n the churchyard, and in two other adjoining ones,
there were six together in each. To prove his assertion that the
Government should have done more in supplying food to the people, his
lordship said: "At this moment, we know that there are between 300,000
and 400,000 quarters of corn in stock on hand in the different ports of
London, Liverpool and Glasgow. I want to know, then, what was to have
prevented ministers from sending any part, or all of this food to the
West of Ireland, to feed the starving people there?... It would have
kept the retailers and forestallers in order, and prevented them from
availing themselves of the Famine to obtain undue prices. What do we see
with regard to Indian meal? Why Indian corn is, at this moment, selling
in New York at three shillings, and at Liverpool and in Ireland at nine
shillings per bushel."[196]

The Prime Minister spoke towards the close of the debate, and, with the
apparent intention of answering a question put by Smith O'Brien, said he
was quite willing to consider what had occurred in Ireland as "a
national calamity," and that the national resources were fitly employed
in endeavouring to meet it. The reason he gave for not having summoned
Parliament in the Autumn, as O'Connell and many others had suggested, or
rather demanded, was a striking proof of the evils of absenteeism. "We
had to consider," he said, "that if we did meet Parliament, we should be
acting against the opinion of the Irish Government, and against the
opinion of almost every one I saw who was connected with Ireland, who
thought that to take away at that time--at the commencement of the
severe pressure--every person connected by property with Ireland, would
inflict a very great injury upon that country, and that, consequently,
Parliament should not be called together at that time."[197] If it could
be looked upon as a great injury to Ireland to have the comparatively
few proprietors who are resident there absent for even one short month,
doing important business for Ireland, how terrible the evil must be of
having the owners of L4,000,000 of her rental continually absent, and to
have her representatives in both Houses of Parliament absent, not merely
for a month, but for about seven months out of every twelve!

Sir Robert Peel supported the Premier's view, and in a sentence
remarkable for the same sort of logic, said--"He believed nothing
effectual ever would or ever could be done in Ireland, without the