The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-10-13 00:00:00

THE FAMINE IN IRELAND.

The Morning Post, of Wednesday, contains a letter of
some length, from the pen of Richard (hastier, Esq..
conveying an emphatic and solemn appeal to the religious
Principles of. the country, in reference to the dearth in
Ireland, which the writer, justly bel eying that such visi-
tations " do not come by chance or without a purpose,"
ascribes as a punishment for the national sin of forget ing
God, and setting up man's wisdom in the place of His, in
the Councils of the Kingdom and the public acts of He
State. The following extract from the concluding part
of it will afford a pretty clear understanding of the tenor
of this address, and supply subj ct for reflection :
" We have shut the Bible and closed the books of the
Church. We have thrown away the reins that curbed our
passio..is and our lusts. We have unbridled our covetous-
ness—corrupted and silenced our Church—encouraged
idolatry—oppressed the poor—and forgotten God! And,
trusting to the wily and crafty sons of science and philoso-
phy, we have laughed at his laws—we have made his
threatenines the subjects of derision! And what then?
Our triumph is complete ! Last year a bill was enacted by
Parliament for the express purpose of removing the name
and influence of God from the education of the people.
By the Irish Colleges Act, it was dared, for the that time
in the history of Ws country, to frame a Government
measure whereby it was declared, that the only power
whom the people could not tolerate was the power of the
Almighty ! Yes, human wisdom has obtained its tri-
umph! Truth languishes, idolatry is rampant, commerce
is emancipated, labour is free, and the poor are reduced
to live upon the coarsest sort of food!' But, whet
then, I ask ? Is prosperity the fruit of our aban-
donment of the principles of our old Constitution?
Does plenty crown our rejection of the word of Go.; ?
Are the people made better and happier by this tri-
umph of cold and pitiless philosophy over the holy
and life-giving principles of Divine Truth ? No !
The triumphing of the wicked is short !' No sootier
was the top stone to the temple of human wisdom ele-
vated—at the very moment when the last attack on our
constitutional proteCtive principle succeeded—just when
the owners of capital had removed the only remaining
impediment to their uninterrupted tyranny—even before
the session of Parliament had closed that crowned their
efforts, by granting them unlimited freedom of action (of
that Parliament which, by its determined adhesion to the
New Poor Law, had refused to acknowledge the right of
the poor to any share of Nature's bounty, or even to
"the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table,")—yes,
when philosophy was indeed rampant over religion, and
when man fancied that he had proved himself to be
wiser and stronger than God—then the whole scheme of
man's invention was thrown into confusion ; and, before
the session was prorogued, the lie was by themselves
stamped upon every preceding Act? In terror and dis-
may the right of the poor was recognised by law—even
in Ireland, where hitherto for wages, the owners of pro-
perty had conceived they had a right to starve or banish
the people at their pleasure!
" The affrighted philosophic legislators, who had so
often coolly ' argued the case,' and had always cruelly de-
cided against the right of the poor, were, in the moment
of alarm, in defiance of every principle of their creed,
constrained by dire necessity, to pass a law, giving to the
poor of Ireland (!) a RIGHT to put their hands into the
pockets of the rich, and, without limit, therefrom to ex-
act all that they required ! Nay, more, if money cannot
be found in the coffers of the Irish landlords, by that law
they are compelled to borrow from England, on the se-
curity of their estates, as many millioes of pounds as the
poor shall need ! Those immense sums, thus wrung in
terror from the Irish landlords, being cubject to repay-
ment with interest. Thus has the RIGHT of the poor to
sustenance been recognised by the philosophers them-
selves—they had no time, no power, to argue. In a mo-
ment of alarm and terror they conveyed the Irish estates
from the Lords to Ibe paupers!
" Philosophy had done its work—it had reduced the
poor to live on the coarsest sort of food'—when, by a
power that philosophy can neither control nor compre-
hend, that ' food' was withheld ! Yes, sir. philosophy
had unbarred the gate on universal competition—when
by the same power the course of trade was suddenly
clogged, end those who, by their representatives in Par-
liament, had successfully resisted every effort to regulate
the r manufactures on the principle of humanity, were
forced to seek shelter from ruin in ' shorter hours of
labour,'
" Tile sounds of triumph linger in our ears, only to be
silenced by the howling!, of despair!
" It is now admitted, even by the Queen's ministers,

Oct. 13, 11448.

that all the boasted hurnau abiiity is vain—an order itt
Council having been issued, by which we are directed to
offer up a prayer to that same Almighty Power whom we
have in vain attempted to dethrone, to sue humbly before
him for relief in the distressing visitation under which
we now suffer. Relief is to be implored; but, as yet, not
one word is uttered by the Church, the Queen, or the
Government upon the imperative necessity of the re-
acknowledgment of the supremacy of God, of strict
obedience to his laws, and of the entire conformity of the
principles of our legislation to his holy word. No authori-
tative injunction has been promulgated, to curb our
selfishness, by commanding every man to look to his own
daily consumption food, with a spirit of willingness to
forego all unnecessary consumption thereof ; thus pro-
viding an enlarged store for the destitute by a sacrifice on
the part of the affl uen t."

" I do not believe that famine comes by chance. I be-
lieve that there is a special cause for the blight oL the po-
tatoes. I know that, in defiance of every principle laid
down in the Word of God, and acknowledged by His
Church, millions of labourers have been reduced to live
on that •' coarse food," and that under the recommenda-
tion of Bishops of our Church, laws have been made
for the avowed purpose of forcing millions more
to live on the fame rmt, or, as they express it, " a
coarser sort of food." I know, also, that in the moment
of the triumph of those principles of selfishness on which
that inhuman scheme W3i founded ,potatoes were blighted!.
It is our duty to discover the cause of this visitation, not
by the study o human philosophy, hut by the humble and
persevering search for truth in the Hole Bible."