The Minute of the 31st of August was modified somewhat by a letter from Mr. Labouchere, dated September 5th. In that letter the Secretary says it is his Excellency's pleasure that all works stopped on the 15th August should be proceeded with as far as the sums which may have been so sanctioned for them respectively would admit. Should the balance not be sufficient, a presentment under 10 Vict. cap. 107, should be sought for at the Presentment Sessions, provided the work were a desirable one to undertake. Nor did the new arrangement, under which the landlord paid one moiety of the rate, and the occupier the other, pass without censure. It was, to be sure, considered an improvement on the rule which compelled the occupier to pay the whole; still it was urged that great numbers of the occupiers of small holdings would be as much in need of relief as any portion of the community, and in no position whatever to pay rates. That was true enough, but a line must be drawn somewhere, and when they determined to make the soil responsible, it is hard to see to whom they were to look for rates, had they exempted the small farmers from them. The exemption they made, namely, of those whose rent was under £4 a-year, was probably not liberal enough, but there does not seem to have been any great reason for finding fault with it. But the great and fatal blot in the Labour-rate Act was, that under its provisions the people could not be employed on works capable of making a profitable return. Lord John Russell's Government followed the precedent set by its predecessors as to the class of works upon which employment was to be given; but there was this important difference in their legislation,--the former made no grants under their Labour-rate Act, while the latter supplied about half the cost of the Public Works from the Treasury, the remainder being a loan. Against this Act several arguments were employed, and, for the most part, very cogent ones. 1. It was said that as the country was taxed for the whole outlay, whatever it might be, the Government had no right to apply the money to unprofitable works, thus taking from our capital (already far too small) a vast sum that could not return to it. 2. Moreover, no matter whence the money came, it was urged that to employ it on barren works was wrong in principle, especially in a country like Ireland, with millions of reclaimable acres, which would, if brought under cultivation, return in almost every case ten per cent, for capital expended. 3. Again, it was put forward with reason, that the employment for the past year was meant to relieve transient distress only; but now the case was very different--a new, a far more extensive and complete failure of the potato had occurred. There was now no question of transient distress; the potato, the principal--almost the only--food of five millions of the people of Ireland, had not only failed a second time, but, to all