ment should be called together, or that the ports should be opened by an order in council. On Friday, the 7th, the Standard, which had previously declared that those councils had been held expressly to devise the means of preventing "any one of Her Majesty's subjects perishing from famine," thus announced the result of the deliberations:
"We are, we trust, in a condition to congratulate the Leaguers upon the certainty that the ports will not be opened, inasmuch as the stock of provisions in Great Britain is amply sufficient!"
I do not recollect a period in which there was so eager a desire to see the London papers as during the week in which these cabinet deliberations were held. Every morning and every evening witnessed the deep disappointment of thousands upon thousands who had been hopeful enough to believe that what was right to be done would be done. In the prospect of starvation to one half of Ireland, and great distress in England, there were as yet no indications of the ministerial policy. Cabinet meetings had followed cabinet meetings, and yet there was no sign of relief. The corn markets throughout the kingdom were in a state of confusion; merchants and manufacturers were waiting in deep anxiety, not knowing what they might safely do; and millions of working men, who were now convinced that full employment and good wages could never be had while there was a scarcity of food, were almost breathlessly looking to the result of all these deliberations; and yet nothing was done, and no hope was given that anything would br done. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in reply to a deputation from the citizens of Dublin, had indeed said that ministers were inquiring how far scarcity might be permitted to prevail without the risk of tumult—inquiring whether one fourth or one-half of the potato was rotten—inquiring whether the people could be made to believe that, because the price of wheat was not high, in consequence of the general inferiority of its quality, good brand was not,
