CHAPTER VIII. THE SESSION OF 1830-MOTION FOR POOR LAWS IN MR. SADLER'S attendance on his parliamentary duty in the spring of 1830 was unremitting. We find his name in the debate on the address, Feb. 5. and on various other occasions in March, April, and May. But his mind now began to turn upon the best method of introducing to parliament those plans which constantly occupied his thoughts, and the prospect of bringing which under the attention of the legislature, had ever constituted his chief motive for entering into public life. The regeneration of the industrious classes of the empire, required, he deeply felt, a series of remedial measures; but mature reflection convinced him that the first in order must be, the equalization of Ireland with England, in the matter of a national provision for the indigent poor. On the 3d of June, therefore, pursuant to notice given, he moved the following wise and temperate resolution,—a resolu tion which, in the course of the last two years, we have seen carried into full effect, by a positive enactment, solemnly agreed to by large and triumphant majorities in both houses Resolved, that it is the opinion of this House, that the establishment of a system of poor laws in Ireland, on the principle of that of the 43d of Queen Elizabeth, with such alterations and improvements as the course of time, and the difference in the circumstances of England and Ireland may require, -is expedient and necessary to the welfare of the people of both countries." The speech in which Mr. Sadler proposed this resolution, and thus opened in parliament the first of his plans for the improvement of the condition of the industrious classes, seems to us a model of its kind. Its restricted extent, occupying in delivery little more than an hour, shewed that nothing was wasted on useless ornament or verbiage. The tone and general character of the composition is grave, earnest, and argumentative; and wholly free from what constituted the speaker's besetting temptation, a tendency to the florid and the overwrought. And the substance of the address, its statements and reasonings, constituted a demonstration of the undeniable justice and urgent necessity of his proposition, which set all reply at defiance, and to which, in fact, none was attempted. His opening observation was explanatory of his motive for placing this question in the foreground of all his plans for the amelioration of the condition of the labouring poor. The same consideration was also well calculated to arrest the attention of the British legislature. The subject was propounded as an English and a Scotch question; not at all as an Irish one exclusively. "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 England. Much has been said of late concerning the necessity of assimilating as closely as possible the institutions of the two Islands; 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 communication, 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 institution of the Poor Law of England encourages the demand for, and increases the value of labour, as well as abates distress; in Ireland, in consequence of the want of such a law, labour is discouraged, and distress increased. The inevitable result isthe 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 unhappily 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 tillage of the country, which has dispossessed so many little farmers and their labourers of their employment and their homes; I say, if we take into conside ration 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 undeniniable 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, in order to share in the general advantages which must ever result from such a system. The Irish do so, and in increasing multitudes-nor do I blame them. I condemn |