On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    j£4 ffSJB -liiiBiA-PIEB. ffiATtraauY.

  • 

    « THE STRANGER" IN PARLIAMENT. [The resp...

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Pauper "Labourswe See By The Papers That...

    itxaBYOot appear in < the ferno . -accomrib . We jr ^ nwr well Ahe difficulties that promoters of jpaupe ^ Jabour have ta meet . The guardians . araJfehfimflelyea a fluctuating body , and their ( diTOBft & ies of ^ -. eouncal help £ o disturb jexperi mentfii , and e &> to bring about the predictions of ihicrae who / oppose experiments ; toutr we have had several opportunities of observing ,

    4 tnd in all jcaaes we , have been able to ^ seertaia benefits yery exact and substantial . In < me of ijho early numbers of this journal we reported . * visit to the Industrial Farm near SheffieldVibaDi which we have since had reportgywd ^ alwaye of a kin d to sustain our confidence in the moral and economical results of industrial labour .

    Several of our readers will remember the curious results of the Sheffield experiment The able-hodied paupers who sought * lazy life in . toe Sheffield Workhouse wene glad , after tasting that life , to exchange iir for a Jife of action and industry at the form . When they became iuaed to the farm , they readily sought labour out . of doors ; and " bettered " themselves by obtaining workfrom formers in the neighbourhood ; thus being provided by Xeeds parish with a path to those industrious feelings and habits , the want of which made

    them voluntary paupers in the first instance . Tbrom various causes , connected with divided councils , and with the peculiar character and tenure of the land , the profits of the Sheffield experiment had not always been , obvious on the face of the accounts ; but , when we look to the moral example , and to the effect in keeping paupers off the Union , we must regard the farm as a valuable outpost , the worth of which was quite evident . A . correspondent in ^ fche Thanet TJnion has constantly

    reported a successful experimenir of the same kind ; and , even when such labours are used partially , they have a very useful effect . TJie Kitchen Garden at Stockport 'Workhouse , for example , has at once supplied resident paupers with an employment physically and morally healthy , and conduced to a saving in the expenditure . The report from the Newton Abbot Tfiiion onl y gives us the money results ; which are interesting , but which do not at all give us the advantages to result from sucli an enterprise . We should be glad to . receive ajceport as . to . the moral , effect ,. It is interesting to note the influence on the

    labouring population who might become paupers , but who were kept off by an example of what even paupers are required to do ; secondly , the effect upon the labourers actually employed , either , when they are really efficient persons , in exciting them to get work elsewhere , or , when they are weak in understanding , in benefiting their condition morally and physically ; and thirdly , the effect upon the superannuated invalids and children who can often be employed with great advantage in out-of-door labours . There may be other objects to be noticed ; and , in fact , no ascertained results of this experiment' are without their value . As we have

    often said , at the time of the inquiry which preceded and accompanied the commence merit of the new Poor Law , the whole subject of industrial labour , although it forced itself upon the attention of the Assistant-Commissioners , was put out of sight by the prejudices resident in the central board . It

    was forced upon the attention of the Assistant-Commissioners by very successful experiments already in existence ; by the interest which intelligent and experienced men felt in the subject ; by local objects , which could be attained through industrial labour ; and , in some cases , by a spirit of inquiry in the Commissioners themselves . All these

    vBeasona for investigation have survived the new law , and have survived the lapse of time aince its introduction . Whenever they are

    brought out anew , they never fail to prove that the subject is still worthy of investigation ; and we are always pleased to be the medium of collecting evidence upon the subject .

    J£4 Ffsjb -Liiibia-Pieb. Ffiattraauy.

    j £ 4 ffSJB -liiiBiA-PIEB . ffiATtraauY .

    « The Stranger" In Parliament. [The Resp...

    « THE STRANGER" IN PARLIAMENT . [ The responsibility of the Editor in regard to these contributions is limited to the act of giving them publicity . The opinions expressed are those of the writer : both the Leader and " The Stranger" benefit by the freedom which is left to his pen and discretion . ] Ir is a proverb , the contempt of our present chief Ministers for "Parliamentary control : " and under Lord Palmerston ' s sinister management the fatal farce of representative institutions , as embodied in the English . House of Commons , becomes , daily more and more apparent . The House of Commons is at

    present divided into three committees , more or less select : one is at Vienna , engaged in the futile effort to obtain a delusive peace ; a second is " up-stairs " making believe to investigate the reasons why we have broken down in war ; a third is three nights out of the Parliamentary five employed in the energetic voting away of any and all sums the Minister may think fit to demand of a wealthy and innocent nation . But how are the three spare nights disposed of ? They are given nap to independent members , with crotchets irresponsible and impossible , who make long speeches to one another—the audience never exceeds twenty—who cause a Minister here and there to commit himself to some sort of opinion : and who are , after some hours'

    absurdity , got rid of by the catastrophe of a count out , or , on a division , a minority of two tellers—one teller appearing , for the reason proffered to the House last week by Sir Joshua Walmsley , in excuse for his having seconded Mr- Crawfurd , to enable the other honourable teller to xnake himself ridiculbus > in due form . Meanwhile , our diplomacy 's employed in encouraging the minor states of Europe—say Sardinia—to develop , for themselves , the noble principles of the British constitution : and in all our society weTiear regrets expressed that our cordial ally , Louis Napoleon , does not give to France real representation ; whileour heartiest democrats would be willing to forego their sympathy with Kossuth and Czartoryski , if the young Emperor of Austria would but give self-government—such as ours—to

    Hungary and to Poland . The blessings of that liberty which has been obtained for us after a struggle of 800 years were amply exemplified last night , in the circumstance that Sir njohn Palcing ^ onTwas ~ enaT ) led to " m " ~"" a speech . of an hour and a half . Now , Sir John Pakington is a gentleman to whom any House of Commons but this—in this he has some sort of party leadership , in consequence of an almost utter absence

    of brains among the Tories—would have refused to listen for ten minutes—and his hour and a half man be imagined—it was a terrible infliction of squirey , Seesionsy , summing up—and Sir John obviously pragmatised in the happy illusion that his familiar jury was before him— -for his audience consisted precisely of tM-elve . The subject was education : and you could ego that Sir John , and his audience , and the House as it filled afterwards , were proceeding ,

    on this question , with the conviction—a conviction not in the least disturbing honourable members when they vote the millions required in the defence of civilisation against Russia—that the great mass of the people of this country are in a most melancholy state of moral and mental degradation— " moral and mental degradation , Sir "—that was Sir John ' s , and , subsequently , Mr . W . J . Fox ' s phrase . What but this conviction in the House of Commons of 1855 of the England of the Reformed Religion could account for

    the suspiciously eager fraternity with which all the sections of both aides—and for every bench there is a different set of educationists—assured Sir John that they would " gratefully consider" his unexpectedly liberal measure ? Speaker af ter speaker complimented Sir John on the completeness of his case , on the generosity of his conception , and the ( possible ) practicality of his bill . You knew , Sir John especially knew , that if the bill once got into committee it would be torn to pieces , and that-every honourable member would * e at every other

    honourable member ' s throat . TBut the factitious enthusiasm of the moment of thoBe intensely enli ghtened ho gentlemen—in especial , the middle-aged Tory squires —was / overwhelming ; and Sir . John went to his tea at ten , unable to endure longer the elaborate affection of the House ; perhaps he -was at last subdued at finding that Sotdnian W- J . Fox—whose dramatic but feeble affectations were Intensified for the occasion—was preferring a " cordial support . " One would have thought , as the debate progressed , that the House of Commons was about to convert itself into a Coalition to accomplish national education . Except Lord Robert Cecil—that long-talked-ef contingent hero of the Tories , evidently with superior faculties but without facility in the use of them—not one member had the courage to suggest the cant of the

    discussion . The Government , represented in Sir George GrQy , forgetful that here was Lord John ' s pet topic -getting disposed of in his absence by a Sir John , even more ridiculous than . Lord John , was all welcome and amity . Lord Stanley , to whom Radicals would feel obliged if he would put the Disraelis and Pakingtons on one side , and take his proper place at the head of his father ' s party , was in ecstacies of cheerful appreciation . Mr . MUner Gibson , in the name of Manchester , began to speculate whether he might not find his way back to the Tory

    benches . It is an established theory in the House of Commons , that the country is too religious , or sectarian , to permit of itself being taught to read and write ; and yet , according to the House of Commons last night , a Tory squire is now showing the way . Yet leadership in this direction is not assumed with decency or propriety by the Tories . They—the aristocracy—have had 200 years of absolute government of us , and ought not to admit that they have left us in a state of" moral and mental

    degradation , Sir . " And , as a party professing to govern by principles independent of popular approval , " it is their political business to remember that nations have been great nations without " education . " The Barons made their " mark" onMogna Charta , and the masses who won the Bill of Rights could scarcely have read it . Yet , perhaps , the Tories are right in attempting the " education" of England : in proportion to the " learning" is generally the policy that conservatively sustains established , though infamous institutions . For popular application , look to Germany : for the English moral , see Oxford .

    The other distinct debates of the week illustrate with not less forcibleness the sublimity of that civilisation for the non-posses 3 ion of which , the backparlour intellect of the shopkeepers of Great Britain so profoundly despises the Turk . The House of Commons is in its most curious mood when it is converted into a conventicle , and is called upon to decide points of the Christian faith or Christian morality—as on Mr . Hey wood ' s bill for legalising marriages with defunct wives' sisters—as on Mr . Bowyer ' s bill for making adultery , a deadly sin in Christianity , a misdemeanour at common law . On

    these two occasions it was singular to observe that all the painfully-pious gentlemen of the Tory side who persistently vote against the admission of Jews into Parliament , rested all their arguments against the innovation in these respects upon the supposed prohibitions of the Jewish religion . A member for North Lancashire suggesting common senso to Cliristians , and the Christian * down upon him with Leviticus—that is surely a spectacle for Mahommedan gentlemen perplexed with missionaries travelling in Asia Minor under tho auspices of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe . It was very indecorous in Lord Palmers ton—though one might A A ^ v ^ w ^ rf ^^ 0 m *^ ^^» w ^^^ m ^ ^^^ v ^ r ^^ ™^ ^ ¦¦ ^ w — — » - ~ - — - — — — — ' ^^ lus

    ^^ ^ have expected it from a man who had informed tenants that they were all born pure and need not bother themselves with tho mystery of tho Redemption—to auggest , at the close of tho debate , that laws are of no avail without morals—that is , that Christianity is not of much tibo without Christians —and that , under the circumstances , the community being divided as to tho sin of marrying a dead wife ' sister , the question could only bo settled byhere the Parliamentary manager appeared—taking a majority . Arfter oil , the great councils of tno Church have settled our iaith for us in some sucn manner : it baa been an aye . to the right , and noes

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 17, 1855, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17031855/page/14/