ity is concerned, it may
be the duty of the State to interfere with the contracts of individuals;
and to this proposition I am quite sure that Her Majesty's Government
will cordially assent. I have just read a very interesting report signed
by two members of that Government, the Duke of Buccleuch, and the noble
earl who was lately Chief Commissioner of the Woods and Forests, and
who is now Secretary for Ireland (The Earl of Lincoln.); and, since that
report was laid before the House, the noble earl himself has, with the
sanction of the Cabinet, brought in a bill for the protection of
the public health. By this bill it is provided that no man shall be
permitted to build a house on his own land in any great town without
giving notice to certain Commissioners. No man is to sink a cellar
without the consent of these Commissioners. The house must not be of
less than a prescribed width. No new house must be built without a
drain. If an old house has no drain, the Commissioners may order the
owner to make a drain. If he refuses, they make a drain for him, and
send him in the bill. They may order him to whitewash his house. If he
refuses, they may send people with pails and brushes to whitewash it for
him, at his charge. Now, suppose that some proprietor of houses at Leeds
or Manchester were to expostulate with the Government in the language in
which the Government has expostulated with the supporters of this bill
for the regulation of factories. Suppose he were to say to the noble
earl, "Your lordship professes to be a friend to free trade. Your
lordship's doctrine is that everybody ought to be at liberty to buy
cheap and to sell dear. Why then may not I run up a house as cheap as
I can, and let my rooms as dear as I can? Your lordship does not like
houses without drains. Do not take one of mine then. You think my
bedrooms filthy. Nobody forces you to sleep in them. Use your own
liberty: but do not restrain that of your neighbours. I can find many
a family willing to pay a shilling a week for leave to live in what
you call a hovel. And why am not I to take the shilling which they are
willing to give me? And why are not they to have such shelter as, for
that shilling, I can afford them? Why did you send a man without my
consent to clean my house, and then force me to pay for what I never
ordered? My tenants thought the house clean enough for them; or they
would not have been my tenants; and, if they and I were satisfied,
why did