The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-15 00:00:00

nt

,I.ONDON, MONDAY, MARCH 15, 1847.

A comparison of the entreaties addressed to Lord
JOHN RUSSELL by the deputation of 107, and of the
schemes of the Government for the relief of Ireland,
presents to us a spectacle more repulsive than any-
thing we can just now remember. Men could not
by possibility evince a greater degree of callousness
to the sufferings of their fellow-creatures than did
these sixty-four Peers and these forty-three represen-
tatives. In the contrast of their resolutions and of
the acknowledged wretchedness which is now rife in
their afflicted country, there is something absolutely
hsrrible. Hundreds of thousands of able-bodied men
would at this moment be in a state of hopeless desti-
tution but for the lavish assistance of the Govern-
ment. But for that extraordinary assistance from
the Executive those hundreds of thousands of able-
bodied men, and the families dependent upon their
labour for sustenance, amounting to a frightful
aggregate very nearly approaching to 4,000,000
souls, would have to perish like rats in their
cabins. Upon the munificence of Government these
4,000,000 are subsisting. For the time being,
(luring the first paroxysms of hunger consequent
upon the existing dearth, the State advances man-
fully for the rescue of its children; it takes the whole
burden of their sorrows upon its shoulders ; it opens
the veins of its ots n vitality, and lets the blood by
which it subsists flow freely into the impoverished
system of the starving millions; it does everything
that a loving parent and a benignant guardian could
do to prevent the evil consequences which, but for its
gigantic and cordial exertions, would have been in-
evitable. It appropriates a magnificent grant of
10,000,0001. for the exclusive use of Ireland in her
present aifitction. It has been so far from extorting
from the pockets of the Irish proprietary the contri-
butions which were, on the Jutbreak of the
calamity, most imperatively necessary for the
salvation of the lives of the peasantry, that it
actuslly undertakes to become the lender of additionol
money to that proprietary, at the insignificant interest
of 31 per cent. It establishes an enormous commis-
sariat throughout the island ; it accumulates corn in
the stores for a possible increase of the emergency ;
it awards a sum of 50,000/. for the purchase of seed
for the ensuing spring; it taxes all its combined
intellect, all its time, all its energy, all its pecuniary
strength, all its moral and physical influence, to
conquer the dread Demon of Famine, and to ward off
the javelins of its follower, Pestilence. Under the
/Egis of the Government Ireland has been sheltered
in its extreme desolation and helplessness. Through
the sole exertions of the Executive 3,500,000 of our
fellow-creatures have been preserved from a terrible
and inevitable death. But for those exertions on the
part of the Government these 3,500,000 souls would
have died long since, and GOD knows what might
not have been the mortality which would hare fol-
lowed thereupon !
Meanwhile the proprietary are remaining on the
wlsde inactive. They take an interest in the struggles
of the Government officers against the local destitu-
tion which is growing and growing, and widening in
all directions over Ireland—but their interest is
passive. Nor is this all. Instead of taking a rigid
supervision of the manner in which the charities of
the State were being distributed, they look upon
that distribution with the utmost indifference ;
insomuch that the agents of the Government have
been very largely swindled by the sons of the
more affluent agriculturists. That is the difference
of the labours of the Government and of the Irish
proprietors in regard to Ireland. A more splendid
munificence could hardly have been displayed by any
administration—a more hardened and inflexible in-
difference could not have marked the conduct of any
body of landlords similarly situated, than that which
has been evinced by a considerable number of the
landlords in the afflicted provinces.

In honesty, in justice, in self-defence, and for the
general safety of the empire, it was incumbent upon
the Government, however, to put a limit to its
enormous charities. Without the purse of FORTU-•
NATUS, or the lamp of ALADDIN, it was impossible for
any power en earth to keep fountains of gold playing
perpetually. A barrier must be marked up, beyond
which no further disbursements of this kind should
proceed from the Exchequer. By its generosity on
the original appearance of the dearth, time had been
gained for a calm deliberation of the plans to be
adopted under the circumstances. That time has
been gained, that deliberation has taken place, these
plans have been adopted, and the skeleton of those
plans is the establishment of an extended poor•law
for the relief of povertY- und, starvation in Ireland.
It is a notorious fact, as demonstrable as the concen-
tric revolutions of the planets, that the present woes
of that portion of the British islands are floWilig-
entirely and directly from the criminal conduct of
the Irish proprietors themselves. For the result of
their sins we have been paying enormously—we are
still paying enormously—and have promised to pay
yett more enormously, both in loans., in grants, in
therefore,
gtiioti: tf
, in manual toil, in taxation, and in the exhaus-
the hulk of our legislative energy. It,
we regarded this matter merely
its integrity, namely, upon
,tie principle that every
he penalty of his own offencies culprit must pay
guilty proprie
tary of Ireland would be compelled th
and e
ed by the Executive
to liquidate all those expenses
have been incurred -through the malignwhich
payments
operation of
their own evil-doing*. But the Government is not