I'm not sure what your options are, but here's what I've come up with:
The reason for our tardiness was because we got stuck in traffic.
Even though Swift is not suggesting that the rich people in Ireland start eating the babies of the poor, he is still suggesting some realistic solutions. Most of all he is pointing out that the rich need to start doing something to balance out the economy and support the lower classes, instead of treating them like cattle. Comparing them to cattle by suggesting they eat babies points out this flaw of society and that it needs to be changed.
He was a spokesperson of his generation because his books mostly spoke about people who experienced suffering due to the gilded age system of values.
