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compliance with the notice which I have given, I am now about to call the attention of the House to one of the most important subjects which can occupy its deliberations; in which all ranks of society are deeply interested; namely, the enormous and progressively increasing burden imposed for the maintenance of the poor. This increase has still not kept pace with their increasing misery, during the same period. Whilst the resources of the country have been exhausted, their sufferings have been aggravated. As it is the interest, so it must be the wish of all, that for these great and growing evils some remedy should be adopted.

In presuming to bring forward a matter of so difficult and complex a nature, much apology on my part is necessary. I have not, however, had the rashness to enter on it as a volunteer: it is undertaken at the express instance of