The Sun.
London, England, 1847-02-06 00:00:00

IRISH RAILWAYS BILL.

That our Contemporary, the Times, should resist any
scheme whatever which has for its object the extension of
railways in general, and that Mr. Roebuck should spitefully
attack any measure, however benevolent, for the ameliora-
tion of the condition of the Irish people in this the hour of
their misfortune, are things of course. The country will not
be surprised by the opposition of the one or the malignity of
the other. It will, possibly, not be astonished by the glaring
mis-statements contained in the angry effusions of either.
They who have read but cursorily the admirable and lucid
speech of the Noble Lord the Member for Lynn will have
gathered at least from his statement, that no proposition is
made to the people of England to part with one sixpence of
their property, in order to make a bold and final endeavour
towards the recovery of their brethren in ,the sister island.
Great as the object is, imminent as the crisis has
become, no one class of the people, no single in-
dividual in England does his Lordship propose to
burden or to tax for the relief and benefit of
the people in Ireland. England, in an emergency
unparalleled, to accomplish a good, the extent of
which it is impossible to overrate, is asked simply
to lend, not her money, but her credit, to the country
to which she is bound by common laws, common interests
and rights, in order to enable her to rise from degradation to
prosperity, from want to plenty, and to assume, with reelect
to England, thet honourable position which hitherto she has
not known, but which the saddest experience has taught us
i 3 as necessary to the well-being of the one country as it is
to the tranquillity of the other. Not the grant of a farthing
is demanded. If there is anything clear in the matter it is
this simple fact. The request is solely for credit to obtain
loan, which shall be secured as amply as the most scrupulous
can wish. In no one case does Lord George Bentinck ask
the Government to advance the mintiest portion of that loan,
except on the approval and certificate of the constituted
board of Pailway Commissioners, unless a third of the amount
ra
apipt
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the works are ready to be given as security for the loan re-
quired. That winch is so plain to the humblest under-
standing could hardly have escaped the acute
penetration
of our sagacious Contemporary, and the equally sharp
mind of the Hon. Gentleman to whom we refer, and
who deems it his duty to retail on the floor of the House of
Commons the unseemly abuse and unwarranted accusations
which he has previously read in columns as spiteful and pre-
judiced as his own unhappy, vexed, and restless s?irit. But
it has escaped them both, or they wilfully mis-state the
facts of the case, and knowingly attempt to mislead the
public judgment. "Tile grant of 16,000,0001. to the lines
of one province," says our Contemporary, " would help to
depreciate the rest." What grant? None is spoken of.
" Government is," he continues, " to restore confidence, lend
money, finish railways, change discount into premium, till
the pockets of the shareholders, and perform all thole other
wonders which Harlequin is expected to do on the stage, and
a Minister in the Emerald Isle." Government is expected
to do no such things. It is asked neither to lend money nor
to finish railways. The people, by universal acknowledg-
ment, are starving. A vast proportion of the labouring
classes are at the present moment employed on works that
have been pronounced worse than useless, answering at the
best "no other purpose than that of obstructing the
public communication ;" the population look .to the State
for some provision for the futnre—some permanent and set-
tled mode of earning a livelihood apart from the miserable and
insufficient methods of the past. They all but implore to be
taken from their wretched potato fields, and to be distributed
over profitable and generally remunerating works; and on
their behalf the credit, and nothing more, of the Government
is demanded by the Noble Lord, who, guided by the wisdom
and experience of the most, practical and successful men of
the age, prefers the accomplishment of railways to the re-
claiming of bogs, useful industry to unprofitable scheming.
"The Noble Lord," said Mr. Roebuck, " proposes that this
country should employ 16,000,000/. in a sort of speculation
of making railroads in Ireland. He did not ask the rich to
come forward, but he asked the Noble Lord at the head of
the Government to tax the people of England, in order that
he might apply their capital to the construction of railroads
in Ireland. Already a sum of 11,500,000/. had been called
fur from the people of England. To that the Noble Lord
the Member for Lynn proposed to add 16,000,000/. more."
The coolness and effrontery of these mis-statements require
no comment. By the side of the clear asd unmistake-
able announcement of the Noble Member for Lynn, they will
fail to exasperate the public mind and to excite the wrath of
one portion of the kingdom against their suffering fellow-sub-
jects across the Channel. Lord J. Russell has decided to op-
pose this second reading of the " Irish Railways Bill."
On Tuesday evening he annoucced his determination
to oppose its introduction altogether. That determination
was relaxed when the feeling of the House and the well-
filled benches of the Opposition could nut fail to attract his
Lordships' attention. We will hope that new motives will
induce a second relaxation. It is bene his Lordship to
refuse a good measure because introduced by his political
opponents. With regard to Ireland all party oppositiou has
ceased. It is not to impede the progress of Government that
Lord George Bentinck interferes to-day, but to help it on.
The English community are interested in the future pros-
perity of their Irish brethren. No Member of Parliament
fulfils his duty to his constituency unless, at the present try-
ing moment, to the best of his ability he seeks to prevent a
recurrence of the calamities which now weigh upon the in-
dustry of the humble labourers of the country, and yet are
borne with truest sympathy and self-denial. The measures
suggested by Lord George Bentinck not only repair the
affliction and remove the burden, but they propose advan-
tages to England otherwise unattainable. Lord John Rus-
sell, as we conceive from his Lordship's speech, would be
better disposed to listen to such measures if they did not
jar with his previous theories and conceits. The. shade of
political economy haunts the Prime Minister like a curse.
It was with him during the recess—it accompanies pins to the
Ministerial bench. A month or two ago it would not sttffer
him to feed the famished people. To-day it will permit him
to do nothing else. When we urged his Lordship to save the
dying hundreds, and published for his edification and support
the accounts that daily came to us of,fe.arfal deaths and me-
lancholy inquests, the ear was turned from humanity to
science. Depots were closed, and the principles of trade and
commerce held more sacred than the lives of men. Now,
when we have time to look about us—now, when Parliament
has met, and it is the duty of that Parliament not only to
give food, but to take steps against the return of famine, and
to give activity to the desponding, labour to the disheartened,
hope to the despairing, energy and self respect to the idle,
political economy alters her tone and bids his Lordship be
humane and say, that " the only want is the want of food,
and that the application of money for railway purposes
is not calculated to supply it." Where political economy
should be tender, she is a stoic ; where she should be
up and active, she is merely drivelling. It is the fate
of all theories that are antagonistic to the laws of
God and nature to be thus inconsistent and con-
temptible. We hope that we have shown ourselves at least
as sensible as his Lordship of the urgent necessity of furnish-
ing the starving population with food for their immediate
help. We are, however, not' the less conscious of the pro-
Kielty of legislating at once for the general improvement of
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offer and the Parliament to sanction. Still Lord John Russell
is inflexible. He babbles of principles when he is over-
whelmed with facts. We trust that Lord George Bentinck
will persevere with the Bill in tho teeth of every opposition.
He has made the boldest, but the best step yet taken in the
path of Irish improvement. His facts and his arguments are
alike irresistible. Ireland will be grateful to his Lordship for
his industry and zeal—his party and his country may justly
be proud of his ability and talents.—Herold.

TESTIMONIAL MANlA.—Every body now-a-days
is giving every body a testimonial. Wellington, in bronze,
riding the high horse; Cobden, the peaceful hero of a world
—not a country; and Hudson. the railway monarch, whose
motto might be, "nulla dies sine Linea." It may, however,
be confidently predicted that one might be named whose,
exertions in alleviating human sufferings far outbalance the
just and willingly rendered claims of those whose names are
above enumerated. This will at once be apparent, when we
call to mind the almost incalculable amount of agonising
torture relieved by Blair's Gout and Rheumatic Pills, whose
proprietor may be said already to have reared an imperish-
able monument on the gratitude•of thousands.
Boz's LAST WORE.--It must he a matter of sur-
prise to the public generally to perceive bow varied are the
opinions expressed by the Leading newspapers, with respect
to Mr. Dickens's last publication. It may well be imagined
that some adverse ci iticisms upon the works of this and other
celebrated authors m-tv proceed from personal feelings or
educational prejudices. These, however, could account for
but a'few. The majority, as we have the best medical au-
thority- for stating, may be ascribed to irritability of temper,
generally arising from a deranged state of the liver and other
viscera, and which could easily be remedied by the occasional
use of Frampton's Pill of Health, which is gentle in its
operation, and unfailing in its effect.
The British- Institution will open on Monday with
only a middling display, the top men being absent: There
is no Landseer, no Stanfield: indeed, if we are correctly in-
formed, there is no one work sufficiently prominent to take
naevxit lye
visitor there
Builder.ereTaseeo
second time. We shall be able to say more