There seems to be no very remote chance that something
of a Repeal spirit may be transferred from the Western shores of St. George's Channel to the Eastern. The funds at Conciliation Hall have fallen for some time, and on Monday last they closed at the lowest quotation-161. for the week. This decline, we sus- pect, is to be imputed not only to the destitute state of the Irish people, but also to the fact that the interest in political questions has been quite drowned in the more urgent considerations of the famine. Too poor to harbour Ribandmen or pay Repeal shillings, the people are too busy in looking after the next meal, the next provision-ship from England, or the next subsidy, to attach much importance to a Parliament on College Green. They would in- deed discover that a Parliament on College Green could by no means pour out sums so freely as the Parliament in Palace Yard does.
But if the Union is just now conferring substantial advantages on Ireland, it is quite the reverse with England. The Irish peo- ple suffer physically—which unfortunately cannot be helped ; but it is the English that suffer pecuniarily: it is with English money that food is bought for the starving ; it is English money that is lent to the landlords ; and it is England that receives shoals of emigrant paupers coming to snatch food from the Relieving-offi- cers of the English Poor-law : Liverpool is swamped with a horde of more than twenty thousand such "casual poor " ; and even Scotland sustains a similar visitation. Such is the cost of the Union to Great Britain. Many persons are beginning to think that it would serve Irish landlords and agitators right if Repeal were granted, and Ireland were cast off, to shift for herself. Never did a mortal power, even so great as the power of England, possess the opportunity to inflict so terrible a stroke.
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