ion. He left it as an alternative to
the committee, that if this clause was struck out, the bastardy clauses
should be wholly severed from the bill, and proceeded with in a future
session of parliament. The general feeling in the house seemed to
be that the clauses should be struck out, and the matters which they
involved made the subject of a separate measure, or that they should
be postponed till some middle term should be devised. The majority,
however, preferred the latter alternative, and it was decided that the
provisions in question should not be expunged. On the 21st of March Mr.
Miles proposed a modified clause, which still refused any claim to
the mother against the father, and gave no power of demanding security
before the child was born; but it exposed him to a claim at the instance
of the managers of the poor, in the event of the mother and the child
becoming chargeable to the parish. The chancellor of the exchequer said
he would have preferred the original provisions of the bill; but he
acquiesced in the adoption of the proposed clause, because he saw that
the opinion of the house was in its favour. Subsequently clauses were
added, disqualifying the commissioners from sitting in parliament;
requiring all general orders and regulations to be laid before
parliament; and limiting the operation of the act, in so far as regarded
the commissioners, to five years. The bill was read a third time and
passed on the 1st of July. It was introduced to the lords on the day
following, and the second reading was fixed for the 8th of July; but in
consequence of the resignation of Earl Grey, it was not again brought
forward till the 21st of July. The second reading was moved by the
lord-chancellor, who, after giving an historical account of the progress
of the poor-laws, pointed out the manner in which they had become the
sources of so much evil. The bill found its most violent opponent in
Lord Wynford, who moved as an amendment that it be read that day six
months. He did not oppose it, he said, on the ground that there was
not much in the administration of the poor-laws which required to be
corrected, but because he conceived that the remedies proposed by the
bill were partly unnecessary and partly inefficient, while some of
them were perfectly tyrannical. The Earl of Winchilsea and the Dukes
of Richmond and Wellington supported the motion for the second reading,
though they did not approve of all the provisions of the bill.