ny such effect. On the contrary, as all relief
was to be given in the workhouse, every man who was refused would have a
pretext for praedial resistance. The man refused would be the very man to
resent the refusal; he would go to others and induce them to adopt his
quarrel, and perhaps to avenge what he would consider to be his wrong.
In conclusion, Mr. O'Connell admitted that he was opposed to a law of
settlement, and also to a labour-rate: he thought emigration should
be tried on a large scale; and he was still an advocate for a tax on
absentees. However much he disapproved of the bill, he would not
vote against it: he had not moral courage enough to resist a poor-law
altogether. A long and angry debate ensued, which issued in nothing
practical.

The only point in the measure in which any serious opposition was
raised, respected the law of settlement. On the 12th of May, when the
order of the day was read for the house to go into committee on the
bill, Mr. Lucas moved,--"That it be an instruction to the committee to
introduce a provision for settlement, so as more justly to apportion
the pecuniary charges to be incurred and levied under the name of
poor-rates." Mr. Lucas suggested a particular scheme of settlement, by
which he conceived most of the evils attaching to the system as hitherto
practised might be avoided; but his statement of its nature and probable
operation was not very intelligible, and his motion was negatived, after
some discussion of the subject, by a majority of one hundred and twenty
against sixty-eight. The bill did not proceed beyond this stage of its
progress, in consequence of the demise of the crown.

IRISH TITHE QUESTION.

{WILLIAM IV. 1836--1837}

Another cardinal point of Irish policy remaining to be settled, as
pointed out to the consideration of parliament in the speech from the
throne, was the tithe question. This subject was brought forward in the
house of commons on the 1st of May by Lord Morpeth, who, in introducing
it, said, that it was the fifth measure which had been brought forward
in the last three years for the adjustment of Irish tithes. His present
plan was this. He proposed to deduct thirty per cent, from the tithe
composition, so as to make a rent-charge on the owner of the first
estate of inheritance, in the proportion of L70 to every L100 of the
tithe. By the bill of last year power was given to the commissioners of
woods and forests to collect the rent-charge; bu