Of all the countries in Europe, Ireland is the one in which it has appeared to me to be least possible to establish anything in the nature of the English poor-laws. The opinion delivered by others has been, that there are no materials to be found in Ireland proper for forming, or if formed for administering with salutary effect, any system of poor-laws such as exists in this country; and I, my lords, believe that there is no doubt whatever of the justice and truth of that opinion, considering the English poor-laws, as they formerly existed, and as they were carried into execution up to the year 1834, when the noble lords opposite introduced the measure which amended them. While, however, I say this, I am bound at the same time to express my entire concurrence in the opinion declared by the noble viscount, that there never was a country in which poverty existed to such a degree as it exists in that part of the United Kingdom. My lords, I was in office in that country--I held a high situation in the administration of the government of Ireland thirty years ago--and I must say, that from that time to this there has scarcely elapsed a single year in which the government has not at certain periods of it entertained the most serious apprehensions of actual famine. My lords, I am firmly convinced that from the year 1806 down to the present time, a year has not passed in which the government have not been called on to give assistance to relieve the poverty and distress which prevailed in Ireland, and owing to circumstances over which no human power could have any control. One of the circumstances which has most frequently led to this lamentable state of things, has been the failure or delay of the potato crops, and there have been known times when two, three, and even as many as four months have intervened before these crops, which are used as a subsistence by the people, could be brought into the market; and such are the social relations in that country, that the people have no means of coming to market to purchase like the people of England. My lords, this is a fact that is undoubted, and one that I believe never existed in any country in the world except Ireland. _May 21, 1838._ * * * * * _The Numbers of a Meeting may render it Illegal._ The numbers of a meeting--that is to say, such an assembly of persons as would create terror in the minds of people living in the neighbourhood,--would justify the magistrate in taking measures to disperse it. _June 15, 1838._ _Real cause of our interference in Spain._