Act, was limited to the 1st of October, 1847.  The Government determined that after its expiration relief should be given through the Poorlaw system only.  In preparation for this arrangement, an Act (the 10th & 11th Vic. cap. 31,) was passed in June, sanctioning outdoor relief.  The harvest of 1847 was a good one, but so utterly prostrate was every interest in the country, that the outdoor relief system soon expanded into alarming proportions.  In February, 1848, the cost of outdoor relief was L72,039, and in March it rose to L81,339.  The numbers and cost were then both at their maximum, and according to the best estimate which can be formed, the number of outdoor poor relieved was 703,762, and of indoor 140,536, making an aggregate of 844,298 persons, irrespective of more than 200,000 school children, who were, as stated above, fed and in part clothed by “the British Association.”  So that the total number receiving relief in March, 1848, exceeded a million of persons; being about one out of every seven of the population.

The parliamentary papers issued from time to time, detailing the sums granted on account of the Irish Famine, are, for the most part, very perplexing; because, being usually printed on the motion of some member of parliament, they only give the precise information called for, and only up to the period at which it was called for; so, not only are they perplexing, but they are often misleading, although correct enough in themselves.  Then again, it sometimes happens, that the sum voted by parliament is not entirely expended on the object for which it was granted.  To give an instance of this:  there is a parliamentary paper before me, ordered on the 2nd of December, 1847, which says, the amount voted under the Temporary Relief Act was L2,200,000, of which sum there was expended L1,676,000.  Sir Charles Trevelyan gives the sum expended as L1,724,631.  The only way of accounting for this seeming discrepancy is, that Sir Charles’s statement was published later than the blue book, and that an outlay was still going on under the above Act, after the blue book had been published, which brought the expenditure up to the sum stated by him.

Here, besides the difference as to the actual sum expended, we have a considerable difference between the sum voted and the sum expended.  But there is yet another thing connected with the Famine advances, which is very likely to mislead.  The usual course was, that the money issued from the Treasury to meet the Famine, was in part a free grant, and in part a charge upon the land.  It is only simple justice to state clearly how much of this money was a free grant, and how much of it was levied off Ireland, as a tax.  The proportion is given in the Acts of Parliament, but it happens that the proportion eventually paid was less than what was levied:  so that the proportions as given in the Acts of Parliament have to be altered to the extent of the remissions made.