ary evil does in this
particular case involve considerations of the utmost and most lasting
importance."

These passages were indited by a minister who, coolly, and without any
sufficient authority whatever, assumed that there was no other remedy
for the failure of the potato crop in Ireland but a repeal of the Corn
Laws, and that it was the remedy the Irish public were calling for, to
meet the threatened danger. And yet so far from this being the case, it
was never propounded by any one as a principal remedy at all. What the
Irish public thought about the impending famine, and what they said
about it was, that the oat crop was unusually fine and more than
sufficient to feed the whole population, and that it should be kept in
the country for that purpose. A most obvious remedy; but the Premier had
other plans in his head, and could not see this one, because he would
not. Like Nelson on a memorable occasion, he persisted in keeping his
telescope to the eye that suited his own purpose. He does not condescend
to give a reason for his views, he only expresses them. He had no
confidence in the old-fashioned remedy of keeping the food in the
country, but he did put his trust in the remedy of sending 3,000 miles
for Indian corn--a food which, he elsewhere admits he fears the Irish
cannot be induced to use. He thought it quite right, and in accordance
with political science, to allow, or rather to compel Ireland,
threatened with famine, to sell her last loaf and then go to America to
buy maize, the preparation of which, she did not understand. Political
economists will hardly deny that people ought not to sell what they
require for themselves--that they should only part with _surplus_ food.
But to sell wheat and oats, and oatmeal and flour with one hand and buy
Indian corn with the other to avoid starvation could be hardly regarded
as the act of a sane man. "There had been--it was hinted, and we believe
truly, in Lord John Russell's letter from Edinburgh--some talk in the
Cabinet, and there was some discussion in the press, about opening the
Irish ports by proclamation. _Opening the Irish ports!_ Why the real
remedy, had any interference with the law been necessary, would have
been to _close_ them--the torrent of food was running _outwards_."[78]
So did the leading Tory periodical put this obvious truth some months
later.

The Viceroy, replying to the Premier's letter on the 17th of October,
says he is deeply impressed with t