Page:Letters to Lord John Russell on the Further Measures for the Social Amelioration of Ireland.djvu/8

5 put into operation, as well as to assist in bringing about the great object in view, of securing to the bulk of the people of Ireland the means of living in that decent condition which civilization requires and ought to afford to them. If I held this opinion before the loss of the potato occurred, how much more strongly must I entertain it now, when the ordinary resources of the country have been so greatly lessened.? I say this, because my name having been often publicly coupled with the suggestion of such an amended Poor-law as was passed last session, it is due to myself that I should as publicly repeat the declaration that I have never put forward such a law as in itself a panacea for Ireland's ill, or even as capable of being effectually worked, without the accompaniment of other large and vigorous measures. Above all, at such a critical period as the present, with the awful prospect opening before us for the ensuing winter, it is impossible not to perceive that to leave Ireland to right herself by the bare unaided influence of the new Poor-law, would be to risk the failure of that law altogether; indeed, to play into the hands of its opponents, who will no doubt do all in their power to hamper and resist its operation; and thus, by discrediting it, to compromise its duration, and the realization of the vast benefits which, fairly carried out, it is calculated to produce.

Your Lordship yourself, in your opening speech on the state of Ireland last session, shewed that 4