566 THE POOR LAW AMENDMENT BILL. 



which have passed since that period, and endeavour by every exer- 

 tion to place the administration of the poor laws upon their ori- 

 ginal footing. 



To carry all this into effect would be certainly the business of the 

 legislature. They are the only competent authority to appreciate 

 the evil, and decide upon the remedy ; and in calling upon them early 

 to devote their best attention to the subject, Lord Althorp did no 

 more than the case deserved. Yet what is it that Lord Althorp now 

 proposes to the legislature to agree to? Having called upon them to 

 give the subject their best consideration, having awakened them to 

 the difficulties of this question, does he now call upon them as a deli- 

 berative assembly, to whom the deepest interests of the country are in- 

 trusted, to act upon the result of their reflection and inquiry ? Not 

 at all. He tells them that the subject is too complex, too difficult, for 

 their interference, and calls upon them to delegate the legislative 

 functions with which the country had instrusted them to a board of 

 three commissioners, at a paltry salary of 1000 each, to do any- 

 thing and every thing they please; to make rules and regulations, 

 to unmake acts of parliament, to tax the nation at discretion, to pay 

 their inferior agents at pleasure, to build workhouses, to join parishes, 

 besides we don't know how many more arbitrary powers, in 

 the exercise of which they are to have the indemnity of judges, 

 that is to be totally irresponsible, and with all the dearest interests of 

 morals, wealth, and labour of the country at their command ! We will 

 not enter more into detail of this immeasurable <f measure." We 

 freely confess that it has so taken us by surprise that we feel in- 

 competent to enter upon the task of deliberately canvassing it at 

 present. We are so astonished at the coolness with which Lord 

 Althorp dared to lay such a bill before the house, and the something 

 worse than coolness with which he professed that " he could see 

 nothing in violation of the principles of the constitution in its pro- 

 visions ;" we are so astonished at the comparative indifference with 

 which such a measure, and propounded by a man capable of avowing 

 such total ignorance of the spirit of constitutional liberty, has been 

 received by the majority of the House of Commons; and so disgusted 

 with the clamour and disrespect which have been opposed to those 

 who have ventured to dissent from its monstrous details, that we 

 must allow another month to pass over our heads before we will dive 

 deeper into the subject. We still hope that this measure of tyranny, 

 of devastation, of blind headlong folly, may be averted from us. Of 

 this we are satisfied, that whether the bill pass or not, it cannot be 

 made to work for a single twelvemonth. We seriously doubt if its 

 cumbrous machinery could ever be set a-going at all ; and then it 

 must fall " a dead letter of legislation" from the hand of Lord Al- 

 thorp, as his worthy colleague, Lord Palmerston, flattered himself 

 that the Russian treaty of July would fall " a dead letter of diplo- 

 macy," and thereby escape doing evil. That the monster bill should 

 thus be stopped at the threshold of its career, would certainly be a 

 mercy at the hands of Providence; to reflect upon the bare possibility 

 of its ever being let loose upon the country, and then have to be 

 stopped, is an idea too fraught with tf confusion worse confounded '' 

 to bear contemplation at present. 



