never been enacted. When he said this, he did not mean to give an opinion that

no doubt, a great advantage in agricul ture and manufactures; but it ought never to be so low as not to afford sub-relief to the poor ought to be discontinued. sistence for the labourer and his family, in a style suitable to his condition in life. Whether his wages were 10s., 15s., or 20s. a week, he cared not, if it procured for him that degree of comfort to which he was entitled. If they wished to check the evils arising out of the system of the poor laws, no man would go farther than he was willing to go; but if it was intended to go against the principle of the act of Elizabeth, he, for one, should protest against such an innovation.

Sir C. Monck wished it to be understood that it was against the abuse of the poorlaws that he had spoken, and not against any part of the act of Elizabeth which provided support for the aged and infirm.

With respect to what an hon. gentleman had said as to the country gentlemen wanting to have high prices for their corn, and low rates for labour, he wished to assure that hon. gentleman, that there was nothing they were less anxious to see than high prices for corn and low prices for labour. If there was any thing they were more anxious to do than another, it was to effect such a connexion between the price of food and the price of labour, as would enable the lower classes to maintain themselves without any assistance from the poor-rates. The committee had had but too many instances before them of the detestable system of paying the wages of labour out of the poor-rates. Mr. Frankland Lewis deprecated all They had had instances before them of discussion on this subject, at the present farmers paying sixpence a day to their lamoment, as premature. The subject was bourers, and paying them ten shillings one of the very highest importance, being and upwards out of the poor-rates; thus neither more nor less than the happiness taking from others nearly the whole of or misery of a vast mass of the population. the wages of such labourers. A most The committee had nothing so much at mischievous trade existed in this country heart as to carry through the investigation of manufacturing goods for exportation, of this matter in the most dispassionate at a lower rate than that at which they manner, and to avoid coming to a hasty could be made for. This was done by determination upon it. Perhaps, indeed, charging part of the wages of the manuthey would be blamed for their dilatory facturer on the land, which was reaping manner of proceeding; but it was better no benefit from a trade of which it paid that they should err on the side of caution the cost. He would not have said a word than on the side of precipitation. The of taxes, had it not been a second time hon. gentleman had asked, if by setting urged, that the increase of the poor-rates themselves against the system of the poor arose out of the increase of taxation. Nolaws, it was meant suddenly to withdraw thing in his opinion was less satisfactorily from the people relief from the poor made out than the position, that the rates? But it was utterly impossible that amount of the taxation influenced the any man in his senses could entertain such number of paupers, or the amount of the a wish as to get rid of the poor-rates alto- sums distributed to them. He denied gether. This was what was meant when that this position had ever been satisfacit was said, that government and the torily proved [Hear, hear!]. He had House ought to set themselves against heard persons maintain that the country the system of the poor laws: the poor- was so impoverished by taxation, that it rates, if they were allowed to go on in- was unable to pay for labour. But the creasing as they had done, would gradually effect of taxation was only to take from absorb all the rents and produce of the the pockets of one class of people, to give country. When he said, therefore, that to another money already existing. It they ought to set themselves against the merely altered the channels of expendisystem, he said he hoped that they would ture-it did not destroy the expenditure. take such steps as would prevent this ruin That which was taken from the producer even to the paupers themselves. He and went into the hands of government, should not, however, enter into the sub- was laid out in the employment of soldiers ject at present; but in the mean time he and sailors, of persons who manufactured had no hesitation in saying, that the peo-gun-powder, or muskets, or other warlike ple of this country would have been incomparably happier, from the highest to the lowest, if the statute of Elizabeth had (VOL. XXXVII.)

stores. Taxation merely changed the form and shape of society. If they traced the money raised in taxes, through the (3 B)

pau

different channels through which it circu- | ous; namely, that taxation had no effect lated, they would find government as whatever in increasing the number of large an employer of labourers as indi-pers, or the sums necessary to be distrividuals would have been, if the sums bnted among them; that is-it was of no paid by them in taxes had never been consequence whether 1,000l. was laid out withdrawn from them. To take, for in- in the employment of productive labour, stance, the twenty-seven millions annually or whether this 1,000l. should be withpaid into the hands of stockholders: there drawn from productive labour, and given could be no doubt that this interest of to a sinecure lord of the Admiralty, who stock employed as much labour as if it had did no work whatever. He had taken not been withdrawn from the agricultural this instance, which might serve as a speand other classes. They all witnessed the cimen of the doctrines of the hon. gentledistress felt throughout the country by the man on this subject. But he would keep want of demand in many branches of in- to his promise, and not enter into any disdustry, from government ceasing to be a cussion of this subject. He begged, howpurchaser. He said then, it ought not to ever, to protest in the first instance-for be taken for granted that taxation was the this was the first time he had heard this cause of the great increase of the poor- doctrine maintained in that House-against rates. He did not mean to say, there all and every part of it: and he would unwould have been so great an increase in dertake to show, when the time came for the poor-rates altogether, if the present entering into such a discussion,-that accumulation of taxes had not existed; there never was a proposition maintained, but that the mere consideration of the more fallacious or more dangerous to the accumulation of taxes was by no means country. the principal cause of the increase of the poor-rates. Taxation rather changed the description of labourers and the description of employers, than the amount of employment.

Mr. Brougham said, that the hon. gen. tleman who had just sat down had deprecated all premature discussion of a subject of such importance as the poor laws, and had promised to avoid imitating in that respect the example of those who had preceded him. In like manner he should begin by deprecating all premature discussion of this question, and promising to avoid entering himself into such a discussion. But there would be this difference between himself and the hon. gentleman, that he would keep his promise; whereas immediately after the deprecation of the hon. gentleman, it had seemed good to him to enter into a most delicate and difficult topic which had not any connexion with this important question. And having thus discussed the subject of the poor laws at considerable length, as if he had not sufficiently redeemed his pledge to the House, the hon. gentleman had then entered into another subject almost as important as the poor laws, namely that of taxation. The discovery which the hon. gentleman had made on this occasion, was not indeed so self evident as that which he lately made that the country banks issued paper. The last discovery, however, though not so self eviden., was certainly highly curi$

Mr. F. Lewis explained. He had never said that taxation had no effect in increasing the-poor rates. What he had said was, that the number of paupers was not occasioned by taxation alone.

Mr. Curwen was convinced that taxation clearly entered into the condition of the labouring poorer classes, and believed they did not pay less than 25 per cent to the government in the shape of taxes.

The papers were ordered to be printed, and referred to the committee on the poor laws.

POLICE REPORT-PETITION OF SURREY MAGISTRATES.] Mr. Sumner presented a petition from James Trotter, John Whitmore, and Thomas Reid, esquires, magistrates for the county of Surrey, complaining that they had been unjustly attacked, as having misconducted themselves in their duty as licensing magistrates of public houses. The depositions of Robert Whitburn a witness examined on the police committee, had formed the ground-work of that unwarrantable and calumnious attack. The petitioners prayed they might be afforded an opportunity of refuting the calumny.

Mr. Bennet said, that no part of the report was directed against the gentlemen alluded to. Though he thought it would be extremely difficult for them to explain every part of the transactions stated in the evidence in a satisfactory manner. He should certainly feel it his duty to

pear at the court of King's-bench, to be held at Westminster on the 6th of November, 1817; there he appeared and pleaded. not guilty to the charges brought against him, upon which he was bound over to make his appearance at the next assizes, to be held at Lancaster, where he will have to appear, a distance of about fifty two miles; that the petitioner, on his return from Preston, found that Paul Caldwell, the deputy constable on the day of his apprehension, had seized the greatest part of his books and papers, many of them not of a political nature, carrying them off in a large basket belonging to the petitioner; and although the petitioner has applied to Isaac Blackburne, esquire, one of the aforesaid magistrates, who promised to speak to Mr. Peter Nicholson, the solicitor who managed the prosecution against the petitioner, to deliver them up, and although the petitioner has repeatedly applied to 'the said Mr. Nicholson, and to Paul Caldwell, the deputy constable, they have not been returned to him; and the petitioner humbly conceives the first seizure of his books to be illegal, as well as the present detention of them; that the petitioner suffered very much from anxiety of mind, on account of a wife and two helpless children, who were left in a great measure destitute by his imprisonment; and he humbly prays the House will take into their serious consideration the cruel, unjust, and illegal treatment which he has received, and that they will adopt such measures as they in their wisdom may judge the best calculated to secure the liberty of the subject, and prevent a recurrence of the same cruel, unjust, and arbitrary treatment, which has been received by the petitioner from the magistrates and their subordinate agents, in consequence of lord Sidmouth's Circular."

of Lancaster, before whom he was charged with selling to one John Scholefield, on the 8th of February, 1817, a seditious and blasphemous pamphlet called " The Political Litany; John Scholefield not being present, the petitioner was ordered back to the workhouse, where he was chained to the 60lbs. weight as before, and was taken the next day before the aforesaid magistrates, where John Scholefild's wife deposed, that she bought the Political Litany from the petitioner on the 8th of February 1817; John Scholefield deposed that he received the said pamphlet from his wife, and delivered it to Thomas Lyon jun.; Thomas Lyon jun. deposed that he received the pamphlet so purchased from John Scholefield; on these depositions the petitioner was committed to the House of correction at Preston, by the warrant of the aforesaid magistrates, there to lie till delivered by due course of law; that on the 26th of April the petitioner was taken like a felon with chains round his legs, fastened to the bottom of a caravan, and conveyed to the house of correction at Preston, and was there put into confinement along with felons and kept to hard labour, till the quarter sessions held at Ormskirk on the 4th of August; to that place, a distance of 18 miles, the petitioner was removed during the night in an open cart, exposed to incessant rain, with chains on his legs, locked to persons charged with felonious acts; when the petitioner arrived at Ormskirk he was put into a room, and was kept there three days, locked to felons, and had nothing to lie on but the room floor, though he was at that time in a bad state of health, and he was there informed, that a writ of Certiorari was come from the court of King's-bench, and that he was to be tried at Lancaster, the spring assizes; the petitioner was removed from Ormskirk to the house of correction at Preston, in the same manner he had been conveyed thither, where he was kept five weeks longer in prison, during which time, being unwell with a stoppage of urine, and not being able to go to his daily work, he was severely treated by one of the turnkeys named Anderson, who threw him down, kicked him, and otherwise very much abused him, giving him two black eyes, because forsooth he The Attorney General apprehended was unable to work through illness; there was a mistake in the supposition after being detained a prisoner at Preston that the recognizances bound these men for nineteen weeks, the petitioner was to appear at the next assizes. The reliberated on his own recognizance to ap-cognizances, he believed, bound them to

The petitions were ordered to lie on the table, and to be printed.

Mr. Bennet wished to know whether it was the intention of the attorney-general to bring these men to trial, after the three acquittals of Mr. Hone, the principal publisher of the parodies; or whether he did not feel it his duty to discharge the recognizances under which they were bound to appear at the next assizes?