been repaid, whilst £9,002,000 had been lent to Ireland, of which £7,000,000 had been repaid." The Chancellor of the Exchequer also said in his speech, that he had been informed by a person of great experience on the subject, that only 25 per cent. of the money would go for labour; and that from twenty to thirty men per mile were all that could be employed; taking the highest figure, the noble lord's scheme, he said, would only afford employment to 45,000 workmen. Mr. Hudson, the "railway king," then the great authority on such matters, thus replied to the Chancellor's assertions: "As far as he (Mr. Hudson) could ascertain, there were but two points on which the right hon. gentleman had doubted the statements of the noble member for Lynn--namely, the number of men that would be employed on the lines, and the amount of money that would be expended on labour. As far as he could remember, those two were the only points questioned by the right hon. gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and since then, they had been taunted by the right hon. member for Portsmouth, for not having replied to the objections made in those respects to the plan of the noble member for Lynn. He did not know on what authority the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made his statement as to the amount of money that would be expended in labour; but he wondered it had not occurred to the right hon. member for Portsmouth, that even upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer's own showing, the right hon. gentleman must have made a gross mistake. The right hon. gentleman seemed to have forgotten that, under the Bill of the noble lord, the member for Lynn, for every £4,000,000 which the Government would have to provide, the railway companies would provide £2,000,000 more. Now, the right hon. gentleman, Mr. Baring, allowed 25 per cent. for earthworks; but he only allowed that 25 per cent. on the £4,000,000, which would make £1,000,000 to be devoted to earthworks; whereas he ought to have allowed it on the £6,000,000, which would have made the amount £1,500,000. So that, by his own showing, the right hon. gentleman was at least wrong in regard to that point. He (Mr. Hudson) would give figures which would clearly show, that the noble lord's calculation was below the average amount in regard to labour, and that instead of £1,500,000, it would be nearly £4,000,000 that would be expended under that head, under his plan. Take, for instance, the expenses in constructing the North Midland Railway. That line cost, on the average, £40,000 per mile. The land cost £5,500 per mile; the permanent way cost between £5,000 and £6,000 per mile, and the parliamentary expenses about £2,000. There was an expenditure of, say, £13,000 per mile; and to what did the right hon. gentleman suppose the remaining £27,000 were devoted? That was a line of great expense and large works; but there was the York and North Midland, a line of comparatively small expense and small works, and that line cost an