Labour-rate Act. Do you believe this?'

The Labour-rate Act, passed at the end of the session ('46), was one by
which the Lord Lieutenant was enabled to require special barony
sessions to meet in order to make presentments for public works for the
employment of the people, the whole of the money requisite for their
construction to be supplied by the imperial treasury, though to
be afterwards repaid. The machinery of this act did not work
satisfactorily, but the government ultimately made the necessary
alterations on their own responsibility, and obtained an indemnity from
Parliament when it met in '47. The early session, therefore, talked
of by Mr. O'Connell, became unnecessary. As the only object of this
Labour-rate Act was to employ the people, and as it was supposed there
were no public works of a reproductive nature which could be undertaken
on a sufficient scale to ensure that employment, the Irish people were
occupied, towards the end of the autumn of '46, mainly in making roads,
which, as afterwards described by the first minister, 'were not wanted.'
In the month of September more than thirty thousand persons were thus
employed; but when the harvest was over, and it was ascertained that its
terrible deficiency had converted pauperism into famine, the numbers
on the public works became greatly increased, so that at the end of
November the amount of persons engaged was four hundred thousand,
receiving wages at the rate of nearly five millions sterling per annum.
These immense amounts went on increasing every week, and when Parliament
met in February, 1847, five hundred thousand persons were employed on
these public works, which could bring no possible public advantage, at
an expense to the country of between L700,000 and L800,000 per month.
No Board of Works could efficiently superintend such a multitude, or
prevent flagrant imposition, though the dimensions of that
department appeared almost proportionably to have expanded. What
with commissioners, chief clerks, check clerks, and pay clerks, the
establishment of the Board of Works in Ireland, at the end of '46,
consisted of more than eleven thousand persons.

Always intent upon Ireland, this condition of affairs early and
earnestly attracted the attention of Lord George Bentinck. So vast an
expenditure in unproductive labour dismayed him. He would not
easily assent to the conclusion that profitable enterprise under the
circumstances was impossible. Such a concl