ven regarded as a breach
of faith with the public. The _Minute_ of the 31st of August, no doubt,
left a course open for their completion, when it ruled, "that if the
parties interested desired that works so discontinued should afterwards
be recommenced and completed, it was open to them to take the usual
steps to provide for that object, either by obtaining loans, secured by
Grand Jury presentments, or by other means." But this suggestion (for it
was no more) did not free the Government from the charge of a breach of
faith, for they called upon the country to complete works begun by
themselves, and to do so under new and very different conditions.
Besides, it was pretty evident that Grand Juries would not present for
the completion of works commenced by the Government, on its own
responsibility. That the Government felt there was some ground for the
charge brought against them, of a breach of faith with regard to those
works, is evident from a letter from Mr. Trevelyan to Lieutenant-Colonel
Jones in the beginning of October. In that letter he says, the works
under the Labour-rate Act must, as far as the Act is concerned, come to
an end on the 15th of August, 1847; and he adds, that "if Parliament
should determine that the Irish proprietors shall support their poor
after the 15th of August, 1847, by payments out of the current produce
of the Poor-rate, instead of by loan from Government, the transfer from
one system to the other may take place _without our being liable_ to any
demands like those which have been lately made upon us _to finish what
we had begun_, on pain of being considered guilty of a breach of faith."
This, says Mr. Trevelyan, is the full mind of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer.[125]

The Minute of the 31st of August was modified somewhat by a letter from
Mr. Labouchere, dated September 5th. In that letter the Secretary says
it is his Excellency's pleasure that all works stopped on the 15th
August should be proceeded with as far as the sums which may have been
so sanctioned for them respectively would admit. Should the balance not
be sufficient, a presentment under 10 Vict. cap. 107, should be sought
for at the Presentment Sessions, provided the work were a desirable one
to undertake.

Nor did the new arrangement, under which the landlord paid one moiety of
the rate, and the occupier the other, pass without censure. It was, to
be sure, considered an improvement on the rule which compelled the
occupier