Upon this, a two-fold agitation sprang up. Some landed proprietors required that their liability should be confined to the relief of the destitute on their own estates; while others demanded that, instead of being employed on the roads, the people should be paid for working on their own farms. Both these movements were steadily resisted by the Government. The objection to the first was, that if the inhabitants of the pauperised districts had been separated from the rest in the administration of the measures of relief, they must either have starved or have become entirely dependent on the Consolidated Fund; while, if the other plan had been adopted, the entire cost of carrying on the agriculture of the country would have been transferred to the Government, without its being possible either to test the applications for assistance, or to enforce a proper amount of exertion. This last scheme was most clamorously urged in the county of Clare, and it may be considered as the masterpiece of that system of social economy according to which the machine of society should be worked backwards, and the Government should be made to support the people, instead of the people the Government. The Government was also to provide tools and seed as well as wages, but the rent was to be received by the same parties as before.
Baronial presentments were authorized for the construction of railway earthworks, as relief works under the 9 & 10 Vic., c. 107, subject to the conditions required for the fulfilment of the object of the Act[29]; but advantage was taken of this permission only in two baronies of the county of Cork, where the Waterford and Limerick Railway was aided from this source.
The silver currency which had previously sufficed for a people who lived upon potatoes grown by themselves, and paid their rent by so many days’ labour, fell short of what was required to pay the labourers employed on the numerous Relief Works carried on simultaneously in different parts of the country, and a large supply was therefore distributed, by means of a Government steamer, among the principal towns on the coast of Ireland. On the cessation of the Relief Works, the greater part of this coin accumulated in the banks, which were relieved by the transmission of the surplus to the Cape of Good Hope to aid in carrying on the Caffre war.
In the Commissariat branch of the operations, every pledge which had been given was strictly adhered to, and confidence having been re-established, prodigious efforts were made by the mercantile community to provide against the approaching scarcity. The whole world was ransacked for supplies; Indian corn, the taste for which had by this time taken root in Ireland, rose to a higher price than wheat; and the London and Liverpool markets were again and again swept by the enterprising operations of the Irish dealers, who, from an early period, appreciated the full extent of the calamity, and acted upon the principle that the gulf which had opened in Ireland would swallow all that could be thrown into it, and remain still unsatisfied. In February 1847, the beneficial effect of these measures began to be apparent. On the 24th of that month, Mr. N. Cummins, a respectable merchant of Cork, wrote as follows to Mr. Trevelyan:
“From this gloomy picture I turn to the supply of food, and am happy to say that in this quarter the importations, both direct and from England, during the past month, have been very large; heavy cargoes of maize continue almost daily to arrive, and I feel persuaded that the stocks of bread stuffs generally are accumulating here to a much larger amount than some of our dealers would have it believed. Prices cannot, however, be quoted at more than a turn below the extreme point yet; they stand as follows,—say Indian corn, by retail, 17ℓ. 15s. and 18ℓ. per ton; Indian meal to 19ℓ.; oatmeal, 25ℓ.; wheaten meal, 19ℓ. to 20ℓ. per ton.”
On the 12th March, the same gentleman wrote,—
“Our market for Indian corn seems at length quite glutted, the arrivals within the last few days having been so extremely numerous, that the trade is unable to take off the supply, or indeed to find sufficient stowage in the city. Several cargoes for discharge here are at this moment lying under demurrage, and I may quote the article 15s. to 20s. per ton cheaper than a fortnight since.”
And on the 19th,—
“There are at present over 100 sail, containing an aggregate amount of bread stuffs not short of 20,000 tons, afloat in our harbour; and maize, which a month since brought freely 18ℓ. per ton, is this day offered in small parcels at 15ℓ.”
And on the same day Father Matthew wrote to Mr. Trevelyan as follows:—