n commissariat, along depots the western coast of the
island, where the people were not likely to be supplied on reasonable
terms through the ordinary channels of trade. The public works
consisted principally of roads, on which, the men were employed as
a sort of supplement to the poor law. Half the cost was a free grant
from the treasury, and the other half was charged upon the barony
in which the works were undertaken. The expense incurred under the
'Labour Rate Act, 9 and 10 Viet. c. 107,' amounted to 4,766,789 l. It
was almost universally admitted, when the pressure was over, that
the system of public works adopted was a great mistake; and it seems
wonderful that such grievous blunders could have been made with so
many able statesmen and political economists at the head of affairs
and in the service of the Government. The public works undertaken
consisted in the breaking up of good roads to level hills and fill
hollows, and the opening of new roads in places where they were not
required--works which the people felt to be useless, and at which they
laboured only under strong compulsion, being obliged to walk to them
in all weathers for miles, in order to earn the price of a breakfast
of Indian meal. Had the labour thus comparatively wasted been devoted
to the draining, sub-soiling, and fencing of the farms, connected
with a comprehensive system of arterial drainage, immense and lasting
benefit to the country would have been the result, especially as
works so well calculated to ameliorate the soil, and guard against the
moisture of the climate, might have been connected with a system of
instruction in agricultural matters of which the peasantry stood so
much in need, and to the removal of the gross ignorance which had so
largely contributed to bring about the famine. As it was, enormous
sums were wasted. Much needless hardship was inflicted on the starving
people in compelling them to work in frost and rain when they were
scarcely able to walk, and, after all the vast outlay, very few traces
of it remained in permanent improvements on the face of the country.
The system of government relief works failed chiefly through the
same difficulty which impeded every mode of relief, whether public or
private--namely, the want of machinery to work it. It was impossible
suddenly to procure an efficient staff of officers for an undertaking
of such enormous magnitude--the employment of a whole people. The
overseers were necessarily