The Sun.
London, England, 1847-06-29 00:00:00

held out, that should any railways be found worthy of
assistance, the Government would not be ind;sposed to
render that assistance upon its being, shown that td
were likely to turn out profitable and useful works.
Some thing had ben up ,n th- state of the potato
crop this year. He cared not for what had been said
upon that score. Some of the letters he had received
from Ireland held out hopes, while others were no less
desponding, but he must say that at this early period it
was useless to speculate upon the condition of the
crop.—(Hear, hear.) He trusted, most sincerely,
that the great distress Ireland had latterly been
suffering under, would aftbrd a useful lesson to
her people and teach them to depend upon a more
certain food than the potato.--(Hear, hear.) The state
of Ireland had been cruelly exaggerated in that House,
but he saw with satisfaction that it had arrived at the
period when it was determined to take
gage hip
in the
right direction. Upon these grounds he gave his support
to the measure with very great pleasure.
Mr. SHEIL—I am not unconcerned, I acknowledge,
in the Great Southern and Western Railway,which runs
in close contiguity with the property with which I am
connected in the county of Tipperary; but I am con-
fident that I shall be believed when I say that I am far
less influenced by any personal consideration than by
the persuasion that great benefit will arise from the
adoption of the measure in which the Government have,
in my mind, wisely and rightfully persevered.—(Hear,
hear.) It is hardly necessary that I should insist on
the advent ges which will arise from bringing Water-
ford, and Kilkenny, and Cork, and Dublin, and Belfast,
into contact. My Hon. Friend the Member for Bath
said that the advantage of a railroad was indisputable;
that a railroad would be useful in New Zealand, and that
they were dealers in truisms who expatiated on the
utility of railroads. But, he added, that you should be
just to England before you were liberal to Ireland, and
use a phrase so strong as " rapacity," in speaking of
those who were to profit by the loan proposed to be ad-
vanced. Now, Sir, I think that it can be proved that
justice to one country is perfectly compatible with
liberality to the other. In this instance no money is to
be given to Ireland; money is to be lent on the most in-
disputable security—upon lines which are already in
the process of construction, and which have some more
substantial existence than the lucrative enthusiasm of
an imaginative engineer.—(Hear, hear.) But surely this
everlasting distinction between the interests of England
and of Ireland, which are brought into competition by
Englishmen when it meets their purpose, ought to be
deprecated.—(Loud cheers.) As long as we continue
united our interests ought not to be made the subjects of
contrast. Those interests, in this instance at least, are
the same. Let those who tell us that the industry and
the commerce of England ought not to be sacrificed to
the acquisition of a spurious Irish popularity bear in
mind that to the products of English manufacture Ire-
land affords the best, because it is the largest, and near-
est, and safest market; for Porter, in his valuable work,
in chapter 7, headed " Trade between Great Britain and
Ireland," states that the value of exports from England
to Ireland, in 1801, was 3,270,3501.; in 1821, it was
5,338,898/ ; and in 1825, it was 7,048,9361. He adds,
that there is no return of exports to Ireland from Eng-
land since 1825. But that there is a return of the num-
ber of ships which cleared outwards from England to
Ireland; and that " if we compare the amount of the
tonnage emplOyed in 1801 with that of 1844, we shall
find that it bears the proportion of 100 to 305, showing
an increase of 205 per cent." It is, I think, no exag-
geration to say that England now annually exports to
Ireland 10,000,000/ of her manufactures. Most as-
suredly, then, England is a great gainer in her transac-
tions with Ireland; and it is manifest that every measure
which contributes to the development of the re-
sources of Ireland—to the fertilization of her soil—to
the reclamation of the morass and of the mountain—to
the social amelioration of the people—to the establish-
ment of a higher standard of comfort—in one word, to
the increased consumption of British produce—must be
essentially ancillary to the prosperity of England.—
(Loud cheers.) I admit that you have elven
b great
largesses to Ireland; but you were bound to do so. The
calamity which has befallen us is not a provincial one.—
(flear, hear.) After all, a war of six months would cost
you far more than a famine of two years, and yet to-
morrow, if there were need, you would rush into en-
counter with your proudest and most formidable anta-
gonist. But if to the cost of glory you would be recon-
ciled by your sense of English honour, in the c2_st of
mercy you should be taught, by the noblest of you na-
tional characteristics, to acquiesce.(Loud cheers.) But
although there are gentlemen in this House whose na-
tural benevolence has been overcome by their austere
political economy, who speak as if it was our fault—as
if Irishmen were to blame because the destroying angel
has descended, and blighted a great island in a night,
yet I firmly believe that the great mass of the people
of this country deeply sympathise with the suf-
ferings which we have endured ; the minds of
men of all parties in this House have met in a pure con-
fluence in which the sentiment of the people of England is
fao thfully reflected; and although in Ireland some of the
measures adopted by the Government have been the
subject of stricture, yet no doubt is entertained that the
great body of Englishmen is actuated by a feeling of
munificent commiseration in our regard. I am confi-
dent that Irish thankfulness will be commensurate with
English generosity, and if it shall be so, if the events
which have befallen shall be conducive to the creation
of a kind international sentiment, without reference to
political considerations, I for one shall think that from
a great calamity, good, great and lasting, may with the
blessing of Providence, be at last deduced. Sir, this is
not only to be considered merely in a fiscal view ; I
shall rejoice if the Parliament, which is about to termi-
nate its existence, shall make a testamentary manifes-
tation of good-will to the Irish people, indicative of the
policy which ought to be pursued, and by which the
Noble Lord who has had the courage to undertake the
government of Ireland may. be assisted and sus-
tained. That able and sagacious statesman will have
great difficulties to contend with, which will be en-
hanced by the loss which Ireland has sustained by the
death of that celebrated man, to whom the Noble Lord
opposite (Lord George .Bentinck) has alluded, who has
conferred upon his country incalculable obligations,
and to whom, when the prejudices and the passions,
the antipathies and predilections of the hour, shall
have passed away, in the impartial adjudication of
those by whom he shall be succeeded, the attributes of
greatness, political and intellectual, will be hereafter be-
yond doubt assigned.—(Hear, hear.) Whatever opinion
may be entertained of his title to the veneration of his
country, in an assembly composed like that which I am
now addressing, it must be admitted, by those who were
in the sternest antagonism to him while he lived, that
that renowned Irishman effected his achievements by a
great mental instrumentality; and I trust that the time
will never arrive when English statesmen will have
cause to lament that the voice is heard no more by
which millions were at once excited and controlled, and
that the accents on which a nation hung in rapture and
a senate with admiration are hushed in the gra wouldfr
ever. I would that he had been spared to us; Il
that he had lived to behold the seat of that ancient and
perpetual faith in which he was an humble believer, and of
which he was the proud and chivalrous champion—that
he had lived to behold the eternal city, that he had knelt
at the altars of that temple, the noblest that was ever
raised by the hands of man, and worthy of the pur-
poses, the high and holy ones, to which it is devoted—and
that through the marble halls of the Vatican the venera-
ble man, though with a feeble and tottering step, had
found his way, amidst the array of sacerdotal pornps,
and received the sanctifying salutation of the great pon-
tifical reformer who has ascended the chair of St. Peter
amidst the acclamations of the world ; and I would that
after he had performed that pilgrimage he bad returned
to the country of his birth, and which he set free, in
order that he might renew the injunction never to in-
fringeentire
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have availed myself of this the first occasion 3 which if
presented itself to me, to offer a mournful but unavailing
tribute of eommemoration to the memory of the man
with whom I was for so many years politically associated,
and whose departure from the great scene in which he
performed a part which attracted the attention of man-
kind, I regard as a disaster, which it will require great
wisdom and fortitude, and the spirit of conciliation by
which the policy on which this measure is founded, to
countervail.—(Cheers.)
Mr. W. R. COLLETT supported the Bill. He said
that the Government would clear 50,000 L by the loan.
At first the Government threw cold water on the lend-
ing of money to Irish railways, but now they found that
the Irish railways would afford permanent employment
to the poor, they came forward with this Bill. He
thanked them for it. He repeated what he said some-
time ago—that the Hon. and Learned Member for Bath
(Mr. Roebuck) had shown much ignorance on the sub-
ject of Ireland. Why he should wish to become trus-
tee of his Irish estate he was at a loss to know.—
(Hear, hear.) He had taunted Irish Members with
wishing to promote this Bill for the sole
purpose of advancing their own interests ; but he (Mr.
Collett) held no shares in any Irish railways save the
South Western, but he held only a sufficient number of
shares in that company to qualify him to act as one of
its directors. He should continue to promote the wel-
fare of his suffering fellow-creatures, notwithstanding
the invectives and sarcasms of the Hun. Member.
AlrtheM.poJi.ita. political-economical gu
Oic'Ci(e)eNoNELiLalasrosumpep
said notrsteodf
tthbee
HBiolnl..
uHae.
ronet the Member for Southwark (Sir W. Molesworth)
sounded very well as mere abstract pieces of reasoning,
but they came a day too late; they should have been de-
livered at the commencement of the session. The Hon.
and Learned Gentleman the Member for Bath through-
out his speech had said nothing which could wound the
most sensitive; and this was rather remarkable from one
so prone to sarcasm as the Hon. and Learned Member.
But there was this novelty in his seech—he be-
came a prophet, as he said that not only
would the potato crop fail, but that the corn
crops would be blighted. It was impossible, how-
ever, to tell what would happen. He dragged the Irish
Church into the debate, but it appeared to him (Mr. M.
J. O'Connell) that the Hon. and Learned Member
would be found wanting when any proposition was
before the House for altering the constitution of those
churches. But these matters were not strictly before
the House.—(Hear, hear.) The great object which all
the friends of Ireland should unite to obtain was employ-
ment for the people irrespective of the land, which from
its being the sole means of employment hitherto
afforded to the people, had led to much of the misery
under which that unhappy country laboured, and as a
groat step in that direction, he should support this Bill.
Mr. M. GORE said as be had supported the measure
brought forward by the Noble Lord the Member for
Lynn, he should support this Bill; but if it had extended
to other lines, it would have been still more deserving of
his support.—(Hear, hear.) In support of this view he