3.  In view of the amount of the loan sought for, and the mileage of the railways to be constructed, how many men, said Lord George, can we employ?  Quoting Mr. Stephenson’s authority, he answers that on the London and Birmingham line there were employed one hundred men a mile for four consecutive years; but Mr. Stephenson’s opinion was that the Irish lines would require no more than sixty men a mile for four consecutive years.  Fifteen hundred miles of railway would thus give constant employment for four consecutive years to 90,000 men on the earth works and line alone; but quarrymen, artificers, etc., would give six men more a mile—­9,000 men; making fences for securing fields, etc., 9,000 more—­in all, 108,000; a number representing 550,000 persons.

4.  The labourers were specially cared for in the bill.  They were to be paid weekly in cash, and decent, suitable dwellings were to be constructed for them along each line.

5.  As to the manner in which the money was to be raised, Lord George did not call for a single penny out of the Imperial Exchequer; all he asked was, that the Government of England would pledge its credit to borrow for Ireland the required sum, for which Ireland had full and abundant security to give.  The L16,000,000 was not to be raised at once; the loan was to be spread over four years, at the rate of L1,000,000 a quarter.  The objection was put forward that the raising of this sum would oppress the money market, but Lord George pointed to the experience they had, with regard to the loan of the L20,000,000, for the slave-owners, which proved that such would not be the case.  The illustration was a suggestive one.  It said—­You have not refused to raise L20,000,000 to free the coloured slaves in your colonies—­can you venture to refuse a less sum, not merely to promote the prosperity of Ireland, but to save the Irish nation from dying of starvation?  The Irish nation—­the sister kingdom, your fellow-subjects, living at your very threshold—­as near to you as York or Devon?  And yet, I ask for them no such free grant as you gave the slave-owners; I only ask you to lend, for a time, your credit to your starving Irish brethren.

He then bursts into a passage full of heart and manliness:  “Send money,” he said, “out of the country as you did in 1825—­invest L7,000,000 and upwards, as you did on that occasion, in Peruvian and Mexican silver mines; sink your capital, as you did then, in Bolanos (silver), in Bolivar (copper and scrip), in Cata Branca, in Conceicas, in Candonga (gold), in Cobre (copper), in Colombian, in Copaiba, and in no less than twenty-three different foreign mining companies, which the speculators of this country took in hand, because they had no railways to make; and then when your gold goes, never to come back to you, of course the funds will go down, and trade and commerce be correspondingly paralysed.  Send L13,000,000 to Portugal, L22,000,000 to Spain, to be sealed up