was not reasonable to suppose that, suddenly merchants and retailers would spring up to supply the extraordinary demands of the people for food.  Therefore, I should say that this was a time when her Majesty’s Ministers should have broken through these, the severe rules of political economy, and should, themselves, have found the means of providing the people of Ireland with food.  The Right Hon. gentleman has said, that ministers have done wisely in adhering to this decision, but I think differently from them.  When, every day, we hear of persons being starved to death, and when the Right Hon. gentleman himself admits that in many parts of the country the population has been decimated, I cannot say, that I think ministers have done all they might have done to avert the fatal consequences of this famine."[195] Lord George then read a letter from the Rev. Mr. Townsend, of Skibbereen, in which it was stated that in one month from the 1st of December to the 1st of January, there were one hundred and forty deaths in the workhouse of that town; the people having entered the workhouse, as they said, “that they might be able to die decently under a roof and be sure of a coffin.”  The Rev. Mr. Townsend also mentioned that in the churchyard of his parish there were, at one time, fourteen funerals waiting, whilst the burial of a fifteenth corpse was being completed.  In the next parish to his, there were nine funerals at once in the churchyard, and in two other adjoining ones, there were six together in each.  To prove his assertion that the Government should have done more in supplying food to the people, his lordship said:  “At this moment, we know that there are between 300,000 and 400,000 quarters of corn in stock on hand in the different ports of London, Liverpool and Glasgow.  I want to know, then, what was to have prevented ministers from sending any part, or all of this food to the West of Ireland, to feed the starving people there?...  It would have kept the retailers and forestallers in order, and prevented them from availing themselves of the Famine to obtain undue prices.  What do we see with regard to Indian meal?  Why Indian corn is, at this moment, selling in New York at three shillings, and at Liverpool and in Ireland at nine shillings per bushel."[196]

The Prime Minister spoke towards the close of the debate, and, with the apparent intention of answering a question put by Smith O’Brien, said he was quite willing to consider what had occurred in Ireland as “a national calamity,” and that the national resources were fitly employed in endeavouring to meet it.  The reason he gave for not having summoned Parliament in the Autumn, as O’Connell and many others had suggested, or rather demanded, was a striking proof of the evils of absenteeism.  “We had to consider,” he said, “that if we did meet Parliament, we should be acting against the opinion of the Irish Government, and against the opinion of almost every one I saw who was connected