hn was, in fact, only too well aware that force was no remedy. He
wished, as much as O'Connell, to root up the causes which produced
crime. Young Ireland, however, seemed determined to kick over the traces
at the very time when the Liberator was inducing the Whigs to look at
the question in a practical manner. Lord John knew, to borrow his own
expression, that the 'armoury of penal legislation was full of the
weapons of past battles, and yet the victory of order and peace had not
been gained.' The Liberal party set its face against coercion in any
shape or form, and the Government withdrew a proposal which they ought
never to have introduced. This course had scarcely been taken when a new
and terrible complication of the social problem in Ireland arose.

[Sidenote: THE IRISH FAMINE]

Famine suddenly made its presence felt, and did so in a manner which
threw the privation and scarcity of the previous winter altogether into
the shade. The potato crop was a disastrous failure, and, as the summer
waned, the distress of an impoverished and thriftless race grew acute.
The calamity was as crushing as it was rapid. 'On July 27,' are Father
Mathew's words, 'I passed from Cork to Dublin, and this doomed plant
bloomed in all the luxuriance of an abundant harvest. Returning on
August 3 I beheld with sorrow one wide waste of putrefying vegetation.'
A million and a half of acres were at the moment under cultivation, and
the blight only spared a quarter of them, whilst, to make matters worse,
the oat crop, by an unhappy coincidence, proved to a startling extent
insufficient. The financial loss in that disastrous harvest, in the
reckoning of experts, amounted to between fifteen and sixteen millions
sterling. Fever and dysentery made fatal inroads on the dwindling
strength of the gaunt and famished peasantry, and in one district alone,
out of a population of 62,000 inhabitants, no less than 5,000 persons
died, directly or indirectly, of starvation in the course of three
months. 'All our thoughts,' wrote O'Connell, 'are engrossed with two
topics--endeavouring to keep the people from outbreaks, and endeavouring
to get food for them.' In many instances the landlords seemed robbed of
the characteristics of ordinary humanity, for the ruthless process of
eviction was carried on with a high hand, and old men and children were
left unsheltered as well as unfed.

Property had neglected its duties, but, as usual, did not neglect its
rights, a