economy. Nor was there any proper measure of determining what expenditure was good for Ireland and what was bad, though they held that there was reason to believe that much of Irish administration was both bad and costly. With regard to the extensive system of Imperial loans, whose charge swelled the Irish expenditure, they quoted the unchallenged evidence of Mr. Murrough O'Brien* to the effect that the system of Imperial loans for temporary emergencies and charity loans—“ made to keep the people quiet or to keep them alive "-tends to increase the poverty of Ireland, "does not prevent the recurrence of famine, distress, and discontent," and that "a great deal of the money nominally meant to be spent on productive works has been misspent and wasted." They also dwelt, with emphasis, on official figures showing the extravagance of Civil Government in Ireland, the cost having risen from 1s. 10d. per head of the population in 1820 to 19s. 7d. per head in 1893, whereas the cost of Civil Government in Great Britain had only risen from 1s. 7d. to 11s. 5d. The charge for legal salaries and five principal Departments in Ireland was double the right figure according to population, and represented an excess cost of nearly £200,000. In wealthy and progressive Belgium, Civil Government cost 10s. per head, or little more than half as much per head as in Ireland.† The absurdity of representing such excess charges and the wasteful expenditure of a blundering philanthropy, as a recompense for over-taxation, was manifest.

Meanwhile, the rise in the cost of Irish Government, coupled with a stagnant revenue, had decreased the annual contribution of Ireland to Imperial services, which had fallen from five and a half millions in 1860 to two millions in 1894; unless, indeed, half the cost of Irish police, virtually a branch of the Imperial Army, and costing double the amount of Scottish and English police, were to be reckoned, not as an Irish expense, on the principle adopted by the Treasury, but as a part of Imperial expenditure. In any case both partners suffered from excessive and unwise expenditure in Ireland.

The gist of their conclusions was as follows :‡

1. It is impossible, under the Union, to vary taxation for the benefit of Ireland.

*Final Report, p. 50.

† Ibid., pp. 48, 49.

Ibid., pp. 51-54.

2. Additional benevolent expenditure in Ireland is not a remedy for over-taxation.*

"We entertain a profound distrust of benevolences, doles, grants-in-aid, by whatever name they are called, ... or by whatever machinery it is proposed to distribute them, convinced, as we are, that in some form or other political influence or personal interest will creep in so as to defeat, in part at any rate, the attainment of the objects for which the expenditure is made."

3. "We believe that the expenditure of public funds cannot be wisely and economically controlled unless those who have the disposal of public money are made responsible for raising it as well as spending it." Grants of money "tend to weaken the spirit of independence and self-reliance," the absence of which qualities "has been the main cause of the backward condition" of Ireland.

4. "One sure method of redressing the inequality which has been shown to exist between Great Britain and Ireland will be to put upon the Irish people the duty of levying their own taxes and of providing for their own expenditure.

5. "If it is objected that the course we suggest may lead to the imposition of new Customs duties in Ireland, we might reply that in this case, as in that of the Colonies, freedom is a greater good than free trade. We doubt, however, whether Irishmen, if entrusted with their own finance, would attempt to raise fiscal barriers between the two countries; for we are satisfied that Ireland, and not Great Britain, would be the loser by such a policy. The market of Great Britain is of infinitely greater importance to Ireland than that of Ireland to Great Britain." The only point on which the three Commissioners differed concerned Ireland's contribution to Imperial services. Lord Farrer and Mr. Currie, taking Home Rule as the foundation of their argument, and prophesying, quite correctly, that under the Union, in a few years, Ireland's contribution would disappear altogether, recommended that no such contribution should be exacted by law until Ireland's taxable capacity approximately reached that of Great Britain. Lord Welby,

They were at issue here with Mr. Childers, who, in his Draft Report, proposed halving the rates on Irish railways and further endowing the Congested Districts Board. But Mr. Childers, though a Home Ruler, felt himself bound by the Terms of Reference not to suggest a Home Rule solution.

regarding Home Rule as an essential but a distant ideal, was for an immediate reorganization of Anglo-Irish finances which should provide for a large reduction of Irish Civil expenditure, the saving to be devoted, on Sir David Barbour's principle, to Irish purposes, and for a fixed contribution from Ireland to the Army, Navy, National Debt, etc. How Lord Welby, consistently with his previous argument, could count upon any reduction of expenditure in Ireland under the existing political system it is difficult to see. At any rate, subsequent events proved both him and Sir David Barbour signally wrong on this important point.*

In every other point the wisdom of the three Commissioners has been abundantly proved by lapse of time. Do not the conclusions set forth above bear upon them the stamp of common sense? If it were not for the inveterate prejudice against Home Rule on other than financial grounds, no one would dream of disputing them; for they are based on principles universally accepted in every part of the British Empire but Ireland, and in most parts of the civilized world. They constitute, in fact, financially, one of the strongest arguments possible for political Home Rule.

There, at any rate, lies a clear issue. Seventeen years have not altered the essential principles involved. On the contrary, it will be seen that every year of the seventeen has strengthened the argument of Lord Farrer and his colleagues, and weakened the argument of Sir David Barbour. But, before proceeding to this final demonstration, let me in general terms describe what befell the Royal Commission's Report, which was published in 1896. For a moment all Ireland, irrespective of class or creed, was alight with patriotic excitement. Few listened to Sir David Barbour's view, namely, that so long as Irish expenditure came near Irish revenue there could be no Irish grievance. Home Rulers and Unionists met on friendly platforms to denounce the over-taxation of Ireland and to display figures showing the hundreds of millions of profit made by

* Lord Welby (Final Report, p. 54) compared his proposal for Ireland with the system in the Isle of Man, where the proceeds of a tariff distinct from that of Great Britain were devoted in the first instance to the payment of a fixed Imperial contribution and the surplus to local needs. But in the Isle of Man the whole point was that the tariff was a local tariff, chosen by Manxmen to suit themselves, while the administration was under Manx control.

Great Britain out of an unconscionable fiscal bargain. This criticism missed the real point and the unanimity was shortlived. No change could be made in the system without Home Rule, and the dissension about Home Rule was strong enough to prevent Irishmen from uniting against a fiscal system which was not only unjust but demoralizing to Ireland. A Unionist Government was in power for nine more years after 1896, and a Liberal Government, pledged temporarily not to give Home Rule, for four further years. The natural result was that, in default of Home Rule, all parties in Ireland embraced Sir David Barbour's insidiously attractive reservation, and have ever since fallen into the habit of regarding additional expenditure on Ireland, not only on its merits, but as a set-off to excessive taxation and as something having no relation whatever to the taxable resources of the country. Nobody took seriously Sir David Barbour's counsel of perfection about the reduction of the cost of Irish Civil Government and the allocation of the saving to Ireland, because such a process was, humanly speaking, impossible. Expenditure is never reduced except by those who raise the money for it. On the other hand, in the face of the findings of the Royal Commission, and in the face of Ireland's economic condition, no Government which refused Home Rule could have refused large additional Irish expenditure. Much of it, indeed, was merely an automatic reflection of the immense growth of national expenditure in the wealthy and expanding partnercountry over the water, and took the form of " equivalent grants," whether for the corresponding British head of expense or for something totally different. No doubt some of the money was well spent, but all of it came in a wrong form, through wrong channels, and was regarded in Ireland in a false light. Lastly came Old Age Pensions applied on the British scale to a far poorer population.

Every word of Lord Welby's and Lord Farrer's condemnation was justified by events; every prophecy they made has been fulfilled. And the worst of it is that the delay has damaged the prospects of Home Rule. The habit of dissociating income from revenue becomes inveterate. The habit of nursing an old grievance and of expecting "restitution" for funds unwarrantably levied in the past is hard to shake

off. Restitution has gone too far already. Perpetuated, it would ruin Ireland. Home Rulers worth their salt must leave this cry to those Unionists who descend to use it; but it is surely amazing that any Irishman, least of all those who claim to represent the wealth and intelligence of the country, should tolerate a political system which inexorably involves a fiscal system so humiliating to Ireland. Until three years ago it could easily have been put an end to without affecting the independent solvency of Ireland, even on the basis of an enormously swollen civil expenditure, and with the inclusion of services strictly Imperial in origin and character. Now it is a different matter, and we are faced with the opposition of British statesmen who, by sustaining the Union, drove Ireland to the verge of insolvency, and now use insolvency as an argument against Home Rule.

One respects the clean and honest side of Unionism, but there can be nothing but reprobation for the meanness of this latter-day argument. For generations Ireland herself has asked to be free both from coercion and bribes, sanely conscious in her soul that both are equally demoralizing. The aim— though in the past not generally the conscious aim-of Unionism was to sap the moral fibre of Ireland now by one means, now by the other. At last the aim is avowed, so that men who applauded Mr. Chamberlain in 1893 for sneering at Irish patriotism as a "sickly plant which needed to be watered by British gold" merely because her contribution under the Home Rule Bill was to be small are now urging Ireland to maintain the Union-in Mr. Walter Long's words-for its "eleemosynary benefits."* Ireland herself must and will rise to a higher moral level than that, when she is fully awake to the gravity of the situation. Those who love her most will not lose a minute in explaining that situation. Too much time already has been lost.

* Letter to the Belfast Telegraph, October 7, 1911.

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