r four years, at the rate of L1,000,000 a quarter.
The objection was put forward that the raising of this sum would oppress
the money market, but Lord George pointed to the experience they had,
with regard to the loan of the L20,000,000, for the slave-owners, which
proved that such would not be the case. The illustration was a
suggestive one. It said--You have not refused to raise L20,000,000 to
free the coloured slaves in your colonies--can you venture to refuse a
less sum, not merely to promote the prosperity of Ireland, but to save
the Irish nation from dying of starvation? The Irish nation--the sister
kingdom, your fellow-subjects, living at your very threshold--as near to
you as York or Devon? And yet, I ask for them no such free grant as you
gave the slave-owners; I only ask you to lend, for a time, your credit
to your starving Irish brethren.

He then bursts into a passage full of heart and manliness: "Send money,"
he said, "out of the country as you did in 1825--invest L7,000,000 and
upwards, as you did on that occasion, in Peruvian and Mexican silver
mines; sink your capital, as you did then, in Bolanos (silver), in
Bolivar (copper and scrip), in Cata Branca, in Conceicas, in Candonga
(gold), in Cobre (copper), in Colombian, in Copaiba, and in no less than
twenty-three different foreign mining companies, which the speculators
of this country took in hand, because they had no railways to make; and
then when your gold goes, never to come back to you, of course the funds
will go down, and trade and commerce be correspondingly paralysed. Send
L13,000,000 to Portugal, L22,000,000 to Spain, to be sealed up in
Spanish Actives, and Spanish Passives, and Spanish Deferred--and the
funds will fall of course. Send as you did, in 1836, millions to Ohio
for the construction of canals, and millions to Pensylvania, Illinois,
and Virginia for the same purpose, to be invested in bonds of those and
the other States, the borrowers of which sums set out with the
determination to turn public swindlers; and the funds will certainly
fall. Spend L100,000,000 in this manner, and it will lead to commercial
distress, but it will be otherwise when you come to spend your
L100,000,000 on the employment of your own distressed people in
productive labour."

6. Thirty years were to be allowed for the repayment of the loan.

"Sir," said Lord George, "I have heard it said, at different times, that
there is danger of an outbreak in Ireland. We h