The President of the Council, the Marquis of Lansdowne, in offering some
remarks on the speech of Lord Monteagle, said he wished to God he could
differ from him, in the expectations which he entertained of the too
probable, he would not say certain, but the too probable recurrence of
that alarming evil, which was even then staring them in the face. Of
course, he said, the Government would endeavour to discharge its duty
with efficiency, in every circumstance which arose from the general
necessities felt in administering to the wants of a poor country; but he
could not be expected, at that moment, to enter more fully into the
question. He referred, in terms of approbation, to the measures taken by
the late Government, in November, 1845, to meet the famine; of their
prudent foresight in _supplying Indian meal, he entirely approved_.
It was a matter of course, according to Lord Lansdowne, that the
Government would try to discharge its duty, but he more than hints at
the difficulty of relieving a poor country, like Ireland. Yes, he spoke
the truth, Ireland was poor--poor with the poverty brought upon her by
wicked laws, enacted to make her poor, and keep her so; and that poverty
is flung in her face by an English Minister, at a time when the effects
of those laws had brought her people to the brink of one common
grave--not the grave of a slaughtered army, but the vast monster-grave
of a famine-slain nation.
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