Of the one hundred and five members returned from Ireland, sixty-six voted—­thirty-nine with Lord George Bentinck, and twenty-seven against him.  There were Liberals and Tories at both sides.  The noble proposer of the Irish Railway Scheme proclaimed—­and, no doubt, intended—­that it should not be regarded as a party question.  After his very effective speech on introducing it, the common opinion was that it would be carried.  It was popular in the House and out of it.  Everybody in England and in Ireland was sick of spending money on unprofitable work.  Lord John Russell saw but one way of defeating the measure, and that was to make it a party question; and so he made it one.  We find some of the most decided Irish Tories voting for the Bill, whilst many Whigs and professing patriots voted against it.[212] For some days before the division it was known the Bill would be defeated, but few, if any, thought the majority against it would have been so large.  After his seven or eight months of hard work, in preparing and maturing his Railway Scheme, its rejection touched Lord George keenly; but his lofty spirit would not stoop to manifest his feelings.

He had, however, the gratification to see himself vindicated, not to say avenged, a few weeks afterwards.  The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the great opponent and decrier of Lord George’s Bill, actually brought in a Railway Bill himself of a similar character.  Politicians, in their statements, are ever watchful to leave themselves loopholes for retreat.  The Prime Minister, in the discussion on Lord George’s Bill, “would not say that money should not be given, under any circumstances, to make railways in Ireland, but,” in his opinion, “it should be in a different state of the country.”  What difference there was between the state of Ireland on the 16th of February, 1847, when the Government opposed and defeated an Irish Railway Bill, and on the 26th of April, of the same year, when the Government brought in a Railway Bill of their own, no one but the Government could see.  It is not even a fair statement of the case to name the 26th of April, the day on which the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought in the Government Bill, because that Bill must have been some time in preparation—­probably in preparation when they were opposing the generous and manly scheme of Lord George Bentinck.  Yet, with his little proposal for a loan of L620,000 to Irish railways, he had the face to go down and tell the House that, “in the present state of Ireland, it was impossible to deny that, by this course, a great impetus must be given to employment, where the advances could be safely made.”  He even contradicted his own assertion, made with such confidence on the information of “the great Unknown,” that only 25 per cent. would go for labour, and admitted, that more would be expended upon it than Lord George Bentinck ever assumed there would.  After several members had condemned the proposal in strong terms, that noble