of thousands of Irish were fleeing-there is no

Hundreds of thousands of Irish were fleeing-there is no other word-across the Ocean. It was equally impossible to arrest their flight and to organize it upon any plan at all likely to succeed. Mere State aid to emigration would not touch the real problem. It would throw upon the Government more responsibility for the transport and maintenance of the emigrant and would involve some measure of selection; but the undesired pauper would still go, without State aid, for it would pay the person who wished to get rid of him to send him. With the increase of responsibility would come no real increase of control. Meanwhile the valuable 'remittance system' would come to an end. No guarantee could be given that the colonies would benefit by the selected emigrants, for they might find it a convenient way of going to the United States. I No less a person than Charles Buller concurred in the propriety of doing nothing in such circumstances to aid the large.voluntary emigration from Ireland.2

If~ however, organized emigration was impossible, that was not to say that voluntary, unassisted emigratioh was satisfactory. On the contrary, the strain of 1847 broke down what means there were for preserving some sort of order and preventing the worst abuses. Until the figures appeared, no one knew the actual extent of the emigration: then it was found that no fewer than a quarter of a million, of whom 108,000 had gone to the British Colonies, had emigrated to North America within the year. Most of these were Irish; many of them were utterly destitute; and they brought with them every kind of disease. The rate of mortality, on the voyage or in quarantine or hospital, increased from one-half to sixteen per cent. Lord Grey found some consolation in the fact that the Government had refused to add to these multitudes; but it was clear that mere laisser faire was no remedy for such a state of affairs as this.