some years after the former by another Government, which “confirmed all the recommendations of the Railway Commissioners of ’36, and pointed to those new methods of communication, by the assistance of loans from the Government, as the best means of providing employment for the people."[206] Had the recommendations of those Commissioners been carried out, or even begun within a reasonable time, there could have been no Irish famine in the sense in which we are now obliged to chronicle it.  There must have been extensive employment at wages that would have afforded great numbers other and better food than the potato.  As it was, all that resulted from those commissions, and countless others of the like kind, were the ponderous Blue Books, which contained their reports, and the evidence upon which they were founded.  And, indeed, so many tons of those had been, from time to time, produced and stowed away in Government vaults and rubbish stores, that, had they contained some of the nutritive qualities which, go to sustain human life, they would have been an appreciable contribution towards feeding the starving Irish people during the Famine.

No new Acts were necessary to be passed through Parliament, to authorize the construction of railways in Ireland, in order to justify the Government in advancing the necessary funds.  When Lord George Bentinck brought his plan before the House of Commons, there were Acts in existence authorizing the construction of more than 1,500 miles of railway in this country, some of those Acts having been passed so far back as eleven years before; yet, at the close of 1846, only 123 miles had been completed.  Here, then, was the field in which Lord George had made up his mind that the superabounding but wasted labour of the famishing people should find profitable employment.  After taking the advice of his political friends, and securing their approval and support, he, on Thursday, the 4th of February, introduced his Bill to the House of Commons, in, says Mr. D’Israeli, the best speech he ever made.  It was evidently prepared with great care, and was both lucid and argumentative.

His exordium was solemn and earnest, and he seemed much impressed with the importance and magnitude of the subject with which he was about to deal.  For the principle of the Bill, and for the faults that principle might contain, he alone, he said, was responsible; but as to the details, they had been wrought out by the ablest minds in England; amongst whom he named Hudson, Stephenson, and Laing.  “It is not my intention,” he said, “to make a very long preface, or to enter into any general discussion as regards the state or condition of Ireland:  suffice it for me, that this great fact stares us in the face, that at this moment there are 500,000 able-bodied persons in Ireland living upon the funds of the State.  That there are 500,000 able-bodied persons, commanded by a staff of 11,587 persons, employed upon works which have been variously described as