the Committee and to prejudge the question. His only object was that the Bill should be carefully considered, because he believed it to be a dangerous measure. The list was the one he had originally proposed, with the addition of two names recommended by the noble Lord opposite. He believed it was a perfectly fair list; but he had not the least objection that there should be added to it the names which the noble Lord had suggested. He thought that it would be better upon occasions of that description to abstain from imputing motives, and he was not aware that he said anything to deserve the noble Lord's censure. poor and the unjust and sometimes exces. sive incidence of taxation upon the ratepayers. Many of your Lordships remember the serious agricultural riots of 1830, and the great inquiry which was subsequently instituted; your Lordships are also well acquainted with the Act which was passed in 1834. At that time the Commissioners were unanimous in recommending that the settlement and chargeability should be extended from the parishes to the unions; but it was found impossible to embody that recommendation in the Bill owing to the serious opposition which it encountered from the close parishes. There is no doubt, however, that that Bill effected most important and useful changes. It established a central authority and committed the administration of relief to a more intelligent and responsible body. But, at the same time, the evils proceeding from the chargeability to the parish were rather aggravated than otherwise; because, as the EARL GRANVILLE said, it was clear general charges of the union establishthat there had been some little misunder-ments were fixed, not upon the rateable standing upon this matter, and he thought it would be more regular if, in the absence of the noble Earl (the Earl of Hardwicke), the noble Lord would postpone his Motion for adding the names of the noble Lords he had mentioned to-morrow. LORD KINNAIRD said, that he felt satisfied with the noble Earl's explanation, as far as the noble Earl himself was concerned. But the fact remained that the list had been changed, and he thought he had a right to complain of the manner in which that change had been effected. Motion agreed to. And on Tuesday June 13, Lord Harris added in the Place of Duke of Sutherland, Earl De Grey in the Place of Lord Stanley of Alderley, and Earl Ducie, Viscount Strathallan, Lord Calthorpe, and Lord Wenlock added. UNION CHARGEABILITY BILL—(No.122.) SECOND READING. Order of the Day for the Second Reading read. EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, in moving the second reading of this Bill, I must express my regret that the duty has not fallen into more competent hands. That regret is, however, much lessened by my full conviction of the justice and wisdom of the measure; and this, and the fact that your Lordships are well acquainted with the subject, will render it unnecessary for me to trespass on your attention with many facts or arguments to induce your Lordships to consent to the second reading. The Bill is intended to remedy evils with regard to the settlement of the poor which were complained of in Parliament itself more than eighty years ago; and since that time there have been incessant complaints, both with regard to the treatment of the value, but upon the general average, there was an additional inducement to parishes to endeavour to get rid of their poor. In 1839 the Commissioners in their Report expressed their deep regret that that portion of the Bill relating to union charge. ability had not been carried. In 1844 Sir James Graham brought in a Bill without success, and in 1845 renewed the attempt with the same result. But in 1846 Sir Robert Peel introduced and passed the Personal Irremovability Act, intended as some relief to the landed interest in consequence of the repeal of the Corn Laws. By the provisions of that Bill no pauper could be removed if he had remained in one place without obtaining relief for five years; but then the expense of his relief subsequently fell, not upon the union, but upon the parish to which he belonged. This was felt to be so intolerable that next year it was found necessary to introduce a Bill transferring the chargeability of this par. ticular class of pauper from the parish to the union. This, no doubt, was a great step in advance. Great irritation was, however, felt by the larger and more populous parishes, and in consequence a Parliamentary Committee was appointed in 1858. The Committee reported, I believe, in 1860, that with regard to the chargeability to the unions, instead of the general average, the rateable value should be taken, that the area of residence should be extended to the whole union, and that the period of residence should be reduced from five years to three. An Act was passed in 1861, most wanted has been a crying evil. The carrying out these recommendations; and Commissioners reported upon this point in it will perhaps be curious to your Lordships to learn how different were the results from what had been expected. Between 1855 and 1861 the charges on the common fund for the irremovable poor were something like 22 per cent. The year preceding the passing of the Act they were 24 per cent, the year succeeding 44 per cent, and they have constantly gone on increasing until at the present time the charges upon the unions, as compared with the charges upon the parishes, exceed one-half, or 51 per cent. The present Bill is intended to carry out that which was recommended by the Commissioners of 1834, but only partially adopted at the time. There was one difficulty with regard to the settlement of any of these questions, which the Union Assessment Act of last year has removed. By that Act power was given to parishes to unite themselves into an union; but as it was necessary to procure perfect unanimity on the part of all the guardians of the parishes concerned, the desired object has usually been frustrated because of the interested opposition of at least one guardian, and the Act has proved almost inoperative. There is no doubt that all the changes that have taken place in the Poor Law have been of great benefit to the poor themselves, and that the removals have much decreased in consequence of the legislation which has been made upon this subject. In 1841 the removals in England numbered 23,000; and in 1861 they had diminished to 13,500. The Irish especially have greatly benefited, for during the distress of 1847 the removals from Liverpool alone were 15,000, and during the late cotton crisis they numbered from all Lancashire only 404. This Bill proposed to throw the relief of the poor, not upon the parishes, but upon the whole union. It therefore renders unnecessary the removal of paupers from parish to parish in the same union, and therefore takes away a constant source of discord among guardians. It further reduces the term of three years' industrial residence to one year. I apprehend that great benefit to the poor will attend the transfer of the power of removing paupers from the overseers of the parishes to the guardians, who are likely to exercise the power with much greater care. It will be of much advantage, too, that the stimulus to the removal of the settled poor will be diminished. For many years the destruction of cottages and their non-erection in the places where they were 1834 in very strong language, and the destruction of cottages has been shown to inflict great hardship upon the labouring poor, and to be productive of great demoralization from the overcrowding and the mixing of both sexes in the same rooms. The Commissioners appointed by the Poor Law Board in 1850, to inquire into the question of union chargeability, took evidence to show that it was the custom of the close parishes to throw the labourers upon the open ones, thereby inflicting great injustice upon the ratepayers, and producing dreadful demoralization by crowding the labourers and their families into lodgings wholly inadequate for their decent accommodation or any proper separation of the sexes; and a metropolitan Member has recently stated that it is utterly impossible, after the statements made by the owners of close parishes themselves, to deny that cottages were pulled down for the purpose of saving such parishes from the cost of maintaining the poor, of whose lahour however they had availed themselves. Mr. Caird, a Member of the other House, was particularly encouraged by Sir Robert Peel to report upon the state of farming, and that Gentleman stated in his Report that in a great many instances labourers were obliged to live at a great distance from the place where they worked, and that sometimes they had to walk as far as four miles in the morning and evening; and he said that in some instances farmers lent donkeys to those of their labourers who were so circumstanced, in order that they might not become too exhausted for their work by these daily forced journeys. Most of your Lordships are probably members of the Royal Agricultural Society, and your Lordships will find that nearly every one of the prize essays of the Society, in dealing with almost every county in England, insists on the great advantage to agriculture which would result from not binding the labourer to the place in which he was born. There is a Report to which I must allude, which has not been drawn up to support this measure, as it has been received since the Bill was prepared. Dr. Hunter was requested to report to the Committee of Privy Council with regard to the sanitary arrangements of the cottages of the poor; and, although some of his statements have been called "sensational," they have been borne out by the more recent testimony of a Poor Law Board Inspector. I do not think it is surprising that a humane "Bourne, March 3, 1865. Sir-I am directed by this Board to request lowing case, and as to the course they should purthe advice of the Poor Law Board upon the folsue under the circumstances. Thomas Skeith, aged thirty-two, an able-bodied man, his wife, and three children, belonging to Careby, in this union, are now in the work house; the guardian has Board, considering the man not destitute, having offered him work at 12s. a week, upon which the and intelligent man, finding evils existing of the grossest description, not owing to natural causes, but to vicious legislation, should have expressed himself strongly; and what we have to consider are, not the expressions he has used, but whether the facts he gave are accurate or not. I know that there is one statement made by him which has been impugned, and that has re-work to go to, are inclined to discharge him ference to the figures which he took from the Census, and for which he is certainly not responsible, giving the number of houses and the increase of population. He found that in about 800 parishes there was an increase of the population, with a decrease in the number of houses. It has been endeavoured to be shown that this is fallacious, because it does not agree with the Return subsequently moved for in the House of Lords; but in that subsequent Return no care was taken to distinguish the house; the man is willing to go-in fact, would "I am, &c., J. L. BELL, Clerk." between the inhabited and the uninhabited That, my Lords, I think is an example of worse man because he happens to be settled in the parish. Upon this point I will appeal to the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees, who has given evidence showing that the present system is a gross injustice | this department being intimately connected with to the industrious labourer. I think, my Lords, I have said enough to make out a prima facie case for the second reading of this Bill. But I see upon our paper the notice of a Motion of a fatal character as regards this measure. I therefore venture to ask your Lordships to bear with me while I make a few observations on the objections which may possibly be raised in this debate. And first, it may be said that inquiry is demanded. I think I have shown that this matter has for years been inquired into, and not only that, but the results of those inquiries have to a certain extent been acted upon, and by each successive inquiry and the results of its partial action thereupon the Legislature has been induced to proceed a little further in the direction of this measure. Therefore I say that, having inquired for thirty-five years, it is time now that we took some decisive action on a subject of such great importance to the country. Another objection, which is rather more plausible, is that it is necessary before passing this Bill to make some arrangement for the revision of the existing unions. Now, I do not wish to contend that in the original formation of the unions all the parishes were always grouped together in the most perfect and most convenient manner. No doubt local circumstances sometimes made it less perfect than it otherwise might have been. But it is said that a Committee of the other House which sat in 1847 recommended that facilities should be given for revising the boundaries of unions. Now, I would give one reason why this Bill should not be delayed for any such revision. The Report of the Committee in question was made nearly twenty years ago, and the unions have now become such recognized and settled divisions for many pur poses that they could not be changed without very great inconvenience. Let me quote to your Lordships on this point a letter addressed to the Poor Law Board by Major Graham, the Registrar General. That letter says "General Register Office, Somerset House, May 29, 1865. "Sir-I observe that perons desirous of changing the boundaries of unions are making urgent representations to the Poor Law Board that extensive alterations should be made in them. I take the liberty of remarking that if such a course be adopted great inconvenience and derangement will occur in this office, formed nearly thirty years ago for the civil registration of births, deaths, and marriages, upon the basis of Poor Law Unions, the arrangements of the Poor Law Board. Since 1837, births, deaths, and marriages have been registered in unions; and Boards of Guardians have provided register offices fitted with fire-proof repositories for the safe custody of the public records suitable to the population of each union, the inhabitants of which now know where to resort for the purpose of obtaining certified copies of the registers; if boundaries of unions are changed, and new register offices are consequently provided, increased expense and inconvenience to the public Since 1837 the number of births, will ensue. unions has been compared, and all calculations as deaths, and marriages registered in each year in to number of births of each sex, and number of marriages according to the rights of the Established Church, and by civil contract, and all calculations as to rate of mortality, have been annually based upon the numbers thus recorded in unions, such calculations being extensively used by the Lords of the Privy Council, and by Local Boards of Health, and by medical officers of health. The same system has also been adopted by the from year to year statistics as to pauperism and Poor Law Board in their valuable Reports, giving industrial employment in each union. In the decennial Census, also, there is the same arrangement. In the Census tables presented to Parliament in 1851 and 1861 is to be found from 1801 number of males and females, showing increase to 1861, arranged in unions, a comparison of the and decrease at each of these seven periods, accompanied with a statement as to houses, ages, occupations, birthplace, and number of families, for purposes of comparison. At the next Census of 1871 all calculations will be materially lessened in value if great alterations are made in the boundaries of existing unions. The circuits of County Court Judges are also founded on the basis of unions as at present formed. And for the ballotof Lieutenancy to adopt Poor Law Unions. For ing of militia authority is given by statute to Courts these reasons I venture to deprecate the changes which are recommended. As to parishes and townships under the Act of Elizabeth, and in Gilbert Incorporations, I am aware that from that it is most desirable that they should be formed time to time changes are unavoidable; and I know into unions; but I presume to express a hope that the Poor Law Board will not be induced to make used for the purposes I have above indicated. extensive changes in unions already formed and "I have, &c., "GEORGE GRAHAM, Registrar General. "The Secretary, Poor Law Board, Whitehall. "When the unions were originally formed local difficulties prevented in some instances the selection of the most convenient groups of parishes, but the existing areas have been so long established that it would be as difficult to interfere with them as with the boundaries of counties." The third objection is that large areas have been found to fail in times of pressure, and are unfavourable to economy in administration; but I believe this objection Commissioners of 1834 were not of that to be entirely without foundation. The opinion, and they adduced a great many facts which totally contradicted that view of the case. large and 100 small parishes, and they found, upon carefully going through the accounts, that the charges were four or five times greater in the small than in the large areas. Again, in the City of London Union, from which I have presented a petition in favour of the Bill, the expenses of administration are very much greater than they are in the larger metropolitan parishes outside the City. The Poor Law Inspectors, in reply to a question on the subject, gave answers totally at variance with this objection to the Bill. We have received a letter from the Board of Guardians of the Docking Union-a Union which has availed itself of the provisions of the Act of 1834, and united its parishes together for the purposes of uniform rating-that shows that the system has worked admirably, and that after its adoption the expenditure decreased 10 per cent, whereas in the surrounding districts the charges have only decreased 1.82 per cent. The system is also working well at Oxford and Cambridge, which are unions for rating and settlement under local Acts, and the local authorities of both towns are in favour of the Bill. Sir Edmund Head, a great authority upon this subject, in a letter to the President of the Poor Law Board, prefacing the reproduction of an article addressed by himself to the Edinburgh Review, shows how illogical is the objection not to allow unions to pay all instead of half their charges, as at present. If the argument in favour of the limited area is to have full weight, the objectors, to be consistent, ought to ask the Legislature to take a step backwards and restore the control of the relief to the overseers of the parish. Another objection to this measure is that it will confer a benefit upon the towns to the disadvantage of the rural districts. If the towns have been paying more than their share hitherto, I can see no objection to the pressure of the burden being equalized; but I believe the statement contained in the objection to be incorrect, for many towns, such as Torquay and Bedford, instead of gaining will lose by the operation of the Bill. In my opinion the old and poorer towns will be the gainers, while the new and richer will be the losers by it. With regard to the town of Aston, to which reference has been made, it will lose greatly, whereas every surrounding parish will gain by the Bill. The last objection is that it is unjust to transfer the incidence of taxation in the manner proposed by the Bill. But every The Commissioners took 100 | alteration in the incidence of taxation is open to the same objection. Does not every fresh Budget of every Chancellor of the Exchequer shift the burden of taxation from one class to another? If the Chancellor of the Exchequer produces a War Budget, and it seems that the charges will fall too heavily on one class and too lightly on another, are not attempts constantly made to adjust the burden more fairly? And, even if the objection were valid, it is too late to make it now. The Act of the 1st of Elizabeth-the Act which first introduced the Law of Settlement-might certainly have been open to the objection; but that Act was confirmed by that of Charles II., which was followed up by the Act of George III., and by that of 1846, when Sir Robert Peel shifted 20 per cent of the whole of the tax for poor relief from one class of persons to another class. In the following year still further changes were made; while the greatest change of all was made when Parliament imposed upon the whole of Ireland a new Poor Law system. The reasons in favour of the Bill are many; one is that it will do away with the want of uniformity in the present system, by which one portion of the poor is relieved from one fund and another portion from a different fund; and another reason is that it will result in providing sufficient accommodation for the labouring poor, under the defect of which so large a part of them are now suffering, and that it will release the farmers from that practical restriction which confined their choice of labourers to those who were settled in the parish. By passing this Bill you will give practical effect to the principle of union rating and union settlement contemplated by the Commissioners of 1834, and partially provided for by the Poor Law Amendment Act, and you will act in accordance with the recommendation of Committees of the House of Commons, and especially of the Committee on Poor Law Relief, who made their Report last year; and you will be adopting the principle of the scheme which has been advocated by all eminent statesmen who have given their attention to the subject, such as the late Sir James Graham, Sir George Lewis, and by writers of such practical experience as Sir Edmund Head, and you will be acting in conformity with the decision of the House of Commons who have passed the Bill by such large majorities, composed not merely of town Members, or |