Parliament assembled on the 10th of November, and on 1st of December Lord John Russell reintroduced the bill, in an argumentative speech of considerable length. After going through and commenting on the several recommendations of the inquiry commissioners,^[80] and noticing the objections to which they were all more or less open, he explained by way of contrast the principle on which the present bill was founded, much in the same manner that he had done on the first introduction of the measure. The statement was generally well received, although there were some marked exceptions in this respect, and the bill was read a first time without a division. It was in like manner read a second time on the 5th of February 1838. But on the motion for going into committee on the 9th, Mr. O'Connell strongly opposed the bill, and moved that it be committed that day six months. The amendment was however negatived by 277 to 25, a majority which made the passing of the measure in some form pretty certain. On the 23rd of February the question of settlement was again very fully discussed, and its introduction decided against by 103 to 31, the latter number comprising all who could be brought to vote for a settlement law of any kind. The vagrancy clauses were now also withdrawn from the bill, on the understanding that there would hereafter be a separate measure for the suppression of |The bill passed the commons and read a first time in the lords.| mendicancymendicancy. The bill continued to be considered in successive committees until the 23rd of March, when all the clauses having been gone through and settled, it was ordered to be reported, which was done on the 9th of April. On the 30th of April the bill was read a third time and passed by the commons, and on the day following was introduced and read a first time in the lords.

It had been thought desirable that during the Easter vacation I should visit Holland and Belgium, with the view of ascertaining whether there was anything in the institutions of those countries, or in the management of their poor, that could be made available in the present measure of Irish Poor Law; and it was arranged that Dr. Kay, one of our assistant-commissioners should accompany me. The time at our disposal was short, and our investigations were necessarily hurried; but the letters with which we were furnished procured for us ready access everywhere, and enabled us to obtain information which would not otherwise have been accessible. On our return, I reported to government the result of our inquiries.^[81] The first portion of the Report was chiefly furnished by my companion, and had reference to the subject of education, in which Dr. Kay^[82] felt a deep interest, and in the promotion of which he afterwards took a distinguished part. The latter portions of the Report applied more immediately to our present subject, and from these portions I will now abstract so much as seemed calculated to be useful with regard to the question of Irish Poor Law, or to bear in any way upon the state of Ireland—

“The institutions for the relief of indigence are numerous in Holland, and consist of hospices for the aged and infirm, orphan-houses, workhouses of towns, depôts de mendicité, or district workhouses, the poor colonies, and private charitable institutions. The funds for the support of these establishments are to a great extent derived from endowments and voluntary contributions, the direct tax not being more than about 1,800,000 guilders, or 150,000l. per annum. Among the classes having ability to labour, a state of even temporary dependence is considered disgraceful, and great exertions are made by the labouring population to avoid it. But no sense of degradation attaches to the orphan establishments, which are calculated to invite rather than to discourage dependence. The depôts de mendicité, or provincial workhouses bear so close a resemblance to the old English workhouses and those established under Gilbert’s and the various local Acts, as to warrant a belief that the English workhouses must have been formed upon a Dutch model; but however this may be, the result has certainly been the same in both countries, the evil of pauperism having been increased rather than diminished by these institutions, in which the profitable application of pauper labour has been sought for, rather than the repression of pauperism.

“The workhouse of Amsterdam is a vast building, capable of containing upwards of 1,500 inmates. The imposing character of its exterior, the elegance of its entrance-hall, and the decorations of the rooms appropriated to public business, were in marked contrast with the aspect of the several wards. The inmates chiefly consisted of the lowest and least moral part of the population of the great cities, who had sought refuge in the workhouse because they had forfeited their claim to regular employment, and the vigilance of the police did not permit them to subsist by mendicancy. The sexes were strictly separated at all times, but the children were in the same apartment with the adults of each sex. The males and females each occupied separate day-rooms, in which the dirt and disorder were very offensive. In these rooms the inmates ate their meals, without any attention to regularity or propriety. Here also they worked in the looms, or at other occupations. The first group of men to whom we advanced, were seated at a table playing at cards; we found another party playing at draughts, and a third at hazard. Others were idly sauntering up and down the room. The women’s day-room presented a scene of similar disorder. Both men and boys were clothed in a coarse kind of sacking. The chief article of their diet is rye-bread, almost black, and not over-abundant, with an indefinite quantity of boiled buttermilk; but they are permitted to work at certain rates of wages, and to spend a portion of their earnings at a canteen in the house, where coffee tobacco gin &c. may be obtained. On application for admission, the paupers undergo a strict examination as to their ability to maintain themselves; and while inmates they are not permitted to go abroad, ‘unless they give positive hopes that on re-entering society, they will render themselves worthy of their liberty, by diligently endeavouring to gain their own livelihood by honest means.’

“The establishment at La Cambré, near Brussels, was superior in its internal arrangements to the workhouse at Amsterdam, particularly in the separate classification of the aged, the children, and the adults, and also in the good arrangement and cleanliness of the sleeping-rooms. The sexes are strictly separated, as is invariably the case in all the other Dutch and Belgian institutions. By the penal code, a mendicant once condemned to a depôt de mendicité for begging, may be kept there during the remainder of his life; but in practice, he is allowed to leave the establishment whenever the commission of superintendence are satisfied that he is disposed to labour for his subsistence, without resorting to mendicancy.

“There are three great workhouses for the whole of Holland, which are situated, one at Amsterdam, another at Middleburgh, and a third in the commonalty Nieuve Pekel A, in the province of Groningen. Belgium has five great workhouses, situated respectively at La Cambré, near Brussels, for the province of Brabant; at Bruges, for the two Flanders; at Hoogstraeten, for the province of Antwerp; at Mons, for Hainault, Namur, and Luxembourg; and at Reickheim, for Liege and Limburgh. Under their present regulations, these provincial workhouses, or depôts de mendicité, both in Holland and Belgium, are I think, judging from what we could learn and what we saw, very defective institutions; and hence seems to have arisen the necessity for resorting to some stricter measures, which ended in the establishment of the poor colonies. In England, the defects of the old workhouses were remedied by the introduction of regulations calculated to render them efficient tests, by the aid of which we have succeeded in establishing the distinction between poverty and destitution: for the latter we have provided relief, but we have left the former to its own natural resources. In Holland and Belgium no such distinction has been made, or test established. Their workhouses remain as they were originally formed—nurseries for indolence, and stimulants to pauperism. But in order to correct this evil, the Dutch have had recourse to the establishment of penal colonies, to which all persons found begging (or committing vagabondage as it is termed) are sent, if able to work, and compelled to labour for their subsistence, under strict discipline and low diet. Had the workhouses been made efficient, there would have been no occasion for these establishments; but the workhouses not being efficient, recourse has been had to the penal colonies, where the test of strict discipline, hard labour, and scanty diet, is so applied as to be held in the greatest dread by the vagrant classes. All beggars are apprehended by the police; if able to work, they are sent to the penal colonies; if aged or infirm, or unable to perform out-door work, they are sent to the workhouses; and although the discipline of the workhouses is defective, and the management in many respects faulty, yet with the aid of the penal colonies they secure the repression of mendicancy.

“In the workhouses of the penal colonies to which the able-bodied mendicants are sent, one ward is used in common as a dormitory, refectory, and workshop. The inmates sleep in hammocks, and are very coarsely clad. They labour in the fields, or in making bricks, or at manufactures in the house, under the superintendence of an inspector. Each colonist is furnished with a book, in which is entered the work executed daily, the amount of food and clothes furnished, his share of the general expenses of the establishment, and whatever he has received in the paper-money of the colony. Guards on horseback to patrol the boundary of the colony, rewards given for bringing back any colonist who has attempted to escape, and an uniform dress, are the means adopted to prevent desertion from the colony. Mendicants when arrested, may choose whether they will be brought before the tribunals as vagabonds, or be sent to the coercive colony, where they must remain at least one year. These rigorous measures for the suppression of mendicancy, have been adopted in the absence of any acknowledgment of a right to relief, and notwithstanding that a large portion of the relief actually administered arises from endowments and voluntary contributions. This forms an important feature in the Dutch and Belgian system; and if, as I believe, the rigour of this part of their institutions has been caused by the imperfect organization of the others, the true remedy would have been, not in the establishment of penal colonies, but in such an improvement of those other institutions as would have rendered them efficient for the repression of mendicancy, as well as for the administration of relief. On comparing the modes of relief existing in Holland and Belgium, with the system of relief it is proposed to establish in Ireland, the latter will I think be found to be much more simple and complete, and consequently to promise greater efficiency. No right to relief exists in Holland or Belgium, yet mendicancy is suppressed in both those countries. It is proposed not to give a right to relief in Ireland, and it is intended to suppress mendicancy,—in this respect therefore the circumstances are similar. But in Ireland, it is proposed to divide the whole country into districts of convenient extent, with a workhouse to each, so that every destitute and infirm person will be within easy reach of adequate relief; and this arrangement is obviously preferable to the various, and in some respects conflicting modes of relief which exist in Holland and Belgium, and will be more effective in its operation. The example of Holland and Belgium may therefore be cited, in addition to that of England, in support of the proposed Irish Poor Law.

“Another matter of much interest, is the different condition of the smaller class of cultivators in the two countries. Small farms of from five to ten acres abound in many parts of Belgium, closely resembling the small holdings in Ireland; but the Irish cultivator is without the comforts and conveniences of civilised life, whilst the Belgian peasant-farmer enjoys a large portion of both. The houses of the small cultivators in Belgium are generally substantial, with a sleeping-room in the attic, and closets for beds connected with the lower apartment, a dairy, a store for the grain, an oven, a cattle-stall, piggery, and poultry-loft. There is generally decent furniture and sufficient bedding, and although the scrupulous cleanliness of the Dutch may not be everywhere observable, an air of comfort and propriety pervades the whole establishment. In the cowhouse the dung and urine are preserved in the tank; the ditches are scoured, the dry leaves potato-tops and offal of every kind are collected for manure, and heaps of compost are in course of preparation. The premises are kept in compact order, and a careful attention to economy is everywhere apparent. The family are decently clad, none are ragged or slovenly, although their dress may be of the coarsest material. The men universally wear the bleusebleuse, and wooden shoes are in common use by both sexes. Their diet consists chiefly of rye-bread milk and potatoes. The contrast of what is here described, with the state of the same class of persons in Ireland, is very marked. Yet the productive powers of the soil in Belgium are certainly inferior to the general soil of Ireland, and the climate does not appear to be superior. To the soil and the climate therefore, the Belgian does not owe his superiority in comfort and position over the Irish cultivator. The difference is rather owing to the greater industry economy and forethought of the people.

“A small occupier, whose farm we examined near Ghent, paid 225 francs per annum for about two bonniers, or six acres of land, with a comfortable house, stabling, and other offices attached, all very good of their kind; this makes the rent (reckoning the franc at 10d.) equal to 9l. 7s. 6d. sterling per annum; and, if we allow 3l. 7s. 6d. for the rent of the house, stabling, and other offices, there will be 6l., or 1l. per acre for the land, which accords with the information we obtained at other places. This farmer had a wife and five children, and appeared to live in much comfort. He owed little or nothing, he said, but he had no capital beyond that employed on his farm. We questioned him respecting his resources in case of sickness. He replied that if he were ill, and his illness was severe and of long duration, it would press heavily upon him, because it would interrupt the whole farm-work; and in order to provide for his family and pay the doctor he feared he should be obliged to sell part of his stock. If his wife and family were long ill, and he retained his strength, the doctor would give him credit, and he should be able to pay him by degrees in a year or two. We suggested that the Bureau de Bienfaisance, or charitable individuals, might afford him aid in such a difficulty, but he replied cheerfully that he must take care of himself If a sick club, or benefit society, were established among these people, to enable them by mutual assurance to provide for the casualty of sickness, the chief source of suffering to their families would be obviated, and there would be little left to wish for or amend in their social condition. The Belgian peasant farmer here described, is not very different from the small Irish occupier as respects his position in society, but how much better is his condition as regards the comforts and conveniences of life. The cause of this difference I believe to be, the more skilful system of culture pursued by the six-acre farmers of Belgium, the rigid economy which characterises them as a class, and the persevering industry and forethought with which they adjust their limited resources to their wants; and one of the first steps to the improvement of this important class in Ireland should be, to endeavour to assimilate their farming operations and domestic management, to that of the same class in Belgium.

“It is not necessary to discuss the comparative advantages of small and large farms, it being notorious that the former abound in all parts of Ireland, in some districts almost to the exclusion of the other; and that any attempt at a rapid consolidation of these small holdings would occasion great misery and suffering. Changes of this nature cannot be successful, without special regard to local circumstances; and the obstructions which arise from fixed habits and old social arrangements, generally render any great organic change impracticable, excepting in the lapse of years. An improved management of the small farms in Ireland, would however afford the means of increasing the comfort, and ameliorating the condition of the cottier tenantry, and at the same time facilitate the progress of other changes conducive to their general well-being. It would, in fact, be beginning at the lowest point of the scale—improved management would bring increase of capital and improved habits, and thence would arise an enlargement of occupancies, which the vast extent of now waste but reclaimable land in Ireland would greatly facilitate. The establishment of a poor-law, by removing the burthen of supporting mendicancy which now presses almost exclusively on the class of small cultivators, will afford them relief and encouragement, and facilitate the improvement of their condition: but the Poor Law alone will not effect the necessary ameliorations, which can only be accomplished by a combination of efforts, of which the establishment of a poor-law is one, possibly it is the chief; for a poor-law will unite the interests of the other classes with the well-being of the poorest, and thus secure for the least intelligent, and therefore the most dependent portion of the community, the sympathies and the assistance of the most competent and intelligent of the middle and higher classes. The Poor Law will in this way, I believe, become the means of combining the now discordant elements of society in Ireland, for the promotion of the common interest; but the first impulse in the career of amelioration must be given by the landed proprietors, who should unite in promoting improvements among their tenantry, as well as in carrying out the provisions of the law.”