it is drunk, and the same charge on a gallon of whiskey. But England is a beer drinking country; Englishmen drink a great deal of beer, and comparatively little spirits; Scotland and Ireland are whiskey-drinking people, making use, comparatively, of little beer,* and as the tax on spirits is many times higher than that on beer, it follows that Scotsmen and Irishmen are much more heavily burdened than Englishmen on the beverages they habitually consume. The difference amounts to many hundreds of thousands of pounds; equality of taxation, therefore, is in this province not justice, but very plain injustice.

In this matter, indeed, of malt and spirits, equality of taxation is such a palpable wrong, as between England, Scotland, and Ireland, that special pleas are required to prop up a fallacy. Irishmen-and Scotsmen are in the same predicament—are, it is said, not called upon to drink whiskey; they tax themselves of their own free will; they may, if they please, escape this impost. This is the 'Foundation of Belief' of Mr. Arthur Balfour with reference to this branch of the subject; I should like to see would he stand on such flimsy materials were the cases of England and Ireland reversed, and Englishmen were as addicted to whiskey, as, with their present tastes, they are addicted to beer? Were he, or any Minister, gravely to tell Englishmen that they are rightly taxed out of all just proportion, because they preferred their national drink, and that if they simply abstained from it, the remedy lay in their own hands, how long does he imagine his Government would survive? Another plea of the same type is that whiskey is an unwholesome and noxious thing, and that it ought to be enormously overtaxed in order to wean Scotsmen and Irishmen from it; but this is insolence or Pharisaical stuff;

*

Attempts have been made to show that Englishmen consume as much spirits by the head as Irishmen. The taxation in respect of spirits is £1 9s. Od. a head for Great Britain, and only £1 6s. 6d. a head for Ireland. But the term Great Britain includes the population of Scotland, and the millions of Irishmen in England and Scotland, all whiskey drinkers. Statistics ought to be studied, not swallowed, and it is useless to dwell more on an extravagant paradox.

persecution and tyranny might be justified, nay, have been justified, on like pretexts. In passing from this subject, I shall just glance at an argument which has been paraded, as a last defence, against the case of Ireland. Under our existing

fiscal system, it has been urged, Ireland does enjoy 'exemptions and abatements' as regards taxation; the terms of the Treaty of Union have thus been satisfied, and Irishmen have no grounds for remonstrance. It might be enough to reply that such a plea has never proceeded from a statesman; it is a mere device of writers in the Press; it is easy to show that it has no foundation. Ireland certainly has 'exemptions and abatements,' but these are of the most trivial kind; in fact, the few taxes she does not pay, as contra-distinguished from Great Britain, could not pay the cost of collection, as Treasury officials themselves admit, and these are not the exemptions or the abatements' she is entitled to under the Treaty of Union, which, interpreted by the usage of many years, regards her as a separate financial unit, in no event to be unfairly charged. The meaning of these 'exemptions and abatements' unquestionably is that she is not to be taxed beyond her legitimate means, as Pitt and Castlereagh distinctly promised.

I sum up, therefore, the true conclusions to be formed on this very important subject. Ireland is, and has long been, much overtaxed; the excess is, probably, from two to three millions of pounds, and as she is an extremely poor country, the overcharge is a very severe burden. The arguments against this view altogether fail; they break down, especially when confronted with the Treaty of Union, and the pledges given by its author. This, however, in my judgment, by no means completes the case as to the Financial Relations between Great Britain and Ireland, considered in all its parts, and on an impartial survey. Here, as I have said, I fully agree with Mr. Arthur Balfour that the Childers Commission has not dealt thoroughly with a large and far-reaching branch of the subject; indeed, it rather avoids the question, or has treated it either superficially or not without sophistry. This circumstance affords a solid ground for the appointment of the new Commission to report on this matter; and I, for one, believe that Great

Britain, or rather the State, representing the Government of the Three Kingdoms, has a large counterclaim that may be legitimately made against the excessive taxation imposed on Ireland.

Out of a revenue of more than £7,000,000, Ireland has of late years contributed less than £2,000,000, to what has been described as the charge of the Empire,* the difference has been spent on so-called 'Irish services.' This proportion, indeed, has not always held; the figures in 1819-20 are £5,250,000 and £3,690,000, and in 1859-60, £7,700,000 and £5,400,000; in former years, therefore, Ireland has paid very large sums, on Imperial account, from her own resources. But this proportion has, of late, prevailed; it seems probable, indeed, that after deducting the expense required to defray her alleged 'local' needs, the balance available from Ireland, for 'Imperial services,' will, in the future, diminish, not increase. Ireland, as affairs now stand, absorbs more than £5,000,000, from a gross revenue of upwards of £7,000,000, in an expenditure which is described as 'Irish;' the margin left for the general purposes of the State, less than £2,000,000, is, certainly, very small. This sum of £5,000,000 and more is made of a great variety of charges which, the Treasury insists, must be deemed exclusively Irish. It represents the interest on loans which have been made to Ireland, certainly in a larger degree, than to England and Scotland, the cost of Irish administration in all its branches, the cost of the great Irish Constabulary force and of National Education on the Irish system, and a number of lesser miscellaneous charges. The question is whether, regard being had to the insignificant sum coming to the State generally, a considerable part of this sum of £5,000,000 and upwards, obtained partly from Irish taxation, no doubt, but expended for the assumed benefit of Ireland, does not fairly constitute a just set off to the overtaxation to which Ireland is subject. Nor can it be forgotten here that Ireland has had the benefit of free grants, to a large extent, and of remissions of taxation, great in amount, for which she is not really charged anything.

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* Report, p. 165.

6

At the outset I make no trifling admissions to those who dissent from the view I hold, and think that the State has no counter-claim in this matter. As regards interest payable on loans to Ireland, it has been regularly discharged in the main; here therefore no set off can exist; nor can a set off be justly sought in the case of loans, which, in too many instances, have, in different degrees, been misapplied or wasted. A very considerable part, too, of the sums put down as devoted to purely Irish services' is, assuredly, an Imperial charge; for example, the cost of the Lord Lieutenancy, called Irish,' should certainly be placed to the account of the State. No counter claim can be made, under these heads, which make up a very large total; and, besides, I concur, on this subject, with a view which diminishes any counter claim further to a great extent. It is a fallacy to call many charges, which at first blush seem Irish, exclusively Irish, and confined to the needs of Ireland; the State, for instance, has a direct interest in the Government of Ireland, and her administration, and the Imperial Exchequer, therefore should defray, as its own liability, a large part of the charge in this respect, and should not consider it simply as an Irish service.' The O'Conor Don and his colleagues have observed with much truth :- Whilst these kingdoms are united under one Parliament and Imperial expenditure is determined on Imperial grounds, we cannot but regard the maintenance of order, the enforcement of the laws, the collection and protection of the revenue are subjects of Imperial concern, no matter in what part of the United Kingdom they take place, and the expenditure on them must be regarded as a whole and Imperial in its character.' In this way any set-off that can be made in this particular must be largely cut down; and it must be added that when the Union was made, it was never contemplated that any part of the expenditure caused by Ireland was to be deemed a separate Irish charge, or to be held applicable to an 'Irish service,' The division of Imperial expenditure into three parts, one for local purposes in Great Britain, one for local purposes in Ire

Report, p. 23.

land, and one for Imperial purposes, is, we must remark, a distinction of quite modern creation. It was not thought of at the time of the Act of Union. It is quite clear, according to the provisions of that Act, that the Imperial expenditure to which Ireland was to contribute in proportion to her resources included all civil Government expenditure, no matter in what part of the United Kingdom it took place.'

Allowing, however, for these drawbacks-and certainly they must amount to a very large sum-I still think that the State has an important counter-claim against the overcharge of Irish taxation. Free grants, so far as they have been out of proportion with free grants to England and Scotland, create a counter-claim of this kind; and remissions of taxation must be taken into account to the extent that they represent bona fide debts. Part, too, of the cost of Irish government and administration must be deemed special expenditure for Irish purposes, and ought to be placed exclusively to the charge of Ireland, affording in this way a set off for the State. A considerable portion, for example, of the sum devoted to Irish judicial and legal establishments is required to defray the enormous cost of the Irish Land Commission and the Irish Land Courts, tribunals wholly confined to Ireland; Ireland, in my judgment, is justly liable for these, and to this extent the Imperial Exchequer has a claim against her. The chief item of set-off, however, consists in the charge of the great Irish Constabulary force and the charge of Irish Education on the National system, these amounting together to nearly £2,500,000. The State pays almost all this sum; in England and Scotland the corresponding sums are largely contributed from local English and Scottish sources; it seems to me, therefore, the plainest equity that part of this expenditure should be imposed on Ireland, and should constitute a set-off for the State. It has been alleged that the cost of all these services is extravagant and ought not to be laid on Ireland, at least to any considerable extent; if this can be legitimately reduced, there can be no objection. But any large reduction is, I am convinced, impossible if any