The following letter was read from the Most Rev. Dr. Dorrian:—

"On my return from county Down this evening, I beg to acknowledge the receipt to-day of your Lordship's letter in reference to the Relief Committee. Up to the present we received no aid in this diocese from the Mansion House Committee, though in the parish of Kilcoo, County Down, the clergy had to provide for 150 of the labouring adults who had not their dinner on Christmas Day. Your Committee knew nothing of this, and is not to blame. These poor fellows, having no work at home, went to England, but their employment ceased there from the slackness in the iron works, and they had to come home penniless. This will show your Committee how far you are from knowing the extent of the distress over the whole country. However, I am glad to say I heard no complaints of partiality in the distribution of the funds; nor do I for a moment believe any member could be influenced by any other motive than to relieve real want. Still, the question is, was the right thing done? Could not your Committee have started by using its influence to force the Government to give employment and save us from a gigantic system of soup kitchens, which perpetuate misery and do very little to allay hunger. Work brings wages, and wages wants no alms. If your Committees had turned to this way of relieving distress they were too influential to have failed, and no little jealousies would disedify the public. Wages in the beginning; alms, alas, now! I have had no experience of your Committee, but would agree with the Bishop of Elphin that diocesan, not county, committees are more workable for the distribution of relief. Here we made a collection in our churches as soon as we saw alms to be inevitable, and we sent them, like the Christians in the famine under Claudius Caesar, by the hands of Barnabas and Saul, to help the Christians in Judea—to the bishops.