The Irish Famine in 1S46. 49 



1 87 1 to 5,412,000, and was then almost the same 

 as that of 1801, seventy years before. There is 

 no darker page than this in the history of our 

 country in the present or preceding century. 

 Millions of money were lavishly spent by the 

 Government in direct relief, and in relief and 

 improvement works to give employment, with a 

 view to palliate the collapse which befell a 

 people who had no resources when the potato 

 failed them. The landowners in the more dis- 

 tressed districts were nearly as much broken down 

 as their tenants. They had either encouraged or 

 not discouraged the continued subdivision of 

 small farms, as well as the rapid increase of the 

 people, by which, so long as the potato could be 

 relied on, their rents were increased. The 

 famine-stricken land was everywhere abandoned 

 by the starving occupiers, and thrown tenantless 

 upon the owners' hands, making many of them 

 bankrupt. An ' Encumbered Estates Act ' was 

 passed, to sell off the lands of those proprietors 

 whose incumbrances had overwhelmed them, 

 and substitute others more capable of fulfilling 

 the duties of landowners. In a few years land 



