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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 754: COMMITTEE ON THE POOR-LAWS, ETC.
By Edward Farr
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The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

COMMITTEE ON THE POOR-LAWS, ETC.

During this session a committee on the poor-laws, with Mr. Sturges Bourne for its chairman, was appointed. This committee made its report in July; but not much new light was thrown upon the subject, as the object of the members seemed to be that of neutralizing every topic as much as possible; probably from ministerial instructions, as the cabinet were averse to making experiments. On the 9th of July Mr. Wilberforce moved for an address to the prince regent, submitting in dutiful, but urgent terms, the expression of our continued solicitude for the universal and final abolition of the slave-trade amongst the European powers, which was agreed to nem. con. On the same evening a discussion of considerable interest took place upon a series of resolutions on finance, which had been brought forward by Mr. Tierney; and after a debate of great length the previous question was carried upon each of these resolutions, and counter resolutions, moved by Mr. Grant, adopted in their stead. The last important debate of the session took place in the commons on a motion made by Mr. Brougham, for an inquiry into the state of the nation; a motion introduced chiefly for the purpose of enabling the mover, as the organ of opposition in the lower house to enter a protest, in detail, against the whole of the acts and proceedings of ministers. In exposing the false system on which parliament had long legislated on the subject of commerce, Mr. Brougham remarked:—“The period is now arrived when, the war being closed and prodigious changes having taken place throughout the world, it becomes absolutely necessary to enter on a careful but fearless revision of our whole commercial system, that we may be enabled safely, yet promptly, to eradicate those faults which the lapse of time has occasioned or displayed; to retrace our steps where we shall find that they have deviated from the line of true policy; to adjust and accommodate our laws to the alteration of circumstances; to abandon many prejudices, alike antiquated and senseless, unsuited to the advanced age in which we live, and unworthy of that sound judgment which distinguishes this nation.” The motion was negatived without a division.