REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS. 25 



for the latter, or if an equal number only be employed, 

 they must be continued during a far greater length of time. 

 Again, a Commission, the examinations of which can be 

 conducted by Assistant Commissioners acting singly, will 

 be at far less expense than one the examinations of which 

 must be taken before two Assistant Commissioners. On 

 the English Poor Law Inquiry, the Assistant Commis- 

 sioners were only engaged during three months; the 

 Assistant Commissioners on this Inquiry have been con- 

 stantly employed during nearly eighteen months. The 

 great expenditure upon every Inquiry of this description 

 consists in the travelling expenditure of the Assistant 

 Commissioners. Had it been possible to bring before a 

 Parliamentary Committee the same description and the 

 same number of witnesses as have been examined before 

 our Assistant Commissioners, twenty times the amount of 

 our expenditure would not have sufficed; and yet the 

 value of evidence depends chiefly upon the number of 

 persons examined, and upon the number of districts about 

 which information is gained. 



We cannot conclude this sketch of our proceedings up 

 to the present period, without remarking that, having been 

 appointed to inquire into the condition of that portion of 

 Your Majesty's Irish subjects who are or may be con- 

 sidered as requiring relief, we have felt it our duty to 

 devote our attention, in the first instance, to those classes 

 in which distress was known or supposed principally to 

 prevail. We think it necessary to make this observation, 

 in consequence of our evidence containing so few details 

 as to the condition of the poor placed in more favourable 

 circumstances. We know that there is a very large num- 

 ber of instances in which, through the benevolent and 



