Last year,
when it was found that a great portion of the food of the people had
perished, the evident duty of the Government and the country was to
provide a sufficient supply, until the harvest would come in. This was
done by securing additional wages for the people, with which to buy
food; wages paid for the public works then undertaken being the readiest
means to meet a transient emergency; but the Committee are convinced,
they assure his Excellency, that the calamity of the current year is not
transient but permanent. Not one of them, they say, entertains the
expectation that the next year's potato crop will put an end to the
difficulties of the country, by supplying sufficient food for the
population: "the question is not now of the distribution but of the
production of food. We have not to relieve a temporary distress, but to
make provision for the food of a people." To buy food in foreign markets
with money paid for unproductive labour at home, they of course,
designate as it deserved. The true and permanent remedy is only to be
found in the employment of additional capital and labour on the land.
"To anticipate the available resources of the country," they urge, "and
to compel or induce the outlay of them on public works not productive of
food, or of any commodity which could be exchanged for food, must
fearfully aggravate the dangers of our position.
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