ABSTRACT
Henry Bruce was a member of the Liberal Party. Saving their reputations appears to be the major focus of this speech, and little is really said regarding the individual victims of the famine and the country of India as a whole. Bruce’s inaccurate statement that Ireland lost 200,000 during the Great Famine may be indicative of his wilingness to dodge the facts. The Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, Sir Cecil Beadon, was one of a class who well deserved the sympathy of the House—a class of public servants who left this country for India at an early age, and if they rose—as often they did—to eminence, owed it only to their own industry, ability, and other high qualifications. It was plain that a hideous famine had occurred, and that great loss of life had resulted from it.
