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" He was not a very frequent attendant of the house- He might be counted on for a party division , and when , towards the termination of the Melbourne ministry , the forces were very nearly balanced and the struggle became very close , he might have been observed on more than one occasion entering the house at a late hour , clad in a white great coat , which sof tened , but did not conceal , the scarlet hunting-coat . Although he took no part in debate , and attended the house rather as a club than a senate , he posessed a great and peculiar influence in it . He was viewed with interest and often with extraordinary regard by every sporting man in the house . With almost # 11 of these he was acquainted ; some of them , on either side , were his intimate companions and confederates .
" His eager arid energetic disposition j his quick perception , clear judgment , and prompt decision ; the tenacity with which he clung to his opinions ; his frankness and love of truth ; his daring arid speculative spirit ; his lofty bearing , blended ^ as it was with a simplicity of manner very remarkable ; the ardour of his friendships , even the fierceness of his hates and prejudices ; all combined to form one of those strong characters who whatever May be their pursuit must always direct and lead . Nature had clothed this vehement spirit with a material form which was in perfect harmony with its noble and commanding character . He was tall , and remarkable for his presence ; his countenance qlmo&t a model of manly beauty ; the lace oval , the complexion clear and mantling ; the forehead lofty and white : the nose aquiline and delicately moulded ; the upper lip short . But it was in the dark-brown eye that flashed with piercing scrutiny that all the character of the man came forth : a brilliant glance , not sof t , but ardent , acute , imperious , incapable of deception or of being deceived . "
Introduced to politics from a scene where he had had to deal with real objects , and had been familiarized with energetic measures and decision , Lord George imparted something of his own reality to the action of the Protectionist party . He was no doctrinaire ; he conformed to the fashion of the day , and " got up statistics" to support his views , and he got them up with much ingenuity ; but we are not yet so distant from the scene as to be led away by Mr . Disraeli ' s dramatic account of it , and to suppose that Lord George ' s figures from Burns Glance had that thrilling effect on the House which the muse of history , wooed by Disraeli ' s artful tongue , delights to think that she remembers . The influence that Lord George did attain was bv the vicrour and obstinacy of his resistance to
• I eel , and , above all , by the genuine character of that resistance . It was not the inherent value of his statistics , but the moral effect of the sincerity which made him , a sporting man , grapple with blue books and with witnesses in committee . In short , a strong , hearty , English man , ho did not content himself with seeming to do what was expected of him as leader of a party , but he really tried , might and main , heart and soul , to do it . lhat , we believe , is the whole moral of the story told by Mr . Disraeli ; and it is a valuable one , if the demoralized and enervated politicians that infest the House of Commons could but apply it ,
• / v ° hmio possesses another point of interest just now , since we are informed that the Protectionists have resolved to revive the policy of ¦ Lord George Bontinck "in all its integrity . " What , then , was that policy P It Was to resist Free Trade , whether applied to corn , manufactures , sugar , or any other article of British or colonial production ; and to give profitable employment in Ireland , by lending 16 , 000 , 000 * . on government security , at a low interest , in aid of 8 , 000 , 000 / . to bo provided by companiofl , for the construction of railways . Moat of this policy js out of date , and . " if it wore not , it would roquiro tho energy of a Bontmek to urge it . Tho question for the Protectionists—and they will find i ° mora * v lrtfod by ma , ny an illustration in Mr . Disraeli ' s volume—is , not whether thoy can revive tho policy , but whother they can rovivo tho strong man ?
J-no solo portion of Lord George ' s policy which rotains anything like posthumous vitality is tho project for encouraging Irish railways . It is unquestionabl y open to the objection that it propoaos to encourage secondary mstoad of primary employments ; but the idea has boon supported T * f ii ^ i P raofc i ° , al authority ; and such alteration as has taken place in Xroland since his death is favourable to a more rapid development of inauatry . Aa a contrast to tho spurious test labour of tho famine time , tho
project looked -vrell , and real railways would be a better bequest than unuseable roads ; though , formerly , to construct a system of railway would only have been to erect that most melancholy of Irish monuments , a modern ruin , —a new enterprise , whose works should be left to crumble , by the utter neglect of a listless industrial population ; but , with the impulse given to industrial development in Ireland , by the joint effects of a thinned population , the Encumbered Estates Act , and better seasons , it is quite possible that a sudden creation of railways mightnot prove so vain a labour . Lord George Bentinck ' s proposal , therefore , still possesses
some interest . . . Lord George had always supported railway enterprise , especially on the ground that the money invested on them is spent m the country . To railway enterprise , Lord George ascribed the recovery of England from the depression of 1841-2 , when 1 , 500 , 000 persons were on the parish rates , 400 , 000 able-bodied men receiving out-door relief , and 83 , 000 within workhouse walls , "to a condition of affluence hardly before known in her annals . " Why not apply the same remedy to Ireland ? He thought that it would be possible to hasten , by anticipating , the development of industry in that country ; and , with characteristic energy , he set about the work . He obtained the advice of Mr . Robert Stephenson , Mr . Laing , and Mr . Hudson ; and , by their advice , two engineers of ability , Mr . Bidder and Mr . Smith , were despatched , to investigate the subject
on the spot . The Irish Hail way Commissioners of 1836 , had already recommended a system of railways , but the weakness of the Government , at that time , forbade the project . " The Devon Commission confirmed all the recommendations of that previous report . The Ulster railway is used even more than the Scotch and English , by the labouring population : " When Mr . Smith of Deanston was examined by a parliamentary committee and asked what measure of all others would be the one most calculated to improve the agriculture and condition of Ireland , he did not reply , as some might have anticipated , that the most efficient measure would be to drain the bogs ; but his answer was < advance the construction of railways , and then agricultural improvement will
sT ) 66 dilv follow * To illustrate the value of railways to an agricultural population , Mr . Smith of Deanston said , « that the improvement of the land for one mile only on each side of the railway so constructed would be so great , that it would pay the cost of the whole construction / He added , that there were few districts in Ireland in which railway communication could be introduced , where the value of the country through which the railway passed would not be raised to an extent equal to the whole cost of the railway . ^ „ ' Arguing on an area of six hundred and forty acres for every square mile , after deducting the land occupied by fences , roads , and buildings , Mr . Smith of Deanston entered into a calculation of the gain derivable from the mere carriage = of the probricksand other
duce of the land , and the back carriage ofmanure , coals , tiles , , materials , and estimated the saving through those means on every square mile to more than 300 ? ., or something above 600 * . on 1280 acres abutting each mile of railway , this being the difference of the cost of carriage under the old mode of conveyance as compared with the new . Following up this calculation , he showed that fifteen hundred miles of railway would improve the land through which it passed to the extent of nearly two million acres at the rate of a mile on each side ; and taken at twenty-five years' purchase would equal twenty four millions sterling in the permanent improvement of the land . " Want of domestic capital has been the chief obstruction to Ireland ; and to that Lord George addressed himself : "The proposition of Lord George Bentinck was , that for every 100 ? . expended to the satisfaction of the imperial government in railway construction , 200 Z should which the credit of the
be lent by government at the very lowest interest at , on government , that amount could be raised , so that if two millions were produced annually for four years by the Irish companies , the imperial government should advance an additional four millions , ensuring in Ireland for four years tho expenditure of six millions a year in public works of an useful and reproductive nature . This proposition was recommended by Lord George as offering an ample security for the public loan . For this purpose ho adduced evidence to show that the worst railroad ever yet constructed in this country , or Scotland , or Belgium , would afford an ample security under such circumstances . He assumed that the government would lend the money at 3 * per cent , and toke tho whole railway as security . Consequently a lino paying A upon 300 ? . expended would afford ample security for 200 ? . lent by the stL , at 31 . 10 s . per cent * and he was therefore prepared to prove that a lino Kh pafd but a dividend of 21 . 6 * . 8 d . per cent , would afford perfect security for tho interest of the loan made by tho government . "
The proiect was to provide work for 110 , 000 men , to improve the value of the Hlord ? property , to return to tho State not only the interest on the money but revenue > the excise on goods consumed by navigators &c TlZproject , we presume , is still the best part of the IVotectiomst policv ^ tholiast negative part ; but where is the George Bentinck P 1 SaclCind > ed , sfill survives ; but , alas ! the " ^ ftj ^^ ™ little sympathy with him : thoy have not enough of the bomitio ole-TZr ' 5 l tLm ; and ho is too artiste for their comprehension .
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COMIC HISTORY OF HOME . The Comic Histon , of Borne , from , the fonndingof the City to the end of the Com-THe nZeaW , iiilbcrt Abbot a Bceket . Illustrated by Mn ^ ^ ^ The humorous and punning story of tho . " Wolfs Nuralmg , " which i BootoTl ^ itton , and JoL Leech ^ exaggerated by the ^ W ™™ of hia lauirhablo illustrations , is now complete in one volume , and a JJoeJcot idrHT orlclofonco of his Comic History in the preface , by way of mitfgati . fgX objection which ho know iU bo niade in various minrinrs to the verv spirit and purport of his book . . q aCsfpersoL /^ e say s , « are grievously mistaken who have imagined flint inX ? and [ in similar books from tho same pen , tho object has boon TiZX ^ Zl ^ o ^ o o , to laugh ^^^ 1 - Sfh ^ writer havinc invariably boon to expose falsohood , and to bring into merited c 3 npt all that has been injudiciously or dishonestly held up tTgonoralI aSoSftlioa . " So fax fc Beotot ifl on strong grouui oad hia
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a r eluctant hand . Strong in feeling , keen in sight , Peel was slow to estimate necessity , and with conscious unsuitableness for theory or high art , he left those portions of the work to others ^ not without sympathy in their cess . The House of Commons was Ms instrument , not his muster . He loved , not to be " head of an office , " or even of an administration—as his rival of the House of Bedford seems to do—but he loved natural distinction , andi enjoyed the jjrip . of real . power . ^ . . . , . Disraeli would have been far more suitably associated with such a man than with a Bentinck , with whom his companionship formed one of the strangest combinations on record . And the biography illustrates the the life of is inserted view
oddity . Ik a country gentleman a poetical of the Jews , their history and destiny : they are the real Christians ; they are the leaders of the world ; " the Semitic element" is gaining the Bepublic of the Far West ; the very chair of St . Peter is " a Semitic throne ; " and the really successful go-ahead " progress " -making part of mankind is the one saturated with this Semitic element . A Jew who glories in the past and the future of his race—one who feels their real greatness , and ignores the total and final disruption—sat with a country gentleman from Newmarket , arid was the Pelopidas to the Epamiriondas in the expiring glories of a protectionist flare-up . The Epaminondas was of a different stamp : —
« Lord George Bentinck had sate for eighteen years in parliament , and before he entered it had been for three years the private secretary of Mr . Canning who had married the sister of the Duchess of Portland . Such a post would seem a happy commencement of a public career ; but whether it were the untimely death of his distinguished relative or a natural indisposition , Lord George—though he retained Iris seat for King ' s Lynn , in which he had succeeded his uncle , the late governor-general of India—directed his energies to other than parliamentary pursuits . For some time he had followed his profession , which was that of arms , but of late years he had become absorbed in the pastime and fortunes of the turf , in which his whole being seemed engrossed , and which he pursued on a scale that perhaps has never been equalled /'
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fefl , li , ife ] jlf ; LEAOER . 181
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 21, 1852, page 181, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1923/page/17/
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