for the Government depots are not
intended to form the primary or principal means of subsistence to the
people of the districts in which the depots are established, but merely
to furnish a last resource, when all other means of subsistence, whether
derived from the harvest just got in, or from importations, are
exhausted, and the depots are, therefore, in no case to be drawn upon
while food can be obtained by purchase from private parties."[163] This
Minute is addressed to Sir Randolph Routh, who had written to the
Treasury ten days before, pressing upon them the necessity of large and
immediate purchases of corn. "We have no arrivals yet announced," he
says, "either at Westport or Sligo, and the remains there must be
nothing, or next to nothing. The bills of lading from Mr. Erichsen are
all for small quantities, which will be distributed, and perhaps eaten,
in twelve or twenty-four hours after their arrival. It would require a
thousand tons to make an impression, and that only a temporary one. Our
salvation of the depot system is in the importation of a large supply.
These small shipments are only drops in the ocean." And further on in
the same letter: "We began our operations on the 1st of September or
thereabouts; and here, in the midst of harvest, before any Commissariat
arrangement for supplies from abroad could be matured, we find the
country besieging our depot for food, and scarcely a proprietor stirring
in their behalf."[164]

Government depots were only to be established where it was probable that
private enterprise would not offer a sufficient quantity of food for
sale. On this principle, the north, east, and south were left to be
supplied through the usual channels of commerce; the depot system being
confined to the west coast. What was meant precisely by the west coast
does not seem to have been settled at the outset, but in answer to an
enquiry from Sir R. Routh on the subject, the Treasury, on the 31st of
October, defined it to be the country to the west of the Shannon, with
the County Donegal to the north, and Kerry to the south, with a small
corner of Cork, as far as Skibbereen, because that town was on the
western coast.[165]

We have seen the rapid increase of labourers on the Relief Works from
October to December, yet famine was always far ahead of the Government.
Their arrangements for the first famine year were made with reference to
the closing of all operations at harvest time, in 1846, but ther