2H 



to deprive the Irish and Highland peasantry not only of their 

 chief food, but of the principal demand for their labour. 

 Whilst the cultivation of this root was quite a secondary 

 affair in England and the Lothians, it was the great source of 

 employment in Ireland and the Highlands. No other root 

 crop, of any kind, was cultivated, and no other crop of any 

 sort, which gave more than occasional and temporary employ- 

 ment for the people, If, therefore, the failure of the potato 

 crop should be permanent, either the people who have 

 been accustomed to rely on its cultivation for food and 

 support must be exposed to the severest distress, or new 

 modes of employment must be found for them. Happily 

 the spirit of the age and the country was a sufficient security 

 against the first of these alternatives. The real question 

 then was, how neai'ly a million of families were to be supplied 

 with new means of employment ? Perhaps no question 

 more interesting in itself, or more important in its results, 

 had ever arisen either in this or any other country. 



" In this emergency the Government had come forward to 

 save these poor people from absolute starvation, by furnishing 

 them employment at the public expense ; but it must be 

 evident to every one that this was only a temporary measure, 

 and that the condition of the people could not be rendered 

 at all comfortable, or even endurable, but by a large and per- 

 manent increase in the amount of profitable agricultural 

 employment. That could only be supplied in two ways. 

 First, by introducing a system of cultivation on the lands 

 already cultivated, which will yield an increased amount of 

 employment ; or second, by reclaiming waste lands, or exe- 

 cuting other public works. 



" On examining the systems of agriculture practised in 

 this and the neighbouring counties, it would be found that -the 

 chief employment of the agricultural population of England, 

 Scotland, Ireland, and Flanders, was derived from systems of 



