In administering the funds placed at its disposal, the committee of the British Association acted concurrently with the government and the Poor-Law authorities, each of whom bore testimony to its great usefulness. It determined at the outset “That all grants should be in food, and not in money;” and “That no grant should be placed at the disposal of any individual for private distribution.” The committee conclude their Report to the subscribers by declaring, that although evils of greater or less degree must attend every system of gratuitous relief, they are confident that any evils which may have accompanied the application of this fund, will have been far more than counterbalanced by the benefits which have been conferred upon their starving fellow-countrymen. “If ill desert has sometimes participated in this bounty, a vast amount of human misery and suffering has (it is said) been relieved.”[148] ----- [146] See ‘History of the Scotch Poor Law,’ p. 202. [147] In fact the amount applied to these objects by the association exceeded 500,000_l._, upwards of 130,000_l._ having been obtained by the sale of provisions and seed-corn in Ireland, and interest accruing on the money contributed. [148] See Report of the British Association for the Relief of extreme Distress in Ireland and Scotland, 1st January 1849. ----- The foregoing account of proceedings by the government and by individuals for relieving the distress which prevailed in Ireland during the years 1846 and 1847, through the failure of the potato-crops, has been continued down beyond the date of the ninth Report in order to keep the subject together, and to obviate the necessity of again recurring to it. These proceedings form no part of the Poor Law administration, and are only so far connected with it as being directed to the relief of distress, and as having been latterly carried on very much in accordance with recognised Poor Law principles, and moreover to a considerable extent with the aid of the Poor Law machinery. We will now return to the detail of proceedings during the twelve months preceding the 1st of May 1847, as given in the commissioners’ ninth Report. [Sidenote: Amount of expenditure, and numbers relieved.] All the workhouses had been opened for the relief of poor, and every union had made a rate, so that the law might now be said to be in operation throughout Ireland. The amount of expenditure for the year ending 31st December 1846 was 435,001_l._, and the number of persons then receiving relief in the several workhouses was 94,437, which exceeds by 52,369 the number in the preceding year, and the expenditure is greater by 118,975_l._ The entire number of persons relieved during the year was 243,933.