has the rot been attended with pecuniary
loss to any considerable extent; for the diseased part being removed,
the remainder was as fit to use as the soundest potato; and more pigs
were reared and fatted than usual on the rotted portions, and they never
fatted better or bore a higher price. But, (and this fact has been
studiously suppressed by Sir Robert Peel,) even admitting that the loss
has been great, there could be no famine. The crop of oats exceeded by
_a third_ any crop known in the memory of man, and the price of oats in
October last exceeded the average price at that season for many years
past by nearly _one-half_. Consequently rather more than _half the
quantity_ which the tenantry required to sell in other years to make up
a given sum, answered the same purpose on this; and even such of the
tenantry as paid their rents had an unusual quantity left after
disposing of what enabled them to meet their engagements; and this has
been converted into meal and stored in their houses, or remains in stack
in their haggards. Now, oatmeal always constitutes a principal
ingredient in the food of _every Irish peasant_ from this season
forward; and yet the ministers never once alluded to the great quantity
of oats which they must know to be in the country, nor to the fact that
there has been, as the season advanced, _a steady and progressive
decline in its price_. In the Dublin market, on the 18th November 1845,
oats brought from fourteen to sixteen and sixpence the barrel; on the
28th of March 1846, it sold from _twelve to fifteen_ shillings; while at
the same period in the last year, when no famine was anticipated, it
fetched twelve shillings; and there can be no doubt but it will
experience a still further fall as the season advances, for potatoes now
are, on the whole, lower than they were a month ago; and the holders of
meal will soon begin to perceive that they cannot realize the prices
which the exaggerations of the government led them to expect, and they
will supply the markets more freely.

It is extraordinary to see how people here can be humbugged. Mr
O'Connell, some time since, produced in the House a return from a
priest, which professed to give the state of his parishioners, as
regarded the amount of food each family possessed. In this document it
was stated, (and the announcement was received with loud cries of "hear,
hear,") that a certain number of families had not a week's provisions;
and no doubt this wa