Lord Brougham’s Speech on the Poor Laws.

We felt curious to see the speech of the ex-Chancellor on this subject. We had read many long speeches of his lordship, but they mostly comprised only a grouping, or detail of facts, or vehement tirades directed against passing measures or party opponents. But the poor laws formed a great moral and economical question; they called for an exposition of principles, and the application of these principles to the existing habits and institutions of society: they were a test for a philosophical and practical statesman. But we fail to recognize a union of these endowments in the exhibition of lord Brougham, and we feel assured that if he has nothing better to bequeath to posterity, as the product of his matured years, than his rambling oration on the 21st of July, it will not rank him in the first order of intellects.

Although lord Brougham is a legislator and has been a judge, he still remains the veriest advocate. His speech on the poor laws might have very well been sketched by any clever attorney, and stuffed into his briefbag to be delivered to “My Lord and Gentlemen of the Jury!” It is a one-sided view—a forced effort to establish a case in the worst fashion of the bar by the most culpable suppressions of truth and gross exaggerations of fact. We say nothing of the morality of this way of doing the thing; but we hold that it is not strictly just to calumniate even paupers, nor is it consonant with strict veracity of mind to raise fears in the minds of any body of men about the security of their estates when the speaker knows in his heart there is not the smallest ground for any such apprehension.

Whatever the ex-Chancellor may think, he is only imperfectly acquainted with the history and object of the poor laws. He has got that glancing view on this subject, as on many others, which tends to mislead rather than safely guide the understanding. He professes, indeed, to be a political economist, and so do we, and we feel as much contempt as he can for the efforts made to depreciate a science so intimately connected with social happiness. But the economical dogmas of his lordship are those that were fashionable some twenty or thirty years ago, and which other persons, with more leisure perhaps for investigation, have found reason to correct or abandon.

The leading position of lord Brougham is this:—If you raise a poor-rate or any other fund for the relief of indigence, the support of the unemployed, or the mitigation of any other human calamity; such fund will be sure to be abused, or it will be inadequate to its purpose, or tend to multiply the evils it was meant to alleviate.

Now these contingencies may happen, but the fault is not in the creation of the fund itself, but its maladministration. It may be just as politic in society to make a public provision for evils inseparable from it, as it is virtuous in individuals to make a provision for the incidents of life. And this brings us to the gist of the poor laws.

There is a mass of destitution in the country; it may arise from fluctuations in employment—changes of the seasons, or, if you will, from the improvident and ill-educated habits of the people. Now, we ask, how can this calamity be best met? Mind, we do not ask how it can be best met under any future or Utopian state of social life, when all men are to be prudent and well-instructed; but how it can be best met under the existing circumstances of society? You may leave the destitute to be relieved by the voluntary benevolence of individuals; or you may leave them to what may be termed their natural resources; that is to starve, beg, or steal.

All these are a choice of evils. To die of hunger is what few men would quietly submit to; a general practice of begging or stealing renders the whole community insecure and uncomfortable, and for the charitable to be constantly putting their hands into their pocket, while their more close-fisted neighbours refuse to contribute is far from agreeable. In lieu of such alternatives, is it not more fair and equitable to raise a general fund from each according to his ability, and let it be disbursed by the contributors to the needy in sums proportioned to their wants and character? This is our poor-law system, and for its beneficial influence on the national character, we challenge comparison with any country where no such system exists.

Lord Brougham comprehends in the poor laws nothing beyond an institution of mistaken benevolence, fostering vice and improvidence. Here he betrays that half-knowledge to which we have alluded. They were not instituted for the destitute merely, but for the peace and security of the community, and well did they answer their purpose, for they were the first commencement of social order in the Elizabethan age! They are not maintained as an institution of charity only, but of police, to shield society from the evils of mendicity and lawless depredation.

He would make a public provision for accidents, as lunacy or a fever, but not for old age, which comes on gradually and may be foreseen and provided against. Ah, my lord, it is a futile distinction! Who shall say what are the accidents of life? A reckless improvident mind is often as much an accident as a broken leg, and which no example, no previous education could have averted or cured. The only difference is, that one is a physical, the other a mental misfortune.

In one sense society has little interest in the origin of destitution, its chief concern is in averting its perilous consequences. If a man be destitute, no matter how his destitution originated, whether from chance or his own default, he will not starve. If the public has not made a provision for him, he will speedily devise a provision for himself. This is a law of nature which no social law can supersede. But we say it is better society should make a provision for absolute want of all kinds, than that the peace and security of the whole community should be endangered; for if society did not do it openly and directly, it would, in such extreme cases, by the necessities of the sufferers themselves, be compelled to do it indirectly. Which course is most economical, and most consonant to the interests of a rich and civilized community appears plain enough to our apprehension.

But we must conclude these hasty observations, without we fear fully putting our readers in possession of our views of the Poor Laws. Lord Brougham complains that they have (addressing his brother peers,) “reduced your peasantry (this atrocious insolence of phrase, though indulged in, has been omitted in the printed speech) to a state of abasement I am ashamed to think of.” Now, my good lord, by whom and in whose hands have “your peasantry” been abased? It is quite a non sequitur to say the poor laws did it. These laws have been in force in towns as well as in the country, and no such lamentable effects have ensued. In Liverpool, Leeds, and Birmingham, they know little of workhouse wages; and in Sheffield, according to the testimony of our brave poet Elliott, they still retain their “bit of beef, their pint of ale, and well-paid Saturday.” Who then has robbed the poor rustic of these just rewards of industry? Is it not, rather than the poor laws, your “bread-tax eating lords” and your tithe-fed pluralists, combined with the ignorance of a university educated, or noneducated gentry?

P.S. The inactivity of the Poor Law Commissioners confirms what we have previously advanced of the impracticable nature of the Poor Law Act. During the three months of their administration they have done nothing, save appoint eight assistant commissioners, and promulgate three circulars, the last two of which have been issued to explain the meaning of the first, and all three are simply meant to inform the overseers that they must go on as before! In the circular dated Nov. 8th, the overseers are informed that the Poor Law Act was passed “not for the purpose of abolishing the necessary relief to the indigent, but for preventing various illegal and injurious practices which had by degrees grown up in the administration of such relief.” This had become necessary, in consequence of the eagerness with which overseers, in various parts of the kingdom, had availed themselves of the New Act as a pretext for refusing relief to the poor. It shows that the right of appeal to magistrates from the ignorant and often inhuman adjudications of parish officers ought not to have been hastily abolished. It shows too that the existing system did not need tightening in the way of pinching the poor; the present instruments of poor-law administration being mostly prompt enough in that direction.