"To the insufficient quantity and miserable quality of the house accommodation generally had by our agricultural labourers, almost every And gradually for many years past the state of page of Dr. Hunter's Report bears testimony. the labourer in these respects has been deteriorating-house room being now greatly more difficult for him to find, and, when found, greatly less suitable to his means, than perhaps for centuries has been the case. Especially within the last twenty or thirty years the evil has been in very rapid increase, and the household circumstances of the labourer are now in the highest degree deplorable." Dr. Simon went on to say as a test for lazy fellows who would not completely bore out what had been said work elsewhere. That was the only sys- by the President of the Poor Law Board tem on which it was possible to work the on the second reading of the Bill. Dr. Poor Law in the manufacturing dis- Simon, who, he believed, was the chief tricts, but it was not the system of Medical Officer of the Privy Council, and giving relief in aid of wages. If a man who was therefore responsible for the were out of work for a few days, the guar- whole of the Report, said at page 9— dians, instead of forcing him into a workhouse, gave him some relief. That of which the hon. Gentleman complained was really to the credit of the guardians, for if they forced the population during periods of temporary distress into the work house, they would be doing what was perfectly unjustifiable. If, however, the hon. Gentleman meant that any system existed analogous to that which formerly prevailed in certain agricultural districts, and by which the manufacturers paid the wages of their men or a portion of their wages out of the rates, he could only give the strongest denial to such a statement. The practice was utterly non-existent in any of the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire, and his hon. Friend near him could, he believed, say as much for Lancashire. He would agree with the hon. Gentleman that there were not enough cottages in the district, but if additional cottage accommodation were not provided, it was mainly because the demand had increased more quickly than it was possible to build the cottages. The hon. Member spoke of the ill condition of the cottages, and he (Mr. W. E. Forster) would not say that it was not a subject to which attention ought not to be constantly directed. But that had nothing to do with the question at issue so far as the manufacturing districts were concerned, although he believed the present state of the law had much to do with it in the rural districts. In the manufacturing districts it was to the interest of the employers to have a good supply of labour, and they knew they could not have that without plenty of cottages around their mills; but the action of the law as it now stood was sitates immediate recourse to parochial relief; to tempt the owners of property in the and thus all residence of agricultural population agricultural districts to decrease cottage in a parish is glaringly an addition to its poor accommodation, even where the population was increasing. He made no charge against the agricultural interest when he said that that temptation ought to be taken from them, as it would be by this Bill. The law operated to tempt the landowners and farmers to decrease the number of cottages, and that that statement was not without foundation might be seen by the seventh Report of the Medical officer of the Privy Council, which, he might add, "An extraneous element weights the balance heavily against him, and he loses the fair chances of free trade. The element to which I refer is the influence of the Poor Law in its provisions concerning settlement and chargeability. Under this influence each parish has a pecuniary interest in reducing to a minimum the number of its resident labourers; for, unhappily, agricultural labour, instead of implying a safe and permanent his family, implies for the most part only a longer independence for the hard-working labourer and or shorter circuit to eventual pauperism." Now, he should be sorry to make such a statement as that did he not find it in an official book, substantiated by the authority of a gentleman who had extraordinary opportunities of obtaining information. [Not from experience!"] But then he had ascertained his facts from those who had experience, and there was in them, he was afraid, at least some degree of truth. It became, then, a matter of serious consideration whether there was any law which tended towards the pauperism in question—" a pauperism which," to use the words of Dr. Simon illness or temporary failure of occupation neces "During the whole circuit is so near that any rates." Dr. Simon then went on to refer to Dr. "One of the most powerful causes of insufficient cottage accommodation is the system of close and open villages, a system which prevails through all the Midlands and East of England, and which is doing much mischief by its operation on the quality, quantity, and locality of cottages. It is a hiding away of the cottage population in certain villages, and this is effected by unsparing destruction in others. There are in all counties show villages, where the cottages have been reduced to but a few, and where none but persons who are needed as shepherds, gardeners, or gamekeepers, are allowed to live. In such nearly all the tenants are regular servants, and receive the good treatment usual to their class. But the land requires cultivation, and it will be found that the labourers employed upon it are not the tenants of the owner, but that they come from a neighbouring open village, perhaps three miles off, where a numerous small proprietary has received them when their cottages were destroyed in the close villages around." Then again No farmer of a neighbouring parish will tempt a man with children to disturb his parish settlement, for fear of throwing him on the common charges. The man himself, although he knows that he might find work thirty miles off on a railway or great public work at 2s. 6d. a day, is not only without the capital to start without danger of apprehension for desertion, but has a vague fear of losing his settlement and being thrown among strangers in his old age." He also found at page 127 the following passage in Dr. Hunter's Report: -- "Much attention should be given to those notes. It has been stated with too much boldness, and the statement is universally accepted, because agreeable (no doubt it is true within the limits of the words in which it is put), that the agricultural labourers of England have not diminished in number in the past thirty years. But, though this be true, how different is the whole truth! The agricultural labourers remain within England; they are in the towns. It is the rural labourers who are being swept away, and many people, deceived by confusing the terms, have applied the deceptive solace to a suspicion of something going on wrong." He confessed he had supposed the state of things was not so bad as was represented, and that there had been a considerable improvement within the last few years. He did not, however, pretend to much personal experience in the matter, although he had some. As hon. Gentlemen seemed to wish it he would give them what personal knowledge he had. He recollected having gone, not very long after the ten hours agitation, in which he had taken a part in favour of the Ten Hours' Bill, into a country district in which a hard working, excellent clergyman, a friend of his, resided. It was a parish without those advantages which he admitted generally flowed from country gentlemen living near their la bourers. This gentleman told him certain things about these close and open parishes which he could scarcely believe. He described them to be exactly as stated. The labourers in the parishes about him did not live in them, and therefore they were not in proximity to the gentry for whom they Mr. W. E. Forster He worked, but they went to the open parish some three or four miles away. He (Mr. Forster) said to his friend, "There has been a great deal done by several persons in this neighbourhood in building cottages," and to his surprise he found out that what had been done was very much in the direction of what was called the showy system immediately around the park gates, and had been productive of no appreciable good result. He was, however, bound to admit that there had been of late a great many instances in which country gentlemen had expended large sums of money on their property with a view to remedying the evil to which he referred, but then their efforts were of necessity so isolated as not to meet the requirements of the case. made no complaint against the landowners on that account; indeed, he did not believe the manufacturers would do better. Men generally acted according as their interests dictated, and if the law enabled them to do something that was not for the good of their neighbours, but for their own or their fancied good, they would, generally speaking, take advantage of that law. The real fact was this-They had in their Poor Law at present a system under which it was to the interest of the employers engaged in the most important interest in the country-that of agriculture-in very many cases to put their labourers at some distance from them, and to drive them off to cottages three or four miles distant from their work. But then it was contended that to alter the law so that it should no longer be their interest to do so, would be to transfer the burden of relief. It should be, however, borne in mind that a transfer of that burden had long been going on, for the employer had been transferring the relief of those whom he employed to some one else. If, then, the burden were retransferred and placed on the right back no more than justice would be done, although the employer would naturally complain. He was not, of course, surprised to find that there was some outcry against such a proposal in the agricultural districts, because no man liked a burden from which he had escaped for years to be re-imposed however just it might be. But it was much to the credit of the residents in the agricultural districts that there seemed to be quite as much approval of, as opposition to it. By a Bill which had been passed by his right hon. Friend, making three years' industrial residence apply to unions, a very considerable trans were able to return to their constituents and say that it had passed a Bill remedying one of the greatest practical evils affecting society, they would at least be able to point to its care for the interests of the poor man, in enabling him to bring his strong arm to work at any place where it could be used with most efficiency, and could earn in return the highest rate of pay. fer of burden in the case of the manufac- rishes, and, these being very heavily rated, turing interests was effected, but they the taxpayers in them felt as if the money submitted to it, though by some it was was actually robbed from them, and hence opposed. The introduction of the three the wants of the poor were not cared for years' industrial residence was a transfer with as good grace as they otherwise would of the burdens from the rural to the town be. He trusted this Bill would form a districts, because before that the moment precedent for his right hon. Friend, and a man became chargeable he was sent lead him to take up the important question away from the place of his work to Ire- of the condition of London very speedily. land, or into one of the rural districts, as Looking to the period of the Session which it might happen, to which he belonged. had now been reached, any proposal inHe was also opposed to the system in his volving delay must tend to defeat the Bill, own union, but he was unfortunately al- because the two subjects which the hon. ways in a minority when such cases came Gentleman wanted to inquire into-one, before the Board of Guardians. When the the getting rid of the Gilbert unions, and three years' residence was proposed a de- the other, whether they should extend raputation from Bradford waited upon him ting to other than landed property-would on the ground that it would be a transfer necessarily occupy considerable time in the of the burden to the manufacturing dis-investigation. The present Parliament had tricts, but when he explained the matter to accomplished very little, but if Members them they declined to go farther. He was glad to perceive that the feeling in the agricultural districts was coming round in the same way, for the principle on which the Bill was based was that the burden should be put on the right backthe cost of maintaining the poor on those who employed labour-although it was impossible to deny that it scarcely meddled with a most glaring exception-the state of London at the present moment. If cases such as those from time to time occurring at Bethnal Green or other places in London happened in any agricultural district, or in one of the manufacturing towns, so strong a feeling would be excited that there would be little likelihood of their recurrence. The reason was that in country districts, and in towns such as Bradford or Leeds, people needing relief were better known to their neighbours, and more sympathy was felt for them, than in London, where the pauper class was a small and comparatively unknown class in the midst of an enormous population. For that very reason, as well as on account of the sense of injustice rankling in the minds of the ratepayers, it was all the more necessary that the House should devote attention to their case, and that the press should watch over their interests. With such flagrant cases as that of the St. Katharine's Docks it was no wonder that the taxpayers complained. Those docks, enclosing a vast amount of property and employing an enormous population, constituted a union in themselves, and, the rates having been bought up, none were now in existence. The population employed in the docks lived, of course, in the surrounding pa MR. HUBBARD said, that he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board that this Bill would remove the anomaly and grievance of close parishes, and he should be glad to assist the right hon. Gentleman in getting rid of it, but he felt that it was a measure that could not be hurriedly carried into execution. They must not forget that the close parishes had arisen from a system which had been in use for many centuries, and that persons interested in these parishes had inherited the property they enjoyed in them from generation to generation, or had purchased it under that system, and that, therefore, to make any sudden change would be to create considerable variation in the value of the property which they possessed. The discussion which had taken place had induced him to believe that to make the proposed change without its being connected with other concurrent measures would be to inflict great hardships on the rural parishes in unions with manufacturing parishes, as had been exemplified in the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Egerton). According to the hon. Gentleman's statement four manufacturing parishes in the union would be greatly reasons for asking the House to go into a relieved at the expense of the remaining Select Committee on the Bill. The first thirty-seven rural parishes of the union. was that time should be given to consider However grateful the four manufacturing the distribution and size of the unions. parishes of which that Gentleman had He certainly was willing to admit that spoken might feel towards the President many unions were too large in their preof the Poor Law Board for introducing sent state; but he could not agree in the this Bill, it was evident that the thirty- argument that the townships in the immeseven rural parishes comprised in the diate neighbourhood of towns ought to be same union must feel the strongest re- allowed to dissociate themselves from the pugnance to the measure. These latter unions of those towns. The property imhad no community of interest with the mediately adjoining large towns derived manufacturing parishes; they did not great advantage, and was oftentimes largebenefit by proximity to the town; they ly increased in value, from the proximity, simply happened to be comprised in the and it was but fair that as they shared the same union, according to the geographical advantage they should also contribute tocombination made by the Poor Law Board. wards the burdens. He could state of his He saw no reason why the union between own knowledge that land situated at a dismanufacturing and rural parishes should tance of five or six miles from Manchester be eternal; for them, as for unions of a let for £5 an acre, while land removed more sacred character, a divorce court some five or six miles farther let for only ought to exist. If the Bill were carried £3 an acre. There would be no difficulty out in its integrity there would be endless in altering the forms of the unions under complaints and discontent on the part of the Bill, where, under the circumstances, it those who found themselves exposed to was practicable. He believed the Poor heavier burdens than they had been ac- Law Board to be willing to consider the customed to under the old system. He, alteration of unions, but there were oftentherefore, was not disposed to proceed times difficulties in the way of so doing further with this Bill without something which hon. Members seemed to have overbeing done to remedy the injustice there looked. The outlying townships were frewould be inflicted on the rural parishes to quently too small to form a union, and the the benefit of the manufacturing parishes. unions around them refused to have any This might be accomplished either by re- thing to do with them. He knew this to constructing the unions, or in some other be the case at Oldham. Another reason way providing against it. The Bill would which the hon. Member for Whitby gave leave untouched the great question of ex- was that an opportunity should be given emptions. An hon. Friend of his gave for considering the incidence of the rate notice of an Amendment upon the subject, on the various townships and parishes and he (Mr. Hubbard) had himself placed throughout the country. He believed that upon the paper a similar notice, but he every person might know the incidence of was told that both the proposed clauses the rate in his own parish. The hon. would be incompatible with the Bill, and Gentleman also referred to the increase in that they could not, therefore, be intro- the amount of poor rate. There was an duced in the Committee. The fact was, increase, but he believed that the increase that the measure would not deal in any was not owing to what went to the real way with the number of important ques-relief of the poor, but to other sources tions which could not for any length of time be left untouched. Under these circumstances he saw no other means of meeting the difficulties of the case than by referring the Bill to a Select Committee. Such a Committee could take the whole subject into its consideration, and although the proposed course might impede the progress of the present measure it would enable them to obtain, at some further period, a final and satisfactory settlement of the question. MR. HIBBERT said, that the hon. Member for Whitby had given four or five Mr. Hubbard of expenditure. In 1855 the cost of maintaining the out-door and irremovable poor was £3,821,000, in 1863, it was £4,077,000, being an increase of only a quarter of a million in eight years. It was not fair therefore to lay the onus of the increase in the poor rate on the amount paid for the real relief of the poor. The hon. Gentleman said that relief was granted in Yorkshire and Lancashire in aid of wages, but he believed it would be difficult for the hon. Gentleman to lay his finger upon a single case of the kind. He was willing to admit that the statement that in Lan mark that the Bill would leave the question still in an unsatisfactory state, because it would not simplify the numerous subjects which came under the notice of Boards of Guardians. He did not think the Bill simplified enough the payments which were made through the Boards of Guardians. They had various payments to make which were not properly connected with the relief of the poor, and two of these at least should be removed from them, the vaccination fees and the fees for the registration of births and deaths. It would also still leave the guardians charged with the duty of allotting a great number of payments on the separate parishes. He trusted, however, that the House would go into Committee upon the Bill, because he believed it would do away with some abuses, and by giving a freer circulation to labour would tend to improve the position of the people. cashire they granted a great deal of outdoor relief was perfectly correct, but when they found that they could maintain a pauper out of doors for 28. or 2s. 6d., and that the expenses attendant upon his indoor maintenance was 3s. 6d. or 4s., they believed that in so doing they were not only treating the paupers in a more humane and considerate manner, but were also, at the same time, consulting the interests and the pockets of the ratepayers. It had been stated that if this measure came into operation the expenditure consequent upon the relief of the poor would be considerably increased, because the guardians would not bestow upon the subject that care which they did at present. He had had some experience in these matters, and he found that the irremovable cases were looked after with greater attention than the parish cases, because they had, in too many instances, with respect to the latter class of MR. KNIGHT said, it seemed to him, applications, to leave the decision as to the that although the battle upon that quesamount of relief to the guardians of the tion had been hitherto fought upon strong parishes to which the paupers belonged. grounds, the strongest ground for opIf a guardian desired to be liberal in the posing a union rating had not as yet been treatment of particular cases, he could taken up. The only experience of a suggest to the Board of Guardians to deal Poor Law in the world, with the small favourably with them, but when there was exception of Denmark, was in England; a common charge every guardian would be and it they wished to ascertain the proanxious to save the pockets of the rate-bable results of any great change in regard payers of his particular parish. In 1855 to this subject they must look to the past the whole cost of the irremovable poor history of the English Poor Law. amounted to 48. 11d. per head of the popu- thought that history thoroughly established lation; in 1863 it was only 4s. 8d. There- this fact, that no forced charity, by means fore, if this Bill passed, the probability of a Poor Law, could be worked successwas that the expenditure upon poor relief fully over any areas of chargeability exwould be diminished. Much had been said cept the areas of natural charity-areas about the unequal way in which this mea- in which the rich and the poor were known sure would affect the farming interest, but to each other, and in which the money was he was disposed to believe that generally paid by those persons to whom, without a the farmers approved the Bill, and even if Poor Law, the poor would naturally turn they had to pay more rates it would for help in the hour of need. They would give them opportunities of obtaining la- find that there had been repeated instances, bour from more extended areas than at extending from the first commencement of present. A secretary to a farmer's club our Poor Law to the present generation, had written to The Times stating that the of large areas of chargeability having been question had been discussed at many meet- tried the result having been, in every ings of farmers, and the general, if not instance, a reduction of these areas of almost unanimous, opinion was favourable rating from the proved impossibility of to this proposition. It would enable them working them; and he felt quite certain, to have a greater number of persons from if this Bill passed, and large areas were whom they might choose their labourers; again established in England, that the it would remove the temptation to which moment a real pressure came upon the they were at present exposed of employing rates those areas would be found perfectly an inferior class of labourers, merely be- unworkable, whilst the greatest confusion cause they would otherwise have to support and misery would arise, and they would those people in the workhouse; and it have to be reduced again to the areas of would thus in some measure promote their natural charity. When employment was real welfare. He would only further re-pressing upon labour when men could He |