Gilbertise the new Poor Law. 'A fresh plan' in a Letter to Sir R. Peel: being an answer to his 'I desire to know what system is to be adopted,' etc

Front matter

GILBERTISE THE NEW POOR LAW. "A FRESH PLAN' t» A LETTER TO SIR ROBERT PEEL BEING AN ANSWER TO HIS « I DESIRE TO KNOW WHAT SYSTEM IS TO BE ADOPTED." (Speech, Feb. 8, 1841J By the REV. EDWARD DUNCOMBE, Of Brazennose College, Oxford, and Rector of Newton Kyme, Yorkslita YORK: THOMAS WILSON, AND SONS, HIGH-OUSEGATE •1841. NOTICE TO THE READER. Some may say " March 12," is rather late to begin "a Letter to Sir Robert Peel" in consequence of his challenge on " February 8th" — the more particularly when not a moment can be spared in opposing this NEW POWER BILL in favour of which that challenge was made. The author therefore feels it necessary to beg the reader to take into account that still having the measles, March the 12th is the first day he has had health or leisure to proceed on his resolution formed on reading Sir R. Peel's speech — may it not be called " PEEL'S CONVERSION i" LETTER TO SIR ROBERT PEEL, &c.

Introduction

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" A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." — James i. 8. " Ye shall know them by their fruits."— Jesus Christ.— Matt. vii. 16. Newton Kyme, Tadeaster, March 12, 1841. Right Honourable Sir, On Feb. 8th you spoke in favour of the second reading of the New Power Bill — the Bill brought into the House of Commons by Lord John Russell, &c. called " Poor Law Amend ment — a Bill to continue the Poor Law Commission for a time to be limited, and for the further amendment of the laws relating to the poor in England." Was that bill " further Amendment or Amendment" at all ? The retreat from ten to five years for the continuance of the commission — the renunciation of burial yards to be attached to the new prison-like workhouses — the dilu tion of the preliminaries, reducing to mere permission, instead of compulsion, of unions to unite for schools, hospitals, &c. all at once introduced on Monday last into the bill by its own authors according to your hints on Feb. 8th: these show not only your opinion of it in its first state, but that the parents of it themselves are ashamed and afraid to stand by their own diseased abortion.

Again, the new sops held out to local act parishes, in the hope of A2 J Double-mindedness, which is instability in Government- 4 quieting them also, these again tell how the first " further Amendments" by this New Power Bill are at least not immediately essential to "the laws relating to the poor in England." But, Sir, let me be plain, for I am a plain man. All these alterations make the whole thing only the more disgusting to my simple judgment ; for they show a " double-mindedness, an instability in all the ways" of government, which are a disgrace to England: they show ministerial proposals brought forward professedly for the most pressing emergencies, and on the highest principles, cast to the dogs and the winds in a moment, as greasy waste paper, at the " sic volo, sic jubeo," the nod or wink of any party who can inspire momentary fear of their further progress being embarrassed.

This thing ought not so to be in a British government. It plainly indicates a thorough want of principle. It plainly betrays a self -condemning policy, a sense of weakness, a want of preparation, a consciousness of something behind the curtains, which if inquired into before the public, will end in the disgrace of the whole establishment. Such proposals as in this bill in its first state are found, and now before going into committee arc withdrawn from it, as for instance, the revolutionary provision for excommunicating parish paupers from parish church-yards ought not to be agitated at all with the sanction of Government, except on such a dire necessity as makes it as imperative a duty not to withdraw them, till the reasons for them are categorically detailed to the country, and decided by public opinion alone.

Consequently this new power bill, generally, is to me only the more self-evidently a job through out, from the sham-fight between you and the ministers, got up to start it, and resorted to give it any interest or chance at all : while in particular, the neic power ayainst Gilbert Unions, pro posed to be given to, or rather, to speak plainly, to be taken by, the Poor Law Commissioners, which more especially begets this letter, stands out in this bill only the more glaringly arbitrary and un- English in every respect, now that we see parishes, single parishes, having local acts, in some way so let off from its operations that it is hoped they will be silent against it. Let those trust their freedom to the Frank, who are fools enough to doubt the reason of the Commissioners for present forbearance.

It is one comfort to us Gilbert Unionists, who have held fast to our integrity, that we are treated now as men, not as fools. The hostility to us is Sir Robert Peel practically Prime Minister. 5 the same still as it was avowed in the original bill. The Com missioners know that no half measure will do for us. Therefore they originally proposed, and on Monday last Lord John Russell avowed no concession in the proposal, that new power, contrary to the Neic Poor' Law itself, be vested in the Poor Law Commissioners to dissolve Gilbert incorporations without consent of guardians. . Now, therefore, Sir Robert Peel, consider what I say : " Thou art the man :" your consent to this change, is the deed done. Suppose, then, that you have accomplished this tyranny ; what doth it profit you ? The Commissioners walk in with every man's heart against them : they make their new Unions : they build their new prisons : their assistant drives to and fro in his phaeton and pair, or on his cob and buggy.

The New Poor Law is here, and all patronage is bestowed. But when this is done, suppose the guardians still will have discretion and local management ; will still do just what they like, and the townships will have out-door relief as till now ; extra expenses, not approved by your dictators, being provided for by a voluntary rate collected under some legal item, as old just expenses, now refused by new unjust laws, are collected at present in these parts under " salary of assistant overseer" * a thing that is not. What, now, with all your triumph, will you » " Assistant overseer." I will tell you why I instance this item ; because the reason will help to open your eyes on the demoralizing tendency of the new Poor Law, and all unjust or arbitrary legislation ; for when a law will certainly be fulfilled only by evasion, and there is no power to prevent or correct such evasion, the law is to my mind self-evidently to blame sor suggesting the deceptive devices which it drives to.

In numberless small parishes, this whence I write for one, the custom has always been to allow the overseer, or others, their reasonable expenses on taking the rate-book to be passed by the magistrate, amounting to about XI. per year. But political economy said, " no :" and certain most strict masters of the law therefore put a stop to this custom ; having the law on their side. What is the consequenc • . An as sistant overseer is appointed at £5., ilO., or more per year, who is only a standing purse for old English hearts to draw the supplies from, with ten thousand times more freedom and irresponsibility by law than before. The parisii officers get their expenses as before, only deceptively, through legal wisdom, instead of honourably as fairly earned. Any other little need is supplied out of this counterfeit salary ; and either more or less salary is en tered and passed each year, or the same ; and there is a running balance an d account understood.

This is reform ; is ft ? Give me " the old way." A Do the thing like an Englishman. 6 have gained ? You will have set the farmers, their servants, their labourers, the poor, the clergy all discontented ; all talking against the laws, where now all are contented and cheerful agents of the law ; and many like and worse results you will have -to answer for. Will it be enough for you to be able to say, "Upon me be the curse ; I have gained my point ; I have dissolved Gilbert Unions I" If that is all you Want, be advised by me, who am a Gilbert Unionist to the heart's core. I will not boast ourselves saying, dissolve us, and we will then show you that our principle is immortal, and will suck up all that you can pour uRfln us, till our system arises more glorious from its ashes. But I will, if possible, put you into the way of doing the thing as shall redound to jour account for ever.

I will show you to do the thing in the right way ; for there are always two ways of doing the thing : one — I do not say like a gentleman, for it is difficult now to say what constitutes one — neither do I say as a Christian, for I would write acceptably to Socinian, or Deist, or any other unbeliever as to Christian — but I say, one as an Engishman, and the other as a bully and a sneak. I will show you to do the thing asan Englishman ; so that all true Yorkshiremen, at least, will say, " well done, Peel, this time'' First, then, hear both sides. You have heard the New Poor Law side, and are partial to it. Are you afraid of being converted that you still refuse to hear the Gilbert system side — refused now for six successive years of malignant misrepresentation by tbe Poor Law Commissioners — the party most interested in its dissolution ?

I write not this to shame thee. Quit yourself like a man. Show for once you can act independently, and sacrifice expediency, which is " legion," to justice, which is of God. Hear the Gilbert side. Give us an unpacked Committee of the House of Commons. We will fearlessly join issue with " the measure of 1834 :" and this will be the sentence, the report of the Committee to the House : Let Gilbert Unions be dissolved : but the same act that does that deed must Gilbertise all new Poor Late Unions. I write this Letter to bring home the wisdom of this policy to you, Sir Robert Peel. Do you ask why to Sir Robert Peel in Reason well ; Promise well ; and Perform. 7 particular ? " Thou art the man." I am not going to turn flatterer to your face, who behind your back often have spoken of you as seeming ashamed to use with the decision of an Englishman the talents with which God has gifted you.

My reason is a simple one, and belongs to the subject. It is because, in voting for the second reading of this new power bill, this bill for increasing the already terrific unconstitutional powers of the Poor Law Com missioners, you argued worse, and promised better than ever I knew you. For no doubt your speech on that occasion is in substance accurately reported in the Times newspaper of the following day, Feb. 9, 1841. And therein two things, appearing so singular in you, in connection with the new Poor Law, caught my mind as I passed them. 1 . A glaring falsity in the reason you give for having passed the new Poor Law in 1834, namely, " because the old Poor Law was the spring of enormities." 2. The promise you make with regard to this horrid new power bill, saying, first for others, and then markedly for yourself, " / believe that each of these clauses will undergo full and deliberate consideration ; and I shall apply myself to the consideration of them on the principle I have stated, namely, a desire to apply an effectual remedy to abuses that are undermining the prosperity of the country, with a disposition to consult, as far as I can, the present (I count this a most valuable point of promise in you, " the present") sentiments and feelings of the class immediately subject to the operation ofthe bill."

Right Honourable Sir, this reason is so singularly bad, and this promise so very singularly good in you, as the conservative leader, that I am emboldened to reckon that you have placed in the power of even such an one as myself to render you and your great political sect at least a seasonable service by doing these two things. 1st, By correcting your reason. 2ndly, By putting into your hands that which you declare such a good desire to apply ; namely, " an effectual remedy for abuses that are undermining the prosperity of the country :" therewith com municating to you, who profess such new disposition to consult them, " the present sentiments and feelings of the class immediately subject to the operation of this new power bill" in these parts where a The fetid bleb burst. — 77. e author's undertaking. 8 it has pleased God so to call me, that I am qualified without ar rogance to declare them : this class being a class of all classes, amounting to perhaps 99-100tks of the whole community over an area of about thirty to forty square miles : all which things I will testify by such facts and details, that you must, Sir R. Peel, kick against the pricks — I do not say of conscience, for that is a holy test taken in vain by all parties to make gain of, from "the honour able member" of parliament, to the " conscientious" money-makers in prison — but 1 say, of common sense and ordinary justice, if instead of any more reasoning against the old laws as springs of enormities, you do not " seek out the old ways," (Jer. vi. 1C) and forthwith " walk therein" before the present dependent ministry and House of Commons, by infusing more of their spirit into modern deliberations, (if such unstable proceedings can be so called,) and overwhelming with good old yeast, the leaven of your precious reformed representative system, as broken forth in this fetid bleb — the new Poor Law ; this law in this pitiable condition at the end of six years.

It must fall to pieces like sour grapes, or rather pie crust, unless you embalm it again and again. Why does not some wit propose that it be encased and deposited as a mummy in the British Museum ? It will be lucky for it, if it comes to half so honourable an end at last. It has supplied count less reams of waste paper already. How many even this session alone ? " All for the good of trade :" one comfort. For these purposes, then, 1 st, to correct your false reasoning, and to assert " old ways ;" 2nd, to feed your good desire and disposition, that you may fulfil your promise of " an effectual remedy, &c." I divide the remainder of this Letter into two other sections, having no more to preface in this ; for as I am well known in these parts as one not ashamed to show by my works, that one of my tenets is, that politics are as much a part of the Christian religion as prayers, I do not you the injustice to suppose it ne cessary to account to you for my being zealously affected in " amendments relating to the poor in England" — politics, according to my judgment, affecting the temporal and eternal interests of all far more than all the preaching and praying in the world will ever rectify, if you pursue the same policy for the next ten years which has marked the last ten ; these years of the wonder working reform Sir R. Peers " strong reason brought forth."" 9 bill.

And as of two dangers, which a " country parson" must run in addressing such a government master as you, one is for me at least sufficiently counteracted by my open contradictions of you ; I silently await the consequences of the other — the danger of offending you — so far out of sight and out of belief is it put by my own consciousness of a hearty desire to conciliate such a destroyer as you, and by my persuasion, that reckless votary as you are to expediency, yet you are not little minded enough to be critical and captious, where it is only worthy of you to be generous and chari table.

Section II. Your Strong Reason

I " Produce your cause, saith the Lord : bring forth your strong reasons, saith the God of Jacob." — Isaiah xii. 21. Not the old Poor Laws, but the mal-administration of them ; the spring of enormities, which decided Sir R. Peel to pass the new Poor Law. Right Honourable Sir, It is important that this truth be made clear to you, because it must at once most effectually prepare you for the effectual remedy which I shall afterwards submit. I shall, indeed, hereafter show the Gilbert's Act producing to this hour all the oppositcs of the " enormities" you speak of, as " springing out of the old Poor Law ;" but I want, first of all, to convince you of the falsity in your reason for passing the new Poor Law out of authorities on your own side ; reserving the rest to elucidate the remedy. First, then, to prevent all mistake or objection to what I say of your reason, as if partially quoted and misrepresented, I must be forgiven for presenting in full the following part of your speech : " He would briefly remind the house of ins enormities that sprung out of the old rooR law- ; the consideration of which JO The contradictions ofthe Poor Law Commissioners. had mainly induced him (Sir R. Peel) to co-operate with the government in carrying the Poor Law Amendment Bill through parliament.

In 1824 a committee of that house was appointed to inquire into the condition of labourers' wages, and a witness was examined relative to the hundred of Blandon, in the county of Suf folk. It appeared that in that hundred the sum applied to the unemployed poor had gone on progressively increasing from Lady day, 1810, to Lady-da}-, 1823. The sum applied to that purpose for the year, from Lady-day, 1809, to 1810, was _El. 3s. ; in the next year £l. 2s. ; in the following it amounted to £3 ; in 1814 to £G ; and in the following year it was £5. It went on increasing until 1834. In 181G the sum had increased to £2,397, and in 1822 to £3,556. This union consisted of forty-six incorporated parishes. The whole of the evidence contained in the report, then before him, w-ent to show, that in the forty -six parishes from which the facts had been collected, there had been a progressive increase in the rates, a progressive increase in the amount of relief, and in the numbers to whom that relief had been granted.

He would now ask what had been the result op the system which displayed this tendency?" — (Times, Feb. 9, 1841.) Now, Sir, allow the enormities themselves and the result to be put quite out of sight for the present section. I grant their endless abundance. I regret, no, I do not regret, I grant their hideous magnitude, and you will find that I hereafter do not evade your result. But the point now under decision is the connection of those enormities and the old Poor Law. You say, " they sprung from the old Poor Law." Truth will prevail ; I proceed to call the Poor Law Commissioners themselves, as witnesses against you, that the springs were four in the other direction. 1st, — "Departures from the old Poor Law." 2nd, — " Illegal discretion." 3rd, — " Want of efficient superintendence." 4th, — " Ignorance of the Law." 1st, — Departures from the old Poor Law, In what is called " the Normanby Report" — that extra sort of last dying speech and confession, which the Poor Law Commis sioners made to obtain their reprieve last session of Parliament they proceed to clear themselves of some charge they have heard First " spring." — Second " spring.'''' 11 of against themselves, as certain sort of school-boys do, by the system of " tu quoque" — a deed valuable to us Gilbert Unionists in one respect, however little to their own honour : they thus com mit themselves to bear witness against the necessity for the New Poor Law : for it is written, " the old administration of the Poor Law was characterised by repeated arbitrary departures from the Laic, established by the systematic practice of parish officers and magistrates, over large districts of country, (p. 19, Report on the continuance of the Commission.)

Departures from the Law- ! ! Right Hon. Sir, I ask you as an honest man, not as a debater or a politician, can words and facts more conclusively falsify your premise, " the old Poor Laws were springs of the enormities before 1834 ?" Can we declare more unequivocally than your own leading strings admit the truth, that the men, not the measures, were to blame ? let us see again. 2nd, — Illegal Discretion. The Commissioners, aware how suspicious all they said in favour of the continuance of the Commission would be, adduce other evidence — evidence which almost must have been present in your mind when you gave your contrary premise, February 8th. They go on, " The Report of the Commission of inquiry abounds with examples of illegal discretion, assumed by the dispensers of relief, previously to the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act."

(p. 19.) This is a reason for a better system of superintendence, and see what I hereafter say on the continuance of the Commis sioners as inspectors, before you do another act of injustice by giving another sentence against your neighbour without hearing both sides. But where there is illegality, who ever blames the old law, for whatever enormities are found ? Are you not now satisfied that your premise is false ? Perhaps not, seeing how fully occupied your mind seems with the tares of the allowance system in aid of wages, and your Blandon case, in which you so sum up, possibly partakes of that system. Digest this then : " Out relief in aid of wages and proportioned to the number of the members of each family, which became the most extensive system of relief of which any experience has yet been had, had its origin entirely in the discretion, which the statutes ■ were understood to have vested in the Justices," (page 20.)

What is your reason worth now ? Are you chuckling that this extract does attribute Third and fourth « springs" underground. 12 as you attribute the enormities to the statutes themselves, and that I am a fool so to lay myself open ? Take your laugh : you will not offend me by it. But when you have made up yourself to sobermindedness again, allow me to ask you, why do the Com missioners say, " the Statutes were understood to have vested in the Justices" — why did they not say positively, "the Statutes vested V Simply because they discern that " the power of regula ting wages confirmed to Justices by 5th of Elizabeth, passed in 1 5C3 and continued through a period remarkable for the assertion of constitutional principles until the year 1813" is the old law, and " Justices ordering out-relief in aid of wages" not old law at all.

For let their own words testify of them. The Commissioners themselves go on to qualify this " understanding of the Statutes" in such plain terms, that none but idiots can follow and mistake their meaning that this allowance system had its origin entirely in the discretion of the Justices — which will not bear the test of strict old Law : for look further, when it ceases to be their interest to write so equivocally. 3rd and 4th, — Want of efficient superintendence and ignorance of the Law. Not satisfied with simply admitting " departures from the old Poor Law by parish officers and magistrates — abundant examples of illegal discretion assumed by the same, &c ," the Commissioners trace " enormities" still farther. They follow underground the " springs," which they have found in such streams above ground, and do they even now bring us to your " spring" Sir Robert Peel, to the old law itself ?

No ; but to the antipodes. They lay the charge to negligence in the Home office and ignorance ofthe law. For p. 23, Lord Normanby, as chief Home Secretary, is crammed by these squeakers for their own places, saying, " We have reason to think that tha departures from the law, which (as we have al ready stated) were frequent under the old system of administration were not exclusively owing to the want of efficient superin tendence, but arose in part from ignorance of the law. Now, Right Honourable Sir, with these admissions on your own side in exoneration of the old Poor Law itself from being cause of evils, and in proof that the evils cotemporary with it originated in the non-administration of it, in departures from it and substitutions made at discretion by subordinates without becoming interference How would Sir R. Peel re-act 1834 ? 13 and communications from superintendent officers of Government, I cannot doubt that you will quit yourself like a man and own yourself wrong, I do not say in passing the new Poor Law, but in passing it on the consideration that the tares, "the enormities," which you aimed to eradicate by that scarifier " sprung from the old Poor Law itself."

It is indeed a hard thing to believe a man of your parts ever to have been fully persuaded in his own mind of such a falsity ; but as toads are sometimes found in holes, where only seeing is believing, and one can only say " unaccountable," and put the reptile away, so as you, who know yourself best, declare this delusion to have operated in you in IS 34, I only rejoice that your own friends, the Commissioners, have made cutting it out so easy to us both in 1841. May it never return to the same chamber a^aiu to dwell and make your last state worse than your first. Some perhaps would be led on to ask, What course then would Sir R. Peel now pursue, seeing his starting reason so corrected ? Proceeding with knowledge that the old Poor Law is pure of the enormities, would he again pass the new Poor Law, as he did under the delusion that the old Poor Law was the spring of the enormities ?

But, Right Hon. Sir, what could it profit to ask this, even though you confessed, saying, " if 1 834 were to be acted over a"ain I would make a different " experiment ;" I would implore £_> "* the House of Commons to pause again and again before it com mitted itself to so unconstitutional an expedient : I would refer to the same case of Blandon, and admitting all its force with the greatest enthusiast for the new measure, I would conjure the Legis lature to consider and to try what efficient superintendence would effect with the old law — I would recommend to proceed to legis late on the evidence of the Commissioners of inquiry themselves, that the old Poor Law was poisoned in its channels, and noxious through dispensing amiss." Right Hon. Sir, the past cannot be recalled : neither am I one to wish it.

You did pass the new Poor Law : as you truly call it, " the great experiment of 1834," has been made, and here we are in 1841 not to waste time in spe culating, who would do this or that over again, but to use the short time in deciding, whether this experiment shall die a natural death or new life and new powers be inspired into the Commissioners to eke out the hope of their yet hatching the egg and rearing the embryo bantling ? The next Section will give my answer to this The great deduction ? The strong contrast. important question. It will startle some, perhaps all will call it inconsistent. They are welcome. I prolong this Section only to present the general deduction from it. It has never been proved, and I think never can be proved that the old Poor Law was per se insufficient — bad in itself.

On the contrary, even the Commissioners of the new Poor Law plead for their own continuance, that the old Poor Law failed through want of efficient superintendence and an office of reference and information for parish Officers and Magistrates — things which (dissent or agree who may) I hope never to see withdrawn from my country. But can the same be said of the new Poor Law ? No ; the exact opposite is the fact. Every advantage of the most efficient, the most interested, superintendence has marked the new Poor Law. And 3'et that endless " enormities" have sprung up, no one will deny, who has ever heard of Bridgewater, Bath, Brackley, Eton, Hoo, Kensington, and God only knows how many other places, now ashamed of their own names, so proverbial have they become through this new Poor Law for inhumanity, bestiality, or some " enormity."