There can be little doubt but the Premier intended this letter as a defence of his Irish-famine policy.  As such it is not very conclusive.  It is quite true to say, that the landlords should have exerted themselves far more than they did, to employ the people in improving their estates, by draining, subsoiling, and reclamation; which works were sure to be remunerative, and at no distant time.  But had they done all this, Lord John Russell could take no credit to himself for it, having done nothing to induce or compel them to do so.  When he says he expected it, he shows great ignorance or forgetfulness.  The Irish landlords, as a class, were not improvers of their properties before the Famine;—­how could he expect them to become so at such a crisis, when many of them feared, with reason, that both themselves and the people would be swallowed up in one common ruin?  Besides, most of the wealthy proprietors were Englishmen or absentees, who, with few exceptions, never saw their tenants; took no friendly interest in them, but left them in the hands of agents, who were prized by their employers in proportion to their punctuality in sending the half-yearly remittances, no questions being asked as to the means by which they were obtained.[177] How could the Prime Minister pretend to think that such men would rush into the midst of a famine-stricken people, to relieve, employ, and improve them?  He knew, or ought to have known, they would do no such thing, except on compulsion, and there was no compulsion in the case; he being, he said, for “willing co-operation” only.  His government has certainly a right to be credited with the praiseworthy attempt it made to turn the labour of the Irish people to profitable work, but it came too late for immediate practical purposes.  Planning, surveying, and laying out improvements take much time.  The principle contained in the “Labouchere Letter” should have been embodied in an Act of Parliament, and reclamation of waste lands made compulsory, as had been advocated by many.  The publication of that letter was, no doubt, the confession of a previous error, but it was also a concession to a present demand, and with active hearty co-operation it could be still turned to great advantage.  Lord John is right in blaming the landlords for not making use of the powers conferred by it.  They, above all others, called the loudest for reproductive employment, but when it was sanctioned, they raised new difficulties about boundaries and other matters, which looked very like a determination not to carry into practical effect the permission granted, it may be fairly said, at their own request.