HIS SYMPATHETIC DISPOSITION. 439 



encourage domestic trade, and stimulate home la- 

 bour. One of his favourite illustrations was that 

 a £5 note spent at home was turned over a dozen 

 times or more in a year, whereas if sent abroad 

 it did not return in twelve months, if at all. 

 That British labour should find constant, well- 

 paid employment from British capital, was the 

 main aspiration of Lord George's life. An earnest 

 desire to amend the unsatisfactory condition of the 

 labourers in 1846 had much to do with inducing 

 him to take an active part in politics. The mis- 

 ery to which Ireland was reduced by the failure 

 of the potato crop was felt also in England and 

 Scotland ; and, if Lord George could have had 

 his way, he would have sent all the available 

 ships of her Majesty's navy to New York, to 

 bring back bread-stuffs for the starving masses 

 at home. His idea of Protection was as generous 

 as his own disposition. He had no desire rigidly 

 to exclude foreign corn by building up a Chinese 

 wall forbidding its introduction until British wheat 

 was fetching prohibitive prices — say, 100s. a quar- 

 ter, at which it had often been quoted at the 

 beginning of the present century. Be it recorded 

 to his credit that, in view of famine in Ireland, 

 he offered no obstruction to the free importation 

 of corn ; on the contrary, what he did object to 

 was that, in September, October, and November 

 1846, seventeen of her Majesty's war-ships were 

 lying in the Tagus " taking care," as he expressed 



