that the
relief committees should not sell the meal or other food provided by
them, except in small quantities to persons who are known to have no
other means of procuring food; that the price at which the meal is sold
should, as nearly as possible, be the same as the market prices which
prevail in the neighbourhood; that the committees should not give a
higher rate of wages, nor exact a smaller quantum of work, in any works
carried on by them from funds at their own disposal, than is the case in
respect to the works carried on under the superintendence of the Board
of Works, and that works should be carried on by them only to the extent
to which private employment is proved not to be available.

The serious attention of every person who will have to take a part in
the measures of relief rendered necessary by the new and more complete
failure of the potato crop should be particularly called to this
important fact, that the limitations and precautions which have been
prescribed to the Government boards and officers in carrying out the
relief operations, with the object of rendering the necessary
interference with the labour and provision markets productive of the
smallest possible disturbance of the ordinary course of trade and
industry, will be rendered nugatory if the same prudence and reserve are
not practised by the relief committees in the administration of the
funds placed at their disposal by private or public benevolence; and
their Lordships therefore feel it to be their duty earnestly to request
that every person concerned will, to the extent of the influence
possessed by him, endeavour to secure such a restriction of the measures
of relief to cases of real destitution, and such a just consideration
for the interests of merchants and dealers, in the free exercise of
whose callings the public welfare is so deeply concerned, that instead
of the habitual dependence upon charitable aid which might otherwise be
apprehended from the extensive measures of relief in progress, every
description of trade and industry may be stimulated by them, and the
bonds of society may become more firmly knit, by the benevolent and
intelligent cooperation of the different orders and ranks of which it is
composed, to avert a common calamity, and to prepare for recommencing
the ordinary occupations of social life with advantages which are at
present only imperfectly enjoyed in some parts of Ireland.

The limited grant fund, provided by