The strain upon the executive through this system of centralization was excessive. Government had to bear the entire pressure of the masses on the sensitive points of wages and food. Task-work was generally objected to, and its enforcement gave rise to frequent struggles, in which the safety of the superintending officers was sometimes put in jeopardy. The number of persons employed on the works continued to increase—“Thousands upon thousands were pressed upon the officers of the board of works in every part of Ireland, and it was impossible for those officers to test the accuracy of the urgent representations which were made to them. The attraction of money wages regularly paid from the public purse, or ‘The queen’s pay,’ as it was popularly called, led to a general abandonment of other descriptions of industry, in order to participate in the advantages of the relief-works.[Sidenote: Evils of the system.] Landlords competed with each other in getting the names of their tenants placed on the lists; farmers dismissed their labourers and sent them to the works; the clergy insisted on the claims of the members of their respective congregations; the fisheries were deserted; and it was often difficult even to get a coat patched or a pair of shoes mended, to such an extent had the population of the south and west of Ireland turned out upon the roads. The average number employed in October was 114,000, in November 285,000, in December 440,000, and in January 1847, 570,000.” It was obviously impossible to exact from such a multitude the amount of labour that would operate as a test. Huddled together in masses they screened each other’s idleness. It was thought that the enforcement of taskwork would stimulate their industry; but when after a hard struggle this point had been carried, an habitual collusion between the labourers and the overlookers appointed to measure their work revived the former abuse, and the labourers were as idle as ever.