Had it not been for the calamitous issue of the last harvest, in a part of the empire, it might have been difficult to say, to which side the weight of reason preponderated in these opposite arguments; and probably the people of the country would have continued permanently divided on them, according as their private interests or wishes were wound up with the buying and selling, or raising and producing classes in society. But an external calamity has intervened;--Providence has denied for a season, to one of the fruits of the earth, its wonted increase. The potato-rot has appeared; and nearly the whole subsistence of the people in the south and west of Ireland, and in the western Highlands of Scotland, has been destroyed. Between the failure in the potato crop, and the deficiency in that of oats, at least L15,000,000 worth of the wonted agricultural produce has disappeared in the British Islands. And the appearances which we now see around us are solely and entirely to be ascribed to that deficiency. No one need be told what these appearances are, or how deeply they have trenched upon the usual sources of prosperity in the empire: they have been told again and again, in parliament, at public meetings, and in the press, _usque ad nauseam_. Government has acted, if not judiciously, at least in the right spirit; its errors have been those of information, not of intention. The monster meetings, the flagrant ingratitude, the broken promises of the Irish Catholics, have been forgotten. England, as a nation, has acted nobly; she has overlooked her wrongs: she saw only her fellow-subjects in distress. L10,000,000 sterling have been voted by parliament in a single year for the relief of Irish suffering. Magnificent subscriptions, from the throne downwards, have attested the sympathy of the British heart with the tale of Irish and Highland suffering. But, notwithstanding all these astonishing exertions, and notwithstanding the existence of an unprecedented demand for labour in most parts of the country, in consequence of vast railway undertakings being on foot, on which at least L30,000,000 a-year must be expended for three or four years to come, distress is in many places most acute, in all severely felt. And what is very remarkable, and may be considered, as a distinctive sign of the times, specially worthy of universal attention, the suffering has now spread to those classes which are _furthest removed_ from the blight of nature, and fastened upon those interests which, according to the generally received opinion, should have been _benefited rather than injured_ by the calamity which has occurred.