land and the Continent. It was with him a settled conviction that Government should directly develope a system of railways in Ireland for the purpose of giving a lift' to the population; and he foresaw, moreover, with rare sagacity, that, in the peculiar circumstances of the country, and regard being had to the general good, this was the only way that promised to make railways in Ireland successful, in a commercial or national point of view. The Cabinet having favourably entertained his representations to this effect, a Commission was appointed in 1836, charged with reporting on the best method to be adopted for making railways in Ireland, on the direction and nature of the proposed lines, and on various miscellaneous matters, the principal object being to secure a railway system at once remunerative and beneficial to the country and the State, and at the same time to supply an incentive to the industry of the labouring population. The project was warmly received in Ireland; and Drummond, though overwhelmed with work, became chairman of the Commission, his associates being, for the most part, men of eminence in scientific or public life.

Our space will not allow us to dwell at length on the labours of this Commission, one of vast importance, as events have shown. It published two of the ablest reports that have ever been presented to Parliament, and of these Drummond was the principal author. As is well known, the Commissioners recommended that two main lines of railway should be made from Dublin to Cork with a series of branches, and from Dublin to Navan with a double branch extending to Enniskillen and Belfast; and they showed, from carefully chosen data, that these would meet the requirements of the country, and would form the basis of a more complete system. They recommended too, that these main lines should be constructed under the supervision of the State by private speculators alone if possible, and, if not, with the assistance of loans secured on the countries to be traversed, the great feature of the scheme being, that the chief railways of Ireland were to be laid out, as a whole, under the control of the Government. It may be affirmed that the Commissioners' Reports exhausted all that can be urged for giving the State a right for directing the course of those monopolies of locomotion, trunk railways; indeed, the arguments on this subject have been seldom if ever so ably put. Drummond, however, never lost sight of the object which, with him at least, was paramount to all others, how railways in Ireland could be developed so as to secure employment for the labouring classes.

The portions of the Reports that describe the condition of the poorer Irish, their past history, their relations with the State, and their claims on it, are wholly from his pen, and form a résumé remarkable for its clearness and power, and still more for its generous sentiments. Unfortunately the recommendations of the Commissioners, although approved by most thinking men, were destined never to come to a result. They were denounced by the Tory Opposition in Parliament, were characterised as reactionary and foolish, and were condemned by the capitalists and projectors who believed that Ireland, if abandoned to them, would be a prolific source of gain. The event has been not a little curious, and has verified several of the predictions of the Commissioners. Private enterprise, almost unchecked, has been permitted to make the railways of Ireland; and, after millions have been idly squandered, the system, viewed as one of locomotion, is very imperfect and illdesigned, while several lines are absolutely bankrupt, several yield no dividend or a nominal one only, and hardly any are really prosperous. As we write, owing to the energetic efforts of Lord Clanricarde and Mr. Monsell, a Commission has actually been appointed to inquire to what extent the railways of Ireland can safely be purchased by the State, the Government being composed of the party that thirty years ago declared that the scheme of Drummond was impracticable and unjust!

The time, however, was now approaching when the career of Drummond was to come to a close. His frame had always been rather delicate; the severe labours of the Irish survey, and frequent exposure to cold and wet, had seriously injured his constitution; and before he became Under-Secretary for Ireland he had had several attacks of illness. His spirit, however, was one of those that endeavour to overcome infirmity; and heavy as his official duties were, he had long defied and baffled disease. But the intense work of the Railway Commission, added to his customary business at the Castle, proved too much for his vital powers, and in the summer of 1838 alarming symptoms made their appearance. For a time they were conjured away by repose and a short tour on the Continent, and he returned to his office in Dublin in autumn, comparatively restored, though still far from well. In the following spring he was constantly engaged in collecting facts and evidence for a Committee, obtained at the instance of Lord Roden, to inquire into the conduct of the Government in Ireland, one of the attacks made by the Orange faction on an Administration whose even-handed justice it was unable to

VOL. CXXVI. NO. CCLVIII.

N N

comprehend or tolerate. The principal witness examined was Drummond. He was questioned and cross-questioned during a fortnight, and the result was a triumphant vindication of his own conduct and that of his chiefs, in the judgment of all impartial persons. After this his health declined rapidly, and on the 15th of April, 1840, he died at the age of forty-three, having beyond question fallen a victim to over-exertion in the cause of Ireland. The Heads of the Cabinet and his official superiors paid a just tribute to his talents and virtues in grateful expressions of regard and esteem; and he was deeply mourned and lamented by friends by whom he had been known and loved from youth. Yet the most touching testimony to his worth was the regret felt for him in the strange land for which he had sacrificed a noble life, and which he had made his adopted country. At his own request he was buried in Ireland. The funeral was attended by an imposing array, representing the state and rank of the capital; and it was accompanied by multitudes of the poorer classes, who knew they had lost a real benefactor. To this day the memory of Drummond is dear to the hearts of the peasantry of Ireland as that of one of the few who have used the power of the State in their interests; and it may be said that among the honoured men, 'whose dust, alas, is Irish earth,' it would be difficult to point out a greater worthy.

ART. VIII.-Hansard's Debates. London: 1867.

THE worshippers of the great goddess Finality will not, we trust, in this hour of acclamation be too intolerant of those, a small but perhaps an increasing number, who hesitate to admit that she is in stable possession of her sovereignty on the field of Reform. True it is that, as the Session of 1867 drew towards its close, nine at least out of ten among such men as customarily canvass politics greeted one another with some such exclamation as this: Well, thank God, it is done with at last!' True it is that the House of Commons, in the weariness of despair, raised its pace to full gallop, and seemed even to ride roughshod over the rights of its members to propose amendments as it came near the closing stages of the Bill. True it is that a Government which has executed with success a summersault which might put Blondin to shame, reassures its followers by observing that at any rate it has settled the question. Settlement, conclusion, ending; what pleasant words, in cases where

the beginning was clouded, and the continuance was a series of tempests. For such an end surely even a maiden administration might compromise its virtue :

For finality they have sacrificed everything; but, unless we much mistake, the ground has not yet been touched, and it is more than doubtful whether we have got finality.

More than once, within the memory of living men, it has been the fate of the party termed Conservative deliberately to choose its field of battle, to mark out the limits this way and that, to shape the issue for itself, to thrill with exulting and unbroken anticipations of triumph, down to the very eve, nay to the very cockcrowing, of a day of crushing defeat, and to find, at something later than the latest moment, that a resistless destiny had decreed it must become itself the instrument of strangling the idol it had adored. So it was in 1829; so in 1846; so in 1867. But none without seeing could have believed that it would have been possible, on this last occasion, to introduce into a part, at best so lugubrious, so many and such grotesque, nay even hideous, variations. Whatever consolations there may be in store for uneasy consciences on or behind the Treasury Bench, never let them seek comfort in the notion that, after all, they have only done what Peel did. If they had only done that for which they by themselves, and above all by their leader in the Commons, loaded with execration one of the most pure-minded and high-minded of British Ministers, perhaps even this might have been enough. But they have done something very different. Beyond the fact that a Minister carried at each period what he had previously opposed, there is not a single point of resemblance, that we can discern, between the conduct pursued on the two first and on the third of these occasions. În 1846 and in 1829 a large majority, and an assured possession of power, were deliberately staked and eventually lost for the sake of a great public measure. In 1867 a great public measure was adopted and traded on by a minority, in order to hold that power which the intention and practice of our Constitution alike accord to a majority. In 1829 and 1846 the Tory or Conservative Government and party supplied the only instrument, by which the changes respectively in question could be effected. In 1867 a Liberal Government and party were warm from that very work, and had been driven from the helm by the Tories, and their handful of allies, solely on

account of their determination that it should not be evaded but performed. In 1829 and 1846, Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington were contented with the modest task of carrying through a storm of obloquy the measures which the Emancipators and Free Traders had proposed. In 1867, Lord Derby, and his inspiring genius Mr. Disraeli, determined on a higher flight; and have finally passed through Parliament a Bill which, so far as the franchise is concerned, either goes, or at any rate pretends to go, far beyond all that the Liberal Government and party had recommended, and that the country, before the spring of 1867, had seemed to expect or desire. In 1829 and 1846, the heads of the Government were accused of betraying their party by concealing their intentions until their honour was committed in the face of the whole people; and in each case the party broke up accordingly. In 1867 the party has not rebelled, indeed it has scarcely murmured; it has answered on divisions to the call of its summoners with a discipline worthy of a more honourable campaign; and the malcontents, who may be counted on the fingers, have been voices crying in the wilderness, without a disciple if not without an auditory. In 1829 and 1846, the leaders acted on a political conviction and carried the measure they introduced. In 1867, the leaders, disembarrassed of all political conviction, cared little more what were the clauses of their bill, than the porter at a railway-station cares what may be the contents of the portmanteau on his shoulder; and they carried not the measure, or rather any of the three measures, which they introduced, but an entirely different measure. In 1829 and 1846, important and fruitful principles of policy, which had previously been opposed, were adopted by a Ministry and by a great part of its adherents. These were, in the one case, the equality for civil purposes of the adherents of different religious sects; and, in the other, commercial freedom. A better direction was thus permanently impressed upon policy; a real advance in the corporate life of the country was achieved. But in 1867, while a popular proposal has been appropriated with a view avowedly to the retention of office, every day affords proof that there is no real repentance or conversion whatever; and it seems even probable that many may seek to atone by increased obstructiveness in general policy for their involuntary act of extravagant, but yet isolated, liberalism. Lastly in 1829 and 1846 no attempt was made to blind the public by defrauding of the honours of the day those to whom they were due. The credit,' said Sir R. Peel in 1829, belongs to others, not to me: it belongs to Mr. Fox, Mr. Grattan,