FOOTNOTES:
[174] "It cannot be too strongly lamented, the opportunity which has
been lost for the present, of adopting reproductive employment; but it
is not now a question of productive or non-productive employment, it is
a question of life or death to those famishing and destitute, anxiously
waiting for the means of procuring food.... A general and well-digested
Drainage Bill, applicable to Ireland, cannot be hastily prepared; if so
it may be again a nugatory one, and it is _some great_ measure, and
_great_ expenditure for some years to come, under a Drainage and
reclaiming of waste lands Bill, that is to be of permanent and effectual
relief to this impoverished country."--_Mr. Lambert of Brookhill's
letter to the Lord Lieutenant, October 4th_.
[175] Irish Crisis, p. 68.
[176] If the word of a Scotch farmer may be accepted, this seems a great
exaggeration. Mr. Hope, of Fentonbarn, at the monthly meeting of the
Haddington Farmers' Club, said, lately: "It was only _after_ the great
disaster of 1845 that potatoes began to be grown to any extent in
Scotland."--_Irish Farmers' Gazette for 16th Nov., 1872, p. 399_. But
Lord John was only too glad to praise the Scotch at our expense.
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