These passages were indited by a minister who, coolly, and without any sufficient authority whatever, assumed that there was no other remedy for the failure of the potato crop in Ireland but a repeal of the Corn Laws, and that it was the remedy the Irish public were calling for, to meet the threatened danger.  And yet so far from this being the case, it was never propounded by any one as a principal remedy at all.  What the Irish public thought about the impending famine, and what they said about it was, that the oat crop was unusually fine and more than sufficient to feed the whole population, and that it should be kept in the country for that purpose.  A most obvious remedy; but the Premier had other plans in his head, and could not see this one, because he would not.  Like Nelson on a memorable occasion, he persisted in keeping his telescope to the eye that suited his own purpose.  He does not condescend to give a reason for his views, he only expresses them.  He had no confidence in the old-fashioned remedy of keeping the food in the country, but he did put his trust in the remedy of sending 3,000 miles for Indian corn—­a food which, he elsewhere admits he fears the Irish cannot be induced to use.  He thought it quite right, and in accordance with political science, to allow, or rather to compel Ireland, threatened with famine, to sell her last loaf and then go to America to buy maize, the preparation of which, she did not understand.  Political economists will hardly deny that people ought not to sell what they require for themselves—­that they should only part with surplus food.  But to sell wheat and oats, and oatmeal and flour with one hand and buy Indian corn with the other to avoid starvation could be hardly regarded as the act of a sane man.  “There had been—­it was hinted, and we believe truly, in Lord John Russell’s letter from Edinburgh—­some talk in the Cabinet, and there was some discussion in the press, about opening the Irish ports by proclamation. Opening the Irish ports! Why the real remedy, had any interference with the law been necessary, would have been to close them—­the torrent of food was running outwards."[78] So did the leading Tory periodical put this obvious truth some months later.

The Viceroy, replying to the Premier’s letter on the 17th of October, says he is deeply impressed with the extent and alarming nature of the failure of the potato crop, and has no doubt on his mind that it is general.  The Premier had, sometime before, suggested Special Commissioners to collect information, but the Lord Lieutenant does not think they would be able to collect more accurate information than that already furnished by the county inspectors.  He suggests that when the potato digging is more advanced it would be well to move the Lieutenants of counties to call meetings of the resident landholders, with a view of ascertaining the amount of the evil, and their opinion of the measures most proper to be adopted.  He sees no objection to such a course, though he dutifully adds that the Premier may.