power to do so, rather than instructed them to
call for its establishment.

_May 3, 1838._

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_State of Poverty in Ireland._

Of all the countries in Europe, Ireland is the one in which it has
appeared to me to be least possible to establish anything in the nature
of the English poor-laws. The opinion delivered by others has been, that
there are no materials to be found in Ireland proper for forming, or if
formed for administering with salutary effect, any system of poor-laws
such as exists in this country; and I, my lords, believe that there is
no doubt whatever of the justice and truth of that opinion, considering
the English poor-laws, as they formerly existed, and as they were
carried into execution up to the year 1834, when the noble lords
opposite introduced the measure which amended them. While, however, I
say this, I am bound at the same time to express my entire concurrence
in the opinion declared by the noble viscount, that there never was a
country in which poverty existed to such a degree as it exists in that
part of the United Kingdom. My lords, I was in office in that country--I
held a high situation in the administration of the government of Ireland
thirty years ago--and I must say, that from that time to this there has
scarcely elapsed a single year in which the government has not at
certain periods of it entertained the most serious apprehensions of
actual famine. My lords, I am firmly convinced that from the year 1806
down to the present time, a year has not passed in which the government
have not been called on to give assistance to relieve the poverty and
distress which prevailed in Ireland, and owing to circumstances over
which no human power could have any control. One of the circumstances
which has most frequently led to this lamentable state of things, has
been the failure or delay of the potato crops, and there have been known
times when two, three, and even as many as four months have intervened
before these crops, which are used as a subsistence by the people, could
be brought into the market; and such are the social relations in that
country, that the people have no means of coming to market to purchase
like the people of England. My lords, this is a fact that is undoubted,
and one that I believe never existed in any country in the world except
Ireland.

_May 21, 1838._

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_The Numbers of a Meeting may r