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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• 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.

    Untitled Article

    vernmen titself is but a means . They referred the question to the interest ^ of civilization . Lord Althorp refers it to the interests of the revenue . The tax yielded , £ 500 , 000 ( or some such sum ) a year . That was his first , averment . His second was , that the House did not force him to abolish the tax , and therefore he would not . This is a favourite argument with the leader of the House of Commons . That the House does not force him

    to do his duty , is always with him a sufficient plea against the propriety of doing it . The other day , on the subject of the Danish claims , a question of simple pecuniary honesty , a judicial question whether the claimants were or were not entitled to certain monies , did not Lord Althorp tell the House , that since , contrary to his expectation , he saw they were desirous to be honest , he was willing to be so too ? He will most uprightly do justice between man and man , provided he is compelled .

    This predicament of finding their honesty lagging behind that of the House , is one in which Ministers are now well accustomed to find themselves . An example of it was their ignominious defeat on Mr . Lyall ' s motion respecting the sixpences taken from the wages of merchant seamen to support Greenwich Hospital . It is scarcely credible that so despicable a motive as dislike of the trouble of finding so small a sum as £ 22 , 000 elsewhere , should induce men of creditable character

    to volunteer , in defence of so gross an iniquity , excuses of even a grosser iniquity than the abuse itself . The merchant seaman may enjoy the benefit of Greenwich Hospital I Yes , if you rob him ; yes , if you kidnap him ; make him a slave , and keep him in your service by force , for wages below the honest price of his labour , until he is lamed and made useless , and an object of charity : and , in anticipation of this injury which you intend to inflict upon him , you make him pay beforehand

    ( whether or no he be the unfortunate person on whom the misfortune will fall ) a tax out of his earnings , to pay for his maintenance when you shall have disabled him , and rendered him unfit to gain a livelihood . The House was not base enough to let itself be influenced by such arguments : they left Ministers in a miserable minority ; and Ministers , no longer finding themselves in the position in which Lord Althorp was on the Danish claims , before he was forced to be honest , have found

    it necessary to give way . 24 th May . Progress of the Poor Law Bill . —The Ministry have held out , with a firmness little usual with them , again&t the prejudiced hostility to Poor Law Reform . They have compromised none of the essential principles of their measure , and their concessions as to the details have till now been either entirely unimportant , or positive improvements . Among the latter we must rank the discretion given to the Commissioners of suspending the operation of the clause by which the

    payment of wages out of rates is prohibited after the 1 st of June 1834 . The success of the whole measure might in many places be greatly endangered , if the alternative were offered to the pauperized population of coming entirely upon the parish , before the introduction or improvement of the wprkhouse system shall have given them adequate motives to prefer to the life of a pauper the condition of an independent labourer . We however observe , in the debate of last night , a tendency tq a concession of a decidedl y mischievous character : we allude to the willingn m expressed by Lord Althorp . to limit the duration of the Central Board

    Untitled Article

    Progress of the Poor Law Bill . 4 $$

    Untitled Article

    2 12

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1834, page 451, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2634/page/69/