vvlOSANGEtj> 
 /^ ^ ^. <
 
 THE 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 MICHAEL THOMAS SADLER, 
 
 M. P. FOR NEWARK, 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS, ON THURSDAY THE THIRD OF JUNK, 
 ON PROPOSING 
 
 POOR LAWS FOR IRELAND, 
 
 PREPARATORY TO A 
 
 GENERAL MEASURE IN BEHALF OF THE LABOURING 
 CLASSES OF ENGLAND. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXXX. 
 
 Price One Shilling and Sirfience.
 
 .' 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 I'HIMtU BV MILLS, JOWETT, AN1> MILLS, 
 iiOLT-rol'MT, M.EBT-STREET.
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 5 
 
 SPEECH, &c. 
 
 IN rising to address the House on a subject which I have at 
 length obtained an opportunity of bringing under its consi- 
 deration, I feel how little probable it is that I should be able 
 to do justice to its vast and acknowledged importance: in- 
 volving, as it does, the highest principles, the best feelings, 
 and the most sacred rights of humanity ; a subject, Sir, not 
 of a mere theoretical and abstract nature, but one neces- 
 sarily practical and operative; nor affecting a particular 
 order or small part of the community only, but bearing first 
 on a numerous though unfortunate class of our fellow-beings, 
 and through them upon the rest, however affluent and ele- 
 vated ; and, moreover, one upon which opinions the most 
 varied, and indeed opposite, are confidently maintained, yet 
 each dictating a policy as essentially different. Then, Sir, 
 the circumstance of Parliament having so often entertained 
 questions of the nature I shall now submit to its attention, 
 and to so little purpose ; and having passed so many laws 
 with the view of bettering the condition of the poor, many of 
 which, it is now confessed on all hands, have been little re- 
 concilable, iu their operation, with their professed object, 
 will render the House, I fear, little disposed to attend to 
 suggestions of a similar nature ; while the fact that Com- 
 mittees are still sitting, I believe, on matters professedly 
 bearing on the question to which I am about to address 
 myself, may render my present course apparently the less
 
 necessary to be pursued. Sir, in approaching this subject, 
 I feel forcibly these great discouragements ; bat 1 shall not 
 desist, being still more deeply impressed with the duty I 
 have ventured to undertake, that of attempting a general 
 measure, the object of which will be to improve the condi- 
 tion of the labouring poor. To this ultimate and main 
 design, the resolution which I shall have the honour of sub- 
 mitting to the House on this occasion, important as I con- 
 ceive it to be in itself, is but a preparatory step ; it is one, 
 however, which I think is essential to the success of the 
 whole. But to bespeak, as far as I can, the favourable con- 
 sideration of the House, I will venture to state that neither 
 the proposition which I shall have to submit this evening, 
 nor the measure of which I wish it to be the precursor, is 
 the consequence of recent convictions, or new lights upon 
 the subject ; or the effect of some sudden and momentary 
 impulse ; much less are they suggested by personal views 
 and feelings : on the contrary, whether worthy of attention 
 or otherwise, they are the result of deep consideration, for- 
 tified by all the facts I have been able to accumulate, and 
 by that experience which has been gained by personally 
 engaging in the duties which the system I wish to improve 
 and extend imposes. The subject has long occupied my 
 best attention, and is one to which I have rendered my 
 recent pursuits subservient : however much, therefore, I may 
 fail in my attempt, I shall not incur the odium of having 
 obtruded upon the House what I have not fully consider- 
 ed, and do not believe to be eminently beneficial arid en- 
 tirely practicable. Upon the general measure, however, 
 which I hope to submit to this House, I will not now 
 enter, though fully prepared and anxious so to do when the 
 opportunity shall arrive, being thoroughly convinced that no 
 proposition in behalf of the industrious classes of society, 
 especially in England, can be of the least avail till a legal 
 provision for the poor of Ireland be first determined upon, 
 and carried into effect. Till then we may appoint Com- 
 mittees annually may enlarge the scope of their inquiries
 
 3 
 
 render their sittings perpetual we may listen to and put 
 into operation as many projects as we please ; or, to exo- 
 nerate from their duty private individuals, dip as deeply as 
 we have done into the public purse ; but till this measure l:e 
 adopted, which justice, mercy, and policy itself equally de- 
 mand, namely, the establishment of a Poor's Law for Ireland, 
 all these attempts will be in vain ; the unrelieved poverty will 
 not merely afflict the country in which it is thus deserted, 
 but it will reach this. The condition of the .English peasant 
 and artisan, already so much deteriorated, will be still further 
 debased, till at length they will be reduced to the miserable 
 state of those of Ireland ; and this once industrious, inde- 
 pendent, and prosperous community will be degraded into a 
 populace of paupers. Then, Sir, I fear it will be somewhat 
 too late to deal with a question which ought to have been 
 settled centuries ago, and which, if you mean to deal with 
 it at all, admits of little further delay. The interests of the 
 industrious poor of both islands demand that a legal provi- 
 sion should be enacted in behalf of the poor of Ireland, and 
 this is the proposition which 1 intend submitting to the 
 House on the present occasion, preliminary to a general 
 measure in favour of the labouring classes of the United 
 Kingdom. 
 
 The first argument, then, which I shall advance in behalf 
 of this proposition, is founded on the absolute necessity of 
 such a provision, as regards the labouring classes of Eng- 
 land. Much has been said of late concerning the necessity 
 of assimilating as closely as possible the institutions of the * 
 two Islands j the necessity of so doing, in this respect, is 
 abundantly apparent. The Union has not only identified 
 the legislatures of the two countries, but has given far greater 
 facilities to their mutual intercourse; and still more closely 
 even than that great measure have the invention and extensive 
 adoption of steam navigation united them, and placed them, 
 indeed, in point of practical effect, in closer contact than, for 
 instance, are the great and populous northern counties, with 
 this the metropolitan one rendering the international com- 
 
 B2
 
 munication, as respects the mass of the community, more 
 easy, cheap, and rapid. The effects are abundantly plain, 
 and in the present state of things irremediable. The insti- 
 tution of the Poor's Law of England encourages the demand 
 for and increases the value of labour, as well as abates dis- 
 tress ; in Ireland, in consequence of the want of such a law, 
 labour is discouraged and distress increased. The inevitable 
 result is the constant influx of numbers from the latter 
 country, which nothing but a better and uniform system will 
 ever prevent. 
 
 Other circumstances also conspire to make this defect a 
 still greater evil. If we consider the necessary consequences 
 of Irish absenteeism, and the great extent to which it is un- 
 happily carried ; the want of labour, exorbitant rents, and 
 the ruinous and oppressive system of underletting, to which 
 it gives rise; if to these evils are added the clearing of 
 farms, and driving forth the inhabitants at the pleasure of 
 those who are thus invested virtually, though not ostensibly, 
 with the power of life and death, and who are the means too 
 frequently of occasioning the latter ; if we also recollect 
 that steam navigation has, by facilitating the cheap and 
 speedy export of cattle, been another cause of that increase 
 in the size of farms and comparative diminution in the til- 
 lage of the country, which has dispossessed so many little 
 farmers and their labourers of their employment and their 
 homes j I say, if we take into consideration these and other 
 distressing facts, we are no longer at a loss to account for 
 that mass of misery which is in constant existence, and 
 which it is difficult to overrate or describe. Numerous little 
 cultivators, who, notwithstanding the parsimony of living to 
 which they submit, are barely enabled to sustain life, are 
 deprived of their last shilling, and sent forth at once without 
 the slightest provision, upon a country which yields them no 
 employment, and affords them no relief. Whither can they 
 direct their course ? Many who can proceed so far, find " a 
 distant home beyond the western main" more still repair 
 to this country, where they overstock the market of labour,
 
 and occasion in no inconsiderable degree that distress under 
 which our industrious population now suffers. Such, then, are 
 the undeniable consequences of the want of a provision for 
 the poor of Ireland similar to that of this country. The case 
 would be precisely the same in England, were the poor in 
 one half of it adequately provided for, and were they in the 
 other left totally destitute. The indigent in the latter part 
 would most certainly take refuge in the former, even though 
 not entitled to direct relief, but to share in the general advan- 
 tages which must ever result from such a system. The Irish 
 do so, and in increasing multitudes nor do I blame them. I 
 condemn those who refuse them in their own country that 
 relief in their distresses which justice and humanity equally 
 dictate, and which is rendered in every other civilized nation 
 upon earth. Thus is it that the want of a legal provision for 
 the poor of Ireland operates as a grievous injury on those of 
 England. The proprietors in the former island, being un- 
 der no obligation to sustain the unemployed, the destitute, 
 and distressed, have an interested and selfish motive, which 
 rn ay indeed be denominated a premium, for thus getting rid 
 of them and driving them forth to utter destitution, when 
 many of them necessarily take refuge here. They come 
 for employment and for bread. The market of labour here 
 is consequently overstocked, and its value greatly depressed 
 by the unnatural rivalry of those numbers who are annually 
 obliged to make this country their asylum. Thus is it that 
 in the field and in the factory, at the forge or at the loom 
 in every sphere of industry, the Englishman finds himself 
 interfered with, his wages greatly reduced, and himself in 
 many cases thrown out of employment. The poor creatures 
 who take refuge here, I repeat, I do not blame; absen- 
 teeism has deprived them of the means of subsistence, and, 
 in effect, expelled them from the country. I would there- 
 fore receive and relieve them till a better system is esta- 
 blished. In the mean time, however, I cannot refrain from 
 reprobating in the strongest terms the conduct of those who 
 cause these constant deportations. The interests of our own
 
 6 
 
 poor imperiously demand that those of Ireland should IK? 
 sustained ; nor are their interests alone concerned ; so great 
 and general have the evils which I have referred to become, 
 that it will, I think, be found ere long, that the rights of pro- 
 perty, as well as those of poverty, will require the same re- 
 medy; then indeed may the poor of Ireland confidently hope 
 for redress. 
 
 I come, therefore, to the proposition which I shall this 
 evening submit to the House, as introductory to others of 
 a more general character which I hope to have the ho- 
 nour of proposing to it on a further occasion, namely, that 
 there should be established in Ireland a legal provision for 
 the destitute poor. In attempting to recommend to the 
 attention of Parliament this proposition, it will be unneces- 
 sary to found my future argument on the claims that the 
 industrious classes of this country have that such a measure 
 should be adopted ; as it is in its nature one which, as 
 applied to any country whatsoever, is recommended, and 
 even demanded, by the plainest principles of justice, and by 
 the soundest views of policy; and one which the peculiar 
 condition of Ireland renders still more imperatively neces- 
 sary. 
 
 Sir, I approach the argument in favour of a Poor's 
 Law for Ireland, important and necessary as it unques- 
 tionably is, with the greater confidence of success, from 
 having observed that the ground of all the several pro- 
 positions which have been lately submitted to this House, 
 and some of them adopted, has been simply that of justice, 
 alterations of the most momentous nature, with some 
 of which I had the misfortune not to concur ; others of a 
 like kind which are still, it appears, contemplated : changes 
 affecting, I may say revolutionizing, many institutions which 
 had long been held sacred, have been all supported by the 
 simple argument of justice. No matter how ancient was 
 the principle to be attacked ; no matter how deeply rooted 
 the prejudices which were to be encountered ; no matter 
 how nearly individual interests might appear to be touched ;
 
 all these, it was, and still is agreed, ought certainly to give 
 way to the principle of human rights to the undoubted 
 claims of justice. I hail these appeals, however I may differ 
 sometimes as to their application ; I hail them more espe- 
 cially as regards my present motion, which is one, the justice 
 of which is perhaps more apparent and demonstrable, how- 
 ever considered, than any abstract legislative proposition 
 ever entertained. And if to justice be added another plea 
 hardly less sacred, certainly not less touching, that of mercy, 
 I cannot but think that it must be successful : that it will 
 prevail on this occasion, I cherish the strongest hopes ; but 
 that it will be finally triumphant I am fully certain. A mea- 
 sure which is equally dictated by the principles of reason, and 
 the feelings of humanity ; by the institutions of civilization, 
 and the rights and interests of society at large ; which has 
 been sanctioned by the highest authorities that have ever 
 existed, and adopted by every civilized country upon earth 
 cannot be withheld from that one island which, though form- 
 ing an integral part of the richest empire in the world, stands 
 forth as one of the most striking examples of misery which 
 Europe presents ; and in which, therefore, a national system 
 of charity is the most essentially necessary. Before touch- 
 ing, however, upon this right of poverty, it may be proper 
 to define what is meant by it. It is not put forth on behalf 
 of the poor, as a right to a division of any part of the real 
 property of the country ; on the contrary, it is one urged in 
 perfect consistency with all the just claims of property, how- 
 ever rigidly maintained, and by whomsoever expounded ; it 
 simply implies, a real and indisputable right that, after the 
 institutions of the country have sanctioned the monopoly 
 of property, the poor shall have some reserved claims to the 
 necessaries of life ; and that these claims shall be available 
 in the case of those only who may be smitten with sickness, 
 and consequently incapable of labour ; disabled by age or 
 incurable disease, and who can therefore labour no more ; of 
 that infancy which, left parentless and destitute, makes so 
 touching a demand upon our care ; of that state of wretch-
 
 8 
 
 edness, so common in Ireland owing to causes to which 
 I have already alluded, when those who are most willing 
 and even anxious to work can nevertheless obtain no em- 
 ployment : that these should be relieved in some humble 
 degree, so confined if you please, and limited, that the right 
 thus recognised shall make little even apparent inroad on the 
 amount of that wealth which shall be called upon to admi- 
 nister to these necessities ; but on the contrary, when duly 
 understood, should actually increase its advantages. Finally, 
 that all assistance should be administered in the form of re- 
 munerated labour, wherever the applicants are capable of it, 
 to those who are willing and anxious to earn their humble 
 pittance by the sweat of their brow. Such, then, are the 
 narrow limitations of the right we assert in behalf of human 
 indigence ; the bare right, of existence. 
 
 But, Sir, it forms a distressing feature in some of the sys- 
 tems now promulgated, that this right, which for a succes- 
 sion of centuries has never been denied, now begins to be 
 disputed. It lies at the foundation however of my proposi- 
 tion, and as such I shall attempt to uphold it ; not indeed 
 by any abstract arguments of my own, but by the unani- 
 mous reasonings and declarations of the highest authorities 
 that ever existed in the world, which I shall give in their 
 own language. In doing this I shall not allude to the in- 
 stitutions of the legislators of the free states of antiquity, 
 those of Greece and Rome, all of which it is well known 
 recognised the right of their citizens to legal relief, and 
 in a way so highly eulogized by many of their philosophers ; 
 nor shall I draw an argument at present from the still more 
 liberal and far more imperative and direct institutions of 
 Moses. I shall not appeal to the authority of the primitive 
 church before it was legally established, nor to its laws 
 when it became dominant, in favour of this right ; it may 
 buflfice to state that it was acknowledged and enforced by all 
 these, and by every argument, drawn from whatever source, 
 human or divine. I will rather prove my position by the 
 reasonings of those who have studied, in later times, the
 
 rights of mankind, and to whose exposition of them the 
 world continues to appeal ; only selecting, however, a very- 
 few of these, but those few of such an order as that num- 
 bers could add nothing to the weight and importance of 
 their authority. 
 
 First, Sir, I shall quote the celebrated Grotius, who has 
 expressed himself as to this natural right in his great work, 
 most explicitly. " Let us see," says he, "whether men may 
 not have a right to enjoy, in common, those things that are 
 already become the property of other persons." This is 
 putting the query in a strong point of view indeed; hence he 
 adds that " the question will at first seern strange, since pro- 
 perty seems to have swallowed up that right which one man 
 may lay claim to in common with the rest." " But this," 
 he says, "is a mistake ; for we must examine into the designs 
 and intentions of those who first introduced those particular 
 properties, which we may imagine to be such as deviated the 
 least from natural justice. For if even written laws are 
 always to be explained in that sense which comes nearest to 
 common equity, much more are customs which are uncon- 
 fined, and not at all chained down to the letter of the law. 
 Whence it follows that in cases of absolute necessity, 
 that former RIGHT of using things as if they still remained 
 in common, must revive and he in full force." He says, 
 moreover, that " such a RIGHT is for the preservation of na- 
 tural equity, against the rigour and severity of property and 
 dominion." He adds, indeed, that some precautions are to 
 be regarded, " lest this liberty should go too far," and points 
 out the very provisions which our own Poor Laws prescribe. 
 This profound authority goes on to say that " this is a re- 
 ceived opinion amongst all divines," and remarks that in the 
 original form of government there are these exceptions and 
 provisions. And he finally adds, what I am sure none will 
 controvert, " If they who were first concerned in that divi- 
 sion of things we now see, could be asked concerning this 
 matter, they would answer the same as we assert." Puffen- 
 dorf gives a somewhat different view of the subject, but
 
 10 
 
 expresses himself in still stronger terms, and more at large 
 upon it. Montesquieu also pronounces unhesitatingly in 
 favour of this right in his great work, where he says, " The 
 state owes to every citizen a certain subsistence." And 
 whenever it happens that among the numerous persons en- 
 gaged in different branches of trade some suffer, and he re- 
 marks upon the impossibility of a contrary supposition, he 
 further declares, " that then the state ought to afford in- 
 stant relief." I might quote many other writers, and indeed 
 all the foreign jurists, to the like purpose ; but I shall waive 
 any further appeal to them in favour of our own unrivalled 
 authorities. And to whom shall we first refer on this impor- 
 tant point ? Who is it that, occupying the very foremost 
 rank to this hour amongst the profoundest reasoners, and 
 the most unsullied patriots of this or any other nation, is the 
 best entitled to be heard ? The understanding of every one 
 who hears me will instantly respond, Locke. This great 
 master of human reason thus expresses himself: " Reason 
 tells us that all men have a right to their subsistence." " We 
 know," he again says, " that God has not left one man so to 
 the mercy of another that he may starve him if he please. 
 God, the Lord and Father of all, has given no one of his 
 children such a property in his peculiar portion, but that he 
 has given his brother a right to the surplusage of his goods, 
 so that it cannot justly be denied him when his pressing wants 
 call for it." He puts a case which the enemies of a legal 
 provision for the poor urge will inevitably happen, but which I 
 deny ever has, and I contend never will, namely, when this 
 right of poverty and distress shall press hard upon, if not ex- 
 haust, the property which has to support it a circumstance 
 which, I repeat, is wholly imaginary " what," says Locke, 
 " is to be done in this case ? I answer, the fundamental law 
 of nature being that all, as much as may be, should be pre- 
 served, it follows, that he that hath, and to spare, must remit 
 something of his full satisfaction, and give way to the press- 
 ing and preferable right of those who are in danger to perish 
 without it." Such is the deliberate doctrine of this great
 
 11 
 
 authority, the literary father of English liberty, who to an 
 understanding unmatched in its capacity thus united a be- 
 nevolence as unbounded. Blackstone, in his admirable 
 work adverting to this right of the poor, and to the com- 
 pulsory provision which it dictates, declares the Poor Law 
 to be dictated by the very principles of society. Lastly, 
 let Paley speak as to this point ; Paley, who, one of the 
 greatest ornaments of the last age, was the subject the other 
 night of the deserved eulogy of one of the most power- 
 ful tninds of the present day; Paley says, the poor have a 
 right to this provision, " a claim founded upon the law of 
 nature;" this he dwells upon at much length, concluding 
 thus : " When, therefore, the partition of property is rigidly 
 maintained against the claims of impotence or distress, it is 
 maintained against and in opposition to the intention of those 
 who made it, and to His who is the supreme proprietor of 
 everything, and who has filled the world with plenteousness 
 for the sustentation and comfort of ALL he sends into it." 
 Such are the opinions of Paley, and I might add to his those 
 of the divines of this country ; such as Tillotson, Sherlock, 
 Butler, and multitudes of others, who took no superficial or 
 fanatical views of the great doctrines of their religion, but 
 saw them in the lights of philosophy and truth. 
 
 I will not weary the attention of this House, by appealing 
 to the great lights of the law, such as Bacon, Sir Matthew 
 Hale, and many others, who are equally explicit, as to the 
 absolute right of the poor to legal and legislative relief. 
 So much, then, for the RIGHT of the poor. 
 
 Now if the right of the poor to relief in their distresses 
 be thus fully recognised, to urge the fitness and expediency 
 of its establishment would be to betray the argument instead 
 of supporting it. I may, however, just remark, that the 
 main question as to the policy of Poor Laws rests upon 
 their effect upon population, and, singular is it to say, 
 the two opposite notions on this important subject concur 
 in this, the expediency of a provision for the poor. Those 
 who imagine that such provision has a tendency to pre-
 
 Ifl 
 
 serve and increase the numbers of the people, and who 
 also believe, what the history of every country upon earth 
 has hitherto proved, namely, that with every such increase 
 the comforts, and even superfluities, of life are more 
 than proportionately augmented, and hence that growing 
 numbers under judicious and good management are only 
 other terms for augmenting prosperity, I say, such are of 
 course advocates for the preservation of the poor. On the 
 other hand, those who have imbibed the unhappy and erro- 
 neous notion that there is that in the principle of human in- 
 crease which has a constant tendency to excess, and conse- 
 quent misery, have now, I believe, many of them arrived at 
 the conclusion that Poor Laws have in their operation the 
 effect of checking, instead of unduly encouraging that in- 
 crease. Whichever view of the subject therefore is taken, 
 the expediency of a national provision for the poor is equally 
 acknowledged. 
 
 But it may be, and is often contended by those who object 
 to a legal provision, that an optional one would in all cases 
 be preferable. But I totally deny this, and, amongst many 
 others which I shall omit to enumerate, for these important 
 reasons : first, it would impose the duty of sustaining the 
 poor exclusively upon the benevolent, not always the most 
 numerous, and very rarely the most wealthy part of the 
 community ; laying upon them, if the poor should be ade- 
 quately relieved, an intolerable burden, from which too 
 many of those who ought to sustain their full share of it, would 
 wholly excuse themselves : then it would substitute, instead 
 of a regular and certain, a casual and variable supply, and in 
 many cases where relief is the most indispensable, and its ad- 
 ministration required with the greatest promptitude, it would 
 be deferred too late, or be totally and fatally withheld. It 
 would change a system which ought to be regularlv operative 
 and permanently organised, into one of chance and accident ; 
 or otherwise demand a complication of machinery, and an 
 individual attention in its management, which could never 
 be generally obtained or be rendered permanent. Finally, it
 
 kit 
 
 would change that provision which- is now administered, 
 so as least to degrade those who receive it who, notwith- 
 standing all the cruel assertions to the contrary, are some- 
 times the most deserving, though the most unfortunate, part 
 of the community for a system of disgraceful mendicancy, 
 with all its inseparable appendages of idleness, imposture, 
 and depravity. And here I must observe, what indeed 
 Hale has long ago asserted, that mendicancy cannot, on any 
 principle of justice or policy, be suppressed, where a legal 
 provision for the poor is not established. Common humanity 
 could not, under such circumstances, endure to contemplate 
 its discouragement. Hence, in every country where the poor 
 are not legally sustained, this national pest and disgrace, 
 mendicancy, is universally, and must remain perpetally, pre- 
 valent. 
 
 But, Sir, we have no authority whatever for substituting 
 an imperfect and uncertain obligation in lieu of a perfect 
 right, a right which, if it exists at all, is of the most sacred 
 and indefeasible character. And let me ask such as are for 
 thus defrauding the poor of legal relief, at the same time 
 that they acknowledge their right to it, how such an attempt 
 is reconcilable with the simplest ideas of justice? How they 
 would act regarding their own claims, not more sacred, not 
 more essential, than those of the poor, were similar proposi- 
 tions made to them ? Let me .ask, for instance, that sacred 
 profession, some few of the members of which (and thank 
 God they are but very few) are adverse to the demands of 
 the poor, whether they regard their own vested rights and 
 legal endowments in the same light as they do those of 
 poverty ? They are learned enough to know that the rights 
 which they are so anxious the poor should be bereft of, were 
 anciently, and from the first, not only pronounced to be of 
 the same nature, but were absolutely mixed up, nay indeed, 
 identified, with those of their own function ; that, on the 
 first appropriations of property to sacred purposes, the priest- 
 hood and the poor were invariably copartners ; and it is little 
 in the proper spirit of their benevolent calling, that know-
 
 14 
 
 ing the immense spoliations to which the poor have been 
 already exposed, such should earnestly exhort that the legal 
 provision which it was afterwards found necessary to enact 
 in their behalf, should also be abrogated ; and an optional, 
 variable, and uncertain relief substituted. Let these ask them- 
 selves whether, as ministers or professors, they would prefer 
 to depend on weekly and eleemosynary collections, extorted 
 by means of constantly repeated entreaties, or on those cer- 
 tain funds which the law has assured to them. If this ques- 
 tion needs an answer^ Burke has given it, but he has given it 
 in behalf of the pauper as well as of the priest that it is not 
 fitting that either should be left to the unsteady and precari- 
 ous contribution of individuals ; hence he has engaged for 
 this country, that it will never seek its resources from the 
 confiscation of the rights of the church, or of the poor. In a 
 word, if the poor have a right to relief, the attempt to sub- 
 stitute, instead of the perfect obligation it implies, an im- 
 perfect one, is a direct insult upon the plainest principles of 
 justice ; the poor, as Paley has emphatically asserted, being 
 legally as much entitled to relief, as the rich are to their 
 estates. 
 
 But there is a further view than is at first apparent in this 
 proposed substitution of an optional for a legal relief of the 
 poor, and it is this : the hope of getting rid of most of the 
 charge this duty implies by degrees, and at length, perhaps, 
 altogether. It is imagined, and indeed has been often said, 
 that some " little attentions," " cheap and simple presents 
 of courtesy," " kind words," and " affectionate language," 
 would sooth the sorrows and sufferings of poverty, so as at 
 length to coax it out of existence j at all events, education 
 would entirely cure the grievance, and be the annihilation 
 of that condition. But this idea is as absurd as it is selfish : 
 that " the poor will never cease out the land" the assertion 
 of the most ancient and sacred of the legislators of anti- 
 quity, whose institutions, nevertheless, were more favourable 
 to the relief of the condition of poverty, than any others ever 
 established in the world is true of every state of society,
 
 15 
 
 and will ever remain so. It is not possible to rid any 
 country of what many consider as its nuisance and dis- 
 grace, nor is it perhaps desirable, were it even possible. 
 The condition in which poverty stands in relation to wealth, 
 exercises the best feelings and noblest virtues of the human 
 heart, whether of compassion on the one hand, or of grati- 
 tude on the other ; its due relief reconciles the otherwise dis- 
 cordant elements of society, and unites in the bonds of interest 
 and affection the whole social system ; while, in a political 
 point of view, poverty, or rather the fear of poverty, which 
 could only be inspired by its actual existence, calls forth all 
 that activity, and animates all those exertions, by which not 
 only the independence of the individual is secured, but the 
 public prosperity enlarged and perpetuated. Meantime the 
 victims of misfortune, who lay claim to that humble pittance 
 which the law awards, and which nature stands ready to 
 bestow, have enough of sorrow and suffering in their cup of 
 life to prevent their voluntarily sinking into that condition 
 which some so falsely represent to be one, not only of idle- 
 ness, but even of indulgence and luxury. Yes, Sir, the 
 poverty we seek to relieve will never cease ; poverty of too 
 deep and distressing a character to be tickled by the readv 
 but empty hand of wealth, into mirth and pleasure. It would 
 neither satisfy our feelings nor the wants of those we wish to 
 relieve, thus to " carry about an alms basket of words," 
 serving our own selfish purposes, while we made pretence 
 of assisting the poor to exhibit the charity of the priest in 
 the fable, willing enough to give a blessing, but refusing to 
 bestow the least relief in a word, the " Be thou warmed 
 and be thou clothed" scheme of recent economists. " The 
 poor ye have alway with you," says the Author of Christianity, 
 and the obligation of solacing and supporting them he has 
 constituted one of the most important and onerous of all the 
 duties his religion prescribes, and one imposed principally 
 upon the wealthy, and not upon the poor and wretched ; 
 who, contrary, as it appears to me, to every principle of 
 reason and religion, are recommended by a great modern
 
 1G 
 
 authority to relieve each other's wants out of their "littles;" > 
 littles indeed they are in reference to their individual neces- 
 sities, but they would be much less were these unnatural de- 
 mands made upon them. A legal system of charity on the 
 contrary, in entire concurrence with the doctrines of religion 
 and common sense, " charges the rich," with the duty of 
 sustaining the poor in their affliction, and according to their 
 means. 
 
 But the most numerous and honest of the objectors 
 against a legal provision for the poor, disencumber them- 
 selves of these flimsy substitutes for the right in question, 
 and unhesitatingly assert it as their opinion, that the poor 
 ought to be made to sustain themselves in their afflictions 
 and distresses, by saving sufficient for that purpose. Nothing, 
 however, can exceed the absurdity of such a proposal. It is 
 not only absurd, it is impossible. Let us turn our attention 
 for a moment towards those who are the objects of relief. 
 The desolate orphan, for instance how is this forlorn being 
 to provide itself with this necessary fund ? or even the man 
 in the prime of life, just entered upon his active labours, 
 stricken suddenly by the act of God, as our ancestors ex- 
 pressed themselves, or wasted by lingering disease, or de- 
 prived of his limbs by some of those accidents to which his 
 employment too often exposes him how is he to amass 
 this fund ? Other peculiar cases, numerous as they are af- 
 flicting, might be presented ; but I go at once to the more 
 general condition of the poor, and totally deny the possibility 
 of this funding system, even regarding those of them wliose 
 health and strength have been the least interrupted. Let 
 those v.ho have the face to propose this plan to save their 
 own property, expound to us how the great bulk either of 
 the agricultural labourers or manufacturing operatives are to 
 save. The question is, how they shall exist ; and that, 1 fear, 
 is becoming rather problematical to hundreds of thousands 
 at this moment. And let them tell us next, to what amount 
 they must save to obviate the necessity of the poor's rate ? 
 A simple calculation will answer this. One hundred and
 
 17 
 
 fifty millions in the Savings Banks would not suffice. But 
 this is not all, nor yet the principal part of what the pro- 
 posal involves. As none of the working classes can foresee 
 en which of them those calamities which may need relief 
 will fall, so each must save in order to meet the average de- 
 mand : nor would even this be sufficient ; each must accu- 
 mulate so as to provide against not merely the average, but 
 the extreme cases of distress, in which manifold the ordi- 
 nary relief is required ; at least, if this assistance, which 
 exposes the distressed poor to these constant and vitupera- 
 tive attacks, is to be dispensed with. Why, Sir, a second 
 national debt would not suffice for this notable scheme of 
 destroying pauperism, by making the poor universal savers. 
 All the circulating medium, about which so much has been 
 said, paper or metallic, transferred at once into their pockets, 
 would go but a very little way to realize this absurd pro- 
 posal. 
 
 But supposing all these impossibilities fully surmounted ; 
 out of what part of their expenditure must the poor save 
 at all ? They must consume less food, especially animal 
 food, perhaps none of the latter ; they must deny themselves 
 the beverage which sustains and rewards their labour; 
 they must go henceforth in rags ; they must surrender those 
 comforts and decencies which, in the times of their pros- 
 perity, have rendered their cottages so unrivalled as the 
 abodes of industrious and contented labour. And should 
 they do this, as it is one of the plainest maxims in political 
 economy that the remuneration of labour bears a pretty 
 exact proportion to the habitual wants and expenditure of 
 those who render it, would not their wages fall in the same 
 proportion as their comforts had been sacrificed ? The 
 fact is, as Petty observed long ago, nothing but necessity 
 induces man to labour at all, and the bulk of mankind 
 will never labour beyond what is adequate to supply their 
 habitual wants. Besides, who does not see that if this 
 saving were possible and universal, it would, in point of fact, 
 be no saving at all ; or, at least, produce the effect of none ; 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 but our political economists argue from exceptions. But 
 supposing, I repeat, that this universal saving were possible, 
 and that there were no obstacles in the way of such a scheme, 
 do those who propose it recollect that the mass of the com- 
 munity are at once not only the sole producers, but the 
 principal consumers ? What then would be the effect of 
 this universal parsimony amongst the poor ? You would get 
 rid for the moment of some of your expense, but you would 
 nearly annihilate your income ; you would desolate your pas- 
 tures, close your manufactories, and empty your exchequer : 
 in a word, you would become national bankrupts, with 
 the consolation of knowing that you richly deserved your 
 fate, by carrying into execution a proposition of such infi- 
 nite folly and cruelty. 
 
 But the truth is, that those who argue this question upon 
 selfish, and therefore impolitic and unwise, grounds, too 
 often care but little what methods are adopted regarding 
 the poor, so that they involve no expense j in fine, they are 
 well content to leave poverty to find its own level, to adopt 
 the phraseology of the day, as applied to many other topics. 
 The consequences of such a course have been often and long 
 witnessed. In Ireland it is so left j hence the potatoe 
 system, as it is significantly termed, prevails, because none 
 other can ; hence rags constitute the clothing of the bulk of 
 the people ; hence their cabins justify the appellation which 
 Spenser so long ago applied to them sties, destitute of all 
 the decencies and comforts, and what would here be deemed 
 the necessaries, of life. Hence, also, in Scotland, where the 
 poor are only partially relieved, in conformity with this 
 wretched and degrading system, similar distress prevails. 
 As a most intelligent witness from that country deposed 
 before a Committee of the other House, " Where the Poor 
 Law is not introduced, there are a great many of the miseries 
 which are found in Ireland." And as this system, if it can 
 be called one, is recommended so strongly, and embraced so 
 eagerly, by those who deem all that is expended on poverty 
 a national loss, I shall just observe, with regard to Scotland,
 
 19 
 
 that the evils I have alluded to as being found 'where no legal 
 provision for the poor prevails, are there most conspicuous. 
 An authority to whom the British empire owes so much (Sir 
 John Sinclair), describes in one of his recent works the 
 wretchedness to which the Scottish poor are doomed, affirm- 
 ing that the greater proportion of the labouring classes of 
 that community hardly ever taste animal food. If we wish 
 for confirmation of this fact, it may be found in any authen- 
 tic accounts of the condition of those parts of Scotland 
 (the Highlands in particular) where no provision for the 
 poor is in operation. That condition has been fully described 
 in a late number of the " Quarterly Journal of Agriculture," 
 abundantly manifesting the superiority of the English sys- 
 tem. As to the wretchedness of their clothing, the discom- 
 fort and filth of their cottages (that filth which is always 
 the concomitant of abject poverty), and that disgusting men- 
 dicancy, which, as it is justly observed in the Edinburgh 
 Encyclopaedia, " is the pest that has long annoyed and op- 
 pressed her," none who have traversed those parts of that 
 country where the Poor Law is not administered need to 
 be reminded. And this is the condition to which the Le- 
 gislature of the United Kingdom is often most gravely and 
 piously implored to reduce the labouring poor of England ! 
 
 But I must observe, in passing, that there is a Poor Law 
 in Scotland, and of a nature very similar to that of this 
 country, in the sixth parliament of James VI., Act 71, it 
 was ordained that " the whole inhabitants within the parishes 
 should be taxed and stinted for the needful sustentation of the 
 poor and impotent, so that they may live unbeggared." I need 
 not recite other unrepealed acts ; if, is a well-known fact, 
 and has been recently solemnly adjudged in the courts of 
 Scotland, that there, as here, any individual in absolute want 
 has a legal claim to relief; and the refusal to yield it is there- 
 fore the result of a combination (conspiracy it ought to be 
 called) among the rich, to intercept the relief which God 
 and the laws award to any object of distress in that country 
 also ; a, direct contravention of the law, which deserves as
 
 20 
 
 much vituperative reprehension, and as strong threatening 
 of perdition, as, for instance, the evasion by a poor trades- 
 man of a twopenny stamp duty ; a divinity this of no mo- 
 dern date ; one which most scrupulously pays its petty 
 " tithes of mint, anise, and cummin," but utterly neglects 
 " the weightier matters of the Law ;" the Law of " justice 
 and mercy" as well as that of the land. 
 
 But, waiving further remarks on these culpable eva- 
 sions of the existing laws, I shall return to the main argu- 
 ment the right of the poor to relief. This right, so unde- 
 niably clear and obvious, reinforced by the best feelings of 
 humanity, and sanctioned also by the soundest policy, has 
 ever been acknowledged. The heathen legislators univer- 
 sally recognised it; all the free states of antiquity provided 
 for the constant support of their indigent citizens j those of 
 Greece especially, and in a manner which Aristotle, in his 
 Politics, eulogizes most highly. The historian of Greece, 
 our learned countryman Mitford, observes, that there was a 
 poor law in Athens. In Rome we are well aware of the con- 
 stant largesses bestowed on the poorer citizens. In her un- 
 fortunate rival, a similar provision prevailed. Beyond all 
 these, the more ancient institutions of the Jews, as estab- 
 lished by the greatest legislator and philosopher of antiquity, 
 to designate him by no higher appellation I mean Moses 
 fully recognised the right of indigence to relief, and legally 
 provided for it. His laws, which though often now regard- 
 ed as merely moral precepts, had in them, as Montesquieu 
 has observed, the utmost legal force, were framed originally 
 so as to protect and favour poverty more than any others ever 
 promulgated in the world, and yet they still prescribed a pro- 
 vision for that casual distress which, he saw and declared, 
 would, notwithstanding all his benevolent institutions, never 
 cease out of the land ; a provision which, transferred to this 
 country, would, at the present moment, according to a cal- 
 culation I have made, more than double the burdens imposed 
 upon us for the relief of the poor, grievously as we complain 
 of them. Those who have the slightest doubt upon the sub-
 
 21 
 
 ject will do well to consult the work of the learned Selden, or 
 his ancient authority Ben Maimon, whose exposition of the 
 laws of Moses in relation to the poor is still extant. I will 
 just remark, that, in addition to this ample legal provision 
 for the distressed, Moses constantly elijoined the exercise of 
 voluntary charity, in terms the most express, and enforced by 
 considerations the most touching and solemn. So much for 
 the dogrmis of those who unhesitatingly declare that a legal 
 provision for the poor is inconsistent with the exercise of 
 real and voluntary charity; an assertion which, as made in 
 this country, at once the most heavily taxed on account of 
 poverty, and still the most celebrated for its voluntary works 
 of charity and mercy, of any nation upon earth, is quite as 
 false in fact as it is in theory. 
 
 Can there be a doubt whether Christianity weakened the ob- 
 ligation to make a certain and adequate provision for the poor 
 that religion of which a writer so eloquently alluded to the 
 other evening, Bolingbroke, said, "that charity was its very 
 brand ! " Wherever that religion has spread, there have 
 legal institutions in behalf of poverty prevailed. In some of 
 its forms it may be doubted whether the provision has not been 
 carried to a culpable excess, increasing and perpetuating, by 
 actual and permanent temptations to idleness and improvi- 
 dence, that poverty it was intended only to relieve. History 
 informs us how early a Poor Law was introduced amongst our- 
 selves, ft was established by the father of our monarchy, and 
 the founder of our liberties, Alfred. He ordained, as one 
 of our earliest law books informs us, that the poor should 
 be sustained by the parsons and inhabitants of the parishes, 
 so that none should die for want of sustenance j a provision 
 substantially the same as that which is now happily establish- 
 ed amongst us. In all the Catholic countries of Europe we 
 know the extent and splendour of the endowments for the 
 poor. In the Protestant ones, another, and I think, a pre- 
 ferable, system prevails, namely, a direct Poor Law, which 
 connects moral superintendence with charitable relief. This 
 is the case, for instance; in Switzerland ; in Sweden ; in Den-
 
 mark ; in Norway. Even Iceland, poor as she is, is not too 
 poor to have a law for the relief of the indigent. Holland, 
 it need not be said, had very early in its history the same in- 
 stitution, and has long been a pattern to the world for the 
 exemplary manner in which the poor are there sustained. 
 In the Netherlands there is a similar law in full operation, 
 In France, where the spoliation of the Revolution ruined sa 
 many of the rich, and seized also upon the funds for poverty 
 and distress, the public revenue is beginning to be disbursed 
 for the relief of indigence, and a regular system is gaining 
 ground throughout the country. In the New World also r 
 where we had been taught by some to suppose that no poor, 
 nor laws for their relief, existed, we know, on the contrary,, 
 that the most liberal and efficient system of legal charity 
 ever established is in full operation, involving, as far as our 
 information hitherto extends, an expense to which even Eng- 
 land is a stranger. Thus, for instance, the poor of the city 
 of New York cost the public not far short of 200,000 dollars 
 annually, and those of Philadelphia upwards of 100,000; sums 
 which strike us as surprisingly large when we consider the 
 cheapness of provisions and the great demand for, and high 
 price of, labour, and what vast tracts of uncultivated lands 
 of the most fertile description are every where found. In 
 proof of the liberality with which our transatlantic brethren 
 sustain their poor, Dr. Dwight may be appealed to, or War- 
 den, who estimates the annual cost of their paupers as 
 amounting to forty-five dollars each. 
 
 I might extend these proofs of the universality of a national 
 provision for the poor even beyond the limits of Christendom. 
 It exists in the East, and especially in the Mahomedan 
 countries ; nay, even in China, where, notwithstanding the 
 present age has in extreme simplicity supposed the population 
 to be so excessive as to render it necessary for the people to 
 kill their children, and to eat almost any thing but each other 
 from sheer want, in China, Sir, there are poor laws, perfectly 
 adapted to the condition and habits of the country, in full 
 operation, and carried to an extent unknown in the Western
 
 23 
 
 World, affording a direct provision to all beyond a certain and 
 not very advanced age, and prescribing that lands shall be 
 awarded on advantageous terms to those who want employment 
 and subsistence; an institution to which, perhaps, the unrival- 
 led perfection of their minute cultivation, while that on a large 
 scale is confessedly so contemptible, may be fairly attributed. 
 Whichever way we turn, therefore, we see a system of national 
 chanty completely established, except in one country, and 
 that country is found, unhappily, in our own European em- 
 pire ; and, still more lamentable is the fact, in that part of it 
 where such an institution is more than in any other indispen- 
 sably necessary. But I shall not dwell further upon these 
 instances, though embodying as they do the feelings, prin- 
 ciples, and experience of mankind in all ages and countries 
 of the world, they are of the highest importance to the 
 argument. It is enough to have simply appealed to the 
 fact, that in almost every country under the sun where the 
 rights of human beings are at all recognised, and where the 
 public institutions are professedly founded upon them, there 
 is a legal provision made for poverty, which is the more 
 efficient the further such nations may be advanced in know- 
 ledge and character. So true is the observation of our great 
 moralist, Dr. Johnson, " A decent provision for the poor is 
 the true test of civilization." 
 
 Now, Sir, let us ask, Why is it that in Ireland, an integral 
 part of an empire which has long taken the .lead in every 
 thing charitable and excellent, and in providing for the 
 indigent more especially why is it that in Ireland this right, 
 recognised and established in every other civilized nation, 
 has been resisted to the present hour ? Is it that there is no 
 necessity for this provision, or that the Irish are a caste so 
 degraded that they have lost their natural right to it, or that 
 property is there absolved from the duty it owes to poverty, 
 by some undefined immunity which it enjoys in no other 
 country, and which it would be its lasting disgrace to plead, 
 even if it existed? or lastly, is it that there is no constantly 
 existing and unalleviated suffering in Ireland, which demands
 
 24 
 
 this systematic and perpetual relief? These suppositions, 
 Sir, are too absurd to be for one moment entertained, and I 
 wish not to mix up a subject so serious and important, with 
 the ridiculous. No, Sir, circumstances peculiar to Ireland 
 render the introduction of a national provision infinitely more 
 necessary there than in any other part of the empire. I 
 will again repeat some of its grievances : and first of these 
 that acknowledged bane of Ireland, absenteeism, which has 
 existed, and indeed gone on increasing, for many centu- 
 ries, abstracting the wealth, and lessening the demand for 
 labour ; its concomitants, under-letting, exorbitant rents, and 
 those clearings and drivings of the peasantry which render 
 their constant condition so wretched ; those fluctuations in 
 the seasons and the crops common to the island, that place 
 the unprovided multitudes at once on the very verge of famine, 
 and indeed often push many into its gulf; and, lastly, this 
 constant poverty, and occasional extreme want, superin- 
 ducing that disease which never wholly leaves Ireland, and 
 which is sometimes heightened to so frightful a degree, that 
 thousands are swept away in its dreadful ravages ', (a calamity 
 which all the medical authorities I have consulted, attribute 
 to an insufficiency of the necessaries of life;) I say all these 
 circumstances most loudly and solemnly pronounce the es- 
 tablishment of a Poor Law in Ireland as more necessary than 
 probably in any other country in Christendom. Nor must 
 we lose sight of the interests of the poor of this country, 
 which I repeat imperiously demand a regulation that should 
 prevent those influxes of labourers of every kind, who, either 
 starved out of their own country, or attracted to this by the 
 advantages of a superior system, are constantly crowding to 
 our shores, to the infinite detriment of our own industrious 
 classes. But regarding the justice and necessity of a pro- 
 vision for the poor of Ireland, in reference merely to their 
 own condition, I will beg leave to quote the authority of 
 an early and distinguished advocate for the measure, who 
 has put the argument in such a manner as to render it ir- 
 resist'ble, whether addressed to the understanding or the
 
 25 
 
 feelings, a writer, moreover, who published more than three- 
 score years ago, when the population of that country little 
 exceeded two millions and a half. I mention this to antici- 
 pate the objections of those who may choose to attribute the 
 misery of Ireland to excessive numbers, and who consequently 
 confine their remedies to recissory measures only whose 
 argument it is difficult to deal with, because it is quite as 
 regardless of historical facts as it is of patriotic feelings. 
 The admirable author to whom I allude is Dr. Wood- 
 ward, bishop of Cloyne. It is difficult to reject any part 
 of his reasoning, not a word of which is redundant; I must 
 however, on this occasion, confine myself to a few short ex- 
 tracts. He entitles his work " An Argument in Support of 
 the Right of the Poor of the Kingdom of Ireland to a National 
 Provision j " and it shows throughout, that he had then to 
 encounter an opposition founded on the pretended "enormous 
 expense, the exorbitance of the poor rates, &c.," of this 
 country ; or, in other words, the threatened " absorption of 
 rents," which is still so generally but falsely put forth as an 
 overwhelming objection. I shall first quote this excellent 
 prelate's opening sentence : "That the lower class of our 
 people are very ill accommodated with lodging, raiment, and 
 even food, is but too manifest to all who are acquainted with 
 their manner of living. That their poverty is like to continue 
 with but little mitigation, will be evident to any intelligent 
 man, who reflects on the following, among other causes of it: 
 the exorbitant rent extorted from the poorer tenants, ever 
 loath and afraid to leave their ancient habitations, by the 
 general method of letting farms to the highest bidder, with- 
 out any allowance of a tenant's right : the system of letting 
 large tracts of lands to undertakers, inured to tyranny and 
 extortion, as prejudicial to the landlord as to the under ten- 
 ant : and the low rate of the wages of labour. These cir- 
 cumstances, combined with some others, reduce the Irish 
 cottager below the peasant of almost every country in 
 Europe. Such is his hard condition, in the most plentiful 
 season, and in the prime of his health and strength : what
 
 then must be his state iu time of dearth, under the pressure 
 of years, infirmities, or even a very numerous family ? He is 
 a stranger to luxury, or even to decent accommodation, and 
 yet his wages seldom afford any reserve. On the death of 
 such a father of a family, dependent on his labours for their 
 main or perhaps entire support, how forlorn must be the con- 
 dition of his widow and orphan children ! It would shock a 
 tender mind, if imagination could paint the miseries to which 
 the bulk of the inhabitants of this kingdom are constantly 
 exposed by the slightest reverse of fortune ; by a single bad 
 season; byan accidental loss; by an occasional disease, or worn 
 down by the gradual decay of nature. Nor are these affect- 
 ing scenes confined to seasons of scarcity ; they must always 
 exist in a great, though not equal, number. They present 
 themselves, but too often to every country gentleman, and still 
 more to the clergy, in the exercise of their parochial duties 
 (to whose experience we appeal), to need a proof. They can- 
 not be doubted or denied by any, but those who shut their 
 eyes, or steel their hearts against them. So numerous, so 
 urgent and well known, are the distresses of the poor. Let 
 us now fairly estimate the sufficiency of the resources at pre- 
 sent subsisting for their relief. Our eyes will naturally be 
 turned first to the landed gentlemen, who derive their wealth 
 and importance from the labour of these men." (Is not this a 
 truth, and if so, is it no argument?) "Of these," continues 
 this clergyman, " many, perhaps a majority of the most con- 
 siderable, constantly reside in another kingdom ; and though 
 some of them may cast back a part of their superfluity on 
 those to whose industry they owe their all, yet it is to be feared 
 that such instances are very rare." " On the contrary," says 
 he, " it is too frequently urged, as a recommendation of Irish 
 property, that it is not encumbered with any tax for the 
 maintenance of the poor ! " He wonders how such a phrase 
 should be so familiarized to the ear of any wise or good man 
 as to lose its genuine horror. "If the sentiment were deve- 
 loped," he adds, "few would entertain it, and still fewer avow 
 it; no ingenuoius reader will therefore think it invidious or
 
 27 
 
 unnecessary, in this interesting argument, to lay open its 
 plain import, which is this : an estate in this country is repre-. 
 sented as peculiarly advantageous to the landlord, because, 
 though he may, and generally does, avail himself of the ut- 
 most profit that can be drawn from the labour of the tenant 
 (leaving him too scanty a present maintenance), he is never- 
 theless at liberty to abandon that labourer to perish, when he 
 is unable to work any longer. Is this boasted privilege either 
 honourable or desirable ? A wise man would not glory in 
 such an exemption, a good man would not claim it, and he 
 who wishes to enjoy, does not deserve it." He thus combats 
 the argument too often put forth in favour of depriving the 
 poor of their rightful claim to relief, for the purpose of sub- 
 stituting it by an optional sort of charity, a very favourite 
 notion with some, for reasons sufficiently obvious. " Jt can- 
 not be denied but that far the greatest part of our lands do 
 not enjoy the benefit of the proprietor's residence, and in 
 general the poor of these estates partake not of his charity. 
 Now," says he, " when we have weighed, on one side, the 
 extraordinary indigence of the whole peasantry, and allow- 
 ed, on the other, for the number of absentees from the king- 
 dom, the remoteness of many estates from the mansions of 
 the resident gentry (which together render it no uncommon 
 case to find a tract of country containing some scores of 
 square miles without one family of note), it will be intuitively 
 clear, that there can be no balance, nor indeed the least 
 proportion, between the necessities of the poor tenants and 
 the alms of their landlords." Then, regarding that method 
 of relief which some are so anxious should remain the prin- 
 cipal source of support in that country, and indeed become 
 so in this that of obliging the poor to sustain each other, 
 he expresses himself in terms of just indignation, both as 
 to the cruel selfishness and utter inadequacy of any such 
 mode. I will just quote further the words in which he sums 
 up his unanswerable argument in favour of the right of the 
 poor, agreeably to the plainest rules of reason and the funda- 
 mental principles of civilization. " Jt would be a waste of
 
 28 
 
 words," says he, "and a disgrace to reaoning, to labour 
 to prove a point so clear as this, that the richer members 
 of society, who are the minority, have no right to ex- 
 clude the lower class, who are a majority, from any por- 
 tion of the public patrimony, without securing to them 
 the resource of a subsistence ; when they must otherwise 
 be reduced to the dreadful alternative of breaking through 
 those regulations, or of perishing by a dutiful observance 
 of them." The Bishop goes on to particularise those to 
 whom he would have the relief which a national provision 
 would ensure, administered. They are : 1. The infant poor. 
 2. The sick poor. 3. The aged poor. Alluding to the 
 latter, he has this remark : " If at the close of life they be- 
 come a burden, and having only to plead their former ser- 
 vices, they have not that plea allowed from reasons of policy, 
 it would be a still higher degree of economy, and even 
 mercy, to adopt the refined Indian policy of putting an im- 
 mediate end to them." Even as it regards the improvident 
 and profligate poor, this admirable Christian philosopher 
 would not warrant their utter desertion, though as compared 
 with the unfortunate merely, he would make a just and pro- 
 per distinction. And who could determine otherwise, that 
 is conscious of his own imperfections or his duties ? I will 
 terminate my quotation from him with what he says on this 
 subject : " If we may, without injury to the state, (and 
 must, if we expect mercy ourselves,) relieve the distress, 
 though we blame the cause, wherein consists the inexpediency 
 of obliging those of the rich, who are too distant or dissi- 
 pated to know, or too callous to regard, the misery of the 
 poor, to contribute to its relief, and not to throw the whole 
 burden, as at present, on the resident, the considerate, and 
 the benevolent ; for a legal provision has this double advan- 
 tage over voluntary alms, that it is at once more equitable 
 to those who pay, and more equal and effectual to those who 
 receive. But if no reasoning can justify such obduracy as 
 would permit a wretch to languish without help in age and 
 sickness, because he had not made a provident use of hit
 
 29 
 
 health and strength, on what principle shall we conclude, 
 from the imprudence of the parent, against all compassion 
 to the orphan children ? On what pretext shall we exclude 
 from the public care the distresses of the laborious and fru- 
 gal, which were owing neither to their own nor their parents' 
 political sins, but took their rise from high rents and low 
 wages ; from the scarcity of food, or the check of a manu- 
 facture ' } from the sudden increase of family, or the death of 
 cattle ; from disease, unassisted by medicine, and, in conse- 
 quence perhaps of that want of help, the untimely loss of 
 an industrious father ?" He goes on to state many other 
 facts and reasons in behalf of the introduction of legal relief 
 for the poor of his country, and has answered by anticipa- 
 tion, most ably, all that has been urged against so excellent 
 a measure. He has shown its peculiar necessity and fitness, 
 and the other advantages with which it would be attended, 
 even in reference to important objects other than merely 
 that under his consideration. To the honour of his function 
 and of his memory, he was one of the first, if not the very 
 first, who pressed upon the public, at any considerable length, 
 the necessity of the extension of national relief to the poor 
 of Ireland. His proposition, which I now re-urge in this 
 House, may perhaps be awhile resisted; but backed as it 
 is by the highest duties and best feelings of humanity, it 
 will assuredly prevail. 
 
 But it may be said that the distresses under which Ire- 
 land laboured, when her population was so scanty, have 
 much abated since it has so greatly enlarged, and that, 
 therefore, this national institution of charity is the less ne- 
 cessary. Sir, I am as fully aware of the advantages of an 
 increasing population, under proper regulation, as any man, 
 but in no state of society can poverty be wholly abated ; in 
 none will it be found in such a condition as not to demand 
 constant and permanent relief; and in that of Ireland least 
 of any. Sir, it is unnecessary for me, I think, further to 
 describe the state of destitution in which Ireland is still 
 plunged, and from which it will never be extricated till you
 
 30 
 
 adopt a permanent system of relief. The condition of the 
 peasantry is known to most Gentlemen who hear me, it is 
 known to myself and I speak on that knowledge, and on 
 the authority of numerous documents that I might adduce, 
 some of which I have recently received from various parts, and 
 one this day, of an affecting character, from the metropolis of 
 Ireland; but with extracts from these, however, I shall not now 
 distress the House: I will merely point to the miserable condi- 
 tion of the country when one of those visitations befals it, 
 which a material deficiency of the crop invariably occasions. 
 This will give more distinctly the features of that misery which 
 constantly prevails there, though with considerable fluctua- 
 tions. The failure of a crop not only causes that general 
 distress to which the prelate I have just quoted so touch- 
 ingly alludes, but it superinduces that disease which is still 
 more dreadful ; so that whatever has been the state of popu- 
 lation, whether large, as at present, or small, as in former times, 
 that epidemic has constantly prevailed in the country, which 
 on these lamentable occasions has rapidly spread, and pro- 
 duced consequences the distressing nature of which can hard- 
 ly be exaggerated. But the destitution which oppresses so 
 large a part of the people, and its effects, are constantly ex- 
 perienced ; like a lingering disease, which is often as afflic- 
 tive in its partial remissions as in its exacerbations, and, per- 
 haps, in the instance of Ireland, more deplorable, as in the 
 extreme cases the sympathies of the Empire are excited, and 
 relief is at last, though tardily and imperfectly, administered. 
 Now, Sir, we learn from all the best authorities on the sub- 
 ject, that the fever which has so long returned upon Ireland 
 as its deadly scourge, and which its medical writers pro- 
 nounce to be never wholly extinct, arises from the suffering 
 and distress, the wretchedness and penury, to which the peo- 
 ple are constantly exposed, and of which they are so often 
 the victims j and from the recurrence of which nothing but 
 an organized system of national relief, and funds supplied 
 for that purpose by law, will ever secure Ireland. Look at 
 the last of these painful visitations. Was it fitting that the
 
 31 
 
 country should have then been without a legal and national 
 charity ? The death of thousands, and the ruin of tens of 
 thousands, are plainly attributable to this infamous neglect. 
 The fever originated, as Drs. Barker and Cheyne observe, in 
 their valuable history of that pest, in a great measure from 
 want and destitution, heightened by the melancholy and 
 gloom which fell upon the people from a sense of their ut- 
 terly hopeless condition. Deprived of labour and of bread 
 by the evils to which I have before repeatedly alluded; many 
 of them driven forth from their habitations totally destitute 
 and unprovided for, they subsisted solely upon casual gleanings 
 of unwholesome food, unnatural and disgusting to human 
 beings ; even the relief derived from mendicancy was often 
 denied to them, for, as the same writers observe, the mov- 
 ing mass of hopeless misery which was then afloat, was 
 frequently repulsed from the towns into which it sought 
 entrance in the hope of relief some died of direct famine, 
 and many of the same dreadful evil in a more lingering form, 
 neglected and deserted in their cabins or their "fever huts;" 
 or wholly without habitations or shelter of any kind, ex- 
 hausted and overcome with disease, not a few of them expired 
 in the highways and hedges. Sir, the volumes I hold in my 
 hand give most afflicting proofs of these dreadful statements ; 
 and though they never directly advert to the proposition 
 to which I am addressing myself, but merely comprise a 
 record of facts, they present the strongest evidence in favour 
 of a system of legal charity that could possibly be adduced. 
 But how melancholy are their contents ! They are like the 
 roll described by the sacred seer of old, written within and 
 without with mourning, lamentation, and woe. I had in- 
 tended to read from these official reports a few statements 
 as an evidence of their general contents ; but I forbear to 
 fatigue too much this House in this necessarily long discus- 
 sion. * Let it suffice to say that these accounts verify the 
 
 * " A volume might be filled with instances in proof of the 
 distress occasioned by. this visitation of fever, amongst a people
 
 32 
 
 fact of the constant existence of fever in Ireland, and attri- 
 bute it to the poor and scanty food, the insufficient clothing, 
 and the wretched habitations of the people- They describe 
 the poor, in many parts of Ireland, as having then sub- 
 sisted on the unwholesome and unnatural food gleaned from 
 the fields, or from the putrid remains of fish gathered on the 
 shores ; and that even these supplies were insufficient ; 
 but I shall not harrow up the feelings of the House, by fur- 
 ther adverting to the distressing details these volumes pre- 
 sent. Sir, will any man assert that optional charity did or 
 could perform the duties the country owed to its distressed 
 poor, in scenes and at a season like this ? Can any one 
 dare to assert that in point of fact the poor were adequately 
 relieved at this peridd, or that the wealthy of Ireland and 
 
 already exhausted by the privations consequent on want of em- 
 ployment, and scarcity of food. In parts of the country remote 
 from the capital, we have heard frequent mention of, and have 
 seen what were termed, fever huts. These were wretched struc- 
 tures of mud or stone, not exceeding four or five feet in height, 
 erected at the road sides, or in the corners of fields, for the pur- 
 pose of receiving persons attacked with fever ; either members of a 
 family, removed there for the purpose of preventing the extension 
 of sickness, or wretched wanderers in search of food or employ- 
 ment, thus compelled to struggle with a formidable disease on 
 the damp ground, with little covering but the miserable clothing 
 worn by day, and scarcely protected from the inclemency of the 
 weather by the shed of straw or boughs which formed the roof of 
 this wretched habitation. Although such precautionary measures 
 were adopted by the poor to prevent fever, arising from their con- 
 viction of its contagious nature, yet in numerous instances those 
 whom the disease had seized were obliged to occupy the same 
 bed with the healthy, thus extending infection through a whole 
 family ; and when several individuals, so circumstanced, had 
 been involved in this calamity, the dead have remained for days 
 by the side of the languishing survivors." 
 
 The following is an extract from the report of one of the phy- 
 sicians, Dr. O'Leary, which immediately succeeds the foregoing 
 statement: " Three or four patients have literally died in the 
 streets, or by the side of the ditches, for many were obliged to 
 sleep in the fields. Fever huts were erected on the passage to 
 the church, either on or near all the public roads, and on the fair 
 field. One of these remained, occupied by a sick family, on the
 
 especially the absentees made even an attempt for that pur- 
 pose ? Let me not, however, be understood to affirm that 
 distress so overwhelming perpetually prevails there I do not 
 say that it always rose to that height j but a dark flood of 
 suffering constantly rests upon that unhappy country, though 
 ever and anon a swelling wave may thus sweep over its 
 surface, and ingulf it in deeper and more universal misery. 
 But though, Sir, equal distress may not always exist, yet I 
 do maintain that much prevails at all times which demands, 
 as it admits of, constant relief, and much that nothing but the 
 introduction of a legalized national charity will ever perma- 
 nently alleviate. 
 
 In further and full proof of the constant existence of this 
 
 fair day, to the terror of those who attended the September fair. 
 A woman of the family died since by the ditch side, of a relapse. 
 In ascertaining the persons to be relieved from the Government 
 charity, I have gone into a hut, where, owing to the lowness of 
 the entrance, I could only feel the pulse of the four inmates, a 
 lather and three children, of the name of Stunton. There were 
 also two grown-up daughters, who were obliged to remain for 
 several nights in the open air, not having room in the hut till the 
 father died, when the stronger of the two girls forced herself into 
 his place. On the road leading to Cork, within a mile of this 
 town, I visited a woman, of the name of Vaughau, labouring under 
 typhus ; on her left lay a child very ill ; at the foot of the bed an- 
 other child, just able to crawl about; and on her right, the corpse 
 of a third child, who had died two day previously, and which the 
 unhappy mother could not get removed. When the grant arrived 
 from Government, I visited a man of the name of Brahill, near the 
 chapel-gate, who, with his wife aud six children, occupied a very 
 small house, all of them ill of fever, with the exception of one 
 boy, who was so far convalescent as to creep to the door to receive 
 charity from the passengers. These are a few of the instances of 
 the wretchedness which prevails in this town." 
 
 Dr. Osborne, of Cork, stated, that in one instance, a physician, 
 in attendance on the poor, had to separate two children from the 
 bed of their dead brother, the father and mother being already in a 
 fever hospital. In another instance, he had to remove an infant 
 from the corpse of its mother, who had just expired in a hovel. 
 
 " The following is an extract of a communication received by the 
 Editors of this work from Mr. Nolan, of Wicklow, which' may also 
 serve to exemplify the distresses of the poor in Ireland from the
 
 34 
 
 general suffering and distress in Ireland, I will make a last, 
 and I think decisive, appeal, not founded upon mere per- 
 sonal observation, nor dictated by any authority, however re- 
 spectable, but having in itself the force of obvious and irresis- 
 tible truth. In the last census of Ireland, the exactness 
 and accuracy of which does the highest credit to Mr. Mason 
 Shaw, the population, as in this country, is divided into ages. 
 And, Sir, making the children in each country, under five 
 years old, to be the radix of the calculation, to every 10,000 
 of these there would be in England, according to the last 
 census, 15,704 persons at and above the age of forty ; where- 
 as in Ireland there would be 11,522 only: above the age 
 of fifty, the number in this country would be 9416, in 
 Ireland 6483; the former exceeding the latter by one half; 
 
 same cause : ' Previous to the opening of the hospital, many in- 
 stances of extreme misery occurred : I would particularize the fol- 
 lowing ; Ellen Fagan, a young woman, whose husband was obliged, 
 in order to seek employment, to leave her almost destitute in a mi- 
 serable cabin with three children, was induced one night to give 
 the shelter of her roof to a poor beggar, who, it appears, had fever. 
 The consequence was that she caught the disease ; and from the ter- 
 ror and alarm created in the neigh bourbood, was, with her three chil- 
 dren, deserted, except that some persons left a little water and milk 
 at the window for the children one about four, another three years 
 old, the third an infant at her breast. In this way she continued 
 for a week, when a neighbour hear dof her distress, and sent her a loaf 
 of bread, which was left in the window. Four days after this he 
 grew uneasy about her, and one night he prepared some tea and 
 bread, and taking a female servant with him, set off to her relief. 
 When he arrived, the following scene presented itself: in the win- 
 dow lay the loaf where it had been deposited four days previously; 
 in one corner of the cabin, on a little straw, without covering of 
 any kind, lay the wretched mother, actually dying, and her infant 
 dead by her side, for want of that sustenance which she had not 
 to give ; on the floor lay two children, to appearance dying also of 
 cold and hunger. At first they refused to take any thing, and he 
 had to force a little liquid down their throats ; in a short time 
 they revived, and with the cautious administration of food re- 
 covered the effects of their suffering. The woman expired before 
 the visitor quitted the house.' This report adds that those in 
 comfortable circumstances were very rarely affected by this terrible 
 epidemic." See Barker and Cheyne's Account of the late Epi- 
 demic Fever in Ireland, . Passim.
 
 above sixty, in England the proportion is 4980, in Ireland 
 2560 nearly double therefore are found in existence in the 
 former country ; upwards of seventy, in England there are 
 1950, in Ireland 778 j above eighty, here 440, there only 
 155. I am aware that there are considerations which would 
 somewhat abate these grievous disproportions, were a great 
 degree of precision necessary ; they are not however of such 
 a nature as could disturb the melancholy conclusion at which 
 we must arrive, on examining these facts. Such then is the 
 effect of leaving the poor unprovided for, upon the health and 
 even life of the wretched victims of poverty and disease thus 
 deserted, There may be those, by possibility, who will re- 
 gard this statement as highly satisfactory ; they who, inveigh- 
 ing against a supposed redundancy of population as the main 
 source of national distress, have come to the complacent con- 
 clusion, that the rich alone ought to be the monopolists of 
 existence as well as property, and that the poor have, in no 
 case, " any claim as of right to the smallest portion of food" 
 (I quote one of them) and, consequently, in the instances 
 which I would remedy, no right whatever to live. But if 
 reason and truth did not put down such horrible notions, the 
 feelings and rights of human nature speedily would, the mo- 
 ment they became practically adopted. 
 
 But, Sir, supposing that, equally regardless of the claims of 
 justice and the feelings of pity, we were to reduce the right of 
 the poor to relief to a mere argumentum ad crumenam, even 
 then I think, on referring to the expenses incurred in Ireland, 
 ostensibly on their account, we should find that mere economy 
 demands a national provision. First, if we advert to those 
 largesums included in the grand jurypresentments,professedly 
 appropriated to the employment of the poor, but which, it is 
 as notorious as the sun at noon-day, are often nothing better 
 than direct jobs, corrupting the rich, instead of relieving the 
 destitute ; and, secondly, if we consider the indirect expenses 
 the present pernicious system involves, which also form so large 
 and melancholy an item in the same accounts, namely, the 
 charge of prosecuting and punishing, imprisoning and trans- 
 
 D 2
 
 porting, those whose offences originate in abject poverty and 
 want of employment, which, as Sir Matthew Hale argues, fill 
 the prison, and feed the gallows and the gibbet, and if to 
 these immense disbursements were added, as I am persuaded 
 there ought to be, much of the expense the constabulary esta- 
 blishment occasions, and no inconsiderable part of that of the 
 standing army there, which is mainly necessary to put down 
 those disorders which, as a late Secretary of Ireland well 
 observed, have constantly originated in local distress or op- 
 pression ; then, Sir, I think it would be seen that by that 
 change of system which should substitute charity for coercion, 
 you might gain millions. You would gain more than those 
 millions, in the peaceful and gratified demeanour of an af- 
 fectionate peasantry; in their awakened gratitude and devo- 
 tion to a country and a constitution which had at length 
 considered them in their low estate, had relieved them in 
 their distresses, and given them a heritage, however humble, 
 in the land of their fathers. Nor would the advantages rest 
 even here, great as these are; in giving employment to those 
 that are in that idleness which is now sustained, and which con- 
 sumes, like a canker, the national resources employment, 
 which ought to be rendered indispensable to any system of 
 relief you would contemplate to introduce, and for which 
 there is in Ireland a present sphere beyond any other coun- 
 try upon earth, you would develop the resources of the coun- 
 try, add to its fertility and multiply its wealth ; and con- 
 nect with all these mighty advantages a perpetuity of pros- 
 perity which nothing thenceforth could disturb or destroy. 
 
 Yes, Sir, notwithstanding the repeated and confident as- 
 sertions to the contrary, there is not in the world a sphere 
 where human labour might be more beneficially employed ; 
 whether on the millions of uncultivated acres, now wholly un- 
 productive, or on those which, though cultivated, are not, 
 with reference to their potential productiveness, half tilled ; 
 or in those inexhaustible mines of wealth beneath the fertile 
 surface, hitherto almost wholly unexplored in many of the 
 noble rivers of the island, on all its shores, and, sur-
 
 rounding these, in those wastes of the ocean which offer 
 their supplies with unfailing certainty, and in quantities li- 
 terally inexhaustible, means, Sir, of profitable employment 
 arise in every direction ; of employment, which would at once 
 advance the people in all the arts of civilization ; invest the 
 country with additional health and beauty, and crown it 
 with increasing plenty. Strange that while nature herself 
 thus solicits us to engage in those magnificent tasks, which 
 await future generations, it should be the present policy to 
 slight the means by which they can alone be accomplishedj 
 ^human beings ; to pronounce these redundant in num- 
 bers, and expel them from the country on pain of starving 
 them in it. 
 
 Under all these circumstances, then, and after mature con- 
 sideration, I have arrived at the conclusion that not only is a 
 legal provision for the poor in Ireland the most just and ne- 
 cessary, but that it would be the most beneficial of all national 
 measures. It would discourage idleness ; it would raise 
 the value of labour, now so distressingly low ; it would pro- 
 mote economy and dispense comfort j it would ensure peace 
 nay, it would diminish the expenditure, as well as the suf- 
 fering and destitution, of the country ; it would not only be a 
 blessing to the poor, but a boon to the benevolent, by com- 
 pelling those who are the main cause of creating and aggra- 
 vating the general distress, to contribute to its relief, the 
 absentees j in one word, it would equally advantage every 
 class of society, the benefactors and the benefited ; and, 
 in the literal meaning of the term, it would be that mercy 
 which is "twice blessed, which blesseth him who gives and 
 him who takes." 
 
 But there are objections, as applied to the introduction of 
 this institution into Ireland, which are supposed to be pecu- 
 liar to that country, and fatal to the proposition. The chief 
 of these, indeed the only one at all worthy of notice, is this, 
 that there is not the machinery there necessary to its due 
 execution. But, Sir, I am fully persuaded that when this 
 objection is duly considered, it will rise into an additional
 
 V 
 
 argument for the necessity and policy of the measure. If it 
 did not find that machinery, it would create it : it would 
 either call forth the active exertions of those who are at 
 present culpably negligent of their duties, or it would force 
 back those who have wholly deserted them and their coun- 
 try ; it would act upon those minds insensible to higher 
 and better motives, by an inducement to which such are 
 alone sensible, self-interest ; it would interpose in its prac- 
 tical effect a barrier against cruelty and spoliation, however 
 powerful ; in a word, it would constitute property the guaran- 
 tee of the rights of humanity. But, Sir, let us hear no. 
 more of this want of machinery. When the work of ex- 
 action has to be perpetrated; when the demands of the 
 landlord or the law have to be realized ; when the peasan- 
 try of a district, reluctant and agonized, have to be driven 
 forth from the homes of their forefathers a sight which 
 never grieves the eye or wrings the heart in this country, 
 thanks to the Poor Laws of England ; then, indeed, the 
 machinery is at hand, and it is omnipotent for its purpose : 
 but when the work of mercy is to be accomplished ; when 
 the sufferings of humanity have to be assuaged, and the 
 duties we owe to our fellow beings discharged, that there 
 could be no machinery found or created to effectuate such 
 beneficent designs, is inconsistent with reason, and an insult 
 upon our common nature. Sir, the supposed absence of that 
 machinery which 1 maintain the enactment of Poor Laws for 
 Ireland would either recal or create, is of itself no mean ar- 
 gument in favour of this just, merciful, and necessary mea- 
 sure. The moral police, which this system would inevita- 
 bly establish, would of itself be worth all the expense it 
 would involve. But, Sir, the assertion that there is now no 
 machinery in Ireland, for so great and beneficial a purpose, 
 is a libel upon the entire country. That bravery which is 
 the characteristic of Ireland, assures us of its inseparable as- 
 sociate, compassion j and I hesitate not to say, that, confi- 
 ded to the middle ranks of society there, the funds of 
 mercy would be as religiously guarded, and as conscicnti-
 
 39 
 
 ously appropriated, as in any community upon earth. Were 
 there, however, no machinery at hand, it would become the 
 duty of the Government to furnish it; and to do so, it might 
 have been thought would be one of the easiest and most 
 grateful tasks which could be imposed upon them j less diffi- 
 cult at all events, it may be presumed, than those which they 
 often undertake, when the public coffers have to be replenished. 
 But to dismiss this, and many other objections, in order to 
 attend to the one which, however disguised, I believe to 
 be the great, if not the only, impediment to the measure, 
 namely, the vast and growing expense which it is believed 
 this institution would demand. And, Sir, this paramount 
 objection is grounded upon a gross misconception, as to the 
 supposed progress and effect of the Poor Laws in England, in 
 a pecuniary point of view. I had meant, Sir, to enter into this 
 part of the subject much at large, aware, as 1 am, of its im- 
 portance to the argument. But I shall confine myself, in defer- 
 ence to the House and on account of the fatigue I have al- 
 ready occasioned it, to a very few statements. And, first, I 
 utterly deny that the Poor Laws of England have occasioned 
 a great and increasing expense. I hold in my hand, Sir, 
 ample and irrefragable evidences of that important fact ; 
 from which, however, I shall only select a very few. Soon 
 after the establishment of our national charity, the expense 
 of maintaining the poor equalled one-third of the public re^ 
 venue : it now amounts to one-ninth of it only. Jn 1680, 
 the amount of the Poor Rates of England and Wales was 
 665,362, still one-third of the revenue, and bearing the same 
 proportion to the exports. In 1/76, the same institution 
 imposed upon us a relatively diminished expense, namely 
 J>2,000,000, or one-fifth of the revenue, and one-seventh of 
 the exports : while now the same expense is only equal to 
 one-eighth part of the entire amount of the national revenue, 
 or to about ^6,500,000, one-tenth of the exports ; the actual 
 disbursement having, in the mean time, diminished, as calcu- 
 lated from 1818, above one million sterling. I shall not re- 
 fer to the fallacious returns of the year* 1747, 1748, and
 
 40 
 
 1749, though they have of late been made the radix of the 
 erroneous calculations that have been constantly put forth, 
 officially or otherwise, on the subject; as it is a notorious 
 fact, and one recorded in the histories and Parliamentary 
 proceedings of the time, that they were so grossly deficient 
 as to be utterly worthless ; and I therefore call upon those 
 who present those statements, year after year, to the public, 
 either to withdraw or substantiate them. Even the two sub- 
 sequent returns erred greatly in deficiency, as Mr. Gilbert, 
 a Member of this House, at whose instance they were ob- 
 tained, and who devoted his parliamentary life to the subject, 
 asserted. And yet these also are now constantly published 
 without his rectifications, prejudicing, therefore, the cause of 
 the poor, and misleading this House and the public, on so 
 important a point as that of the relative increase in the ex- 
 pense of sustaining them. - 
 
 - Then, Sir, the increase in the number of the poor has 
 been equally mis-stated. To give but one among the many 
 proofs which present themselves on this point : in the latter 
 part of the seventeenth century, Gregory King, one of the most 
 accurate statistical writers this country ever produced, cal- 
 culated their number, including children, at 900,000. They 
 were in 1803, when the children were also included, increased 
 by one-tenth only a great relative diminution therefore. 
 Advert to the difference in the population, and not a single 
 word by way of comment is necessary. In a word, the ex- 
 pense occasioned by the poor, and the number of those 
 chargeable, has ever been the fruitful topic of declamation ; 
 but when seriously and fairly considered, we shall be com- 
 pelled to coincide with one of the most intelligent and la- 
 borious writers that ever discussed this important subject, 
 (Sir Frederick Morton Eden,) who, after making his historical 
 collections regarding them, occupying three quarto volumes, 
 comes to this conclusion " The rise in the Poor Rates has 
 has not kept pace with other branches of national expendi- 
 ture, -or even with 1 our increased ability to pay them." This 
 opinion will be yet more striking, when it is considered that in
 
 41 
 
 the sums set down at present as the charges of the poor, one- 
 fourth at least is disbursed as the mere wages of labour, 
 owing to the pernicious system which now generally prevails 
 in certain districts. 
 
 I had meant to have contrasted the system of sustaining 
 the poor now established, with that of which it is plainly the 
 substitute ; but this also I will waive on the present occa- 
 sion. I will only remark that a legal provision for the 
 relief of the distressed is coeval with the rudiments of our 
 Constitution that the endowments specially appropriated to 
 that and other religious purposes so greatly augmented, that 
 they, at one time, amounted to a third of the property of the 
 Kingdom ; and when the last Henry, by an act of villanous 
 spoliation, unexampled in any previous age or country of the 
 world, confiscated the permanent funds of charity, and dis- 
 tributed them amongst his parasites and mercenaries, he 
 promised, indeed, at the same time a better provision for the 
 poor out of those spoils, like the French revolutionists ; but 
 he grossly violated his word, as did they. After that con- 
 fiscation, Sir, the destitute poor were destroyed by mul- 
 titudes ; above 70,000 perished by the hands of the execu- 
 tioner in his reign ; and an almost equal proportion in those 
 of his successors, till at length the Poor Laws of England 
 were established, which were drawn up, it is believed, 
 by Bacon, and still remain his best and noblest work. 
 The effect of these laws we have delivered to us by an eye- 
 witness of both systems, Michael Dalton, a celebrated 
 legal authority of that period, and who assures us, from 
 his own experience, of the infinite advantage- to society of 
 a legal over an optional provision for the poor. Happy 
 would it have been for Ireland had a similar change been in- 
 troduced there, an omission deeply deplored by a contempo- 
 rary writer. Then would its population, which still unhappily 
 remains in the condition in which that of England then was, 
 in idleness,degradation, and destitution, have risen, with equal 
 steps, and to as high a degree of comfort, contentment, and 
 happiness as our own j a population which, notwithstanding
 
 42 
 
 all the vituperations which have been levelled at it, is unrival- 
 led, either in intelligence, industry, morality, or benevolence, 
 by any other upon earth. And, Sir, I demand in their behalf, 
 and, as a measure of defence, that a provision for their poor 
 brethren of Ireland should be established, and without delay. 
 (" Question/' from two or three members.) Question ! I will 
 tell those gentlemen what is the question. The question is 
 the comfort, the support, nay, the very existence, of the poor 
 and destitute in Ireland ; and if honourable Members can 
 find avocations more worthy of legislators than the serious 
 discussion of this question, they are at liberty to pursue 
 them elsewhere. Labouring, as I do, under the evident 
 effect of considerable indisposition, and obviously curtailing 
 my argument, and selecting so sparingly as I am doing from 
 the facts and documents I have in my hand, those cries of 
 "Question!" are as unfeeling as they are indecent; they 
 shall not, however, prevent me from proceeding on this occa- 
 sion, nor deter me on any other, from resuming a subject 
 which no men in this House, but those to whom I am allud- 
 ing, can deny, is, in every point of view, of the deepest and 
 most permanent importance. I shall not, however, now 
 detain the House much longer, as I am myself still more 
 wearied, and indeed exhausted, than those gentlemen can 
 possibly be. I have consequently omitted many argu- 
 ments which I meant to have advanced, and those that I 
 have brought forward I am aware I have urged but too 
 feebly. It is a cause, however, the success of which little 
 depends upon its advocate ; it makes those appeals at once 
 to the understanding and the heart, which must render it 
 finally triumphant. In the course of my argument, I have 
 urged no new or unconstitutional claims ; I have proposed 
 no untried and theoretical expedients : I merely demand, 
 in behalf of the poor of Ireland, their real and substan- 
 tial rights that people, whose whole condition you were 
 last session exhorted to take into your consideration. 
 You have seen good to wrest from them their political 
 privileges j accord to them their natural rights rights
 
 43 
 
 sanctioned alike by the principles of civilization, the 
 feelings of humanity, the doctrines of religion. I de- 
 mand their restoration, not only in the behalf of the poor 
 of Ireland, but in the name of the people of the United Em- 
 pire, who are universally interested in this important mea- 
 sure ; and whose voice, while pronouncing in favour of it, is, 
 in this instance, whatever it may be in others, the voice of 
 God! 
 
 Sir, I think, in the decision we come to this night, the cha- 
 racter of this House is at stake, and I call upon it to act, with 
 regard to all classes of society, with justice 'and impartiality. 
 The claims of those who have served the public in high, ho- 
 nourable, and lucrative situations, have never been here dis- 
 regarded. Ministers, judges, chancellors, and other ser- 
 vants of the crown j all public officers, civil, military, or 
 naval ; all ministers of the church, of every order and de- 
 gree, are either secure for life of their respective offices and 
 their emoluments, or of those retired allowances, which, 
 in case of their removal, whether from long service, or 
 otherwise, are awarded to them. These may have, and most of 
 them actually do, possess ample private fortunes, and yet I say 
 the munificence of the country either allows them to occupy 
 their offices for life, or affords to them a liberal provision 
 under the name of half-pay, pension, superannuation, or 
 some denomination or other. Are these disbursements reck- 
 oned improper, immoral, degrading, when bestowed upon 
 the wealthier classes of society? No. Vast as are the ex- 
 penses so occasioned, when the fewness of the numbers 
 benefited, is compared with those of the poor, they oc- 
 casion no murmurs, the shameless partiality and injus- 
 tice inveighed against by the Roman satirist is again 
 exemplified, Da pretori, da delude tribuno, but that the 
 claims of the wretched and the indigent should be recog- 
 nized by a country, which most of them have contributed to 
 feed and to enrich j that the poor worn-out labourer, who has 
 had the misfortune to survive his strength, should con- 
 tinue to receive a morsel from the fields which he may have
 
 44 
 
 tilled for half a century ; or that a cripple, who has been 
 maimed in the boasted manufactures of the country, which 
 as it is alleged have so vastly augmented the national wealth, 
 should be allowed a few daily pence at the public cost 
 that, with our political economists, sacred and profane, is the 
 supposed grievance ; it is one, however, against which I trust 
 this House will never inveigh ; it is one, 1 hope, and firmly 
 believe it will, to its immortal honour, be anxious from every 
 consideration, whether of policy or justice, to extend to Ire- 
 land. No, Sir, the Parliament of this country, which has 
 constantly, and in this session, satisfied the claims of the 
 more elevated applicants, will not, cannot, refuse to helpless 
 indigence, when it can labour no longer, the little pittance 
 which justice and mercy equally demand at its hands. I 
 confidently anticipate a better course from this House. I 
 trust it will justify that character which it has on all great 
 occasions hitherto manifested ; and in which it has through 
 life been my pride to regard it. When has it been that 
 this branch of the legislature, however inveighed against on 
 other grounds, has not shown itself as the guardian and 
 refuge of the oppressed, the assertor of the real rights and 
 interests of the people ; when has it not preferably leaned 
 to the weakest and supported the feeblest that had jus- 
 tice on their side ? Sir, but a short time has elapsed since 
 this House, which had long before swept from these shores 
 the sight and contamination of personal slavery, recognized, 
 by a great and godlike act, unexampled by any legislative 
 assembly in any previous age, and in spite of national in^ 
 terests and remonstrances, the liberty of one quarter of the 
 world, and became the avowed champion of the unhappiest 
 of mankind, opening even to benighted Africa, as it may be 
 confidently hoped, a career of future happiness and prosperity. 
 And ages before, Sir, when public opinion was little known, 
 and the popular voice was rarely heard ; when no press ex- 
 isted to watch its proceedings, or to prompt its course, at 
 that period was it, that the parliament of England provided 
 for the poor ; let the present one complete that great work,
 
 45 
 
 and in extending the provision of that Act to Ireland, secure 
 to that country future happiness, and to this also a greater 
 measure of general prosperity. Then will national philan- 
 thropy and patriotism be complete, and this House will re- 
 deem itself from that imputed indifference to the rights and 
 interests of the poor with which it is too often accused : then 
 may every Briton adopt the exulting language of a hero of 
 antiquity as paraphrased by one of our own poets, and apply 
 it still more emphatically, to his own happy country 
 
 " Safe in the love of heaven an ocean flows 
 Around our realm, a barrier from the foes ; 
 'Tis ours the sons of sorrow to relieve, 
 Cheer the sad heart, nor let affliction grieve. 
 By Jove the stranger and the poor are sent, 
 And what to these we give, to Jove is lent." 
 
 Sir, the poor of Ireland are this night at the bar of the 
 Imperial Parliament. Many of the more fortunate of their 
 fellow-countrymen already acknowledge their claims, and are 
 most anxious to concede them. The interests of the nation 
 demand a concession of those humble rights which have been 
 already recognized in every civilized country upon earth. 
 An act of rnercy and justice can never be contrary to true 
 policy j and this, more especially, is one which conscience 
 dictates, and the public voice demands ; and which, sooner 
 or later, must therefore be conceded, even if now refused. 
 May we better consult what is due to our character, to our 
 constituents, and to our country, and not record our verdict 
 against justice and mercy, because they are found in the garb 
 of poverty and distress. If I could bring before the most cal- 
 lous and persevering opponents of this measure who now 
 hear me, those wretched objects who so loudly claim our 
 consideration and relief, if 1 could bid them, 
 
 " Come like shadows, so depart, 
 Show their eyes, and grieve their heart," 
 
 then, Sir, I am sure their claims would be instantly acknow- 
 ledged ; and, more than this, if it were possible, by an act
 
 46 
 
 of prescience, to look into futurity, and to summon forth 
 those miserable victims of suffering and poverty, which the 
 further withholding of so just and necessary a law will as 
 surely consign to their melancholy fate, as the want of it has 
 already so often done in times past ; if we could know the. 
 sorrow, destitution, and death that will be the inevitable re- 
 sult of our longer neglect, and depict the deeper anguish and 
 long-suffering which the more wretched survivors will have 
 to endure, then, Sir, could any man that bears the human 
 form hesitate as to his vote on this occasion ? And, Sir, if 
 ours cannot, there is an eye that does foresee these suffer- 
 ings, and a Being that will record them a Being who will 
 not hold him guiltless, who, seeing his brother have need, 
 and knowing that he will require assistance, shutteth up his 
 bowels of compassion against him ; and all from a deep and 
 doubtful speculation, founded, as I contend, upon the grossest 
 error and delusion, that the measure proposed may possibly 
 somewhat diminish the revenue of the more affluent part of 
 the community. Sir, I hope better things of this Parlia- 
 ment, whose term, on the most favourable principle of anti- 
 cipation, is almost run ; but, on other grounds, to which it 
 is deeply painful to allude, though it is not inappropriate on 
 this touching occasion to do so, its days we know but too 
 well are few and numbered. May we illustrate its remaining 
 span by an act of mercy, which shall immortalize this ses- 
 sion, and render it, in one of its terminating deeds, worthy 
 the gratitude and admiration of the country and of pos- 
 terity. 
 
 Sir, I am fully sensible that I cannot add to the motives for 
 performing this act of justice and compassion those power- 
 ful ones, which, on other occasions, have often prevailed. 
 Those, on whose behalf I have addressed this House, have^ 
 not a representative amongst us ; nor have their united 
 numbers a single vote, or one particle of political weight or 
 influence in the Legislature ; nor do the most liberal of our 
 political projectors, the most radical of our reformers, pro- 1 
 pose to invest them with any. On the contrary, the present
 
 Parliament has, by a recent Act, deprived many scores of 
 thousands of the Irish peasantry of those rights of suffrage 
 which they had long possessed, which they so deeply 
 cherished, and so eagerly exercised. It has, for a public 
 purpose, despoiled these of their highest civil privilege, if 
 not of their only one. It has, in fact, annihilated their po- 
 litical existence ; and if it be content to do this without 
 bestowing some countervailing advantage, without awarding 
 some compensation, whatever be the plea, or whoever the 
 apologists, it has perpetrated an act of the grossest injustice 
 ever recorded in the annals of the civilized world ; one 
 which no Parliament durst, on whatever pretence, attempt 
 upon the people of England. Let that deed, therefore, have 
 at least the appearance of a compromise ; let it, at all events, 
 be accompanied by some compensation. You profess to 
 have emancipated the possessor of the mansion, but you 
 have politically speaking manacled the inmate of the cottage ; 
 free him then, at all events, from the bondage of unrelieved 
 misery and distress. As you confiscated his political, restore 
 his natural rights ; and confer those privileges on the humblest 
 class of the Irish community, which arc withheld from pover- 
 ty in no other upon earth. Sir,, I trust that the very circum- 
 stance of the utter helplesness of those whose cause I have 
 too feebly pleaded, will, therefore, with every generous 
 mind, constitute one of the strongest appeals in their behalf; 
 that it will, in fact, render irresistible those claims which 
 are urged in the sacred name of justice, mercy, and truth. 
 
 I most sincerely regret that I have so long wearied the at- 
 tention of the House ; though, in respect both of the late 
 hour at which I have had to address it, and the press of bu- 
 siness which is before us, I repeat, 1 have greatly curtailed my 
 argument. I shall now conclude, therefore, with proposing, 
 as a preliminary, measure, and one which I mean on a subse- 
 quent occasion to follow up by another of a more general and 
 comprehensive character, in behalf of the industrious classes 
 of society in this country, that a resolution be adopted, which 
 will pledge us to confer Poor Laws upon Ireland. Not, indeed,
 
 precteely those which are in operation in England, but em- 
 bodying as much as possible their beneficial principle, delivered 
 from those errors and defects, as to their administration, on 
 which the objection to their universal establishment is mainly 
 founded. I will only add, that I have purposely avoided ac- 
 companying my resolution with a specific plan, though I con- 
 ceive there would be little difficulty in suggesting one which 
 would be perfectly practicable, and at the same time appli- 
 cable to the circumstances of the Country ; but the obvious 
 course is, first, to obtain the assent of the House to the ge- 
 neral principle. I therefore submit this declaratory pro- 
 position : 
 
 Resolved, " That it is the opinion of this House, that 
 the establishment of a system of Poor Laws, on the principle 
 of that of the 43d of Queen Elizabeth, with such improve- 
 ments and adaptations, as the alterations in the times, and the 
 difference in the circumstances of England and Ireland de- 
 mand, is expedient, and necessary to the interests of both 
 countries. 
 
 A discussion arose on the Motion, in which Lord F. L. GOWER, Mr. 
 WILMOT HORTON, Mr. SPRING RICE, and Mr. SLANEY, spoke in 
 opposition to it, and Mr. TRANT, Mr. GRATTAN, Sir ROBERT WILSON, 
 Mr. BUNCOMBE, and Mr. MONCK, in its favour ; after which Mr. 
 Sadler replied as follows. 
 
 Sir, having already occupied the House so much at length, 
 I shall reply as briefly as possible to what has fallen from the 
 noble Secretary for Ireland, and frome some others in op- 
 position to the motion. And first, as to the objection of the 
 noble Lord, that I did not give him full and timely notice of 
 the precise nature of my motion; I will recall to his Lordship's 
 recollection what seems to have entirely escaped it, the fact of 
 my having gone up to the noble Lord at the very time I gave 
 the notice, and explained to him precisely the course I have 
 now pursued; and again this day week, in presenting a peti- 
 tion from Ireland, I most distinctly stated, that the measure 
 I meant to introduce in favour of the working classes of the
 
 United Kingdom, would commence with the proposition I 
 have this evening submitted to the House. To this fact 
 however my honourable friend the Member for the countv of 
 Yqrk has borne witness ; and I perceive the noble Lord him- 
 self now assents to it. I need not therefore dwell any fur- 
 ther upon this ground of objection, which, were it even 
 founded on truth, is of a most frivolous nature. As to the 
 remark that the Poor Law is not deserving of the name 
 of national charity, because it is not, individually considered, 
 voluntary, I beg leave to deny that position. As respects 
 this House, and those whom it represents, whether in origin- 
 ating that law, or continuing it in operation, the legal pro- 
 vision for the poor has the merit of an optional act ; and 
 deserves, as such, all the eulogiums that have been pronounced 
 upon it by a celebrated member of the legal profession, who 
 describes that charity as the means of drawing down the 
 special favour of Heaven upon the nation which has adopted 
 it. And would it not, Sir, bj to all intents and purposes a 
 voluntary boon if extended at this moment to the poor of 
 Ireland would it not be gratefully accepted by them as 
 such ? But as to this optional relief so much eulogized, 
 of what avail had that been on the last calamitous occasion 
 particularly referred to ? The bishop of Limerick had in- 
 formed a committee of the other House that, at that period 
 when the distress of the Irish awakened the deepest sym- 
 pathies of the rest of the empire, and pressing applications 
 were made to the proprietors of property in his neigh- 
 bourhood, of near 100,000 pounds per annum rental, eighty- 
 three pounds only were obtained ! So much for an optional, 
 as a safe substitute for a legal, relief. On the contrary, it is 
 the tardy, boastful, but totally insufficient, assistance of this 
 precarious charity, even in seasons the most calamitous, 
 which is an insult upon the very name of national bene- 
 volence ; and which is a mockery of the sufferings which it 
 never adequately assuages. As to what has fallen from the 
 honourable Member for Limerick ; it is true that I was asked 
 to be upon the committee ; but after hearing what; might bo 
 
 B
 
 50 
 
 called the charge given to that committee by the right hon- 
 ourable Secretary for the Home Department, and the speech 
 of its chairman (Mr. Spring Rice), both, as I understood 
 them, adverse to the only measure which could afford perma- 
 nent and real relief to the distressed poor of Ireland ; when I 
 looked to the construction of that committee, a majority of 
 which were avowed opponents of the very principle of a legal 
 provision, I felt myself justified in refusing to be upon it, or to 
 give evidence before it, certain as I was as to the nature of the 
 conclusion at which they would arrive ; which seemed indeed 
 settled beforehand. I did therefore refuse to enlist under 
 the banners of the honourable member for Limerick, conscious 
 as I was, that I should have been a dissentient from his opin- 
 ion and his report; and should only have served the purpose 
 of making a sham fight upon the occasion, and being drag- 
 ged afterwards, as in triumph, at the honourable Member's 
 chariot wheels. Indeed I am far from being convinced that 
 the appointment of select committees for adverse purposes 
 ought to induce me to abandon that course which my con- 
 science dictates to me as necessary to be pursued. Many 
 committees, it is true, have already sat upon the subject, 
 and professed to take into consideration the state of Ireland, 
 but hitherto those committees have given rise to nothing ex- 
 cept expenses, and authorized individuals to dip their hands 
 deep into the public purse, to exonerate wealth from the dis- 
 charge of the duties it owes to the poor and to the public. 
 1 repeat that I have no confidence whatever in the com- 
 mittee alluded to; and I prognosticate most confidently, that 
 it will decide against the claims which I have thought it my 
 duty to advance. Sir, if accounts do not greatly err (and I 
 hope they may,) the time is approaching, if it has not even 
 now arrived, when the want of a provision for the poor of 
 Ireland will again force itself upon us in the most appalling 
 manner. The rumours of increasing want and scarcity 
 amongst the poorer part of the people of that country, are 
 daily reaching us from different quarters ; accompanied by 
 continued and melancholy proofs how utterly inadequate
 
 51 
 
 voluntary charity (as general neglect is too often called) is to 
 the task of relieving the great and increasing distress. 1 am 
 aware that Ireland contains individuals, who, whether as 
 landlords or philanthropists are all but unrivalled in kind- 
 ness and benevolence; but what can these, few as they are in 
 number, effect ? they will do all they can, but that all will be 
 insufficient to the general relief. Let us make that provision 
 which, while it will compel the heartless and the selfish to 
 relieve that distress which they create and desert, will operate 
 as a boon in favour of those meritorious individuals, whether 
 of high rank or in an humbler station in Ireland, who are con- 
 stantly struggling to repair the evils which are inflicted upon 
 the country at large. I am aware, Sir, how much ought to be 
 effected in behalf of the poor and labouring classes of our 
 own country, in order to place them in that station of comfort 
 and happiness which they ought to enjoy ; and it is my full 
 intention to attempt a general measure in their behalf. I 
 must however first commence with a proposition, the adoption 
 of which would of itself not only essentially serve the poor of 
 our sister country, but greatly benefit those of the kingdom 
 at large. I therefore earnestly implore this House to accede 
 to a resolution, against the adoption of which not the slight- 
 est objection worthy of the name of an argument has been 
 advanced. 
 
 The resolution nas then put and negatived. 
 
 FINIS.
 
 i'\I fl -jf.i >..;'. -'.'.I 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY MILLS, JOWKTT, AND MILLS,. 
 BOLT-COURT, FLEET-STREET.
 
 000 094 009