In the short statement I am about to give, I follow Sir Charles Trevelyan’s figures; being Secretary to the Treasury, he must have known the sums actually advanced by the Treasury, and the sums returned to it in payment of the loans granted.

Amount
finally charged under
Amount advanced from the Treasury. the Consolidated
Annuities Act.

L s. d.  L s. d.
Under 9th Vict., cap. 1, 476,000 0 0 238,000 0 0
Under 9th and 10th Vict., cap.
107,"The Labour-rate Act,” 4,766,789 0 0 2,231,000 0 0
Under 10th Vict., cap. 7, “The
Temporary Relief Act,” 1,724,631 0 0 953,355 0 0
Loans for building Workhouses, 1,420,780 0 0 122,707 0 0
Loans to pay debts of distressed
Unions, 300,000 0 0 300,000 0 0
Grants by Parliament at various
times:  1845, 1846, 1847, 1848,
and 1849, 844,521 0 0 ....
------------- ---------------
Total, L9,532,721 0 0 4,845,062 0 0

During the years 1846, 1847, and
1848, the following sums were
also expended by the Board of
Works:
For arterial drainage, 470,617 10 3
Works under the Labouchere
letter, 199,870 9 2
For land improvement. 520,700 0 .
-----------------
Total, L10,723,908 19 5

In the above ten millions seven hundred thousand pounds, it may be fairly assumed, we have all the monies advanced by Government to mitigate the effects of the potato failure.  Our next duty is to inquire how much of this sum was paid back by Ireland, and how much of it was a free gift from the Treasury.

The money advanced under the Labouchere letter for land improvement, and for arterial drainage cannot, of course, be regarded as a free gift towards staying the Famine; arterial drainage and land improvement go on still, through money advanced by Government.  The works under the Labouchere letter were, no doubt, intended to give reproductive employment during the Famine, but the cost of them was a charge upon the land and not a free gift.

The money spent on arterial drainage and land improvement, under the Labouchere letter and various drainage Acts, during the years 1846, 1847 and 1848, was, as given above, L1,191,187 19s. 5d., which being deducted from L10,723,908 19s>. 5d. leaves the sum of L9,532,721, of which there was finally charged to this country L4,845,062.  Deducting this from the L9,532,721 we have L4,687,659 as the amount of money given by Government as a free gift to Ireland to sustain the people through the Great Famine.  To this, however, there is to be added a sum of about L70,000 paid for freights.  The American people, when they had collected those generous contributions of theirs, and when they had resolved to send them in the form of food to Ireland,