Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/123

Rh well as bodily labour should not be economized by the aid of machinery.

With these views I have addressed your Lordship, as the head of the Government; and whatever may be my sense of the injustice that has hitherto been done me, I feel, in laying this representation before your Lordship, and in making the offer I now make, that I have discharged to the utmost limit every implied obligation I originally contracted with the country.

I have the honour to be,

&c., &c., &c.,

2em

Dorset Street, Manchester Square. June 8, 1852.

As this question was one of finance and of calculation, the sagacious Premier adroitly turned it over to his Chancellor of the Exchequer—that official being, from his office, supposed to be well versed in both subjects.

The opinion pronounced by the novelist and financier was, "That Mr. Babbage's projects appear to be so indefinitely expensive, the ultimate success so problematical, and the expenditure certainly so large and so utterly incapable of being calculated, that the Government would not be justified in taking upon itself any further liability."—Extract from the Reply of Earl Derby to the application of the Earl of Rosse, K.P., President of the Royal Society.

The answer of Lord Derby to Lord Rosse was in substance—

That he had consulted the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who pronounced Mr. Babbage's project as—