Had the misgivings as to the necessity of Government inter-
ference to aid the Irish in meeting the calamity of the potato crop not already been routed, they would be so by the multiply- ing reports of suffering which continue to come in from all parts. If the visitation had been left to work out its own effects, great numbers of the Irish people would have been actually starving, and desperation would have dissolved the bonds of society. As it is, reliance for order is placed solely in the Ministerial measures of relief. The tokens of a refusal to pay rent are repeated : they are now mere signs of the fiercer spirit that might have ruled. Meanwhile, the landlords avow themselves quite incompetent to cope with the emergency : were they left alone, Heaven help the country ! Lord Mountcashel says they are too poor : their estate are so burdened, that a man with a nominal income, say of 10,0001., really has but 4,0001.; a state of pauperism which utterly prevents his borrowing money to improve his estates. Money, say the landlords, ought not to be lent, but given to them. By their own showing, the landlords are incompetent to possess their own estates, and in point of fact are not the proprietors : therefore it would be neither hard nor unjust to them if they were obliged to give up their nominal ownership, and transfer it to others who could convert the land to some more adequate use.
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