with a direct consignment from New
York to a house in this city, makes no scruple, in his trips in the
public steamers up and down the river, to speak of the enormous profits
the English and Irish houses are making by their dealings with the
States. One house in Cork alone, it is affirmed, will clear L40,000 by
corn speculation; and the leading firm here will, I should say, go near
to L80,000, as they are now weekly turning out from 700 to 900 tons of
different sorts of meal.... I sometimes am inclined to think houses give
large prices for cargoes imported for a market, to keep them up; it is
an uncharitable thought, but really there is so much cupidity abroad,
and the wretched people suffering so intensely from the high prices of
food, augmented by every party through whose hands it passes before it
reaches them, it is quite disheartening to look upon."[124]

The Government further determined not to send any orders for supplies
of food to foreign countries, as was done by Sir Robert Peel, in the
case of the cargo of India meal; and their depots would be only
established in those western and north-western districts, where, owing
to the previous almost universal cultivation of the potato (or rather
owing perhaps to its universal use), no trade in corn for local
consumption existed.

The system of relief thus provided was extensive and expansive enough,
as it laid the entire soil of Ireland under contribution. Whether or not
the country would, in the long run, be able to pay for it all, the
Government acted well in making the landlords understand and feel their
responsibilities in such a terrible crisis. But they should not have
stopped there. Those who had mortgages on Irish estates, and their name
was legion, should have been compelled to contribute their due
proportion; the commercial and monied interests of the country should
have been taxed, as well as the land; no one able to bear any portion of
the burthen should have been exempted from it, at such a moment of
national calamity. Instead of taxing one species of property, namely
land, to meet the Famine, the _whole_ property of the country should
have been taxed for that purpose; and this partiality was justly
complained of by the landed interests.

But a much more formidable opposition than that of the landed interest,
as such, rose up against the Labour-rate Act, and for a very sufficient
reason. The employment to be provided under it could not, and was not
int