Tue cartoons in Punch and the Pall Malt this week both deal with the same subject, the threatened potato famine in Ireland, the latter journal, with its usual uncon: ventionality, placing its cartoon, a very striking one and drawn with much more grimness than Mr. Tenniel's, in the centre Of its first leading article. "The legend to Punch's cartoon is "€ Shadowed Shadowed And not by common gloom, poor Minister (course.
The passing shades that chequer every This spectral presence is as stern and sinister 'AS atta cura on the rider's horse.
Before, the vision of the helpless peasant Behind, the famine phantom black and rim [sant, How should the holiday-hour, to all so plea-Bring gladness true or genuine rest to him Wake! There is need for provident prevision, For watchful eye, and for most wary hand. In mellow Autumn's interlude Elysian The old gr'm Shadow strikes across the land. [terror, May Heaven arrest its course, avert its And keep the statesman who this foe must fight error, From careless blindness and from blendering Such as of old lent aid to the Black Blight.
It is not unnatural that the papers should exaggerate or depreciate the probability of. a famine, according as they are for or against Home Rule, but there is no reason te question the impartiality of the report of the Land Commissioners, According to the Pull Mail their report is that—
All over Ireland blight has been affecting 5 the potato since the beginning, of July. Tu or mountain lands and shallow soils the Aisease has been spreading rapid, and its much more general than has been supposed, Absolute failure" is the report from many districts, leaves and stalks, had been Dlighted, but "Tu most cases the leaves only, or the not to such an extent as to stop growth, and there is every reason to believe that 4 period of dry weather and sunshine w produce an average yield of potatoes, possibly a larger amount than usual of diseased tubers, whilst a continuance of wet would induce a further decay of stalks, resulting in a crop of soft, watery, and, toa large extent, unmatured tubers,' These would doubles provide feeding for pigs, but would result in short crop for human consumption,"
These reports were made on the 16th August, and cold, rainy weather has conti-rined since that date, with the certainty that Gisease must now be more virulent, From Lincolnshire and other parts of England not dissimilar reports are coming to hand, We are going to have a bad, deficient potato crop and the brunt of the trouble will have to be suffers ireland is terribly smitten, fe is of borne by Ireland. Whenever our agriculture
use pointing out that hay is a good crop, that oats are an average. and $0 forth, The' very small fam in the West of Ireland do not ich else besides the prolific tuber—in economy, disaster, and famine, ae.
ing to Cobbett, Light railways will not reach the boggy sides of the moors and the stony mountain slopes where famine will begin. The hearted politicians say, however, that they will provide labour for adults, no matter how far they may be away. Yes, the fathers and us will take what labour they can get, and in the meantime widows and wives and children will starve until such time as money cun be transformed into fool and transferred to their homes, Sending London labourers to Brighton or Harwich, with no railway connecting them, would hardly be considered a wise way of feeding their families every day. Mr. T. "Healy, who has a faculty for blurt: ing out the inconvenient truth as well a" the discernment to reach it, has said that there is "nothing between the people and starvation this coming winter." Light railways! is the semi-official answer. We shall be curious to see how the officials will apply their remedy, and what will come of it. Eu. rope may once more contemplate the familiar picture of Ireland as a mendicant, The St. James's article on the threatened famine is headed "What an Economist might say." It begins, as might be expected, with the assertion that the gloom of the agricultural outlook hus been liberally exaggerated, but it allows that there are parts of the country where the scarcity will be severe enough to endanger life, and where the help of the Irish Executive and the private benevolence of Englishmen will be required, and it says Whatever is done in these directions will be received, according to ancient tradition, Without gratitude by. the people, relieved, and the doing of it will be watched with most grudging suspicion and jealousy by thei parliamentary representatives; but still it will be done. Nor, we may venture to diet, will a single voice of protest be raised against it in avy quarter.
This leads to the economic side of the question. The distress, we are told, is only the natural and foredoomed result of a hopeless struggle of men with certain unalterable conditions of the external world and the English relief is no more than an unwise and, what is more, a cruel encouragement to persistence therein." The distress is " simply another of those often-repeated protests of Nature against the ignorance and indolence which have planted and which keep a body of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.