We are far from denying that a great loss has been sustained in the potato crop; but that loss does not in reality affect the food of the people so much as would appear at first sight; for the cattle and pigs which used to get sound potatoes in other years, were exclusively fed on diseased ones in this: neither has the rot been attended with pecuniary loss to any considerable extent; for the diseased part being removed, the remainder was as fit to use as the soundest potato; and more pigs were reared and fatted than usual on the rotted portions, and they never fatted better or bore a higher price. But, (and this fact has been studiously suppressed by Sir Robert Peel,) even admitting that the loss has been great, there could be no famine. The crop of oats exceeded by _a third_ any crop known in the memory of man, and the price of oats in October last exceeded the average price at that season for many years past by nearly _one-half_. Consequently rather more than _half the quantity_ which the tenantry required to sell in other years to make up a given sum, answered the same purpose on this; and even such of the tenantry as paid their rents had an unusual quantity left after disposing of what enabled them to meet their engagements; and this has been converted into meal and stored in their houses, or remains in stack in their haggards. Now, oatmeal always constitutes a principal ingredient in the food of _every Irish peasant_ from this season forward; and yet the ministers never once alluded to the great quantity of oats which they must know to be in the country, nor to the fact that there has been, as the season advanced, _a steady and progressive decline in its price_. In the Dublin market, on the 18th November 1845, oats brought from fourteen to sixteen and sixpence the barrel; on the 28th of March 1846, it sold from _twelve to fifteen_ shillings; while at the same period in the last year, when no famine was anticipated, it fetched twelve shillings; and there can be no doubt but it will experience a still further fall as the season advances, for potatoes now are, on the whole, lower than they were a month ago; and the holders of meal will soon begin to perceive that they cannot realize the prices which the exaggerations of the government led them to expect, and they will supply the markets more freely.