He did not intend to reply to the proposer of the Bill, but
he wished to give his view of the existing state of things. He did so.
It was charged with gloomy apprehensions. He agreed with Sir Robert
Peel, that the finances would not bear the strain a loan of L16,000,000
would put upon them.[210] Six hundred thousand persons were receiving
wages on the public works in Ireland, representing, he would say,
3,000,000 of the population. There were 100,000 in the Workhouses; and,
taking with these the thousands subsisting by private charity, there
were, he considered, three and a-half millions of the Irish people
living by alms. He repeated, once again (on the authority of some
important but nameless person, whom Lord George Bentinck called "the
great Unknown"), that only one-fourth of the money expended in making
railways went for unskilled labour. It was well into the small hours of
the morning before the division bell rung, after a three nights' debate.
In a house of 450, the Bill was supported by only 118 votes. A majority
of 214 for the Government left them secure in their places.[211]
Of the one hundred and five members returned from Ireland, sixty-six
voted--thirty-nine with Lord George Bentinck, and twenty-seven against
him.
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