"[75] Two days later
Sir James sends his chief a desponding letter in reply, and, with much
good sense, says he is not sanguine about any chemical process, _within
the reach of the peasantry_, arresting the decay in tubers already
affected; besides the rainfall continues so great that, independently of
disease, he feels the potatoes must rot in the ground from the wet,
unless on very dry lands. He then mentions a matter of the utmost
consequence which had not been alluded to before. "There are many
points," he says, on which a scientific inquiry may be most useful,
"particularly the vital one with respect to the seed for next year."[76]
In his letter of the 13th of October, given above, the Premier opened
his mind to his friend, the Home Secretary, that he was a convert to the
repeal of the Corn Laws, but even to him he put forward the potato
blight in Ireland as the cause. Some days afterwards, in a very
carefully worded letter to Lord Heytesbury, he introduces the same
business. "The accounts from Ireland of the potato crop, confirmed as
they are by your high authority," says Sir Robert, "are very alarming,
and it is the duty of the Government to seek a remedy for the 'great
evil.
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