cause this measure, in fact, was a corollary to the Factory Bill, and would be followed by many others of the same description. It professed to be founded on the principle of "a fair day's work for a fair day's wages;" and as the Government by their proceedings on the Factory Bill appeared to be able to say what was a fair day's work," they had laid themselves under the obligation of saying what were a fair day's wages. With their sanction of the principle of the Factory Bill, the Government could not resist the case of the frameknitters. The factory workers of this country, taking them altogether, were the best paid, the best lodged, and the best educated of all the working classes; but the poor frame-knitters were at the other extreme of the scale. If, therefore, the House held out to the working classes the idea that they were able, by legislation, to improve their condition, the frame-knitters were those who ought first to be taken in hand. Yet, after the decision of a majority of that House on the Factory Bill, and the votes of the leading Members of Her Majesty's Government, he was at a loss what course they would take upon this Bill. What excuse could they offer for opposing the claims of the frame-knitters? For himself, he was perfectly free from blame upon the subject. He had lived both in the manufacturing districts and in the frame-knitting districts, and in both he had always told the working classes that it was utterly impossible for the House to do anything to alleviate their distress. He knew himself that in many cases it was absolutely necessary to make up the wages of the frame-knitters out of the rates; and he had himself land in two parishes in Leicestershire where, for several years, more shillings per acre had from this cause been paid to the poor rates than he had received as landlord. The consequence of this was, that every frame-knitter in the country brought up his children to the same occupation, so that the trade really could not maintain them, it was so excessively overstocked; and no improvement could be looked for except from a diminution in their numbers. He wished Her Majesty's Government could be induced to take wider views upon these questions. The Legislature were engaged in endeavouring to solve a great social problemthe problem of how they could enable the luxuries and the ease of the highest classes to exist without the co-existence of a lowest class, indigent, distressed, and miserable. They were trying so to divide the profits of industry and skill, which formed the na tional income, as to give to the highest class what its increased numbers and luxury demanded, without giving sufficient comfort to the lowest class. All their Education Grants, Factory Bills, Colliery Bills, and this Hosiery Bill, were so many struggles with the difficulties of this great problem. The United States of America had wisely avoided it altogether. The aristocratic institutions of France had sunk under it. We alone carried on the struggle. Humanity and morality forbid us to allow our own people to suffer; but, at the same time, we were too rigidly aristocratic to allow the masses to rise in the social scale. He was aware that every step ought to be taken with strict and almost mathematical demonstration, and that this was hardly a fit thing for discussion in a public assembly; besides, he was willing to own that up to this time the working classes had struggled manfully against this state of things with considerable success. But if this legislation were continued, his belief was, that they would destroy their self-reliance. There was not a situation in this country to which a subject could aspire, to which members of the working classes had not attained. Men sprung from the working classes were found both upon the legal and ecclessiastical bench, in the Queen's Council, and in every department of art and science. He therefore warned the House and the Government against meddling with a system that up to this day had produced such results. The most dangerous things they could do was to bring in Bills which would take the management of their own affairs from the hands of the working classes; for it was their self-reliance that enabled them to raise themselves, and it was a virtue that might be eradicated. He reminded the House that the last Bill introduced on this subject by the hon. Baronet failed from the general want of confidence in it both on the part of masters and men. [Sir H. HALFORD had that day presented a petition both from masters and men desiring legislation upon the same principle.] He was happy to be corrected if he were in error. How, he would ask, could the House consistently give this Bill a second reading, and affirm the propositions it involved? The first principle of it was, that there should be no frame rent; but he contended they might just as well enact that the owner of a frame who had a house should 421 The Medical Registration and {MAY 5} Medical Law Amendment Bill. 422 not be entitled to receive rents for his house. | the right hon. Gentleman he had consented On what principle could it be enacted that the man who had invested money in frames should not receive interest on his capital? Another principle of it was to push down middlemen. He did not know why it was to be considered an offence to be a middleman. But the fact was, the whole Bill was founded upon the assumption that the hosiers were the most destructive and hard-hearted class of men in the country. He repeated it was the greatest kindness to the poor to teach them not to rely upon that House. The House was certainly desirous of improving their condition, and every one of these Bills was a proof of it; but it could not be done by legislating between employers and workmen. The case of the Spitalfields weavers was a case in point. Their wages were regulated by Act of Parliament. They were pets of legislation and charity. From their cradle to their grave they had been the care of the Legislature, and after all, according to the testimony of their best friends, all this care had proved an evil to them as well as to the country. He warned the House against a similar result in this case. The practical suggestion of the Bill obviously was, that instead of trousers and socks, everybody should wear knee breeches and white hose. In conclusion, he repeated that after their proceedings on the Factory Bill, the Government were bound to take the frame-knitters at once under their care, and that he should have been happy to have seen the leading Members of it in their places. After some conversation, the debate was adjourned. THE MEDICAL REGISTRATION AND ME- to postpone the second reading to Tuesday next. He gave notice, at the same time, that it was his intention to move that, after the second reading, the Bill be referred to a Select Committee. Those who objected to the proposed alteration in the law would then have a full opportunity of stating their objections and of having them refuted; and he trusted that when this necessary investigation was concluded, the House would consent to pass a measure which there could be no doubt would be beneficial to the profession and to the public. Seven Medical Bills had, time after time, been introduced: this was the seventh; and if there were to be seven more, this, at any rate, was the last he would have anything to do with. The state of the medical law was at present most unsatisfactory, and he thought it was the duty of the Legislature to take the subject as early as possible into consideration. Some of the various corporations, he understood, had come to the conclusion that their interests would be injuriously affected, were such a measure as this to be adopted. That might or might not be the case; but, whether or not, the House was bound, in inquiring into the facts, to look to the general interest of the profession, and not to the profit or loss to a few parties. He would beg of the right hon. Gentleman to remember that the objections about to be urged in private by the deputations he had mentioned, ought not to influence the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman on the course he would take; he ought to be guided solely by the facts, and the facts could only be brought to light before a Committee of that House. Back-stairs him in private. He moved that the Order of the Day be read, in order that the second reading might be postponed to Tuesday next. influence had on too many occasions swayed the decision of that House; and he MR. WAKLEY, in rising to move the was sure the right hon. Gentleman was too Order of the Day for the Second Reading of highminded and of too independent a the Medical Registration and Medical Law judgment to give undue importance to the Amendment Bill, presented upwards of representations which might be made to twenty petitions from medical practitioners, apothecaries, physicians, and surgeons, praying that the Bill might pass into a law in the present Parliament. The right hon. the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who last Session had promised to give his aid and assistance in passing a Medical Bill, had intimated, that afternoon, that deputations from some of the colleges had been appointed to wait on the right hon. Gentleman, for the purpose of laying before him the objections which they entertained to this Bill; and at the request of SIR G. GREY had stated that morning, in answer to a question, during the absence of the hon. Gentleman from that House, that he had received three deputationsone from the College of Physicians, one from the College of Surgeons, and one from the College of General Practitioners all pressing on him the great importance of appointing a day when they might wait on and lay before him the great objections | very unreasonable on the part of the House they entertained either to the principle of not to entertain with any great favour this the Bill or to some of its details, previous Bill. to proceeding to the second reading. He had since received three other deputations -one from apothecaries, one from accoucheurs, and one representing individual gentlemen; and the same representation had been made, and the same delay had been asked for. It was quite true, as the hon. Gentleman said, that objections urged in private ought not to influence the course which a Member of that House should take in dealing with a measure of this nature; but as those parties were deeply concerned in the probable operation of the Bill, they had a perfect right to be heard. and it was for this reason he had requested the hon. Gentleman to postpone moving the second reading until next week. All MR. HUME apprehended that the right hon. Gentleman would find it much more convenient to hear the parties to whom he alluded before a Committee up stairs. the difficulties experienced by the hon. Gentleman, in inducing the House to amend the medical law, had resulted from his having been assailed privately: the facts of the case had always been carefully hid, and the appointment of a Committee was now the only way by which they could succeed in making the question understood and the truth known. He was afraid the right hon. Gentleman would experience a great deal of trouble, and lose the whole of Saturday in listening to these deputations; it would be much better to wait until they could be referred to a Committee. MR. WAKLEY could make no such promise. He firmly believed that if he did make it, and were to adhere to it, it would be at the sacrifice of his life. He feared that he would have to sit in the chair till one day after eternity. He agreed with the hon. Member for Montrose that the best prospect of obtaining a settlement of the disputed points would be by consenting to the appointment of a Select Committee. [Sir J. GRAHAM: Over which you will not promise to preside.] He would at least promise to work in that Committee to accomplish the end he had in view, and to serve the profession. He did not, however, object to hearing the deputations in private also, and he should accept the invitation of the right hon. Gentleman, and visit him at the Home Office on Saturday. Second reading deferred. HOUSE OF LORDS, Thursday, May 6, 1847. tion of the System of Entails, or for a Moderation of its THE MONETARY CRISIS. SIR J. GRAHAM thought that the appointment of a Committee would very much depend on the answer which he hoped to receive from a question he would put to LORD BROUGHAM inquired whether the hon. Members for Finsbury and Mon- the noble Marquess or the Government had trose; would they undertake to employ received any report of a meeting of mertheir time, the one by presiding over, and chants and bankers of the city of London the other by attending, that Committce, on the distressing state of the money maruntil all the complaints of all the deputa-ket? Yesterday it was very bad, and it tions referred to had been exhausted? If the hon. Member for Finsbury would say that he would take the chair of the Committee, and if the hon. Member for Montrose would promise a daily attendance, he (Sir J. Graham) should be very much disposed to support the proposition. Let them not, however, hear of loss of time. If those hon. Gentlemen would not give up their time and attention to hearing the complaints which the Secretary of State professed himself ready to hear, it was not was still worse the day before; and the worst accounts were received from Lancashire and Yorkshire. It appeared that numerous orders had been received from America for woollens in the West Riding, and for cottons in Lancashire; yet the manufacturers could not execute these or ders, and were even obliged to stop their mills. Now, as by the visitation of the season we had been compelled to send, day by day, for fresh supplies of food from America, the happy circumstance of these orders would have enabled us to get this The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE was understood to say, that within the course of a few hours the noble Lord at the head of the Treasury had been in communication on this subject with a very respectable portion of the merchants and others in the city; but he (the Marquess of Lansdowne) was not prepared to state what was the result of that communication, that the measure would work pretty much as it was now working. It was a great mistake to suppose that any additional accommodation given to the country must be shown in an additional issue of bank notes. The amount of notes had varied but little; it had been sometimes at 20,000,000l., sometimes 20,400,0007., and sometimes 20,500,000l.; but it had never reached 21,000,000l.: but the private securities had varied from 12,000,000l. up to 18,000,000l. On the 29th of August, 1846, the public accommodation was 12,000,0007.; in April, 1847, it was 18,000,000l.: but the whole amount of notes issued, instead of increasing, had decreased in that period. Any apprehension of the issue of notes increasing in proportion to the amount of the accommodation given by the Bank, was incorrect. He thought it impossible that the Government should sit down with things as they were at present, when, for the first time in the memory of most of their Lordships, Exchequer-bills had been at a discount for weeks and months together. The question was one of much importance; and if it had not been for fear of occupying too much of their Lordships' time, he should have been sorry to pass it over in so slight a manner as he had done. EARL FITZWILLIAM thought the Government were exceedingly indebted to the noble Lord for turning the attention of the House to this subject in rather a different point of view from that which had been taken by the noble and learned Lord. He thought nothing could be worse for the country than that it should take for granted that the present state of things arose from one simple cause, and that cause the railways. LORD BROUGHAM had said that was one cause only. LORD ASHBURTON was understood to observe, that any disorganization of the monetary interest in the city affected the country generally, and that the whole of the difficulty arose from the restrictions on its issues imposed on the Bank in 1844. A sudden stoppage of accommodation, on the part of the Bank, had taken place, with something like 10,000,000l. of bul- EARL FITZWILLIAM had great doubt lion in the coffers of the Bank. It had on the point. The same cause had existed hardly ever been known that there was so in the last Session of Parliament; but not large an accumulation of bullion. The being accompanied by certain other causes whole of the confusion had arisen from the now in operation, had not produced the restrictions, which had left the country in effects that were now observed. His hou. the predicament of having only 2,500,000l. Friend had said, that the Bank Act of in the Bank disposable, while there were 1844 had the concurrence of both the 10,000,000l. of bullion in its coffers. The leading parties in Parliament, and of many whole scheme rested on a mistaken theory, other parties of high authority in such in his opinion, though the Act, no doubt, matters; but he (Earl Fitzwilliam) thought had the sanction of the late Government, he had observed that Parliament never leas well as of the Members of the present gislated worse than when the two leading Government, besides some of the highest parties in the State, by accident, concurred authorities on the subject in the country. | in any particular opinion. In 1844, he had stated to their Lordships. LORD BROUGHAM observed, that what he had said that night was in continuation | He had also heard with considerable satisof what he had said on a former night on the same subject. LORD WHARNCLIFFE rose simply to state his view to be, that the causes which his noble Friend near him (Lord Ashburton) had assigned, were really not those which had led to the present unfortunate state of the money market. In his opinion, the Act of 1844 was founded on sound and just principles. If there had been no such regulation of our monetary system, it was his belief, and that of very well-informed parties who had communicated with him, that the country would have been in a very much worse position than at present. The amount of liabilities in the banking department in August last had been reduced by April very considerably. Looking at what had passed within the last eight months-considering the vast sums invested in railways-and the high price of grain, owing to the great demand in consequence of the famine in Ireland-it was to him a matter of surprise that the country was not in a worse condition than that in which it now was placed. He believed that but for the security afforded by the Act of 1844, the pressure would have been greatly aggravated. faction the expressions made use of by the noble Marquess in enforcing what he might term the great feature of this Bill, which he at one time feared would prove detrimental to the best interests of his country; but he heard with great satisfaction the statements of the noble Marquess, that the provisions for giving relief to the destitute poor did not give a right to any man to claim relief under the provisions of this Bill, but that they were intended by the Government to confer a power upon the Commissioners of the Poor Law and the guardians to give out-door relief under the most cautious circumstances, whenever it should be found necessary. He felt great satisfaction when he heard the noble Marquess make this statement; and he confessed it had relieved him from many serious apprehensions he had previously entertained as to this part of the Bill. He had listened also with great attention to the speech of the learned Lord, and to the speeches of other noble Lords who had addressed the House with great eloquence and power upon this subject. But there was one circumstance which characterized all their speeches-that it did not appear to him that any of them were agreed as LORD ASHBURTON spoke in explana- to any other measure which might be protion, and was understood to complain of posed as a substitute for this Bill which the conditions imposed upon the Bank by was now before their Lordships. At the the Charter of 1844. With a reserve of same time he believed there was no one more than 10,000,000l. of bullion, the who would undertake to say what would Bank was restricted in affording accommo-be the effects of the working of this meadation to the commercial world, so as sure in Ireland. He believed that even greatly to embarrass the trade of the country. By its charter, the Bank was compelled to adopt the same course under every possible variety of circumstances; it adopted the principle of Le Sage's Doctor Sangrado, and applied the same remedy to every disease. POOR RELIEF (IRELAND) BILL. The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE moved that the House resolve itself into Committee, when the noble Marquess would not hesitate to admit that for good or for evil it must be attended with very serious consequences. But the circumstances in which the country were placed, the events which were passing before their eyes every day, seemed to be the grounds on which the noble Marquess founded his justification for introducing this Bill. It was indeed impossible for any man who had been thirty years resident in Ireland, as he had been, and who had consequently become well acquainted with the circumstances and the peculiar siuation of the country, not to have long foreseen that there were evils The EARL of RODEN said, that in a question so deeply affecting the interests of the country in which he resided, he felt that it would be wrong if he were alto-existing there which must sooner or later gether to remain silent. He had listened with very great attention to the speech of the noble Marquess opposite by whom this measure had been introduced; and he had heard with great satisfaction the clear, candid, and eloquent statement which the noble Marquess had made on that occasion. have brought matters to a crisis; and that the evils existing in that country, though they might for a time lie hid, would ultimately burst out as they had now done. He knew he was addressing many noble Lords who were unacquainted with the circumstances of Ireland, though |