committees or agents of landowners can ascertain the pressure of distress, measure the wants of a district, and prevent waste and misapplication. Besides, the general effect is to bring men together, and induce them to exert their energy in a social effort directed to one spot; whereas the interference of the State deadens private energy, prevents forethought--and after superseding all other exertion, finds itself, at last, unequal to the gigantic task it has undertaken." Towards the end of his letter, the First Minister gives his views on another point or two. "One thing," he writes, "is certain--in order to enable Ireland to maintain her population, her agriculture must be greatly improved. Cattle, corn, poultry, pigs, eggs, butter, and salt provisions have been, and will probably continue to be, her chief articles of export. But beyond the food exchanged for clothing and colonial products, she will require, in future, a large supply of food of her own growth and produce, which the labourer should be able to buy with his wages." There can be little doubt but the Premier intended this letter as a defence of his Irish-famine policy. As such it is not very conclusive. It is quite true to say, that the landlords should have exerted themselves far more than they did, to employ the people in improving their estates, by draining, subsoiling, and reclamation; which works were sure to be remunerative, and at no distant time. But had they done all this, Lord John Russell could take no credit to himself for it, having done nothing to induce or compel them to do so. When he says he expected it, he shows great ignorance or forgetfulness. The Irish landlords, as a class, were not improvers of their properties before the Famine;--how could he expect them to become so at such a crisis, when many of them feared, with reason, that both themselves and the people would be swallowed up in one common ruin? Besides, most of the wealthy proprietors were Englishmen or absentees, who, with few exceptions, never saw their tenants; took no friendly interest in them, but left them in the hands of agents, who were prized by their employers in proportion to their punctuality in sending the half-yearly remittances, no questions being asked as to the means by which they were obtained.[177] How could the Prime Minister pretend to think that such men would rush into the midst of a famine-stricken people, to relieve, employ, and improve them? He knew, or ought to have known, they would do no such thing, except on compulsion, and there was no compulsion in the case; he being, he said, for "willing co-operation" only. His government has certainly a right to be credited with the praiseworthy attempt it made to turn the labour of the Irish people to profitable work, but it came too late for immediate practical purposes. Planning, surveying, and laying out improvements take much time. The principle contained in the