But ere long economic causes were at work which tended to check the
prosperity of Ireland. It was soon found that the proportion which by
the Act of Union Ireland was to contribute to the Imperial Government
was too large for the country to bear. The funded debt of Ireland
which amounted to £28,000,000 in 1800 rose by 1817 to £130,000,000;
in that year the whole liability was taken over by the Imperial
Government. Then the fall in prices which naturally resulted from
the peace of 1815 pressed heavily on an agricultural community.
Improvements in machinery and the development of steam power squeezed
out the handlooms of Ulster and the watermills of other parts of the
country. Wages were low; and the people who depended mainly on the
potato were underfed and undernourished. In 1846 and 1847 came the
two terrible blows to Ireland--first, the potato disease; and then the
Repeal of the Corn Laws, which made the profitable growing of wheat
with its accompanying industries, impossible. During the fearful years
of the potato famine, it is only too probable that some of the efforts
for relief were unwisely conducted and that some persons sadly failed
in their duties; no measures or men in the world are ever perfect; and
the difficulties not only of obtaining food but of getting it to the
starving people in days when there were few railways and no motors
were enormous. But when modern writers shower wholesale abuse over
the landlords of the period, and even hint that they brought about the
famine, it is well to turn to the writings of an ardent Home Ruler,
who was himself an eye-witness, having lived as a boy through the
famine time in one of the districts that suffered most--Mr. A.M.
Sullivan. He says:--

"The conduct of the Irish landlords throughout the famine
period has been variously described, and has been, I believe,