§ MR. SERJEANT SHERLOCKasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to a letter in this day's "Times" from the Reverend T. Stanley Treanor, Rector of Achil, in reference to the destitution in that dis- 123 trict, in which the Reverend gentleman writes:—
Since Christmas last, the people—I speak of the Protestant small farmers especially—have lived on Indian meal purchased on credit, and at last in many cases even credit is exhausted. Debt, starvation, or the workhouse threatens us, and until the new potatoes come in, I dread a pressure approaching in severity that of 1848;and, whether the Government are prepared to extend that practical and generous sympathy, by which the effects of the famine were to a great extent averted in India, to the poor of this remote district in Ireland'?
§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, in reply, said, that his attention had been called to the letter to which the Question of the hon. and learned Member referred; and although he had not had time to make full inquiry into the subject, yet, from the best information which he had been able to obtain, he might say that there was no very exceptional state of distress at present in the Island of Achil. It was not unfrequent in the West of Ireland for persons in the condition of life of those referred to in this letter to subsist between the two potato crops upon Indian meal purchased on credit. If, however, there were any exceptional state of distress, there was ample provision in the Poor Law to meet it, because there was in the Island a resident Believing Officer, whose duty it would be to provide food, lodging, and medical relief in cases where those necessaries might seem to be required. Therefore, the case did not seem to him to be parallel with that of the Indian famine, or to require any exceptional action on the part of the Government.