, would
leave a portion of it for a sinking fund; let absentees be taxed fifty
per cent., and every resident ten per cent. By these means abundant
funds would be found to keep the people alive. Let there be got up in
each county machinery for carrying out the relief: let the projected
railways be commenced, and let the people be put to work from one end of
the country to the other, and let them be paid in food. He concluded,
amidst the applause of the gentlemen present, by moving, that a
deputation do wait on His Excellency to lay this plan before him, and to
explain to him the pressing necessity which existed for its adoption.
To the Tory Government of the day, especially to a politician like Lord
Heytesbury, the scheme, in all likelihood, appeared very extravagant,
and yet at this distance of time, and with the history of that terrible
period before us, it was, on the whole, sound, statesmanlike, and
practical.
In accordance with O'Connell's suggestion, a deputation was appointed to
wait on the Lord Lieutenant. He received them at the Phoenix Park, on
Wednesday, the 3rd of November. They were coldly received. This may be
in part accounted for by the fact, that the two or three previous years
were remarkable for the great Repeal agitation; O'Connell himself having
baptized the year 1843, the Repeal year.
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