At this time there were thirty-three Commissariat depots, and sixteen British Association depots.

By circular No. 58 it was announced that after the 15th of August the support of destitute persons was to be provided for under the new Poor Law, 10 Vic., c. 31.  All relief committees were warned to be prepared to close their arrangements for the issue of rations, when the funds provided for the estimates, ending on the 13th of August, would be expended.

The hope expressed in the fourth report, that the Commissioners had arrived at the maximum daily relief which the country required, was not verified by fact.  The fifth report was published on the 17th of August.  At that date there were 1,826 electoral divisions under the Act.  The maximum relief within the period embraced in the report was:  Gratuitous rations per day, 2,920,792; sold, 99,920; total, 3,020,712 rations daily![266] Thus, considerably more than one-third of the whole population was living on what may be termed out-door relief.  This, the highest point, was reached on the 3rd of July; the daily rations had, on the 1st of August, come down to 2,467,989 gratuitous, and 52,387 sold rations, being a total of 2,520,376 rations.

The absolute termination of advances on account of temporary relief was fixed by the Act of Parliament for the end of September.  The number of temporary fever hospitals established under the Act 10 Vic., c. 22, amounted at the date of the fifth report to 326.

The Relief Commissioners published their sixth report on the 11th of September.  It was a hopeful one.  The crops were abundant, and a rapid decrease in the number of rations issued was the result, more especially from the middle of August.  Out of 127 Unions, which were under the Act, fifty-five had had no advances made to them, on estimate, for any period after the 15th of August; twenty-six more ceased to call for advances on the 29th of August; and the remainder were to cease on the 12th of September, with the exception of the advances to the fever hospitals, which were continued to the 30th of September.

The Commissioners expressed the opinion that the discontinuance of relief had not been attended by the suffering which might have been apprehended.  They say the relief “was made a system of bonus rather than of necessity, which increased the expenditure in an enormous degree.”

We learn from this sixth report that the Commissioners had expended a sum approaching L2,000.000 within a period of eight months, through the agency of upwards of two thousand committees, constituted by general regulation, and subject only to a very general control.  Such being the case, the testimony borne by the inspecting officers to those committees, is highly creditable to them; the inspecting officers, says the report, “express their belief that there has been almost a total absence of misappropriation of money by committees.”

On the 28th of August the number of daily rations issued was down to 967,575.