continued if their preservation and continuance could not be secured consistently with what he conscientiously believed to be his duty to the House, the country, and the people who had sent him to parliament."
Captain Pechell having spoken in favour of, and Sir John Walsh against, the resolutions, Lord Howick defended the policy which Lord J. Russell had recommended to the adoption of the House in these resolutions, and contended that that policy had been met by arguments singularly in conclusive. He had expected that Sir Jas. Graham, when he rose to speak in behalf er Majesty's government, would have said either that the condition of the labourer was satisfactory, and that the interference of parliament was therefore unnecessary, or that it fell short of what every man desired, but that any improvement of it was beyond the reach of the legislature, and that it was therefore better for parliament not to interfere, lest its interference should encourage hopes which must be ultimately disappointed. He had expected; he said, that Sir James Graham would have adopted one or other of these courses; but Sir James had come down to the House, and made a speech filled with details and arguments, not refuting, but confirming every statement of Lord John Russell, and had concluded it, to the surprise of everybody, by moving the previous question. That course amounted to nothing more nor less than that her Majesty's government would neither affirm nor deny that these were measures which were calculated to improve the state of the labouring population. He regretted that a question of this importance should be discussed in so thin a house; but still more the absence of Lord Ashley, who ought to have been present to support Lord J. Russell in his attempt to ameliorate the condition of the labouring population. All the grievances of which Lord Ashley complained, and which he wished to redress, arose from the inability of the labourer to command suffcient remuneration for his labour; and the object of the
