he
greatest delay would assuredly have taken place in bringing the new Act
into operation.' He also read a letter that had been received that day,
addressed from Colonel Jones, the chairman of the Board of Works, to Mr.
Trevelyan:--'Upon reading the Dublin journals,' writes Colonel Jones,
'it would be supposed that the men discharged from the works had been
deprived in an instant of their daily food; the fact is, that they were
not entitled to be paid until the Tuesday or Wednesday following, and
the payments so made were to be the means of procuring subsistence for
another week, so that with the time between the publishing of the order
and the moment when the money would be expended, ample time was afforded
for procuring other employment, or for the electoral division committees
to have made the necessary preparations for supplying the destitute with
food.' He (Mr. Labouchere) trusted the House would be satisfied that as
much consideration had been shown for the people as it was in their
power to bestow, and he had the satisfaction to think that on the whole
this great reduction had been carried into effect with as little
temporary suffering and embarrassment as possible."

The first thing that strikes one with regard to the above reply is, that
the Board of Works used the discretion given to them with reference to
the dismissals, in opposition to what Mr. Labouchere says was the
intention of the Government. Government wished the dismissals to be
twenty per cent, in the aggregate, which means ten or fifteen per cent.
of a reduction in one district, and twenty-five or thirty per cent. in
another, according to circumstances. But the Secretary _naively_ adds,
that the Board of Works thought they should best meet the views of the
Government by striking off twenty per cent, of those employed _in each
district._ Probably the Government and the Board of Works understood
each other well enough on this point. Even assuming the extract from
Captain O'Brien's report to have the meaning attached to it by Mr.
Labouchere, as it is the only case of the kind he brings forward, we
must receive it as the exception which proves the rule. The Secretary
next tells us that employment on the public works was far more popular
with the people than the new system of relief. This he asserted in the
House of Commons on the 29th of March. We know the official printed
forms for putting the new Relief Act into operation were not ready for
delivery,