FINANCIAL RELATIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

HC Deb 18 July 1901 vol 97 cc873-955

MR. CLANCY (Dublin, N.)

In rising, Sir, to move the resolution which stands in my name, I am happy to think that it will not be necessary for me to occupy the time of the House for any lengthened period. I merely intend to present to the House in broad outline the grievance under which the Irish representatives of all parties, with about half a dozen exceptions, and ninety-nine hundredths of the Irish people believe their country labours and has laboured for many a year. At the same time, the subject is too important and complicated to be very briefly or lightly dealt with, and, as this is a new House of Commons, I presume that it will be only proper that, in telling our story to it for the first time, I should endeavour to make it comprehensive, if not complete. I may, perhaps, be permitted to hope that the result of this discussion may be somewhat less unsatisfactory than that of similar discussions on this subject in the past. I think we have gained something which we would not have gained without those debates and the agitation in Ireland, of which they were the outcome; but, on the whole, our grievance has hitherto been denied and redress has been directly refused. Our experience, therefore, has not been encouraging, and in connection with it I cannot help thinking how applicable to our position is Sydney Smith's parody of a popular quotation— Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just, and ten times may he be over-taxed. I repeat that I hope that this House of Commons will show itself, at least on this subject, more disposed than the last to view things from an impartial standpoint and to act and to compel Ministers to act accordingly. Now, on this question, we Irish Members take our stand on certain provisions in the Act of Union, and here, perhaps, I may anticipate one criticism which this fact evoked last session, at my own expense, from the Chancellor of the Exchequer and which may possibly be forthcoming again this evening. When I stated that I stood upon the Act of Union, the right hon. Gentleman sarcastically welcomed me in the novel character of a recruit to the cause of the Union. I thought at the time and I think now that for a man of his serious temper and demeanour mere joking of this sort was somewhat out of place on such an occasion. As for the inconsistency which he implied, I cannot see it. I am opposed to the Union root and branch. I consider it a usurpation which no man in Ireland is morally bound to obey. But, while it is maintained, against my will, am I forbidden by the fact that I would get rid of it if I could from taking advantage of any of its provisions which may work out good for Ireland? Of course, I am not, and if I considered myself so forbidden I would be justly laughed at by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for my simplicity. Therefore, though I abate not a jot of my hostility to the Union, I have no hesitation whatever in availing myself of the provisions of its Seventh Article. But, before I enter on the special grounds, on the basis of which we assert the existence of this Irish grievance, I wish to direct attention to the actual consequences of the system of taxing indiscriminately two countries so dissimilar in their circumstances as Great Britain and Ireland. The figures, to put it mildly, are striking. In 1893–4—the last financial year of which the Royal Commission to which I shall presently refer took note—our population was 4,600,599, and the total of our Imperial taxation was £7,568,649. Since then our population has been steadily declining, and our taxation has been steadily mounting up, till at the close of the last financial year the figures stood thus: Population, 4,456,5460; taxation, £9,505,000. If the current year be taken into account, our population will have in all probability still further declined at the close of the next financial year and our taxation will certainly have amounted to over £10,000,000. In other words, our taxation on the 31st March next year will be larger than it was in 1893 by almost as much as the Commission then declared us to be over-taxed in comparison with Great Britain. To Irishmen, Sir, all this is simply appalling. It means a double drain—a drain of wealth and a drain of the greatest of all the sources of wealth—which to an admittedly poor country involves in the long run such an abstraction of capital as must fatally cripple all its efforts after industrial development.

Why is this the case? The necessities of Ireland alone do not supply the answer. The answer and the explanation are to be found in the fact that a poor country is linked financially with a rich one, and that the rich country chooses to embark in costly Imperial enterprises and drags the poor one after her. The rich country may be able, and no doubt is able, to bear the resulting pecuniary strain; but who will pretend that the poor one will be, if the process I have described of increasing the taxation of Ireland while the resources of Ireland are decreasing, is much further continued? Suppose that the ten millions and over which we Irish shall pay this year to the Imperial tax-gatherer be raised to twelve millions next year and fourteen millions the year after—what then? Would anyone in that event pretend that we were treated with consideration or justice, and that the final result to our people could be other than destructive? I may be told that Ireland suffers because she is poor, and that there are poor localities in Great Britain which suffer also. I do not know that the poor localities in Great Britain suffer so much, for in normal times at least far the greater part of the whole revenue of the United Kingdom is spent amongst the rich and poor of England. But let me grant for the sake of argument that this indiscriminate system of taxation hits severely some localities in Great Britain, is that any reason why Ireland should continue to be hit? Do two wrongs make one right? I say therefore in the first place that, apart from the Union altogether, and independently of any rights which we possess under it, it is perfectly plain that the present system of indiscriminate taxation is a grievance of the first magnitude as far as Ireland is concerned, and must necessarily be so as long as the circumstances of the two countries remain dissimilar, and as long as a yearly increasing expenditure remains a necessity for the richer of the two. We simply cannot follow you British in your extravagance, and if you persist in your present course we must necessarily fall by the way. This consideration ought to be enough, even if there were nothing else to induce this House to devise some other system of taxation; but we also appeal to the letter of the law, and say that this House is bound to take that course at the risk, if it refuses to do so, of being guilty of breaking another treaty with Ireland.

The Act of Union, which England has always insisted on regarding as a treaty made between two nations, and which, therefore, according to the English view itself, is more solemn and binding than any ordinary Act of Parliament—which, indeed, cannot according to that view be abrogated except with the consent of both the parties by whom it has been made—that Act or Treaty, if faithfully observed, would have saved us from some at least of the injustice of which we complain. What does the Act of Union provide? The Seventh Article is a very elaborate but a very plain series of provisions. It contemplates two distinct possibilities. It contemplates in the first place separate financial treatment for Ireland after the Union. The policy of separate treatment may be spelled out of almost every line of it. Separate treatment was a necessity—at least for the moment, because of the disproportion between the Irish and British debts and the difference in the circumstances of the two countries. The framers of the Union were daring and unscrupulous enough, but with all their daring and unscrupulousness they would hardly have carried the Union if they had not solemnly promised Ireland that as long as that disproportion and that difference existed the two countries would never be taxed the same. Lord Castle-reagh, notwithstanding that he had spent millions on the corruption of the Irish Legislature, still thought it necessary to give that body the most solemn assurances to that effect. "As to the future" he said "it is expected that the two countries shall move forward and unite with regard to their expenses in the measure of their relative abilities." "Ireland" he said again, explaining the Financial Article of the Act of Union, "has the utmost possible security that she cannot be taxed beyond the measure of her comparative ability, and the rates of her contribution must ever correspond with her relative wealth and prosperity." I pause here for a moment to notice a surprising statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the last debate on this subject in connection with this particular point. Because the Seventh Article of the Act of Union contemplates another possibility—namely, indiscriminate taxation—he professed with this declaration of Lord Castlereagh and many others like it before him to think that separate treatment in fiscal matters was not the main note of the financial arrangements made by the Act of Union. With what, for want of a severer term which would be at the same time Parliamentary, I may be allowed to call a perverse and incurable blindness to certain realities, he fails to see in the Union arrangements what is writ large—what is as big as a mountain, open, palpable—but has the keenest eye and the clearest vision for the things that are writ small and that are, by comparison, entirely insignificant. The dominant idea, I repeat, was separate treatment; common treatment was regarded merely as a remote possibility; and, accordingly, it was provided that until the debts of Ireland and Great Britain came to bear to each other a certain ratio, and until the circumstances of the two countries became similar, the Exchequers of the two countries were to be kept separate, Ireland was to pay two parts to every fifteen parts paid by Great Britain to the common expenditure of the Empire; the taxation in Ireland was to be regugulated accordingly, and this arrangement was not to be altered or revised except at the end of every twenty years. As to whether the contribution of Ireland was fixed at too high a figure, I will discuss in a moment. But, if it were fair, the arrangement would have saved us from being taxed during the last century beyond our relative ability to bear taxation. It would not have been possible to say with the economist Nassau Senior, quoted with approval by Sir Stafford Northcote in the Report which he drew up in 1864 for General Dunne's Committee, that England was the most lightly taxed and Ireland the most heavily taxed country in Europe, though both were nominally liable to equal taxation. It would have saved us from being plundered of some hundreds of millions in the shape of excessive taxation from 1800 to the present year. But the contribution which Ireland was called upon to pay was not fair. All the opponents of the Union, including the whole body of the Irish House of Lords, protested against its unfairness, and it is now universally admitted to have been excessive, and the result was what might have been expected, and what I, for my part, believe was expected by the authors of the Union. Ireland could not pay the whole of it any single year, and the deficiency had, of course, to be made up by borrowing. The result was that about £90,000,000 were added to the debt of Ireland in sixteen years after the Union. Then came the opportunity of the simple-minded, honest gentlemen who devised or supported the Union arrangement. I have referred to the alternative financial plan which alone the Chancellor of the Exchequer can see in the Seventh Article of the Act of Union. That plan was that, as soon as the two debts came to bear to each other a certain proportion, and as soon as the two countries became similar in circumstances, the two Exchequers should be amalgamated and the two countries might be taxed alike. This plan was put into operation in 1816–17.

The Act of 1816 was a flagrant violation of the Union. The alternative plan of indiscriminate taxation was only to be adopted on the occurrence of two contingencies. Neither of those contingencies had occurred then or has occurred since. First, the contribution of Ireland was deliberately fixed too high; secondly, the consequent borrowing which, by the Act of Union, ought to have been made on the joint account of the two countries, was made on the account of Ireland alone. In other words, the Irish debt was fraudulently inflated. The debts, indeed, had reached the prescribed ratio to one another; but how did this particular contingency happen? The transaction was as infamous to my mind as was the addition of ten millions to the Irish debt for the crushing of the insurrection of 1798, which the English Ministers in Ireland had deliberately provoked for ulterior purposes. It was far worse, in its consequences at least, than the earlier addition to the Irish debt of the cost of the English pensions, of which John Philpott Curran spoke when he said that the Irish pension list made in England— 'comprised every description of man, woman, and child, from the exalted excellence of a Hawke or a Rodney to the debased situation of the lady who humbled herself that she might be exalted. So far for the first of the two conditions which should be fulfilled before the Union arrangement for separate financial treatment could be set aside. As for the second, it is a very curious thing that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the hon. Member for the Spen Valley Division, and almost every opponent of the Irish case in this matter who has spoken in this House House have always most carefully ignored. Not one of them can be got to look at it. No wonder, for no one can for one moment pretend that it has ever been fulfilled from 1800 to this hour. Will any man in this House deny that, instead of the circumstances of the two countries having become similar, they have become more and more dissimilar, year by year, for the last hundred years? The second condition, therefore, was no more fulfilled than the first, and the Act of 1816, with its consequent system of indiscriminate taxation, was, for that reason, a fraudulent violation of the Union, and, consequently, every penny taken from us since 1817, in excess of what would have been our proportionate contribution to Imperial expenditure, has been taken, and is now being taken, fraudulently. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has, of course, his answer. He says that the Irish representatives of 1816 assented. What a paltry piece of special pleading! How valid the assent can be regarded of a body of Irish Members elected fifteen or twenty years before Catholic emancipation! The corrupt majority of them would have assented to anything proposed by an English Minister. Another answer generally given is that, despite all that I have said, the transaction of 1816 was really an act of benevolence on the part of England to Ireland. Ireland, it is said, could not pay its debt, and Great Britain took it on its own shoulders, asking only in return that henceforward it might be at liberty at any time to make indiscriminate taxation the rule. A pretty sort of benevolence. It was well illustrated by the late Mr. O'Neill Daunt, who had thoroughly mastered this subject long before the Childers Commission was appointed. "Suppose," he said, "a money transaction between two merchants, A and B. On making up their accounts B discovers that A has overcharged him £1,000. A admits the error, and transfers the £1,000 to his own debit. But he then says to B, 'Well, my dear fellow, as I have gener- ously taken the onus of that £1,000 on myself, you must really allow me to fleece you some other way.'" One would imagine that if mere justice, not to talk of benevolence, had been the guiding motive of English policy in the matter, English statesmen, instead of acting as they did, would have reduced Ireland's contribution to the Empire, which was found, and is now universally admitted to have been, excessive, and would have relieved her of at least a portion of the addition to her debt caused by an admitted over-estimate of her relative taxable capacity. But that was not done, and something very different had always been contemplated.

I have read and heard it said that the contribution fixed by the Act was not paid, and therefore it did not matter whether it was fair or unfair. But the English politicians with whom I am dealing never expected that it would be paid. That it would be paid was what they neither expected nor hoped. What they both hoped and expected was that it would not be paid, with the view that some time or another the bankruptcy of Ireland might bring about the system of common taxation under which Ireland could be fleeced at will, and without any regard to the protective stipulations of the Act of Union. I solemnly declare that in my opinion history does not disclose a more dishonourable series of transactions, and certainly none have been attended by more disastrous results to the victims. What have been the consequences to Ireland? When we complain of these financial grievances we are usually met with the answer that there cannot be any grievance, because every individual in the three kingdoms is treated alike. But everybody sees the Irishman's rejoinder, that to be taxed alike is our grievance, because we were guaranteed lighter taxation by the Act of Union on account of our lighter indebtedness and our smaller ability to pay. Again, it is said that it is not England, Ireland, or Scotland that is taxed, but the individuals who live in those countries respectively; and again the rejoinder is that the particular individuals who happened to live in Ireland at the time of the Union were granted rights which were not granted to individuals living in the other parts of the Kingdom. Again, it is said there are poor classes in England, and if Ireland deserves special treatment England deserves the same thing; but to that we reply that no treaty was made in 1800 between the slums of London and the rest of the country, or between Dorset-shire or Wiltshire and the other parts of the United Kingdom. The financial provisions of the Act of Union were the price which England agreed to pay for Union, and the price ought to be paid if England is to retain a shred—and there is little more than a shred left—of her reputation for honesty. How have we been treated since 1817. I admit that from 1817 to 1853 some effect was given to the provision in the Act of 1817 for separate treatment. During that period differential treatment, now supposed to be impracticable and impossible, was the rule; but I cannot admit that that differential treatment was another illustration of British generosity. The plain truth is that you could not get any more out of Ireland. British policy had so impoverished Ireland that the squeezability of Ireland had during that time been exhausted. I am reminded of a story of a well-known member of the Munster Circuit who had defended a prisoner at the Cork Assizes, and who had taken for his fee £1 instead of £1 1s. He was arraigned before the circuit bar for having accepted an unprofessional fee, but his answer was conclusive: "My God, I have taken all he had." But a time came when the screw could be put on afresh with some profit, and accordingly Mr. Gladstone began the process in 1853, and he was faithfully imitated by Mr. Disraeli in succeeding years. I wish to guard myself at once against making any attack upon one side or the other. Both have acted the part of plunderers of Ireland, and the question of who began it and who continued it is to me a matter of indifference—they are both equally bad. Between 1853 and 1864, while the taxation of England was increased by only 17 per cent., that of Ireland was actually increased by 52 per cent.; though at the same time, while England's population was going up by leaps and bounds, Ireland's was steadily decreasing. Moreover, at what time did this increase of taxation begin? Ireland was still reeling, as it were, from the effects of the famine, was just recovering, just showing a little symptom of life. One would have thought that such a time would have been selected for fostering her industry, instead of crushing it by increased taxation. A ruthless and a cruel blow, in fact, was levelled at the prosperity of Ireland between 1853 and 1864, and the process of taxing indiscriminately Ireland and Great Britain, which was then commenced, has since continued, with the result that in 1894, according to the report of the Royal Commission of that year, Ireland was every year taxed to the extent of nearly three millions beyond what her relative taxable capacity justified.

I now have to say a few words in reference to the Childers Commission. It was a body of the highest possible authority; it contained representatives of Great Britain and Ireland, those of Great Britain, of course, largely preponderating in number; all political parties in both Great Britain and Ireland were represented upon it; it had amongst its members such financial experts as Lord Farrer, Lord Welby, the late Sir Robert Hamilton, Sir David Barbour, and Mr. Bertram Currie. No commission could possess greater weight in respect of the subject which it was required to investigate, and it was practically unanimous in its findings, for, though two members dissented, one of them admitted most of the main facts in his special report, and the other in his special report did not deny them. What did the Commission find? I need only quote three of the conclusions: (1) That, as I have striven to show, the Act of Union imposed upon Ireland a burden which, as events showed, she was unable to bear; (2) that the increase of taxation laid upon Ireland between 1853 and 1860 was not justified by the then existing circumstances; and (3) that whilst the actual tax revenue of Ireland was about one-eleventh that of Great Britain, the relative taxable capacity of Ireland was very much smaller, and was not estimated by any of the Commissioners as exceeding one-twentieth. Now if the positions of the two countries were changed—if it were Great Britain which was seeking relief, and not Ireland, and if such a report were made in favour of the claim of Great Britain—I ask any candid Englishman who listens to me, would he not consider it absolutely conclusive? Why, then, is it not regarded as conclusive when its verdict is in favour of Ireland and Ireland is the claimant? The only answer to this question I have ever seen given is that, forsooth, the Commission considered the question of the alleged over-taxation of Ireland in connection with the question of Home Rule. I may be very stupid, but I have never been able to see in that contention any relevancy whatever, or anything else but sheer absurdity. What does it matter whether the Commission looked at the question submitted to them in connection with the question of Home Rule or not? Is not the real point whether or not its findings are true? Are its findings any the less true because they followed the example of Mr. Goschen in considering Great Britain and Ireland for the purpose of the inquiry as separate financial entities? [The fact of the matter is that those who seek to discredit the findings of the Commission, because it took the course it did, virtually give up their case, and admit that of Ireland, for they show that they cannot deny the really essential facts as to the relative taxable capacity and the actual taxation of Ireland. For myself, the one point on which I think the findings of the Commission have been unjust to Ireland is that of taxable capacity. It is manifest that most of the Commissioners set it down in their own minds at far less than one-twentieth. Sir Robert Giffen placed it long ago as low as one fifty-third, and his authority on such a subject is of the highest. But, when I think of the vast industries of England, of her enormous foreign and colonial trade, of the millions upon millions of money which she is able to lend to or invest in every country under the sun, and when I then turn to the wretched remnant of Irish trade and commerce which is now left, when I see the roofless warehouses in our towns and the idle mills on the banks of our streams—there are twenty of them in my own constituency—I begin to suspect that even the most apparently reliable statistics are illusory, and that even Sir Robert Giffen's estimate is too high.

But, adopting the highest estimate, we were, according to the Commission in 1894, taxed to the extent of two and three-quarter millions beyond what was just. How does it stand now? Our contribution to the Imperial Revenue last year, according to the Paper issued yesterday, was nine millions and a half, or all but 7 per cent. of the whole—in other words, though our relative capacity, was at the highest, one-twentieth—and very probably one-fiftieth—we paid about one-fourteenth of the taxes raised. It is said that this contribution, though larger by nearly two millions than in 1893–4, is relatively less than it was in that year. That is so; it cannot be denied; but what is the inference? What but that Ireland has been exhausted? The Chancellor of the Exchequer is taking all we have, and he does not take more simply because he cannot get more.

Now, what answer is given to this case? I know of only one which has in it any substance whatever. It is the argument of the set-off. It is said that the greater part of the revenue raised in Ireland is returned to Ireland in the shape of Imperial expenditure, and that a greater proportion is so returned than in England or Scotland. I myself have so often dealt with this particular point that I shall not repeat in detail what I have said in previous sessions. I shall make only one or two remarks upon it. First, I say that the net contribution of each of the three countries, as stated in the Return, is arrived at in a system of book-keeping which would do credit to the firm of Pattisons, Limited. Two different principles are adopted almost throughout. Certain expenditure, which is really English, is set down as Imperial, and, on the other hand, a host of items, which are really Imperial, are put down to the debit of Ireland. I impeach the accuracy of this Return. I say that it is not worth the paper upon which it is printed, so far as that particular item is concerned. Secondly, by the Act of 1816, you have no right to make what is called local expenditure anywhere a set-off. All expenditure out of the Imperial Exchequer was to be spent in any part of the country where it was needed, and was not to be counted as local expenditure at all. Thirdly, I say that if expenditure is to be regarded as a set-off to over-taxation, there cannot be over-taxation anywhere. Italy is supposed to be overtaxed, but it cannot be on the set-off theory, because all that is raised by taxation in Italy is spent in Italy. Turkey is supposed to be over-taxed; but it cannot be if the theory of the set-off is to be accepted, because all that is raised in Turkey is spent in Turkey. The truth, of course, is that you are holding Ireland by force and by corruption. Every man in Ireland, outside of a few fanatics in the North of Ireland who are sincere, is paid for his loyalty. I mean that every man who professes loyalty is either paid for his loyalty or overpaid for it; he is either paid in actual cash, or has very good expectations of payment. You, therefore, naturally find it more costly in proportion than the government of England or of Scotland, which are governed by consent. But that is no reason why you should seek to burden Ireland beyond the limits of what you call a solemn contract, and then pretend that you are giving back something for Ireland's benefit when, as a matter of fact, you are spending it for your own Imperial purposes. How much comfort does the peasant in Connemara, or Kerry, or West Cork, or on the hills of Donegal, feel when he hears that £1,400,000 is spent on military police, or a million on the administration of the law? The set-off idea is absurd, and I will not labour it further. Now I shall be asked what remedy do I propose. I answer that I propose none. I have not the power, and, therefore, I have not the responsibility of devising a remedy. It is for the majority of this House, who have both the power and the responsibility, to find a remedy. All that we Irish representatives are called upon to do is to demonstrate the existence of the grievance of which we complain, and to ask you, if we do demonstrate it, to remove it. We have demonstrated it, and we now appeal to the representatives of Great Britain to say whether the time has not come to acknowledge our claim, the redress of which, though it would benefit us much indeed, would involve no more than a feather's weight of additional charge for this rich and powerful country. Sir, I beg to move the resolution which stands in my name.

SIR THOMAS ESMONDE (Wexford, N.)

My hon. friend has treated this subject with his usual ability, and in saying that I must express my regret on my own behalf that he has left me very little to say. This question being largely, though not entirely, a historical question, it is necessary that we should go into what is to some Members a chapter of ancient history. I am reminded that this is a new Parliament, and that, although to a considerable number of Members the statement of the Irish financial grievance is not a new one, there are a number who have not heard it before, and that must be our reason for, perhaps, making it at somewhat greater length than we otherwise should do. The Irish financial grievance has now been discussed for a considerable number of years. Previous discussions have produced no effect so far as the provision of a remedy is concerned, and probably our debate to-night will not be any more successful; but, at all events, we must do our best to state our case, and then upon the English Members who compose the majority of this House will lay the responsibility.

The Act of Union is regarded by a great many people in the country as having been a great benefit to Ireland. It is supposed that Mr. Pitt, Lord Castle-reagh, and the other gentlemen who proposed and carried the Act of Union, were actuated by an earnest desire to promote the prosperity of Ireland. It may surprise hon. Members to know that when Ireland had a Parliament of her own, that Parliament, when left alone, managed to conduct its affairs fairly well and to the satisfaction of the people in those days. It was not thoroughly representative, but, as Parliaments went, it conducted its affairs very satisfactorily. It managed the financial business of Ireland with a considerable amount of success. Taxation in those days was extremely low, and we have it on the authority of the Speaker of the Irish Parliament that the Irish people were more lightly taxed than any other people in Europe. The first thing the Act of Union succeeded in doing was to pile up to an enormous extent the Irish National Debt. When Ireland had a Parliament of her own she had a small debt, the amount at the time of the proposal of the Union being some £6,000,000. The Act of Union, however, amongst other things, added £21,000,000 to the Irish National Debt. Bribing the Irish Parliament cost £1,500,000; compensation to loyalists amounted to another £1,500,000; and compensation to officials took £500,000. Then there was a secret service fund, State trials, and things of that sort, which cost an enormous amount of money, and all of it was added to the National Debt of Ireland. The Union was in reality conceived for the benefit of England, and in its working has conduced materially to the financial advantage of England.

The Act of Union was introduced with numberless promises, and it might not be amiss to remind the hon. Members of the definite pledges which were given, on the strength of which England is supposed to govern Ireland. The first pledge in Article 7 was that the pre-Union debts of Ireland and England should remain distinct. Then that the revenue of each country should be applied in the first instance to the payment of the annual charge of its separate debt. As soon, however, as the Act of Union was passed, Ireland was charged more than a million a year for the service of the debt of England. The next promise was that the joint expenditure of the Empire should be divided into seventeen parts, of which fifteen should be charged to England and two to Ireland. That undertaking has never been fulfilled, and Ireland has had to pay very much more than the proportion there laid down. The fourth promise is very important—namely, that if either country had a surplus that surplus should be applied to the exclusive use of that country. That is an extremely valuable provision, and is quite sufficient in itself to dispose of the argument of the "set off" to the Irish contribution to the Imperial exchequer. The next pledge was that all moneys to be raised after the Union by loan should be a joint debt, and the charge thereof borne by the two countries according to the proportions I have just mentioned—namely, fifteen-seventeenths by England and two seventeenths by Ireland. That is a provision which would have assisted Ireland to a very large extent, but, like all other provisions in the Act of Union, it was not observed. It would be especially usefully now that the National Debt of this country has increased to such an enormous extent. The sixth provision was that England's proportion of contribution to the joint expenses should be periodically revised—at the latest in 1820—and her taxation adjusted according to her ability. This provision, of course, was not carried out any more than the rest. The seventh provision was that indiscriminate taxation should be allowed only when by remission of taxes, or by reudction of debt, British taxation and British indebtedness had been reduced to the proportion of fifteen British to two Irish, but that provision has been deliberately violated.

The next pledge was that under no circumstances whatsoever should Ireland be made liable at any time for British pre-Union indebtedness. Those were the pledges of the Act of Union, and I apologise to the House for reminding it of the principles on which it is bound by law to regulate its fiscal dealings with Ireland. My hon. friend the Member for North Dublin has quoted the various promises made by Castlereagh, and I do not think I need detain the House by quoting any more of his pledges. The Act of Union is as the ark of the covenant with the present Government. Neither they nor any of their predecessors have ever paid the least regard to its provisions. Perhaps I may be allowed to give a short summary of how the Union pledges were kept. From 1807 to 1817 Ireland under English administration paid £68,000,000 for her own charges, an average of £4,000,000 per annum; while under the Irish Parliament the cost was invariably under £2,000,000 a year. In addition to paying this £68,000,000 under English management, Ireland during the same period contributed for British purposes £91,165,654 out of revenue. At the end of that period, from 1801 to 1817, Ireland was in addition saddled with a debt of £112,684,773 for England's benefit solely. How the Union promises to Ireland in financial matters were carried out I will deal with briefly as I go on. I may, however, summarise England's observance of her promises in the following extract from Returns in the library of this House—

		Irish Debt.		Irish Taxation.		Irish Expenditure.
		£		£		£
1797	…	5,800,000	…	1,988,818	…	3,311,702
1800	…	28,541,157	…	3,445,718	…	7,201,231
1815	…	108,871,184	…	6,937,558	…	13,326,433
1817	…	112,684,773	…	7,090,453	…	14,714,034

My hon. friend the Member for North Dublin has explained how this great increase was made in Irish taxation, and how this large amount was added to the National Debt by reason of this unfair proportion, and therefore I need not go into that matter. This is how the thing was done. The Union proportion of two-seventeenths of joint liability was too high. The promises given at the time of union were violated, and Ireland was taxed for England's pre-Union debt. Various other charges due by England alone were placed on Ireland's back, and the accounts were manipulated. England borrowed for her wars and charged Ireland with the repayment of the money, borrowed without Parliamentary authority. Money borrowed for Irish purposes was spent by England and charged to Ireland, and money paid by Ireland into joint account was not credited to her. Irish moneys in the British Treasury were disappearing constantly, and no account was given of them.

Then came in 1817 the amalgamation of the two Exchequers. The amalgamation of Exchequers has been described as an act of English generosity to Ireland. It is curious that though Ireland is said not to have kept her Union obligations—unjust though they were—she actually did pay up to 1817 £13,057,719 more than she was bound to pay by the Act of Union—even in these times of unparalleled extravagance. The amalgamation of Exchequers was a violation of the Union pledge that indiscriminate taxation should be allowed only when by remission of taxes or by reduction of debt British taxation and British indebtedness had been reduced to the proportion of fifteen British to two Irish, meaning Irish debt and Irish taxation raised for Irish purposes. Precisely the opposite of what was pretended by the Act of Union had taken place. The taxation and indebtedness of Ireland under English management had increased to such an inconceivable degree that they bore the proportion of two to fifteen to the taxation and indebtedness of England. Though the situation was exactly opposite, the result was exactly the same. Ireland was promised exceptional treatment at the time of the amalgamation of the Exchequers, and it is quite true that she got it. Before amalgamation England had been increasing Irish taxation. After amalgamation she began decreasing her own. In 1818 £17,000,000 of English taxation was taken off, but none was taken off Ireland. From 1817 to 1843 the taxation taken off England amounted to £45,549,683, while the amount taken off Ireland was only £2,416,000. Let me point out very briefly what has been described as the advantage of the amalgamation of these two Exchequers, which is said to have been such a great boon to Ireland. During five years before 1817, Ireland paid one-thirteenth of the total taxation; but for five years after Ireland paid one-twelfth. From the year 1817 to 1843 Ireland paid one-sixth of the whole taxation of both countries. Therefore the amalgamation of the Exchequers made the Irish nation pay one-sixth of the whole taxation of the two countries instead of one-thirteenth.

Now we come to the third period, from 1853 to the Commission. In that year the next great increase in Irish taxation was effected. The period was well chosen. It was the period of the Irish famine, during which 1,000,000 persons died and 1,000,000 emigrated. Local taxation was incredibly high. It was at this time that the income tax, the death duties, and the increased spirit duties were imposed upon Ireland. I will tell the House the story of the income tax. During the Irish famine the sum of £4,000,000, in terminable annuities, was being paid off by Ireland, but the people were dying of starvation, and it was suggested that Ireland should be relieved of this burden. This generous gift was made to Ireland on the condition that it should be paid back at the rate of £200,000 a year. A Committee of the House of Lords recommended that that £4,000,000 should be wiped out altogether, but as a quid pro quo Ireland was to make an annual contribution of £460,000 for seven years, to end in the year 1860. That seven years elapsed, but that charge was not taken off, and this tax still remains, and it has been increased from year to year. In repayment of this £4,000,000 of terminable annuities, which was money advanced by the British Treasury, the Irish people have paid no less than £32,000,000 in income tax. By that act of generosity the British Treasury did extremely well.

I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer will admit that whisky is taxed so highly at present that it cannot be taxed any higher, while beer has been let off very lightly. For every sixpence spent by an Irishman in whisky the Exchequer gets 5d., and for every 6d. spent in beer the Exchequer gets 1d. From the year 1853 down to the time of the Financial Relations Commission Ireland paid one-fifth of the general taxation of the country. This year, judging by the figures, I should imagine that Ireland will find itself overtaxed to the extent of some £4,500,000. I think the situation is sufficiently serious to invite the careful attention of the House to the matter. Nobody will hold that Ireland is a rich country, or that her industries are in a prosperous condition. The population of Ireland is decreasing to an alarming extent, and taxation is at the same time increasing to a corresponding extent. What earthly hope is there for the Irish people if this kind of thing continues? It is very easy for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to get up here and propose additional taxation, but what is the Government going to do in Ireland to stop the emigration of the people? The reason the Irish people are leaving their native country in such large numbers is that they have no means of living in their own country, and they cannot find employment at home. I firmly believe that the over-taxation of Ireland is the most potent force in regard to the emigration from Ireland. Over-taxation is paralysing every industry in Ireland, and if the object of the imposition of additional taxes upon Ireland is to turn out the people by over-taxation then the British Government are going the right way to accomplish their object.

If hon. Members opposite are serious in considering this question of over- taxation in a country suffering from extreme poverty, they ought to bear in mind that, although it may seem to them a small thing to impose an increased tax in this country, the same tax falls very severely upon the poor people of Ireland, who have not the same opportunities of making money as the people have in England. I had intended to deal with several other matters, but I will not do so now, as I know that other Members wish to speak. We are always hearing of the great generosity of England towards Ireland, and of the vast amount of money which is spent in Ireland. May I point out that all the money which is spent in Ireland is Irish money? When the Irish Church was disestablished certain grants were commuted and paid off out of Irish money, which was taken out of the Irish Church surplus. That was a typical case of the great generosity with which Ireland was treated. There were many other sums of money which I could mention, which ought to come to Ireland for Irish purposes, but which had been taken away from Ireland and spent in ways which we know nothing about. These are small details of our financial grievances, to which I invite the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer I thank the House for the attention which hon. Members have accorded to me, and I will formally second the motion of my hon. friend.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the over-taxation of Ireland, established by the recent Royal Commission on Financial Relations, constitutes a serious and pressing grievance as regards that country, and demands the early attention of His Majesty's Government with a view to its removal."—(Mr. Clancy.)

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

I think it is quite natural that hon. Members below the gangway should desire to take this opportunity in the first session of a new Parliament to bring to the test of debate and division that which they consider to be an injustice in the over-taxation of Ireland. I am a little surprised, however, that, having regard to the views expressed by the two hon. Members who moved and seconded this resolution, the subject has been allowed to remain comparatively unnoticed for nearly three years. I think that it is as long ago as 1898 since we had a formal discussion in the House.

MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)

No, no; last year a motion was made similar to this.

MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)

And what have you done since?

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

Then I am afraid the discussion did not make much impression upon me compared with the debates which took place between 1896 and 1898. I own that I am surprised that the hon. Member for North Dublin should have rested the whole of his case on the Act of Union, which he so bitterly denounced. He applied to that Act and its framers every epithet the English language could supply. It was fraudulent, infamous, and dishonorable, and since that date the action of Great Britain towards Ireland has been a mixture of plunder and corruption. Well, I have no doubt the hon. Member spoke his sincere opinions on the matter. But does he think the use of such language really forwards the cause he has at heart? I hope he will allow that we have a right to look at history from an opposite point of view to his own.

I hope that my statement this evening, which, I fear, will be absolutely opposed to the views of hon. Members below the gangway, may be received by them with the patience we have extended to the hon. Member for North Dublin. I must, in the first instance, record my entire disagreement with the view of the hon. Member for North Dublin that the Act of Union required that Ireland should have separate financial treatment, and that that was as much the dominant idea after the passing of the Act as before. I read the Act of Union quite differently. So far as I can judge —and I have endeavored to arrive at an honest and unbiased opinion on this matter—the Act of Union deliberately contemplated the abolition of separate financial treatment, except on one point, to which I shall afterwards allude, and made it clear that anything approaching to a system under which the revenue to be raised in Great Britain and Ireland could be decided according to the taxable capacity of the two islands, or by any specific proportions, belonged to political relations between the two countries which came to an end with the Act of Union and the financial arrangements which the Union was intended to extinguish, and which were extinguished with the complete assent of the Irish representatives of the day in this House when the Act of 1817 became law. I know that the mover and secondary of the motion have described the action of the Irish representatives in 1817 as of no value. They represented Ireland as fully as any hon. Members elected to Parliament before that date. Hon. Members from Ireland are never tired of praising the action of the Irish Members who opposed the Act of Union in the old Irish Parliament, and of other Irish representatives—elected solely by Protestant suffrage—who at various times upheld their views in that and other matters. The representatives of Ireland in 1817 no doubt were elected before Catholic emancipation. But they represented Ireland. [Nationalist cries of "No."] Do hon. Members really mean to say that no action which the Irish representatives have ever taken could bind Ireland until after Catholic emancipation? ["Hear, hear" from Nationalist Members.] I am afraid the further I go the more I find myself in discord with the extraordinary views of Irish Nationalist Members as to the history of this subject.

Ever since the Act of 1817, that is, more than eighty years ago, this has been the financial system of the United Kingdom—common taxation throughout the whole country. At first, no doubt, the taxes were in some respects different. By degrees they were nearly equalized, and that is what hon. Members complain of. But why? The hon. Member for North Dublin referred, almost with derision, to what many have said, and I have ventured to say, in regard to the incidence of taxation. I maintain, as I have stated before, that the incidence of taxation is on individuals and not upon countries, and I defy anyone to show that an individual residing in Ireland is more heavily taxed than an individual of the same circumstances in England or Scotland. Take a person who pays income tax in any part of the United Kingdom. He is in a more favorable position in Ireland than in Great Britain, because the assessment of income tax in Ireland is more favorable to the taxpayer than in Great Britain. The assessment of income tax in Ireland is based on Griffith's valuation. In cases where the rent is lower than that valuation the income tax is assessed on that rent, but if the rent is higher than that valuation the tax is assessed on Griffith's valuation. I am speaking of Schedule A. Everyone knows that a person in that class is exempt in Ireland from house duty which he has to pay in Great Britain, from land tax, which many owners of property pay in Great Britain, and from taxes on servants and carriages, and if he travels on railways his fare is not increased by railway passengers' duty. All these are advantages which such a person enjoys in Ireland as compared with a person who lives in England.

MR. CLANCY

All these taxes only amount to £4,000,000 a year.

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

May I ask the hon. Member not to interrupt me? I did not interrupt him. I come now to the class of persons who are below income tax limit and pay nothing but indirect taxation. Such a man pays the same taxation on his glass of beer and whisky whether in Ireland or Great Britain. His wife pays the same taxes on her tea, cocoa, and coffee, his children on their sugar.

As regards the incidence of taxation upon individuals, our present system is absolutely fair throughout the whole of the United Kingdom. Hon. Members would propose to substitute for that some kind of change; I don't know what, which they have never suggested. The hon. Member for North Dublin laid great stress, as stress has often been laid, on the one solitary provision of the Act of Union on which his claim is based. That is the proviso with regard to the exemptions and abatements which may be accorded to Ireland in certain circumstances. It was originally in the Act of Union between England and Scotland. For a hundred years it remained there without, so far as I know, having the slightest influence on the financial system of the country, and it was borrowed from that Act and put into the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. How was it interpreted by Lord Castlereagh, the framer of the Act of Union? The hon. Member for North Dublin quoted Lord Castlereagh, and I hope I may do the same. Lord Castlereagh said abatement might be given to Ireland "in case some duty was unproductive or pressed heavily on the poor." Of course, in those days there were many unproductive duties. It was a time of protective duties, and it was a time when there were high duties on every necessary of life, but that time has gone by. The only duties that can be called high now, in reference to the value of the articles on which they are placed, are the duties on alcohol and tobacco, and I will venture to say that no one who looks at the consumption of alcohol and tobacco by the population in any part of the United Kingdom can say that those duties are either unproductive or press heavily on the poor. As I have said, we have a system of common taxation. The hon. Member for West Islington, who has taken great interest in this question, has proposed a scheme for completely changing that. He would restore custom-houses between Ireland and Great Britain, and differentiate the customs and excise duties between the two countries. I can only repeat my strong conviction that no greater injury could be inflicted upon Ireland. I believe that, if there be any injury inflicted on Ireland by our present system of taxation, an infinitely greater injury would be inflicted by a system of custom-houses between the two countries, Which would place Ireland's staple manufactures of dutiable goods, such as porter, whisky, and tobacco at every disadvantage in the British market.

I hope hon. Members will do me the credit of believing that I speak from sincere conviction when I assume ground which I know is absolutely contrary to the ground they occupy. I protest against this question being treated except as a question of common taxation and expenditure. Hon. Members insist on treating it as a question of separate taxation, but they never will treat it as a question of separate expenditure; yet when Mr. Gladstone's Government appointed that Royal Commission whose Report is really the basis of the motion now before us, what was the order of reference to that Commission? It was not only directed to inquire into the comparative taxable capacity of Ireland and Great Britain, but also to inquire what the charge had been for Irish purposes on the Imperial Exchequer, and what was the Imperial expenditure to which it was equitable Ireland should contribute. That Commission absolutely shirked the duty which was imposed upon it. It altogether declined to enter upon the latter part of its inquiry, and yet without a Report on that subject that inquiry for the purposes for which it was appointed—to find a basis for a scheme of Home Rule—would have been absolutely ineffective. Are we to be told that because that Royal Commission made an inconclusive and incomplete Report we must consider this subject on the ground of separate taxation as regards Ireland, but on the ground of common expenditure as regards the United Kingdom? I venture to say that if you will not treat both taxation and expenditure as common, you must treat them both as separate, and as that is the only ground on which hon. Members will meet me, I shall attempt so to consider them. What are the allegations that have been made this evening? I am not going to say anything more than I have said as to the history of the past. It is interesting, but we have heard it before, and I do not think it is a practical subject for discussion. I would prefer to take the history of the time since the Royal Commission reported. What did the majority of the Royal Com- mission say? They said that, Whereas the taxable capacity of Ireland was not estimated by any of them to be more than one-twentieth of the taxable capacity of the whole of the United Kingdom, the taxation revenue of Ireland was as much as one-eleventh. Well, there has been a change since that time, which the hon. Member for North Dublin has admitted. It has been a change in the direction which, I suppose; the majority of the Royal Commission and the hon. Member would desire to go, For the taxation revenue of Ireland now is less than one-fourteenth of the taxation revenue of the United Kingdom; and therefore, if there be a grievance on that score, the grievance is materially less than it was at the date of the Report of the Royal Commission.

It is said that since the Report of the Commission the taxation of Ireland has been increased, and that it has been greatly increased, Although Ireland is less able to bear it. That, I think, is a fair statement of what I take to be the real practical grievance which has been brought before the House of Commons this evening. So far as I know, the main argument in support of the inability of Irishmen to bear the increased taxation is that the receipts from income tax in Ireland have diminished. That is taken as the test of the prosperity of the country, and it is said that, Whereas the receipts from each penny of the income tax have increased in Great Britain, they have decreased in Ireland. I have examined this matter. I may say, in passing, that I do not think the income tax is quite a fair test of the wealth of Ireland, or of any country, because everybody knows that it applies only to a very limited class, and you cannot be sure that the wealth of that limited class bears the same proportion to the wealth of the whole community in one country as it does in another, It is a fact, I believe, that the receipts from each penny of the income tax in Ireland have decreased of late years. Why is that? In the first place, everybody knows that there has been a considerable transfer of Irish landed estates from landlords to tenants. What has happened? When an estate belonged to a landlord it was liable to income tax, because the landlord was liable, but when it is split up among the tenants it is not liable to income tax, because the tenants are not liable. There have been other sales in Ireland besides those to tenants under the Land Acts which have reduced the receipts under Schedule A, but a far more important reason for a decreased yield of income tax is to be found in the abatements which were largely increased by the legislation of 1894 and 1898. Of course, everybody knows that Ireland is a poorer country than Great Britain, and that the income-tax payers are few, in comparison, in proportion to the population. Therefore, it would necessarily happen that a larger proportion of these income-tax payers are small income-tax payers, and the great benefit which has been derived by such persons from these abatements, in proportion to the amount of taxes paid, is to be found in Ireland rather than in Great Britain. That is the main reason for the decrease in the yield of the income tax in Ireland. But I am happy to say that, having investigated the returns, I find that the income-tax assessment under the head of trades, professions, and public companies has distinctly increased in Ireland of late years, and that shows, I think, a change in the condition of that country of a very different kind from what hon. Members below the gangway have suggested. Of course, I am not attempting to argue that Ireland has advanced in prosperity and wealth in the last few years as much as England. I do not suggest it for a moment; but I do say this—that to picture Ireland as growing poorer and poorer every day is an entire misrepresentation of the facts.

I admit there has been a slight decrease in the population in the last ten years. But why? There has been a decrease in the rural population of England, and as there are fewer towns in Ireland, Comparatively, than there are in England the decrease in the rural population has not been made up, as it has been made up in England, by an increase in the urban population. But the population of Ireland, if it has decreased, is better off than it was ten years ago. Now, here are some figures, Which are very ordinary statistics? but which ought to be appealed to by anyone considering the condition of Ireland. Take the traffic receipts of Irish railways. I find that the average receipts for the five years before 1893 amounted to £3,110,000 a year. In 1899, the last year for which I have the figures, the receipts rose to £3,640,000. That is not a sign of decay. Then, if you look at the postal statistics, the number of money orders, and everything of that kind, you will find a large increase in Ireland. If you look at the savings banks you will find that, Whereas the deposits in Irish savings banks amounted to £5,931,000 in the former year; they have grown to £10,066,000. There is also an increase in the deposits in the joint-stock banks from £35,852,000 in 1893 to £43,280,000 in 1900. These are not signs of decay and impoverishment, and it cannot be contended that they do not show an improvement in the condition of Ireland, in spite of the decrease in the number of the population. Then, it is said, you have added largely to the taxation of Ireland, and therefore you have increased the over-taxation of Ireland as compared with 1894. What are the facts? Undoubtedly the taxation of Ireland has been increased. In 1893–4—the date of the Report of the Royal Commission—the tax revenue of Ireland was £6,644,000, and the tax revenue of the United Kingdom, including the revenue of Ireland, was £82,439,000, so that 8.1 per cent. of the whole of the tax revenue in that year was raised in Ireland. In 1899–90, the last year before the war taxation, the tax revenue of Ireland was £7,619,000, while the tax revenue of the United Kingdom was £107,958,000, the tax revenue of Ireland having fallen to a proportion of 7.1 per cent, of the revenue of the United Kingdom. Now, I will take the year 1901–2. I am sorry that I consented, in deference to the wish of hon. Members opposite, to place on the Table the latest statistics on the subject which have been published, because the old basis of calculation is faulty in an important particular in regard to this year. I think hon. Members are aware that when these statistics were originally framed it was found impossible to arrive at any real estimate of the proportionate amount of dutiable articles, except spirits, consumed in the different parts of the kingdom, and there was an attempt made to obtain information from returns of the railway traffic, and in other ways of that kind. But the main basis adopted was the basis of population. The total amount of these dutiable articles consumed in the United Kingdom was practically divided between the countries according to population. But clearly this ought to be done according to the actual population, and statistics are not of much value if you calculate the revenue of Ireland derived from indirect taxation upon a population which existed ten years ago; you must calculate it upon the present population. I have endeavored to have the figures for this year calculated on the basis of the last census returns, and what I find is that on that basis the total taxation revenue of the United Kingdom would be £129,201,000, while the total taxation revenue of Ireland would be £8,631,000, or 6.7 per cent. of the total taxation revenue of the United Kingdom, the fact being, I believe, at the present moment that, of every 21s. Raised by taxation in the United Kingdom, Ireland raises but 1s. 5d. I do not think that can be said to be over-taxation. Let us look at one other point in these figures. I have said the total taxation revenue of the United Kingdom in 1893–94 was £82,400,000, and that it has risen this year to more than £129,000,000, an increase of nearly £47,000,000. How much of that increase has been levied in Ireland? Just £2,000,000. So that Ireland has paid of that increase 1 in 23½ much less than the proportion which was suggested to be the taxable capacity of Ireland by the Royal Commission.

I hope I am not wearying the House, but I think it my duty to place before it the statistical view of this matter. I now come to a part of the case which I know perfectly well hon. Members for Ireland will regard as entirely irrelevant, and that is, what is the real contribution of Ireland to Imperial expenses? I do not attempt to arrive at any agreement with the hon. Member for North Dublin with regard to any definition of Imperial expenses, and this for reasons which I shall presently show. I hope, at any rate, I may assume that even hon. Members below the gangway will not dispute that Ireland, as a member of the governing body of the Empire, is bound to bear her fair share of Imperial expenditure. I know that some hon. Members have asked what concern has Ireland in the Navy, and the same thing may be said in regard to the Army; but I must assume that as the basis of my argument. And now let us see what Ireland does contribute towards Imperial expenses. In 1893–94 the total revenue from the United Kingdom available for Imperial services was £58,668,000. Of that Great Britain raised £56,702,000 and Ireland £1,966,000, or 3.24 per cent. of the whole amount. In 1896–97 the revenue from the United Kingdom available for Imperial services had risen to £70,268,000. Of that Ireland contributed no more than 3.10 per cent., a decrease as compared with 1893–94. In 1899–1900 the revenue from the United Kingdom available for Imperial expenditure was £79,885,000. Of that Ireland contributed no more than £1,684,000, or 2.11 per cent. of the total contribution. And when I come to the present year, and take the estimated balance of the revenue of the United Kingdom—excluding the coal duty, which I have always argued will not be paid by anyone in Ireland—which will be available for Imperial expenditure, I find that it amounts to no less than £99,795,000, out of which Ireland will contribute no more than £2,384,000, 2.39 per cent. of the total amount contributed by the United Kingdom. Is that an unreasonable proportion to ask from Ireland? It is not one-twentieth of our Imperial expenditure, as suggested by the report of the Royal Commission. I do not think it is as much as one-fortieth. And I would call attention to this fact that, whereas the contribution of Ireland to Imperial expenditure in 1893–94 was £2,186,000, this year, when we have all the charges of the war and an enormously increased expenditure on the Army and the Navy upon our head, the only increase in the amount of Irish revenue devoted to Imperial expenditure is £400,000, a sum which is just one-hundredth part of the increase in the revenue from the United Kingdom available for Imperial expenditure since 1893–4. And yet we have had speech after speech from the Benches below the gangway opposite denouncing the Budget, and everything connected with the Budget, on account of the enormous sums which we are raising from Ireland for the war.

MR. JOHN REDMOND

What are the figures which the right hon. Gentleman is quoting from, and what is the authority for them?

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

The figures in regard to past years will be found in the financial returns. The figures for this year are estimates made, as I have said, on the same basis as the financial returns corrected by the last census.

I frankly admit, however, that where you levy taxation in a poor country that taxation may press more heavily than in a rich country, and therefore, in framing the Budget of the present year, I attempted to mitigate, so to speak, the pressure of the sugar duty on Irish taxpayers by raising the income tax, and by asking Parliament to impose the export duty on coal. Now, the export duty on coal has no effect on Ireland at all. That has been admitted, I think, by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, and he went so far as to say that in this Budget he recognized, for the first time in his recollection, an attempt to deal fairly with Ireland. Yet what happened throughout all the discussions on the Budget? On every division on the coal duty—and we had many divisions—which did not touch Ireland, and which was adopted by me largely with the idea of being just to Ireland—every Member below the gangway—

MR. JOHN REDMOND

The reason we voted against this tax was that no man on these benches would take any responsibility for voting money for this war.

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

I have no right to question the motives of hon. Gentlemen opposite or their policy; they know their own business much better than I do, but I would just ask the hon. and learned Member, does he think such action is calculated to encourage me or anyone holding my position in attempting to face powerful and well-organized interests in great Britain in the desire to do justice to Ireland in the matter of taxation?

The hon. Member for North Dublin not unreasonably said that he had no remedy to propose for the grievances he placed before the House. It was not his business to do so. There are only two ways in which anything can be done to meet the views of hon. Gentlemen opposite. One way is by increased local grants to Ireland which are not given to Great Britain. We have done a good deal in that way already, and have gone so far that of every pound spent in local services in Ireland 14s. 7d. comes from the Exchequer, while of every pound spent in local services in Great Britain only 9s. 5d. comes from the Exchequer. Since 1893–4 we have given to Ireland in paid or promised grants for railways £1,057,000, as against £227,000 devoted to the same purpose in Great Britain. We have relieved Ireland of £88,000 in irrecoverable loans, and Great Britain of hardly anything. And we have given to Ireland under the Local Government Act, 1898, a grant of £728,000 a year on the same principle as that on which the Agricultural Rates grant is given to England, but yet conferring much greater advantages on Ireland in proportion than on England for this simple reason—that a far larger proportion of the rates in Ireland comes from agricultural land than is the case in England. This is something, surely, in proof that we are not deaf to the pleadings of Irish Members on account of the comparative poverty of their country. The only other way in which Ireland could be relieved is by the method I have admittedly adopted this year in the matter of the coal duty. I have stated how that effort was received by Irish Members. If it should be my fate to continue in my present office, I shall endeavor to pursue the same policy if opportunity should be afforded me. But I cannot pursue that policy successfully—no Chancellor of the Exchequer can pursue it—unless, if this be a serious and pressing grievance, hon. Members from Ireland who feel it to be so give their support to the Government of the day in any attempt to diminish it. But I suppose hon. Members will consider that these are only palliatives. They ask from us to-day not two and three-quarter millions a year, but something like double that sum. It is impossible. Any attempt to meet such demands would simply destroy the fiscal system, which I believe is fairer to all persons in the United Kingdom than any other fiscal system that could be devised. It would injure the commercial relations between the two islands as much as their political relations would be injured by the adoption of Home Rule. Therefore, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, I can only repeat what it has been my fate to say before—that to this motion we must offer an uncompromising opposition.

MR. M'CANN (Dublin St. Stephen's Green)

The Report of the Financial Relations Commission was issued in 1896. It dealt with the figures and accounts for ninety-four years of the last century, to 31st March, 1894, as well as the eighteen years of the Irish Parliament. Seven years to 30th March last have passed since this Report was issued. The Commissioners almost unanimously reported that whilst the actual tax revenue of Ireland was about one-eleventh of that of Great Britain that the relative taxable capacity of Ireland was very much smaller, and was not estimated by any one of them as exceeding one-twentieth. This Report was signed and agreed to by eleven out of the thirteen Commissioners. Sir D. Barbour and Sir Thomas Sutherland issued separate Reports. Lord Farrer, Lord Welby, and Mr. Bertram Currie signed the general Report, which contained the main finding of those eleven Commissioners, which was that Ireland was then paying one-eleventh of the entire taxation; not one of them estimated that she should be called upon for more than one-twentieth of the whole. These two noble Lords and Mr. Currie made a separate Report of their own, Explanatory of the Irish financial and fiscal position as a whole. This Report of theirs appears to me to be a masterpiece of elucidation and grasp of the main root factors in the Irish financial and economic situation. The great autho- rity and eminent fitness of these three men for such an investigation add much force to their views and conclusions. They show in accordance with their finding in the general Report that Ireland then paid two and a half millions per annum more than she should be called upon to pay.

Let us see what occurred during the seven years that passed since then. For the year ending 31st of March, 1894, the last year dealt with by the Commissioners, there was collected and paid into the Imperial Treasury as Irish revenue from taxation the sum of £7,569,000, and in the same year the Treasury claims to have paid out of this revenue for Irish services £5,602,000, leaving a balance of £1,966,000 available for Imperial expenditure for the services of the debt, the Army and the Navy. For the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1901, seven years afterwards, the Irish revenue received by the Imperial Treasury from Irish taxation came to £9,521,000, and the expenditure on Irish services was £7,268,000, leaving a balance available for Imperial purposes of £2,253,000. In this way it will be seen that Ireland paid this last year in taxation just £2,000,000 more than in the year 1894, when she was paying two and a half millions over her just proportion and beyond her taxable capacity compared with Great Britain. It may be said that this additional expenditure for Irish services of £1,665,000 should be treated as far as it goes against this additional burden of £2,000,000 of taxation. This would be an answer to some extent if this expenditure on Irish services was spent in any reproductive ways towards strengthening and improving in any permanent manner the country and the condition of the people and their tax-paying capacity. I cannot trace any portion of it as spent in this direction, nor, indeed, can any position of the total amount put down as spent on Irish services, which amounts to £7,268,000, be traced as spent in permanent, reproductive ways, nor can I see that any part of the amount we contributed, £2,253,000, for Imperial purposes was employed for our good or for the betterment of the material condition of the country in any lasting manner. What I mean is that no portion of this huge taxation extracted from us last year, £9,500,000 in all, was spent in any way towards keeping any young man or woman from emigrating, or keeping a pauper off the rates, or that was employed in bettering the position of those who have not yet left the country or who are not yet a burden on the poor rates. The proof of my assertion is this, that in face of the fall in our population to under four and a half millions, the young people are flying from the country, pauperism is increasing and weakness and paralysis, physical, mental, and financial, is the fate of those who have remained in the country and are now too old to leave.

On the present lines of the Government's fiscal and economic policy in Ireland it is fair to assume, indeed it is a certainty, that this state of things must become intensified as time goes on. I may be told, however, that this local, expenditure on Irish services last year, £7,268,000, was spent in Ireland, although perhaps no portion was made available for the purposes I have named. If this answer is examined it will be found that, except as regards the whisky and porter which we consume, nearly all other requisites of life, the bread we eat, and the clothes we wear, the furniture for our houses, etc., Are produced and manufactured outside of Ireland, so to all intents and purposes, as far as the good of Ireland is concerned, this money so expended, as well as nearly all other expenditure, might just as well be expended in England or Scotland direct. The question is, who bears the burden of this excessive taxation? If such an amount must be raised by taxation, is it equitably assessed and its incidence just? The first point that strikes one in this connection is this, that just 80 per cent. of our taxation is derivable from duties on commodities, otherwise from indirect taxation, whilst only 50 per cent, is levied on commodities in England. The great and unjust burden of Irish taxation is being carried at present by the Irish peasantry, whom I will enumerate and locate later on, and this has been the case during the whole of the preceding century which closed a few months ago.

If the House will bear with me, I will show shortly what I mean. The Act of Union was passed just one hundred years ago on the assurances of the predomi- nant partner, chiefly expressed through Mr. Pitt and Lord Castlereagh, that the partnership would turn out for the best interests of Ireland as well as England. The deed laid down that Ireland should contribute two-seventeenths of the whole taxation of the United Kingdom, Great Britain contributing fifteen-seventeenths. It will be seen that the taxation of Ireland for the fifteen years before the Union worked out in this way. From 1785 to 1791, when both countries were at peace, the average tax revenue of Ireland was for the seven years £1,270,324, the civil expenditure of the country during these years being £546,300 per annum, and the amount available for military services and interest on debt was £727,000, For the eight remaining years, 1792 to 1800, during which period England was engaged in war abroad and disturbance and war in Ireland, the annual average tax revenue of Ireland was £1,815,000, the civil expenditure during these years being £753,800, and the expenditure for the debt and military service being £1,061,000. The Union then took place, and Ireland was decreed to pay, as I said, two-seventeenths of the whole. Inasmuch as the debt of Ireland was then relatively so much smaller than that of England, Ireland retained her own Exchequer. For the first sixteen years of the fiscal Union, from 5th January, 1802, to 5th January, 1817, under the two-seventeenths arrangement Ireland was found to be liable to pay an average of just £10,000,000 a year, or £160,000,000 in all in those sixteen years. We could not raise by taxation this enormous sum suddenly imposed upon us. But we did certainly raise and pay in by taxation a sum of £77,844,000 during these sixteen years, or an average of nearly £4,865,000 per annum, leaving a deficit of £81,893,000, which we were unable to raise. Then the predominant partner said that as we broke down in our payments they would take over the Irish debt. Including this £82,000,000, and add it to the debt of the Empire. Under the two-seventeenths terms of the partnership, our debt being then proportionate with the debt of Great Britain, they were then entitled, they said, to abolish our Exchequer, and impose common and indiscriminate taxation over the United Kingdom.

It will be seen that the amount of taxation paid by Ireland during the last fifteen years of the eighteenth century was just about one and a half million per annum, and the total for these fifteen years came to £22,500,000. For the first sixteen years of the century, under the terms of partnership with Great Britain, we were found to be liable for £160,000,000, or just £10,000,000 a year, of which only about half could be raised, and the remaining half being added to the debt gave the pretext for the abolition of our Exchequer and the imposition of common and in discriminative taxation. So during the first sixteen years of union we became liable to pay seven times more than we had been paying before, and we actually did pay in hard cash more than three times the amount we had been paying before this partnership was entered into. Was any portion of this huge increase of taxation applied towards improving the material condition of the country and strengthening in any way the tax-paying powers of the wretched peasantry on whom fell the great injustice of this excessive taxation? I can trace none of this taxation, extracted so largely from this numerous class, applied in any way for their betterment, the same has been the case during the entire century which ended a few months ago. I consider that the injustice done to this class, and through them to the community as a whole, exists to-day to a greater extent and in a more intensified form than at any other time during the century past. It may be said at once that the practical effect of our partnership under the two-seventeenths terms of the deed during these first sixteen years of its existence dealt a blow at the very heart of the country from which it would be difficult to recover.

But this is not the whole story. For the thirty years from 1820 to 1850 there was paid by Ireland taxation into the British Treasury an average of about £5,200,000 a year. Out of this the Treasury claims to have expended on Irish services about £1,600,000 per annum, during these thirty years. Between the years 1850 to 1860 there was imposed on us the income tax, and additional spirit duties, which increased our taxation by about £2,500,000 a year. We find the revenue from Ire- land to be in the year 1859 and 1860 £7,700,000, against an average of £5,200,000 for the thirty years from 1820 to 1850. It must be remembered that, when the additional taxation of two and a half millions was imposed on us, the country was then struggling and writhing under the blow inflicted by the terrible Irish famine. For the thirty-four years from 1860 to 1894, the date to which the figures in the Financial Relations Report are brought down, our average taxation came to about £7,500,000 per annum. During these thirty-four years the first twenty of them, 1860 to 1880, showed an expenditure of £2,500,000 per annum for Irish services. The next sixteen years work out an expenditure on Irish services of over four and a half millions. For the seven years since the date of the Financial Relations Report the average taxation paid by us comes to £8,250,000, and the expenditure on Irish services amounts to about £6,200,000. For the year ending 31st March last, the taxation exacted from Ireland came to £9,525,000, and the expenditure on Irish services came to £7,268,000. With the additional taxes put on for the current year it is reasonable to assume that our taxation will come to a sum well over £10,000,000 to 31st March next year, that is, if it can possibly be squeezed out of the people. It comes to this, that the £10,000,000 to be collected this year, with about £3,000,000 additional for local taxation payable to county councils will workout at £13,000,000, as the tax revenue of Ireland for current year, as compared with £1,500,000 a year during the last fifteen years of our Parliament, or nearly nine times greater. Our population now is about the same as then, four and a half millions, so that it works out that we are now paying about £2 18s. per head of the population in taxation, whereas then we were paying only 6s. 8d. per head, we are paying nearly nine times more. The agricultural rental of Ireland is computed to be about £9,000,000 per annum; taxation this year will foot up nearly fifty per cent. more than the rental of Ireland.

One of the points that have to be considered in estimating our present position to bear this enormous taxa- tion is this: Has anything practical been done to strengthen or improve us in our tax-paying ability to pay this two and a half millions a year, which the Financial Relations Commissioners found was unjustly imposed upon us, as well as: the £2,000,000 a year since put upon us? I have already shown that the increased over-expenditure practically goes in no way in this direction. I regret to say that not alone has there been no strengthening in the material condition of the country in the meantime, so as to increase its taxable powers, but there has been a serious weakening in its powers in this respect. I saw in The Times newspaper, a short time ago, some articles comparing the condition of the iron and steel trades in the United States and England. Much regret was. expressed that the American masters: made the position of young engineers so much better than in England, and that so many of them were thereby induced to leave their country and settle in the United States. It was calculated that it cost £600 to £700 to bring up, educate, and give his profession to an engineer in England. In this way was shown a loss to England of £600 to £700 capital sunk in every engineer that left the country to settle abroad. Since the Financial Relations Report was issued there emigrated from Ireland, chiefly to the United States, to settle permanently abroad, just 275,000 people, young men and young women, at the age of about twenty-two years. It costs about £9 a year to feed and clothe an Irish workhouse pauper. This rate would work out at about £200 capital sunk in each emigrant up to twenty-two years of age, making allowance for the value of some work which these young emigrants may do before they leave Ireland, and also some little money that they may send home to their people afterwards, I think it will be found that the net money loss in capital to Ireland, and indeed to the empire, sunk and lost in each emigrant, will be at least £100 each; 275,000 of these emigrants have left during the past seven years, 40,000 a year seems to be about the normal average of this class of emigration during the past decade. During these seven years, since the Financial Relations Report was issued, the loss in capital in Ireland was at £100 each for 275,000 people—just £27,500,000. Putting 4 per cent. interest on this lost capital the loss comes to over £1,000,000 annually, which I consider I am entitled to add to the £2,000,000 a year increased taxation in these seven years, making the drain £3,000,000 a year in addition to the unjust taxation of two and a half millions, as found by the Financial Relations Commissioners in the year 1894. Nothing was done or no event occurred in the meantime, as far as can be seen, to increase the taxpaying powers of the people.

The question arises, and it is most important to consider, on whom does the terrible drain of over-taxation and the loss of capital involved in the flight of the people fall most severely? If examined closely it will be seen that both drains fall in their intensity on the Irish peasantry, the most numerous and poorest class amongst us, whom it ought to be the interest of everyone to preserve, but being everybody's business to do so, it turns out that it is nobody's business, the material interests of this class are constantly and consistently kept out of sight. I mean by the Irish peasantry the small occupying tenant-farmers of the country who cultivate their lands by their own labor and that of their families. I also include the farm laborers amongst the peasantry, in all they will be found to be half the entire population. They may be fairly called our submerged half. There are 486,000 occupying holders of farms in Ireland, about 400,000 of these are valued for taxation purposes at a little over £20 a year as a maximum, and coming down to a valuation of £1 per annum. It is computed, and I think accurately computed, that the rent paid by the average man in this class is about £7 a year, and that their average net income after payment of rent and taxes does not amount to more than £25 a year, which means for a family of five about £5 a year, for these 2,000,000 people to live upon. This income, small though it is, can be only attained in good years; when the rainy days come round, which they inevitably do in Ireland, and the potatoes and turf are absent, these people, whose standard of living in their best years is incapable of being curtailed or Pared down, are then starving or next door to it. They never have or can have under present treatment a margin over to meet their rainy day.

The Irish problem centers in the material condition of these poor people. It is. Computed that these peasantry, say 2,000,000 in all, pay £1 to £1 5s. per head per annum towards Imperial taxation in their consumption of tea, sugar, tobacco, porter, and whisky, their local taxation comes to about half the Imperial, or about 10s. to 12s. 6d. per head. It may be said and probably will be said, why do these people consume these dutiable articles, they are not necessaries? I think that the best answer to this question is given by Lord Farer, Lord Welby, and Mr. Bertram Currie in their Report. They say— We think that the consumption of the masses must be taken as a whole, and that we must accept what they actually consume as what they find it necessary to consume, and that without a total and almost incurable change in their habits they are unable to forego. I believe that the use of stimulants amongst the Irish peasantry and poor is very much the result of their low standard of living and their coarse and insufficient food and clothing and in a measure to climatic influences and the uncertainty of their material existence. I consider that Ireland cannot continue to pay £10,000,000 a year taxes to the Imperial Treasury and £3,000,000 a year for local taxes without further wreck and ruin to the country. But the serious part is that the brunt and severity of this taxation is borne in the first instance by the unfortunate peasantry, whom it should be everybody's interest to shield, protect and foster, as it is only through them that improvement and prosperity can come to the classes above them. All through our sad history the crushing burdens of all sorts, economic as well as fiscal, have been imposed upon and borne by the peasantry of the country, and never at any time does there appear to have been taken effectual means to remedy their positions or materially strengthen them.

There is the further point to which I would wish to call the attention of the House. There will this year be collected, as I have said, probably over £10,000,000 for Imperial revenue; £7,500,000 will likely be the amount to be devoted to Irish services, and the balance, £2,500,000, will be applicable for Imperial revenue, the debt, Army, and Navy, as there will be £3,000,000 at least for local government expenditure. In this way civil government in Ireland will cost £10,500,000 for the year as compared to the charge for same services in last fifteen years of the Irish Parliament, which amounted to just £650,000 a year, and when the ability of the people to bear taxation was much greater than at present and the population was about the same. Our Imperial contribution for services of the debt, the Army and the Navy will probably as I have said amount this year to £2,500,000 as compared with a similar charge for same services 100 years ago of about £900,000 per annum, which was nearly all spent in Ireland, and when, not as at present, expenditure in Ireland meant the good of trades, industries, and agriculture. We are over-boarded and under-fed, and the cost of over-boarding is paid for by the under-fed.

It may be said at once, and it is a matter quite demonstrable and capable of easy proof, that Ireland, weakened in every quarter and bleeding at every pore by 100 years of such treatment as I have described cannot continue to pay the demand now put upon her; our. Only means of paying is derived from the produce of 15,300,000 acres of land, which we cultivate with the uncertainty of seasons and low prices for our agricultural produce. These payments cannot be made and the people live at the same time. Transit rates and facilities are absolutely prohibitive in enabling the small operative producers, four-fifths of the whole tenant class in Ireland, to market their produce at a profit. Every other agricultural country in the world except Ireland is straining every nerve both by their railways and waterways, and every other means, to facilitate and cheapen the marketing of agricultural produce direct to the consumers both in their own country and to the countries to which they can possibly get access and open up new markets. Every force and influence, governmental and otherwise, seems set in the opposite direction in Ireland. Transit rates in Ireland are, I believe, the highest in the world, and the foreigner will have rates made for him by the Irish carrying companies very much lower than the rates charged to the Irish producer for the same or analogous produce. I will only say, in conclusion, that my belief is that Ireland should be run for £5,000,000 a year in tax revenue instead of £13,000,000 a year as at present. This £5,000,000 a year would be nearly three and a half times more than the amount expended in running the country during the last fifteen years of the Irish Parliament. My belief also is that if our railways and waterways were locally nationalized, and that 50 per cent. were taken off all transit rates, passengers, goods, cattle, agricultural produce, and that specially low rates and facilities were given for the conveyance for small consignments of agricultural and other products to the markets, I believe if this were done under proper economical management that £1 an acre would be the additional value of our land before many years elapsed. In this way, by increasing the income and decreasing the expenditure of the country, I calculate that £15,000,000 to £20,000,000 a year might be added to the wealth of the country in the space of ten to fifteen years. I estimate that the immediate loss by the reduction in railway rate would not amount in all to over £7,000,000 to £8,000,000 spread over a period of ten years, or an average loss of £800,000 per annum; then a profit would accrue to the State after the payment of working expenses and the interest and sinking fund for purchase money. The benefit derivable from the decrease in expenditure and increased income would accrue first to the peasantry, and then through them these benefits would permeate through every other class of society. The whole difficulty heretofore has been the fact that the predominant partner has insisted upon looking upon and treating the economics of the Irish problem in the same way as England, whereas from every industrial and economic point of view they are totally dissimilar.

DR. AMBROSE (Mayo, W.)

Considering that the British nation lay such stress upon the fact that they are such sup- porters of treaties, and that this is the third time that this subject has been mentioned in this House in the last few years, and that it has been so lightly treated, it might be as well to recall what has taken place in past years. In 1894 you appointed a Commission to examine into this question. It was appointed not by Irishmen, but by Englishmen. What was its composition? The chairman was Mr. Childers, an Englishman, an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, and among the other members were Lords Farer and Welby, Mr. Currie and Professor Hunter, all of whom were financial experts. There were eighteen witnesses, all financial experts, fifteen of whom were paid servants of the Crown:—Mr. H. H. Murray, C.B., Chairman of the Board of Customs for five years; Mr. T. J. Pittar, Principal of the Statistical Office of the Board of Customs; Mr. Alfred Milner, Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue for two years, who had with him two gentlemen from the Board of Inland Revenue—namely, Mr. Turner, Accountant General of the Board of Inland Revenue, and Mr. Steele, Chief Inspector of Excise; Sir Edward Hamilton, K.C.B., Assistant Secretary to the Treasury; Mr. H. A. Robinson, a Commissioner of the Local Government Board of Ireland, who, speaking on local taxation, said— I think we may look for an increase in the poor rates, because the tendency of recent years in connection with remedial legislation is to place the administration on the poor rates—e.g., the Laborers Act, the cost for extra police, £93,873 in 1884, and £27,248 in 1893"; Sir J. M'Kenna, a financial expert and for twenty-two years a member of this House; Dr. L. W. Grimshaw, Registrar General of Ireland; Mr. W. L. Micks, Secretary to the Congested Districts Board, Ireland; Mr. J. Chaloner Smith, President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, who had made a study of taxation; the Most Rev. Dr. O'Donnell, member of the Congested Districts Board, Ireland, a man who, in addition to being a member of the Congested Districts Board, was well qualified to know the condition of the people of his diocese; Mr. W. P. O'Brien, C.B., Poor Law inspector, and Local Government inspector for more than thirty years, and afterwards Vice-chairman of the General Prisons Board, and since his retirement has acted from 1892 to 1893 as Assistant Royal Commissioner on Labor; Lieut.-General Sir Richard Sankey, K.C.B., C.E., Chairman of Public Works in Ireland; Mr. Murrough O'Brien, member of the Land Commission; Mr. J. G. Barton, M.I.C.E., F.S.I., Commissioner of Valuation, Ireland—that is, he administers the Valuation Office and Boundary Survey Office in Ireland, and before that he was connected with the Board of Works in Ireland; Mr. W. F. Bailey, Legal Assistant Land Commissioner, Ireland, who made a special study of the valuation and assessment of property in England and Ireland; Mr. G. T. Howe, surveyor of taxes in the English Income Tax Office fifteen and a half years, and in the Dublin Income Tax Office since 1891; Mr. E. J. Harper, surveyor to the London County Council, previously surveyor to the Metropolitan Board of Works for seventeen years; Sir Robert Griffin, K.C.B., LL.D., Comptroller-General of the Commercial, Labor, and Statistical departments of the Board of Trade, previously Assistant Secretary to the Board of Trade; and the hon. Member for West Islington. I think if you searched England, Ireland, and Scotland over you could not find more expert witnesses for such a purpose.

What is the history of the fiscal arrangements between Great Britain and Ireland? Now, before the Act of Union Ireland was not bound to contribute to anything beyond her shores, and, in fact, only supported a few regiments of soldiers serving abroad, and made a small grant towards the maintenance of the Navy, but by the Act of Union it was provided that she should pay the annual charge upon her debt contracted before the Union—her debt-charge at the time being £100,000 per annum—and should contribute two-seventeenths of the joint expenditure of the United Kingdom. Now, this was the decision of the Commission, that the Act of Union placed upon Ireland a burden which events showed she was unable to bear; and that the resources of Ireland as contrasted with those of Great Britain were then and had been for a long time much more heavily taxed. Those facts were not disputed by any member of the Commission or by any witnesses examined by the Commission; and all the Commissioners except one admitted that, contrasting the taxable capacity of the two countries, Ireland's proper proportion of contribution to revenue could not exceed one-twentieth of that of Great Britain, whilst her taxation amounted to one-eleventh. Why, then, do you not admit the conclusions of the Commission—namely, that Ireland has been overtaxed to the extent of three millions per year. Now, a great deal of stress is laid upon the fact that Ireland and England were treated for Imperial purposes as one entity, but for local purposes as separate entities. There was no question as to separate entities. That was recognized by Mr. Goschen, a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1890, when, after consulting with his colleagues, he moved for the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the "equity of the financial relations in regard to the resources and population of the three kingdoms." It was recognized by this House, which accepted his motion, and which ordered the preparation of expensive Returns, all based on the assumption that Great Britain and Ireland were separate countries for financial purposes. One entity was absolutely inconsistent with the terms of reference to the Commission, which were published in The Times and all the other papers when it was appointed in 1894, and which should have been attacked then if they were founded on wrong principles. The whole history of the financial relations between Great Britain and Ireland from the earliest times is in direct opposition to the theory of one entity. There never has been absolute uniformity of taxation between the two countries, and all attempts at such uniformity have been made in direct contravention of the spirit and words of the Act of Union, as will be seen from the speeches of Pitt and Castlereagh. The Act of Union contains special provisions for the separate treatment of the two countries even after the abolition of the separate Exchequers, and for more than fifty years after the Act of Union this separate treatment prevailed, e.g., the tobacco duties were not assimilated until the year 1819, the stamp duties until the year 1842, the spirit duties until the year 1858, and the income-tax was not imposed until the year 1853. The proceedings of the Parliamentary session of 1896 prove absolutely that England and Ireland are separate entities not only as far as legislation is concerned, but also for financial purposes. Take, as an example, the Agricultural Rates Act. The area of cultivated land in Ireland is 15,000,000 acres, with a ratable value of £9,000,000; the area of cultivated land in England and Wales is 27,000,000 acres, with a ratable value of £33,000,000. The local taxation in Ireland included in poor rate and county cess, levied on agricultural land equals half that levied in England. The amount given to English farmers under the Agricultural Rates Act, 1896, out of the Imperial Exchequer to pay one-half of the rate for five years: was £1,600,000; therefore the amount to which Irish farmers were entitled on the same principle was £800,000 according to local taxation, £888,888 according; to the number of acres, or £436,363 according to valuation. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer excluded Ireland from the Agricultural Rates Act on the ground that she was a separate entity, and always treated as such in matters of finanee, and he put not £888,888, but £180,000 on the shelf until a separate Bill was brought in for Ireland. But some say that Ireland receives back through expenditure for local purposes more than an equivalent for the amount she pays in excessive taxation. My answer to that is Can the preservation of order, the enforcement of the law, the administration of justice, and the collection of the Imperial revenue in any part of the United Kingdom be regarded as other than of Imperial interest? It is not Irishmen alone that are interested in the civil government of Ireland. It is maintained not merely for the benefit of Irishmen, but because England is deeply interested in it. It is managed exclusively as Imperial and by the Imperial Parliament. If the Irish civil government is too costly, it is due to the Imperial Parliament, not to Irishmen.

Under the Act of Union, except in one particular, there was no provision made for any recognition of separate entities in the legislation that was to follow. There was to be one Parliament for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and it was supposed that the laws passed by that Parliament would be common to the whole of that Kingdom. The one exception was that it was specially provided that in regard to finance there should be separate treatment; separate entities were recognized and separate interests defined. The Act of Union also made provision for the time when separate exchequers might be no longer necessary by declaring that particular exemptions or abatements should be made in the case of Ireland and in that part of Great Britain called Scotland, as circumstances might appear from time to time to demand. The laws of the two countries are different, as, for example, the land laws, the education laws, the ecclesiastical laws, the liquor laws, and the local government laws. I have shown that the treatment was different as far as the Agricultural Rates Act is concerned; it was different also with regard to the Parish Councils Act. Moreover, you have not in England the luxury of a Lord Lieutenant at a salary of over £20,000 a year, and you have not a Chief Secretary who gets £4,425 a year. You have not had Coercion Acts, twenty-five of which have been passed since the Act of Union, and one of which is now a permanent Act. You have not had Land Acts, twenty-five of which were introduced between 1819 and 1867, but not passed, and six since. And, of course, you have not a Land Commission, with annual salaries of £66,733.

There was no fiscal union in 1801. Pitt's scheme was that Ireland should be taxed according to the amount she could bear, and that there should be a periodic review of the cost of her government. You have never reviewed that cost, and, therefore, I say that you have violated the Act of Union. Until 1817 there was an Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, an Irish Debt, and an Irish Budget every year. These disappeared, but the separate fiscal treatment of Ireland practically continued. For example, Sir Robert Peel refrained from levying the income tax in Ireland when it was imposed in Great Britain in 1841. When the police force was created he arranged that half its cost should be paid out of. Imperial taxes, and in 1846 he made that arrangement apply to the other half. After the death of Sir Robert Peel, on 2nd July, 1850, the principle was asserted for the first time that all articles should pay the same duty in each country. Thus at one blow were abolished Pitt's precautions which had been inserted in the Act of Union for the protection of Ireland—namely, first, a fixed contribution, and, secondly, a periodic review of the ability of Ireland to pay her contribution. Pitt based the contributions of England and Ireland on the capacity of, each country in the year 1800. Either country might develop more rapidly than the other, or the one might go back while the other went forward. In either case, according to Pitt's arrangement, a new fiscal policy should have been established.

Now let me contrast the position of England and Ireland at the time of the Union with their position in 1853, when you assimilated the taxes in both countries, and see how far you were justified in that assimilation. In 1800 the prosperity of England and Ireland depended mainly on agriculture, and the population of Ireland was about half as large as that of Great Britain. In 1801 the population of Ireland was 4,500,000, while that of England was 8,892,536. But what was the position in 1853? In that year, instead of Pitt's scheme of a fixed contribution and a periodic review of the financial capacity of both countries, you levied the same rates of duty on the same commodities in both countries, although the population had varied in Ireland from 4,500,000, in 1801, to 6,198,984, in 1853, an increase only of 1,698,984; whereas in England the variation was from 8,892,536 to 19,100,000, an increase of 10,207,464. If Ireland had advanced in the same proportion as England her population in 1853 would have been, not 6,198,984, but 10,588,235, or 4,389,251 more than it actually was. Therefore, I say that there was no justification for the taxation of 1853. It was arranged by the Act of Union that each nation should be charged with its own ante-Union debt this would have been as just to Ireland as to England but for one consideration, namely, that by far the greater portion of the ante-Union debt of Ireland was the result of the fooling of the English Government subsequently to the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam. For example, you charged the Irish Exchequer with the cost of all the bayonets and bribes with which the Union had been procured. You gave Lord Downshire £52,500; Lord Ely, £45,000; the Earl of Carrick and Lord Clanmorris, £14,000 each; Sir Hercules Langrishe, £13,862; the Duke of Leinster, £13,800; Lord Lismore, £12,300; the Earl of Ludlow, the Earl of Shannon, and Lord Tara, £7,500 each; the Hon. E. Massey, £6,850; and Lord Masserene, whose name is fresh in the mind of every Irishman, and his three brothers, £15,000 each. Altogether, the cost of the Union was over £21,000,000, and we had to pay it. As I shall directly show, it was added to the taxation of Ireland. You wanted an excuse to amalgamate the two Exchequers. The debt of Ireland, unredeemed, funded, and unfunded, in 1793, stood at £2,253,000; in 1798, it was £10,130,000; in 1801 it had jumped to £28,541,000; and in 1817 it stood at the enormous figure of £112,704,773. The debt of England, on the other hand, stood at £450,504,984 in 1800, and had increased in 1817 to £734,522,104. That is to say, in sixteen years the debt of Ireland had quadrupled, while the debt of England had increased by scarcely more than one-half. In 1817 the Exchequers were amalgamated, and Ireland was saddled with a portion of the vast ante-Union debt of England, which had been incurred by you in trying to carry the Union, and in your war with France.

It is said that a great deal of this money is spent in Ireland. Let us see how it is spent. Whenever we have a debate here on Irish Estimates, if we attempt to reduce the cost of administration we are told that it is absolutely necessary to have this expenditure in Ireland, and that we must pay it. Let us see how it compares with England. The population is as one to eight. The respective annual cost in Ireland and England of the Local Government Board is £130,000 and £166,000, or as four to five; of the Board of Public Works, £33,000 and £51,000, or as two to three; in respect of law charges, £59,000 and £95,000, or more than half as much; of the superior courts, £113,000 and £325,000, or more than one-third as much; and of prisons, £119,000 and £607,000, or as one to five; and the number of prisoners in Ireland is a great deal smaller than the number in England. Let me give an example of how Ireland is charged for service that is purely English. The cost of the collection of Imperial revenue in Ireland is classified as an expenditure on an "Irish service," although in the period of the separate exchequers, when the charge in Ireland was relatively much higher than in Great Britain, it was treated, not as a separate charge, but as a part of the joint expenditure. The whole of the cost of the British Army, the British Navy, and the British National Debt, is classified as expenditure on "Imperial services," whereas they ought to be classified as purely British services, because they are of no advantage to Ireland. I heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer saying that the Army and Navy are of great benefit to Ireland. I cannot see it. If Ireland ceased to exist to-morrow, the cost of these services would be just as high as it is now. The Navy is an insurance for your commerce. We have no commerce to protect; you destroyed that. And the same may be said with regard to the Army.

When the constitution of 1782 was established and during the next ten years the taxation of Ireland did not exceed £1,000,000. It was adequate for the defrayal of her expenditure, for her public debt of about £2,000,000 remained without any alteration from the opening of the period to its close. Seven years after the conclusion of this period—at the passing of the Act of Union—the taxation of Ireland increased from £1,000,000 to £2,000,000 per annum, her expenditure from £1,000,000 to £7,000,000, her debt from £2,000,000 to £28,000,000, and her debt charge from £100,000 to £1,250,000 per annum. It seems to me that the policy of every English Government in Ireland, whether it be Liberal or Unionist, is the same, viz., to drive the people out of the country, and to demand that those who remain should pay more in taxation. For example. In the fifteen years during which the following right hon. Gentlemen occupied the position of Chief Secretary—viz., Mr. Forster, Sir G. Trevelyan, the present Leader of the Opposition, the Member for the Dartford Division of Kent, the Member for the Montrose Burghs, the present First Lord of the Treasury, the Member for North Leeds, and the present President of the Board of Trade—one-seventh of the Irish people were forced to emigrate, while the taxation of the remainder was increased by one-seventh. The Chancellor of the Exchequer quoted railway, banking, and post-office statistics to show that Ireland was a great deal better off now than she has been in the past. I think financial experts could be obtained to prove the fallacy of his argument. If we take the produce of the land in Ireland for any two years and compare the prices I think that will be a far better test, because the farmers are really the taxpayers of Ireland—not the few people who have money in banks or railways. Taking the years 1881 and 1899 prices were as follows:—Wheat per 112 lbs., 9s. 5d. and 6s. l¾d.; oats, 6s. 3¾d. and 5s. 2¼d.; barley, 7s. 5¼d. and 6s. 7¾d.; hay, 2s. 6¾d. and 2s. 3¾d.; potatoes, 3s. and 2s. 9¼d.; butter, £5 8s. 4d. and £4 15s.4d.; pork, £2 12s. 3d. and £1 17s. 5¾d.; flax, per 14 lbs., 6s. 11d. and 6s. 5¼d.; wool, per 1 1b., 11d. and 6¾d.; eggs, per 120, 7s. 3d. and 6s. 7¾d.; beef, per 112 lbs., £3 4s. 0¾d. and £2 15s. 1½d.; mutton, per 112 lbs., £3 10s. 11d. and £2 19s. 6d. The same may be said with regard to cattle. Two-year-olds fetched £9 17s. in 1881, and £9 2s. 1d. in 1899; three-year-olds, £12 6d. 3d. against £11 9s. 4d.; and in regard to sheep, lambs fetched £1 6s. 7d in 1881 and £1 4s. 4d. in 1899; over twelve and under twenty-four months old fetched £2 against £1 13s. 3d.; and two-year-olds and over fetched £2 3s. 8d. against £1 15s. 2d. Then take the area of cultivated land in two different years and compare them. Taking the period from 1855 and 1900, the area under oats had decreased by 1,013,808 acres; under wheat by 391 954; under barley, by 52,633; under flax, by 49,624; under potatoes, by 328,222; and under turnips, by 69,094. The only direction in which during that period there was an increase was in regard to meadows. Meadows increased by 850,908 acres, and anybody who knows anything about land in Ireland knows that a farmer only turns his land to meadow when he is on the downgrade. Altogether there has been a decrease of 1,008,191 acres under cultivation in 1900, as compared with 1855. The total decrease in value of farm produce from 1881 to 1896 was £19,174,853, whereas the reduction in rent in the same time was only about £1,219,707. Consequently, I say that these are strong reasons why Ireland should receive the benefits of the seventh Article of the Act of Union under which it was provided that she should receive abatements and exemptions. Coming to the question of industries, and comparing the facts with the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that Ireland was better off now than she has been for a good many years we find that the number of farmers in 1841 was 1,844,000 and in 1891, 986,000—a decrease in fifty years of 858,000. The number of labourers and farm-servants in 1841 was 1,326,000; in 1881 329,000—a decrease in forty years of 997,000. Then take the linen industry. The number of yards of linen made in Ireland in 1866 was 190,000,000, in 1900, 140,000,000—a decrease in thirty-four years of 50,000,000 yards. The number of workers in linen, wool, and silk decreased from 690,000 in 1841 to 130,000 in 1891—a decrease of 560,000 in fifty years. The number employed in building in 1841 was 72,000; in 1891, 56,000—a decrease of 16,000 in fifty years. The total employed in manufactures in 1841 was 989,000; in 1881, 379,000—a decrease in forty years of 610,000. What has been the effect of the Act of Union in Ireland? I say that it has been to increase taxation and diminish population. Take the poll tax—the tax for all purposes—the amount an Irishman has to pay under British government for the privilege of living in Ireland. In 1795 it was 9s. with a population of 4,500,000; in 1896 with practically the same population—4,571,000—it had risen to 49s. Local taxation from 1866 to 1895 increased by l,303,725, while the population decreased by 1,083,625. Imperial taxation in 1840 amounted to 13s. 2d. per head with a population of 8,199,853; in 1894 it had gone up to £1 13s. 4d., an increase of £1 0s. 2d., while the population had decreased by 3,599,245. Pauperism increased from 52.45 per 1,000 in 1866 to 95.08 per 1,000 in 1894, during which period the population decreased by 1,039,926. In England, on the other hand, between 1864 and 1894 pauperism decreased from 43.7 per 1,000 to 25.5 and the population increased by 8,641,469. That is, it is doubled in Ireland while it is practically halved in England. The number of emigrants from Ireland in the period from 1837 to 1900 was 4,975,058 of whom 83 per cent. were between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five. The number who died from famine between 1837 and 1886 was 1,225,000, while altogether there disappeared owing to famine, emigration, and eviction between 1837 and 1900 9,888,053. No country on the face of the earth can show such a record of the disappearance of population as that of Ireland. Lunacy increased from one in every 1,291 inhabitants in the year 1851 to one in every 222 in 1898. These are the reasons why I think Ireland is entitled to the benefits of the seventh Article of the Act of Union. Since the amalgamation of the Exchequers you have built up in this country one of the richest nations in the world, while in Ireland you have left nothing but ruin and desolation all over the land.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)

It might have been expected that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would make an able speech in reply to that made by my hon. friend on the other side. We have got from the right hon. Gentleman the case of the Government against this motion, and it will be the business of Irish representatives during the remainder of the debate to answer as far as we can that case. I am bound to say, however, that the right hon. Gentleman placed as many difficulties in our way as possible. It is not the usual method of procedure in this House to fling columns of statistics at the head of the House without Members having had some opportunity of examining them, but we must take them as they are. I propose to call attention, before I deal with the merits of the case itself, to one or two statements made by the right hon. Gentleman. He commenced by a statement that the Act of Union contemplated the abolition of the separate financial treatment of Ireland. He condemned my hon. friend the Member for North Dublin for some of the language that he used about that Act. I am not going to use any language about it, save this: that I should be curious to see the Englishman who would read through the history of that period and come away with any very high opinion, not of the Act of Union, but of the methods of this country in carrying it. I want to challenge the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Act of Union contemplated the abolition of the separate financial treatment of Ireland. Now, there is one man who must have known what was intended rather better than the right hon. Gentleman. That was Lord Castlereagh. Lord Castlereagh was one of the promoters of the Act—one of the principal promoters—and one of the most unscrupulous of the lot. Lord Castlereagh made what the intentions of the Government were at that time perfectly clear. He said in one of his speeches— As for the future, it is expected that the two countries should move forward together and unite with regard to their expenses in the measure of their relative abilities. Later, he said— By their being a provision for revision. That was a provision that the financial basis of the Union was to be reconsidered after a lapse of twenty years— By there being a provision for revision Ireland has the utmost possible security that she cannot be taxed beyond the measure of her comparative ability, and that the ratio of her contributions must ever correspond with her relative wealth and prosperity. Lord Castlereagh must have known the intention of the promoters of the Act of Union much better than the right hon. Gentleman or any living statesman to-day, and what Lord Castlereagh assured Parliament was that in future Ireland was not to be taxed beyond her relative wealth and prosperity. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has made another extraordinary statement. He stated what was perfectly true, that England has made a good many grants to Ireland, and he gave as an instance the £750,000 which was given to Ireland under the Local Government Act of 1898. That is a rather unfortunate instance to pick out, because how did Ireland get that amount? In the first place, it was an equivalent grant to the grant made to England under the Agricultural Rates Act. When the Agricultural Rates Act was passing through the House a motion was made to apply it to Ireland. That motion was rejected by the House. A motion was made shortly afterwards—a direct motion—calling for this equivalent grant. What happened? Did Ireland get it? Not at all. The Government opposed it. The House voted it down. But we got it in the Local Government Act, not out of charity, but, because there was a necessity to buy off the opposition of the Irish landlords to local government. That grant was ostensibly given to buy off the Irish landlords' opposition, and no body ever thought of challenging it. I think that was a most unfortunate illustration for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to use as to the generosity of England towards Ireland.

With regard to the question of the separate treatment of Ireland, surely it is plain that alike in the Act of Union Itself and in the Act of 1817, when the Exchequers were amalgamated, separate treatment was clearly laid down, and as a simple matter of historic fact the separate treatment was maintained until 1853, and Ireland was up to that time exempt from income tax and from the high spirit duties. I confess that on this question I am in a somewhat difficult position. I have never before, although this question has been before the House for five years, been able to take part in the debate. I was muzzled. Historically I agree with the Nationalist party, but practically I see almost insuperable difficulties in the way of some of the proposals made for settling this question. Let me say first that the English case is an impossible case. What is the English position in this matter? Ireland says in effect that a financial wrong has been done to her ever since the Act of Union was passed, that the predominant and the rich partner has done the poorer partner a financial wrong. That is the case of Ireland, and that is the case which had been put forward to-night. England's answer is simply to plead "not guilty," but the case between the two countries was referred by the House to a competent tribunal. The finding of that tribunal went against England.

The Commission appointed to inquire into the case was appointed by Royal Warrant. It consisted of fifteen members, eight of whom were Englishmen. It had for its chairman a gentleman who had served in more than one Liberal Cabinet, and who had served the high office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. It numbered in its ranks financial experts—men like Lord Welby and Lord Farrer—and it examined as witnesses all the representatives of the Treasury who could be of any use in making the English case. But I confess that I am not impressed with the plea of "not guilty." England is one of the parties to the suit. She is the defendant, and she is not the first defendant who has pleaded "not guilty." I take leave to say that, while the verdict of that Commission stands as it does, until the Government reverses that verdict by a higher and more competent tribunal, the plea of "not guilty" is of no avail. It is maintained that this was a party Commission set up for a party purpose. Very well.

We were promised a second Commission; why has it not sat? We were distinctly promised a second Commission and it has not sat at all. And why? Lord Salisbury has answered the question. He said he found so many people anxious to serve who knew nothing about the subject, and so few who knew anything about it were willing, that the Government had given it up. The Government have retired from the fray, and they are content to allow the verdict of the Royal Commission to stand, and so long as the verdict stands the plea of "not guilty" is of no avail. That plea was put in before the Royal Commission, and the Commission found against England. The Chancellor of the Exchequer very properly attributed more importance to practical matters than to the history of this matter. I will deal with the practical results by-and-bye. The history of the question is very brief, and I take leave to say here that in no transaction of a financial character between the two countries since the Act of Union was passed has the poorer country ever got the benefit. On the contrary, in every financial transaction which has taken place the poorer country has suffered at the hands of the richer. Take, for instance, the contribution fixed by the Act of Union. That was imposed by the stronger partner against the weaker one. The whole Irish Parliament stood up and protested against it. They prophesied that that contribution would bring disaster to their country, but they were not listened to. What was the result? The arrangement was passed, and seventeen years afterwards—three years before the allotted time had expired—the question had to be faced afresh, because of the disaster which had attended the arrangement. As Grattan pointed out at that time, what would have been simply a feather's weight to England was a millstone round the neck of Ireland. The result was that the whole question had to be faced afresh, simply because Ireland was unable to bear the burden which England had placed upon her.

Take the period from 1817 to the present time, and I hope English Members will pay some attention to the facts I am going to state. In the year 1853 Mr. Gladstone, with a surplus of £1,000,000 sterling in his hands, deliberately introduced into Ireland for the first time the income tax. Mr. Gladstone was a great master of finance, and he said that the income tax would only be a temporary impost, and he put it as lasting for a period of seven years. He mentioned what has been called a set-off to the imposition of the income tax. He took the consolidated annuities, as they were called, which had accumulated out of the distress of the famine, amounting to £4,000,000, and he proposed to clear that debt off and relieve Ireland from that burden. That was to be the set-off against the imposition of the income tax. But the income tax in Ireland has lasted ever since. This is an instance of what I mean when I say that, in every financial deal with England, Ireland has got the worst of it. The consolidated annuities amounted to £4,000,000; but since 1853, when the income tax was imposed, as a temporary measure, England has got out of that poor country £22,000,000 sterling in income tax for that £4,000,000. And yet you call this a set-off! Then came the equalisation of the spirit duty. As hon. Members will expect, I am not profoundly concerned in this question. I know exactly where the shoe pinches, and if the Irish people were wise upon this matter, and would take my advice, the right hon. Gentleman would have to look out for his taxation in a different way.

Sir David Barbour is a great authority at the present moment, and I hold him in as high esteem as anyone on the Treasury Bench. Sir David Barbour differed from his colleagues upon the Commission, and he took the English as against the Irish view of the situation. He states perfectly frankly that Mr. Gladstone imposed £2,000,000 between 1853 and 1860 too much, and that the circumstances of the case were not sufficiently taken into account. Let us see what the circumstances were. This was a period five years after a great famine, such as had never visited Ireland before. It was a famine in which thousands of people died simply from hunger and starvation. This taxation was imposed when agriculture, which was then the leading industry in Ireland, was fighting the disturbance caused in Ireland by Free Trade, and it must be remembered that whatever the advantages of Free Trade have been to England—and I admit them all, for I am a Free Trader myself—nobody can pretend to believe that the advantages of Free Trade to Ireland were of the same character. Free Trade ruined Ireland's market, and in 1853 she was slowly recovering from the disturbance caused by Free Trade. This was the time chosen to fix upon the shoulders of the people of Ireland an additional £2,000,000 of taxation, in spite of the provision to the contrary contained in the Act of Union. Anyone who examines the whole case must be driven to the conclusion which Sir David Barbour has arrived at, that this impost was not just, and that at the time the whole circumstances of the country were not sufficiently considered by the English Parliament. This is another proof of my statement that wherever Ireland has a deal with England in finance Ireland has been worsted. The first instance was in connection with the Act of Union, and the second was the set-off of £4,000,000 against £22,000,000 arranged by Mr. Gladstone. Take, as another instance, the disestablishment of the Irish Church. What happened then? I might give one fact to show how the predominant partner can do a little trick for himself. The grant to Maynooth and the Regium Donum were made by the Irish Parliament, for it thought that Roman Catholics should be taught, and at the time of the Union these two grants were transferred to the Consolidated Fund. When the Established Church was disestablished these grants, which belonged to the Consolidated Fund, were placed on the Disestablished Church Fund. What England, in effect, said to Ireland was, "You may be a poor country. We do not force you to pay. Drink less and you will pay less." Some people talk about indiscriminate taxation, and it is said that we pay no more taxes in Ireland than the cottager pays in Gloucestershire. First of all in regard to this argument, allow me to point out that Ireland is not an English county. Why should Ireland be treated as an English county? No English county ever had a separate Parliament, or ever entered into a Treaty of Union with England and Scotland. The truth of the matter is that Ireland before the year 1800 was a distinct entity, and by the Treaty of Union that separate entity was maintained. What right has anybody, then, to treat Ireland as if it were Gloucestershire or Wiltshire? Such a thing is not possible, and it is not fair. My position is that, historically, I am with my hon. friends opposite, and I do not think that the case can be resisted upon historical grounds.

Then there is the question of the set-off. I admit that this set-off is a very serious argument. What does it amount to? I will take the opinion of Sir David Barbour again. He simply comes to the conclusion that the whole expenditure upon the civil government of Ireland is local expenditure, and that the increased expenditure in this respect balances the increased revenue derived from Ireland of which we complain. I have studied the various Reports of the Commissioners with some interest. Lord Welby and Lord Farrer did not commit themselves to any such doctrine. They are great financial experts, but they refuse to commit themselves to the doctrine laid down by Sir David Barbour. What they did say was that just as the revenue from Ireland was excessive, so the expenditure was excessive, and they must be considered together. We do not deny that. We do not deny that the expenditure in Ireland is excessive, for it is our constant complaint that it is excessive, and much of it is absolutely useless, and would be saved if Ireland was governed as it ought to be governed. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: It is bribery.] Mr. Childers took a fairer view, for he endeavoured to classify the expenditure and to distinguish between Imperial and local expenditure. The remainder of his colleagues and a majority of the Commission find that the whole expenditure of Ireland as provided by the Union contract is Imperial and not local. That is the position of affairs, and I think Mr. Childers' position is an equitable and a fair one.

There is much expenditure borne by Ireland locally which ought to be Imperial expenditure. Take the Viceregal expenses. Surely nobody would say that the Viceroy existed for the benefit of Ireland. Surely there is nobody who would commit himself to such a theory as that. Many years ago there was a Bill which passed its Second Reading in this House to abolish the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. My point is that this Bill received the support of the Government of that day, but nobody can tell where the Bill went to, for we have not heard of it since. Nobody can fairly claim that the Viceregal expenditure in Ireland is local expenditure. It exists purely for Imperial purposes, and ought to be treated as such. Take the constabulary. I think it is perfectly clear that the Irish people should pay a reasonable portion for the police. I think they ought to pay for the police just in the same way as the English and the Scotch people pay. That would represent what was local expenditure, and the balance ought to be Imperial expenditure. The total expenditure upon police in Ireland is £1,400,000 per annum. Now if Ireland paid for the police in the same ratio as England and Scotland, the amount she would have to pay would be £600,000. It should be borne in mind that if Ireland was treated as England and Scotland are treated in the matter of police, then she would get a contribution of £300,000 a year, and her police expenditure would then be only £300,000. Therefore, I say that everything over £600,000 is Imperial and not local expenditure so far as the police are concerned. I could go on in the same direction, showing that Mr. Childers was absolutely right, and we ought to demand for Ireland treatment in accordance with English and Scotch precedents, so that Ireland would pay in the same ratio towards her local expenditure, and the remainder should be charged upon the Imperial funds. I know that it will be said that a great deal of this is barred by the Statute of Limitations. I say what the Irish people ought to do is to find out some way of having this question settled. I think the hon. Member for North Dublin acted with great wisdom in absolutely refusing to state any plan for a remedy of the grievances of Ireland. I remember hearing in the Home Rule debates, when some question of a remedy arose, the right hon. Member for West Birmingham saying, "It is not my duty to prescribe, I am not the physician in charge." Schemes have been put forward in favour of differentiation in taxation, but I cannot support any proposals of that kind. I am sufficiently Unionist to be against all setting up of Customs as between England and Ireland; we must find some other method. We ought not to bother our heads, either, about £3,000,000 a year having been taken from Ireland for 100 years. It was quite clear that a great deal of the debt was barred by the Statute of Limitations, and we must be practical in this matter. Mr. Childers in his Report advised that the Government should set aside every year from the Imperial revenue a certain amount to be spent in works of public utility in Ireland. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer ever looks in that direction he will find plenty of opportunity for his benevolence. There is the burning question of land purchase—there is no better way in which something could be done to square the account than by assisting land purchase. Then there are the questions of the congeste ddistricts, of the Irish railways, and arterial drainage. Instead of troubling their minds about what they called the over-representation of Ireland, English Members would do well to give a little more attention to her over-taxation and try to solve the difficulty by endeavouring to do things for Ireland that would be of real utility.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)

It cannot but be regarded as somewhat strange that the right hon. Gentleman should have reproached hon. Members on these benches for not raising this question before the House with sufficient ardour.

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

I did not state it as a reproach.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman congratulates us upon not having done so. That is a complaint rather than an encouragement, which deserves the most serious consideration of these benches. What makes the statement more peculiar is that not only did we raise this debate last year but the debate then was illuminated by a speech from the right hon. Gentleman himself, which was exactly the same as he has delivered to-night. The right hon. Gentleman almost made it a complaint that although the coal tax did not affect Ireland Irish Members opposed it; has the right hon. Gentleman so little appreciated the whole history of Ireland as not to know that we have never put material interests above what we regard as high political convictions? It would be untrue to the whole history of our country if, though we lost nothing by a tax, we did not oppose it when it was raised for the purpose of carrying on a war which we consider unjust and dishonest. I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman, who has been Chief Secretary in his time, should lay down the proposition that it is vain for any body of Irish representatives to expect any relief of this taxation grievance unless they gave in return their support to the Government of the day.

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

No, no, that is certainly not what I meant to convey. I was referring to the action of hon. Gentlemen opposite on the particular proposal of the coal tax, which was at that time under discussion.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

Surely at this time of day it is absurd for any British Minister to suppose that we shall put what we all regard as the national claim of the country below any particular action whatever or under the control of a British Minister. There is no proposal of taxation which the right hon. Gentlemen would be ready to offer Ireland for which they would sacrifice their national aspirations. Anyone who will read the Act of Union will see that a separate fiscal system was intended for Ireland after the passing of the Act of Union. It must of necessity have been the case that some such arrangement should be made. Ireland then was a poor country compared with England, and it was small and retrogressive, and when a poor and unprogressive country was to be united with a rich and progressive country surely every person in authority in Ireland would be bound to take precautions that the country should be safeguarded by its having a separate fiscal system. I cannot understand why the right hon. Gentleman should lay such stress on the fact that we base our case on the Act of Union. Here the sovereign party of Ireland was merging itself with a sovereign party of England, a stronger country, and in order to make the contract, say, a great Act called the Act of Union was made between the two countries. Now, is it in the power of the strong country to break a contract in its own favour as against a weak country? We could tear up the Act of Union to-morrow without doing any particular wrong, but England is bound not to weaken in any way whatever the Act of Union to the detriment of the weaker country. This question is not at an end, it is only really commenced, and the right hon. Gentleman must make up his mind that he has to deal on this question to-day with a practically united Ireland. And as time goes on that unity is not likely to be disturbed, because this is an evil which time will not heal. It has been pointed out that since 1894, when it was proved that we were over-taxed to the extent of £2,750,000, taxation has increased in Ireland. What is the answer of the right hon. Gentleman? If I did not think him serious almost to solemnity I should have thought he was laughing at us. He says, as taxation in Ireland has increased, the grievances of that country have diminished—a most excellent argument, following that of the hon. Gentleman who introduced this motion, to recommend to the rulers of Italy and the Sultan of Turkey, because what it means is this, that we had a comparatively big grievance in 1894, when the taxation was only £7,000,000, we had a less grievance in 1900, when our taxation was £9,500,000, and that if the right hon. Gentleman with the assistance of the Colonial Secretary will only increase the burden of Ireland by new wars the taxation of the country may rise to £15,000,000 and she will have no grievance at all.

MR. SWIFT MACNEILL

We shall all be Liberal Imperialists then.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

That is a reductio ad absurdum. although in a measure the right hon. Gentleman might be right, because with the increase of taxation and the diminution of population it is quite possible that by the time the right hon. Gentleman had got his £15,000,000 the Irish grievances would have disappeared because Ireland was no more, an argument of the right hon. Gentleman which I find it difficult to take seriously. It is like the metaphorical argument of the First Lord of the Treasury that the whisky tax means nothing because it is voluntary. The right hon. Gentleman says we speak of expenditure on Imperial lines and of taxation on Separatist lines. We are perfectly entitled to do so, Except the item of education, there is none of this expenditure in Ireland that can be regarded as other than Imperial and injurious. The hon. Member for St. Stephen's Green made a statement which nobody can deny when he said that this so-called contribution to the expenditure of Ireland had not done a farthing of good to those 2,000,000 of people in Ireland living on small patches of land. Why do you call it a set-off? I call it Imperial expenditure, made by Imperial authority—contributed and wasted by Imperial authority. Is there a man in the House who will get up and say that Ireland is not one of the most flagrantly, wastefully, expensively, and shamelessly misgoverned countries in the world? We have twelve judges—half would be enough. At this moment in England some of the hardest worked men are the judges on the bench; the greatest loafer in Ireland, except the police-constable, is the Irish judge. Let me pause a moment on the policeman. He is the most extraordinary peace officer in the world. He carries a rifle and a bayonet, a revolver, and, as some of my hon. friends can testify, a baton; he gets after six months probation 21s. a week; the agricultural labourer around him, his brother possibly, gets 9s. While the brother lives in a cabin, he gets all the comfort of living in the police barracks, which, with the gaols, the workhouses, and the lunatic asylums, are the best buildings in the country, and at forty-five he gets a pension. The right hon. Gentleman talks of the money in the savings banks. I will tell him where that comes from. He gets it to a large extent from the police of Ireland. The police are almost the only comfortable class in the country, and while you insist upon keeping in Ireland an armed, overpaid and over-pensioned force of soldiers, for they are nothing less, for the purpose of keeping down the Irish people and defeating their political and national aspirations, you turn round and say to us, "You ought to be grateful to us for paying back so much to you in this way." Ireland is in this extraordinary position, that she is asked to pay for the heavy golden chains cast upon her.

There is another thing in regard to the administration of Ireland that I wish to bring before the House. I have done it before, and I daresay I will have to do it very often again. It is a comparison between the Imperial set-off and the budget of an Irish household, and I think the House will find the contrast extremely instructive. The law officers receive £7,000; Crown solicitors, £16,722; sessional Crown solicitors £2,725; prosecutors, £17,000; fees to law officers, £1,000; fees to counsel, £8,000; general law expenses, £6,100; defence of public officials, £400; assize expenses, £11,520; total, £70,467. These are the law charges for this year exclusive, of course, of the salaries of the judges. There are, however, other two items; judges' lodgings, £2,700, and buildings, furniture, fuel and light, £5,454. I ask the House to dwell on the cost of fuel and lights for a reason which I will presently show. Now let us take the budget of a household in the congested districts. Receipts:—Sale of heifer or bullock £4 10s., sale of five sheep £3 15s., sale of pig £3 10s., sale of eggs £2 4s. 4d., sale of flannel or tweed £3 10s., sale of corn 15s., sale of fish £8., knitting, etc., £1: total £27 4s. 4d. Expenditure:—Rent £2, county cess 5s. 8d., tea £5 17s., and the Chancellor of the Exchequer will get some of that; sugar £1 19s., and the Chancellor of the Exchequer will get some of that; meal £7 14s., he will get none of that, for he dare not yet tax meal or corn; flour, £1 17s. 6d.; clothing, £6 8s. 6d.; tobacco, £2 7s. 8d., and the Chancellor of the Exchequer will get some of that; one young pig, l5s.; implements, etc., £1 4s. 9d. making altogether an expenditure of £30 9s. 1d. I dwelt on the item of lights for this reason. I lived on a farm for a short time as a boy, and one of the things I remember still with horror was that the wife of a peasant died in the dark because she had not enough money to buy a candle. Is it not a mockery and an insult to the people of Ireland that the right hon. Gentleman should put this extravagant and bloated administration on Ireland, for the purposes of corruption, and as a set-off against our claims to relief. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer smiled when I used the word corruption. I repeat the word corruption, and say that every public duty in Ireland is overpaid for the direct purpose of buying the intellect of Ireland to the side of the Union.

Now I come for a moment to the condition of Ireland. I must say that when I heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer speaking on this question it gave me a feeling of very profound pain. I an sure I believe the right hon. Gentleman to be a most honest and upright politician, and that he believes every word he says; but when he gets up in his place and talks of Ireland being prosperous in the face of what we know, in the face of what we see, in the face of what is within the circle of our own family relationships, why, that is one of those terrible revelations of the impassable gulf which lies between Englishmen and Irishmen upon Irish questions. What is the test of the prosperity of a country? The right hon. Gentleman gave us railway receipts and savings banks deposits. In regard to the savings banks it must be remembered that these now take the place of the old stocking, and as a matter of fact the increase of the savings banks deposits simply means a change in the habits of the people, and is largely made up out of the savings which are made from the large salaries given to certain classes by the British Government. Will the right hon. Gentleman or will he not take population as the test of the prosperity of a country? Everybody knows that one of the glories of England is the increase of its population. But in Ireland, have we increased our population? The right hon. Gentleman knows that ever since the Financial Relations Commission reported on this question we have lost a quarter of a million of our population, and that since the death of Mr. Parnell and the dissensions which gathered round his name, and which I am thankful to say are for ever buried and lost sight of, we have lost half a million of our population. These figures in regard to the population of Ireland are too terrible. In 1841 our population numbered 8,177,124, in April of this year it was 4,456,546. Is there any country in any period of the world's history which can show a devastation, a depopulation, in equal proportions as that? Why, Sir, in Ireland we have just about the same population as London. I call the attention of the Hon. Member for South Belfast to the fact that, in spite of the enormous increase in the population of Belfast, there has been a decrease in the population of the province of Ulster. The decrease in the province of Leinster is 41,297; in Munster 98,568, in Connaught 69,876, and in the favoured province of Ulster, 68,463.

What becomes of the population? Is emigration from a country a sign of prosperity, especially in a country like that of Ireland, where the devotion of the people to their native soil amounts to a passion almost terrible in its intensity? Out of a population of 8,197,000 in 1841 it is estimated that only four and a half millions are now left in Ireland. "Fully 2,000 a week," says the chronicler, "have been departing from the port of Queenstown alone for the United States for weeks past, and before the season is spent the big exodus that is flowing rapidly will only leave behind in Ireland the remains of a great race." That is a very tragic and terrible picture which I recommend to the right hon. Gentleman for his best reflections. This diminution of the population of Ireland can be directly traced to the evil and foolish legislation of this House and the destruction of the Irish Parliament. I beg to call the attention of the Chief Secretary to the fact that in 1900 the emigration from Ireland amounted to 47,107, or an increase of 3,347 over that of 1899. My hon. friend called attention to that disastrous epoch in the history of Ireland in 1853, when Mr. Gladstone introduced changes in the fiscal relations of that country. My explanation of that extraordinary departure from sound finance on the part of Mr. Gladstone is that it is to be attributed to one of the faults and flaws of his great intellect. He was in the habit of concentrating his attention on a particular question which interested him, and he was blind and deaf at the time to every other question. I remember that in the first speech I made in this House in 1880 I called his attention to the fact that besides the oppression of the Christians in the East there was a little oppression of the Christians in the West in the shape of rack-rents in Ireland; and the right hon. Gentleman had to confess that he was ignorant of the facts as to the case in Ireland. Ireland had just escaped from the famine, and I will read the returns of emigration for the three years preceding 1853 and the subsequent year. In 1851 the number of emigrants from Ireland from 1st May was 152,060; in 1852, 190,322; in 1853, 173,148; and in 1854, 140,555. At the moment that Ireland was bleeding at every pore that was the moment chosen to impose a new system of taxation upon her. But where do these Irish emigrants go? That, I think, is a matter which British statesmen may very well consider from the point of view of British interests. Last year, out of 50,000 people who left Ireland, 126 went to New Zealand, 834 to Australia, 472 to Canada now bubbling over with Imperial enthusiasm, and to the United States 37,765, or 83.4 per cent. of the whole. I take another test. 79.7 per cent. of the men were labourers, and 81.0 per cent. of the women were servants, and we know what that means. When I heard my right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean talking the other day about the women in the Potteries who suffered from lead-poisoning, and that their average life was twenty-three years and that the average life of the dockers in London was 41.43 years, I thought that horrible enough; but the horror was increased when I remembered that 70 or 80 per cent. of these drudges and white slaves of industrial England came from Ireland. The Chief Secretary, I dare say, has read a recent speech of the Lord Lieutenant on the condition of Ireland. This is what his Lordship stated— I do not wish to remind you of what, I am afraid, you all know, that we in England in the past times have been largely responsible for the present state of things. It would be folly to ignore and mean to refuse to acknowledge it. But the fact is that with industries abolished, with mills lying idle and in ruins, and with all that destruction of vital energy in the towns, brought about by many years of misgovernment in the past, there is really nothing to draw your surplus population from these congested districts. That is a picture of the condition of Ireland, which is in very sharp contrast to that of the prosperity of the country drawn by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I may say that the Lord Lieutenant's remedy for the misery of the congested districts of Ireland is to take the population from the healthy air of the fields, and put them into the slums and lanes of the ruined towns of Ireland! I take another test of economic condition—that of pauperism. In 1864, with a population of 5,640,527, there were 264,509 indoor and 31,266 outdoor paupers, or a total of 295,835. In 1894, with a population of 4,600,599, there were 437,412 indoor and outdoor paupers; in 1898, with a population of 4,543,782, the paupers numbered 526,057; while in 1900, with a population of 4,500,764, they numbered 486,811. Why, that is the most ghastly picture of the condition of any country in the whole world—worse than even the worst parts of Turkey.

The First Lord of the Treasury, when he was Chief Secretary, used to utter reproaches about the improvident early marriages in Ireland, which came badly from a bachelor. Let me tell him that his example is now being followed in Ireland, and that the marriage rate is going down. Here are the statistics of the marriage rate for different countries in Europe. Hungary stands at the head with ninety-one per 1,000; Germany, fifty-three; England, fifty-two; Austria, fifty-one; Italy, fifty; France forty-nine; Sweden, thirty-seven; Ireland, twenty-three! I think that the right hon. Gentleman's precepts and his taxation of the people of Ireland have had a result that even the wisest of British statesmen could scarcely have wished. Let me conclude with this observation. Mr. Childers, of whose memory every Irishman has grateful recollections, was mainly responsible for the Report of the Financial Relations Commission. I recently read his biography by his son, and in it there are many touching allusions. He married as a young man of twenty-one, and after many years of wedded happiness his wife died suddenly. He woke in the morning to find her a corpse by his side. I venture to use that episode in the life of the late Mr. Childers. I think that except the massacre of the Armenians in the face of a silent and cowardly Europe, there is no more tragic spectacle in the world to-day than this great country seeing this poor country of Ireland wasting and decaying, yet proclaiming that all is well in Ireland, while Irishmen know that their country is fast descending into bankruptcy and ruin.

MR. ARTHUR ELLIOT (Durham)

The hon. Member who has just sat down has succeeded in making out a case because he treated Ireland, so far as statistics are concerned, on an entirely different footing from that of every other country in Europe. The House has just heard from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that Schedule D of the income tax in Ireland is steadily producing a greater revenue, that the traffic receipts on the railways are steadily increasing, and that the Post Office Savings Bank shows a continually increasing accumulation, although we are told that these increases in the deposits of the Savings Banks do nothing but show the natural pauperism of the Irish people. I cannot conceive on what principle English and Scottish Members should be asked to discuss statistics relating to Ireland in a different way from what they are discussed in relation to other countries. No contradiction has been given to the contention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that, though he might deplore the comparative poverty of Ireland, there is great reason to hope that slowly, but steadily, even in Ireland prosperity and wealth are increasing. [Cries from the Irish benches of "Oh, oh."] I have been very much struck with this fact in the debate. The hon. Member for South Tyrone agreed with the mover of the resolution that it was wiser not to suggest any remedy for the inequality and the injustice.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL

That was not the case with me. I adopted Mr. Childers' suggestion.

MR. ARTHUR ELLIOT

I was complimenting my hon. friend on a wisdom which he now does not show. At all events my hon. friend found that it was not easy to suggest a remedy, and he does not agree that the remedy suggested by Mr. Childers was a wise, suitable, and possible remedy. I will tell my hon. friend why it is so difficult to find a remedy. The real difficulty they have in finding a remedy is that they cannot put their hands on the grievance. [Cries from the Irish benches of "Oh, oh."] The debate has gone on for a long time, but I have not yet heard it suggested that a single Irishman is unjustly treated compared with an Englishman or a Scotchman. If we compare the taxation of Irishmen with that of Englishmen, it is found that the Irishmen pay per head £1 8s. 10d. annually in taxes, and that Englishmen and Scotsmen pay £2 4s, 10d. Irishmen living in Ireland are not only taxed more lightly per head than Englishmen or Scotchmen, but they live in a country where there are fewer taxes. [An HON. MEMBER: What are they?] If an Irishman came to live in this country he would have to pay house duty, and there are some five or six different articles which are taxed in this country, but which are not taxed in Ireland. Mr. Gladstone has been severely criticised for introducing the income tax into Ireland; but I would remind hon. Members opposite who complain of this that the poor people of Ireland do not pay the income tax. What has the income tax got to do with them? In my opinion any Irishman who has made a fortune ought to pay the income tax just the same as the people in England and Scotland who are in the same position. Therefore it is not true that by introducing the income tax in Ireland Mr. Gladstone was placing a burden on the poor people.

With regard to the whisky tax Mr. Gladstone's contention was that he did not see why a glass of whisky should be purchased cheaper in Ireland than in England and Scotland. If hon. Members opposite wish to establish their case they will have to bring forward an Irishman in the flesh and compare him with some other Englishman and show us where the Irishman is unjustly taxed. I am not so much struck with the wisdom of the report of the Commission as some hon. Gentlemen appear to be. The Commission has given considerable attention to the subject, but, after searching into the matter myself, I find that the only person who suffers is what they describe as the Irish financial entity. I do not believe in that. This financial entity is a creature of the mind, and when you come to deal with this case you will find that it is a thing which cannot be grasped. You will have to deal with individuals, and in dealing with the Irish nation it must be remembered that a very large number of Irishmen live in England and Scotland. My hon. friend behind me maintains that Sir David Barbour found that a set-off existed which balanced the inequality of the taxation. This is what he said— On the assumption that the taxable capacity of Ireland is one-twentieth of that of the United Kingdom, Ireland paid in 1893–94 about 2¾ millions sterling more than she would have paid if the total revenue taken from her had been in proportion to her taxable capacity. In the same year there was expended for Irish purposes about 3¾ millions sterling in excess of what would have been admissible if the expenditure for Irish purposes had also been in proportion to Ireland's taxable capacity. On the whole account Ireland may be said to have been a gainer in 1893–94 of about one million sterling, or that, in other words, after meeting the expenditure for Irish purposes, she contributed about one million less towards Imperial purposes than she would have done if her contribution for Imperial purposes had been in the proportion of her 'taxable capacity.' That is what my hon. friend calls fair, but it is not the English or Scotch method of balancing accounts. The question has been asked—Is it right that Ireland should contribute to the Imperial services. [Nationalist cries of "No."] I am not going into the history of this matter. Hon. Members opposite seem to think that it is a monstrous thing that Ireland should be asked to contribute anything towards our Imperial expenses. Ireland gains by the expenditure upon our Imperial services, but what hon. Members desire is to be quit of us altogether, and that is something which cannot possibly be granted, and it is a contention which cannot seriously be put forward when we are discussing the financial relations between the two countries. The partnership at present is between a rich and powerful country and a poor and weak one. A poor partner who comes into a wealthy concern must gain by it. The funds of the United Kingdom are now being used for the benefit of the people of Ireland. As for the Act of Union, Fit is an Act of Parliament, and it has to be interpreted like any other Act. That Act contemplated a joint purse and ultimately a system of equal taxes on similar goods. Whether you look upon the words of the Act of Parliament or upon the existing condition of things you must act justly between man and man. To create some national entity and legislate with reference to it would be to introduce an injustice between one man and another. According, however, to the very Report, the support of which has been claimed for the Irish case, Ireland was in 1893–4 saved about a million sterling by the existing system, as compared with the amount which she would have had to pay if she had been called upon to contribute to Imperial purposes in proportion to her taxable capacity. In the partnership between a rich and powerful country and a poor and weak country the poor partner gains in credit, if in nothing else. [Cries of "No."] Has not the British Government been turning thousands of Irish tenants into proprietors by the use of British credit? Could that have been done with Irish credit alone?

MR. FLAVIN

At whose expense?

MR. ARTHUR ELLIOT

Hon Members interpret the Act of Union as a contract binding on the British Parliament, but not binding on themselves. It is clear that what we have to do is to induce the people throughout the kingdom to feel that they are citizens of one great nation. I hope as time goes on that Irishmen will take their proper part as citizens of this great Empire and that they will come to believe that England is something better than a great and powerful tyrant trying to tax the skin off Irishmen's backs. I think hon. Members opposite have failed entirely to prove their case for introducing different taxation for the inhabitants of the three countries. If Irishmen can bring forward a real Irish grievance which really presses hard upon Irishmen I am sure hon. Members of this House will join together to remove it.

MR. SWIFT MACNEILL

said that a celebrated Irish politician once described the supporters of the Union as a curious combination of Scotch logic and English stupidity. As the First Lord of the Treasury was not going to make a speech he would do his best to make one for him.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Hear, hear.

MR. SWIFT MACNEILL

said that the First Lord of the Treasury had no doubt heard one of his hon. friends speak of the treaty obligations imposed by the Act of Union between the Parliaments of England and Ireland, leaving aside altogether the various allegations of fraud which were more or less admitted. England had robbed Ireland by violation of the treaty obligations in the Union. Pitt, when asked what security there would be when the Parliament of Ireland ceased to exist that the British Government would not violate its pledges, took the high moral tone and said the honour and integrity of the people could be relied upon. Yet in the same month he endeavoured to bribe the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons with a peerage to stifle debate. Ireland had been ruthlessly and mercilessly robbed by England, and when Pitt said England did not seek the Union from pecuniary motives he said what he knew was untrue. Whenever he spoke on Irish financial questions he always felt a great difficulty and he knew that every Member of the Nationalist party greatly regretted the absence of Mr. Sexton who had brought this question to a place of prominence before the public mind. He felt sure that he was only expressing the desires of his colleagues when he said that he trusted Mr. Sexton might be induced to come back amongst them. It would be no exaggeration to say that all their Irish grievances were simply a question of finance. It was a financial question which caused the revolution of 1782 and it was a financial question which carried the Union and annihilated the Irish Parliament. What were the promises held out by statesmen in reference to the Union? Pitt stated that the Government did not seek the Union from a pecuniary point of view, but he believed that when Pitt made that statement he was saying something which he knew to be untrue. Pitt also said that there was no ground for supposing that England would tax Ireland more heavily, but during the sixteen years from 1800 to 1816 the revenue which came out of Ireland was three times more than the revenue that was obtained annually during the sixteen years before the Union. The enormous sum of something like £10,000 was taken in order to bribe the Irish Parliament. Pitt did not like to do dirty work, but he had an obedient servant in Lord Castlereagh. Lord Castlereagh was a very charming person and had delightfully finished methods, but he lied. He said Ireland under the Union would not incur a greater annual expenditure than four and a half millions in time of war and two and a half millions in time of peace. What Ireland was paying towards the Boer war would make Castlereagh blush. Mr. Lecky had said the word "honour" as applied to Castlereagh and Pitt had no meaning whatever. All the promises and assurances made by English statesmen both in Ireland and England at the time of the Union remained unfulfilled and had been directly contradicted by the present state of affairs. The Chancellor of the Exchequer looked marvellously virtuous, and seemed astonished at his own moderation, when he said that Ireland would only be charged £400,000 for the Boer war.

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

This year.

MR. SWIFT MACNEILL

said he understood that, but it was a matter of principle, and if the representatives of the Irish people were entrusted with the control of the purse of Ireland, which was opposed to the war, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not have got for the Boer war 400,000 halfpence. The right hon. Gentleman also defended the introduction of the income tax into Ireland, and the equalisation of the spirit, tea, and tobacco duties, but he ought to remember that these taxes were resisted by two-thirds of the Irish Members. When Mr. Gladstone introduced the income tax in 1853 no fewer than seventy-four Members voted against it. He had endeavoured to get memoranda of British Ministers at the time of the Union, and he had discovered at least one extract which showed that the object of the Union was the robbery of Ireland. In 1800 a man named Cooke, who was employed to bribe the Irish Members and also sat for a pocket borough in the English House of Commons, presented to Lord Castlereagh a document which showed that the reason why the Union should be carried out was that the great and growing prosperity of the country made the country dangerous to England. For a hundred years before the Union was carried, the Union was advocated in order to lighten the burdens of England by throwing the taxes on the Irish people, and they had done it with a vengeance. This House and the country, so far as Ireland was concerned, were totally inaccessible to shame. Nothing was done for Ireland except as the result of agitation, and that became dangerous, and possibly mis- chievous and injurious in its effects. The Union was a mere financial arrangement by which Ireland should be taxed, not for her own benefit, but for the benefit of England. It was to make Ireland subservient to the English people. They had succeeded, perhaps, for the moment. They tried the same thing in America, but they did not succeed. They were trying the same thing in South Africa, but they had not succeeded yet. Whatever the future of Ireland might be, he must say that he never, when he went into the congested districts, saw a man whose features bore the impress of poverty, hunger, and want without regarding him as the creature of British misrule. They had robbed in Ireland in great style; the Union was one between the shark and its prey. These were the words of a great Member of Parliament and statesman, but they had all been swept away by the verdict of a superior person, who declared in an article that Ireland had no grievance at all. No doubt it was for that deliverance that this superior person had received his promotion, and was now Lord Milner. The fact was the Union was a fraud, and every shilling voted against the wish of the Irish Members was highway robbery.

MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.)

said the debate showed that the attempt to prove that Ireland had no grievance was a failure. The Royal Commission, after hearing the evidence of expert witnesses representing the Treasury and British interests venerally, made a Report in 1895, which no Government had sought to displace since. It was sometimes said that they ought not to attach undue importance to that Commission, because a certain number of the Commissioners were in favour of the Home Rule proposals of Mr. Gladstone. He contended that this very statement entitled the findings of the Commission to all the greater respect. He said so because it was a Commission appointed ad rem, in order that the Home Rule proposals, so far as finance was concerned, might be such as to command confidence, and in order that Ireland, while contributing a fair share of the Imperial expenditure, should not be asked to pay beyond her means and capacity. In the matter of finance, the British Government had not acted towards Ireland with any sense of fair play, or in accordance with the pledges which were given before they stole the Irish Parliament.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes, 102; Noes, 224. (Division List No. 341.)

AYES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)	Healy, Timothy Michael	O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)
Ambrose, Robert	Hemphill, Rt. Hon Charles H.	O'Kelly, James (Roscommon N)
Barry, E. (Cork, S.)	Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)	O'Malley, William
Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)	Jones, David Brynmor (Sw'ns'a	O'Mara, James
Boland, John	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire	O'Shaughnessy, P. J.
Burke, E. Haviland-	Joyce, Michael	O'Shee, James John
Burt, Thomas	Kennedy, Patrick James	Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)
Caldwell, James	Layland-Barratt, Francis	Power, Patrick Joseph
Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)	Leamy, Edmund	Rea, Russell
Carew, James Laurence	Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accringt'n	Reddy, M.
Clancy, John Joseph	Levy, Maurice	Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Cogan, Denis J.	Lough, Thomas	Redmond William (Clare)
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Lundon, W.	Rentoul, James Alexander
Craig, Robert Hunter	MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.	Rigg, Richard
Crean, Eugene	MacNeill, John Gordon Swift	Roe, Sir Thomas
Cullinan, J.	M'Cann, James	Russell, T. W.
Dalziel, James Henry	M'Dermott, Patrick	Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)
Delany, William	M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)	Schwann, Charles E.
Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.	Mooney, John J.	Sheehan, Daniel Daniel
Dillon, John	Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F.	Shipman, Dr. John G.
Doogan, P. C.	Morton, Edw. J. C. (Devonport)	Stevenson, Francis S.
Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark.)	Murphy, John	Sullivan, Donal
Duffy, William J.	Nannetti, Joseph P.	Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr
Duncan, J. (Hastings)	Nolan, Col. J. P. (Galway, N.)	Thompson, Dr. EC (Monagh'n N
Emmott, Alfred	Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)	Tully, Jasper
Fenwick, Charles	Norton, Capt. Cecil William	Weir, James Galloway
Ffrench, Peter	O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)	White, George (Norfolk)
Field, William	O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid	White, Luke (York, E. R.)
Flavin, Michael Joseph	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Flynn, James Christopher	O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)	Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)
Gilhooly, James	O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)	Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)
Goddard, Daniel Ford	O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)	Young, Samuel
Harrington, Timothy	O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Sir Thomas Esmonde and Captain Donelan.
Hayden, John Patrick	O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)
Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-	O'Dowd, John
NOES.
Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir A. F.	Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)	Dimsdale, Sir Joseph Cockfield
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte	Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm.	Doughty, George
Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel	Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r	Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers.
Allhusen, Augustus Hy. Eden	Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry	Doxford, Sir William Theodore
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Chapman, Edward	Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edw.
Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.	Charrington, Spencer	Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir William Hart
Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John	Churchill, Winston Spencer	Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas
Bain, Colonel James Robert	Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.	Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward
Balcarres, Lord	Coghill, Douglas Harry	Fergusson, Rt Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r
Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r	Cohen, Benjamin Louis	Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst
Balfour, Rt Hn. Gerald W.(Leeds	Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse	Finch, George H.
Balfour. Maj K R. (Christchurch	Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready	Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne
Banbury, Frederick George	Colston, Charles Edward H. A.	Fisher, William Hayes
Bathurst, Hn. Allen Benjamin	Compton, Lord Alwyne	Fison, Frederick William
Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol)	Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas	Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon
Beckett, Ernest William	Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)	Forster, Henry William
Bignold, Arthur	Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)	Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S. W.
Bigwood, James	Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge	Galloway, William Johnson
Bill, Charles	Cranborne, Viscount	Gardner, Ernest
Blundell, Colonel Henry	Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)	Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick
Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-	Crossley, Sir Savile	Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin&Nairn
Brassey, Albert	Cubitt, Hn. Henry	Gordon, Maj. Evan (T'r Hamlets
Brodrick, Rt. Hn. St. John	Cust, Henry John C.	Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon
Butcher, John George	Dalkeith, Earl of	Goschen, Hn. George Joachim
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.	Dalrymple, Sir Charles	Gray, Ernest (West Ham)
Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.)	Davies, Sir Horatio D. (Chatham	Green, Walford D. Wednesbury
Cavendish, W. C. W, (Derbyshire	Dewar, T'r Hamlets S. Geo.	Greene, Sir E. W (B'rySEdm'nds
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Dickson-Poynder, Sir J. P.	Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury)
Gretton, John	M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)	Round, James
Greville, Hon. Ronald	Majendie, James A. H.	Royds, Clement Molyneux
Groves, James Grimble	Malcolm, Ian	Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-
Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill	Manners, Lord Cecil	Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander
Hall, Edward Marshall	Maple, Sir John Blundell	Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert
Hambro, Charles Eric	Martin, Richard Biddulph	Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln
Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (Midd'x	Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.	Seton-Karr, Henry
Hanbury, Rt. Hn. Robt. Wm.	Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfrieshire	Sharpe, Wm. Edward T.
Harris, Frederick Leverton	Melville, Beresford Valentine	Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew
Haslam, Sir Alfred S.	Middlemore, John Throgmort'n	Simeon, Sir Barrington
Hay, Hon. Claude George	Mildmay, Francis Bingahm	Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand
Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley	Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir Frekd. G.	Smith, H. C. (North'mb, Tyneside
Heath, James (Staffords, N. W.	Molesworth, Sir Lewis	Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk
Helder, Augustus	Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)	Stanley, Lord (Lancs)
Henderson, Alaxander	Montagu, Hn. J. Scott (Hants.	Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.
Hoare, Edw. Brodie (Hampstead	More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire)	Stroyan, John
Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E.	Morgan, David J. (Walthm'w	Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier
Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside	Morgan, Hn. Fred. (Monm'thsh	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Horner, Frederick William	Morrell, George Herbert	Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Univ.
Hoult, Joseph	Morrison, James Archibald	Thornton, Percy M.
Howard, John (Kent Faversh'm	Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford	Tollemache, Henry James
Hudson, George Bickersteth	Mount, Wm. Arthur	Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray
Johnston, William (Belfast)	Muntz, Philip A.	Valentia, Viscount
Keswick, William	Murray, Rt. Hn A Graham (Bute	Walker, Col. William Hall
King, Sir Henry Seymour	Myers, William Henry	Warde, Colonel C. E.
Law, Andrew Bonar	Newdigate, Francis Alexander	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)	Nicol, Donald Ninian	Webb, Colonel William George
Lawson, John Grant	Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)	Welby, Lt.-Col, A. C. E. (Taunton
Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., Fareh'm	Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington	Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-
Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)	Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley	Whiteley, H.(Ashton-und-Lyne
Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage	Percy, Earl	Whitmore, Charles Algernon
Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie	Platt-Higgins, Frederick	Williams, Col. R. (Dorset)
Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.	Plummer, Walter R.	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Llewellyn, Evan Henry	Pretyman, Ernest George	Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)
Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine	Purvis, Robert	Wilson, John (Glasgow)
Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham)	Randies, John S.	Wilson, J. W. (Worcestershire N.
Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Bristol, S.)	Rankin, Sir James	Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.)
Lonsdale, John Brownlee	Ratcliff, R. F.	Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath)
Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)	Reid, James (Greenock)	Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Loyd, Archie Kirkman	Remnant, James Farquharson	Wrightson, Sir Thomas
Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)	Renshaw, Charles Bine	Wylie, Alexander
Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth	Renwick, George	Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred	Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalybridge)	Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong
Macartney, Rt. Hon. W. G. E.	Ridley, S. F. (Bethnal Green)	Younger, William
Macdona, John Cumming	Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. T.
MacIver, David (Liverpool)	Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.
M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)	Robinson, Brooke
M'Calmont, Col. H. L. B. (Cambs.)	Ropner, Col. Robert