Lord George Bentinck

ds for

and in argument of all the great questions arising out of the reconstruction of our commercial system; he had made a vindication of the results of the Protective principle as applied to agriculture, which certainly, so far as the materials are concerned, is the most efficient plea that ever was urged in the House of Commons in favour of the abrogated law; he had exhibited similar instances of investigation in considerable statements with respect to the silk trade and other branches of our industry; he had asserted the claims of the productive classes in Ireland, and in our timber and sugar producing colonies, with the effect which results from a thorough acquaintance with a subject; he had promulgated distinct principles with regard to our financial as well as to our c

his views generally as to the relations which should subsist between the legislation of the country and its industry. From Norfolk he repaired to Belvoir Castle, on a visit to the Duke of Rutland, and was present at a banquet given by

s Diary; but I am relapsing into my natural dawdling, lazy, and somnolent

ir alarm. The railway expenditure must keep up prices and prosperity, both of which would have been far greater without free t

ng in November, to mend the Irish La

y the people, and as it was supposed there were no public works of a reproductive nature which could be undertaken on a sufficient scale to ensure that employment, the Irish people were occupied, towards the end of the autumn of '46, mainly in making roads, which, as afterwards described by the first minister, 'were not wanted.' In the month of September more than thirty thousand persons were thus employed; but when the harvest was over, and it was ascertained that its terrible deficiency had converted pauperism into famine, the numbers on the public works became greatly increased, so that at the end of November the amount of persons engaged was four hundred thousand, receiving wages at the rat

e 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

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 wheth

an inquiry, and especially Mr. Robert Stephenson, Mr. Hudson, and Mr. Laing. With their advice and at their suggestion, two engineers of gr

condition of affluence hardly before known in her annals? Not certainly the alterations in the tariff which were made by Sir Robert Peel at the commencement of his government, prudent and salutary as they were. No one would pretend that the abolition of the slight duty (five-sixteenths of a penny) on the raw material of the cotton manufacturer, or the free introduction of some twenty-seven thousand head of foreign cattle, or even the admission of foreign timber at reduced duties, could have effected this. Unquestionably it was the railwa

Majesty's government, and a royal commission had been issued to inquire into the expediency of establishing railway communication in Ireland. The commissioners, men of great eminence, recommended that a system of railways should be established in Ireland, and by the pecuniary ass

ers had been biassed by any political consideration? Was it a Whig commission attempting to fulfil a Whig object? Another commission, more memorable, at the head of which was the Earl of Devon, was appointed by a Tory government some years afterwards, virtually to consider the condition of the people of Irel

to improve the agriculture and condition of Ireland, he did not reply, as some might have anticipated, that the most efficient measure wou

railway so constructed would be so great, that it would pay the cost of the whole construction.' He added, that there were few districts' in Ireland, in which railway co

bricks, and other materials, and estimated the saving through those means on every square mile to more than ￡300, or something above ￡600 on 1,280 acres abutting each mile of railway, this being the difference of the cost of carriage under the old mode of conveyance as compared with the new. Following up this

ch Lord George cautiously, and after du

t by being employed by the government, and when the government had avowedly no reproductive or even useful work whereon to place them; but allotted them to operations which

of '46 only one hundred and twenty-three miles of railway had been completed, and only one hundred and sixty-four were in the course of completion, though arrested in their progress from want of funds. Almost in the s

6 was more densely inhabited than England. A want of population could not therefore be the cause. But a population so impoverished as the Irish could not perhaps avail themselves of the means of locomotion; and yet it appeared from research that the rate of passengers on the two Irish railways that were open greatly excee

the instance of the Great Southern and Western Railway of Ireland, one of the undertakings of which the completion was arrested by want of funds, yet partially open. Compared with a well-known railway in Great Britain, the Irish railway had cost in its construction ￡15,000 per mile, and the British upwards of ￡26,000 per mile; the weekly traffic on the two railways, allowing f

r labour, for his purpose. He availed himself of the advice of the most experienced, and prosecuted his researches ardently and thoroughly. When he had matured his scheme, he had it thrown into the form of a parliamentary bill by the ablest hands, and then submitted the whole to the judgment and criticism of those who shared his confidence and counsels. Towards the end of November he was at Knowsley, from whence he communicated with the writer of these pages. 'I am here hatching secret plans for the next session; and now, if you have not quite abjured politics, as

to keep King Leopold upon the Portuguese throne: it cannot be for Mexico, for

s, but in Ireland it seems to me Lord Besborough is putting the fate Irish government to shame, whilst the rupture of the entente cordi

d in Lincolnshire, notwithstanding the industry of our dear friend the "Morning Post," in getting hold of Lord Ebrington's and Lord Rich's let

begun, I presume, to overcome the false delicacy which prevented his acceptance of office under the Whigs in July. S

nd Sons at Rochdale among the rest. The Zollverein increasing their import duties on cotton an

eting, held in the demesne of one who was among his dearest friends. Lord George was not only present but apparently absorbed in the sport, and his horses were very successful. The world has hardly done justice to the great sacrifice which he made on this occasion

so scrupulously polite to his inferiors as Lord George Bentinck. The turf, too, was not merely the scene of the triumphs of his stud and his betting-book. He had purified its practice and had elevated its character, and he was prouder of this achievement than of any other connected with his sporting life. Notwithstanding his mighty stakes and the