active, earnest, and unremitting cooperation of the landlords of that
country." No doubt, it is the very truth; but how can landlords
co-operate for the good of Ireland unless they reside in it, and try to
understand something about it? Let them, therefore, reside, or
reimburse the country for the evil and loss of their non-residence.

The address was, of course, voted without a division.

The First Minister made no unnecessary delay in bringing the state of
Ireland formally before Parliament. On the 25th of January, six days
after the opening of the session, he rose in a full house; expressed his
sense of the great responsibility under which he laboured, and claimed
its indulgence whilst he endeavoured to explain what had been already
done to counteract the disastrous results of the potato blight in
Ireland; to call their attention to those measures which the Government
considered necessary to meet the existing emergency, and finally to
submit to its consideration other measures, which, in the opinion of her
Majesty's advisers, were calculated to improve the general condition of
that country, and lay the foundation of its permanent improvement.

He proceeded to develope this somewhat pretentious programme.

Like other members of the Government, he commenced by quoting the
reports of Poor Law Commissioners, to prove that even in what were
regarded in Ireland as prosperous times, that country was on the verge
of starvation. A pretty confession for an English Prime Minister, to be
sure; yet such was his argument and his excuse. It may be imagined, he
said, how those who, in the most prosperous years, were scarcely able to
maintain themselves, and may be said to have been on the brink of
famine, were utterly unable to resist the flood of calamity which poured
in upon them with a crop so lamentably deficient; a calamity almost
without a parallel, because acting upon a very large population, a
population of eight millions of people,--in fact he should say it was
like a famine of the 13th century acting upon a population of the 19th
century. He then went into some figures to show how vast the operations
of the Board of Works were. At present, he said, they had 11,587
officials, and half a million of people at work, at a weekly cost of
between seven and eight hundred thousand pounds. He took up the
objections against the Labour-rate Act, and the reproductive works
authorized by the "Labouchere Letter." Very soon after the L