ment of the whole question.
Addressing Mr. Greene, the chairman of the Committee, he said, with
solemn gravity: "Sir, I wish it were possible to take advantage of this
calamity, for introducing among the people of Ireland the taste for a
better and more certain provision for their support than that which they
have heretofore cultivated." Surely, the Indian meal, which he so often
boasted of having ordered on his own responsibility, was not a step in
that direction. To have purchased and stored for their use the wheat and
oats of their own soil, would have been, one should suppose, the direct
way of achieving this philanthropic desire.

On the fifth night of the debate, Sir Robert rose again, and, in his
speech, applied himself almost exclusively to the famine part of the
question. He read many letters from persons in high position in Ireland,
to prove to the House what was unfortunately but too well known in that
country for many months, that the greater portion of the only food of
four millions of the people was destroyed. Reading from an official
report, substantially embracing the whole kingdom, he said: "In four
electoral divisions, nearly nine-tenths of the potato crop are gone; in
ninety three, between seven-tenths and eight-tenths; and in one hundred
and twenty-five, the loss approaches to seven-tenths of the whole crop;
in sixteen divisions, to six-tenths; in five hundred and ninety-six
divisions, nearly one-half; and in five hundred and eighty-two, nearly
four-tenths are destroyed." Appealing to the House, he says it has but
two courses,--"to maintain the existing law, or make some proposal for
increasing the facilities of procuring foreign articles of food." "Will
you not, then," he concludes, in an elaborate peroration, "will you not
then cherish with delight the reflection, that, in this, the present
hour of _comparative prosperity_, yielding to no clamour--impelled by no
fear--except, indeed, that provident fear which is the mother of
safety--you had anticipated the evil day, and, long before its advent,
had trampled on every impediment to the free circulation of the
Creator's bounty."

The old Tory party had, in the beginning, admitted, to a great extent,
the failure of the potato crop in Ireland; but seeing the use the Peel
Government were making of it, they seem to have agreed to maintain that
the reports--Government as well as others--were greatly
exaggerated,--and for a purpose. Lord George Bentinck,