t off.[1]

[1] O'Connor's "The Parnell Movement."

In the years that followed, the famine became appalling. The starving
peasants left their miserable huts and streamed into the towns for
relief, only to die of hunger in the streets.

Parliament responded nobly to the piteous calls for help, and voted in
all no less than 10,000,000 pounds to relieve the distress.[2]
Subscriptions were also taken up in London and the chief towns, by
which large sums were obtained, and America contributed shiploads of
provisions and a good deal of money; but the misery was so great that
even these measures failed to accomplish what was hoped. When the
famine was over, it was found that Ireland had lost about two million
(or one fourth) of her population.[3] This was the combined effect of
starvation, of the various diseases that followed in its path, and of
emigration.[4]

[2] Molesworth's "History of England from 1830."
[3] The actual number of deaths from starvation, or fever caused by
insufficient food, was estimated at from two hundred thousand to three
hundred thousand. See the Encyclopaedia Britannica under "Ireland."
[4] McCarthy's "History of Our Own Times," Vol. I.

594. Repeal of the Corn Laws, 1846-1849; Free Trade established, 1869.

In the face of such appalling facts, and of the bad harvests and
distress in England, Sir Robert Peel (S592) could hold out no longer,
and by a gradual process, extending from 1846 to 1849, the obnoxious
Corn Laws were repealed, with the exception of a trifling duty, which
was finally removed in 1869.

The beginning once made, free trade in nearly everything, except wine,
spirits, and tobacco, followed. They were, and still are, subject to
a heavy duty, perhaps because the government believes, as Napoleon
did, that the vices have broad backs and can comfortably carry the
heaviest taxes. A few years later (1849) the old Navigation Laws
(S459) were totally repealed. This completed the English free-trade
measures. But, by a singular contrast, while nearly all goods and
products now enter England free, yet Australia, Canada, New Zealand,
and the Union of South Africa--in a word, all the great self-governing
English colonies--continue to impose duties on imports from the mother
country (S625).

595. The World's Fair (1851); Repeal of the Window and the Newspaper
Tax; the Atlantic Cable, 1866.

The great industrial exhibition known as the "World's Fair" was opened
in Hyde Park, L