We should remember that the world used to be much more difficult to travel around. In the 1840s it was probably as difficult for the average Englishman to travel to Ireland as it was a century later to travel to our Indian Empire & much more difficult than it is today for any of us to travel to Ethiopia or Congo, should we so wish.
Judged in those terms British statesmen were no more callous towards the Irish than their descendents were towards starvation in India or we are to present goings on in Congo. Of course it is always easier to see the faults of others.
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