Decies--Deputation from Clonakilty to the
Lord Lieutenant--Ships prevented from sailing at Youghal--Sir David
Roche--Demonstrations simultaneous--Proclamation against food
riots--Want of mill-power--No mill-power in parts of the West where
most required--Sir Randolph Routh's opinion--Overruled by the
Treasury--Mr. Lister's Account of the mill-power in parts of
Connaught--Meal ground at Deptford, Portsmouth, Plymouth, and
Rotherhithe; also in Essex and the Channel Islands--Mill-power at
Malta--Quantity of wheat there--Five hundred quarters purchased--The
French--The Irish handmill, or quern, revived--Samples of it
got--Steel-mills--Mill-power useless from failure of
water-supply--Attempt to introduce whole corn boiled as food.

Two Governmental departments were told off to do battle with the Irish
Famine; namely, the Board of Works and the Commissariat Relief Office.
The duty of the former was to find employment for those who were able to
work, at such wages as would enable them to support themselves and
their families; the latter was to see that food should be for sale
within a reasonable distance of all who were necessitated to buy it, and
at fair market prices; but more than this the Commissariat Office was
not empowered to do. Corn merchants, food dealers, and mealmongers were
not to be interfered with; on the contrary, they were to be encouraged
in carrying on their trade. It was only where such persons did not
exist, or did not exist in sufficient numbers, that the Commissariat
depots were to sell corn or meal to the people. No food was to be given
away by Government; none was to be sold under price, it being assumed
that the people could earn enough to support themselves. Government
feared that, if they began to undersell the merchants and dealers, those
classes would give up business, which, in the Government's opinion,
would be a very great evil. Mealmongers and food dealers are generally
very shrewd men; and it was believed, with much reason, that they
succeeded in raising prices when it suited them, and in many cases in
realizing even large fortunes, by working on the apprehensions of the
Government in respect to this very matter.[159]

The Commissariat Relief Department was organized at the close of 1845,
for the purpose of managing the distribution of Indian meal, imported at
that time by Sir Robert Peel, to provide against the anticipated
scarcity of the spring