to saddle them with the charge of maintaining the poor of perhaps a large and populous neighbourhood. In his county there were a number of manufacturing and agricultural parishes mingled together, and where the manufacturing population resided the rates were very high, and it would be a serious injustice to make the other parishes contribute towards the expenses of those large manufacturing parishes. Under these circumstances, he thought, if the area of rating were increased, the area of rateable property should also be increased. It was not fair that landed property should be exclusively called on to contribute to the sustenance of the poor; and poor, too, that were never employed by the land. The maintenance of the poor was morally compulsory upon all classes, and it was therefore morally right that all property in the country without exception should share in the expense of the maintenance of the poor.

said, he wished to put two questions to the right hon. Gentleman—first, whether the Unions under the Gilbert Act would come under the operation of the Act? and, secondly, whether parishes like the metropolitan ones, which administered relief under local Acts, would be exempted under it? For if there were any bodies of the community administering relief which required to be amended, it was the metropolitan. A great portion of this vast city was inhabited exclusively by the poorer classes, and, as a consequence, the taxation fell exceedingly heavy on them, while the richer parishes were almost entirely exempt from charge. This was an anomaly.

said, he must state that the Gilbert Unions were not comprised within the Bill. With regard to parishes under local Acts he could only say that the operation of the first portion of the Bill, namely, abolition of the power of removal, extended to the whole of England and Wales. The change in the area of taxation would extend to Unions formed under the Poor Law Amendment Act, and to no others.

said, the present was a subject of great importance, and required serious consideration. Without disrespect to the great talent and industry displayed by the right hon. Gentleman, he must say that he could not altogether concur in the general favour with which the right hon. Gentleman's observations appeared to have been received. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had to a certain extent exaggerated the evils of the present Poor Law, and had rather described the state of things existing twenty years ago, when he and his right hon. Friend were engaged on circuit together. He would beg to remind the right hon. Gentleman that the state of the country was now very different from its condition at the period when the Report which had been read to the House was made. That was a period of very great distress, and therefore any defects inherent in the Poor Laws exhibited themselves with great intensity. Within the last two or three years, enormous emigration and other circumstances had, happily, mitigated the evils of a surplus population. He called the right hon. Gen- tleman's attention to a serious defect in his scheme. For if he rightly understood that plan, it made every case of destitution chargeable where it stood. Now, what would be the consequence? Why a poor man dying, and leaving a widow and children, immediate means would be had recourse to to get them out of that Union into another; and he was quite certain that his hon. Friend would recollect that an analogous practice was formerly very much in vogue. At the same time, he was ready to admit that if the rating was by Unions, that the effect would be to get them across the borders. With regard to the area of rateability, he must say in the outset he very much disliked all legislation, which it was confessed, would inflict particular injustice; and his right hon. Friend must admit that such would be the consequence of his Bill, for otherwise why should he delay carrying his project into effect for tell years? carrying should like to know in what terms hon. Gentlemen opposite would characterise a proposition coming from that—the opposition—side of the House, which dealt with the perilled property of the country in such a manner? He did not wish to charge the right hon. Gentleman with deliberately proposing anything he felt to be unjust; but still, what was it but injustice to place upon well-managed parishes, where, by attention and kindness to the poor, and by furnishing them with the means of emigration, the rates had been reduced, the same burdens as those which ill-managed parishes had to bear? The whole of this subject would of course require grave and calm discussion; but feeling that the proposition before the House presented many serious difficulties, he must express his dissent to it until he had better means of forming a judgment in favour of the scheme.

said, that if the right hon. Gentleman's proposition became law, millions' worth of property would change hands at once. The effect of increasing the rates of a parish by 2s. 6d. in the pound, would be to decrease the selling value of that parish by one-eighth. This would be, in such cases, nothing more or less than taking one acre or one house in eight from persons to whom it belonged, and giving it to some other parties. A great many parishes in England were lightly rated because they had taken great pains to reduce their poor-rates by good management, while others were heavily rated because they had neglected their affairs. The people, then, who would be compelled to pay higher rates, were just those who had behaved well, and their contributions were given to those who had behaved ill. But this, it was said, was to be done in ten years, so that the hardship or injustice would be immaterial. He dissented from that view. A man had 800 acres of land in a parish. This Bill would increase his taxes half-a-crown in the pound—just one-eighth. Was not this practically taking 100 acres out of the 800? "No, said the right hon. Gentleman, "we only propose to take a ten-acre field every year for the next ten years; and that is just." He left the House to say what sort of justice it was. For his own part, he believed the House would require some very strong reasons before it thus consented to interfere with the title of every owner of lands and houses in England. Two classes of reasons had been mentioned—one actual, such as clearances and pulling down houses; the other theoretical, having reference to the employment of labour. In the Committee of 1847 a great number of Gentlemen connected with the Poor Law Board were examined, and they said great clearances were going on. They were asked where the clearances had taken place, but they could not say of their own knowledge that there had been any at all. Mr. R. Hall, one of the witnesses, gave in a statement of forty-four Unions under his charge, in which out of some 500 parishes only seventy-six were close. Of these seventy-six close parishes there were six in which houses had decreased since 1841, and in one of them the decrease amounted to eighteen houses. But in all the others it was merely nominal. It would have been well if the other witnesses had given in a list of the same kind, and had shown how many houses had been pulled down; but nothing could have been so unfair as to come forward with these charges of clearances, and then not to substantiate them. In the following year the late Mr. Charles Buller, then President of the Poor Law Board, expressed a desire for more definite evidence and information, and sent gentlemen into several counties to inquire into the facts; and Mr. Weale was sent into Bedfordshire, and Mr. Hanley into Northumberland, but these gentlemen failed to make out any case at all. Other gentlemen who had been sent out, reported only a few cases of pulling down and clearances. When he was Secretary to the Poor Law Board under his right hon. Friend in the preceding Administration, he (Sir J. Trollope) said to him, "Now, this is the question above all others connected with the Poor Laws. Here are the papers, and I wish you to study the question so as to be able to give your opinion at the board." He conceived that was what secretaries of public boards were generally called on to do. He had examined the reports in this way. He had placed all the parishes which were called close on one list, and all the parishes which were called open on another; and though the Government to which he belonged went out, and he was therefore unable to state the results to the board, he had possessed himself of a considerable amount of interesting and, as he thought, valuable information, which he hoped shortly to lay before the House. They had heard a great deal of the "shifting of burdens," but he could show that from 1815 to 1847 there had been, he might say, no clearances in England—that the whole charge was a joke. He did not mean to say that there had not been cases in which houses were pulled down in some parishes, but what he did assert was, that on the whole there had been in the parishes a large increase of houses; in most close parishes a great increase of houses and population, and that almost invariably the houses had increased more than the population, which showed the population had not been driven out. With respect to towns and open parishes of that kind, he found that the houses had increased in a very much larger degree than the population, and he could prove, moreover, that the increase of the value of real property in open parishes had been enormously more than in close parishes. The gain had been almost entirely in favour of the larger and more populous parishes since 1815. In the last named year they would find that, by taking the average percentage paid by counties, the difference between the highest and the lowest counties was from 3s. 6d. to 3s. 9d., but at present the difference was only 1s. 6d., so that the process of equalisation had been rapidly going on. He warned the right hon. Gentleman that there was a large party who would vote for this Bill as a step towards the introduction of a national rate, because if the principle of equalisation was to be admitted, the House could not stop short of it. There could be no sort of doubt that a national rate must be the result of extending the area of taxation at this moment. With respect to the differences in the size of parishes, to which the right hon. Gentlemen had alluded, it was to be observed that Unions also varied considerably in extent. The writers on Poor Laws of the present generation had been in the habit of attributing the evils of those laws to the Statute of Charles II. the Act of Settlement—which was in fact the foundation of our present system. Mr. Coode had proved that during the first sixty years of the passing of the 43rd of Elizabeth it had been impossible to feed the poor—they were starving; and until the localisation of the poor by the Act of Settlement there was no poor-law in England. Before the Act passed, villages were pulled down and the population swept away; and in Scotland and Ireland, where no settlement law existed, the same thing went on to this day. No one could do that now. No one dared to do so, because he would throw so many paupers on his hands, and therefore he found labour for them instead. Marshes had been drained, woods grubbed up, and wastes cleared, and roads constructed under the inducements to employ the people occasioned by this Act, and this pressure on the owners of property had been most advantageous to the country, and of the highest benefit to the poor. During the French war, when everything was very dear, and taxation very high, Mr. Pitt met the evils which arose by granting more relief, and thus kept the people quiet, and carried us through the war. The rates were more than 2s. 6d. in the pound all over England; but the value of real property must have increased nearly 50 per cent during the war, and no one was a loser and the poor gained enormously. With reference to what would be the effect of doing away with the law of settlement, the right hon. Gentleman said that it was urged that the present system gave the advantage to old men, and forced the young men to seek elsewhere for work. But for what class, he would ask, was the poor-law especially intended? Was it meant to benefit the young man, or the aged and infirm? If the effect of the abolition of the law of settlement would be, as was suggested, that the young men would be employed in preference to the old, it would follow as a necessary consequence that the old must go to the workhouse. They would give a present advantage to the young man; but how long would it last? In the course, probably, of ten years, a fit of rheumatism or some other cause made him also infirm, and then the workhouse must be his fate also. What they proposed to do was to benefit him when he did not want it—when he could go, and, under the present system, did go, into the manufacturing districts, and obtain employment there—and to give him this temporary benefit to the injury of the old man, who was unable to go away if he desired it, and for whom especially the poor-law was established. It was better to find labour for the old men than to throw them wholly on the rates; this had been the great secret of the quiet and comfort of the English people, and it could not be for their good, therefore, to abolish the law of settlement. Mr. Coode, Mr. Chadwick, and all the persons who had written on this subject during the last twenty years, state that the manufacturers get as many men as they require, but it was not the best labour. What did they mean? They assert that by the present system the best hands are thrown out of employ, and yet that the towns did not get them. Where, then, did they go? There could be no doubt but that the young men went to the towns, and that the old ones, with their families, staved at home. He felt certain that he could prove from the evidence of these gentlemen (Mr. Chadwick and others) that the proposed alterations would have the effect of throwing partially infirm labourers with large families entirely on the rates. If they were to take away the law of settlement, they would do the greatest amount of injury to the poor. The Act of Settlement passed in the reign of Charles II. he considered was the foundation of the relief of the English poor. The opinions of many—among others, Adam Smith and Pitt—had been cited as decidedly opposed to the law of settlement, but their opinions were not as to our law of settlement, but the old law, by which a man could be removed the moment he went into a parish. Mr. Pitt, in 1796, laid on the table of the House a Bill in which he proposed that a five years' residence should constitute a settlement. He did not proceed further after this, but desired that they should wait and see the effect of the alterations made; and afterwards, when Premier, he never introduced any further measure on this subject, as he evidently considered everything had been settled satisfactorily. A great deal had been said with reference to the labourers living a long way from their work, and it had been attributed to the small size of the parishes. His (Mr. Knight's) attention had been drawn to a statement of Howell's Report, in which it was stated that in the parish of Worksop, consisting of 18,000 acres, almost all the agricultural labourers resided in the town of Worksop. So on the Continent, where there was no poor-law, they found the agricultural labourers living in large towns, with a much greater distance to go to their work than in England. He was certain that all that had been asserted by Gentlemen on this point was untenable. Mr. Chadwick had brought forward statistics showing that these close parishes drive the people into the towns, owing to the misery existing in the agricultural districts; he (Mr. Knight) had taken the towns mentioned, and found that in 1840 the average of the agricultural population living in them was 1 in 36; while in 1841 it had decreased nearly one-half, as the average was only 1 in 70. The whole of these statistics, therefore, he considered incapable of proof, and ought not to be the ground of any measure by which so great an alteration would be made in the value of real property; and he also felt sure, if the subject were looked into, it could not be shown that the poor would be any gainers by it. In the great case that had been legislated on (the Stockport Union case), he might absolutely assert that the hardships that had there arisen arose in a great measure from the cruelty of the guardians, as the relief administered was ridiculously small. According to Mr. Coppock, 21,391 persons were relieved out of the house, while the amount of relief was 8,871l., or only 8s. 3½d. per head per annum; but this case could not now be brought forward, and all cases of hardship that were must be shown to have taken place since the passing of the Five Years' Act. There were a great many considerations to be gone into, and he hoped an early day would be fixed for a full discussion of the question, when he thought he should be able to show that no real case existed for disturbing the value of nine-tenths of the real property of England. He must strongly condemn the impropriety of placing in the hands of the landlords the power of turning off a number of people from their estates, without their Union rates being much enlarged, He considered the right the poor had to dwell in their homes, over which their landlords had not this absolute control, an inestimable advantage, far greater than they would derive from the proposed measure. What they would do by abolishing settlement would be to put the poor entirely into the hands of their landlords or employers, bound hand and foot, who could do with them just what they pleased. He begged to apologise for having trespassed at such length upon the patience of the House, more especially as he had come down quite unprepared to address them. Upon a future occasion he hoped to be better prepared upon the question.

said, he could not enter into such details as those offered by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, because he had not the advantage enjoyed by his right hon. Friend the late President of the Poor Law Board of possessing so able a secretary to prepare his speeches, although the question, as the hon. Member had stated it, might perhaps have been more appropriately reserved for the second reading of the Bill. The opposition of the hon. Member, as he (Mr. V. Smith) understood it, was directed to any alteration of the law; but the hon. Member did not state on what occasion the speech which he had prepared for his right hon. Friend was to have been delivered—whether it was on bringing in a Bill similar to the present for an alteration of the law, or whether it was in opposition to any alteration of the law—[Mr. KNIGHT: Generally.] He regretted extremely that his right hon. Friend had not had the opportunity afforded him; for though he (Mr. V. Smith) was one of those who assisted in turning his right hon. Friend out of office, he should certainly liked to have heard that general statement. Perhaps the House would, in the course of this discussion, be informed whether or not his right hon. Friend coincided with his hon. secretary. He presumed his right hon. Friend did not; for, he believed, in case his right hon. Friend cast his eye over the information which certain localities with which they were both acquainted supplied, he would be led to a totally different conclusion. His object, however, in rising was to state his infinite satisfaction that his right hon. Friend (Mr. Baines) had resolved on putting his shoulder to the wheel and dealing with the question in the manner he proposed to do. Two assertions had been made by the hon. and learned Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Hildyard) in contradiction to his right hon. Friend. One of these was, that the state of the law was not so bad as was supposed; and that his right hon. Friend had taken his facts from the period when they were both occupied in trying causes on circuit, and not from the present time. Now so far as his (Mr. V. Smith's) experience went, he was prepared to say that the law of settlement was as great an evil as the poor man had to deal with in this country. If it were not so, certainly the hon. Member (Mr. Knight) would be perfectly correct in opposing and endeavouring to throw out the Bill altogether, for there would be no case for proceeding if the preamble of his right hon. Friend were not proved. If it were not true, as Adam Smith wrote, many years ago, that this law was the greatest of curses to the poor man—if it were not true, as was asserted by the Commissioners who had been directed to report on the question that it was an evil; if it were not true, as was declared by the Committee of 1847, that it ought to be abolished, then let the House throw out the Bill of his right hon. Friend because the preamble could not be proved. In addition to all these authorities there was also the report of Sir George Nicholls, formerly one of the Poor Law Commissioners, which corroborated all his right hon. Friend had stated that night. He (Mr. V. Smith) had had some experience upon the subject, and could take upon himself to say that a greater evil both to employer and employed did not exist than that law; and, moreover, he did not think his right hon. Friend had exaggerated, but had rather underrated the evil. It met the employer at every turn, who was constantly told, almost in terms, that he should never employ any one out of his own parish. The other assertion made by the hon. and learned Member for Whitehaven was, that the abolition of the law would be an injustice to property. But what his right hon. Friend (Mr. Baines) contended was, that there was a manifest injustice in the state of the poor; and he (Mr. V. Smith) would tell the hon. and learned Member to remedy the injustice to poverty, and then he would join him in rendering justice to property. It was because his right hon. Friend had made out an undeniable case that the poor man was unjustly treated in this country by the law of settlement, that he was prepared to do what, he admitted with the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Knight), might, to a certain extent, be a species of injustice to a particular species of property. That he was perfectly ready to admit; but what great measures were not attended with some injustice to some species of property or other in a state of civilisation such as that in which we existed? He confessed that he was surprised that there had not been an outcry among the poor throughout the breadth of the land against this law, and he could only attribute their silence to the fact of their total ignorance of the real law. They confounded settlement and relief, and did not know that relief was the right of destitution. He was convinced, if the poor could read the speech of his right hon. Friend, that they would be very strongly opposed to the existing law. The hon. Member also said the present measure was but a step to a national rate. He had no hesitation in declaring that, if it were possible or achievable, a national rate would be preferable to a Union rate, because the wider the extent of surface the better would it be. But a national rate was, in his mind, utterly impossible. The destruction of self-government, and of the entire resources of the kingdom, which would be occasioned by their utter inability to provide any tribunal that would distribute the money, put a national rate altogether out of the question. At the same time the principle of a national rate he was perfectly ready to admit. The difficulty was, then, where to find a district at once so large as to prevent its being entirely in the hands of a single proprietor, and, at the same time, so small as to excite the energies of the guardians to limit the multiplication of paupers. He thought that his right hon. Friend had done perfectly right in fixing his districts, and his hope was that those districts would prevent the evils which had hitherto existed both to employers and employed. With regard to the averages, that was a question of detail when the Bill was in Committee; but, as his right hon. Friend had stated his plan, it appeared to be reasonable enough, taking, as he understood it, a vanishing scale of ten years. The hon. Gentleman opposite had stated that the subject should not be dealt with piecemeal. He thought that his right hon. Friend had taken a good slice to begin with; but he trusted that the Government would not be satisfied with that as the only measure. He hoped to see introduced a Highway Bill, which was so materially connected with the poor-law that no one knew what ought to fall upon the poor-rate and what upon the highway rate. He hoped that this was to be considered as a measure of the Government, to be carried forward with zeal and assiduity, and regarded as one of the measures of the Session, which would be passed into a law, and not dropped after passing through Committee, or on the third reading. In so doing the Government would confer one of the greatest benefits ever bestowed on the poor of this country.

said, that his hon. Friend (Mr. Knight) having personally alluded to him, and the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. V. Smith) having done the same, he thought himself called upon to make some answer to the allegation of his hon. Friend. The hon. Gentleman stated that he (Sir J. Trollope) instructed him to prepare materials on this subject. It was evident they were for the hon. Gentleman's own use, and he had evidently taken very great pains about them, but he had never communicated his information to him (Sir J. Trollope) till that evening. He (Sir J. Trollope), therefore, was quite unprepared for the very voluminous statement which his hon. Friend had given them that evening, and which he threatened to enlarge on a future occasion. Turning to the proposition before them, he must say that he had always been at a loss to know why a town should be managed differently from a rural district, and why portions of the same town should be differently situated with regard to the general law. He thought it a defect in the right hon. Gentleman's measure that he did not propose to deal on the present occasion with those places hitherto exempted from the general management of the Poor Law Board, such as the Gilbert Unions—it being obvious to all how very superior was the management of those places which were under the direction of the Poor Law Board. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. V. Smith) had spoken of this as hoping it would be made a Government measure; he (Sir J. Trollope) hoped it would not be made a party measure, but would be carried after due reflection, and with such amendments as those best acquainted with the subject should maturely recommend. In this way a judicious measure might be passed, and one which would be a blessing to the poor. That was the spirit in which he was prepared to come to the discussion of this question.

said, he fully concurred in the views which had been expressed as to the failure of the law of settlement, but he was anxious to know what were the intentions of the Government with regard to Ireland. He trusted that the same zeal which the right hon. President of the Poor Law Board had manifested for the welfare of the people of England, and the good working of the poor-law, would be manifested in devising a better system for Ireland.

said, the subject was one the importance of which it was impossible to overrate, and scarcely possible sufficiently to appreciate, because it involved the good or evil of the poor, and as far as it could be judged of at present, the actual confiscation of a large portion of the property of the country. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would lay on the table before the second reading such information with respect to the Unions throughout the country as would enable the House to judge what the amount of the shifting the burden would be. This ought in common justice to be done, that they might not take a step which would impose on some parishes more than treble the amount of their income tax, and relieve others to an equal extent. As he had understood the right hon. Gentleman, he meant to exempt all parishes under local and Gilbert Acts. [Mr. BAINES: From the rating part.] He was speaking with reference to the rating part. No attempt was made to remedy the inequality where all the poor lived in one parish of a town, and all the rich in another parish of the same town. He could not understand what the object was of dealing with land merely as opposed to real property in houses. As he had understood the right hon. Gentleman, when alluding to the area of rating, it appeared that he did not wish the area to be so large that the ratepayers should cease to feel an interest in looking after the expenditure of the rates. Was he prepared to say that the Unions were all to be of one size, and that it was possible to give all the ratepayers a common interest in them? In his opinion, so great were the inequalities in the size of the Unions, that that part of the proposal would not be suitable for the end in view. As regarded the removal of the poor, and the evils spoken of in connexion with it, the right hon. Gentleman had to consider the difficulty arising, out of the case of the Irish poor. Did he think that the Irish could be removed to Ireland, if the English could not be removed? It would be impossible to say that we would not permit the English to be removed on the ground of hardship and cruelty, and yet to continue the removal of the Irish with the very same grounds, whatever they might be, for its discontinuance. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the Reports of the Inspectors appointed to collect further information on the subject than was possessed by the Committee of 1847. These gentlemen had certainly stated strong opinions, but they had reported much on hearsay; and he believed, in reference to many of the parishes, the cases were the reverse of what they had stated. All that part of the right hon. Gentleman's case that rested on the Reports of those gentlemen rested, in his opinion, on no foundation at all. One other point—the possible evil to the poor themselves—had been adverted to. If the view which he took was correct, a very large pecuniary burden would fall on many parishes—on property which for 300 years had been exempt from such a burden; and the result would be that in some way or other attempts would be made to get rid of the burden. The question was, whether the poor might not be sufferers. The right hon. Gentleman thought the measure would confer a great benefit on the poor. He believed that if the poor throughout England were consulted on the question, a vast majority of them would be against the change proposed. He believed that they understood this question thoroughly, and that they were as much attached to their parish as any man was to his country. That feeling was strong in the rural districts. The right hon. Gentleman had not stated what provisions he intended to introduce with regard to charities. A great many charities at present were distributable among certain inhabitants of a parish. That was an important question, but it was not touched on by the right hon. Gentleman, though it ought to be considered when it was proposed to do away with the law of settlement and removal—

The law of settlement is not touched, only the law of removal.

The power of settlement would be virtually abolished. He had never seen any evidence to convince him that the evils of the law of settlement were so great as they had been represented. Before dealing with the question they ought to be told what it was proposed to do with the Irish poor. He should consider the measure as dispassionately as he could, but he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not yield to the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Northampton (Mr. V. Smith) to make this a Government measure, for that would give it a party character.

said, he must beg to explain that he by no means wished the question to be made a party question. His object was to induce the Government to press the measure forward in such a manner as to show their desire to carry it.

said, he was of opinion that the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman with respect to the removal of the poor would, so far as the agricultural districts were concerned, tend to foster a free trade in labour. In the case of the metropolitan parishes, however, he was not quite sure that the effect of the measure might not be to increase vagrancy. He should also observe that he had heard no good argument advanced in favour of Union as opposed to parochial rating; and he could not refrain from expressing a hope that if the right hon. Gentleman should succeed in establishing a Union rating, he should take care that the subject of the arrears which existed in those Unions should be thoroughly investigated.

said, he would remind the House that whilst the scheme, if carried out, would put an end to the removal of paupers from one part of England to another, the right hon. Gentleman retained the power of the Poor Law Union to send back to Ireland those paupers who might be of Irish origin. In that respect he considered the right hon. Gentleman had committed a grievous error, and one that would tend, as far as he could see, to inflict great hardship and injustice on that country. The system of poor-law removal in England was based on this broad foundation, that if the pauper was not justly chargeable to one parish, he might be removed to that to which he was chargeable. Now, what was the case with regard to Ireland? Did they remove an Irish pauper and his family from a place to which he was not chargeable, to a place to which he was chargeable? No such thing. They sent them to the nearest port, and in some cases they had died on the decks of the steamers from starvation. But, supposing them to arrive at the nearest port, their place of settlement might be 200 miles distant. The hon. Member for Clonmel (Mr. J. O'Connell), who had almost spoken as though he represented the whole of Ireland, had invited the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Baines) to extend this sort of legislation to Ire- land. In doing so, that hon. Gentleman seemed to have forgotten that the only thing which enabled the Irish poor-law to meet and to survive the distress of the years 1846 and 1847, was the multiplication, and the consequent diminution of the size, of the Unions, by which means the liability to taxation was brought home to a smaller area, and every man was induced to look more keenly after the affairs of his own neighbourhood. He (Lord C. Hamilton) must protest against any English Member being led away with the idea that Ireland had thriven under the system now proposed for the benefit of England.

said, he was desirous not to detain the House at that late hour, but he felt himself called upon to offer a few observations upon the subject under discussion. His remarks, however, would be but few, inasmuch as a great part of what he desired to say had been anticipated by his right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley). The subject under debate had been introduced to-night by his right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Baines) with that ability which all must have expected from his great knowledge of the subject; and he (Sir J. Pakington) must, for one, express very great satisfaction that it was the decision of Her Majesty's Government to have this important question, with all its difficulties, great as they must be acknowledged to be, fairly discussed and debated by the House. He was one of those who had been for some years of opinion that the law of removal was one which had inflicted very great hardship and great suffering upon the working classes of this country. He must also confess he had long been of opinion that, if the law of removal were abandoned, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to retain the present system of parochial rating. But there could be no doubt that feelings of very considerable alarm had sprung up, and he thought those feelings of alarm had very much increased of late in two respects connected with this difficult question. He thought a feeling of alarm had very much obtained lest any change in the law of settlement and removal, while it would do away with some sources of hardship and suffering to the labouring classes, might be the means of inflicting on them others of no less important a nature; and he thought this alarm had been sounded a good deal upon the circumstances to which his right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Baines) had himself alluded, namely, the efforts they had all seen in various parts of the country, to adopt contrivances to defeat the Five Years' Act, and, by forcing parties to change their residence after a certain period, to deprive them of the benefit that the Five Years' Act was intended to confer on them. A feeling of alarm had naturally arisen, that if the poor man were deprived of that right to relief in given localities, which he now enjoyed, another hardship might be inflicted. His right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Baines) said with great truth that the claim to relief in this country was founded, not on settlement, but upon destitution; but still the claim to relief was much assisted by the fact of settlement: the man who became destitute had an advantage in demanding relief, if he could urge the claim of settlement. There was danger lest the man who would not urge that claim might be "bandied about," as the expression was, from one part of the country to another. Thus, while a hardship of one sort might be avoided, a hardship of another kind would be incurred. He, however, understood his right hon. Friend to have explained this evening that, although he proposed to do away with the power of removal, he did not propose to touch the right of settlement. He hoped his right hon. Friend would make that matter perfectly clear, because he thought it was an important feature in the proposed Bill, and one that would tend very much to remove that class of alarm to which he had alluded. The other source of alarm he wished to refer to had been much dwelt upon by his hon. Friend behind him, and it was that which arose from a dread that if the House introduced Union rating, the value of property in the country would be materially affected. This was a most serious matter for consideration. He (Sir J. Pakington) had expressed an opinion that if the law of removal were done away with, it would be difficult to retain parochial rating, and if parochial rating were abandoned they must resort to Union rating. The hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Mr. Knight) had devoted great ability and labour to the preparation of statistics upon this important question. He was glad to hear they would be printed, and he hoped they would be printed in time to enable the House to benefit by them in this discussion. He was sure his right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Baines) would give to them the con- sideration which was undoubtedly due to them. For his own part, he should reserve his judgment upon this part of the question till he had more matter before him. He hoped the right hon. President of the Poor Law Board would attend to the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) to furnish anything that could throw light upon the subject, and he trusted that if the feeling of the country was found adverse to and entertained well-grounded apprehensions as to the effects of Union rating, his right hon. Friend (Mr. Baines) would direct his attention to whether it was possible to gain the benefit of doing away with the law of removal, and, at the same time, retaining parochial rating. He acknowledged that there would be great difficulty in doing so; but he hoped his right hon. Friend would give his whole mind to the consideration of the question, and that the benefits of doing away with the law of removal might be obtained without any accompanying disadvantages. He trusted, after what had passed, that his right hon. Friend would gravely consider what to do with Ireland. In a subject of this magnitude, affecting the whole internal economy of the country, his right hon. Friend would do well to grapple with the whole of the subject, and not shrink from facing the Irish question, merely because some additional difficulty might be placed upon him. He (Sir J. Pakington) would not detain the House further than to express unqualified approbation of one feature that had distinguished the debate this evening, and which he hoped would continue—namely, the total absence of all party feeling on this subject. The question was one of great difficulty, affecting, as he had said before, the internal economy of the country. He thought Her Majesty's Government had done well in calling attention to it, and he hoped the subject would be discussed with an anxious desire to aid and assist Government.

said, he had been plied to for assistance by 100 or 200 persons who had suffered most grievously from the present state of the poor-law. They had spent most of their lives in England; they had almost lost all recollection of Ireland, and had even so entirely obtained the English accent, that they might have passed for Englishmen; and yet by the atrocious barbarity of the present law, they had, when they became chargeable to the poor-rates, been removed from England to Ireland. He understood that the effect of this Bill would be, that if an Englishman left his own parish, and went to Manchester or any other manufacturing town, and there lived and worked for four, six or ten years, he would have a right to be relieved there, and would not be liable to removal. Would an Irishman who had lived and laboured in an English town for a similar period have a similar right, as he certainly ought to have, under this Bill, and no longer be subjected to the hardships of removal. He thought that no one could doubt that some alteration should be made in the present system, by which Irishmen becoming chargeable in an English town might be taken to the nearest English port, be there shipped on board a vessel, and landed at the nearest Irish port, although it might be at the opposite extremity of the island from their birth-place. He had himself known cases in which persons from the north of Ireland had been landed on the quays of Cork. It had been said that the feeling in Ireland was strongly in favour of a small area for rating; he believed, however, that this was not the case, but that the general opinion was in favour of Union rating, some persons going even further, and desiring national rating. He could not conclude without expressing his admiration of the humane spirit which had dictated the present measure, and of the ability and clearness with which it had been introduced to the House.

said, he wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board would have any objection to furnish the House with returns showing the number of orders of removal during the last year, and the expense incurred by each parish on this account? He believed it would be seen that the restrictions placed upon the removal of paupers by the previous measure had materially lessened the number of cases of this kind, and that, therefore, the advantage to be derived from this Bill would not be so great as some hon. Members seemed to expect.

said, the paupers in the Union with which he was connected were all placed on the same footing. No distinction was made beetween an Irish and an English pauper. They were relieved under the same law, and protected by the same law. He would ask the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Maguire), after the language he used with reference to the treatment of Irish paupers in England, how it happened that shiploads after shiploads of Irish paupers were sent over from Ireland to this country, and left to shift for themselves? These paupers were always received into English Unions, and provided for. He mentioned this in answer to what had fallen from Irish Members with reference to the treatment of Irish paupers in England.

said, he should be extremely ungrateful if he did not tender his most respectful acknowledgments for the indulgent manner in which the House had received the measure which he had had the honour of laying before it. As there would be abundant opportunities for future discussion, he thought he should make the best acknowledgment of that indulgence by not going into details upon any of the points which had been adverted to in the course of the debate. The hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Maguire) had, however, made an inquiry to which it would be right to give a reply. The hon. Gentleman had asked what the effect of this Bill would be with regard to the condition of Irish paupers. Now this measure would not affect their condition; it certainly would not prejudice it in any way. He (Mr. Baines) had already expressed the opinion that the existing legislation on this subject was not satisfactory; but, for reasons he had mentioned, he had thought it advisable to confine this Bill to the subject of removals on the grounds of settlement. That was a very large subject in itself, and quite enough for present consideration in this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), and the right hon. Member for Droitwich (Sir J. Pakington), had both expressed a hope that ample time would be given for the consideration of the measure. If those right hon. Gentlemen had not expressed that hope, he (Mr. Baines) should have done so, believing that the fullest time ought to be allowed for its consideration and calm discussion. Before the day appointed for the second reading, which he proposed should stand for this day month, March 10, he hoped there would be in the possession of hon. Members a valuable Return moved for by his hon Friend the Member for Somersetshire (Mr. Miles) which would afford information upon many points on which it was desirable that light should be thrown. He believed he could say positively that that information would be in the hands of hon. Members before the second reading of the Bill.