give?--Mode of raising the money--L20,000,000 paid to
slave-owners--Why not do the same thing for Ireland?--Foreign
Securities in which English money has been expended--Assurances of
support to Lord George--The Irish Members in a dilemma--The Irish
Party continue to meet--Meeting at the Premier's in Chesham
Place--Smith O'Brien waits on Lord George--The Government stake
their existence on postponing the second reading of Lord Bentinck's
Bill--Why?--No good reason--Desertion of the Irish Members--Sir John
Gray on the question--The Prime Minister's Speech--The Chancellor of
the Exchequer's Speech a mockery--Loans to Ireland (falsely)
asserted not to have been repaid--Mr. Hudson's Speech--The
Chancellor going on no authority--Mr. Hudson's Railway
Statistics--The Chancellor of the Exchequer hard on Irish
Landlords--His way of giving relief--Sir Robert Peel on the Railway
Bill--The Railway Bill a doomed measure--Peel's eulogium on industry
in general, and on Mr. Bianconi in particular--Lord G. Bentinck's
reply--His arguments skipped by his opponents--Appoint a Commission,
like Mr. Pitt in 1793--Money spent on making Railways--The Irish
Vote on the Bill--Names.

No effort of statesmanship to overcome the Famine is remembered with
such gratitude in Ireland as Lord George Bentinck's generous proposal to
spend sixteen millions of money in the construction of railways, for the
employment of its people.

In the autumn of 1846, when the Potato Blight had become an accepted
fact by all except those who had some motive for discrediting it, he
began to think that to finish the railways, already projected in
Ireland, would be the best and promptest way of employing its people
upon reproductive works. He was a great enemy to unprofitable labour. To
the Labour-rate Act, which became law at the close of the session of
1846, Lord George was conscientiously opposed; because, whilst millions
of money were to be spent under it, the labour of the people was to be
thrown away upon profitless or pernicious undertakings. His was an
eminently practical mind, and, being so, he did not rest satisfied with
reflections and speculations upon the plan he had conceived. He took
counsel with men who were the most eminent, both for scientific and
practical knowledge, with regard to the construction of railways. Among
them, of course, was Robert Stephenson. The result of his confe