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.
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