people of the Highlands that they must depend on their resources for the future. To accomplish this object it would be requisite to instruct them in croft husbandry, in developing the treasures of the deep, and in prosecuting the manufacture of kelp. To encourage them to stand on their own feet, the ration was reduced (e.g. to per man), and it would only be given to those doing a full eight-hour day's work. This "destitution test", harsh in itself, implemented by Victorian bureaucracy, and policed by officials used to enforcing naval discipline, engendered considerable hostility. By 1850, the relief funds were almost exhausted and, with potato blight persisting, there was a growing sense (even within the relief committees) that long-term solutions were needed; the provision of short-term aid had delayed these being adopted. The Destitution Relief Boards announced that their operations would cease at the end of September 1850. In doing so, they expressed two concerns: if the potato crop failed again things would be as bad as in 1846; on the other hand, if the 1850 crop was largely unaffected, the Highlanders would not learn the lesson that the blight should teach them and revert to their old ways, and four years' effort to diversify their sources of food and of income would have gone to waste. "The cessation of eleemosynary relief" (after 1850) There were again considerable failures of the potato crop in 1850, and the question then naturally arose as to how the distressed population were to be supported. The Scottish Poor Laws, unlike those in England, allowed relief to be given from the parish poor rates only to the sick and infirm and explicitly forbade any relief being given to the able-bodied poor unable to find work locally. As early as 1848 Sir Charles Trevelyan had advocated that the Scottish Poor Law be amended to allow the able-bodied poor to claim relief; critics countered that the scale of destitution was such that it was clearly unrealistic to expect a large number of unemployed in a distressed parish to be supported solely by rates levied on that parish. In response to inquiries from county officials, the government indicated that it did not intend to make additional funds available now that the charitable relief effort had ended, neither to provide relief in situ nor to assist emigration from distressed areas. It suggested that a Poor Law clause giving