the Polynesian Islands—­not Hottentots, Bushmen, or Esquimaux—­neither Mahommedans nor Pagans—­but some millions of our own Christian nation at home, living in a state and condition low and degraded to a degree unheard of before in any civilized community; driven periodically to the borders of starvation; and now reduced by a national calamity to an exigency which all the efforts of benevolence can only mitigate, not control; and under which thousands are not merely pining away in misery and wretchedness, but are dying like cattle off the face of the earth, from want and its kindred horrors! Is this to be regarded in the light of a Divine dispensation and punishment?  Before we can safely arrive at such a conclusion, we must be satisfied that human agency and legislation, individual oppressions, and social relationships have had no hand in it."[221] Was it not a money question, when a labourer at task work could only earn 8d. or 8-1/4d. a-day?—­not enough to buy one meal of food for a moderate sized family.  No, no, answered the Government people; this low rate of wages is fixed, in order not to attract labour from the cultivation of the soil.  Now, in the famine time, the labourer, as a rule, could not obtain money wages for the cultivation of the soil—­a fact well known to the Government; so that money wages of almost any amount must withdraw him from agriculture, from the absolute necessity he was under of warding off immediate starvation.  If, therefore, Government wished the labour of the country to be employed in cultivating and improving the soil, why did they not, instead of spoiling the roads, so employ that labour at fair money wages, and subject to just and proper conditions?  They were often urged to do it, but in vain.  They yielded at last, but at an absurdly late period for such a concession.

Further:  if it were solely a food question, the Government should have used all the means in their power to bring food into the country, which they did not do; because they refused to suspend the navigation laws—­this free-trade government did, and thus deliberately excluded supplies from our ports.  By the navigation laws, merchandize could be brought to these countries only in British ships, or in ships belonging to the nation which produced the merchandize.  The importation of corn fell under this protective regulation.  If those laws were suspended in time, food could be carried to British ports in the ships of any nation; and in fact, whilst a great outcry was raised by our Government about the scarcity of food, and the want of ships to carry it, Odessa and other food centres were crowded with vessels, looking for freights to England, but could not obtain them, in consequence of the operation of the navigation laws.  The immediate effect was, a great difficulty in sending food to those parts of Ireland where the people were dying of sheer starvation.  But a second effect was, the enrichment, to an enormous extent, of the owners of the mercantile marine of England; freights having nearly doubled in almost every instance, and in a most important one, that of America, nearly trebled.  The freights from London to Irish ports had fully trebled.