usion seemed to him unnatural,
and that an occasion where we commenced with despair justified a bold
and venturesome course. The field is legitimately open to speculation
where all agree that all is hopeless. The construction of harbours, the
development of fisheries, the redemption of waste lands, were resources
which had been often canvassed, and whatever their recommendations, with
the exception of the last, they were necessarily very limited; and the
last, though it might afford prompt, could hardly secure profitable,
employment. Prompt and profitable employment was the object which Lord
George wished to accomplish. Where millions were to be expended by the
state, something more advantageous to the community should accrue than
the temporary subsistence of the multitude.

Lord George had always been a great supporter of railway enterprise in
England, on the ground that, irrespective of all the peculiar advantages
of those undertakings, the money was spent in the country; and that if
our surplus capital were not directed to such channels, it would go, as
it had gone before, to foreign mines and foreign loans, from which in a
great degree no return would arrive. When millions were avowedly to be
laid out in useless and unprofitable undertakings, it became a question
whether it were not wiser even somewhat to anticipate the time when the
necessities of Ireland would require railways on a considerable scale;
and whether by embarking in such enterprises, we might not only find
prompt and profitable employment for the people, but by giving a new
character to the country and increasing its social relations and the
combinations of its industry, might not greatly advance the period when
such modes of communication would be absolutely requisite.

Full of these views, Lord George, in the course of the autumn, consulted
in confidence some gentlemen very competent to assist him in such an
inquiry, and especially Mr. Robert Stephenson, Mr. Hudson, and Mr.
Laing. With their advice and at their suggestion, two engineers of
great ability, Mr. Bidder and Mr. Smith, were despatched to Ireland,
personally to investigate the whole question of railroads in that
country.

Meditating over the condition of Ireland, a subject very frequently
in his thoughts, and of the means to combat its vast and inveterate
pauperism, Lord George was frequently in the habit of reverting to
the years '41-42 in England, when there were fifteen hundred thousa