energies and the capital of the country were squandered upon labour that could not, and was not intended to, make any remunerative return whatever. Whilst the value of the general principle of employing labour on profitable rather than on unprofitable works was evident enough, and accepted by almost everybody, the practical carrying out of that principle was not without its difficulties. Those who endeavoured to solve them brought forward plans varying from each other in some particulars; but, taking them collectively, there was sufficient good sense in them to enable the Government to frame a system of reproductive employment for the exigencies of the period. Fears were entertained by many that much of the arable land would remain unfilled in the ensuing spring, by which the Famine would be perpetuated; and it was thought the labour of the country ought to be made available for that purpose. A kind-hearted, charitable clergyman, the Rev. William Prior Moore, who endeavoured most zealously to relieve the sufferings of the people, put forward this view very strongly, in letters addressed by him to the Chief Secretary. In those letters he accuses the Government of being mere theorists, ignorant of the practical way of relieving Ireland. "The Labour Act," he says, "was worse than _absurd_--it was in many respects _pernicious_. The Chief Secretary's letter (I speak with all respect), though well meant, was in many cases impracticable; and the late Treasury Minute, also well-intentioned though it be, is for the most part _incomprehensible_; and when the three are taken together, or brought partially into operation together, as in some places is attempted, the Irish gentry would require a forty-horse power of intellect to understand or avail themselves of them."[127] "I do not say, as many do," Mr. Moore continues, "that the roads will be spoiled by cutting down the hills; on the contrary, it will be of the greatest advantage to have level highways through the land; but I do say, that there could not by possibility have been a more absurd misapplication of the labour and the power of the country. _Level roads are a good thing, but food is better._ And what will level highways do for the poor of Ireland next year, if they have nothing to eat?"[128] When Mr. Moore penned these lines he assumed, we must suppose, that all roads undertaken by Government would be completed, which would, in its way, be an improvement; but such was not the case.