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fessors in the several faculties of Arts, Law, and Physic, as shall be from time to time established by her Majesty," and the various subordinate expenses hence arising. This, without saying as much in so many words, excluded religious teaching, for which no endowment wa provided. But "for the better enabling every student in the said colleges to receive religious instruction according to the creed which he professes to hold, be it enacted, That it shall be lawful for the president and professors to assign lecture rooms within the precincts of such college, wholly or in part, for the use of such religious teachers as shall be recognised by such governing body, and to make rules concerning the days and times when such religious instruction shall be given therein, and for securing that the same shall not interfere with the general discipline of the college. Provided always that no student shall be compelled by any rule of the college to attend any theological lecture or religious instruction other than is approved by his parents or guardians, and that no religious test shall be administered to any person in order to entitle him to be admitted a student of any such college, or to hold any office therein, or to partake of any advantage or privilege thereof; but this proviso shall not be deemed to prevent the making of regulations for securing the due attendance of the students for divine worship at such church or chapel as shall be approved by their parents or guardians respectively.

In order to encourage religious instruction a subsequent section made express provision for facilitating the endowment of religious teachers by private benefactions, so that, in fact, the amplest provision was made for such religious instruction as parents desired and as the persons interested were willing to pay for. So far from there being any discouragement of religion, it was carefully provided for and anticipated. But this sort of thing did not suit the views of the Catholic priesthood, who in effect, declared they would rather the people grew up in ignorance than that their dogmas should not be forced upon them; who were bitterly opposed as they had been in the common schools, to teaching a boy the multiplication table unless that practical instruction were accompanied by dogmatic

theological teaching; though the Irish members of Parliament generally approved of the bill, the word went forth from Irish Bishops against the colleges and all their works. O'Connell, in Parliament, denounced the proposal as a system of "godless colleges." He did not know, then, poor fellow, but we know now, that his brain had already begun to soften, which excuses the imbecility of such a senseless anathema, taken up from him and repeated by the sillier sections of the Irish Catholics ever since.

The Queen's Colleges are amongst the best things ever done by England for Ireland, but higher education is no remedy for the lower forms of physical want. Grammar and geography, with all their advantages, will not pay exorbitant rents, or fulfil unreasonable covenants or make bad seasons good ones. So the outrages went gaily on. Union Legislation had failed again. Peel's force had previously broken down, by his own confession. Peel's generosity had now also broken down.

The Maynooth Act passed on the 30th of June 1845, and on the 22nd of the following January, the Queen, in her speech at the opening of Parliament, put upon record the results of all the force and generosity that had been so freely lavished, when she said, "I have observed with deep regret the very frequent instances in which the crime of deliberate assassination has been of late committed in Ireland." Could there be more scathing condemnation-self-inflicted condemnation? For, Peel had to write the passage himself; and "very frequent instances" is an extremely strong phrase, applied to such a subject, when clothed in the regal dignity of a speech from the throne.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE GREAT FAMINE.

WHILE the Report of the Devon Commission was being slowly

digested, after the manner of English officialism, and while Peel was endeavouring to buy over the good-will of the Catholics by his Maynooth Act, there was preparing in Ireland the foundation of a series of events unexampled in the history of any country, and calculated to awaken the drowsy perceptions of the United Parliament and ministry to the real facts of the case of Ireland.

Early in the autumn of 1845, it began to be rumoured that there was a new form of potato blight prevailing. It seems to have first appeared in England (imported thence from Germany), and caused great havoc in that country, but, in 1845, it broke out in Ireland with extraordinary virulence. Representations from all parts of Ireland poured into the government offices in Dublin, and they were transmitted thence to Westminster, and the first evidence we have of official recognition of the existence of the evil, is derived from the Queen's speech of the 22nd of January, 1846, where we read, "I have to lament that, in consequence of the failure of the potato crop in several parts of the United Kingdom, there will be a deficient supply of an article of food which forms the chief subsistence of great numbers of my people. The disease by which the plant is affected has prevailed to the greatest extent in Ireland. I have adopted all such precautions as it was in my power to adopt, for the purpose of alleviating the sufferings which may be caused by this calamity; and I shall confidently rely on your cooperation in devising such other means for effecting the same benevolent purposes as may require the sanction of the legislature."

To that time all the benevolence had expended itself in official inquiries. Professors Lindley and Playfair, who were commissioned to inquire, reported that the deficiency in the potato crop exceeded one-third (the proportion at first suggested), and was apparently quite one-half. This did not satisfy Peel. He gravely asked whether any considerable portion of the crop of 1844 remained in stock. As he had been Chief Secretary for Ireland, this was a surprising exhibition of ignorance, both of the nature of potatoes and the circumstances of Ireland. But this and other equally idle queries were embodied in government inquiries so late as the 8th of December, about which time Sir Thomas Freemantle assured a deputation that "the Government was fully prepared to take such steps as might be found necessary for the protection of the people when the emergency should arise.”

Most observers thought it had arisen already, as hundreds of the people had died of starvation; and so affairs went on until the said January 1846, when Parliament began to very slowly enact measures of relief. These measures of relief were, for the most part, like those for the relief of the famine of 1822, previously referred to. They were spread over the sessions of 1846 and 1847, and their general character was to advance money for public works, for the employment of the unemployed, and as loans to boards of guardians. To these were added an Act to authorize the advance of money for the completion of certain railways. These enactments were merely to enable the Government to lend money to Ireland in various forms on good security, to be afterwards repaid; so that the cost to England was nothing. To take credit for benevolence for such a course was an official stretch of imagination, evidently viewed by the United Parliament with great complacency, in which the entire English people, who were generally ignorant of the facts to the extent of totality, very generally concurred, and thanked God they had the means and the disposition to save Ireland from the starvation it really deserved. The complacency might have been better justified from a business point of view, as the English Government were borrowing at three per cent. and lending to Ireland with a power to charge five per cent., which was done when

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ever possible, loans being sometimes without interest as an exception. To show how little advantage the relief conferred, from a business point of view, it is sufficient to record the fact that, though the government offered to assist in making 1,500 miles of railway, the offer was only accepted in respect of 123 miles.

What the amount was that was really advanced cannot be accurately stated. It is usually put at from eight millions to ten millions, and that is a sufficiently near estimate, but the figures are conflicting and inconclusive. It is certain that a large portion of the money was sunk upon the salaries of officials, and a still larger proportion went as profit to speculating contractors, for the Acts provided that the works should be let to contractors when possible, and the contractors took the contracts to a fine tune, making a tremendous profit out of the starvation and extremity of the hungering people, who worked at the rate of eightpence a day. It was computed that at least half a million of men were employed for a considerable time upon these works; the number is said to have reached at one time 730,000; but, great as were the numbers, they were far exceeded by the number of those who remained unemployed, and who sought in vain for the employment supposed to be provided for them. In this and in every other direction, the efforts of the Government failed to cope sufficiently with the emergency they had at first referred to with such confidence.

The Government grants were supplemented by voluntary subscriptions. A central committee was established in London, and the whole amount collected in England is said to have been something over a quarter of a million, it being a notable record that the Society of Friends alone contributed twenty thousand pounds. Most of these voluntary sums were undoubtedly given for Irish relief in a spirit of benevolence, but there is no disguising the fact that a large portion of the money went in salaries, and especially in profits to merchants who sold cargoes of food, and shipowners who got their freights for conveying the food to Ireland.

The character of the works undertaken, and the reasonableness of carrying them on, may be jugded of from the ascertained fact that a