he great South Western." This gave great offence to many. Mr.
Hume led off the opposition, Mr. Roebuck followed, of course, with fiery
impetuosity; Sir Robert Peel disapproved of it, and the whole Peel party
echoed his objections. Lord George Bentinck exulted in the homage paid
to his counsels by the tardy, trimming, half measure, or less than
half measure of her majesty's advisers. Notwithstanding so rigorous an
opposition from so many quarters, government was so well backed by
the Irish members and the ministerial hacks who represented British
constituencies, that they carried this and several other measures to
which a similar opposition was offered. The remark that the railway
scheme of Sir Charles Wood was the fag-end of Lord George Bentinck's
measure, was received with loud cheers by the house, and was repeated
much "out of doors." During these debates the grossest ignorance of
Ireland, her people, resources, and financial relation to Great Britain,
was evinced by English representatives. Mr. Hume and Mr. Roebuck were
very conspicuous in this respect. Mr. Disraeli had the folly to say
that the railway scheme of Lord George Bentinck would be beneficial to
Ireland, in a political, moral, and social point of view, irrespective
of material advantage, because the Roman Catholic and Protestant
populations would be brought to work together as "navvies!" Mr.
Disraeli did not know that not one man, probably, out of five thousand
in that class of labourers in Ireland was a Protestant, and that
if working together in the same employments would be sufficient
to reconcile them, the reconciliation must have been long ago
effected--over the whole of Ulster, at least. The differences between
Irish Protestants and Roman Catholics were founded in principle,
cherished deeply and warmly by them respectively, and were not, and
are not, to be healed by the political or economical quackery of Mr.
Disraeli, or politicians who, like him, share with neither party in the
earnestness of their opinions. The Irish Protestant and the Irish Roman
Catholic believe that the political ascendancy of their respective
creeds is necessary to the development of their power and usefulness,
and strive, therefore, with jealous eagerness and honesty for that
ascendancy. Whatever concessions on this ground the Protestants might be
induced to make, the spirit of Irish Romanism is ultramontane in every
province and in every social grade of the people.

The Earl