the two Chancellors of England preceding the present, and the present Chief Justice and his two predecessors, were equally distinguished ?-while the two front rows of the old House of Commons (of course, on a matter of acquirement and honourable distinction, we do not refer to the new) were crowded with the firstclass men of the two universities? Has Sir Arthur never heard that Lord Liverpool's cabinet, which pacified Europe and subdued Napoleon, (by way of fame and distinction) was nicknamed the Christ-Church Club? But we are ashamed of wasting even a page on this obtuse and conceited person.

ART. X.-Report from his Majesty's Commissioners for Inquiring into the Administration and Practical Operation of the Poor-Laws. London. 1834.

FOR years past we have seized every opportunity for exposing

the signal evils occasioned by the mal-administration of the poor-laws, and have never ceased to urge the expediency of an unsparing correction of their systematic abuses. It was, therefore, with unaffected sincerity that we hailed the appointment of the late poor-law commission, as an earnest of the intention of government to probe the evil to its source, and apply, without shrinking, the necessary remedies. At the same time, we expressed our own opinion that the mass of information which had been previously collected by seven or eight parliamentary committees, afforded ample data for legislating on the subject-that there could be no question that the main causes of the mischief lay in the allowance system, and the want of some general control over the local administrators of the law-that the allowance system might be at once stopped by an enactment declaring its illegality, as it had been stopped, with complete success, by the resolution of individual magistrates or vestrymen in many of the most mismanaged districts and that some very simple means might be adopted by the Home Office, or other central authority, for reducing to a regular and uniform course the proceedings of the local administrators, whether magistrates or parish officers.

We own that our opinion still remains unchanged on these points. The inquiries and publications of the commission have certainly had the beneficial effect of creating a general concurrence of opinion as to the necessity of a reform; but we do not think that much new light has been thrown upon the subject by those researches, or that even the many ponderous volumes of evidence, collected and printed by the commission (which few individuals

individuals in the country, we believe, have had the courage to open), have added materially to the stock of really useful information which parliament previously possessed, with respect to the nature and extent of the mischief, or the means which had been in many instances successfully applied, and might be generally adopted, for its suppression.

On the other hand, there was this danger to be apprehended from the magnitude of the scale on which the inquiry was conducted, that the main points of the question might be smothered in the mass of details brought forward; and likewise that, in order to justify preparations so extensive, it might be thought advisable to follow them up by measures of corresponding magnitude, such as would exceed the necessity of the case, and by attempting too much, risk the success of the entire improvement. We are not sure that these anticipations will prove to have been very incorrect. The result, certainly, has been-not the simple ameliorations which we were desirous of seeing introduced into the system of poorlaw administration-but a fundamental change in the whole scheme of that important institution, under which—and mainly through which, as we believe-this country has for centuries enjoyed an internal tranquillity, security of property, and general prosperity unexampled in the history of nations. Whether this great change will be on the whole beneficial or not, he is a bold man who at present ventures to prognosticate. There is, in fact, so much of novelty and untried experiment in the law as it has been now enacted, that we fear the chances of failure are quite as numerous as those of success; and in a matter so deeply involving the moral and physical condition of the mass of the people, and, by consequence, the safety of society, the results of failure must be of a most awful character.

The Report, though unquestionably a very able document, yet disappointed the expectations we had cherished from the high character and qualifications of the gentlemen who composed the commission, the vast extent and minuteness of their researches, and the length of time during which their inquiry had been carried on. Two circumstances will, perhaps, account for the imperfections we regret: namely, first, the preconceived theories (not to call them prejudices) upon the main points at issue, of some of the commissioners and, secondly, the tremendous bulk of the evidence which had accumulated upon them through the diligence of their assistants, the replies to their hundred queries from their thousand respondents, and the unlimited communications poured in upon them from an endless number of volunteer advisers. This mass of matter was, in fact, too great for the digestion of any halfdozen persons, even though they could have given their exclusive

and

and uninterrupted attention to its examination, which was far from being the case with several, and those the more influential, of the commissioners.

To these concurrent circumstances it is probably owing that the Report is deficient, as we think, in comprehensiveness of view and unity of purpose, as well as in a clear apprehension of the real bearing of the subject submitted to the commissioners. The terms of the commission specifically appointed them to make a diligent and full inquiry into the practical operation of the laws for the relief of the poor in England and Wales, &c.' Surely this involved some consideration of the benefits that the country has derived, and continues to reap, from this magnificent institutionof the advantages that are obtained in exchange for the six or seven millions which we annually pay in poor-rate-of the good effects, as well as the bad, that result from the practical operation' of these laws. The commissioners, however, are totally silent on this first head. They have confined their attention exclusively to the defects of the system-they have carefully sought for, and minutely recorded, all the specks and flaws and faults that are discoverable in it. Every abuse is ferreted out, and held up to view in the strongest light, and, in many cases, with no little exaggeration of colouring. There is an elaborate studying of effect, and an artist-like gusto in their highly-wrought descriptions of every instance of error, and of its evil consequences; but from the beginning to the end of the Report there is not a single word which could lead any one to imagine that the practical operation of the poor-laws in England and Wales' had, from the year 1601 to the present day, been productive of one grain of good, to be placed in the scale against the accumulated mass of mischief which the researches of the commissioners have raked into their Report, and which they dwelt upon with such apparent relish.

This has not arisen, we must believe, from the commissioners' sharing the opinion of Miss Martineau, and her disciple, Lord Brougham, that the principle of the poor-law is faulty, and that such an institution has been, and can only be, productive of unmixed evil. On the contrary, they have prefaced that part of the Report which relates to the remedial measures recommended by them, with an express declaration of their opinion, that a legal provision for the destitute, including the able-bodied poor, may be beneficially afforded, and that, without it, it is impossible to prevent mendicancy, vagrancy, and depredation. We quote their words, lest we should be suspected of misrepresentation:

'In

In all extensive communities, circumstances will occur in which an individual, by the failure of his means of subsistence, will be exposed to the danger of perishing. To refuse relief, and at the same time to punish mendicity when it cannot be proved that the offender could have obtained subsistence by labour, is repugnant to the common sentiments of mankind; it is repugnant to them to punish even depredation, apparently committed as the only resource against

want.

In all extensive civilized communities, therefore, the occurrence of extreme necessity is prevented by alms-giving, by public institutions supported by endowments or voluntary contributions, or by a provision partly voluntary and partly compulsory, or by a provision entirely compulsory, which may exclude the pretext of mendicancy.

From the evidence collected under this commission, we are induced to believe that a compulsory provision for the relief of the indigent can be generally administered on a sound and well-defined principle; and that under the operation of this principle, the assurance that no one need perish from want may be rendered more complete than at present, and the mendicant and vagrant repressed by disarming them of their weapon,-the plea of impending starvation.'p. 227.

But, notwithstanding this strong expression of opinion as to the advantages derivable from a well-administered poor-law, the Report is characterised throughout by an exaggeration of the abuses in the administration of the poor-law, and a straining of every fact likely to create a prejudice against the principle of the law, wholly unwarranted by any fair statement of the case. An instance may be taken from the section which relates to the powers given by different statutes to magistrates to order relief. After admitting that the 43rd Elizabeth held out no alluring offersoffered nothing but work and necessary relief "to the impotent or those who had no means of supporting life," the Report goes on to insinuate a condemnation even of this moderate extent of provision.

The engagements of the 43rd Elizabeth were, perhaps, dangerous engagements, but they were engagements which, for one hundred years, were performed apparently without substantial injury to the morals and industry of the labourers, or to the general prosperity of the country. And whatever may be the objections in principle to the power given to the magistrates, or assumed by them under the 3rd and 4th Will. and Mary, and 9th Geo I., it does not seem to have produced much practical evil, while the 9th Geo. I. was in force.'-p. 129.

'Dangerous engagements!' All experience is here, evidently and confessedly, in favour of the law as it stood between 1600 and 1796; and yet it is insinuated that such a law is wrong in principle,' and

ought

ought to have been productive of mischief! Surely the writer of these paragraphs, if he had possessed any modesty, might have had some misgivings as to the correctness of his principle,' standing opposed, as it does by his own account, to the practical experience of two entire centuries! Throughout this section, in fact, there is an unworthy attempt to fasten upon the poor-law of Elizabeth, or upon the powers conferred in the succeeding century upon justices, the discredit of having occasioned evils, which notoriously did not exhibit themselves till after the enactment of the 36th Geo. III. and the introduction of the allowance system by the magistracy of the south of England, in direct opposition to the letter and the previous practice of the law. The intention was obvious, and the effect has unhappily, as we think, corresponded to the intention. The object was, to create an impression that a good administration of the poor-law by the magistracy of England is in the nature of things impossible-and to obtain support to the recommendation, that all power of administering or interpreting that law should be placed in the hands of a central commission alone. The fact however is, that the mischiefs of the last forty years originated in one faulty enactment, the 36th Geo. III., and a still more faulty interpretation of prior statutes. The inference, of course, should have been, that the evil would be cured by replacing the law as it stood before 1796, and providing by a declaratory act against the recent misinterpretation of the 43rd Elizabeth, which was supposed to countenance the allowance system. But, instead of this, the inference of the commissioners (and we are grieved to say that the legislature has adopted the recommendation which was grounded on that false inference) is, that the powers lodged in justices of the peace for the administration or enforcement of relief to the poor,-powers which in fact constituted the fundamental and essential machinery-the very main-spring of the poor-law from its first introduction-should be virtually abrogated at once, and machinery of a novel and perfectly untried character introduced instead.

A similar illogical deduction from their own quoted facts may be instanced in the mode by which another apparently predetermined object of the commissioners-namely, the adoption of the workhouse system, as the exclusive mode of relief to the ablebodied is supported and advanced by them. The commissioners very properly lay down, as the rule which they profess to follow in their recommendations, that those methods of administering relief which have been tried and have succeeded in some districts should be generally applied. And in support of their recommendation, that relief should be given to the able-bodied solely in well regu

lated