The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law;
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it."
This quotation was received by the House with a "hear, hear." "Such," continued the noble Lord, "is the incentive which is given to the poor Irish peasant to break the law, which, he considers, deprives him of the means, not of being rich, but of the means of obtaining a subsistence." Having pointed out the difficulties of giving out-door relief under the Poor Law, he goes on to suggest what seemed to him to be, and what undoubtedly was, a far better remedy for Irish poverty and Irish famine: "There is," said he, "another source of benefit—namely, the cultivation of the waste lands. On that subject I do not see the difficulties which beset the propositions with regard to the Poor Laws. It seems to me some great scheme, with regard to the cultivation, preparation, and tillage of the waste lands, would somewhat abate the severe competition for land, and diminish the cause of crime." Repeated cheers greeted these observations.
Lord John met Parliament as Prime Minister on the 16th of July; on which occasion he gave a brief outline of the Government business for the remainder of the session. He said they would take up, and endeavour to pass some of the measures of the late Administration. As to Irish bills, he postponed the most important one, the Tenants' Compensation Bill, which, he said, was complicated, and was therefore reserved for further consideration. Referring to the waste lands, the reclamation of which he had, a short time before, put so prominently forward, he said he would make preparation for the introduction of a general measure on the subject. Thus were disposed of in a very brief speech, and in a very cool manner, the eleven measures which O'Connell required to be passed before the rising of the Session, and on the passing of which he had grounded any support he intended to give the Whig Government.
Whilst people were absorbed with the change of Ministry, and the wretched conflict in Conciliation Hall, the fatal blight began to show itself in the potato fields of the country. Its earliest recorded appearance was in Cork, on the 3rd of June. Accounts of its rapid increase soon filled the public journals, and the gloomiest forebodings of the total loss of the crop of 1846, immediately took hold of the public mind. Here are a few specimens of the manner in which the dreadful calamity was announced: "Where no disease was apparent a few days ago all are now black." "Details are needless—the calamity is everywhere." "The failure this year is universal; for miles a person may proceed in any direction, without perceiving an exception to the awful destruction." The South and West suffered more in 1845 than the North; but this year the destroyer swept over Ulster the same as the other provinces. "We have had an opportunity," says a writer, "of observing the state of the potato crop from one end of the county Antrim to another, and saw only one uniform gloomy evidence of destruction. The potatoes everywhere exhibit the appearance of a lost crop." The same account was given of Tyrone, Monaghan, Londonderry, and, in fact, of the entire province. On the 18th of August, the fearful announcement was made, that there was not one sound potato to be found in the whole county of Meath! Again: "The failure of the potato crop in Galway is universal; in Roscommon there is not a hundred weight of good potatoes within ten miles round the town." "In Cavan, Westmeath, Galway, and Kerry, the fields emit intolerable effuvia." "The failure this year is universal in Skibbereen."[108]
In a letter published amongst the Parliamentary papers, Father Mathew writes: "On the 27th of last month [July] I passed from Cork to Dublin, and this doomed plant bloomed in all the luxuriance of an abundant harvest. Returning on the 3rd instant [August] I beheld with sorrow one wide waste of putrefying vegetation. In many places the wretched people were seated on the fences of their decaying gardens, wringing their hands and wailing bitterly the destruction that had left them foodless."[109]
Such were the words of terror and despair in which the destruction of the food of a whole people was chronicled; a people who had but just passed through a year of deadly famine; a people still surrounded with starvation—looking forward with earnest and longing expectancy to the new harvest—but, alas! their share of it had melted away in a few short days before their eyes, and, there they were, in their helpless myriads before Europe and the world, before God and man, foodless and famine-stricken, in a land renowned for its fertility, and this, ere the terrible fact could be fully realised by many of their countrymen at home; whilst it was doubted, or only half believed by unsympathizing absentees; who, distant from the scene, are always inclined to think, with a grudging suspicion, that accounts of this kind are either false or vastly exaggerated, to furnish an excuse for withholding rent, or for appealing in some way to their pockets.
The failure of 1845 did not prevent the people from planting potatoes very largely in 1846, in which year, according to one account, the quantity of land under potatoes in Ireland, was one million two hundred and thirty seven thousand four hundred and forty one acres; the produce being valued at £15,947,919 sterling;[110] but according to another account it was very much larger, being, as estimated by the Earl of Rosse, two millions one hundred thousand acres, valued at £33,600,000.[111] The great discrepancy between these two accounts arises from there being no authoritative official returns on the subject. The truth, no doubt, lies somewhere between them.
The crop looked most healthy in the earlier part of Summer. Towards the close of July, the potato fields were in full blossom, and in every way so promising, that the highest hopes of an abundant yield were entertained, and the people had so little fear on the subject of the blight, that there was no appearance of that nervous anxiety which was so strongly manifested at the same period of the previous year.[112] A strong opinion prevailed that imported potatoes, at least, would resist the blight, but there was no considerable importation of them into Ireland in 1846. There is no doubt that new or strange sets, if of a good quality, produce a healthier and a better crop than seed raised on the same or neighbouring land, but from the general prevalence of the potato blight, it is very doubtful if there would have been much advantage in importing seed. An admittedly surer way of producing sound tubers is to raise them from the actual seed as ripened and perfected on the stalk in the apples, as the notch berries are commonly called in Ireland, yet Mr. Niven,[113] an excellent authority—being Curator of the Botanic Gardens belonging to the Royal Dublin Society, says: "The seedlings I have had, both of 1845 and 1846, have been equally affected with the leaf disease, as have been the plants from the tubers; whereas the seedlings I raised on the experimental ground in the Royal Dublin Society's Botanic Gardens, in Glasnevin, in 1834, at the time I instituted my first experiments, were not at all infected with the root disease then prevalent, but were, without an exception, sound and perfect as could be desired."