any such statement, they would have acted very improperly.  They could not disguise from themselves the fact, that in most parts of Ireland a great preference was shown for the public works over the new relief system, and if her Majesty’s Government had made such an announcement as that attributed to them by the honourable gentleman, the greatest delay would assuredly have taken place in bringing the new Act into operation.’  He also read a letter that had been received that day, addressed from Colonel Jones, the chairman of the Board of Works, to Mr. Trevelyan:—­’Upon reading the Dublin journals,’ writes Colonel Jones, ’it would be supposed that the men discharged from the works had been deprived in an instant of their daily food; the fact is, that they were not entitled to be paid until the Tuesday or Wednesday following, and the payments so made were to be the means of procuring subsistence for another week, so that with the time between the publishing of the order and the moment when the money would be expended, ample time was afforded for procuring other employment, or for the electoral division committees to have made the necessary preparations for supplying the destitute with food.’  He (Mr. Labouchere) trusted the House would be satisfied that as much consideration had been shown for the people as it was in their power to bestow, and he had the satisfaction to think that on the whole this great reduction had been carried into effect with as little temporary suffering and embarrassment as possible.”

The first thing that strikes one with regard to the above reply is, that the Board of Works used the discretion given to them with reference to the dismissals, in opposition to what Mr. Labouchere says was the intention of the Government.  Government wished the dismissals to be twenty per cent, in the aggregate, which means ten or fifteen per cent. of a reduction in one district, and twenty-five or thirty per cent. in another, according to circumstances.  But the Secretary naively adds, that the Board of Works thought they should best meet the views of the Government by striking off twenty per cent, of those employed in each district. Probably the Government and the Board of Works understood each other well enough on this point.  Even assuming the extract from Captain O’Brien’s report to have the meaning attached to it by Mr. Labouchere, as it is the only case of the kind he brings forward, we must receive it as the exception which proves the rule.  The Secretary next tells us that employment on the public works was far more popular with the people than the new system of relief.  This he asserted in the House of Commons on the 29th of March.  We know the official printed forms for putting the new Relief Act into operation were not ready for delivery, even in Dublin, on the 22nd of March, just one week before.  How, in that one week they were got ready, and sent by tons and hundreds weight to all parts of the country; how