was one of the many the completion of which was
arrested by want of funds, yet a portion of it was open for traffic. He
compared it with a well known English railway. The Irish one, he said,
had cost in its construction L15,000 per mile; the English, upwards of
L26,000 per mile; the weekly traffic on the two railways, allowing for
some difference in their extent, was about the same on both, varying in
amount from L1,000 to L1,300 per week; yet the unfinished British
railway was at L40 premium in the market,--the unfinished Irish one at
L2 discount.

1. Lord George's railway bill was simple and comprehensive. In order to
encourage the making of railways in Ireland, he proposed for every L100
properly expended on such railways, L200 should be lent by the
Government, at the very lowest interest at which, on the credit of the
Government, that amount could be raised. He undertook to prove "that the
State shall not lose one single farthing by the proposition." The
current interest was L3 6s. 8d. per cent., but he would assume it to be
3-1/2 per cent., and that the Government was to lend it at that rate,
and take the whole security of the railway for the loan; consequently, a
line paying L7 upon L300 expended would afford ample security for the
L200 lent by the State, at L3 10s. per cent., because, of such L300, one
hundred would be laid out by the company, and L200 by the Government,
who, taking the whole railway for their security, would have a legal
claim upon the produce of the money expended by the shareholders as well
as by themselves. He took the returns of traffic on the very lowest
line--that from Arbroath to Forfar, to show that even at the lowest
traffic yet known on any railway, the Government would be secured
against loss.

2. He next dealt with the position of shareholders under his Bill. He
said they need not be alarmed at Government taking the whole railway as
security, because, as matters stood, the shares of all lines stopped for
want of means were valueless, or all but so, in the market; the effect
of the Government loan would be to bring those dead shares to life
again; for where there was a certainty of any line being finished, there
was a fair prospect of a dividend from that line. The advantage,
therefore, of the loan to shareholders was self-evident. He read a
letter from Mr. Carr, then chairman of the Great Southern and Western
Railway of Ireland, in which the Peel Government were asked, in May,
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