ether men were wanting or not_. What a complaint! Good Mr. Millet,
the question with the people was not whether you required workmen or
not, but it was, that they and their families were in the throes of
death from want of food, and they saw no other way of getting it but by
being employed on those works. Besides, your masters began by stating
that the Public Works were not undertaken on account of their necessity
or utility, but for the purpose of rescuing the people from famine, by
giving them employment.[153]

The inspectors and the local Committees had such frequent differences,
that the Board had it under serious consideration to dispense with those
Committees altogether. This idea was abandoned, but the important
privilege of issuing tickets for the Works was taken away from the
Committees, by an order of the Board, bearing date the 9th of December.
Besides the various other complaints forwarded to Dublin of the way in
which tickets were issued by the Committees, one officer writes that he
finds they had become a "saleable commodity" in the hands of the
labourers. A man, he says, obtains a ticket, disposes of it for what he
can get, and goes back for another, feeling sure that amongst the
numberless applicants he would not be recognized as having been given
one before. This practice, which was not and could not be carried on to
any great extent, was but another proof that the works were insufficient
to meet the demand for employment. Instead of the issue of tickets by
Committees it was ruled by the Board, that the inspecting officer should
furnish to the check clerk, for the engineer, a list of the men to be
employed on any particular work.[154]

As before remarked, an undercurrent of feeling pervaded the minds of
officials that there was not at all so much real distress in Ireland as
the people pretended, and that there was a great deal more food in the
country than there was said to be. This was sometimes openly asserted,
but more frequently hinted at and insinuated in communications to the
Board of Works and the Treasury. It was founded partly on prejudice, and
partly on ignorance of the real state of affairs, which was far worse
than the most anxious friends of the people asserted, as the event,
unfortunately, too truly proved. That there was some deception and much
idleness, in connection with the public works, cannot be doubted for a
moment; such works being on a gigantic and ever increasing scale,
effectiv