now been visited, cannot be suffered to pass
away without an effort to extract from them a moral law and a moral
lesson for our future guidance.

It is obvious that the suffering which has been felt, arises from the
social system being in so great a degree _based upon the potato
culture_. The dependence of the great bulk of the destitute population
on a plant which, though more productive of mere sustenance than any
other, yet stands lowest in the scale of all our articles of food, is
demonstrated by the distress that has been occasioned by the failure
of that crop, and is indeed implied in all the exertions that have
been made to give relief. This is obviously an unsound foundation for
social life. It places the labouring classes on the very border of
starvation, and leaves no margin whatever for any contingencies. On
the failure of the potato, the ground can only be applied to the
cultivation of other produce, which on the same space would yield a
far inferior quantity of food, and thus a large portion of the year is
left unprovided for.

It is impossible to exclude from consideration at this time the
important question of the state of the Scotch Poor Law. On this
momentous subject we beg leave explicitly to decline at present any
announcement of opinion; and we confess that we do not think a season
of calamity is at all the proper period for legislating on a matter
which involves so much feeling, and which yet requires such grave
consideration, and so much cautious arrangement. It cannot, however,
be denied, that the events which we have lately witnessed afford
important elements and examples which must influence any opinion that
we may form, and which should be treasured up as materials for
ultimately arriving at a sound conclusion.

No one desirous of making up his mind on this point will
fail to consult, on one side of this question, the very able
"Observations"[17] which have just appeared from the pen of Dr Alison,
and to which, without adopting all the writer's views, we have great
pleasure in directing attention, as to a most powerful and temperate
argument in favour of an able-bodied Poor Law. If talents of a very
high order, if an enlarged and enlightened experience, and a long
consideration of the subject,--if a life passed, whether
professionally or in private, in the exercise of the most active and
disinterested benevolence,--if these qualifications entitle a witness
to be heard in such a cause, Dr A