Page:Letters to Lord John Russell on the Further Measures for the Social Amelioration of Ireland.djvu/6

 TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD JOHN RUSSELL,

&c. &c.

more I take the liberty of addressing you on the condition of Ireland, and the legislative measures which appear to be imperatively necessary for its safety.

I am emboldened to do so, partly by the sanction which the course of events, and the policy recently pursued by your Lordship and the Legislature, with the almost unanimous assent of the public, have afforded to the views on this subject which I have for many years past put forward through every available channel (with a pertinacity which procured me for a time not a little opprobrium); partly by the conviction that much of the dreadful amount of calamity which has afflicted unhappy Ireland during the past year might have been avoided by an earlier adoption of the policy so recommended,—that, namely, of directing our Legislation to the cure of her physical and economical maladies rather than to those more fanciful grievances of an