ducing, according to pecuniary estimate, by several millions of money the available wealth of the country, and pressing with fearful intensity on the poorer classes-while it enforced upon all the most urgent necessity for exertion and sacrifice, reminded them at the same time how unstable are the foundations of prosperity in a populous and highly artificial society, and how small an accident is capable of deranging the wheels of that machinery on which the well-being and even the existence of a vast community depends. But it was in the weakest and sorest member of the body politic that this, like most other of our social maladies, fell with especial severity; unhappy Ireland, always at the lowest point of that scale, which extends in its various degrees from bloated luxury down to bare subsistence, experienced, of course, the earliest and the worst privations of that calamity which diminished the wealth and abridged the comforts of all. What had seemed to be the lowest extremity of social existence was now doomed to find a yet worse abyss. Pauperism gave place to Famine, and its inseparable companion, Pestilence. The most harrowing details of starvation and disease, ravaging whole parishes and defying the utmost efforts of local assistance, soon reached the ears of the English public, and enforced, with the necessity which overrules all law, the attention of the Government. To make a large proportion of the swarming peasantry of Ireland pensioners on the national funds; to find or make employment at the public cost for millions of destitute labourers was the course dictated by an imperative impulse, and sanctioned by an irresistible conviction of the necessities of hu

manity, which overruled the ordinary maxims of social economy, and warranted an exercise of powers beyond the law. The responsibility of such measures was assumed by the Ministers of the day with a courage worthy of their station, and with a well-founded confidence that the representatives of the country in Parliament would not withhold their sanction from a policy which so unforeseen an emergency had imposed upon them.

Under these circumstances the opening of the session, which had been fixed at an earlier period than usual, was naturally anticipated with much interest and anxiety. It took place on the 19th of January, when Her Majesty in person read the following Speech from the Throne :

"My Lords and Gentlemen,

"It is with the deepest concern, that upon your again assembling I have to call your attention to the dearth of provisions which prevails in Ireland, and in parts of Scotland.

"In Ireland, especially, the loss of the usual food of the people has been the cause of severe sufferings, of disease, and of greatly increased mortality among the poorer classes. Outrages have become more frequent, chiefly directed against property; and the transit of provisions has been rendered unsafe in some parts of the country.

"With a view to mitigate these evils, very large numbers of men have been employed and have received wages, in pursuance of an Act passed in the last session of Parliament. Some deviations from that Act which have been authorized by the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, in order to promote more useful employment, will, I trust,

receive your sanction. Means have been taken to lessen the pressure of want in districts which are most remote from the ordinary sources of supply. Outrages have been repressed, as far as it was possible, by the military and police. It is satisfactory to me to observe, that in many of the most distressed districts the patience and resignation of the people have been most exemplary.

The deficiency of the harvest in France and Germany, and other parts of Europe, has added to the difficulty of obtaining adequate supplies of provisions.

"It will be your duty to consider what further measures are required to alleviate the existing distress. I recommend to you to take into your serious consideration, whether, by increasing for a limited period the facilities for importing corn from foreign countries, and by the admission of sugar more freely into breweries and distilleries, the supply of food may be beneficially augmented.

"I have likewise to direct your earnest consideration to the permanent condition of Ireland. You will perceive, in the absence of political excitement, an opportunity for taking a dispassionate survey of the social evils which afflict that part of the United Kingdom. Various measures will be laid before you, which, if adopted by Parliament, may tend to raise the great mass of the people in comfort, to promote agriculture, and to lessen the pressure of that competition for the occupation of land which has been the fruitful source of crime and misery.

"The marriage of the Infanta Luisa Fernanda of Spain to the Duke of Montpensier has given rise to a correspondence between my

Government and those of France and Spain.

"The extinction of the free State of Cracow has appeared to me to be so manifest a violation of the Treaty of Vienna, that I have commanded that a protest against that act should be delivered to the Courts of Vienna, Petersburg, and Berlin, which were parties to it. Copies of these several Papers will be laid before you.

"I entertain confident hopes that the hostilities in the River Plate, which have so long interrupted commerce, may soon be terminated; and my efforts, in conjunction with those of the King of the French, will be earnestly directed to that end.

"My relations generally with Foreign Powers inspire me with the fullest confidence in the maintenance of peace.

"Gentlemen of the House of Com

mons,

"I have directed the Estimates to be prepared with a view to provide for the efficiency of the Public Service, with a due regard for economy.

"My Lords and Gentlemen,

"I have ordered every requisite preparation to be made for putting into operation the Act of the last session of Parliament for the establishment of Local Courts for the Recovery of Small Debts. It is my hope that the enforcement of civil rights in all parts of the country to which the Act relates may by this measure be materially facilitated.

"I recommend to your attention measures which will be laid before you for improving the health of towns; an object the importance of