Rotunda--The Resolutions--Spirit of those
Resolutions--Emigration--great anxiety for it--Opening of
Parliament--Queen's Speech--England on her Trial--Debate on the
Address--Lord Brougham on Irish Landlords--Lord Stanley on the
Famine--Smith O'Brien's speech--Defends the Landlords--Mr.
Labouchere, the Irish Secretary, defends the Government--The Irish
Agricultural population were always on the brink of starvation, and
when the Blight came it was impossible to meet the disaster--The
views of the _Morning Chronicle_ on the Government of Ireland--Mr.
Labouchere quotes the Poor-law Enquiry of 1835 and the Devon
Commission--Change of the Government's views on the
Famine--Griffith's estimate of the loss by the Blight--Extent of
Irish Pauperism--Lord George Bentinck points out the mistakes of the
Government--The people should have been supplied with food in remote
districts--He did not agree with the political economy of
non-interference--Mr. D'Israeli's manipulation of Lord George's
speech--Letter of Rev. Mr. Townsend of Skibbereen--Fourteen funerals
waiting whilst a fifteenth corpse was being interred--Quantity of
corn in London, Liverpool and Glasgow--Lord John Russell's
speech--He regarded the Famine as a "national calamity"--Absurd
reason for not having summoned Parliament in Autumn--Sir Robert
Peel's view--The Prime Minister on the state of Ireland--His
views--His plans--Defends the action of the Government--Defends
unproductive work--Reason for issuing the "Labouchere
Letter"--Quotes Smith O'Brien approvingly--Mr. O'Brien's letters to
the Landlords of Ireland (_Note_)--Confounding the questions of
temporary relief and permanent improvement--Fallacy--Demoralization
of labour--The Premier's "group of measures"--Soup
kitchens--Taskwork--Break down of the Public Works--Food for
nothing--Mode of payment of loans--£50,000 for seed--Impossibility