From the Independant
God and England made the Famine
"Charles E. Trevelyan, who served under both Peel and Russell at the Treasury, and had prime responsibility for famine relief in Ireland, was clear about God's role: "The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated".
John Mitchel, the Young Ireland leader, transported in 1848 to Van Diemens Land, had a different view, calling the famine "an artificial famine. Potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe; yet there was no famine save in Ireland. The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine".
A Trevelyan letter to Edward Twisleton, Chief Poor Law Commissioner in Ireland, contains the censorious, "We must not complain of what we really want to obtain. If small farmers go, and their landlords are reduced to sell portions of their estates to persons who will invest capital we shall at last arrive at something like a satisfactory settlement of the country"."