We should probably have heard less of these repayments if it had been generally known what their real amount is. The sum expended under the first Relief Works Act (9 & 10 Vic. c. 1) was 476,000ℓ., one half of which was grant, and the other half is to be repaid[44] by twenty half-yearly instalments, amounting on an average, including interest, to about 12,500ℓ. each. The expenditure under the second Act (9 & 10 Vic. c. 107) was about 4,850,000ℓ., half of which was remitted, and the other half is repayable by twenty half-yearly instalments of 145,500ℓ. each, including interest. The annual addition made to the Rates by the repayments under the two Acts relating to the Relief Works is therefore about 316,000ℓ.[45]; while, by an Act passed on the 28th August, 1846, the Rates were relieved from an annual payment of 192,000ℓ., being the remaining half of the expense of the Constabulary, the other half of which was already defrayed out of national funds. The additional charge upon the Rates, therefore, amounts only to 124,000ℓ. a-year for ten years, or 1,240,000ℓ. in all. The sum advanced under the 9 & 10 Vic. c. 2, on the security of grand jury presentments, was 130,000ℓ., which will have to be repaid in various periods extending from three to ten years; but the expenditure under this Act was merely in anticipation of the usual repairs of the public roads, the cost of which is in ordinary years raised within the year without any advance. Lastly, the sum expended in the distribution of food under the 10 Vic. c. 7, and in medical relief under the 10 Vic. c. 22, was 1,676,268ℓ., of which 961,739ℓ. is to be repaid, and the remaining 714,529ℓ. is a free grant. The first-mentioned Act included a fund for making grants as well as loans, and the demands for repayment have been adjusted as nearly as possible according to the circumstances of each district. In some of the western unions, where the amount of destitution bears the largest proportion to the means of the rate-payers, and, owing to the extent to which the potato was formerly cultivated, a painful period of transition has yet to be endured, only a small part of the sum expended is required to be repaid[46]; while in other unions where the return of low prices has restored society to its ordinary state, grants have been confined to those cases in which the expenditure has exceeded a rating of three shillings in the pound on the valuation.