their countrymen, that it is impossible for us to perform--that the
visitation under which they are suffering has made it impossible for
man; that is a task which is beyond all human power; all that we can
possibly do being, in some mode, to alleviate the existing distress--to
lighten somewhat the dreadful calamity which has befallen them. They
should not imagine that it is in our power to turn scarcity, and even
famine into plenty. But, sir, what surprises me all the more in
reference to this announcement, is, that it so happens that at
Castlebar, where the people of the surrounding country are requested to
meet, there is a Union workhouse, which Union workhouse should contain
600 inmates, but which, at present, contains not more than 130--the
doors being closed against other persons seeking, and in need of
admittance, and the guardians saying, that it is impossible for them to
levy the rates, in order to enable other persons in want of food to come
to that workhouse for relief. Amongst those who have not paid the rates,
who have not furnished the money by which famine might have been, to a
certain degree, averted, are some who, we cannot but suppose, are fully
able to pay what is due from them; and I cannot but see in this proposal
a most unhappy tendency--an unhappy tendency, which I have more than
once remarked--to recommend to others to do some vague and impossible
thing--to call upon Government, or Parliament to do something, the
practicability of which is not considered; to confer some benefit that
may be visionary or impossible, whilst the plain practical duty of
paying the rates, for the sustenance of starving men, women and children
in the neighbourhood, is left neglected and unperformed" (hear, hear,
from all sides).

The Premier next proceeded to lay before the House other measures which
the Government considered would be of permanent as well as immediate
benefit to Ireland.

These measures were three in number: 1. An improved drainage act; 2. An
Act for the reclamation of waste lands, and, 3. A system of out-door
relief, at the discretion of the guardians of the poor. Of the Drainage
Act, which he was about to propose, he said, it would be founded on
various previous Drainage Acts, but more especially upon the Act of the
previous session, and the Treasury Minute of the 1st of December.
According to those Acts and that Minute, he proposed that, "When the
improvement of an estate, by draining and other ope