In the autumn of 1846, when the Potato Blight had become an accepted fact by all except those who had some motive for discrediting it, he began to think that to finish the railways, already projected in Ireland, would be the best and promptest way of employing its people upon reproductive works.  He was a great enemy to unprofitable labour.  To the Labour-rate Act, which became law at the close of the session of 1846, Lord George was conscientiously opposed; because, whilst millions of money were to be spent under it, the labour of the people was to be thrown away upon profitless or pernicious undertakings.  His was an eminently practical mind, and, being so, he did not rest satisfied with reflections and speculations upon the plan he had conceived.  He took counsel with men who were the most eminent, both for scientific and practical knowledge, with regard to the construction of railways.  Among them, of course, was Robert Stephenson.  The result of his conference with those gentlemen was, that two engineers of acknowledged ability were despatched by him to Ireland, to examine and report upon the whole question of Irish railways.

Lord George, reflecting upon the perilous state of England in 1841-2, came to the conclusion that it was the vast employment afforded by railway enterprize which relieved the pauperism of those years; a pauperism so great, that it was enough to create alarm, and almost dismay, in the breasts of English statesmen.  There were at that time a million and a-half of people upon the rates:  between eighty and ninety thousand able-bodied men within the walls of the Workhouses, and four hundred thousand able-bodied men receiving outdoor relief.  It seemed to him that this pauperism was not only relieved, but was actually changed into affluence and prosperity by the vast employment which the railway works, then rapidly springing into existence, afforded.  “Suddenly, and for several years,” says Mr. D’Israeli, quoting Lord George, “an additional sum of thirteen millions of pounds sterling a-year was spent in the wages of our native industry; two hundred thousand able-bodied labourers received each upon an average, twenty-two shillings a-week, stimulating the revenue, both in excise and customs, by their enormous consumption of malt and spirits, tobacco and tea."[205]

Lord George saw no reason why the same remedy, if applied to Ireland, should not be attended with the like success.  He was sustained, too, by the reports of Parliamentary Commissioners, as well as by the natural and common-sense view of the subject.  Many years before, in 1836, a commission had been issued to enquire into the expediency of promoting the construction of railways in Ireland.  The Commissioners, in their report, recommended that a system of railway communication should be established there by Government advances.  Ten years had passed; but, of course, nothing was done.  Yes, another commission!  The noted Devon one was, I should have said, issued