TAXATION (IRELAND).

HC Deb 04 July 1898 vol 60 cc947-1071

*MR. J. REDMOND (Waterford, City)

As the House is aware, I rise for the purpose of calling its attention to the financial relations existing between Great Britain and Ireland, and to move the following Resolution— To call attention to the over taxation of Ireland; and to move, that the disproportion between the taxation of Ireland and its taxable capacity, as compared with the other parts of the Kingdom, disclosed by the findings of the Royal Commission, constitutes a grievance, and demands the early attention of the Government, with a view to proposing a remedy. Before coming to the main argument upon which I hope to induce the House to accept this Resolution, I desire to make two or three preliminary observations. First of all, I desire to direct the attention of the House to the fact that I am not, in moving this Resolution, Secretary of State for Home Department acting merely on my own responsibility, or on behalf of any particular section or party of Members in this House. I am moving this Resolution at the request of a conference of Irish Members, presided over by the honourable and gallant Member for North Armagh, and which consisted of representatives from every political party in Ireland. This Motion will, I understand, be seconded by the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Trinity College, and this afternoon petitions in support of this Motion have been presented to the House from 211 representative bodies in Ireland—corporations, town commissioners, poor law boards, and other representative bodies in all parts of Ireland. Therefore, Sir, in view of these facts, I feel justified in asserting that, since the day when the Union was carried, nearly 100 years ago, there has been no great public question upon which Irish public opinion has been so unanimous as it is upon the present occasion. The mere fact that Ireland—North and South, Catholic, Protestant, and Presbyterian, Unionist and Nationalist—speaks with one voice upon this question, ought to commend the Resolution which I have the honour to move to the acceptance of a Parliament whose boast it is that it has the power and the will to govern Ireland justly. The second preliminary observation that I desire to make is as follows: I hope that no one will be tempted to regard this as a mere academic question which may be discussed with more or less interest Session after Session, but upon which no immediate decision is called for. I desire, on the contrary, to say that this is a question of the most terrible and pressing urgency. Let the House consider this for a moment. If the findings of the recent Royal Commission are true, and if for a generation or more past Ireland has been overtaxed annually to the extent of nearly £3,000,000, then I think that all honourable Members will agree with me when I say that it will be impossible for words to exaggerate the importance of the question. But let me take the other side. Suppose for a moment that the findings of this Commission are not true. Then I say that the necessity of meeting and answering instantly so grave an accusation made upon so weighty an authority is of the most urgent nature. Let the House bear in mind that, since the findings of the Commission, things in Ireland have not been stationary. The Royal Commission Report has reference to statistics for the year 1893–94. I have here the figures of taxation in Ireland for each year that has passed since then. During the years since the Report of the Royal Commission, direct taxes in Ireland have increased by £320,000, and the indirect taxes by £206,000. So that since the end of the Royal Commission, the burden of taxation has increased by about £600,000 in round numbers, and while the burden of taxation has gone on year by year since then increasing, I assert that the power of Ireland to bear taxation has year by year diminished. Since 1893–94 the population of Ireland has diminished. You are face to face now once again with another famine, affecting a large portion of Ireland, and it is a remarkable fact that the only tax in Ireland which, since the year 1893–94, has diminished, has been the income tax, which I think is a very fair indication of the fact that as the burden of taxation has increased, the power of Ireland to bear taxation has diminished. Therefore I think that no apology is needed for pressing this question upon the attention of Parliament, and I think that no one who bears the facts of the situation fairly in mind will deny that this is a question of supremest vital importance to Ireland. Just one further preliminary observation. It has been said, and I think said in some unexpected quarters, that we in Ireland have, since the findings of the Royal Commission, received, at any rate, something on account. It has been stated that the agricultural grant of £750,000, which Ireland is to receive, may be taken, as far as it goes, as part payment of the debt which the Royal Commission shows was due to Ireland. I assert that this agricultural grant has absolutely nothing whatever to do with this matter. If Ireland received an agricultural grant, or any other grant, of £750,000 or any other amount, and if England did not receive a similar grant at the same time, then I admit that, as far as it went, it ought to be taken into account in deciding what is the balance due to Ireland. If Ireland is, however, placed in comparison with England, heavily over-taxed, and then, if an equal agricultural grant be given with one hand to England, and with the other hand to Ireland, it stands to reason that the balance is not, and cannot be affected. A very simple test of this question is this: no Irish county or district will receive under this agricultural grant one single farthing which it would not equally have received if it were a county or a district situated in Great Britain. So far from this agricultural grant affecting this question of Irish over-taxation in the direction of remedying the grievance it affects it in the other direction, because, although the agricultural grant was given to England two years ago, it is only given to Ireland to-day, with the result that the deprivation of the substantial part of that grant for two years increases the debt due to Ireland by something like £1,200,000. But it is said that the agricultural grant for Ireland is given in perpetuity, and in England it is only given for five years. I admit that, if at the end of five years this agricultural grant be withdrawn from England, and if it be left in perpetuity to Ireland, then it will be fair, as far as it goes, to take that into account. But is it not idle for us to discuss such a contingency? Everybody knows that the agricultural grant will remain in England in perpetuity just as it will remain in Ireland, and therefore I say that this idea which I heard with astonishment expressed by the First Lord of the Treasury, that this agricultural grant will affect in any degree whatever the question of the over-taxation of Ireland, must be dismissed absolutely from our minds. So much by way of preface. Now let me ask what may be said in plain, homely and unmistakable language, to be the grievance of which Ireland complains, and which we assert has been proved, and incontrovertibly proved by the Royal Commission? I know that many honourable Members are repelled from a consideration of this subject by the thought that it is a difficult and complicated subject. No doubt if it be followed into all its ramifications, into all those infinite vistas and possibilities which are raised by these discussions, it may be that it is a difficult subject and certainly is a long one; but in its main, features and effects it is capable of a clear and brief exposition. What is our complaint, couched in ordinary and unmistakable language? I ought, perhaps, having said so much on the complexity of the subject, to relieve the anxiety of honourable Members at once, by saying that I have no intention of wearying the House by recapitulating the history of the proceedings before the Royal Commission. It is quite sufficient for my purpose to direct the attention of honourable Members to the salient facts of the situation. First of all, let the House remember that this Royal Commission was a body which consisted of a British majority. Let it bear in mind also that it contained eminent financiers such as the late Mr. Childers, Lord Welby, Lord Farrer, Sir Robert Hamilton, Mr. Bertram Currie, and others, and let it also bear in mind that the Commission came to its decision upon the evidence of the officials of the British. Treasury from Sir Edward Hamilton downwards; they came to this decision on the authority of the evidence of Sir Robert Giffen, and of other eminent authorities. After holding deliberations for two years, the Commission reported, with practical unanimity, in these words— That the actual taxable revenue of Ireland is about one-eleventh that of Great Britain, while the relative taxable capacity of Ireland is very much smaller, and is not estimated by any of us to exceed one-twentieth. Translating that into figures it means that Ireland was overtaxed to the extent of nearly,£3,000,000 a year; or, putting it in another way, for every £100 of Irish taxable capacity Ireland has been forced to pay nearly £9, whereas if she were taxed on the same principle as Great Britain she would be only called upon to pay £5. With one exception—and surely this is a remarkable fact—every British member of the Commission agreed to that Report, including Mr. Childers, Lord Farrer, Lord Welby, and the late Mr. Currie. The real question which the Commission had to consider was this: whether it was possible for them to ascertain with any-thing like accuracy what the relative resources and power to bear taxation of Ireland and Great Britain really were; and the House is no doubt aware that in order to obtain an answer to that question the Commission applied a number of tests, and every test that could be devised was applied—the test of population, consumption of duty-paying articles, relative assessment to income tax, relative assessment to death duties, the value of commodities of primary use annually consumed, all were applied. Of course, it is possible that some of these tests may be thought to be of very little value, and that opinion may differ widely as to the worth of others of them; in fact, in the words of the Chairman of the Commission— It is important to remember that in an investigation of this kind we cannot arrive at a conclusion which is mathematically accurate —all that can be hoped for is some general approximation to the truth. But I submit to the House that it is a remarkable fact that the application in turn of each one of these tests led to precisely the same result, and the result was that the relative annual wealth of Ireland was somewhere between one-eighteenth and one-twentieth that of Great Britain. Of course, there is another thing to be said in an investigation of this kind as to the comparative resources and the comparative wealth of Great Britain and Ireland. Even if the comparative wealth and resources of the two countries can be accurately ascertained, it does not afford a true test of their respective powers to bear taxation, because it is admitted that the poorer the country is the less she will be able relatively to bear taxation. One might, if necessary, accumulate an amount of testimony upon this point, but it is not necessary. I will content myself with making the quotation, which was used in the Debate last year, and which is worth repeating, because it is a quotation from, William Pitt, when he was speaking upon this very subject in the Union Debates; that is, upon the subject of how much Ireland ought to pay in taxation. He said— The smallest burden on a poor country was to be considered, when compared to a rich one, by no means in proportion to their several abilities, for if one country exceeded another in wealth and population in the proportion of two to one, be was convinced that that country was able to bear nearly ten times the burden that the other would be equal to. I do not want to labour any of these points, but bearing these circumstances in mind, I think most fair-minded men will come to the conclusion that the Commission was moderate in its estimate when it declared that the relative taxable capacity of Ireland, as compared with that of Great Britain, was not more than one twentieth. Now, Sir, that being our grievance, stated, as it seems to me, in plain and unmistakable language, what, let me ask, is the answer which has been made to us? There have been many answers made since this controversy was started, and it was a satisfaction to us to observe that each one of these answers in turn, after discussion, has been abandoned and has disappeared, and I must honestly say that at this moment I have not the faintest idea what is the new answer the Government may to-night propose to give. The first answer which was made to our demand was in the nature of an attack upon the Commission. We were told that the Commission was a packed Commission, that it consisted of a majority of Home Rulers, and that, therefore, its opinion on this question of financial fact was unworthy of consideration. That answer did not survive very long. I think it was finally disposed of in the speech made by the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Plymouth (Sir Edward Clarke). He, a member of the Unionist Party, dealing with that accusation that the Commission was a packed one, said this: Admitting that the majority was made up of Home Rulers, and that if he were asked to take from a Commission so constituted any expression of political opinion, any opinion as to national or any other policy dealing with Ireland, he would feel justified in refusing to accede to the request; but, he said, this Commission being composed of men like Mr. Childers and others whose names I have mentioned, investigating not a matter of policy, not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact, he did not feel justified in refusing to believe their convictions, because on another question altogether, a question of policy, they differed from him. It seems to me that that answer was conclusive, and it is a satisfaction to find that from that day to this we have heard no more of an attack upon the Commission. The: second answer that was made was that it was impossible to treat Ireland as a separate financial entity from Great Britain. I say with great respect that that answer was an ignorant one, and it was one which was incapable of being sustained. Ireland's right to separate financial treatment does not merely rest upon the declarations and pledges of Pitt and Castlereagh. At the time the Union was carried, I think we all know—everyone who has studied the history of these times knows—that every speech they made in support of the Union contained: explicit declarations and pledges upon that point. But I say that Ireland's right to separate financial treatment does not rest upon those declarations and pledges. Her right to that treatment rests upon the express declarations and enactments contained in the Treaty of Union and the Acts which carried it out. The 7th Article of the Treaty of Union is upon this point clear and explicit. The majority of the Commission thus summarised the effect of that 7th Article. I will read their summary, because it is more convenient than wearying the House by giving at full length this long-Article— Ireland and Great Britain entered into legislative partnership on the clear understanding that they were still for the purposes of taxation to be regarded as separate and distinct entities. Ireland was to contribute to the common expenditure in proportion to her resources, so far as the same could be ascertained; and even after the imposition of indiscriminate taxation, if circumstances permitted its imposition, she might claim special exemptions and abatements. So long as that Article of the Treaty of Union is in existence—and surely the Unionist Party are not to be the ones to desire to trample upon the provisions of' the Act of Union—so long it is an ignorant and futile answer to say that we are not entitled to separate financial treatment. So far as the present Government is concerned, I respectfully urge that it is impossible, at any rate, for them to raise any such objection. It will be in the recollection of the House that in 1890 the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is now First Lord of the Admiralty, appointed a Committee to inquire into the financial relations between the three countries. In the appointment of that Committee he acknowledged and admitted the right of Ireland to separate financial consideration. The words of reference to that Committee establish this point beyond all doubt, because the Committee were directed— to inquire into the equity of the financial relations in regard to the resources and population of each of the three kingdoms. But this denial of Ireland's right to separate financial treatment has been, I submit, formally abandoned by the present Government. Last year the Government, as an answer to our claim, proposed the appointment of a new Royal Commission, which they said was to further inquire into the subject, and they actually published the reference to the Commission, and those honourable Members who have read the reference so proposed must be aware of the fact that it did not controvert the main findings of the recent Royal Commission at all, that it did not controvert Ireland's right to separate financial treatment; but, on the contrary, the reference to that new Commission was absolutely inconsistent with the idea that England and Ireland formed part of one country in the same way that the counties of England formed part of England. I have here the terms of reference to that Royal Commission, and I find that the last reference is, that they were to inquire whether, when regard is had to the nature of the taxation enforced, and the existing exemption, and the amount of expenditure by the State on local services, the provisions of that Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland, with regard to special exemptions and abatements, call for any modification in the financial relations of the United Kingdom. Therefore, if words have any meaning at all, this amounted to an abandonment of the idea that Ireland was not entitled to separate financial treatment; and therefore I say that this further answer which was given against our claim has been abandoned and has disappeared. The next answer which was made was one of considerable interest, because it is one of which we still hear something; and it is a most plausible answer. It is said the individual Englishman pays as much or more taxation than the individual Irishman,, and therefore we have no grievance. Now, let me for a moment examine that contention. First of all, we plead our Treaty—our constitutional right under the Union. We refer you to the pledges of Pitt and Castlereagh, and we say that, standing upon the Union, our claim is that the individual Irishman should not be taxed the same as the individual Englishman, but that the individual Irishman should be taxed according as the wealth of Ireland as a whole compares with the wealth of Great Britain as a whole. But I pass for a moment our claim upon this head, for the purposes of my argument, founded on the Act of Union, and I take a broader ground. Is it just that the individual Irishman and the individual Englishman should be called upon to pay the same? In order to prove its justice it must be necessary to prove that the individual Irishman and the individual Englishman are equally able to bear taxation. But what is the fact? Nothing is more pathetic than the evidence given before the Commission by Sir Robert Giffen, which was practically accepted by Sir Edward Hamilton and by everybody who spoke upon the subject, as to the relative wealth of the individual Irishman and the individual Englishman. Sir Robert Giffen's estimate of the total income per head of the population in Ireland, without making any allowance for the cost of subsistence at all, was £14 6s. 8d., and the income per head of the population in England was £39 7s. 5d. So far, therefore, as income is a standard of taxation, the capacity of the individual Englishman to bear taxation is more than double the capacity of the individual Irishman, But I go further than that. I will take your own ground—the treatment of individuals and not the treatment of the countries. What has been the treatment of the individual Irish taxpayer and the treatment of the individual English taxpayer ever since the Union? I find that since the Union the taxation per head of the population of Great Britain during a century, when the prosperity of this country has been advancing by leaps and bounds, has diminished by one-half, while the taxation per head of the population in Ireland during the same period has more than doubled. Let me take a convenient period—the period of the Queen's reign since the year 1837. In that year Ireland had a population of over 8,000,000, and her total taxation was about £5,000,000. That is 12s. 11d. per head of the population. In 1897 the population, instead of being 8,000,000, was only 4,500,000; and the taxation, instead of being £5,000,000, was £8,140,000; that is, £1 15s. per head. In one decade—that terrible decade of Irish history which followed the great famine, when Ireland lay exhausted and bleeding, so to speak, at every pore—your English legislation doubled the taxation of the Irish people. All through this period, when this state of things has existed in Ireland, there has been year by year a steady decrease of the burdens on the individual Englishman. I ask, in the face of these facts—because they are not opinions—can anybody persist in making as an answer to our demand the statement that because the individual Englishman pays as much to-day as the individual Irishman, therefore we have no claim for redress? But let me ask, what other answers are there to our demands? I may be told that the real reply upon which honourable Members rely is one that I have not mentioned at all, and which may be summed up in the words "local expenditure." I would like to put this argument which is used against us perfectly fairly. It seems to me that that answer amounts to this. People say: We do not dispute the finding of the Royal Commission, we do not dispute that, as far as they have gone, the result shows a balance of over-taxation; but we say there is another side to this account. If Ireland pays £3,000,000 a year too much upon paper she gets it back again, because the government of Ireland costs the common purse more in proportion than the government of Great Britain. These objectors take up this position: Before we admit that Ireland is wronged we must find out how much goes back to Ireland from the Imperial purse for so called local purposes. That, I take it, is a fair statement of the answer of those gentlemen who take this objection. What is our reply to them? First of all, we fall back again upon the terms and provisions of the Treaty of Union. We say that any such division of expenditure as is suggested is contrary to the express enactments of the Treaty of Union. That Treaty and the Acts which carried it out provide that for 20 years Ireland should pay a certain quota towards what is called the "common expenditure of the United Kingdom"; it provided, further, that all future expenses should be common expenditure of the United Kingdom, and not of any part of it. From the innumerable declarations of Pitt and Castlereagh upon this subject I have selected one and one only. Speaking upon this very point, in connection with the Union, Lord Castlereagh said— If the proportion of expenses shall be rightly fixed and ascertained upon just principles for every part of the kingdom, it is immaterial where the expenditure takes place. Speaking in his most invaluable draft Report, the late Mr. Childers made this notable declaration— It was, in our opinion, the clear intention of the framers of the Act of Union that, so far as related to taxation or the raising of revenue, Ireland should (whether contributing, as she did till 1817, according to a certain ratio, or whether, as subsequently, by way of indiscriminate taxation, subject to exceptions) have a distinct position and separate consideration. But it was their equally clear intention that all expenditure, including no less that upon civil government in Ireland than that upon the Army and Navy, should be in common, or Imperial. It was never intended that the ratio of contribution or the extent of the exemptions and abatements (as the case might be) should be affected by consideration of the relative cost of administration in each of the three kingdoms. We think that, while legislative and fiscal union between the kingdoms remains this way of treating the matter must hold good. Yes, Sir, this way of treating the matter must hold good so long as the Union holds good, and every honourable Member who uses this argument against Ireland is using a fatal argument against the maintenance of the Union between the two countries. Nothing could be clearer than the words I have read from the Treaty of Union and from the speeches of Lord Castlereagh and Pitt. And, indeed, it is very interesting to remember that Sir Edward Hamilton, who suggested this idea before the Commission, division of expenditure into Imperial and local, when pressed, in cross-examination, admitted that if the provisions of the Act of Union were to be strictly interpreted, and regarded as still in force, then Imperial expenditure should be treated as a whole, and could not be split up in the way suggested. My position personally is that, unfortunately—most unfortunately for Ireland—the Treaty of Union is still in force. The position of Englishmen who deny our rights under this Treaty seems to be that wherever the provisions of the Act of Union hit Ireland they are to be strictly interpreted and regarded as in full force; but that when we point out some provision which to some extent, at any rate, protects our country, then we are to be told, "Oh, that is an obsolete Statute passed 100 years ago. Conditions have changed, and really these words have no binding force whatever." I ask this Unionist Government and this Unionist House of Commons, are they seriously going to take up that position? Apart altogether from our rights on the construction of the Act of Union, I take the argument to another and broader ground, and say, even if the Act of Union did not provide, as it does provide, that expenditure should be regarded as a whole, and cannot be split up into local and Imperial, is it just, or is it possible, for you so to divide it? Speaking on this subject, Sir Robert Giffen expressed in his evidence a very weighty opinion. He said— The opinion which I have formed is that on the whole it is not possible to make the distinction between the different effects of Imperial expenditure which is made in some of these returns and discussions, that, in fact, all the expenditure by an Imperial Government is to be considered expenditure for Imperial purposes, and although part of it may be spent locally, you cannot consider it in any way expenditure for the special benefit of that locality. For these reasons I cannot see any difference in the objects of the Imperial expenditure by the Imperial Government; they are all Imperial from beginning to end; and you cannot consider that any part of them is for the local benefit of a particular part of the country. I know of no economic authority of any sort or kind for the proposition. Now, Sir, that is the position of Sir Robert Giffen, and it is the position which we take up in answer to this claim about local and Imperial expenditure, and that is the position which the House will remember was taken up by the Commission and the majority of the Commission, including men like Mr. Childers and others—namely, that under the Act of Union you cannot legally or constitutionally make this distinction; and that, even if you could, it would be an unjust and oppressive thing to do. Consider for a moment what it would mean. Admittedly, Ireland is probably the most expensively governed country in the world. Why is she the most expensively governed country in the world? Why is it that the civil administration costs double in Ireland what it does in England? It is because you insist upon maintaining in Ireland a system of rule which is out of sympathy with the mass of the people, and, as a direct and natural consequence, you are driven to spend money with a lavish hand in your government in trying to bribe or conciliate various parties from time to time to assist you in your rule. But is it proper, I ask any fair-minded man, no matter what his political opinion may be, to say to us: It is true you are overtaxed £3,000,000 a year, but because we insist on maintaining an extravagantly expensive rule in Ireland against your will, therefore you are to get no redress for your over-taxation. There is something more to be said upon this matter. Suppose you entered into an investigation of what are Imperial expenditures and What are local expenditures: what are your tests to be? What is an Imperial expenditure? Is it an expenditure that is made equally for the benefit of the Empire and of all parts of the Empire? If so, how can you justify charging Ireland for her share towards an Imperial expenditure like that of the Navy? The expenditure on the Navy is the great insurance premium that you pay every year to protect your British commerce. What share of that British commerce has Ireland? What concern has she in the Navy? Sir, these are not only the views of one who may be regarded as looking on this question from the point of view of an extreme Nationalist; they are views of Mr. Childers on this point. He says— If we look at the cost of the Army and Navy and other similar services as a national insurance paid for the protection of sea-borne commerce, or as a means of the extension of the Empire, and, with it, of trade, or as a means of preserving to this country the great field for trade and investment of surplus capital afforded by India and the minor dependencies of the Crown, it must seem that the benefits reaped from this outlay by Great Britain, looked at as a whole, are immensely greater than those which are reaped by Ireland. I ask, if you enter into the financial question of local and Imperial expenditure, what about the vast sums of money that are spent entirely in Great Britain upon so-called Imperial services? Every penny that is spent in the construction of warships is spent in England, and you will not send to Orange Belfast a commission to build a single warship, though, admittedly, we have the finest shipbuilding yards in the world. Our position on this question of the division of expenditure may be summed up in these words—we deny that it is competent for you, legally or constitutionally, under the terms of the Act of Union, to attempt this division of expenditure into local and Imperial; and we contend that, apart altogether from the question of legal and constitutional rights, such a proceeding would be unjust and oppressive, and would probably lead to unlooked-for and absurd results. But, Mr. Speaker, I have the consolation of being able to think that this answer, just like the others that are made, has been abandoned by the Government. Because, what has been their attitude? Last year they made this answer, they proposed to appoint another Royal Commission, and they got votes in this House on that ground, from men who, in the main, were in sympathy with our claim. And what have they done? They issued the terms of reference of the Commission, which, as I have shown, were, from our point of view, most valuable; but they dropped the Commission. It has been said on behalf of the Government by others that the reason why they dropped that Commission was that it was impossible to obtain men to serve on it. That is not so. If the Government chose they could have obtained a representative Commission, and could have appointed it. They did not appoint it, and I claim that the abandonment of that Commission amounts to an abandonment of the argument that a set-off is to be found in local expenditure in Ireland against the over-taxation of which she complains. Under these circumstances, Mr. Speaker, we may be for- given if we say we believe we have established our case, and if we demand from the Government the application of an immediate remedy. Mr. Speaker, the function and the duty of propounding that remedy rests with the Government. Last year the Chancellor, if my recollection serves me right, asked us Irish Members what was our plan. Sir, our reply is this—give to Ireland the power and the responsibility of dealing with this matter, and we will speedily propose our plan. But, so long as you hold the Government of Ireland as you do to-day, it is impossible for you to divest yourselves of the duty and the responsibility of proposing the plan yourselves if you admit the injustice. Now, Mr. Speaker, I am purposely omitting the consideration of many topics because I have regarded brevity as of importance. Let me, in conclusion, address one more consideration, and one only, to the House. I beg that no one will underrate the gravity of this question. If the accusations brought by this Commission be true, and if Parliament refuse redress, then I say that English rule in Ireland will stand condemned as the most ruthless and flagitious on record. Sir, admittedly under your rule our population has been diminished by one-half; admittedly under your rule one by one our Irish industries have languished and disappeared; admittedly under your rule have Irishmen three times risen in insurrection; and admittedly under your rule, according to a statement in a work published the other day by an ex-official of the Government of Ireland, 12 times has famine cast its blight over the land. I assert that if, in addition, England, rich and prosperous, has year after year for generations filched three millions from the poverty of Ireland, and if now, with the knowledge of that brought home to you, you refuse redress, I repeat my assertion, that your rule will stand condemned in the face of the world as the most iniquitous on record. I would therefore beg Englishmen in this House not to underrate the gravity of this question. I would beg English Members to weigh this matter carefully, and not in a light-hearted way to reject our plea. I would beg English Members to bear in mind their responsibility—a responsibility which they cannot divest themselves of—for much of the evil and miserable past of Ireland, and would beg of them to seize this opportunity of remedying perhaps the most grievous of her wrongs. Were I an Englishman—above all, an Englishman anxious to maintain the Union—I would urge this cause with a still more passionate anxiety. But, Mr. Speaker, I look upon this matter from the standpoint of an Irishman, and a Nationalist, and while I entreat this House to weigh this matter carefully, and beg each individual to satisfy his own mind by investigation, and come to a fair conclusion; and while I earnestly pray that wisdom may direct this House of Commons to a just conclusion—at the same time I am not going to pretend that if you refuse I will not have consolation. We have the consolation, as Irish Nationalists, of knowing that your refusal of justice in this case will make the maintenance of your rule in Ireland in the future all the more impossible, and will make the triumph of the national cause, to which we are devoted, all the more inevitable. I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.

*MR. LECKY (Dublin University)

Mr. Speaker, I think we have now arrived at a stage in this discussion in which it is possible to omit a good deal of the intricate historical questions which in previous Debates somewhat wearied the House, and to concentrate our attention on a few salient points. The fact of the great disproportion between the taxation of Ireland and its taxable capacity compared with Great Britain—in other words, the fact that under our present system of taxation Ireland contributes more in proportion to her revenue in the form of taxes than the other portions of the kingdom—may, I think, now be looked upon as beyond all possibility of serious dispute. It is perfectly true that on such subjects we can only arrive at approximations, and that minute precision is impossible. No one can with perfect accuracy estimate the wealth of Ireland. If, for example, in forming an estimate of the value of Irish land, we went by the prices that are paid in tenant right, with the addition of the sum that might be paid for freehold, we should come to the conclusion that the smaller farms were much more valuable than the corresponding ones in England. Nor is it possible to arrive at more accuracy in dealing with taxation. No one can actually say how much of the duty on English beer is really paid by the Irish consumer, or how much of the duty on Irish whisky by the English consumer. But the broad fact that on the whole Ireland represents a different and much lower level of wealth than England or Scotland, and that the revenue exacted in taxation bears a much larger proportion to her wealth than in Great Britain, is perfectly indisputable. The majority of the Commissioners have stated that the highest estimate of the taxable capacity of Ireland as compared with Great Britain does not exceed one-twentieth, while her taxation is about one-eleventh. Many excellent judges put the disproportion still higher. Sir R. Giffen, who is one of the very first living authorities on such questions, says that for taxation purposes the wealth of Ireland should not be reckoned at more than one-twenty-fifth of that of Great Britain. Lord Farrer in the House of Lords declared his belief that it was very considerably below one twentieth. Some of the Irish Commissioners and witnesses put it much lower, as low as one thirty-sixth. Sir D. Barbour, in his hostile, but very able Report, accepted one-twentieth as the true estimate, and stated that— on this assumption Ireland may be said to be overtaxed at the present time to the extent of nearly two and three-quarter millions annually, though he contends that there is no real grievance, as she receives much more than, she pays. Mr. Childers estimates that Ireland pays two and three-quarter millions more than if she were taxed according to her relative taxable capacity. Lord Farrer, Lord Welby, and Mr. Bertram Currie concur in the opinion that the excess is about two and a half millions. In the replies that have come from the Treasury, especially in the very remarkable article that appeared in the Edinburgh Review—the editor of which we are glad to welcome among us—in January 1897 the line taken is much the same as that of Sir David Barbour. It is not at all surprising that a system of indiscriminate taxation should act in a very different manner on two countries which represent two wholly different levels of wealth. Between England and Scotland there is no such differ- ence. Substantially Scotland represents the same level of prosperity as England. She contains a commercial town which, is larger than Liverpool, or Manchester, or Birmingham—larger than any English town, except London; her population has been steadily growing in numbers and rising in prosperity. The greater portion of her poorer or more barren soil is made use of for sporting purposes, which bring a vast amount of money into the country, give employment to great numbers, and represent the only kind of rent outside the towns which in the long period of agricultural depression has not fallen, An intense and intelligent industrial spirit pervades the country from end to end. I observe that a gentleman, proposing a resolution adverse to the Irish claim in the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, lately said that no other country in Europe has advanced so rapidly as Scotland in material prosperity within the last 60 years. No one could say this, or anything in the least resembling it, of Ireland. In crossing the Channel we pass at once to wholly different levels of prosperity, to wholly different rates of progress. The difference between the two countries is clearly indicated by the fact that in 1890 it was calculated that the indirect taxation of Great Britain was only a fraction over 53 per cent., while that of Ireland was 76 per cent., falling chiefly on a few articles of general consumption. This clearly shows how small, as compared with Great Britain, is the accumulated wealth that so easily bears taxation, and how much more heavily taxation weighs on the mass of the people. And this difference between the two countries is an increasing one. I do not agree with those who maintain that Ireland is not advancing in material prosperity, but it is at least quite certain that she is advancing at a much slower rate than England and Scotland, and that the disparity of wealth is in consequence increasing. Many things which it is not necessary to examine in detail have gone against her and aggravated the difference. Free trade has enormously increased the wealth of the manufacturing portions of the Empire, but it has conferred no corresponding benefits on the agricultural parts, and the conversion of arable into pastoral land which it entailed has been the chief cause of the great depopulation of Ireland. The fiscal changes carrying out the ideas of the Manchester school swept away a great number of taxes which were paid by Great Britain, but from which Ireland during the first half of the century was exempt, while they have left unchanged or increased the taxes on a few articles of consumption which are used in Ireland to as great an extent as in England in proportion to our numbers,, and to a considerably greater extent in proportion to our means. Nearly two and a half millions were most unjustly added to the taxation of Ireland between 1853 and 1860. The disendowment of the Irish Church relieved the Consolidated Fund of the payments it had previously made to the Maynooth Grant and the Regium Donum to the-Presbyterians, the compensation for these grants coming out of the purely Irish fund; and at the same time it provided a fund out of which other grants that would otherwise have come from Imperial sources were drawn. I venture to think that English Members who speak of the large grants made of late years for Irish purposes scarcely realise the fact that the most important of those grants come from the purely Irish Church Fund. Then came the great temperance movement, with which I have much sympathy, but which, in an economical way, told much against Ireland. Beer is the popular drink in England, while whisky is the popular drink in Ireland, and while the taxation on beer is about one-sixth of its price, the taxation on whisky is about two-thirds or three-fourths. If it is measured according to its alcoholic strength whisky is taxed six times as heavily as beer. Another drink largely used in England is cider, which remains absolutely un-taxed. It is, indeed, true that upon the whole Ireland spends less on spirits than Great Britain. This is one of the most curious facts that have come out in connection with this inquiry. Great Britain, which of course includes a great many spirit drinking Irishmen, spends £1 9s. per head on spirits, while Ireland spends only £1 6s. 6d. But Great Britain not only consumes this, but also consumes a vast amount of less taxed beer and un-taxed cider, and the balance remains, to a terrible extent, against the whisky- drinking country on the other side of the Channel. It is true that Scotland is also a whisky-drinking country; but Scotland is very wealthy, and her indirect taxation is in consequence comparatively insignificant. It is not so much because we drink too much whisky in Ireland, as, because we are a poor country, that this tax falls so heavily upon us; indirect taxation in Ireland dominates far beyond everything else, and the whisky duty is its chief item. Then came the great and increasing expenditure on naval armaments, which, I believe, was abundantly justified by the conditions of the world. It enormously increased the taxation of the whole Empire. In Great Britain this immense increase in the aggregate of taxation fell upon increasing population and upon immensely increased wealth; in Ireland it fell upon a steadily dwindling population, and upon a stationary, or almost stationary, revenue. The result is shown in the Returns of the Treasury. If you take the period from 1819 to 1893, you will find that, in spite of the enormous increase of the aggregate taxation of the Empire, English taxation per head has fallen from £3 10s. 3d. to £2 4s. 10d., while Irish taxation has risen from 14s. 5d. to £1 8s. l0d.—that is to say, that, while English taxation has very largely diminished, Irish taxation, as measured per head, has absolutely doubled. As Mr. Childers said— The revenue raised per head on taxes and commodities in Great Britain is now about half of what it was in 1819; that raised in Ireland is about double what is was then. These are the main grounds on which we base our contention. I, for my part, am most anxious not to overstate the case. I do not believe that things are now so bad as they were in the fifties, when, out of a revenue of over £7,000,000, nearly £5,500,000 were carried away for Imperial purposes. I think the death duties of the right honourable Gentleman opposite (Sir W. Harcourt) have done something to mitigate the grievances, for they have thrown a large proportion of taxation on those very large fortunes which can hardly be said to exist in Ireland. We also owe a considerable debt to the right honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the reduction he is making in the duty on the poorer kind of tobacco, which is used, in proportion to our means, to a greater extent than in England. It is also true that a much larger proportion of the revenue raised in Ireland is spent in Ireland, and I believe that a considerable part of that expenditure may very justly be looked upon as an offset. This question, however, is a most difficult and intricate one, and it gives rise to much difference of opinion. Sir Robert Giffen, whose view is adopted by many honourable Members opposite, maintains that in a united empire all expenditure by the Imperial Parliament must be considered expenditure for Imperial purposes, and that— although part of it may be expended locally, you cannot consider it in any way expenditure for the special benefit of that locality. We ought," he adds, "to consider the question of the taxation of Ireland independently, and absolutely apart from expenditure in Ireland. Speaking for myself, I confess I cannot go as far as this. My own opinion is that every genuinely Imperial grant which is given for a genuinely Irish purpose, and which is not balanced by a corresponding grant for a British purpose, every case in which something which is paid from local sources in Great Britain is paid from Imperial sources in Ireland; every Imperial loan to Ireland which is remitted, constitutes a real set-off. A good deal of this kind of thing has taken place, and in my judgment it considerably reduces our claim. The system of grants in aid of rates, looked at merely from an economical view, does not appear to me by any means impeccable, but in the relative positions of England and Ireland, I do not see how Irish Members can fail to support it, for it is a great boon to the poorer country. But, although on these subjects I do not go as far as some of the honourable Members opposite, I agree with them that we cannot, consistently with the Act of Union, and the Act consolidating the Exchequers, in 1817, consider the administrations of the three countries as distinct things, to be divided and compared, and treat the mere expensiveness of Irish administration under the Imperial Parliament as a set-off to the excessive taxation of Ireland. This division into three parts was not known at the Union; there was no mention of the relative cost of administration in the three kingdoms. It was provided in the Act of Consolidation that the revenue raised by taxation should all be brought into one consolidated fund, and "applied indiscriminately" to the payment of the interest of the National Debt, to the salaries and other charges on the Civil List of Great Britain and Ireland, and, after payment of such charges, to such other purposes as Parliament may direct. I am not a lawyer, but I believe the great weight of legal opinion is that such provisions are inconsistent with the new system of disintegrating the Civil Services, and treating the high scale of Irish salaries—a scale due to our connection with a richer country—as a set-off to Irish taxation. Another thing which I cannot recognise as a set-off is the agricultural grant which is comprised in the Local Government Bill. Last year, in consequence of the long period of agricultural depression, you made a grant to the extent of ten shillings in the pound to the relief of agricultural rates in England. We argued that we were poorer than you, that we were more purely agricultural than you; that our rates, in proportion to our means, were heavier than yours, and that there was absolutely no reason why we should not be treated as if we were part of England. After a long contention, and to the great indignation of some English Radical Members, we carried our point; but it is surely absurd to consider this common grant as a special favour to one party, and, there fore, a set-off against excessive taxation. On the contrary, we may justly complain that the grant is only being given to us some two years after it is given to England. I do not go into the intricate question of what items of expenditure should be regarded as purely Irish and what as Imperial. This is a very obscure subject which you will hardly elucidate without a further inquiry. Obviously, there are a good many things which are treated as Irish which ought to be regarded as Imperial. There is the constabulary, a great semi-military force, which, among its other functions, is engaged in collecting Imperial revenue. It certainly ought not to be regarded solely and exclusively as Irish. There is the Viceroy, who is the official representative of the Imperial Crown. There is the charge for the collection of the Imperial revenue in Ireland, which is put down in the Treasury list as if it were a thing not Imperial but simply Irish. Loans, to Ireland are a set-off when they are remitted, but not when they are paid for by interest. I think it has been shown clearly by Mr. Samuels that there are a large number of corresponding things which are habitually counted as Irish if the expenditure is in Ireland, as Imperial, not English, when it is in England. All these matters will have to be investigated carefully. Irish finance is full of surprises. We had a curious example of this in a Return, which has just been printed, about the redemption of quit-rent. These rents, which are paid in Ireland, correspond in a great degree to the English land tax. The owners of the land have got the option of redeeming them, and since 1864 they have expended nearly a quarter of a million in this way. It might have been supposed that this at least would have been noted as distinctly Irish, that the redemption money might have been applied to Irish purposes, that, at least, in calculating the respective revenues, of the two countries, it would have been recognised that the diminution of the Irish revenue was due to sums paid in Ireland by Irishmen. It appears that nothing of the kind has been done. According to the official statement— These sums have been merged in the general capital of the land revenues of the Crown, under the management of the Commissioners of Woods, and invested, with moneys received from other sources, in the purchase of estates in Great Britain, and the redemption of charges on Crown property in Great Britain. In this way it has been made to appear that the Crown rents of Ireland have been gradually diminishing, while those of Great Britain have been increasing, and this fact has been made to strengthen the argument against Ireland on the financial relations. There are some other considerations of a different kind which ought not to be forgotten. Whatever may now be the state of accounts between Great Britain and Ireland, there is not the remotest doubt that for a very considerable number of years after 1853 Ireland was grossly, scandalously overtaxed, when nearly five millions and a half out of a revenue of little more than seven millions were taken from her for Imperial purposes. Of the expenditure which is undoubtedly Imperial by far the largest part is expended in England and goes into English pockets. The great modern increase of Imperial expenditure has been for the Navy, and out of the vast sums spent on it how much goes to Ireland? It is obvious that the great dockyards and manufactories of England reap nearly all the benefit. Much has been said about the disproportioned military expenditure in Ireland as an offset to this. It is true that owing to the large barrack accommodation in Ireland a large proportion of the Army is quartered there, to the great benefit and convenience of both countries; but when one considers how much of the military expenditure goes in salaries paid in England—in accoutrements, and I believe on provisions that come from England—it will be found that the offset is a good deal less than has been alleged. And there is another consideration, on which I do not wish to dilate, but which English Members in equitably judging this question should not forget: How much of the vast commercial prosperity which it is the main object of the costly armaments of the Empire to secure, protect, and enlarge—how much of that great tide of commercial wealth ever touches the shore of the poorer isle? I have now stated our case, I hope, without exaggeration and without suppression. We are often asked, What remedy do you propose? What tax do you object to? Do you ask us to break up the fiscal unity of the kingdom? Speaking for myself, and speaking also, I believe, for some of my brother Members on this side of the House, I reply most unequivocally we do not. At the same time I must protest against the language which has of late been used in very high quarters to the effect that anything that impairs the fiscal unity of the Empire is incompatible with the Union. If it be meant by this that any differentiation of taxation, any exemption from taxation granted to the poorer country is incon- sistent with the Union, I will venture to say that the statement is not only unfounded, but almost absurd. The Union expressly provided that the Exchequers of the two countries should be kept apart, and that even when the time came that they might be equitably consolidated Ireland was to be entitled to such "abatements and exemptions" as her circumstances required. Lord Castlereagh expressly stated that one of the main objects of the financial clauses of the Union was to give Ireland— the utmost possible security that she cannot be taxed beyond the measure of her comparative ability, and that the ratio of her contribution must ever correspond with her relative wealth and prosperity. The doctrine I am referring to was not the doctrine of English statesmen during half a century after the Union, for all through that period Ireland enjoyed exemptions from taxes imposed on Great Britain, which amounted at one time to 20 millions a year, and which as late as 1845 amounted to more than 14 millions a year. It was not the doctrine of Sir Robert Peel, who, when introducing the income tax, deliberately refused to extend it to Ireland. It was not the doctrine of Mr. Disraeli, who strenuously resisted that extension of the income-tax to Ireland by Mr. Gladstone in 1853, which is at the root of our present grievance. Even now, as is well known, there are some British taxes—though they would produce, I believe, only £150,000 in Ireland—which are not extended to Ireland. There is hardly a subject of legislation on which you have not under the Union legislated separately for Ireland. There is hardly a day that we do not receive bills applicable to Great Britain but not to Ireland, or applicable to Ireland but not to Great Britain, and the financial system is no exception. More than once in the last few years you have, when legislating about education and the relief of local taxation, made distinct and proportionate grants to the three kingdoms. Surely it is absurd to say that these things are contrary to the Union when they have been going on for 98 years under the Union. But while I must protest against the language which has been used on this subject, I wish to state most clearly and unequivocally that we do not on this side of the House wish to have any alteration of the existing system of taxation or any exemption of Ireland from existing taxes. We clearly recognise that under the existing system of taxation, which is concentrated on a very few articles, that would be extremely difficult, and I believe it to be outside the range of practical politics. If the question were looked on merely from an economical point of view, the abolition or large reduction of the whisky tax would be the simplest remedy; but in the belief of the great majority of us, such a measure would be a great calamity. Cheap whisky would neither make us richer nor better, and we have no wish to see it. Our case is simply this—we contend that a Report which at present at least holds the field, which is drawn up by a number of the very best financiers of England, writing judicially about their own subject, and supported by a vast mass of uncontradicted evidence, shows that Ireland in proportion to her means is paying in taxation very considerably more than the richer portions of the kingdom. We say that such a fact, attested by such authority, is one which Irish Members, whatever their politics, cannot consistently with their duty neglect, and which is eminently deserving of the attention of Parliament, and we argue from it that the country which is bearing this special weight of taxation may reasonably ask for some special financial assistance. It is not difficult to suggest remedies on these lines. On the Local Government Bill many of us were asking that the Government should take over the lunatic asylums in Ireland, manage them itself, and provide for them from the Consolidated Fund. We contend that, under such a system, besides the financial relief to Ireland, the asylums would foe administered more economically, more purely, more efficiently than they are likely to be under the new county councils. Then there is the great and pressing question of technical and agricultural education, which is one of the most really important in Ireland. If the country is not to sink lower and lower in the economical scale, if it is to support the ever-increasing competition of foreign countries, something must be done in these fields, and done speedi.yl I wish the Vice-President of the Council of Education would make a speech about Irish education—Irish technical education—which is strangled for want of a proper college of science, and of proper preparation in the primary schools; Irish agricultural education, which hardly exists, and leaves our agriculture about as bad as any in Europe; Irish primary education which has been carried on since 1834 at great expense and with infinite deference to the rival theologians, and with the beautiful result that at the last election nearly one out of every five electors professed to be unable even to read the names upon the ballot paper. I do not wish to connect the question of primary education with our present subject, though in one sense it? is closely connected with it, as the education grant given with this brilliant result is, I believe, the chief real offset to our claim; but we may surely ask that the Government will take up the question of agricultural and technical education, and I do not think we are unreasonable in asking that they should not fall back upon that wretched Church Fund, but should provide a moderate endowment out of the Consolidated Fund. A country which is annually paying off more than seven millions of its national debt, and which in a single year can afford to spend two and a half millions on the public buildings of its metropolis, ought surely not to grudge the expenditure. Then there is the great question whether something cannot be done to permanently prevent the constantly-recurring partial famines that take place in the margin of rock and morass that fringes our western coasts. Every few years an excessive rainfall produces a partial or total failure of the potato crop, and on every such occasion the cry of famine is raised, and demands are made upon the public purse. Doles in relief of famine, public works established for the purpose of temporary relief, are sometimes necessary, but they always produce evils, and often evils the magnitude of which it is difficult to measure. Any Measure that would put an end to these recurring famines, either by enabling these poor people to live where they are, or by inducing or enabling them to remove to other fields, would grove abundantly remunerative. No Irish money is now better spent that the £40,000 a year expended on the Congested Districts Board in Ireland. No Irish Measure of recent years has done more real good than that opening out of the poorer districts by light railways. The Report of the Recess Committee and the admirable work of my right honourable Friend the Member for South Dublin [Mr. Plunkett] have shown all who care to study the subject how much might be done by very moderate State assistance in developing Irish industries, and thus gradually raising the taxable capacity of the country. This is not the occasion for dilating at length on such subjects, but I believe that it is in these directions that the financial question may be best met. We have far too much of la haute politique in Ireland, and it has usually done far more harm than good. If the Government put economical and industrial development in the forefront of their Irish policy; if they would resolutely refuse to permit any great contentious Measure to take precedence of it, they would, I believe, be taking the course which would be most beneficial to the country. I do not look forward to any very heroic Measures, to any colossal expenditure; but some expenditure will have to be incurred, and in the face of the facts disclosed in the Report of the Financial Commission I think we have a real reason to expect it.

*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. H. BEACH,) Bristol, W.

Sir, this Motion has been proposed in a speech, if the honourable Member for Waterford will permit me to say so, which will redound to his reputation for eloquence in this House, and it has been seconded by my right honourable Friend the Member for Dublin University in a speech full of his invariable ability, but containing on one side a good many arguments in answer to the views of the honourable Member who moved the Motion, and on the other valuable suggestions in regard to the condition of Ireland which I am quite sure will have the consideration of Parliament, and of Her Majesty's Government. It is difficult for us, I am bound to say, to agree on this matter on any single proposition, but there is one proposition with which I suppose we can all agree, namely, that Ireland is relatively a poorer country than England or Scotland. But when we come to the reason for the position of Ireland in this respect we find the seconder of this Motion at variance with the mover of it, because my right honourable Friend stated his belief that Ireland was advancing in prosperity, while the honourable Member for Waterford told us that her power to bear taxation was steadily and, I think, rapidly diminishing; and when the honourable Member for Waterford, in a passage which was somewhat open to the charge of extravagance, told the House that the poverty of Ireland was due to English rule, and that under English rule her population had decreased by one half, her industries had almost disappeared, and there had been three rebellions and a dozen famines in a certain period of years, I will refer the honourable Gentleman to what the right honourable Gentleman who seconded this proposal said in regard to Scotland. He spoke of the prosperity and increasing wealth of Scotland, and he gave some very good, reasons for the change. Why do not these reasons equally apply to Ireland? Scotland has never had in this House as large a proportion of representation in comparison to her wealth and population as Ireland, and if we Englishmen are to be told that any evils in the condition of Ireland are due to us and not to Irishmen, we may fairly ask in return —why is it that Scotland has prospered, and Ireland has not? Both the mover and the seconder of the Motion have based their proposal upon the opinion expressed by eleven Members of the late Royal Commission, that while the actual tax revenue of Ireland is about one-eleventh of the tax revenue of Great Britain, her taxable capacity is not more than one-twentieth. The Commissioners who signed the Report drew no conclusions from it, and made no recommendations upon it; but the conclusion that honourable Members from Ireland draw from it is this—that Ireland has a grievance which urgently demands a remedy, and although I do not know that the actual sum has been stated this evening, it has been stated that Great Britain should relieve Ireland to the extent of two and three quarter, millions of her taxation, a sum which I think has recently been advanced to four millions. Well, Sir, that is the demand which is put forward by the honourable Member for Waterford on the part of United Ireland. I do not wish to treat the Report of the eleven Commissioners as a matter of insignificance. I have never done so, and I do not wish to do so to-night; but I feel, especially when I look back to the change which has taken place since the Report was made, and find that the actual tax revenue of Ireland is not in the proportion of one-eleventh, but of one-fourteenth of the actual tax revenue of the United Kingdom—I feel that far greater significance has been, and is being, attached in Ireland to the Report of these Commissioners than some of them, at any rate, would attach to it themselves. The Commissioners themselves admit that the opinion I have quoted dealt with but a small part of the inquiry entrusted to them, and I confess I cannot see how anyone can fairly contend that that finding alone can be held to be a fair guide to any practical action in the absence of any reply to the other questions which were put to the Commissioners in the order of reference drawn up for the inquiry. In all discussions on this question in Ireland and in this House those other questions almost appear to have slipped out of recollection. Now, what was the full order of refence to this Commission? They were not only asked to report on the relative taxable capacity of Great Britain and Ireland, but also what were the charges for Irish purposes on the Imperial Exchequer before and after the legislative union, what amount of Irish taxation is there available after these charges are met for contribution to Imperial expenditure, and finally, what is the Imperial expenditure to which it is considered equitable that Ireland should contribute? They returned no answer as a body to any of those questions. Some of them, indeed, reported that in their opinion these questions were entirely irrelevant to the first question addressed to them, and that is the position taken up to some extent by the honourable Member for Waterford tonight. But I am quite sure of this, that Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues in the late Government, when they framed the order of reference to the Commission, did not consider these other questions irrelevant, but rather deemed them an essential part of the inquiry. It seems to me, indeed, that they were the most essential part of that inquiry. Because what was the reason for it? The reason for the inquiry was this—that it was necessary, in order to carry out the policy of Home Rule, that a financial basis should be ascertained for the provisions of a Home Rule Bill, and especially that it should be discovered what under a system of Home Rule would be the fair contribution of Ireland towards the common expenditure of the United Kingdom. That was the proposition, and I do not think any right honourable Gentleman opposite will contradict me, that this Royal Commission was appointed to solve, with the full consent of the representatives of Ireland of that day, and it was necessary, of course, for any Government or any party that had adopted the policy of Home Rule. But for myself, at any rate, I must venture to say that I do not think a satisfactory solution of this question can be reached on such a basis. We are not Home Rulers. We are opposed to Home Rule. We do not desire to discover any financial basis for a Home Rule Bill. We are not obliged, as the late Government was obliged, and as the Royal Commission was obliged, to deal with this matter on the principle of separate entities, as it has been called. We deal with this matter as an essential part of the political union between Great Britain and Ireland on that basis of common taxation and common expenditure which has been the rule of this country for 80 years past. Why, Sir, anything approaching to a system under which the revenue to be raised in Great Britain and Ireland is considered according to the taxable capacity of the two countries, or according to a specific proposition, relates either to the political relations which came to an end at the time of the Union, or to a Utopian and visionary future which may come some day under a new Home Rule Bill. Even the fiscal relations which existed between the two kingdoms from the Union to 1817 were a relic of separation which was abolished by the unanimous consent of the Irish representatives in 1817, when the present system was substituted for it. What is that system? As the honourable Member for Greenock said in his Report as a Royal Commissioner, it is not a system of taxation of areas, but of taxation of individuals. It is a taxation of individuals, quite irrespective of where they reside, whether in England, in Scotland, or in Ireland. If I may venture to express my opinion, the adoption of that system of common taxation by equal taxes upon the same articles throughout the United Kingdom, was the declared intention of the framers of the Union, and would have been adopted years before it was but for the difficulty of the debts of the two countries. So far as I know—and I listened very carefully to the speech of the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Dublin University—no one now really believes it possible to abolish that system of common taxation, except, possibly, the honourable Member for Islington. I do not think any other honourable Member, whether from Great Britain or Ireland, has conceived it possible to revert to the system of separate exchequers and separate taxes for the two countries. I do not intend to carry the argument to the length to which the right honourable Member for Dublin University objected. I do not think I have ever gone so far as to say it is impossible to differentiate taxation in any way between Great Britain and Ireland. It has been differentiated, of course, under the system of common taxation; but where you cannot differentiate is in the matter of indirect taxation. You must have a common customs and a common excise; and any alteration in that system would be infinitely injurious to the whole of the United Kingdom. Then, if that is admitted, I contend that the system is absolutely fair as between individuals, in whatever part of the United Kingdom they may reside. The honourable Member for Waterford controverted that assertion. He seemed to imagine, indeed, that it had been given up. But how did he attempt to controvert it? Directly he began his argument he left individuals and went to aggregates, and that is where the fallacy of that argument rests. He took the average taxation borne by an Englishman, or Scotchman, or Irishman. Why, that is not a question of individuals at all. The individual poor man or the individual rich man, whether he lives in England, in Scotland, or Ireland, is liable now to the same taxation, and no one can prove that there is any unfairness to individuals. I have received in the course of the last few weeks a good deal of literature bearing upon this subject, giving accounts of some of the meetings in Ireland to which the right honourable Member for Dublin University referred. I remember one of the meetings that was held in a little town in the west of Ireland. I think the special matter that commended itself to those who held that meeting was the remarkable fact that the parish priest and the Protestant landlord took part together in this united Irish movement. That, no doubt, may be a very agreeable fact to everybody but the unfortunate Saxon Minister who has to guard the treasury. But when they came to argue the question, the parish priest said he had not given attention to the matter at all, because he had never paid any taxes in his life. I do not think there was much individual grievance there. The Protestant landlord went on to urge a most remarkable grievance. He compared a man in West Meath with £500 a year, with a man in Wiltshire with £500 a year, and he said the former, because he lived in his own poor country, gets separate treatment, though he is entitled to the same treatment; and if he got it he would have more to spend in his own country. He did not quite explain, that enigmatical statement—I should suspect he was addressing an audience of tenants. What he meant, I imagine, was that the Irish Land Acts had deprived him, for the benefit of his tenants, of what he might have remained entitled to if he had been an English landlord. But I do not think anyone will venture to argue that because of Irish land legislation Irish landlords are entitled to compensation at the hands of the taxpayers of Great Britain. In the observations I have made upon this subject I am not contending that our common system of taxation is necessarily perfect either as between individuals or between the classes which are composed of individuals; but I do contend it is fair as between the different aggregations of individuals who live in the different countries of the United Kingdom. Take, in the first place, the argument as to free trade, which, I believe, was referred to by the right honourable Member for Dublin University. Mr. Childers, I think, in his draft Report, expressed the opinion, which I daresay is shared by a great many people, that free trade has been far more beneficial to the mercantile and manufacturing classes than it has been to the landlords and tenants of agricultural land in the country. Yes; but that is true—if it be true at all—of the landlords and tenants in England and Scotland, just as much as of the landlords and tenants in Ireland; and, on the other hand, if free trade has benefited, as undoubtedly it has, the commercial and manufacturing classes, it has benefited them equally in Belfast and Birmingham. Take, again, the great question of the proportions of direct and indirect taxation. I think the right honourable Member for West Monmouthshire, and other honourable Members on that side of the House, have often expressed the opinion that the change in the proportions of direct and indirect taxation should move more rapidly in the direction of lightening the burden of indirect taxation, and, perhaps, increasing that of direct taxation. Very well; but that, again, is not a matter of countries, Taut of individuals or classes, which obviously can be perfectly dealt with if Parliament thinks fit to deal with it, under our system of common taxation. I think the honourable Member for Waterford was a little ungrateful to me in this matter. What is the indirect tax which, not being a tax on alcohol, presses most heavily on the poor, of whom, no doubt, there is a larger proportion in Ireland than in England? I can quote on this subject testimony which I do not think honourable Members on the other side of the House will object to. I remember the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Montrose, speaking on this matter last year, quoting some cases of the budget of expenditure of a poor family, and he said that in one household, which he instanced, £5 17s. was spent in the course of the year on tea, of which £1 15s. went in taxation; and £2 7s. 8d. was spent in tobacco, of which £2 went in taxes. Then the Honourable Member for East Mayo, in speaking on the same subject last year, expressed his opinion that the tobacco tax was one of the main incidents by which a financial grievance was inflicted on Ireland. He said Ireland paid one eighth, or two or three times more than her fair proportion. To the extent of the means at my disposal, I have this year reduced the tobacco duty, and the result of that on the poorest country will, I think, be this—that, whereas Ireland only pays now something like seven per cent, of the total tax revenue of the United Kingdom, she will receive a benefit of 11 per cent, out of the reduction of the tobacco duty which Parliament has now agreed to. I do not put that forward as any great matter, but I do put it forward as showing that I have considered this subject from the point of view from which honourable Members opposite themselves regard it, and that, in dealing with taxation when I had the opportunity, I have dealt with it to the advantage of Ireland. But, so far as I know, the sole argument which can be put forward as against the equity of our common system of taxation is the argument drawn from the provision in the Act of Union, and in the legislation of 1817, with regard to the allowance of particular exemptions or abatements to Ireland if circumstances should require it. That was one of the matters which we desired to refer to a new Royal Commission. I have always felt that the interpretation of those words is most difficult at the present day, and that feeling is obviously shared by the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Dublin University. Lord Castlereagh explained them to mean that abatements might be given in some of the many cases where a high duty was unproductive, or pressed heavily on the poor. That was when there were duties both in England and Ireland on almost every article of consumption—many of them very high duties. But now our high duties are few. The duties upon alcohol and tobacco are the only high duties, and, further, they are not unproductive. The returns show that year by year their produce increases, and as it increases considerably more rapidly than the increase of population, I think it is clear that they cannot be really oppressive upon the people. The right honourable Member for Dublin University admitted that, whatever may be the importance of this provision with regard to exemptions and abatements, or its applicability to the circumstances of the present day, bearing in mind the nature of our present system of taxation, this, at any rate, was clear, that it was not possible to extend it to any very great amount; and, in fact, it seems to me that this Motion does not so much ask for exemptions or abatements as a change which would graft what I may venture to call Home Rule finance upon a political union, I believe that would be found to be impracticable; at any rate, it is a task I should certainly decline to attempt; but of this I am convinced, that if anyone does attempt it, it will not be attempted by halves. The honourable Member spent some portion of his argument in an attempt to show that the Act of Union intended that there should be common expenditure, but separate taxation. If you are to revert, as the honourable Member suggests, to the principle of separate taxation, according to taxable capacity or specific proportion, or whatever it may be, I venture to say you must also revert to the principle of separate expenditure. In other words, you must calculate, as the late Government desired their Commission to calculate, how much expenditure is devoted to local purposes in each of the three kingdoms, and how much remains for the common expenditure of the United Kingdom. If you are to deal with the subject on that basis, which I do not desire, then this follows, that the same measure of taxable capacity, whatever it may be, that is adopted as the proper taxable capacity of Ireland must also be the measure of her contribution to the common expenditure in the United Kingdom; that would be in the proportion of one to Ireland and 20 to Great Britain, according to the Report of the Commission. In the last year which they included in their Report—in the year 1893–4—the contribution of Ireland to the Imperial expenditure was only one thirty-first part. The true revenue of Ireland, according to the calculations which are presented year by year by the Treasury, was in the year 1895–6 £8,034,000, the total Imperial expenditure £69,528,000, and the contribution of Ireland to that expenditure £2,096,000. In the next year, 1896–7, the Imperial expenditure was £70,268,000, of which Ireland contributed £2,176,000, and in the year 1897–8 the total expenditure was £71,506,000, of which Ireland contributed £1,980,000, or one-thirty-sixth part of the whole. Now, Sir, those figures show a continuing diminution of the contribution of Ireland to the common expenditure, and I want the House to consider for a few minutes to what cause that is due. They will see from what I have now stated, and from what I have stated before, that the Imperial—that is, the common—expenditure of the United Kingdom,, called Imperial expenditure, has through those years been largely increasing. How has that increase been provided for? It has been provided for far more largely by direct taxation than by indirect taxation. The total increase of the tax revenue of the United Kingdom for the four years 1893–4 to 1897–8 was a little over £15,000,000. In 1893–4 the total tax revenue of Ireland was 8 per cent, of the total tax revenue of the United Kingdom. In 1897–8 the total tax revenue of Ireland was 7.3 per cent, only of the total tax revenue of the United Kingdom. Of that £15,000,000 of increased revenue from taxation, £5,261,000 wore due to the increase in indirect taxation and £9,801,000 to the-increase in direct taxation. Ireland contributed 4.4 per cent, of the increase in indirect taxation, and only 2.7 per cent. of the much greater increase in direct taxation, or 3.3 per cent, of the whole. I think that shows that the trend of our fiscal policy during those four years has been to relieve the payers of indirect taxation, and therefore to relieve Ireland, which pays, as honourable Members well know, a considerably larger percentage of the indirect taxation of the United Kingdom than she does of the direct taxation. But, Sir, that is not all. In the discussions on this matter I think the only practical suggestion that has been made by the Irish Members generally for remedying what they consider an injustice has been that which was repeated with considerable detail by the right honourable Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin to-night—namely, that further grants should be given, from the Imperial Exchequer for local objects in Ireland, or by way of relief to local taxation in Ireland. I think that even the honourable Member for Waterford rather accepted that suggestion, although it is directly in contradiction of his argument, that whatever you might give by way of relief in that way to Ireland was not worthy of consideration in dealing with the burden of taxation which she bears. At any rate, that is the view that has been put forth by the right honourable Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin, by the O'Conor Don, who has devoted great attention to this question, by the right honourable Gentleman the Member for South Dublin, and by many others who have discussed this matter in Ireland. Now that is a view which has been supported in Debates in this House last year in quite a contrary spirit to that of the honourable Member for Waterford. When the honourable Member for the City of Derry pressed upon Parliament last year his desire that a grant should be made towards agricultural rates in Ireland, precisely as it had been in England, what was his argument? Why, Sir, he stated in so many words that a grant in aid of the rates from the Exchequer was equivalent to a reduction of taxation, and he proceeded to say that if Ireland received equal treatment in this matter, though it would not be in the literal sense an exemption or an abatement, yet it might be accepted, pro tanto, as an equivalent for an exemption or abatement; and the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Montrose, in his speech on this subject, actually suggested the establishment of local representative bodies in Ireland to be supplied by the Imperial Exchequer with limited funds, so that if they wasted them they would have to bear the burden of their waste. Well, Sir, that is a policy which Parliament has pursued since 1860. It has pursued it far more largely in Ireland than in Great Britain; a far greater share of the cost of local services in Ireland is borne by the Exchequer than is borne in Great Britain, and the result has been that Irish ratepayers have been far more relieved of the increasing cost of all those local services than ratepayers in Great Britain. I remember quoting last year to the House these figures, which were perfectly true at that date. I stated that of every pound spent on local services in Great Britain the rates bore 10s. 6d. and the Exchequer bore 9s. 6d. but that of every pound spent on local services in Ireland the Exchequer bore 13s. 6d. and the rates only 6s. 6d. Well, Sir, we have acted this year still further on that policy by proposing to Parliament to grant under the Irish Local Government Bill £615,000 in all, more* than had been previously granted in aid of local services in Ireland. The honourable Member for Waterford objects to take this into consideration at all. He says that it is perfectly fair that agricultural ratepayers should have the same relief in Ireland as they had in England, and therefore he would not consider this as any set-off in the matter. But, Sir, as a matter of fact there will be, next year, when the full grant comes into force, an addition of £615,000 to the? existing grants from the Exchequer to local services in Ireland beyond anything which has been hitherto given, and? therefore if we are dealing with this, matter, as I am now dealing with it, on the honourable Member's basis of separate taxation and separate expenditure, I am just as much entitled to consider it as a set-off as any grant that existed before. Now, supposing the total tax revenue of the United Kingdom is the same next year as it is this year, and that the expenditure on Imperial services is the same next year as it is this year—both will probably, be rather larger, but I will take the same figures for the sake of argument—the actual tax revenue of Ireland will then be £8,115,000; of that £6,750,000 will be spent on local services, and only £1,365,000, or one-fifty-second part left for the common expenditure of the United Kingdom. And if, as the right honourable Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin suggested, it would be unfair to debit Ireland, as a local service, with the whole cost of the constabulary—if I take off half the cost and put it on the side of Imperial services, even then Ireland will only be contributing, under the conditions I have stated, one thirty-fifth part, instead of one-twentieth, of the, common expenditure of the United Kingdom. Sir, that does appear to me to be something to be taken account of by way of exemption or abatement. Sir, I think that those who, like the right honourable Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin, have suggested in this matter, as a remedy, further grants to Ireland for local objects, or in aid of local service, must admit that, under the legislation of this Session, Ireland will in future be in a better position than she has been in the past. We, at any rate, felt it to be a matter of such importance that as soon as we had decided upon proposing this policy to the House it appeared to us so to alter the conditions of the question that we decided to postpone any further idea of the appointment of a Royal Commission until that policy has been accepted by Parliament. Now, Sir, I am quite aware that some gentleman opposite may say, in reply to what I have just stated to the House, "Look at the cost of your Unionist policy!" They may say, as I think the honourable Member for Waterford said, that the imposition upon Ireland of foreign laws, of a system of local government and expenditure, which may suit a rich country like England, but is far too expensive for a poor country like Ireland, Is our fault, and that it is due to us that the contribution from Ireland to the common expenditure of the United Kingdom is as small as I have just stated to the House. I should be much more impressed by that argument if I could believe that under any system of Home Rule representatives of Ireland would consent to any contribution from Ireland to the common expenditure of the United Kingdom at all. That duty was repudiated last year altogether. It was repudiated by Mr. Sexton in his Report, by the honourable Member for Longford in his speech, and was practically repudiated by the honourable Member for Waterford to-night.

*MR. J. REDMOND

No.

*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

Oh, yes; when he told us that the Navy was of no benefit to Ireland.

*MR. J. REDMOND

I quoted Mr. Childers' words, that the benefit to Ireland was infinitesimally small as compared with the benefit to Great Britain.

*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

Anyone who looks at Mr. Sexton's Report will see that the argument elaborately stated and pressed to its logical conclusion amounts to this, that Ireland should not contribute anything to the common expenditure of the United Kingdom. For my own part, I believe it is better for Ireland, and better for Great Britain, that, under our present system of political union, Ireland should even contribute as little as one-fifty-second part of the common expenditure of the United Kingdom than that, under a system of Home Rule, she should undertake what I am convinced she would never be able to fulfil—a contribution of one-twentieth towards that common expenditure. Sir, of course, honourable Members below the Gangway opposite may tell me, as I was told last year, that all the calculations I have quoted, bearing on this subject, are based on erroneous figures. In fact, the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Dublin University demurred to the inclusion of certain items on the local side of the account, and suggested that they ought to be transferred to the Imperial side, and he has said, what I confess I was rather surprised to hear from him, that he felt himself that this matter, and other matters connected with this question, ought to be investigated, and could only be settled by a Royal Commission. What does the mover of this Resolution say to that? The honourable Gentleman told us last year that our proposal of a Royal Commission to investigate these matters was a dishonest evasion of the question, and this evening I find that he does not desire the appointment of any Royal Commission at all. I suggested the appointment of a Royal Commission, because in my belief this dispute would not be settled by Treasury experts and Treasury figures alone. I remember the honourable and learned Member for Plymouth, in his address to the House on this subject last year, told us that the first head of our proposed reference was not a matter of controversy, and that it wanted no Commission to settle the second. Well, it is a matter of controversy. Honourable Members opposite do not accept the division of expenditure which was, I think, originally framed when the late Liberal Government was in office, and which, year by year, is presented to the House.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Louth, N.)

It was Goschen who did it.

*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

At any rate, it was done before my time. That was why we suggested that an impartial inquiry should be held into this matter, which might settle the question in a way which would commend itself to all reasonable persons on both sides, and might be accepted in a manner in which Treasury returns are not, I am afraid, likely to be accepted by honourable Members from Ireland. What happened? When we invited the co-operation of right honourable Gentlemen on the Front Opposition Bench, and honourable Members behind them, and honourable Members from Ireland, in this matter, we were met with a practically unanimous refusal.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,) Manchester, E.

Hear, hear!

*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

The Party led by the honourable Member for East Mayo actually held a meeting, and formally decided that none of their Members should serve on that Commission. Right, honourable Gentlemen on the Front Opposition Bench, and honourable Gentlemen behind them, also refused to serve on the Commission. I make no complaint of their conduct. It was perfectly open to them to do so. I think the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Montrose said he did not object so much to our inquiry, but he thought the subject should be referred to the Commission which had previously reported. That seemed to us to be an impossible proposition. Two of the Members of the Commission were dead—the chairman and another—and the Commission had declined, and had shown their inability to report on those matters which had been referred to them, and which we thought should be the subject of a fresh inquiry.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY

Hear, hear!

*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

In that position what were we to do? What was the use of appointing a Commission which every Member on the other side of the House would have denounced as a packed one, and to the conclusions of which they would have attached no importance at all? If the mood of honourable Members on this matter has changed, we are perfectly willing to reconsider this matter and act upon the policy which we suggested last year.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY

Hear, hear!

*MR. LECKY

What we objected to were the terms of reference.

*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

I do not understand the position of the right honourable Gentleman. So far as I could follow his speech, he admitted that the precise points which we had included in the terms of reference should form the subject of a fresh inquiry, and, therefore, I cannot understand why he should object to the terms of reference. But, for the present, at any rate, I find myself in this position. Honourable Members opposite do not desire the appointment of this Commission. They have denounced it as a dishonest evasion of the question. Therefore, I take my stand upon figures and calculations that are year by year presented to Parliament, and, taking these figures and calculations as my basis, I say that there is no case for the Motion of the honourable Member for Waterford. There is less than the shadow of a case, which may have existed when the Royal Commission reported, because, since then, in the manner which I have stated to the House, both in regard to taxation and in regard to expenditure, we have made a considerable difference in the position of Ireland.

I may refer to two other points, although they are minor points, because The O'Conor Don has himself referred to them. In speaking on this subject last year, I made mention of what I have always felt to be the excessive expenditure in Ireland on judicial establishments. Well, some of that expenditure has since been reduced, and Parliament has enacted that the saving should be devoted to Irish purposes. Complaint was made by The O'Conor Don and his colleagues, including the honourable Member for Waterford, of the high rate of interest charged for Government loans, and the continuance of what was known as the restitution annuity, by which borrowers of new loans had in fact to pay something for the deficiency of old borrowers. Both these matters were dealt with by an Act passed last Session; and more to the advantage of Ireland than to the advantage of Great Britain, because there is more desire and more necesstiy to take up loans for purposes of that kind from the Government in Ireland than there is in Great Britain. I do not say that these matters are of great importance, but they were considered matters of sufficient importance by the honourable Member for Waterford to be dealt with in the Report which he and others signed. In my belief, Sir, if another opportunity occurs, we should be perfectly willing to deal with taxation in the same spirit in which we dealt with it this year. In my belief —and I have never said anything to the contrary—there may be great reasons why further grants should be given to Ireland from the Imperial Exchequer for purposes for which aid is not required in England, or, at least, to an extent as great as it is required in Ireland; and I am sure my honourable. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland will not be backward in urging any proposals which he may think necessary for that purpose. But my contention on the whole is that, under our present system of common taxation and common expenditure, all that is necessary in this matter, all that justice requires should be done for Ireland, can be done more equitably to the people at large, and even more generously to Ireland, than under any system which can be substituted for it, so long as the political union con- tinues. If there is any practical meaning in the Motion of the honourable Member for Waterford, it must be, so far as I can see, the substitution of a system of separate taxation, for the system of common taxation which now prevails. Therefore I trust the House will decline to accept that Motion, as I believe any such change would be a vital blow at what appears to me to be essential to the prosperity and union of the three kingdoms.

*MR. BLAKE (Longford, S.)

It is practically clear from the statement which the right honourable Gentleman has now made, that there is, according to his view, no reason for further inquiry, although he gives two different and hardly consistent reasons for not proceeding. Now, what was the position of the Government last Session? It was that further inquiry was necessary in order that a just conclusion might be reached in the matter. Then, Sir, there was an admission on the part of the Government that there was a primâ facie case, a case which required further investigation in order that a conclusion might be reached. But the case, as now presented by the light honourable Gentleman, is that all the materials art before Parliament, and that no further inquiry is needed. What was the attitude of the Government, as described in the other Chamber last year by Lord Lansdowne? He gave his views, speaking for the Government, and he indicated opinions quite divergent from those which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has given to-night. He declared that it would be impossible without further inquiry to deal with so grave a question affecting not only the finances of Ireland, but the interests of the taxpayers of the whole of the United Kingdom. What did Lord Lansdowne say was the position of the Government upon this subject? He said— Further inquiry is necessary, and we shall endeavour to make it as complete as possible. That, Sir, was the attitude of the Government as stated to Parliament and to the country three weeks before the Debate here. What was the attitude of the Government as stated by the First Lord of the Treasury during the Debate on the Address? The right honourable Gentleman said the Commission was guilty of sins of omission, that there are large tracts which they were bound to investigate, and which they had refused to investigate, and that in these circumstances the Government should take measures for carrying out these further investigations. The right honourable Gentleman has stated in the House to-night why he did not proceed with that inquiry. First of all, he said the appointment of the Commission had been postponed until Parliament had decided upon the policy of giving the agricultural grant to Ireland. But a little later the right honourable Gentleman said that the cause of the non-appointment of the Commission was the declinatures of honourable and right honourable Gentlemen on this side of the House to agree to take part in the labours of that Commission. Which is it? Is the postponement of the Commission dependent, upon the conclusion of Parliament upon the question of extending the agricultural giant in aid to Ireland; or is it dependent upon the question whether honourable and right honourable Gentlemen on this side of the House agree to take part in the inquiry? Is it upon both or either? Sir, it is upon neither. It is because the right honourable Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury has decided that the time has arrived at which he may take his stand upon the proposition which we understood from the beginning underlay the terms of the reference to that Commission. The right honourable Gentleman has decided to dispense with the thin veil of evasion which the terms of that reference allowed, and to take his stand upon that construction, which presents us from accepting any proposition at all for the appointment of a Commission. The right honourable Gentleman has argued the question not upon the lines suggested last Session, for now we are told that, upon the whole, we can do very well without any further inquiry—that those tracts of investigation, which the last Commission had left unexplored, need not be investigated at all, and that further inquiry is unnecessary. The right honourable Gentleman the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer has said—and it is the case—that the mover and seconder of this Motion differ in some of their opinions upon this subject. Sir, we are discussing this question, not in any ordinary sense as a Party question. It is a question which is being discussed by men who think very differently, but who are united upon this great question of policy; and to such men greater latitude of variation upon questions of detail may be permitted than seems to be permitted to the members of a political organisation ordinarily supposed to be closely united and bound together. And for the right honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer—a prominent Member of the Government, other prominent Members of which do not know beforehand what opinions are going to be expressed by their colleagues upon great and stirring questions, and who do not know even after they have been expressed, what they are, but remain in solemn ignorance of the attitude and position of their colleagues—for a right honourable Gentleman who occupies that position with reference to the solidarity of an administration, to complain because, in some respects, there is not entire agreement on all points of detail between those who are acting together on this matter does seem a little farfetched. The right honourable Gentleman declared that he did not treat the Report as conclusive, and he pointed to the fact that, as has occurred, and as will occur more frequently year after year under the new system of taxation, it is utterly impossible to calculate with accuracy what the result will be in any given year, the death of a millionaire or two making a difference of scores of thousands in the Estimates of the year. But nothing has occurred in the interval since the Commission reported to weaken in the slightest degree the general propositions upon which the Report rests. We all know the circumstances under which the Commission was appointed. Its work in respect of those matters which deal with the present condition of affairs is none the less valuable because at the time it was appointed, and for the purposes for which it was appointed, it was necessary to ask it to do something more—a necessity, which, however, had disappeared at the period of the issue of the Report. It is true, as the right honourable Gentleman has said, that it was necessary for one of the purposes for which the Commission was appointed to ask it to consider what should be the contribution of Ireland towards the expenditure of the United Kingdom under a Home Rule system. Why was that necessary? Because a Home Rule system was in contemplation. But when the Commission came to report, a Unionist Government with a majority of 150 was in office, and they found, or at least a great majority of them found, that it was not necessary, nor even proper or relevant, to enter into this matter of the contribution of Ireland under a Home Rule system, and for that reason they did not enter into that question, which had its origin in a state of things which, for the time being, no longer existed. It is unhappily quite true that when the Commission reported the Home Rule policy had been rejected by the electorate of the United Kingdom, and a Unionist Government was in power. What we are now considering is whether there is to be any distinction between those items of expenditure which this Parliament provides out of the United Kingdom taxation under the existing Union. We contend that the right honourable Gentleman's contention is an entire distortion of the condition of things created by the Union and perpetuated by the Act of 1817. We contend that so far from there being a suggestion that there should be a common system of taxation, without any regard at all to the difference of conditions and of taxable power of the two countries, it was the avowed policy of the authors of the Union to recognise the obvious fact that that would not do; to recognise the fact that Ireland could not pay, and that she should be secure against the possibility of the suggestion that she was to bear taxation at the same rate as this richer country. To that end the original provisions of the Act of Union provided expressly for contribution by the two countries in proportion to their taxable capacity, and it was quite possible that that condition of things might have continued not only for many years, but perpetually. It provided also under certain conditions for the substitution for that system of a system of common taxation. With what object? To what end? In order to produce that injustice to Ireland which was attempted to be guarded against by the original provision? Not at all; but on the suggestion that the system of common taxation, guarded by exemptions and abatements, might be so worked as to produce, the same result designed from the beginning, and proposed to be perpetuated for ever, namely, that the poorer country should not be called upon to pay taxation except substantially in proportion to its taxable capacity. That is the essential element of the financial bargain of the Union; that is the essential element which was stated by the English Prime Minister and by the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer when this change took place in 1817. And that was the course pursued. You may talk of common taxation producing fair play, but were these theories suggested as theories to be acted on in 1817 or for many years after 1817? Was it out of pure generosity that in 1817 you still continued to leave Ireland untouched by any tax that you still continued to impose on England? Was it your generosity, or was it a solemn covenant that had been entered into with Ireland? It was quite clear to the taxpayer and the taxpayer of that day that there was no chance whatever, in fairness, and in justice, to apply the principle of common and indiscriminate taxation without reference to the disproportionate capacities of the two countries. Now, Sir, the right, honourable Gentleman says that the system of common and indiscriminate taxation became the basis, as it always was intended to be, of the financial system. And, Sir, with exemptions and abatements, which existed to a larger extent at that time than they do now, and for many years afterwards, and which exist to a very considerable extent to this day. According to the argument of the right honourable Gentleman, the next thing that ought to be done would be to abolish the exemptions and abatements which now exist, and to impose these taxes also on Ireland. It is fortunately quite true that they impose taxation mainly upon the wealthy, and that owing to the poverty of the country a very small amount of money would be brought into the Imperial Exchequer. Now, Sir, the right honourable Gentleman says that there is a great fallacy in going from individuals to averages, and that the poor man and the rich man are liable to just the same taxation. But still there are two divisions in that taxation—the direct and the indirect. The disparity in direct taxation is not large; the great disparity exists between the contributions to the revenue of the country as provided by the tax on commodities. And why? Because direct taxation is based more nearly upon the question of real resources; because there is an effort made to do justice as between the richer and the poorer of those who have realised some wealth; because the principle of graduation has been to some extent applied; because each individual is treated in some sense, and to some extent justly, as between himself and the others. And because, therefore, the aggregate result as between the poorer country and the richer country is that the sum of the direct taxation is, of course, much less per head than the sum of indirect taxation of England, does anybody imagine that Ireland does not bear her full share? The right honourable Gentleman said last year that the system was adopted as between individuals, and not as between countries, because it turned out that the aggregate sum, according to the limits upon which that taxation was based, was somewhat higher than the returns from that taxation. But that is just because this House had determined with the assent of both sides that the aggregate sum did not represent the real taxable capacity in these regards; that the distribution between individuals of that sum was an important element in determining what the real taxable capacity was, and, therefore, the distribution being different in Ireland, there is less taxable capacity in proportion to the aggregate than there is in this more happily-constituted country. But what is the result with reference to indirect taxation, as to which I argue the real grievance exists? It is this—that whereas in the earlier days the indirect taxation of Ireland was much lighter—half what it is now—it has been doubled, while the direct taxation of this country has been halved, and that there is now substantially an equality of payment per head amongst the population of the two countries. I should say that to-day —I have not worked out the figures for the last two years—the sum of indirect taxation is 24s. per head in this country, as against 22s.. per head for Ireland. So that what you have to recognise is that it is in the taxation on the consumption of the masses where, after all, the shoe pinches. The taxation upon wealth is the taxation of those who have got something to live upon—something realised, or some large profits which enable them to pay on an income tax, on death duties, on succession duties, and so forth. Taxation on consumption is in the main the taxation of those who have comparatively little, who are not owners, of realised wealth to any appreciable extent, who, it is agreed, are not proper subjects of direct taxation, and among these are the very poorest of the poor. You consequently produce this result, that the poorer country, and the individuals of the poorer country, are paying a poll tax practically equal to that which the consumers pay in this richer country. There is the disparity, there is the injustice of the present system of indirect and indiscriminate taxation. The right honourable Gentleman says that the individual poor man and the individual rich man are liable to the same taxation, and there is no unfairness and no difficulty save in respect to the Minister who has to guard the Saxon Treasury. Aye, that is the idea. The Saxon Minister who has to guard the Treasury of the United Kingdom? No, but the Minister who is to guard the Saxon Treasury. It is the Saxon Treasury, administered by the Saxon with reference to the Saxon's notions of justice as between him and the Irishman, as to which the difficulties and inconveniences occur when this question arises. Now, the right honourable Gentleman said that the common system was not necessarily perfect as between either individuals or aggregates. I cannot see that a system which is not perfect, but is grossly unfair as between individuals, can become fair as between aggregates. If you do obtain a system which is absolutely fair, or substantially fair, as between all the individuals everywhere, you will get automatically, necessarily, a system which will be best between the aggregates of those individuals; but if you have a system which is grossly unfair, as is the present system of indirect taxation, and apply it to two communities, one of which is very wealthy and the other of which is very poor, it is impossible that it can be fair, and if not fair to the individuals it cannot be fair to the aggregates. Now, Sir, it is not necessary at all to enter into a dispute ns to whether Ireland has absolutely gone forward or backward; whether she is richer, or whether she is poorer than she was; whether she has a greater or less absolute capacity for paying the taxes that she is called upon to pay or not. We may differ on these paints, but whether the irate of progress of Ireland be slow, great, or nil, considered relatively to this country, her condition is confessedly one of retrogression. More and more, year after year, this country becomes stronger relatively to the condition of Ireland, and the result is that while this country is able, without hardly feeling it, to pay its share of common taxation, the Irish share of that common taxation absorbs an enormous and vital proportion of its small surplus. And that condition of things is going on. The right honourable Gentleman said in his Budget speech the other day, that so great had been the prosperity of the country that ad the old law remained the direct revenues for the year of which he was speaking would have been £600,000 more than they were at the period of the finance Act. Well, where does that surplus come from? Is it from Ireland? No. What do we find? We find that the latest returns show a positive diminution of income tax in Ireland instead of any increase at all. Sir, the right honourable Gentleman made a statement of which the great majority of those who listened to him the other day had reason to be proud, when he told us of the increasing wealth and prosperity, of the abundance of work, of the better wages, of the greater spending capacity of the people, and of their greater power of paying taxes. He pointed out the increasing expenditure, and he once more reiterated the commonplace of Ministerial utterances with reference to the Army and the Navy—namely, that their function was to protect and to develop that trade and commerce of which he was boasting. But I was reminded when I heard his speech of something he had said a year before in the Debate on this subject, in reference to the impossibility of the people on the different sides of St. George's Channel understanding one another. For although he gave us that account as the account of the United Kingdom, he did not think it worth while to indicate by a single sentence, or by one phrase, that the island across St. George's Channel had no lot or part in that prosperity, in that increased power, or in those favourable circumstances. And just at the time he was speaking Debates were going on every day with reference to the acute distress existing in that country, and slow and parsimonious arrangements were being made to prevent deaths by famine and starvation. The rate of wages on relief works—from 3s. to 6s. a week, according to the membership of the family—was defended here on the ground that the ordinary rate of wages in the localities was not much higher. That was the condition existing in Ireland when the right honourable Gentleman spoke, as a Saxon Minister of a Saxon country, of the prosperity of this United Kingdom. But, Sir, all this shows how impossible it is, as the right honourable Gentleman said last year, for us to understand one another. And it has become to me, upon listening to that speech, still more plain and palpable that we never can understand one another, and that is rather an argument for some change in the state of things by which each island should agree to concern itself in its own local affairs. The right honourable Gentleman spoke of Free Trade. It is impossible, I think, to argue that Free Trade ought to have the same relative advantages for Ireland as it has had for this country. I hold that it is perfectly plain, whether Ireland has profited by Free Trade or no, that the lion's share of the advantage has fallen to Great Britain, and that a very small, if any, share has fallen to Ireland. Then, Sir, the right honourable Gentleman boasted of the reduction of the tobacco duty. We had said for years—and my honourable Friend the Member for Mayo said so last year—that the tobacco tax was one of the taxes that pressed heavily, and I was glad to hear in the right honourable Gentleman's Budget speech this view of the inestimable value of tobacco to the very poor. In the year before he put tea in a much higher place as a necessary, but this year he took the view that tobacco was too heavily taxed. If you could carry that system further, you would so far go on redressing the Irish grievance proportionately. I am speaking, of course, on the assumption that the late reduction of tax will result in a reduction of the price of tobacco; but, even if that result followed, it would be only a flea-bite. The right honourable Gentleman wanted a new Commission, with judges to interpret the meaning of the words of the Act of Union, and they were to be asked to say how Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Pitt, now quite differently occupied, would interpret that Act of Union if they were alive to-day, and had to deal with the circumstances of to-day. Those would be nice questions to put to the judges. We have got to deal with the question not upon such conjectural interpretations, but upon the principles of fairness, equity, justice, and common sense. We have got to deal with it upon the assumption, which the right honourable Gentleman disputed, that the system was, as was the opinion of this Commission, one which demanded and received a security for the weaker country against the injustice which might arise from indiscriminate taxation. You may argue that changed circumstances have rendered it difficult—you may argue that they have rendered it impossible—to apply the specific remedy provided by the Act of Union. But if the Act of Union secures and the Act of 1817 perpetuates our security against an unjust burden of taxation, then no altered circumstances can relieve you from the duty of remedying that grievance; you must not say, because you think you cannot remedy it in the specific mode in which the Act of Union contemplated, that therefore you are not going to do it at all. You may invite us, when we ask you for relief, to concede in the common interest that there has been a change of circumstances such as renders it convenient that the common system should remain, and say that, since you cannot give exemption, or abatements, you offer a quid pro quo. But this suggestion has been made as an excuse for doing nothing at all, and I say that view is a dishonest one. I say it is unworthy of this Government, of this Parliament, of this United Kingdom. Sir, the right honourable Gentleman has suggested that there is nothing really oppressive in the condition. I deny that statement. Considering the poverty of the people—where you have half a million of people living in districts actually congested, where another half million are nearly, if not quite, in the same distressful condition as those in the congested districts—I say that the taxation is too heavy. It is not merely beyond the relative capacity of the people, but it is beyond their absolute capacity as well, consistently with decent livelihood—consistently with their having any sort of chance of such an existence as an Englishman would think worthy to be considered an existence at all. The suggestion of the right honourable Gentleman is, therefore, to be discarded; since, if it be the case that you cannot give us exemption and abatement because your policy forbids it, if you interpose a non possumus attitude to our request, you are then bound to propose some other remedy in this respect—you are bound to propose some other method of dealing with this question. The right honourable Gentleman has gone further. He has suggested that, by virtue of the compact of Union, we entered upon a question of divided expenditure. I hold that it is perfectly plain that, under the Act of Union, as originally framed, it was absolutely clear that, first of all, there should be a proportionate contribution, and, secondly, that there should be indiscriminate expenditure. No one can deny that; it is impossible to deny that under the provisions of the Act of Union there was proportionate contributions and indiscriminate expenditure. What was going to happen? That the covenant was to be entrusted to the honour and good faith and integrity of the richer partner of Ireland, but that covenant was that the taxation should be proportionate, and the expenditure should be indiscriminate. There was no provision for separate accounts. There could have been no provision for separate accounts, excepting to separate the account of the debts in the interests of Ireland. It was impossible there should be. No man can contend that under the original provisions of the Act of Union it is possible that the scheme and theory of the right honourable Gentleman could be applicable, because those original provisions were that the contribution, was to be proportionate, and the expenditure indiscriminate. What is there unjust in that? Who is to decide what the expenditure is to be; who is to decide its amount, its application, its objects? Why, practically, the Saxon—the Minister of the Saxon is to decide these questions, to decide the scale and the objects. These things were to be practically decided by a British Minister in a Parliament in which the Irishmen stood in a particularly small and insignificant minority. Not a single shilling could be spent which the English did not think ought to be spent. Not a single shilling could be applied in a way in which the English did not think it ought to be applied. Our security was that of that total expenditure we should be called upon, in practice, to bear no more than our proportionate capacity suggested. That was the condition. Where has that been altered? It is suggested it was altered by the Act of 1817. It has not been altered. It is true that the principle of separate taxation, and, therefore, of technically proportionate taxation, has been eliminated, but that was not with a view of doing injustice to Ireland. It was eliminated under the idea, and with the intention of making and keeping substantially the contribution of the poorer country proportionate to its practical relative capacity by exemption and abatement clauses; and the provisions as to expenditure remained just the same as before, so that there can be no reason for a suggestion of this kind. It amazes me to hear a suggestion of this kind. How can honourable Gentlemen, who talk of themselves as Unionists, propose that this federal Budget should be set up? How can they propose that we should enter into the account from year to year, and find out how much money has been spent upon local purposes in Ireland, how much money has been spent upon local purposes in England, and how much, money has been spent upon local purposes in Scotland, and how much for what they call common purposes, and then charge Ireland, as a first charge upon her contribution to the revenues, with her local expenditure, and so on with the other countries. How that can be Unionism I fail utterly to comprehend. It is the most direct step towards separation that can possibly be conceived. It involves the principle of fiscal separation practically; it involves the view that, if we are to be charged, as a nation, with, first of all, this whole so-called local charge that you put upon. us, and are to be obliged, after that is done and satisfied, to contribute proportionately to our taxable capacity to Imperial expenditure, you must allow us to fix the scale of our local expenditure and attend to it ourselves. You cannot do it for us, and then proceed to divide up the accounts of the charge in this way. We have not contended, under the Union Act, and under the present system, that there is a division of expenditure. It is said that I contended last year that Ireland should not contribute to the Army and the Navy. I made no such contention; on the contrary, I stated that under the Union Act Ireland had no security whatever against enormous and disproportionate expenditure on the Army and the Navy, and that whatever expenditure this Parliament might fix for the Army or for the Navy we were bound to contribute to it, as a part of the whole expenditure. That, I said, was contributing to the total United Kingdom expenditure in proportion to our taxable capacity. If v you swell that total beyond our means, our hard bargain will make us suffer. But it is you, not we, who raise this question of the relative interests of Ireland and Great Britain in the Army and Navy expenditure when you propose your federal Budgets. According to our view—which, I claim, is the true view, the legal, equitable, common sense view of the Union—no such question is open. We cannot raise it; we may grumble about it, but we cannot help it. We may protest against the enormously increased expenditure; we may believe that we have not a proportionate interest in the Army and Navy, but that is an end to it. To them we are bound to contribute as part of that great system of Imperial expenditure, to the whole of which we must contribute according to our taxable capacity. But if you cut up the expenditure, if you create a federal Budget, if you suggest that one expenditure is Imperial and another is local, and you Hay that we are chargeable, first of all, with all the expenditure in Ireland, them we are bound to suggest to you that, if Ireland is expensive to you, you are expensive to Ireland. We are bound to suggest that, if your system is such that a large sum of money is spent in extravagance, upon the expensive scale of a wealthy people in part, in consequence of the Union Act in part, in consequence of ill-working of the legislative union in part—if, for all these reasons, Ireland is costly to the Imperial Exchequer, on the other hand. Ireland, having regard to the gain she derives from the Army and Navy, whose functions the Prime Minister has described—whose functions the Chancellor of the Exchequer has described as being the implements and elements for the protection of that commerce upon which your prosperity depends, and in which we have but very slight interest or share —has the right to say, then, indeed, we are bound to say we can make but slight contribution, because our interest measures our proper share. Our interests are altogether different from yours, and our contribution ought to be, as it would be, under different circumstances, very much lighter than the proportion of our taxable capacity. Now, these are accounts and calculations which the Union Act never intended should b taken into consideration. These are accounts and calculations entirely outside the scope of the Union Act. These are accounts and calculations which the Unionist Members have put forward in their efforts to introduce some means of evading this difficulty. The whole system is perfectly absurd, because it suggests that, to the whole expenditure of this Parliament, to be met and raised in this United Kingdom, Ireland ought to contribute in substantial proportion to her taxable capacity, and to that whole expenditure she is now contributing in enormous excess of her taxable capacity. She is about the heaviest taxed in proportion to her means, while this country is about the lightest taxed in proportion to her means. Ireland is groaning under the weight, which is but a featherweight to you, and these are the conditions under which we are asking recognition of the facts under the bargain—under the solemn covenant, of which I admit you are, no doubt, the arbiters. You must interpret it for yourselves, you must act upon it for yourselves, you occupy the delicate position of being the judges and deciders in your own case—we are entitled to say to you that, if you do fix the scale of this expenditure, and if you fix it too high for the poor country, although it is not too high for the wealthy one, that poor country is bound to suffer, because what is tolerable to a wealthy country may be absolutely intolerable and may break the back at a poor country. We may protest against it, but we cannot say that you are violating the spirit and principle of the Union Act in raising the expenditure; but we do say that of that sum, enormous and overgrown as it is, we are bound to pay only in proportion to our taxable capacity, and that, when you call upon us not merely to pay a sum in respect of an unduly swollen Budget, but to pay in disproportion to our taxable capacity, you evade and violate the principles of the compact, and you inflict that injustice upon us from which we are now seeking relief. The honourable Gentleman, therefore, was wrong when he said that if we entered into this question of taxation, we must revert to the question of separate expenditure. Under the original Union Act for 17 years there was separate taxation, but there was no separate expenditure, therefore, where does he go to? Before the Union altogether, to the period of separate Parliaments. That is the period to which he must refer. It is all very well to say that, after taking a swollen Budget, and charging it all upon the so-called Irish expenditure, after charging the constabulary, charging the Lord Lieutenant's salary, charging all those numerous other things, which no man seriously, defends in this House—they remain in the Treasury accounts, but they are practically indefensible—you find that there is only a one thirty-second part left, and after the agricultural grant has been taken into consideration, there will only be a one fifty-second part of the federal expenditure left. But we have nothing to do with that. These accounts are indivisible under the Union Act. We have nothing to do with that one thirty-second, or with that one fifty-second part; we have to do with the sums you take from us towards the whole United Kingdom expenditure, as compared with that total, and with their relation to our relative taxable capacity. The right honourable Gentleman suggested that the agricultural grant was a relief. I am not one of those who contend that there is not some consideration to be given to some of the items, which in Ireland are provided out of the Imperial Exchequer, while in England they have been provided for for some time out of local rates. I believe that when you have applied the principles of decentralisation and devolution, and given the people control, and told them they must tax themselves, that is a reasonable way of doing business; but you must consider these circumstances with reference to the different condition of things in Ireland. I do not in the least degree assent to the view that that applies as the right honourable Gentleman proposes it should apply. If you are going to apply it, you must put us in the same position in regard to these matters as the English people are put in. You must decentralise for Ireland as you have decentralised for England. You must give to the Irish people the same measure of control as regards their methods of carrying out these matters as you have given to the English people before you eliminate these, so far as Ireland is concerned, from United Kingdom expenditure. So long as you control the taxes we pay, so long do you make these for Ireland a United Kingdom expenditure. But you have the right to say, "We make for Ireland, or keep for Ireland, certain items as United Kingdom expenditure, which we no longer keep as United Kingdom expenditure for England, and therefore we are entitled to add to the sum of the Imperial Budget for the purposes of calculation the English local contributions which, in Ireland, are supplied by the Imperial Exchequer, and thus to see that Ireland pays her proportion according to taxable capacity of that sum —the Imperial Budget being increased by that amount." But so long as you pursue the policy of refusing to Ireland the same measure of control and determination, with reference to the objects of and the methods to be applied to these local matters, so long as you keep them as United Kingdom matters, under the control of this Parliament, so long as you raise this money here it does not cease to be a United Kingdom expenditure, because you have reversed your policy for England. You reverse your policy for England, and then you tell us this has thus ceased to be a United Kingdom expenditure for Ireland. That I deny. Then the right honourable Gentleman says that the agricultural grant in aid comes into the account. How did the agricultural grant come about? Because the Government alleged that agricultural distress was so great, in England, at any rate, that relief ought to be afforded to the distressed agriculturist, and we contended that whether that policy was wise or foolish it could not be applied to this country without being applied to Ireland, which was still more distressed, and we ultimately prevailed, because it was found impossible to resist that view; and it was determined that we should have the same measure of relief in one sense which had been already given to England—but not in the same way; England gets free gifts—we have to buy our gifts. You give England local government—we buy it. You give England an agricultural grant in one form. With us you hedge it round by conditions, you apply it in a particular way, and you provide that a large proportion of those who are interested in the land shall be free for all time to come from further payment of the rates. Now, I have already shown that the grievance in Ireland is that the consumer and the masses of the community are paying excessive taxation, and you tell them that you are relieving them and redressing their grievance by providing those who are not paying that excessive taxation with a relief from their burdens. That seems to me to be adding insult to injury; it seems to me to be a monstrous thing to say to the poor consumer in the west of Ireland that he is being relieved—that restitution is being made for his excessive taxation, because his landlord gets relief from rates. Is it thus that you are going to deal with taxation, which, for the purposes of argument, you admit is too heavy? Restitution is what is required. You cannot leave the money in this poor man's pocket, because you say you have got to take it out in order to preserve the unity of your fiscal system. Then, I say, put the money back again; but, of course, you cannot give it back to the individual, because, if you could, you need not take it out of his pocket at all. Then, I say, make restoration to the local community which overpays, and make that restoration by handing the money over to some body representing that mass of overtaxed people, and so able to dispose of it for general purposes of public utility, thus making the nearest approach to restoration that is possible. I should like to know whether you seriously argue that restoration is being achieved to those who are over-taxed as consumers by the disposition of the agricultural grant? That grant was given just at a time, and under circumstances, when it was said to be required for the English agriculturist, and it was necessary that that distress should be aided. A Unionist Government says that the great agricultural interest in one part of the United Kingdom is suffering, and we are going to give it a grant in aid. We say that the same agricultural interest in another part of the United Kingdom is suffering a great deal more, and ask "Are you not going to apply to it the same relief?" The answer is, "No; you are not suffering; you are not entitled to it; we shall acknowledge no claim"; and then you make some bargain that we should buy our right to local government by some Special provision connected with the agricultural grant, and thus you are going to pay two debts at once with the same money. Having paid something as the price of the concession of local government, the money has got to serve another purpose, and that purpose is, that it now comes as a relief in respect of over-taxation, which the right honourable Gentleman says does not exist. If it does not exist, you have no claim to apply the agricultural grant to the repayment of over-taxation. But your argument is: we have treated you so generously that this must come into the account. My opinion is that the case of Ireland, reduced to the last analysis, is dependent upon the facts of the case of taxation as applied to the bargain of the Union. These two matters are, for all practical purposes, so clearly made out that it is impossible seriously to argue against them; they produce the result that there is a serious grievance to the country in the fact of its over-taxation, and I think that result demands and necessitates the proposition of a remedy. The right honourable Gentleman has suggested that we should reconsider our view as to the Commission. He has told us that exemptions and abatements are absolutely impossible. He has put his foot down. He has said, there shall be no exemption, nor shall there be any abatement which shall involve an alteration of the system of taxation. If there is to be a remedial Measure, it must be by lowering the proposed condition of taxation, but still making them common duty. All he asks us to consent to is a commission to inquire whether the present circumstances and the character of the present taxation disclose any ground for putting in force the exemptions and abatements. What is the use of that statement? He says, they will not pay these exemptions and abatements under any circumstances, and then he asks us to refer the question, which he has already decided for himself, for his Party, for the House, and for the country. He asks us also to refer the question of divided expenditure, to which we object. There is no reason nor sense in any such reference as that. Our case rests where it was, not upon this question of separate Budgets—not upon this novel and absurd suggestion of a division, and cutting up of the accounts, not upon the policy of exemption or abatement at this day; it rests upon the simple proposition that we are entitled, substantially, in equity, and according to justice, to be taxed in substantial relation to our taxable capacity; that we are enormously over-taxed, and that, therefore, in some way or another, relief should be given for that over-taxation. Upon these propositions we take our stand. We have pressed this question, knowing that we had an interest in it—a serious interest, a material interest—and knowing also that those very much more deeply interested in it were the Irish Members of the Unionist Party and Members of the Unionist Party generally. We can and do associate ourselves with them in this matter, and if this remedy is not given to us, we can and must say that which we have said so often before—that justice is not possible for Ireland in a British Parliament, notwithstanding that we have endeavoured, as far as we can, to assist those who work with us for the promotion of justice in this matter, and for the achievement of that justice, by which they would be enabled to point to the fact that one great exposition of a sense of justice—one great acknowledgment of the truth of the compact had been made by the British Parliament. If we fail we shall have to make a counter-statement, and we shall have to show once again that the endeavour to obtain justice here is hopeless. That is the issue. I acknowledge that the changed tone of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the questions which are left open—as to the condition of affairs, and as to the opinions which he holds upon them—leaves the matter open, but without much hope; still I will not yet abandon all hope that some day or another your eyes may be opened, and that your hearts may be turned to justice.

*MR. PARKER SMITH (Lanark, Partick)

We have listened to some very interesting speeches this evening. There was the very able speech of the honourable Member for Waterford, and there was the valuable speech of the honourable Member for Longford, who has just sat down. But that speech is merely a controversial supplement to the speech which the honourable Member delivered on the same subject last year. The Report of the Royal Commission, on which this controversy is based, seems to me to be, in consequence of the terms of reference, a one-sided report—a report which is out of perspective, and does not take into consideration all that is necessary to have in view, if any practical result is to follow. The limitations of that reference are stated in most forcible terms by Mr. Sexton in his Report. He says— The examination prescribed in the present case limits inquiry to the question of the means possessed by the whole people of Great Britain on the one hand, and the whole people of Ireland on the other. It excludes any question between England and Scotland, or between Ireland and either England or Scotland. It does not admit any question relating merely to parts of Great Britain or of Ireland; to particular classes or interests in either country; or to a comparison between any particular aspects or incidents of taxation in one country or in the other. Each of the countries is constituted an indivisible integer for the purpose of this inquiry. Therefore I say that a Report which is founded on a reference which is carefully end absolutely limited, cannot be considered a final or a, sufficient Report. I want to consider how the question is to be looked at from the particular point of view of Scotland. Can a similar case be made out for other parts of the country? Can a similar case be made out for the poorer parts of England, for the agricultural parts of North Wales, for the agricultural parts of Scotland? The instances submitted by the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Dublin University seemed to me throughout to fit exactly the case of Scotland. The principles that have been appealed to—the words of the Irish Treaty of Union —cover Scotland in terms. What is the clause alluded to? What is the clause upon which all the stress is laid, both in the various Reports of the Commissioners, and now in the speech of the right honourable Gentleman? It is this clause— It shall be competent to the Parliament of the United Kingdom to declare that all future expense thenceforth to be incurred, together with the interest and charges of all joint debts contracted previously to such declaration, shall be defrayed indiscriminately by equal taxes imposed on the same articles in each country, and thenceforth from time to time as circumstances may require to impose and apply such taxes accordingly, subject only to such particular exemptions or abatements in Ireland, and in that part of Great Britain called Scotland, as circumstances may from time to time demand. This is the clause which is so dwelt upon; and it puts Scotland in exactly the same position as Ireland in regard to these exemptions or abatements, that shows what the meaning of these exemptions and abatements was. They were not treaty exemptions and abatements—there were not to be any special duties for Ireland under the Treaty of the Union, but they were general exemptions and abatements from time to time to be supported upon general principles of equity and justice in regard to all the poorer parts of the country—to Scotland exactly as much as to Ireland—to the poorer parts of England or of Wales, as much as to Scotland. A great deal of stress is laid upon the Treaty of Union to-night by people who do not generally attach much importance to that Treaty. I am not inclined to attach very great importance to the Treaty of Union. I never agree with people who quote it and throw it at your head in the same way as other controversialists hurl a text of the Bible at you, as if that argument were final. The Treaty of Union has been modified a great deal in the last century, and may be modified a great deal more from time to time, whenever it is required. It is the fact of union, and not the Treaty of Union, that we Unionists have always supported as a fixed and unalterable necessity. The honourable Member for Longford quoted in his speech last year a passage from Mr. Pitt's speech, which, I think, explains very clearly what is meant by this class of exemption, which is now dwelt upon so literally. Pitt said, and said with perfect truth— What security can you give Ireland for the performance of the conditions? If I were asked what security were necessary, without hesitation I should answer 'None.' The liberality, the justice, the honour of the people of Great Britain have never yet been found deficient. It is to that liberality, that justice, and that honour of the people of Great Britain that the question must be brought, and not to any musty questions of ancient history in regard to the Treaty of Union. Take the case of Scotland. If we are to have an inquiry, we must have a much wider inquiry, and one which will embrace the case of Scotland. Of course, no one will say that there is so much distress in Scotland as exists in many parts of Ireland, but Scotland is undoubtedly a very much poorer country than England. The standard of living is smaller in Scotland than in England, and we have exactly the same increase of taxation in Scotland of which so large a grievance is made to-night with regard to Ireland. The main part of what an ordinary Scotchman pays consists of the duty on whisky, and the duty on whisky has been raised in Scotland in exactly the same manner, by successive steps, corresponding to the way in which the duty on whisky has been raised in Ireland. The average taxation in Scotland is considerably greater than in any other part of the country. Sir David Barbour gives the figures as they were at the time the Report we are all now relying on was drawn up. In England the average amount paid in regard to import dutiable articles—spirits, beer, wine, tea, and tobacco—was 22s. 6d.; in Ireland It was 21s.; and in Scotland 26s. 6d. Therefore, the average Scotchman pays 4s. more than the average Englishman, and the reason he does that is because his drink, like the Irishman's drink, is whisky, and not beer, as it is in England. Now, before you come to any practical conclusion as to how such a matter as this is to be dealt with, you must enter upon that question. Here you have a case which, on the face of it, is even more striking in inequality than the case of Ireland, and you must look into that case, and see what light it throws upon the question as to whether any substantial change is necessary or not. The Irish demand is this, as it has practically been put forward by the honourable Member for Longford—contribution by quota, expenditure as required, without regard for the amount of contribution. Now, that is an absolutely illogical position to take up. It was done, undoubtedly, for a short time, about the time of the Union. It was done then, but under a different set of circumstances. The forms of expenditure that were important then were military expenditure and debt charges—the amount of civil expenditure that was charged upon the revenues of either country was exceedingly small as compared with the other forms of expenditure which we now consider Imperial; it was a very small amount which was then at stake. The honourable Member for Waterford quoted a sentence of Lord Castlereagh's which sounds very generous, but if you look into it it seems to me almost as carefully and as elaborately qualified as if it had been uttered by Mr. Gladstone himself. He said— If expenditure is from time to time fairly divided among the different parts of the country, then it is immaterial to Great Britain where the expenditure takes place. Now, it all depends upon the first proviso—that the expense is to be fairly divided among the different parts of the country. Nowadays, the amount of expenditure for all objects of civil government has increased so enormously that it forms the largest portion of the whole expenditure that takes place. It is absurd to say that the country at large is to find all the money that is required, while Ireland is to limit itself to a particular amount. The system was tried at first —it was dropped in 1817, and has never been brought up again; while the other alternative—the alternative that was stated in the Treaty of Union, which we know was one of the great objects of the Treaty of Union—to arrive at a single Exchequer, to get rid of the diverse taxation, to come to an indiscriminate taxation, was arrived at, and has been maintained since. Therefore the view taken by the honourable Member for Longford appears to me wholly illogical, and, under the circumstances of to-day, impossible. But there are other alternatives. In the first place, that stated by the honourable Member for Waterford—to cast upon Ireland the duty and charge and conduct of her own administration. That, of course, is perfectly reasonable—but that is Home Rule. Subject to the tribute which Ireland was to pay, that is the very view which Mr. Gladstone took in his Home Rule Bill. That is a perfectly reasonable and logical line, but we absolutely decline to take that view for larger reasons than those of finance. There is another alternative. I think it is right and fair to say that Great Britain ought to take charge of the whole expenditure, and to impose a system of taxation that shall be fair, not merely as between England and Ireland, but shall be fair as regards all classes of the community, wherever they happen to be situated, and then, having done that, let expenditure take place indifferently in any part of Great Britain where it hap pens to be needed, according to the requirements. I object very much to the principle of endeavouring to split up all the expenditure into a local and an Imperial division. I dislike the policy of equivalent grants. I think that honourable Members are perfectly right in saying it is a separatist policy, and I must say that the only unfortunate legacy that I consider we owe to the right honourable Gentleman the present First Lord of the Admiralty, who has done such splendid work for our finances all round, is that policy of equivalent grants. So far as possible, I think our expenditure ought to go where expenditure is needed, without regard to historical circumstances. But, if these ancient provincial boundaries are not to be regarded at all for expenditure, then I think it is perfectly certain that they must not be regarded for taxation either. I think the question which is at the bottom of the case which is made by the Report is that our financial system does press unduly upon the poorest parts of the country. The great financial reforms of 40 years ago were undoubtedly of enormous good to the prosperous parts of the country, but not much to the more backward parts. I think that is a striking example of the unconscious effect of our Parliamentary system. Those who benefited belonged to the class who possessed votes—those who had no votes were left out in the cold, and received very little consideration. Free trade, all parties agree, was a vast benefit to England, but was of not much benefit to Ireland, and that was a time when I really think there was a grievance in the way in which British financiers treated Ireland. I have looked into the question, and, as far as I can see, Ireland has had extremely little to complain of, excepting during the years 1850–60. In regard to that period I really do think a very undue and unfair burden was put upon Ireland, but that burden, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has pointed out, is to a great extent reduced, and no doubt the complaint is now of little importance, as compared with that day. The rich man pays his fair share towards the taxation of the country—the income tax and the death duties see to that; but the man below the income tax payer —the man who is above poverty, who has enough, for his wants, but yet has not sufficient upon which to pay income tax —he has almost no burden at all. The whole of his burdens, so far as contribution to the Imperial Exchequer goes, is what he has to pay on his whisky, his beer, his tea, and tobacco, and the weight of that upon him is almost nothing". But when you come down to the very poor you find that the same rates of duty upon these very same articles become a much more serious burden. Of course, you may say that these articles are not necessary, that no one need buy them unless they like; but I think, where you have articles of consumption, toeing consumed by great numbers of people, you must take it that what they consume is what is necessary. You cannot put forward any views as to what they ought to consume, because, when a man's income is so very limited, he will not spend it, excepting upon that which is really necessary and important to himself. I think the burden does come too heavily upon the poorest districts, especially in Ireland and Scotland, where spirits and not beer are used. What is to be done? You cannot reduce the spirit duty in Ireland. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has stated quite absolutely that under no circumstances can we think of returning to separate Customs between England and Ireland, and if you reduce generally you relieve 10 people who do not need relief to one who does. That is a very extravagant way of doing business. Something has been done already with regard to the tobacco duty, but, so far as Ireland is concerned, we cannot relieve it by reducing particular duties. Again, it is quite clear that we cannot give up free trade, but I think that, if you had your second Royal Commission, and looked into the circumstances of the different districts, you would find that those burdens bear very heavily—much too heavily—upon particular districts. The honourable Member for Longford declares that, whatever we may do for Ireland or pay for Ireland, we shall not be putting back the money we are taking away, and he apparently thinks that the only way of doing justice to Ireland is either to give her Home Rule, in which case she will have control of her own money, and may be accounted as receiving money, or else to change our whole fiscal policy—I suppose by reducing to about a third the duties on these great articles of duty, and to raise our income by some other means, that is, reducing it to an absurdity. He admitted that certain things must be regarded as a set-off, but I think a reasonable man will consider that what we do for the interests of the poorer parts of the country are to be regarded as a set-off against the excessive amount, of taxation which we are said to take from these poorer parts. My argument is that the position of the individuals must be looked at, but you cannot restore or repay to individuals. Therefore, what you restore, or repay, must be to the community in which a large number of these poorest individuals form part. Such communities are found in Ireland, and are to be found in Scotland, and in the more backward agricultural districts. We have to consider whether more ought not to be done from the central authority for the more backward parts of the country. After looking into this question, I have less grudge to grants made for the benefit of the more backward parts of the country. In the past they have always seemed to me to be matters of charity, but I think that consideration of the extra burdens that our fiscal system throws upon the poorest classes tends to show that they are matters of justice also. The right honourable Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin enlarged on various possible schemes. With all there is a danger of pauperisation, but there is one scheme which he did not mention, which, to me, has always seemed a very possible and valuable scheme, and one which I believe would do much for the benefit of Ireland more than any other, and that is that the State should take over the Irish railways. That would involve the use of British credit to a certain extent, but the whole amount of the capital of Irish railways is less than a quarter of the amount of the Scotch railways. The railway capital account for the three kingdoms is: England, 775 millions; Scotland, 136 millions; Ireland, 32 millions. The circumstances of railways in Ireland are so entirely different to the circumstances of railways in Great Britain that I think they ought to be treated—they can be treated, and might with advantage be treated—not in the same way that railways here are treated, but in the way that railways in India are treated. I mean they should be run upon a cheap system, and if, by the help of British credit, that change should be made in Ireland, I should feel that we have done a great deal towards paying off the debt which we owe in consequence of excessive taxation of many years ago. My conclusions, then, are that such hardships as exist are not limited to Ireland, and that that country should not be looked at alone. You cannot go back on the past. You cannot interfere with our system of free trade; least of all can you upset the Union. But if we recognise, partly in such, ways as the Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated this evening, the claims of the more backward parts of the United Kingdom, we shall be fulfilling the spirit of the promise which Mr. Pitt gave, and proving the generosity of the British nation.

After the usual interval,

*MR. J. P. FARRELL (Cavan, W.)

I feel I am incurring a very great responsibility indeed in intervening at this stage in the Debate on this important question, especially having regard to the fact that a number of distinguished and able speakers have preceded me. I trust that the House will excuse any shortcomings that may be observed in the few remarks I intend to address to it, because I have no claim to speak with authority as a financier or as a statistician, as some have done. This Debate is highly technical in its nature. We have had lengthy observations as to elevenths, and twentieths, and fiftieths, and arithmetical calculations have been made which have served very much to confuse the minds of any except those who are in the habit of dealing with a large amount of figures. The points I intend to speak of are, first of all, as to the facts associated with history, and, secondly, as to the economic aspect of the question before us. Now, Sir, the last speaker who addressed the House dwelt at considerable length on the fact that Scotland and England and Wales were entitled to equal consideration with Ireland on this question, and that before the Government could propose a settlement of the question they would have to consider the state of affairs as regards the whole of the kingdom. He did not quite go the length to support strongly, or, at all events, to claim a second Commission; he gave that view a half-hearted or lukewarm support. I do not see that the position taken up by the right honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer is one with which Irish Members can be very much dissatisfied. I think that time has very considerably modified the views of the right honour- able Gentleman. We have not had from him that stern and unbending attitude which he assumed on the last occasion. On the last occasion the right honourable Gentleman, so to speak, put his back to the wall, stern Conservative and Tory as he is, and I think we ought to acknowledge to-night the change in the right honourable Gentleman's views. He has come to the view that Ireland is entitled to a kind of treatment which has been more than once described in this House as a sop-and-dole treatment, giving a little here and a little there by way of repayment of the money of which the Irish people have been unjustly robbed. That, I conceive, is no doubt an advance of the right honourable Gentleman's position; but, if the right honourable Gentleman for one moment thinks that any sop-and-dole treatment will settle this question, he is very much mistaken. I trust that, as time goes on, and as the period for the dissolution of this Parliament approaches, a further modification will be visible in the unbending attitude of the right honourable Gentleman, and that he will come down, to the House of Commons and tell us that the Government is prepared to deal in a thorough manner with this question. What is the position that the question has now assumed? It cannot be gainsaid by any honourable Gentleman or right honourable Gentleman on the other side of the House that not in the whole history of the Parliamentary connection between Great Britain and Ireland has there been one question which has so thoroughly united the Irish representatives as this. When a Nationalist goes into the Committee Room upstairs and sees the honourable and gallant Member for North Armagh, presiding over a meeting almost exclusively composed of men bitterly opposed to him in politics, one sees a sign of the times—a sign of change in the opinions of the people of Ireland that this question has brought about from one end of the country to another. The meetings that have been held have been attended by clergymen of all denominations and politicians of all views; and there has been aroused a feeling of enthusiasm on this question I certainly have not seen before in connection with political matters in Ireland. These are facts which the Government of this country must take into calculation. The longer that they refrain from dealing with this question, the longer they delay in the settlement of it, the more strongly will it tend to the solidification of the Unionist and Nationalist elements in Ireland. It is not for me to deal with what may be called the fractional side of the question; I do not pretend to be able to deal with that aspect. But this I say, that we have it on the authority of this Royal Commission that whereas Ireland should be paying to the Imperial Government one-twentieth of the total taxation, she is in reality paying one-eleventh. Now, the most of that one-eleventh comes from the poorer classes of the community. Although I do not wish as a Nationalist to say one word which would weaken the bond of unity prevailing among Irish Members on this question, I deny absolutely that it is the landlord class who have suffered exclusively by this grievance. It is the consumers of tea, tobacco, and whisky. I observe that the honourable Gentleman who spoke last dwelt on that question of whisky, as if it were something of a stain or a stigma attached to the Irish character. I deny that absolutely. I say a considerable portion of that whisky we produce, and on which perhaps we pay taxes, finds its way into the English market. Now, the question comes to this point, these poorer classes of the country—the farmer and the labourer—who are suffering from this overtaxation, do not feel it. They do not know the extent to which they are suffering, involuntarily, of course, and against their will. They do not know the 'fact as well as the Members of this House, who have made themselves acquainted with it, that they are contributing a greater proportion of the taxation that comes to your Treasury than they ought to bear. We are told that the is a debtor and creditor side of the account, and that if Irishmen contribute a large proportion they receive back a large amount from the British Exchequer. That is the point on which the case made out by the right honourable Gentleman opposite for an inquiry has fallen to the ground. They say that Ireland is receiving £5,000,000 or more from the British Treasury, but what is that money used for in Ireland? That money is used for the maintenance of the Union, which was carried by fraud and corruption. It is used for the purpose of paying your standing army, police, and soldiers; and I say that not one single penny ever finds its way into the pocket of those from whom it was originally extracted. I am told that the great number of officers and those who receive this money are useful in the State. Take the police, for instance. The police force consists of 12,000 men. It costs the Government at least £1,500,000 per annum to support them. What does this police force do for Ireland? The only purpose for which I know it is used at present consists in collecting the rents for landlords. It is not used in the same sense that the police force in Scotland is used. In England and in Scotland the police force is a civil force, maintained, I believe, largely out of the local rates; but the police force in Ireland is an Imperial force, drilled and disciplined as a regular body of troops would be. I say, Sir, that excepting so far as individuals comprising that force may be concerned, that the money sent from this country to pay them is absolutely of no benefit whatever to the vast mass of the population. The same may be said of the military; and, in connection with the military, a new feature has recently developed itself, because, from questions and answers put in this House, we learn that quite recently the Government have changed their method of supporting the military. It is principally on foreign provisions that you feed your troops in Ireland now. Even the hay comes from Belgium and Germany. What does the poor peasant in Connemara get for the £12,000 paid to the judges in the Four Courts in Dublin, or the money paid to the large staff of officials in Dublin Castle? As to them I was told a most remarkable story the other day about the way in which things were done in Dublin Castle. A lady was very much offended because she could not get some compensation for some pigs that were destroyed by a Veterinary Department Order. She wrote to Dublin Castle with the intention, as she thought, of getting justice, and the clerk who received the communication, and who was in receipt of £2 10s. per week, said, "We will send her a copy of the Order of the Veterinary Department, and that will be so long and so voluminous that we are bound to hear no more about the subject." That is how these officials earn their money. Such oases show more clearly than anything else the necessity of the Irish people persisting in the agitation for Home Rule. We have been coming for three years to this Parliament since the present Government came into office. You had a Royal Commission, you had had some of the most eminent men in Great Britain and Ireland sitting on it, and I deny absolutely and entirely that it was one-sided or partial. The length of time and the amount of trouble the Commissioners took in preparing a most exhaustive Report for presentation to Parliament prove their capacity and care. The Commissioners presented this Report, and it was left to this great Unionist Government, whose very existence depends upon the Act of Union; to deal with the state of affairs which was deduced. What was that state of affairs? It amounted to this: that under the very Act of Union on which you relied you had broken one of the principal Articles of that Treaty, and ever since that discovery was made you have absolutely refused to consider the question from the point of view of impartial or unbiassed judgment. I consider that from the point of view of this great Unionist Government there can be nothing more fatal than to persist in this course. It is true that there is a number. of honourable Gentlemen opposite who consider that it is good business from their point of view to deride this claim —who think that, because they are in a majority in this House, and because the Irish people are distracted and divided, therefore the Irish Members are at their mercy and in their power. They may consider that it is good business to ignore our Commission, and they may laugh and deride us, and say, "We will give you what we like." Well, Sir, the return swing of the pendulum may not be so far off as some think. We who represent Irish constituencies feel we are fairly entitled to ask for justice to Ireland in this matter. You may refuse to hear us, you may laugh at us and deride us, but you cannot gainsay the fact that the taxation of Ireland is increasing and her population is decreasing, whilst the taxation of Great Britain is dwindling down. Here is the richest nation in the world, with a revenue amounting to the enormous total of £100,000,000, and, on the other hand, you have people dying in the West of Ireland, and you will not hold out your little finger to save those people from destruction. I do not want to adopt views which might be considered revolutionary, but I do say, with all sincerity, that if the Irish people replied to such treatment at the point of the bayonet they would be fully justified by the treatment they are receiving at the hands of the Government.

*MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)

I only wish to remark upon the point that Ireland is absolutely united on this question. Ireland is always united when there is anything to be got out of Great Britain; and that is the real key to the whole position. I venture, as an English Member, to say that there are two sides to the question—the English side as well as the Irish side. It is said that Ireland is paying a great deal too much, and therefore it follows that if this is to be set right England and Scotland are paying too little. If it can be proved that England is paying too little, I, for one, agree to a change. But I think the talking about the Act of Union is really taking an extreme view. I notice that the Act of Union is always referred to by honourable Members opposite when it is supposed to be useful. We never hear anything about the Act of Union unless it suits them. I think if we were really to maintain the strict terms of the Act of Union in the fiscal sense the position would be immensely worse for Ireland than it is at present. I think that when we discuss this question from the Act of Union point of view we find it cuts both ways. It seems to me that, stripping the whole question of all the Irish rhetoric and all the eloquence of the speeches we have heard, it is the very simple question whether, at the present time, we are treating Ireland differently from England. Does the Irishman Of equal means pay more taxation than the Englishman or the Scotchman? That, after all, is the whole point we have to consider. The fact is, that an Irishman with £1,000 a year, or even 10s. or 5s. a week, is taxed exactly the same as the Englishman or Scotchman, except that, being an Irishman, he pays rather less than we do. I would ask, why is Ireland to be treated as a separate entity? Why should not Scotland be treated as a separate entity; why should not Wales, or Dorsetshire, or London, be so treated?

AN HONOURABLE MEMBER

Nonsense!

*MR. BARTLEY

London is quite as important to the United Kingdom even as Ireland. Are we to tax a man according to his absolute earnings, and upon the things he is in the habit of making use of? These general statements about injustice are all very well, but they require to be looked at from a practical point of view and in detail. No one will dispute that income tax is a very good gauge of the relative wealth of two nations. You might say that Ireland is poorer than England, but that does not in any way affect the fairness of making a man pay the same income tax in Ireland as a man with the same income does in England. The Report goes on to say that because Ireland is assessed at the twentieth part of England it ought to pay less than English persons who are assessed at a larger rate. The same thing would apply if you went to the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight is assessed at something like one five-hundredth part of Great Britain; and why should we not tax the Isle of Wight less because it is assessed at so much less than the United Kingdom? We might as well consider the assessment of each county in England according to its proportion. Then elaborate calculations are made in the Report to show that there is a great difference between the gross income, including both houses and land, and the net income after the deductions are made by the relaxations to poor incomes. Of course there is no doubt that the difference in gross and net assessment is greater in Ireland than in England. But what does that prove? It proves that Ireland has received much advantage in the lower amounts paid by persons at the bottom of the scale to income tax compared with other persons. The income tax of poorer persons in Ireland has been largely reduced. The Report is also full of calculations as to the cost per head as compared with England. I venture to think that this cost per head is a fallacy altogether. You cannot compare the cost per head with an increasing and a decreasing population. Take the case of a family of four persons: if one more comes to the family you have a tendency to decrease the taxation per head, though the burden for the family is greater. If, in the same way, you take a family of four, and one of them goes to America, the taxation per head will be increased, but, by the same process, the whole burden is comparatively reduced upon the family. Some honourable Members say "No," but I think it is an economic fact, which they cannot gainsay. Anyhow, whether it is greater or not, I will meet the point at once. We are now arguing as to the cost per head, and, taking the average taxation, the fact remains true. Calculation of taxation per head is, no doubt, very useful to statisticians, but a decrease or increase of population will complicate those calculations; so that it is most extraordinarily difficult to argue one way or the other, and I have no hesitation in saying that the calculations already made do not carry out the views of the honourable Gentlemen opposite. I will take another instance. Supposing that a hundred foreign millionaires settle in England; their income tax alone would be about £150,000 a year, an amount sufficient to raise the whole taxation of the country by about a penny per head, and other taxes would probably raise it 2d. more. But the very fact of so many millionaires coming and spending their money here, although it raises the average taxation in one sense, practically lowers it for the benefit of the general taxpayers, who get the benefit of an increased amount of wealth in this country. The same process would apply if they or a large number of the better-to-do people left the country, and that is partly the reason for the state of things in Ireland. A great number of the better-placed people have left Ireland—I do not say for what reason—and the consequence of these men going away, or being driven out of Ireland for political or other reasons, is a tendency to an average increased cost per head; and that shows the danger of judging of these facts by the cost per head. Let us take an English village of 50 families, or 250 souls in all, with, a gross income of £2,500 a year, and if they preferred to consume alcohol in beer and other articles, and tobacco, the amount they would have to pay to the revenue would be something like 8s. per head, which, is much less than the average in Ireland. If they prefer to drink only tea, of course, the average would be smaller still. But what I mean is this: that village, if considered separately, that is made a separate entity, might claim that it should pay less than it does already, simply because it is so poor that it pays a smaller rate per head than Ireland does; but we know that it would be absolutely absurd to divide all different districts into units for these purposes. I may take my own district of Islington. I find that the rateable value of that part of London is only five guineas per head, while the average rate of the whole of London is £8 per head, and I want to know why we are not to divide London into separate entities, so that those which pay a smaller rate should be taxed in the same way as is proposed for Ireland. Percentages and averages proverbially lead to mistakes, and everybody who has had to do with figures knows perfectly well that you can prove anything with them. It has often been said that if 100 people had 50 loaves there would be half a loaf a-piece, but if 50 of the 100 people had all the loaves the calculation would be poor consolation for the other 50. In England some are very rich and some are very poor, and there is no doubt whatever that if we are going to strike an average we should produce an immense amount of hardship in some directions. It seems a very odd thing to me that Irishmen should want to have taxation placed at so much per head; but if they would have representation in this House on the same basis then we might have no objection to consider the matter. One of the Reports says a great deal about Ireland getting no benefit from a large part of the expenditure on museums and other institutions of that sort in England; but that is not the case, because Ireland has a full share, and I should say much more than Scotland, of this expenditure upon English central institutions. There is no doubt that Ireland gets a good deal more from it than such English counties as Durham and Cornwall, and other distant parts of this country, which, practically speaking, have very little share of Imperial expenditure in London. This Report dwells on the statement that identity of taxation does not necessarily involve equality of burden as to persons, which is, of course, a truism. It must be so. It is the same in Ireland, or London, or any other part of the United Kingdom. Nothing can prevent a penny of taxation on a man who has only got £1 being more severe to him than 2d. upon a man who has got £2 and a larger margin. There is no way in which it can be remedied. It is also true that an east wind blows on the weak person more coldly than a strong one, but there is no way in which it can be adapted to their relative capacity and these, after all, are but pious opinions and sentiments which are of no practical value. There are many reasons why a man of comparatively small means should pay 2d. on a glass of whisky to the Exchequer, while a rich baronet who prefers water should pay nothing. That happens in England and elsewhere, and I cannot see how it can possibly be prevented. But, Sir, my right honourable Friend who spoke earlier in the day spoke of the comparative inequality of the consumption of alcohol as between Ireland and England; but these Reports prove that to be a complete fallacy, because they show that the amount of taxation per head in Ireland on spirits is about the same as that on the amount of alcohol drunk in England. I do not think it can be disputed that the amount of spirits drunk in Ireland is about the same as the amount of spirits drunk in England. No doubt we drink beer as well, but the more we drink the better for my argument. You cannot have it both ways. You say Ireland is taxed beyond the extreme point because the habit of the people is to drink whisky, but I say that in England we drink spirits to the same amount and drink beer as well. Although this is a very sad fact, as I acknowledge, still, financially speaking, it goes against your case, and shows that England is taxed in proportion to what is due to even a greater extent than Ireland.

*MR. BLAKE

No, no; you prefer your alcohol in beer, and get it for less money.

*MR. BARTLEY

No, we do not get it for less money—we drink equal spirits, and beer in addition. When this Report came out it was said that we were robbing Ireland, but that has been upset by Lord Farrar. The crux of this discussion seems to be this: that Ireland should be taxed less because her gross income is very much smaller than that of England, Now if this system is to be adopted, and people are to pay in proportion to the general wealth of their district, all I can say is that everyone who represents a poor district will make the same claim. I cannot imagine anything more reasonable and proper than that I and many of my honourable Friends who represent districts very poor indeed should ask why we should be left out in a matter of that kind. It has been referred to over and over again. I know something of Ireland, and I have driven 400 miles along the west coast of Ireland, but, although I have seen much poverty and much distress, no doubt, still I do venture to say that I saw no poverty worse than exists in some places which honourable Members around me represent in this city in which we are now assembled. I say there are parts of London quite as poor as those districts of Ireland, and where the people have not the blessing of fresh air, which the people in many of those Irish districts have. If different places are to be taxed according to the spending power of the people, I may say that I know a town not far from London where, within two miles, there are 50 public houses. They are all fairly flourishing, though they are the only places there that are flourishing. In that town there must be an enormous proportion of the wages paid to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Are we to say that because it is the habit of that entity to spend all its money in these various so large a part of which goes to the Chancellor of the Exchequer as taxation, therefore we are to reduce their taxation on the article of alcohol? Why, the thing is an absurdity and you might as well say at once that the only sound principle to adopt would be that each individual should pay according to he own idea of what he spends on taxable commodities. I contend that we must resist this idea of considering Ireland as a special entity by itself. If that plan is adopted, if the idea is accepted that, because Ireland is one unit, she is to pay less than other units to the Imperial Exchequer, the greatest amount of injustice will be perpetrated. I should be sorry to say—far be it from me to do so—that in my judgment the present system of Imperial or local taxation is perfect. I quite agree that they are not, and I have ventured to say so in this House many times. Some years ago I raised a discussion on the subject of local and Imperial taxation as between rich and poor. Since that time a great deal has been done to make the system fairer than it was. The income tax has been revised, and there have been greater exemptions allowed on small incomes and increased taxation on death duties and' so on. I do not say it is yet as right, as it should be, or may be, but if these things are to be done they do not apply to Ireland specially, but to the people of the whole of the United Kingdom, and any general change in our fiscal system to make it more even as between rich and poor must apply not only to Ireland, but to the whole of the United Kingdom as well. Sir, I venture to say that Ireland is already exempt from several taxes which she should pay. It has been distinctly ascertained, and it is clear, that she gets more out of the Imperial taxation of Great Britain than we get out of the general taxation, and I think she had better be content with what she gets now. At the present time she only pays; one-thirty-sixth, and the would only pay a one-fifty-second if things remain as they are, during the current year, for all the advantages which she gets from her connection with this, country. I am not ashamed to say that she derives enormous advantages from that connection. All we want is that, everything should be right and fair, between us, but to deal with her as is suggested would not be liberality and generosity, but gross injustice to this. country. There are many poor in this country, and when you talk of England being rich you show great ignorance of this country. In England there are millions of people who only just manage to get on, and to whom any increase of taxation, even for a good purpose, is a serious drawback. When, therefore, increased taxation is proposed with the idea of making many poor persons in Ireland better off than they are, all can say is that it would be a great act of unfairness to this country. Sir, I am extremely glad that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was so decidedly firm in what he said in his last speech. Home Rule has been referred to, and there is no doubt that this country has never been in favour of Home Rule in the past; but I think honourable Gentlemen opposite are clever in this respect, because if there is one thing which could induce us to tolerate the idea of Home Rule it would be unfair taxation upon us as compared with Ireland. We have been very liberal to Ireland. Honourable Members opposite may laugh, and say "No!" but I maintain that England has been wonderfully liberal in all things to Ireland. They know that or they would not talk as they do. I do not feel any sympathy with this proposal, because we must not forget that justice to Great Britain is as important as justice to Ireland, and I venture to think that justice to Great Britain is far more important than any mere sentimental justice to Ireland at the cost of Great Britain. In conclusion, I will only say further that, although I feel very strongly on the points, that have been raised in regard to the different administration of England and Ireland, yet I hold that Ireland should be treated in every way as England is. If there is a margin for consideration, Ireland should have the benefit of it, but we must not have any unfairness to the poorer classes of the community here, for England, although sometimes called the predominant partner, has as much, if not more, right to be treated with consideration even than the Irish people.

MR. VESEY KNOX (Londonderry)

Sir, I venture to agree with the honourable Gentleman who has just spoken about one thing. I think there is not the slightest risk in this House of any injustice being done to England. The honourable Gentleman is a fair average English Member, and represents the views of many English Members. Perhaps it might be rude to say that no Englishman would do injustice to himself, but I feel sure that no English Member would do injustice to his constituents. English Members have shown ever since the Union the greatest care for the interests of their constituents. I blame them for nothing more. They found that the favourite beverage of their constituents was beer, and they taxed it lightly and nominally, so that an Englishman can get drunk on his favourite beverage much cheaper than the other inhabitants of the United Kingdom. But that, of course, was not their object. Their object was the benefit of their constituents. Their constituents wished for beer, and got it cheap. They had cider even cheaper if they drank it at all. So long as this House contains a large majority of English Members who can deal, without any constitutional appeal, with the fiscal affairs of the United Kingdom, we shall find English Members forming a majority who will consult the interests of their English constituents, and Irish Members forming a minority making unavailing protests. The honourable Member has, however, used some arguments which seem to me to be so grotesque that I would venture to deal with them for a moment. He has taken the case of an Irish family, which consisted originally of five persons. One of the five goes to America, and four are left. The burden of taxation he assumes remains the same on four as it was on the five, but the four are much better able to bear it. That, I think, was the position of the honourable Member.

*MR. BARTLEY

No, I never said so. I spoke of the statistical effect upon the average.

MR. VESEY KNOX

But the honourable Member certainly said that the four would be able to get on much better when one of the original number had gone away. But see what Immigration means in these cases. It is the bread, winner, the most active member of the family usually, who goes to America. The man who earns the money goes to America, and the four people who are left behind are the poorer by the loss of the man who is the best bread-winner of the family. That is what happens day by day in every village in Ireland. It is the one elementary fact of Irish life, and one of the principal reasons of Irish poverty. I can quite understand that the honourable Member would never grasp what that fact means to Ireland. We had a Debate the other day on the question of lunacy administration under the Local Government Bill. The Chief Secretary admitted that Ireland at the present time supported lunatics in a much larger proportion than her own, because he said the healthy and stronger men emigrated, leaving the weaker and insane behind. But, according to the argument of the honourable Member, so far as I can understand it—though I do not know that he would carry it as far as that—we are much better able to support our burdens, because the strong and healthy men have emigrated and left the lunatics to pay the taxes. Well, the honourable Member's argument—and I have tried not to travesty it—seems to be so grotesque as to make it almost a record argument in the course of these Debates. This question of whether the average wealth of Ireland is to be taken into account is one that lies at the bottom of the whole of this controversy. The right honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the honourable Member for Waterford was guilty of the fallacy of passing from individuals to averages, but I do not quite know how, as a matter of statistics, we are to deal with any fiscal question, except on the basis of averages. We cannot in this House deal with the affairs of every individual, and we have to go on averages. But still, taking the statement as it stands, I admit that there is some danger of being led away by averages, but I think there would be very much danger in neglecting these averages. I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it does not make a difference to individual men what the average wealth and prosperity of the people around them may be. One man is starting life in Ireland and another is starting life in England; one has around him a people steeped in poverty, a people heavily overtaxed, and paying, so far as local taxation is concerned, much more per head than the people of the other country, and paying, as I contend, much more relatively to Imperial taxation; He sees a country which does not progress, one in which there is no material progress from generation to generation. If that man under those circumstances in Ireland is able to earn the same amount as a man of equal ability does in England, he does so by a great deal more effort than the other. The money he earns is more hardly earned, and the taxation wrung out of that money represents a vastly greater amount of human effort expended by the Irishman than has been expended by the Englishman under similar circumstances. The fact is that you cannot tax two countries so dissimilar as England and Ireland on precisely the same principle, without producing intensely different results. These two countries are, perhaps, as different in their social conditions as any two countries in the world. They happen to be near together, they are for the most part in their social conditions absolutely different, and yet you apply to them the most cast-iron system of uniform taxation which exists anywhere in this world. I do not say that this system of taxation is badly suited to England with its great prosperity, and where it is perhaps better to tax the poor man occasionally a little more than is quite proportionately fair, in order to avoid the trouble of collecting a large number of extra taxes, because the poor man, after all, in a community like England, has opportunities of compensation. But still the system of taxation, looking on it as a whole, is the most cast-iron in its uniformity that has ever been imposed on any country. Compare it with taxation in France. In France the taxes are levied on a vast number of properties, and the direct taxes are varied, and by that variety of taxes—whether on the whole it is good for the commercial progress of the country is another question—they manage to get a fairly equal burden upon the different classes of the community. But you have chosen in England for purely fiscal reasons, in order to raise a large revenue with as little interference as possible with the general trade of the community, to raise the vastly greater part of your revenue by taxes on a few commodities. That may be a good thing for England; but in Ireland, even if you had not chosen to tax most heavily the commodities which are most consumed in Ireland—even if you had chosen to tax beer more heavily than spirits—still, on the whole, such a cast-iron system is bound to produce diverse results. When the Parliament that imposed it was overwhelmingly representative of the one country, and so little representative of the other, and with a large number of English constituencies clamouring against any increase of their taxes, and therefore ruling the votes of their Members, it was inevitable that under the system of the Union, where there were few articles to be chosen, the burden of taxation should be cast on the articles consumed less by the Irish proportionately than by the English. The honourable Member for Islington seems to think that the Englishman is rather more to be pitied than the Irishman, because, in addition to consuming the same amount of spirits, he also consumes a quantity of beer. Well, the injustice has gone a very long way already, but the Englishman, as I understand it, in comparison with the Irishman, is rated as contributing a very much larger sum to the revenue, because he pays some little tax upon his beer in addition to the tax upon spirits. The Englishman does consume, being a well-to-do man, not merely as much spirits in the ordinary sense of the word, of whisky and brandy, as the Irishman consumes of his principal beverage, but in addition the Englishman has another favourite beverage of which he consumes an enormous quantity. But surely the honourable Member must admit, if the tax is to be on alcohol, the Englishman would pay at least treble what he now pays. Why should you pot levy your taxation on purely the amount of alcohol consumed? Why should you seek out and favour special forms of alcohol? Why, because it suits this Parliament, being a representative Parliament, and representative merely of the beer-drinking nation. So long as that opinion lasts we shall never get away from it. You tax your own people here less in proportion to the alcohol consumed than you tax our people on their whisky, and you do it to please your constituency. If we talked not merely for two nights, but for 20 nights, I do at believe that we should get any further, because it is part of the system of the United Kingdom. When my honourable Friend finds that there is a provision in the Act of Union for allowing exemptions and abatements, he treats this as an absolute statement, and in that respect he followed distinctly in the wake of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. What did the Chancellor of the Exchequer say? He said that when the two exchequers were united in 1817 the fiscal provisions of the Act of Union practically came to an end. This is entirely a misreading of the Act of Union. That proviso about exemptions and abatements about which we have been talking so much is the proviso to a clause dealing with what would happen when the exchequers were united. It was only to come into force when the exchequers were united, and the reason there was so little discussion upon that provision at the time the Act of Union was passed was that the Members of our Parliament—both of the English and of the Irish Parliament—thought it was extremely unlikely, except at a very distant day, when the exchequers would be united, and they therefore spoke mainly about the provision talking effect before the union of the exchequers came into force. It was when the two exchequers were united against the safeguard you are complaining of tonight that this provision for exemptions and abatements was to have effect. Again, is it to show that this was true, and that it has been the historic course of events? When the two exchequers were united in 1817, it is true that they were united without protest by the Irish Members of that day. The Irish Members of that day represented but a very small fraction of the people of Ireland, but perhaps that is an irrelevant argument to use, because I daresay that they were, according to their lights, as active as they could be to secure the interests of their country. Why did they raise no protest? Why, because those exemptions and abatements were to go to the united Exchequers. Because for 10 years after the union of the Exchequers Ireland got the full benefit of the provision of the Act of Union. For 40 years after the passing of the Act which united the Exchequers the Irishman was able to drink his favourite beverage without being taxed in proportion to its alcoholic strength more oppressively than the Englishman's favourite beverage. For 40 years after the Act of Union we had a whole series of exemptions and abatements, which made our position under that Act much more tolerable than it otherwise would have been. It was not until 35 or 40 years after the union of the Exchequers that the Parliament of this country, under the pressure of its constituencies and under the pressure of extreme theorists of the Manchester school, altered this. The Parliament of this country began to level up the taxes in Ireland and level down the taxes in England until they produced a nominal but an unreal quota. So that, as far as history is concerned, as a matter of fact, this provision in the Act of Union was only to take effect when the Exchequers were united. The Exchequers were united without protest, because, at first, that provision was allowed to take effect in its fullest measure; and it was only when, as a great Irishman has said, that Ireland was like a corpse on a dissecting-table, that the Parliament of this country began to break the law for the benefit of its own constituents. Now, that being so, I fail to see why the Chancellor of the Exchequer should not try to give some effect to that provision of the law under which we are entitled to exemption and abatements by constitutional Statute. Now, if there was any constitutional power in the courts of this country to enforce this law as against Parliament, we should go to those courts. For instance, under the Constitution of America there are certain provisions to prevent the undue taxation of any particular States in the Union. An income tax was passed, which was thought to press very heavily upon the State of New York, but that State appealed to Congress, and the Act was set aside. There is no such power to enforce the Act in this country under which the Union exists, and you break the Act with impunity because there is no power higher than Parliament, and your constituencies make you keep the law as it is. Therefore, you have under the Constitution of this country as it now exists no check upon the desire of your constituencies in England who wish to be taxed lightly while you tax us heavily. Of course I know that it would be possible, if the Unionist party were patriotic enough to withstand the pressure of their constituencies, to find under this system of the united Parliament a check which might be as efficient as the Constitution of the United States; but I confess that, after the speeches I have heard to-night, I am not extremely sanguine that the Imperial and moral pressure will overcome the still stronger pressure of the constituencies. Now, we have, since the period of 1853 to 1860, when the parties joined to level up the Irish taxation, been paying an enormous sum over and beyond our taxable capacity. The honourable Member opposite says that at one time there was an over-taxation of both England and Ireland alike. Well, if you put it in that way you may, and it is a fair statement; but even as far as it goes it proves no point. At any rate the fact remains that you have in this United Kingdom one of the constituent States entitled by the Constitution to exemptions and abatement, and they are denied those exemptions and abatements; and, on the contrary, relatively, Ireland pays more in taxation than the people living in the richer constituent States, and that state of things is going on still. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says that the relative disproportion between the two countries has been somewhat reduced by reason of fiscal changes, and he gave some figures to show how much of the increase of taxation since the time when the Commission inquired had fallen upon the people of Great Britain, and how much upon Ireland? Now I would like to know what those figures represent. Do they represent the proportion of the increase which the taxed revenue of Ireland bears, or do they represent the increased yield from the particular taxes which were increased in Ireland?

*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

No, they represent the increased yield of the total taxes of the United Kingdom, and then I divide that between Ireland and Great Britain.

MR. VESEY KNOX

Does the Chancellor of the Exchequer not see the fallacy of that argument? Because, so far as the ordinary taxes of Ireland which have not been raised are concerned, there has been little or no increase; but where the tax rates were increased our taxes have increased proportionately, and those particular taxes have increased proportionately as much in Ireland as in Great Britain. But there has been a stagnation of our general income and general prosperity, and there is consequent upon that a, stagnation of the tax yield of the taxes which were not increased.

*THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

I think the honourable Gentleman has misunderstood me. In the period to which I referred the increase of taxes was practically confined to the increase of the death duties. I was referring to the increase of the yield of taxes. These are taxes which were not increased, although the total yield is more.

MR. VESEY KNOX

Put the Chancellor of the Exchequer1 argued to show that the recent legislation reduced the injustice under which Ireland suffered, but it is not the legislative change which has made the increase of Irish taxation comparatively less, but it is the stagnation of Irish life, because, if you analyse the figures, you will find this result. Take the item of taxation where there has been no change in the tax revenue. You find there that there has been no increase at all in the Irish taxation; practically none, or, if any, very slight. You take, on the other hand, items where there has been a tax rate, and there you find a large increase. It is not legislation which has made the taxation in Ireland relatively smaller than in England, but it is the enormous growth of English prosperity. Therefore the effect which the Chancellor of the Exchequer claims does not so much show that legislation has made things better for Ireland as it has made things worse. If our taxation has not increased more quickly, it is not from any want of exertion on the part of the Treasury, because the Treasury has been doing its best to screw out of Ireland all it can, but it is because there is less for the Treasury to take. That has been the course of legislation year by year. We have a less proportion to England in relation to our increase of prosperity, which has been much slower, and consequently there has been less for the Treasury to take, and for that reason and no other has our increase been comparatively smaller than the increase in England. That brings me to another conclusion. It is that if the Royal Commission were to inquire into the relative taxable capacity of Ireland and of Great Britain tomorrow, instead of the Commission being unanimous, or almost unanimous, with the exception of the Member for Greenock, in thinking that the taxable capacity, of Ireland was not more than one-twentieth of Great Britain, the same Commission, if it inquired into the same facts, would be unanimous in thinking that the taxable capacity of Ireland was not more than one-twenty-fifth. For my own part, I think I agree with those Irishmen who think one-twentieth is extremely high, but that was chosen so as to get as unanimous a vote as possible on the Commission; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer has no right to take that figure. He supposes that the Commissioners reported, which they did not, that Ireland had one-twelfth the taxable capacity of England; and, secondly, he assumes that after five years of English progress and Irish stagnation the same figure of one-twentieth, if it had been the true proportion then, was true now. You are increasing it by leaps and bounds. We are progressing slowly, or standing still—perhaps going back—and year by year our relative taxable capacity is smaller, and we are relatively poorer year by year. Therefore a system of nominal equal taxation presses more severely on the poorer country. Then there is a question on which I freely admit that there is room for a certain difference of opinion. I do not go so far in the one direction as the right honourable Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin, and I do not go so far in the other direction as my honourable and learned Friend the Member for Waterford. But suppose you take the statement of the right honourable Gentleman and take his principal argument as to the advantages which Ireland receives as a set-off. He admits that where there is any branch of expenditure confined to Ireland, where there are any services which in Great Britain are paid for out of the local taxes, and in Ireland are paid for out of the Imperial taxes, you may set off something on that account against the Imperial taxation of Ireland. Now that is an anomalous position, because they knew that if they were only to set off those special services which exist in Ireland, and do not exist; in England, after deducting those, there would be no set-off left. I for one should have no fear for Ireland as to any future inquiry by any Commission which was fairly constituted, but that is not the position of the Treasury. The position of the Treasury is to take out, and pick out, those services in Ireland which are the most expensive, and call them all local services, and to call those which are the least expensive Imperial services. They pick out the Lord Lieutenant, and they put him down as local in Ireland. They pick out the monarchy, and put it down as Imperial, and they proceed throughout on that principle. They proceed throughout on the basis of trying to make out the best possible case for the Treasury, and in trying to go on an arguable basis, in order to show that there were special benefits which Ireland was receiving. In the case of these grants in aid of local taxation I did say last year that I thought that the balance, or a large part of the grant which had now been given in aid of the agricultural ratepayers in Ireland, might be a fair set-off. But you may take all those charges, and all the special things which Ireland gets and which Great Britain does not, and you will only reduce our relative burden if you deduct them all by a very small fraction of the overcharge. Even on the basis of that set-off, if it be taken on an intelligible basis you will find that Ireland does not get any proportionate benefit from the Imperial taxation to compare with what England gets. There is another intelligible basis. You might attempt to divide up the Imperial expenditure as a whole, and you might try to find how much benefit each country gets from the expenditure. You might work it out on that basis. Who gets the most benefit from your Army and Navy? Who gets the benefit of the enormous expenditure which goes on in London in the civil Departments? Obviously England gets the benefit. On the other hand, can it be said that Ireland really gets the benefit of those items of expenditure which are locally situated? I think the contrary is obviously true, for a large part of your expenditure in Ireland is bribery, and a large proportion of the rest may be put down as blackmail. I have had brought under my notice within the last few days a curious example of this. The city of Deny, which I have the honour to represent, has had the reputation of being a loyal city. Now the city of Waterford, I believe, has not had quite the same reputation for its loyalty. Now the Irish Executive Government provide a certain number of free policemen to each town, and they make the town pay for any balance over and above the number of free policemen. Now the southern cities long ago refused to pay any part of the levy for extra policemen, but the city of Derry, being a loyal city, did not take the same objection. And what is the consequence? That in proportion to population, you allow a free quota of police in the city of Waterford, which is about 50 per cent, greater than you allow in the city of Derry. You do not venture to charge the city of Waterford for extra police, because you know that the city of Waterford would resist, but you do charge the city of Derry, because you suppose that, being loyal, it would submit to it. That is a small example of the whole system of your expenditure in Ireland. You do not expend this money in Waterford for the good of Waterford or for the love of Waterford; you expend it because without expending it you could not keep up your system of government in Waterford, and if Waterford were as loyal and Jaw-abiding as Derry I have no doubt that Waterford would have to pay just as heavily. And so it is with all your system of expenditure in Ireland; it is either bribery or blackmail, and it is not for the benefit of the community. Some of it is given as a form of bribery to get men to support you who would not otherwise do so, and the other part is what you have to pay when you attempt to govern a country against the will of the inhabitants. On the other hand, you give two items of expenditure, over which the people indirectly exercise no control. And how do you devote it? You build your ships in the south of England in a place which of all places in the United Kingdom is the least suitable for building, where coal is dear, and where, owing to the absence of other great industries, labour is perhaps proportionately less efficient. You have in the north of Ireland places where the labour is for its price perhaps as good as any in the world, where you have coal much cheaper than in the south; but you choose deliberately to put your dockyards in places near the great shipping ports of your country in the south of England, and you refuse to put them in places like the north of Ireland, which have economical reasons to urge in their defence. I know this has been met by urging that they cannot pay better prices, but I think if clever people like the White Star Line, who pay good prices, get good work in the north, it would be to your advantage to do the same. But, still, I pass that over. I look at another case to see whether there is anything in this excuse. In the city of Derry there was a dockyard, which was certified as fit to do Government work. It was not very flourishing—in fact it was a struggling industry, but it was getting out of its difficulties and progressing fairly well. But though it was certified to do Government work, the Government refused to send a single order to Derry, and that industry died there. Now I would compare this with what is done in other countries. Go to France, and you will find a large part of its dockyard expenditure takes place in those parts of the country which are most in need of Government assistance. Go to Spain, and you will find the same thing, and the consequence is that round about those parts in the west of Spain there is prosperity, which, unfortunately, is lacking in the west of Ireland. You choose to spend your money as no other country does, having levied it first by pressing upon the poor more than in any other country by a system of rigid uniformity, and then spending it deliberately in the richer part of the country, instead of doing as other countries do—spend it in those parts of the country where some little assistance from the Government may have been desirable. The reason is the same. The reason which governs our expenditure in these matters is the same as the reason which governs your taxation. We are comparatively few in number, and you are very many. So far as I understand it, the only cure which the honourable Member for Islington has for the various grievances of Ireland is that you first reduce the representation, and then he will consider the question of the reduction of our taxation. Then even a larger majority of the people of the United Kingdom will vote down the representatives of a small and despised minority.

*MR. PLUNKETT (Dublin Co., S.)

The peculiarity of the financial relations question between Ireland and Great Britain is this, that, although we approach the subject from many different points of view, we all seem to arrive at the same conclusion substantially. I do not think that this in any sense weakens our case. For my part, I agree with honourable Members opposite in admitting, almost as much as they do, the evils of the government of Ireland in the past; but where I part from them is that I rest my hopes of a remedy for these historical grievances upon the innate sense of justice in the English people. I believe that the injustices which have been perpetrated upon Ireland have not been due to any failure of the moral sense of the English people, but due to the almost hopeless incapacity of the English people, with all their greatness, to understand anything that relates to Ireland. Furthermore, as a Unionist, in common with the great majority of the Irish Members who are Nationalists, I rest my case, as they rest their case, mainly upon the Act of Union. At any rate, we quite agree upon that point. As I understand the financial provisions of the Act of Union, Ireland was, some day or other, when circumstances enabled her to bear the treatment, but not before, to enter into a common system of taxation—that is, the taxation of the individual upon the same commodities and at the same rate. It was obvious that that could not be brought about immediately, and there were, consequently, these saving words put into the Act—exemptions and abatements, upon which we largely rest our case. Now, it has been pointed out by those who take the English side in this question that these exemptions and abatements related to the possibility that many of the taxes upon commodities which might be imposed under this system of taxation would press hardly upon the smaller areas of Scotland and Ireland. In those days all manner of commodities were taxed. Chancellors of the Exchequer generally made their reputation by their resourcefulness and in genuity in finding new commodities to tax. One Chancellor of the Exchequer would tax dogs, and the next cats; one would tax doors, and the next chimneys, windows, and so on. It was thought that; a tax might be so placed upon some article that a rising industry in the smaller area might be absolutely destroyed, and, consequently, the exemptions and abatements were provided. I do not myself believe that that was the intention of exemptions and abatements. I believe myself that they had a much wider significance. But even if they did not, can it be fairly maintained, by a great and rich country, in dealing with a poor country, that, because the system of taxation has been so changed, that these particular words have lost their significance, that, therefore no consideration is to be allowed to the special circumstances of the smaller and poorer area which was brought in under the Act of Union? Such a contention is the merest petty-fogging, and it cannot be called statesmanship. Then again it ought to be remembered that the Union was entered upon by Ireland in the anticipation that great advantages would accrue to Ireland. It was held out by Mr. Pitt—and I believe myself that Mr. Pitt was perfectly honest in what he said —that the advantage to Ireland of a "common use of capital" was a very important consideration for Ireland. And so it would have been if things had gone on as Mr. Pitt honestly expected. I only mention these facts because I think Ireland is entitled to very special consideration from the mere fact that all the anticipations which were held out as to the results of the Union—whether honestly held out or not—were falsified by events, which I quite admit could not have been foreseen, but which, at any rate, followed. I have admitted that a common system of taxation was anticipated by all parties in the Union, but only when Ireland could bear it. I think, if there is any doubt at all as to what the exact meaning of the Act of Union was, that the Government ought to submit this question to the most eminent jurists of the day. We in Ireland—I think I am speaking for all Irishmen—do not fear such an inquiry. We do not wish to put our own interpretation upon the Act of Union. We believe we have an absolutely good case, and we do not fear any impartial inquiry by perfectly disinterested jurists. Then we come to the vexed question of a separate entity, and upon that I think an absolutely good historical case has been made out by probably the best historian in the House—I mean by the right honourable Member for Dublin University. The main facts, that support our separate entity claim rest upon this, that Peel refused to apply the income tax to Ireland in 1842, and that, when Mr. Gladstone applied it in 1853, he distinctly promised that it was only to be imposed temporarily, and he applied it to Ireland in the most apologetic terms. He also, at the same time, largely increased the spirit duties, but he admitted Ireland's claim by the very fact that he considered it necessary to absolve Ireland from a considerable portion of the debt which she had then recently incurred, mainly owing to the famine. Of course, we all know that the debt which was removed at that time was a mere bagatelle. The capital amount was barely equal to the annual increase of taxation which was placed upon Ireland, but the mere fact that it was considered necessary to give Ireland some set-off for the extra taxation was a recognition of the separate treatment which we now claim under the terms of the Act of Union. After all that has been said I will not deal with the question of set-offs, but it is worth while remarking that at a time when we were in exactly the opposite position to which we stand to-day—that is to say, when we were contributing far more than our proper proportion of the Imperial revenue—the attitude of England was exactly opposite to what it is to-day. But it seems to me that all this haggling over Treaty rights, this consideration of academic questions of separate entities and set-offs, while absolutely necessary for us to maintain while we cannot get justice otherwise, is extremely unworthy of a country like England in dealing with a small country like Ireland, in view of the circumstances which have reduced us to Our present position. If England could be brought to recognise that the real grievance arises, not so much from over-taxation, or from any other cause, as from the poverty of the Country, then we could very quickly and very easily come to a solution of this difficult question. But it does not matter at all to us whether our taxation is reduced or whether our power to bear taxation is increased. Personally I have had some experience in other countries of the effect of taxation upon individuals. I have spent a great deal of my life in new and rising communities. I have gone through many vicissitudes, and I have lived under very different conditions—conditions of prosperity, and conditions which were the reverse of prosperous; but it has always been my experience that in times when communities were prosperous it mattered very little what was the taxation we were subjected to. It was not because taxation was of no consequence to us, but because we were doing so well that we had hardly time to consider the question of the incidence of taxation. But when circumstances changed, and when the prices of everything were going down, then we began to feel that the taxation, which was borne without complaint, and which was not felt in the heyday of our prosperity, became extremely oppressive in the time of adversity. This is exactly the position of Ireland to-day. England has recklessly imposed taxation upon herself, and with perfect justification, because her prosperity has advanced by leaps and bounds, but she has never looked to see what the effects of that taxation would be upon those portions of the United Kingdom which did not share her prosperity. Ireland is a poor country, and out of that one simple fact arises the whole of our grievances. I do not wish to labour the statistics by which the Report of the Royal Commission and various other Reports have proved poverty, but I should like to refer to one or two main facts, which cannot be denied. We have a dwindling population. It has been pointed out to me that the population of all agricultural communities has tended to decrease in modern times. Yes, that is perfectly true, but look at the difference in the rate of decrease of normal agricultural communities and the rate of decrease of the population of Ireland. It is not of the quantitative decrease, it is of the qualitative decrease we mostly complain. Look at the vital statistics of Ireland, and there we find a ghastly deficiency of those in the prime of energy and life, and we find an abnormal proportion of lunatics and imbeciles. I am told that this increase in the number of lunatics and imbeciles is largely a matter of classification. That may be so. And what about our deaf mutes and blind? Look at the statistics of our infirm population and you will find that they are increasing pari passu with our lunatics and imbeciles, thus showing clearly that the drain of the bone and sinew of the country is having its effect. I avoid quotations as much as possible, but here is one from the evidence before the Royal Commission as to these statistics. Mr. Charles Booth—I quote him because he, at any rate, is no small prophet in his own country—after a careful analysis of the census figures, showing the occupations Of the people, came to the conclusion that— as regards England and Scotland they all show a vitality and innate power to meet changes of circumstances and promise of continued prosperity. The figures show that England and Scotland share each other's fortune in that respect. He says— It is far different with the sister isle. Indeed, the fact of the desolation which exists in many parts of Ireland leaves little room for delusion. The absence of manufactures in Ireland and the increase of pauperism are facts with which I will not deal now; they are too well known. The honourable Member for North Islington tried to answer the claim of Ireland by saying that within a short distance from this House you might find poverty equally severe and equally distressing. I do not wish to deny that; but is it any answer at all to say that because you have social problems to deal with in the vicinity of this House you are in any way excluded from dealing with similar problems of Ireland? You are not responsible, in my opinion, for the terrible problem which confronts you owing to the enormous increase of the population of this country, but Ireland presents you with a far simpler social problem, and a problem which has been largely brought upon you by your own act and deed. "Which act?" my right honourable Friend asks me. I do not mean an Act of Parliament, but I will refer him to a speech made a few years ago—a speech well remembered in Ireland—because in generously recognising English duties to Ireland that speech stands almost alone. My right honourable Friend in that memorable speech said that the troubles of Ireland were largely due to poverty, and that that poverty was largely due to the mistaken legislation of England in the past. I have never found anyone to dispute the main facts of history in regard to that proposition. It is not denied that almost every manufacture and every industry that existed in Ireland which either did compete or possibly might compete with the industries of the great middle-classes of England were ruthlessly legislated away.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY

Then there was a separate Parliament for Ireland.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

And now one could not be established.

*MR. PLUNKETT

Yes, there was a separate Parliament for Ireland, but this was not the act of the Irish Parliament—it was the act of the English Parliament. I really do not think there is any difference of opinion between my right honourable Friend and myself on this subject. It is not necessary to deal with these historical matters—the main facts are generally admitted, and, of course, might be greatly enlarged upon. But Englishmen often tell us that this is an old story, and ought not to be raked up now. My opinion about old stories is this, that the moment when the effect of the misgovernment in the past ceases to be felt, then I admit that it becomes an old story, and that there is no object in raking it up, and it is better to bury the past. But the effect of that misgovernment is distinctly visible to-day. It would have been an old story, but, unfortunately, there were special circumstances in Ireland to keep the effect of that legislation alive. The effect of that legislation was that we were thrown back upon a single industry—the industry of agriculture. The English land system which was attempted to be applied to Ireland till 1820 is in itself just, that is to say, if you deal simply with the matter logically, and look upon the agricultural industry in the same light as you regard other industries, but it did not suit the special circumstances pf Ireland, and it will never suit any country where no industry except the agricultural industry exists. The reason of this is obvious. If the tiller of the soil has no resource in his own country excepting agriculture, well, of course, he must necessarily be at the mercy of the landlord: you have unlimited competition and no freedom of contract. That system has been legislated away, and there has not been time for any good result to be shown. The removal of checks is not sufficient, some stronger measure must be taken. I know it has been said that if these industries had never been legislated away at all, the industrial revolution which took place early in the century would have abolished them in any case. But it is impossible to speculate in these matters. The only guide we have is to consider how other countries which have had their industrial revolutions have fared under similar circumstances; and when we ask that question and look round us we find that many of the countries which are now competing with us recognised that when their only industry was agriculture it was the duty of the State to pay special attention to its development. Anyone who wishes to see how the condition of rural communties can be improved under modern conditions will find as good information as can be found anywhere, and in as condensed a form, in the Report of the Recess Committee. Now, Sir, I wish to thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the hope that he held out to us that he was prepared to deal with the industrial problem in Ireland by means of grants, if it could be shown to him that grants would be efficacious for the purpose, and I wish to say a few words upon the various remedies which are suggested for the over-taxation of Ireland. The most direct remedy for the over-taxation of Ireland would, of course, be to reduce the annual amounts which we already pay in excess. The second proposal is that separate custom houses should be established. I think that that may also be postponed, at any rate until it becomes a matter of practical politics. The third proposal is that direct taxation should be reduced. Of course, the chief of the direct taxes is the income tax, and while I think myself that the remission of income tax might extend its benefit to a lower grade of the community than is generally supposed, I recognise that objection would be taken that you are relieving one set of persons because another set of persons was injured by the present fiscal system. The next suggestion is a change in the entire fiscal system of the United Kingdom. Well, now, as far as Ireland is concerned, that remedy would no doubt suit us better than any other. For my own part I have always wondered why there has been so little protest on the part of the agricultural Members in the House against the establishment of a fiscal system so obviously intended to benefit the manufacturing and industrial classes; and I can only put it down to the fact that the industrial class are organised and that the agricultural class are hopelessly unorganised. However, as a practical politician, I admit that I think the present system is the best for England—that England's Commercial greatness is largely due to its adoption; and I do not for a moment imagine that anything that Irishmen may say will ever induce any Chancellor of the Exchequer to make any material alteration in it. But if they are not prepared to do that, surely they ought to fall back upon some other means of remedying what everybody admits is a real grievance. I do not care how the origin, of the grievance is explained. It may be from taxation, or it may be from other causes, but it is generally admitted on all sides of this House, and by every man in this House, that the condition of Ireland, whether it be Ireland's fault or England's fault, is not a satisfactory condition, and that its condition is not a credit to this great Empire. I think. I understood the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer to intimate that if the Chief Secretary for Ireland came to him with any well thought-out and reasonable schemes for developing the resources of Ireland he would favourably consider them, and he may wonder why an Irishman and an Irish Unionist is not satisfied with that general declaration. Sir, the reason is that, all through the century, whenever a Royal Commission or Select Committees of this House have been appointed to inquire into the economic condition of Ireland and to suggest remedies, they have always favoured the same kind of remedy. They have recommended that a considerable amount of money should be expended in developing the resources of the country, but mainly in the direction of technical education, and especially agricultural education. All these recommendations have simply gone into the waste-paper basket. I can defy the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or any Minister of the Crown, to point to any civilised country where less is done to promote the industry by which the people live than in our own country of Ireland.

AN HONOURABLE MEMBER

England.

*MR. PLUNKETT

No, I cannot admit that less is done in England. If the Government make a special point that they are neglecting this duty in England I am not prepared to dispute the matter; but the duty of the Government to agriculture in England is not so great as it is in Ireland, because in England the sole industry of the people is not agricultural, but in Ireland it is almost the sole industry of the people, and that, of course, makes all the difference. I have taken already so much of the time of the House that I shall forbear quoting some passages that I had intended to quote, to prove my contention in, this respect. I wish to speak as fairly as possible as an English Unionist, as a supporter of the Government, and as a believer in the good intentions of the Government. I say plainly, that there was a great deal in the objection that was raised by the Manchester Party to the expenditure of money in the way of promoting industries even by education in Ireland. In the then existing social condition of Ireland any material benefit that was conferred upon the country would undoubtedly have gone mainly into the pockets of the landlords; that that was so before the legislation of 1870 and 1881 cannot be denied. That was always held up as a final objection to doing anything in Ireland. But, Sir, that objection can no longer be taken. The Government has interposed a tribunal between the landlord and the tenant which does secure the tenant in the fruits of his labour and in his own improvements, and the excuse which formerly existed for the laissez faire system in Ireland no longer exists. Sir, we have become accustomed to the expression, first used, I think, by the right honourable Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies, that it is good policy for England to develop the backward portions of the Imperial estate. Unhappily, the right honourable Gentleman, when be comes to practise this very wise maxim, seems, if I may use the expression, to use the "long spoon." We never can induce him to give his attention to the markets in Ireland which might be opened to British produce—I am putting it on the most materialistic grounds of self-interest. Surely it can be no satisfaction to English manufacturers to see a low standard of comfort in Ireland, and a declining, almost a disappearing, population; and if the Chancellor of the Exchequer were here I should like to appeal to him in particular, because there is this difference between developing the Colonies—developing, for instance, the West Indies, about which we have heard a great deal this Session—and developing Ireland, that if he can increase the revenue-producing power of Ireland he can tax it. As I said before we do not complain of that taxation if the Government would only take steps to enable us to pay the taxes. While we talk of Imperial 'Federation, surely it is wiser, Tom the Imperial point of view, to begin to consolidate our Empire at home. One more consideration I would like to put before my own political friends in the House. I know, in pleading the cause of Ireland, pleading it as earnestly as I do, I incur the reproach of being a provincial politician. But, Sir, there is surely a wider view of this question than the merely Irish or merely English view. Just now we hear a great deal of talk of an Anglo-Saxon Alliance, and for my part I think that of all the ideals of British and Imperial statesmanship the loftiest ideal is a firm understanding between the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race. And yet what is the one barrier in the way of such an ideal being realised? Simply and solely the fact that there is a large portion of the American people of Irish extraction, who oppose every attempt of the Imperial Government to come to an amicable and friendly understanding with the United States. It is curious that only this morning I got a letter from an American correspondent, in which he said that the friendly feeling that was growing up between the United States and Great Britain had only one danger to fear, and that was the active propaganda of Irishmen in America, who were determined that until the legitimate grievances of Ireland were redressed there should be no further attempt either at arbitration or alliance. It was the Irish, unquestionably, who defeated the attempts of the British Empire and the United States to come to an agreement for arbitration last year. But it is quite unnecessary to appeal even to enlightened self-interest. I prefer to end as I began, by appealing to the sense of justice of the English people; by asking them to consider whether Ireland has not made out a real grievance; whether we have not made out our case that it is the poverty of Ireland that is the one drawback to our progress—the one barrier standing between us and a friendly understanding with England; whether that poverty is not largely the fault of England; and whether, if you look to the way in which the problem of the poverty of agricultural communities has been dealt with in foreign countries, the means have not been discovered by which agricultural communities can be made, not, perhaps, as prosperous as great manufacturing and commercial communities, but at least can be made comfortable.

*SIR E. CLARKE (Plymouth)

Mr. Speaker, the Motion that is now before the House declares: first, that it has been established on inquiry that there is a disproportion between the taxation of Ireland and of other parts of the United Kingdom; secondly, that that is a grievance; and, thirdly, that it is the duty of the Government to pay early attention to that grievance with a view to its remedy. Now it is only 18 months ago since a very similar proposition was before the House, and on that occasion the Report of the Royal Commission which had sat and reported on Irish financial affairs was the subject of a very elaborate investigation before this House. On that occasion the Chancellor of the Exchequer pleaded that he had not sufficient information to be able to deal with the question which was put before him. I ventured, Mr. Speaker, in that Debate, to deal with some detail —perhaps with unpardonable detail and length—with the question of finance, and I pointed out what I think will not now be denied, that in the Returns which were in possession of Her Majesty's Government every question which could be suggested or was then suggested by the Government as a question to be cleared up, would find an immediate and ready answer, and that there was no occasion whatever for any further Commission to inquire into these matters. Well, nearly 18 months have gone by. There has been, from causes which have been explained by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, no other Commission upon this matter. It does not appear likely that there is going to be any further inquiry. I am quite sure that no further inquiry is needed at all. I am quite sure that the Government has1 all the materials before it which do not need to be paraded through a witness before a Royal Commission in order to be accepted, as far as they go, as helping to solve this question. Now we have the duty of considering this proposition again. Has there been a disproportion established between the taxation of Ireland and the taxation of Great Britain? I do not think that there is any Member of the House who has acquainted himself with the Report of that Commission, and with the evidence upon which that Report was founded, who will for a moment challenge that first proposition. It is a very simple matter of financial history. Take the years from 1850 to this time, very nearly half a century. The fact that the taxation per head upon the people of Great Britain has been diminished by several shillings—I am speaking of figures which were in my mind a year ago, but I do not think they have very much altered—whereas the taxation per head of the people of Ireland has been very nearly doubled—that fact is quite sufficient to call the attention of the House very seriously to the question of what has caused that change. It is not that Ireland has increased in wealth faster than this country has. Unhappily, she has not got on a level with us in the pace of our industrial and our social growth. She is not now in a condition which enables one to turn away and disregard the appeal which is made by her representatives to the sympathy and to the justice of this country. The whole of the statistics show that the history of Ireland during the past 50 years has been a history—I do not say an unbroken history—of retrogression; there has been a falling off, not merely in the numbers of her people, but in the capacity—the industrial and social capacity—of her people. I do not need to go back upon those things which we were discussing nearly 18 months ago, and examine the statistics of pauperism or lunacy, nor what I then mentioned, and what I mention again, as the most significant of all symptoms in Ireland, the reduction of the marriage rate among the population—we need not go back upon these to see that one has to deal with a population which has been decreasing, not only in numbers but in industrial capacity. Well, if this is so, and if, while this change has been taking place to the disadvantage of the people of Ireland, there has been a steady and immense increase in the taxation of that country, we ought to look at it very carefully to see whether any injustice has been done. Now, Sir, the first objection taken when we were dealing with this matter, by, I think, the only English Member of the House who has spoken since the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and who opposed this Resolution, is that you must not speak of Ireland as a separate entity; that, if you are speaking of the poverty of Ireland, and dwelling upon those sadder characteristics of the present condition of her people which would make you incline to sympathise with her troubles and to relieve her in her finances, you are forbidden to do that because you know that in England itself, and quite close to this House, there are other populations as poor and as oppressed. That answer is not an adequate one. I quite agree that the discussion of this question may open to many of us larger problems of taxation than even those which are concerned with the adjustment of the finances of Ireland. It may very well be—I think it is—the fact that in our dealing with taxation we have been too used to look at large results and great totals, and not carefully enough to appreciate the burden which is placed on the poorer class of our community. But that is a larger question; and there is a simpler and more straightforward answer for this question, and it is this. We are bound in bonds of covenant and obligation. We are not entitled to refuse to' perform our covenanted obligations to Ireland because there may be others in our own household who deserve as much of our sympathy and our pity. But, with regard to Ireland, we have come into this Union by covenant and agreement with the Parliament of Ireland itself, when they came to join us and make one body; and in the Act of Union, and in the Act of 1816, we laid down distinctly what should be our rule in dealing with Ireland. We are left in no uncertainty as to the view which was held upon this matter by those great statesmen of honoured memory, Pitt and Castlereagh, who acted through the transactions which brought about the Union with Ireland. They have left us in no doubt as to what their view was and what their opinion was—and what their opinion was they wrote really into the Statutes of which they were the authors. They left upon record their own view as to what should be the conduct of this country with regard to Ireland, and when we come to the year 1817, and the two Exchequers were made one, and there was established a common fiscal system in the country, it was recognised that in carrying out the promises and pledges of those who brought about the Union there must be exemptions or abatements —as there might have to be from time to time—in order to adjust the fiscal burden to the weaker member of the partnership which had been so established. Well, we have that obligation upon us still. We cannot escape it in honour. We are bound to recognise our obligations, and if there may be a case made out on the part of Ireland which shows to us that Ireland has been taxed beyond the capacity of her people to bear taxation, then we have no right to consider what it will cost to our constituencies, or to ourselves, before we decide to pay that debt or to discharge that duty. It is owing, not only in the obligations of conscience, but in the letter of the Act, and that obligation we are bound to perform. Let us see how far this carries us. We have examined into the condition of Ireland, and I do not think that anyone now seriously denies that the proportion which Ireland ought to bear to the taxation of the whole Empire cannot be, upon any reasonable scheme, assessed at more than one twentieth of that amount. But she pays more now; and she pays more, not in consequence of taxation, or of a system of government for which Ireland herself is responsible, but chiefly because since the Union has been established, and for the sake of the maintenance of that Union—for which I believe these things have been rightly done—there has been made a certain unity of organisation and administration in this country and Ireland, which has had the effect, not intended but inevitable, of putting upon Ireland a larger financial burden than she was fairly able to pay. Now, if this is so—and I am not disposed to go back upon the discussion of all these matters which came before the Commission—I am not aware that anyone of any repute, or of any experience in deal- ing with these matters, has suggested that Ireland's capacity is greater than one-twentieth of the capacity of the whole empire to bear taxation; if this is so, we find that she is bearing an excess of taxation, and when her representatives come here and say that that is a burden upon her, and that burden ought to be removed, I want to know what the answer is. Well, now, the answer we have heard to-night was a very stiff and departmental answer from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it comes very much to this: he says that for some years past it has been the practice of the Treasury to make out an account, by which they show that of the £7,000,000 or £8,000,000 that Ireland had to pay in taxation, so much was spent upon Irish local services that the balance represented an inadequate contribution to the Imperial charges at large. That, shortly put, is the answer that the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes. Sir, that seems to me to be separatism of the very worst kind. I protest against this breaking up of the accounts of this country into accounts for separate portions of the country, debiting Ireland with certain items of expenditure as if they were local expenditure and had nothing to do with the expenditure of the whole country. It is directly contrary to the Act of 1816. That Act clearly contemplates a common exchequer. I agree that no one is more forcible than the Chancellor of the Exchequer is when he appeals to that Act of 1816, as forbidding in its terms the making of separate financial and fiscal arrangements for different parts of the country. But if it speaks of a common exchequer, it speaks also of a common expenditure, and, to my mind, all the expenditure for which this House of Commons is responsible is Imperial expenditure, whether it be made in England, in Scotland, or in Ireland; and to split it up, and to say that because we chose to spend, not always with the assent of the Irish Members, a certain portion of this money in a particular way upon an Irish service we are entitled to separate it—to take it out of the account, as it were—and to say to Ireland, "You must not look upon this as taxation, because you get it back into your coun- try," appears to me to be a very dangerous and a very separatist system of carrying on the financial accounts of this country. And there is this great unfairness about it. If the Irish people themselves had had the opportunity of arranging their own affairs with regard to expenditure, and if they had come to this House and had said from time to time, "We desire to maintain our establishments on such a scale, and we desire to maintain our constabulary upon such a scale, and we ask: you to grant this money for these establishments upon that scale," and Parliament had then so granted the amount, it might fairly be said to the Irish people, "You have had back for your own purposes so much of the contribution you made to our taxation, and you must take it as a set-off against the amount that you have paid." But it is too well known to all of us that that is not so. I am not one to flinch in the least degree from responsibility for the policy which has been adopted with regard to Ireland, and for the expenditure which that policy has made necessary; but if that policy has made large expenditure necessary it has been, not for Irish purposes, but for Imperial purposes, and that being so it seems to me it is quite as much an Imperial expenditure as is the expenditure upon a ship that sails to the Mediterranean Sea, or the expenditure upon the palaces of the Sovereign which are found in this city. Well, there is another answer, and I confess it seems to me to be a very strong one. It is said that the taxation of Ireland is £7,000,000 or £8,000,000, and that if you deduct from it the amount that is spent on Irish local services you will have but a small residue left, I think it would be fairer to take the account, if you take it at all, in a different way, to take an account of the moneys spent in Ireland, which is a different thing from the moneys which are spent upon what are called Irish local services. The sum is made out thus: it is said you have £7,000,000 of revenue, and £5,000,000 is spent upon your local affairs, and therefore you only contribute £2,000,000 to the Imperial expenditure, and that is less than the amount which you ought to contribute. Just see how fallacious this is. I ventured to put this before the House in the Debate last year, and I repeat it, for no answer was attempted to it. The fallacy in this system of I separate book-keeping is shown by this, that according to that system you only have to double the expenditure upon the constabulary of Ireland, and you remove every grievance from Ireland altogether. That really is a test that shows the absurdity of the calculation. If for your own purposes—not because Ireland asks for it or desires it, but for Imperial purposes, and I will take it well justified Imperial purposes—you were to spend a couple of millions more in Ireland upon Irish administration, you would then, according to this extraordinary system, say that Ireland was contributing nothing at all to the Imperial revenue. New, Sir, I do think that it would be a great advantage to us, from all points of view, both from the point of view of discussing the question of taxation and from the point of view of discussing the relations between Great Britain and Ireland, if we were to get rid of this separation altogether, and if we could recognise that the real question is this—what is the burden that falls upon the people with whom we are dealing? We are bound to make abatements and exemptions to them if they are unfairly burdened by our Imperial system of taxation. Is there a case for exemption and for abatement now? There was another answer suggested by the Chancellor of the Exchequer—I do not wish to delay long upon it—when he said we are increasing the national expenditure, and the consequence of that is that the Irish contribution;—the balance on the Irish financial sheet—will be only one fifty-second of the national expenditure instead of one thirty-fifth. But again, does it not show the fallacy of the system with which he is dealing when you put it this way, that, supposing we were to go to the expense of building three more ironclads, one at Devonport, one at Glasgow, and one elsewhere, wherever it may be, in Great Britain, the effect of that would be to extinguish the Irish grievance? The Irish grievance is that with a population decreasing in numbers and decreasing in industrial capacity there has been an acute, a constant, a large, I would venture to add an excessive, increase in the taxation of the people of that country, and no comparison of figures can get rid of that fact. Well new, if this be the case, is there not something for the Government to consider in regard to this matter? I hope before the end of this Debate my right honourable Friend, whose name will always be very closely and honourably associated with Irish administration, will speak upon this matter with something more of sympathy towards the Irish claims and Irish circumstances than was shown by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his speech to-night. I am quite sure that he, from his great knowledge of Ireland, appreciates the condition of the country, and I am quite sure that he has the courage to face the consequences which must follow from the establishment, if it be establishment, of this financial inequality between the two countries. It is impossible, of course, to ask the Government to lay down before the House and pledge themselves to follow to its end a scheme by which this inequality shall be redressed, but the first necessity of the case is—and I think it would to a great extent satisfy Irish feeling upon this matter—an admission that there is a grievance of this kind. It is bad enough to have a grievance, and when you put it forward to be met with the answer that it is impossible to remedy it; but it is cruel if you have a grievance, and can prove it, to be flouted and told that there is no grievance at all, and that, whether it be from a pedantic interpretation of an old Act of Parliament, or from a new-fangled arrangement of Treasury accounts, or from sympathy, however legitimate, with the wants of other portions of the people, you must be held at arm's length, and almost refused a hearing. I hope that the tone of the Leader of the House will not be quite that. As for this Resolution before the House, I cannot refuse to support it. Last year, when it was brought forward, I said in this House that I would not vote for the Motion, or Resolution, that was then proposed, because the Minister who was responsible for finance declared that he required to have further information before he made up his mind with regard to the manner in which it would be dealt with. There is no such justification for a refusal now. There is no prospect that anyone has been able to point out that any further investigation will enable us to see more clearly the truth of this matter, and in these circumstances I say these few words in support of the Resolution, which I am bound to support by my vote.

"MR. LOUGH (Islington, W.)

I am sure that the speech to which we have just listened will do something to rouse in Ireland a kindly feeling towards the honourable and learned Member. There was one remark in the admirable speech of the honourable Member for Waterford, who introduced the Debate, to which I call the attention of the House, because I think the honourable Member, in quoting a statement made by Sir Robert Giffen before the Royal Commission, made a slight slip—I am quite sure unintentionally—which it may not be out of place to correct. He was quoting the statement made by Sir Robert Giffen as to the taxable capacity, of the average person in Ireland with that of the average person in Great Britain, and he said that this average was placed at something under £15 in Ireland against £39 in Great Britain. Now, Sir, Sir Robert Giffen did not use those two amounts as showing the proportion between the two, for he said there must be taken off each an amount, which the Commission fixed at £12, as a living allowance, so that what remained to pay taxes in the case of the Irishman was only £3, and what remained in the case of the Englishman was £27. There fore the proportion, stood in a ratio of one to nine. I think that is rather a different figure than was interpreted from what the honourable Member said. I do not, of course, say it in criticism of his speech, which I think was one of the most eloquent that we have heard upon this subject. I was greatly disappointed at the tone of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to-night. He said, as indeed he said on a previous occasion, that we must look to the year 1817 for the commencement of the present state of affairs. I wish the right honourable Gentleman was present; I feel there is almost a want of candour in repeating that statement now. When I interrupted the right honourable Gentleman, and said that equal taxation between England and Ireland had not been established in 1817, he replied that the principle had been declared in 1817. Sir, no one in Ireland has ever suffered from a declaration of principle in this House. It is when that principle is brought into practice in Ireland that Irishmen suffer, and looked at in this honest, plain way, we must recognise that equal taxation in Ireland, was not enforced for 40 years after 1817; until the period between 1855 and 1860. Now I think, Mr. Speaker, that there will be a great deal of disappointment at the tone which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken up. He has again presented a firm front against this claim, and he has tried to show that the Government have done nearly all they will do. I think we have got a very clear situation with regard to this matter, which it would be well that this House should consider. In Ireland, as we Were reminded by the extraordinary demonstration which took place at the commencement of this sitting, the question is constantly discussed, and it has roused more attention in that country than any question since the day of the Union, and has led to a new and nourishing agitation. We have had meetings addressed by people of quite different rank from those who have addressed popular audiences for a long time past, and there is a perfect unanimity of feeling on the subject which is of the most striking character. While that has been so in Ireland, I think it is impossible to deny that in Great Britain a very languid feeling exists in regard to the subject, whether in the public press or amongst the people, or in this House. We may learn from this two or three sad lessons. This House is again proving the truth of the old charge made against it, that when any Irish claim is presented in a reasonable and quiet form it receives no attention whatever, and that there must be violence—I might almost say bloodshed —before it will consider any claim presented on the part of Ireland. I will remind the House of an amazing example of this fact. I had the pleasure of attending a meeting at Cork two years ago, which was addressed by Lord Castletown. The noble Lord made a speech which attracted a great deal of attention. Why did that speech attract attention? Because there was revolution in it; because he spoke, whether he meant it or not, of the example they had been given by the Americans when the tea was thrown into Boston Harbour. The speech was printed verbatim in nearly every English newspaper. Since then Lord Castletown has made a good many speeches, but these speeches have obtained no attention whatever, because they were couched in a more moderate spirit. I think there is another lesson that we may gather from the treatment this question has received. This House appears to have an infinite capacity for inventing grievances of a more serious character than the one which is got rid of. This question of taxation is one which has arisen within the memory of honourable Gentlemen who now sit in this House. It is not 40 years old in its present acute form; and so this House, we find, has invented this new oppression and flung it upon Ireland, and persisted in maintaining it after all the sad experience of cruel treatment that we have had through centuries in Ireland already. I have heard honourable Members say that the Irish themselves are to blame for what is wrong over there. Well, no one in Ireland is to blame for this grievance It was done by successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, by successive Governments, and I think everybody is going to see that it is one of the most serious difficulties which the country has had to face. While these few aspects of the case are true, I would say to honourable Gentlemen from Ireland that they have some reason for encouragment, because all questions affecting Ireland have passed through exactly the same phases as this question. When the claims of the Catholics for emancipation were brought before this House they were treated with languor and neglected, but, finally, those claims were recognised. It was much the same with the land question; and Irish Members should not be discouraged. So it will be with this question. However long the time may be, I believe that it will be pressed to a successful issue, and the only thing we may regret is that there is not some Government at the head of affairs—who will grasp this matter boldly, who will recognise the reasonable nature of the claim, and who are resolved to do in a liberal spirit what they can. Now Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to allude to this matter in a fresh way, or to say anything that has not been already said upon it. I will not go into those matters that have already been dealt with, but I think, if the House will bear with me while I just repeat a sentence which may sound somewhat academic, I could make clear to the House in a single sentence what the grievance is. The complaint of Ireland is that within living memory, within the last 40 years, this House has taken advantage of its position as the taxing-master of Ireland to violently disturb the ratio that has existed for generations between the contributions of the British and the Irish taxpayer. That is really the whole grievance, Sir, I will ask honourable Members to bear with me for a moment while I make the point clear. I may be asked, what evidence is there of any ratio between the taxes paid by the British and the Irish taxpayer? We have got ample evidence. In other Irish questions we have a great difficulty in ascertaining the facts. On this question there is no difficulty whatever. The facts have been clear for generations, and the evidence is chiefly taken from the Chisholm Return, which contains a summary of the Budgets of Great Britain and Ireland, dating from the year 1689 down to the present time. Now I am afraid the House may think I am going to deal with the whole history at this late hour, but I am not going into it at any length. I am only going to say that a summary of these Returns shows that a ratio existed for generations between the contributions made by the Irish taxpayer and the British taxpayer of a really striking character. I will just mention two or three dates, in order that the House may see how striking this fact was. I will go back for my first date as far as the year 1690. Then the ratio that existed was a ratio of 5.7 to 1—that is to say, £5.7 was paid by the British taxpayer to £1 paid by the Irish taxpayer. In 1730 the ratio was £5.2 to £1. In 1760 it was; £6.9; in 1800, £5; and in 1815 it was £5.7 to every £1 paid by the Irish taxpayer. Now in these few figures I have given to the House the history of 125 years, and during that whole period of 125 years there was a ratio of about 5½ to between the contributions made by the British taxpayer and the Irish taxpayer respectively. During most of the period I have mentioned this House was legislating for Great Britain, and the Irish House of Commons was fixing the taxes for Ireland. There was no collusion; each House in its particular sphere had a great deal of difficulty in meeting the annual expenses, and each House calculated what the country it represented could and ought to bear. This makes it remarkable that we should find the proportion maintained of £5 10s. per head paid by every person in Great Britain over this long period, against £1 paid by every person in Ireland. That is a most remarkable and striking fact. It shows the ratio on an historic basis, which this House cannot ignore in considering the present controversy. I ended just now at the year 1815. I will bring the House down from that day to the present. In 1829 the ratio was £4.3 to £10. In 1849 it was £3.8; in 1859 it was £2; in 1879 it was £1.7, and in 1897 it was £1.6 paid by the British taxpayer to every £1 paid by the Irish taxpayer. Now, I have come down from the year of Waterloo to this present year, and the House will see how the ratio has been altered against Ireland, from £3 to £2, and from £2 to £1.6, and £1.6 is now the amount paid by the British taxpayer for every £1 paid by the Irish taxpayer. This is a difficulty which was anticipated at the time of the Union. Really, the question that was most discussed at the time of the Union in the Irish House of Commons was, "How will the new Parliament at Westminster treat us in the matter of taxation?" Everybody knew that previous to 1801 there was a proportion of about £5 per head paid by every person in Great Britain, against £1 paid by every person in Ireland. The great question then discussed was this: can such an arrangement be made as will secure the maintenance of this ratio? And so we had the 7th clause of the Act of Union elaborately drawn up. It was then as it has been in every bargain since with the Irish. The English, who were the stronger, got the best of it, but still a, higher ratio was fixed. A ratio of 3½ to was fixed as the fair amount to be paid by the British and the Irish taxpayers respectively. So we see that the, Union made practically no difference; for, although that lower ratio, was fixed, it was not collected;, and during the first years of the Union the proportion which had existed in the 18th century continued. This is really the story that the House has to deal with. There has been this ratio between the two peoples observed, but what has been shown is that this ratio has in recent years been absolutely destroyed. If those who want to consider this question will just approach it from this standpoint, a great many difficulties which embarrass us when we approach it from other standpoints will immediately disappear. For instance, an Englishman may say, "Oh! nothing is being done except to establish equal taxation between the two countries." Not so. The machinery which reduced the ratio within the last 40 or 50 years from £5 paid by the English taxpayer to every £1 paid by the Irish taxpayer to £1.6 paid by the English taxpayer to every £1 paid by the Irish taxpayer, that machinery will go further, and it will reduce the ratio until for every 10s. paid by the British taxpayer there will be £1 paid by the Irish taxpayer, if so much can be squeezed out. The machinery has been invented by this House which squeezes Ireland unjustifiably, and if that machinery is maintained it will be carried to lengths of which this House has no idea at the present time. We have got to ask this question: What is the machinery by which this ratio has been changed? It is of the most simple character. It is simply the principle of common taxation. Levying the same taxes on the same article in the two kingdoms has produced this bad result. It is a most surprising thing, because everyone at the first glance would say, "What could be fairer than to levy the same duty on the same article in the two countries?" The truth is nothing can be more unfair. You can accomplish any result you like by a selection of articles, and by levying the same taxes on the articles selected in the two countries—

It being midnight, the Debate stood adjourned.