was.  The lands held by Government might be at once improved, but the case was different with respect to those that were the property of individuals.  Still, he would not shrink from the necessity or duty of Government interfering even in the latter case; neither did he deny that while property had its owners and its rights, that such ownership and rights should not be allowed to interfere with the operations intended to develop the resources of the soil, and improve the social condition of the people.  The Premier here uses the far-famed sentiment, almost the very words, of Secretary Drummond, that property has its duties as well as its rights; but a sentiment, however just, is but an empty form of words, unless it receives a practical application at the proper time.  The threadbare and almost insulting platitudes—­insulting from the very frequency of their use—­about developing resources and improving the social condition of the people, were strangely out of place at a moment when coroner’s juries, in various parts of Ireland, were beginning to return verdicts of “Death from starvation.”  Lord John, now that he was Minister, talked of difficulties in legislating for Ireland, especially with regard to the reclamation of land; when he was only an expectant of office, his expressed sentiments were quite different.  In his speech on the Coercion Bill, two or three months before, he said:—­“There is another source of benefit, namely, the cultivation of the waste lands.  On that subject I do not see the difficulties which beset the propositions in the regard of the Poor-laws.”  Now it is the very reverse.  He sees difficulties in reclaiming the waste lands of Ireland, but finds none in putting into operation the most objectionable part of the Poor-Law system—–­ outdoor relief; for, his Labour-rate Act was, substantially, a gigantic system of outdoor relief.[137]

Meantime the following requisition was put in circulation and numerously signed, both by peers and gentry:  “We, the undersigned, request a meeting of the landowners of Ireland to be held in Dublin on the __ day of ____ next, to press upon her Majesty’s Government the importance of at once adopting the necessary measures to alter the provisions of the Act, entitled the 9th and 10th Vic., chap. 107, so as to allow the vast sums of money about to be raised by presentment under it, to be applied to the development of the resources of the land, rather than in public works of an unproductive nature.”

The principle of the Labour-rate Act was doomed; no voice was raised in its defence, nor could there have been.  The Government having turned a deaf ear to the call for an Autumn Session, the Repealers were anxious there should be a demonstration in Dublin that would, as far as possible, bear the similitude of an Irish Parliament.  The above requisition, very probably without intending it, sustained and strengthened this idea; the Prime Minister and his colleagues became alarmed, and the Lord Lieutenant,