Lord John having announced the intention of the Government, to bring in a bill empowering the Lord Lieutenant to summon baronial and county sessions, for the purpose of providing public works for the Irish people, proposed that the Commissioners of her Majesty's Treasury should issue Exchequer bills for £175,000 as a grant, and for £255,000 as a loan, to pay for the works that might be undertaken. He concluded in these words: "Sir, as I stated at the commencement, this is an especial case, requiring the intervention of Parliament. I consider that the circumstances I have stated, of that kind of food which constitutes the subsistence of millions of people in Ireland being subjected to the dreadful ravages of this disease, constitutes this a case of exception, and renders it imperative on the Government and the Parliament to take extraordinary measures of relief. I trust that the course I propose to pursue will not be without its counterbalancing advantages: that it will show the poorest among the Irish people that we are not insensible, here, to the claims which they have on us in the Parliament of the United Kingdom; that the whole credit of the Treasury and means of the country are ready to be used, as it is our bounden duty to use them, and will, whenever they can be usefully applied, be so disposed as to avert famine, and to maintain the people of Ireland; and that we are now disposed to take advantage of the unfortunate spread of this disease among the potatoes, to establish public works which may be of permanent utility. I trust, sir, that the present state of things will have that counterbalancing advantage in the midst of many misfortunes and evil consequences."[119]