representation of Catholics on public bodies. However, he also supported coercive Government measures to suppress disorder, often taking a hardline position. In 1844 Hatherton promoted a reform popular with Irish Catholics: the Charitable Bequests (Ireland) Act, which created a corporate body to accept bequests in favour of the Irish clergy. In so doing, he seized the opportunity to attack the poor provision for Catholic clerical education. This helped stoke the agitation that led to the Maynooth Grant of 1845, with its disastrously divisive consequences for the Tory party. However, the disaster of the Great Famine soon pushed even these important issues to the periphery. Peel recognised that the famine could not be ended while the Corn Laws, major protective tariffs on food imports, continued in force. Although it had never dominated Hatherton's radicalism, he had long been loyal to the anti-Corn Law cause and had spoken most effectively on the subject when he presented no less than six petitions from Wolverhampton in 1839 There was never any doubt of his support for the repeal of the laws in 1846, a volte-face for the Tory party that split it more disastrously and more permanently than Maynooth and brought down Peel's government. The minority Whig government of John Russell, 1st Earl Russell dealt with the famine, as closely as possible according to laissez-faire principles, through the administrator Charles Trevelyan. He was so preoccupied with a market solution that he restricted relief through public works and forced millions to starve or emigrate. From August 1846, Parliament was continuously prorogued and the government avoided facing its critics. As 1847 began, the government was forced to think again, and decided to bring in soup kitchens and outdoor relief. Parliament was reconvened on 19 January and the government's revised strategy sketchily outlined to in Speech from the Throne that gave Ireland prominence but wandered across such topics as the marriage of the Spanish Infanta, and problems in Poland and Argentina. As a senior Whig peer, Hatherton rose to make a formal Address in Answer. He immediately stated that the condition of Ireland was topic of "all-absorbing importance" and went on to give a long speech in which all other matters were relegated to a formal mention at the end. He stressed the vast scale of famine and the inadequacy of government attempts to tackle it. He welcomed public works programmes but declared that if they were