THREE:The Marquis of Lansdowne, the President of the Council in the Whig Ministry which had replaced that of Sir Robert Peel, in a speech delivered in the House of Lords on the 25th of January, 1847, gave an estimate, as accurate as the best calculation could make it, of the loss in money value that had been occasioned by the failure of the crops in Ireland. "Taking a valuation of 10 per acre for potatoes, and 3 10s. for oats, the deficiency on the potato crop alone amounted to 11,350,000, while on the crop of oats it amounted to 4,660,000, or to a total value of 16,010,000 for the whole of a country which, if it could not be said to be the poorest, was certainty not one of the richest in the world. In[543] weight the loss was 9,000,000 or 10,000,000 tons of potatoes. The whole loss had been equivalent to the absolute destruction of 1,500,000 arable acres." On the same day, Lord John Russell, who had succeeded Peel as Prime Minister, gave a statement of what the Government had done during the recess for the relief of the Irish population, in pursuance of Acts passed in the previous Session. He stated that an immense staff of servants had been employed by the Board of Public Worksupwards of 11,000 personsgiving employment to half a million of labourers, representing 2,000,000 of souls; the expense for the month of January being estimated at from 700,000 to 800,000.
