nt, suitable to the ordinary wants of the
country; on the contrary, the extraordinary means adopted to meet an
extraordinary crisis should, from the nature of things, pass away with
the crisis. The Famine once over in Ireland, labour would soon return to
its ordinary channels. The simple question: "Was it better to employ the
labour of the country on productive rather than on non-productive works
during the Famine?" became involved and obscured by the enunciation of
principles which applied only to an ordinary state of society. It is an
amusing commentary on the line of argument adopted above by the First
Minister, that he concludes this very speech with two distinct sets of
measures for Ireland, one temporary, to meet the Famine, and another
permanent.

The first great means he proposed for arresting the progress of the
Famine was to establish soup-kitchens, and to give the people food
without any labour test whatever. Was the townsland boundary system,
which he had just condemned, half so demoralizing to the labourer as
this? Certainly not; but this had the excuse, that there was now no time
for anything but the immediate supply of food: exactly so; but when
there was time, it was wasted in needless delay, and misused in barren
discussions about questions of political economy, and the probable
extent of the Famine, when its real extent was already well known.

The question of task work has been dealt with already. It was insisted
on at a time when a very large number of the working poor were so
exhausted with starvation that their physical capacity for work of any
kind was almost completely gone. This fact is more than sufficiently
proved by the evidence given at various coroners' inquests; still the
Government persevered in insisting upon it, and Colonel Jones was
amongst the most determined in doing so. In addressing the House on the
present occasion, Lord John Russell said it was reported to the
Government that the people on the Public Works were seen loitering about
the roads; that the Government then introduced task work; that it met
great opposition, but that the Lord Lieutenant remained firm, and had it
carried out; an announcement which was received with "loud cheers." And
no one would be inclined to find fault with task work, if the people had
strength enough left to earn fair wages at it, but they had not--a fact
which was, long before, evident to everybody but the Government; but
even they saw it, or at le