XLIII. answer with my head for their loyalty, and will lead CHAP. through their warm hearts and sympathies, not to sever, but to cement, the union of Ireland and England." 1847. 59. So obviously well-founded were the allegations, and so reasonable the proposals in this very remarkable speech, It is opposed by and so entirely did it coincide with and work out the Ministers. manly and patriotic efforts of the Government to combat the great prevailing calamity, that, if it had been brought forward at an earlier period, and before the plans of Ministers had been matured, it is probable that it would have been readily embraced by the Administration. As it was, they did not oppose the leave given to bring in the bill, and it was for some time hoped that the Cabinet would adopt the measure. But, unfortunately, before it came the length of a second reading, commercial embarrassments had so much increased in Great Britain, owing to the immense import of grain, that Government, not unnaturally, shrunk from the responsibility of going into the money market, and still farther increasing the pressure, by borrowing £16,000,000, in any form, to set the undertaking on foot. Perhaps, too, there was a less excusable jealousy on the part of Ministers to substitute for their own plan for Irish relief that propounded by the Protectionist chief. The result was, that, without opposing | Disraeli, Lord George Bentinck's bill on its first introduction, they Bentinck, 389, 391; mustered all their forces to throw it out on the second Ann. Reg. 1847, 60, reading; and on this occasion Sir R. Peel lent them his 64. aid in a very powerful speech.1 1 60. speech measure. "The state of the country," said the Right Honourable Baronet, "is this: Last year there was a balance of Sir R.Peel's receipts in exchequer over expenditure of £2,800,000. against the It is impossible to expect for the present financial year, or the next, a more favourable state; and if the necessary and agreed-to expenditure for the relief of Irish suffering is taken into consideration, which will probably amount to £10,000,000 sterling, we shall at the very least, by the end of next year, be landed in a deficit of CHAP. 1847. 61. £6,000,000 or £7,000,000. Is this a time when it would be either prudent or expedient to go into the market for an additional sum of £16,000,000, which must either be contracted for in a direct way or in a fresh issue of exchequer bills to that amount? It is a mere delusion to say you can pledge the credit of Government to commercial undertakings without subjecting the country to any risk whatever. How is the money to be raised without entailing a burden for its interest upon the country? It is very easy to say the sum expended will enrich the country to as large an extent as itself. Very possibly it may, but will that relieve Government of the burden of the £600,000 a-year required for the interest of the exchequer bills on loan by which it is provided? Will such a proceeding not tend to injure public credit, and cripple the finances of the State, if required by unforeseen exigencies to be applied to other purposes? The credit of the State is one of the elements of our national strength, and you cannot impledge it to commercial speculations without foregoing its application in some other direction, which may be still more indispensable, and it is in fact the same thing as applying the sums raised by direct taxation in the same way. "It it said the expenditure of this money will increase Continued, the value of land in Ireland to as great an amount as the sum expended. Twenty-three millions is to accrue to the Irish landlords in consequence of railway enterprise ! Then why do they not themselves attempt it? Lord Granby tells us the fishermen of Chaddagh will be able to fish up £4000 a-night if the railroads are made! Are not these precisely the commercial considerations which should induce the Irish themselves to enter into them? But it is said they have no money; but is there not that, whence, when it really exists, money is so easily raised in this country, the prospect of gain? If land is difficult to be got by the railway companies, by XLIII. 1847. all means simplify the acquisition of it in the country CHAP. by Act of Parliament; but do not on account of any such technical difficulty involve Great Britain in a serious financial embarrassment, the consequences of which, in the present state of the country, no man living can foresee. 62. "The proposed grant to Irish railways is worse than useless; it would be pernicious. If the Government are Concluded. to hold the doctrine that Ireland is different from other countries, that it is not fit to be intrusted with its own concerns, and that the Administration must do everything for it, rely upon it, its industrial inactivity and religious animosities will continue, and the very springs of improvement in the country will be dried up. She must be left to her own energies if she is ever to be righted; 'Aideztoi et le ciel t'aidera,' applies to her as well as to all other countries. I firmly believe that if you do not overpower Irish commercial enterprise by English Government interference, that effect will take place. Hitherto grants of public money to Ireland, given with no unsparing hand by this country, have led only to endless jobbing, profligate expenditure, and an entire failure of the ends for which they were given. It is by the salutary interference of private and local interest in the administration of the money to be expended that this inherent propensity can alone be checked. I call on the Irish landlords to put their own shoulders to the wheel, and by their own energy and self-reliance to work out the improvement of their own country. If they will do this, if, forgetting religious and political differences, they will seek in good faith the mitigation of the calamity under which their country is labouring,—if they will do this, my firm conviction is, that they will do more to promote the interests of their native land, than if, resigning themselves 1 Parl. Deb. to sloth, idleness, and despair, they place all their con- Ann. Reg. fidence in Government grants, and all their hope in 67. Government patronage." 1 xc. 66, 86; 1847, 65, CHAP. 1847. 63. the subject, and reflec tions on it. 1 Parl. Deb. This speech, which was loudly cheered by the house, and was too agreeable to a Ministry which already foresaw a very serious financial embarrassment approaching at no Division on distant period, not to be implicitly adopted by them, proved decisive against the proposal of Lord George Bentinck, which was thrown out on the second reading by a majority of 204, the numbers being 322 to 118. The English Protectionists alone supported it; not only the whole Whigs, Peelites, and Liberals, but the whole Irish Catholic members, including young O'Connell, Mr Sheil, O'Connor Don, and Mr Smith O'Brien, voted xc.123,125. against it!1 Yet it is now evident that the majority composed of this strange coalition was decidedly in the wrong, and that the proposal was the one best calculated to combine present relief with ultimate benefit to Ireland. The arguments urged on the other side by Sir R. Peel, and so loudly cheered by the majority of Liberals and Irish Catholics, were so obviously sophistical, that it is impossible not to suspect that so powerful a mind as his was inflamed rather by a feeling of political animosity against the mover, than influenced by the real merits of the question at issue in bringing them forward. The considerations he adduced were perfectly well-founded in the abstract, but they were wholly inapplicable to the question at issue. It was no doubt true, that in the general case it is inexpedient to engage Government in mercantile speculations; but what application has that rule to a case when a country is threatened with a calamity far worse than any foreign war, and is utterly destitute, without Government support, of the means of averting it? It was mere mockery to call on the Irish landlords to put their shoulder to the wheel, when it was well known that nine millions out of the thirteen millions which constituted their rental, were absorbed by the interest of mortgages, and that more than half of what remained would be drawn off in poor-rates, even supposing, what could not be expected, that it was, amidst the general failure of the potato XLIII. 1847. crop, all collected. It was mere exaggeration to repre- CHAP. sent Lord George Bentinck's bill as adding sixteen millions to the sum already proposed to be borrowed for Ireland, when he knew that eight millions of it was already agreed to, and that the only question was, whether it would not be more expedient to extend the sum to sixteen millions, and thereby render it all productive, than retain it at eight, and thereby keep it all in an unproductive form. These considerations are so obvious, that they could never have escaped so acute a mind as Sir R. Peel's, though, like a skilled debater, he carefully kept them out of view; and they lead to the conclusion that his opposition to this well-conceived project was founded on personal hostility, and intended as a requital for his own ejectment from office by the noble mover, by throwing out an equally well-founded bill, on which he had staked the existence of his administration. And thus within a year were two bills, alike salutary in their operation, and called for by the circumstances of Ireland, sacrificed to the rivalry of parties in the British senate! 64. of Lord Bentinck. It is observed by Mr Disraeli, in his very interesting Life of Lord George Bentinck, that the common saying, Character that when great men arise they have a mission to accom- George plish, and do not disappear till it is fulfilled, is not always true. After all his deep study, and his daring action, Hampden died on an obscure field before the commencement of the mighty struggle which he seemed born to direct. In the great contention between the patriotic and the cosmopolitan principle, which had hardly begun, and on the issue of which the fate of these Islands, as a powerful community, depends, Lord George Bentinck appeared to be produced to represent the traditionary influences of our country in their most captivating form. Born a natural leader of the people, he was equal to the post. Free from prejudices, his large mind sympathised with all classes of the realm. His courage and constancy were never surpassed by man. He valued life only |