ch I can vouch."[208]

The positions taken up by the proposer of the Bill were not seriously
damaged during the discussions which followed. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer was the chief speaker on the Government side against the
second reading; but his arguments were characterized by an honorable
member as "a mockery." The only effective objection he made to the Bill
he put in the foreground, when, he repeated what the Premier had said
more than once before, namely, that the Government would not undertake
to carry out the noble lord's plan, as they could not do so consistently
with their views of public duty. He also asserted that loans to Ireland,
as a rule, had not been repaid, and he instanced the loans for the
making of canals in that country: a loan given to the Dublin and
Kingstown railway had, he admitted, been repaid, which confession
elicited cheers from Lord George Bentinck and his friends. The charge
made against Ireland of not paying back what she had borrowed was met by
Mr. Bernal Osborne. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said, that he
did not wish to see the State become a great money lender; in reply to
which Mr. Osborne expressed the opinion, that it would be much better
for the State to become a great money lender than to continue a
profligate spendthrift--dissipating the funds of the country on the
highways of Ireland. "Had not," he asked, "the policy of the State
always been to become a great money lender? Since the Union L18,000,000
of money had been lent to England and Scotland, of which L6,000,000 had
been repaid, whilst L9,002,000 had been lent to Ireland, of which
L7,000,000 had been repaid." The Chancellor of the Exchequer also said
in his speech, that he had been informed by a person of great experience
on the subject, that only 25 per cent. of the money would go for
labour; and that from twenty to thirty men per mile were all that could
be employed; taking the highest figure, the noble lord's scheme, he
said, would only afford employment to 45,000 workmen. Mr. Hudson, the
"railway king," then the great authority on such matters, thus replied
to the Chancellor's assertions: "As far as he (Mr. Hudson) could
ascertain, there were but two points on which the right hon. gentleman
had doubted the statements of the noble member for Lynn--namely, the
number of men that would be employed on the lines, and the amount of
money that would be expended on labour. As far as he could remember,
those two we