§ Mr. GINNELLThe Government having made the over-taxation of Ireland a burning question in that country, it becomes my duty to submit a few views entertained by the majority of the people there, no more suitable opportunity having been given for that purpose. Important at all times, the subject is rendered urgent by the promise of full self-government for Ireland given by those having power to make their promise good. Separate nation-keeping, like housekeeping, cannot be wisely undertaken without realising and making available the means necessary for carrying it on successfully. Several things are necessary for this purpose, such as the inspiration of freedom, patriotism, public spirit, administrative ability, adequate financial resources, and the power and will to get in all debts due to us. It is impossible to touch Ireland without knocking against consequences of past evil legislation and evil policy. Those consequences are the existing facts of the situation which cannot be ignored, and no work of reconstruction in Ireland is possible without frankly grappling with and making provision for them. This has 1156 had to be done to a greater or less degree from Mr. Gladstone's first Land Act down to the latest Land Act. Current economic theories have had to be disregarded, and this British Parliament has had to deal with existing facts for which they inherit responsibility. Having forcibly planted in Ireland an evil system, and having maintained it there too long working destruction, your Parliament was forced to uproot it. In 1903 it so frankly recognised those peculiar facts that, in addition to providing for what was supposed to be free bargains between landlords and tenants, it voted twelve millions of public money over and above to be given as bonus to landlords for selling estates at more than their value. It has since increased that to a sum estimated by the Chief Secretary at eighteen million pounds, and this, while admitting that landlords were not essential to Irish life, and while, in fact, providing for the abolition of them.
In the present instance the precise departure we want you to make from your usual practice towards Ireland is to become honest. The present condition of Ireland, a disgrace to its governors, is the result of your rule. In every part of Ireland, town and country, there are numerous purposes, national and local, urgently and desperately in need of money. I will not weary the House with even a list of them, but to illustrate them I may instance one or two that strike the eye of the most casual visitor. One is the almost complete absence of suitable or indeed any industries for the employment of the people, and the consequent continued emigration of the young and intelligent. Another is the flooding of wide areas, comprising many hundreds of farms, and the destruction of the crops that grow upon them by the overflow of rivers through long neglect. Local effort in present circumstances is wholly unable to cope with evils of such magnitude. The promise of full self-government means that for our urgent purposes, vast and small, Ireland is to be thrown upon her own resources. That will be the happiest event in her history, provided she gets her entire resources. In the deplorable condition to which you have brought Ireland, her entire resources to the last farthing will be absolutely necessary to enable her to enter upon that undertaking with any chance of success in competition with the more fortunate nations that have been long in the enjoyment of freedom.
1157 Under these circumstances, we have no choice, but are driven by necessity as well as by self-respect to insist at once upon the examination and closing of her long account with her oppressor and the restitution of every penny due to enable us to undertake and carry out the urgent works which have waited too long, and which self-government, to be anything like full, must comprise.
If, as is the case, our money is not in our possession, but is due to us by the wealthiest nation in the world, the most urgent duty of all is to gather it in. Failure to do this would stamp us at the outset as incompetent for our undertaking, and unfit for freedom. The acquisition and maintenance of the essentials of national life is the first duty of nationhood. Neither individual nor nation, having a just claim and title to money, should beg or borrow, least of all from a debtor. It would be a crime against one's country to beg or borrow on her behalf from a debtor able to pay, but unwilling. Such a debtor attempting to grant or lend money to the creditor without first paying the debt would be dishonest and a knave. It is not I say that, but the facts. From such a debtor the whole debt with interest should be demanded promptly, unequivocally, and imperatively. The assumption that Great Britain, wealthy and self-righteous, would not pay her debt to Ireland in full, would he an insult to the Imperial Parliament and to the people it represents. No one now desires to go back to the beginning of the debt, or to go back further than the actual causes which live to-day in the conditions produced by them. Less than this no one could call just. This, however, brings us back further than some superficial people care to recognise. Any one who takes the trouble to study the subject, and no rational opinion can be formed of it without having done so, will find that Ireland's grievance against England and the ground of her claim for restitution go back a century and a half behind the Act of Union, or two and a-half cnturies from the present time. They go back to the industrial and commercial restrictions imposed upon Ireland from the middle—
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. J. H. Whitley)The present Administration can not be said to be responsible for that. The Debate must be connected with something which has been clone or ought to be done by the present Administration.
§ Mr. GINNELLWhile always maintaining that the Act of Union was procured by iniquitous and indefensible methods, and was unjust in its operation, and while denying that Ireland really consented to that measure, so long as that Act is maintained, as it has been up to the present time against us, surely we are entitled to at least a fragment of that justice which is left to Ireland under it, and to the benefits of the Financial Relations Commission of 1895, as they may be modified by a similar Public Commission, thoroughly representative of the two countries, bringing the work of the first Commission down to the present time. The excessive taxation of Ireland arises from the unjust allocation of burdens under the Treaty of Union and the subsequent criminal efforts in violation of that Treaty to assimilate the taxation of the two countries. It is beyond the power of man to assimilate things that nature has made different. Every attempt to assimilate Great Britain and Ireland has aggravated the original evil. This Imperial Parliament, while attempting to assimilate the taxation in the two countries, has found it necessary in most of its other legislation to recognise and maintain the difference between the two countries. The Financial Relations Commission found that Ireland, as a fact, had keen overtaxed absolutely and relatively since the Union. If we are dealing with honest people, now is the time to prove their honesty by refunding the excessive taxation. According to calculations which have been made, and which are to be found in the Reports of the Commission, the excessive taxation taken out of Ireland since the Act of Union exceeds £320,000,000, with interest. The restitution of every penny of that debt is necessary to satisfy justice and necessary for our imperative requirements under full self-government. The money being unquestionably due, we do not desire and have no occasion to accept other people's money by way of grant or loan. The report of the Commission on Financial Relations, signed by eleven Members and agreed to also by two others who died during the inquiry, was as follows:—
- (1) That Great Britain and Ireland must for the purposes of this inquiry be considered as separate entities.
- (2) That the Act of Union imposed on Ireland a burden which, as events showed, she was unable to bear.
- (3) That the increase of taxation laid upon Ireland between 1853 and 1860 was not justified by the then existing circumstances.
- (4) That identity of rates of taxation does not necessarily involve equity of burden.
- (5) That whilst the actual tax revenue of Ireland is about one-eleventh of that of Great Britain, the relative taxable capacity of Ireland is very much smaller, and it is not estimated by any of us to exceed one-twentieth. The Special Report signed by Lord Farrar, Lord Welby, and Mr. Currie—
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERHow does the hon. Member connect that with the present Administration?
§ Mr. GINNELLI am endeavouring to show that the over-taxation of Ireland continues up to the present time. It continues to grow, and I hope you will see that this is a relative matter affecting the daily lives of the whole of the people of our country.
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERIt might be so on a Special Motion, but this is a Motion for Adjournment, and on it the hon. Member can only discuss matters which have been done or left undone by His Majesty's present Ministers.
§ Mr. GINNELLI will endeavour to bring myself within your ruling. This trouble in regard to financial relations always has been and must continue to be one between Ireland on the one side and the British Treasury on the other. I want to urge that the present Government should appoint a similar Public Commission to carry on the same inquiries up to the present time. They have set up a one-sided secret ex parte Committee, selected by themselves and controlled by a Treasury official, for the purpose of finding a verdict to suit themselves. No upright man understanding the facts and circumstances would consent to serve on a Committee with such dishonest purposes, but would insist that the Committee should be public and representative of the two countries concerned. The Government do not deny the current belief that some of the most capable men in. Ireland declined to act on that secret committee on the ground that it would be dishonourable to do so. The members of this Committee, who are connected with the Treasury, like the officials who prepare the evidence for them, advocate only one side 1160 of the case. The other members, being Englishmen and Scotchmen, are naturally pro-British in matters in dispute between Great Britain and any other country. Under the circumstances, it is a packed Committee, with a bias against Ireland; its impartiality cannot be even pretended, and so indefensible did the Government feel their one-sided Committee to be that they conceived the brilliant idea of not attempting to defend it, but by some misrepresentation or other, inducing one Irishman, a Doctor of Divinity, to share the odium of it with them, and if necessary rekindled the fires of religious animosity, and while the attention of Catholic and Orangemen was diverted from the real business to squabbles on the score of religion, so that the Government might fleece both sides. That is the traditional policy of the British Government towards Ireland. For the credit of Ireland and of commonsense it is not going to succeed this time. Governments shall not trap us as easily as they seem to have trapped the officials. On them alone blame is concentrated by all classes in Ireland. Their dishonesty is too obvious in the fact that if they thought Doctors of Divinity the best material of which to compose their Committee they would have appointed to represent Great Britain an Anglican bishop and a Nonconformist minister. In this matter of pounds shillings and pence all Irishmen have common rights, and refuse to be divided into opposing camps on irrelevant grounds. Any man, be he Catholic or Orangeman, who co-operates with the Government in attempting to use religious differences in order to divide Irishmen on this purely business matter, that man is an enemy of Ireland. Any man who at the present time of change, when the financial arrangements about to be made will be permanent, who presents some unworkable arrangement and assists in the concealment of flaws which will lead to certain breakdown in the working, that man is unquestionably an enemy of Ireland. No man who is the friend of Ireland should obscure our claim for the restitution of our money taken from us in excess of taxes and tell us to depend, whether under Home Rule or British rule, on loans and doles from the British Treasury.
§ Mr. CHARLES CRAIGOn a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. May I ask you whether it is according to the rule and etiquette of this House that an hon. 1161 Member should read every word of his speech from a type-written or written document as apparently the hon. Member is doing?
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERIt is not in order to read speeches to the House.
§ Mr. GINNELLI have not been reading my speech. I have been strengthening my memory from my notes, with great respect, not to a greater extent than I have seen done without any remark from the Chair. On the other hand, any man who, when Ireland is about to start on her own resources, endeavours to free her from taxes for external purposes which do not concern her and free her front all loans and doles and insists upon Ireland receiving restitution to the full amount clue to her, that man is a practical friend of Ireland and of every cause and industry in Ireland that is stagnant or dead for want of this Irish money. We all, I believe without exception, regard the revival of industry in Ireland as a most desirable object. Such a revival is absolutely impossible without restitution of all this money. So far, Irish Unionists in this House have done themselves an injustice by remaining silent regarding this packed and secret Committee, partly in obedience to the masters of their party, partly because some of them aspire to office in the next Unionist Government, and partly from a fear that any recognition of the Committee would be regarded as an acknowledgent that Home Rule was coming. No doubt they will swing into line as soon as their constituents make it plain that they have as little taste for excessive taxation as anybody else. This question ought to have been raised and pressed to a settlement long ago irrespective of Home Rule, and if hon. Members recognise that and they decline to regard it as in any sense a party question they make no sacrifice of principle and do not commit themselves in any way, either for or against Home Rule, by demanding payment of an ascertained debt and thus averting the inconveniences and disgrace of bankruptcy. Unfettered Irishmen without distinction of class or creed will press, I hope, on all concerned that the over-taxation of Ireland is not, as the Chief Secretary suggests, a matter exclusively for the Cabinet, but that the Irish ratepayers have a right and will insist upon their right, to have an effective voice in it. We are promised full self-government by those who have the power to give it. Self-government to be full must comprise control of all Ireland's affairs and resources.
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERThe hon. Member is again trenching upon the question of legislation which is not in order.
§ Mr. GINNELLIf no account is kept of these excessive taxes drawn from Ireland that is a reason for pressing the claim all the harder, since a nation is no more entitled than an individual to escape payment of a debt by the easy method of keeping no account. This House has been aware during the last fifteen years on the most authentic authority of the existence, magnitude, and continued growth of this debt of Ireland. You in England alone have the control of the accounts. If you omit to keep a proper account of this debt the omission, as in the case of a private individual, could have been used for no honest purpose, and only adds an element of dishonesty to the previous tyranny in extracting the excessive tax.
§ Mr. STEPHEN COLLINSOn the point of Order, Sir. I fail to see where the hon. Member has obeyed your ruling on either of the three occasions that you have called him to order. I do not want to stop the hon. Member, but I want to know whether he is obeying the ruling of the Chair by continuing his speech in the strain in which he is doing.
§ Mr. GINNELLI venture to submit that I have not disobeyed your ruling. This Committee is a living lie.
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERI must say that I think the hon. Member has not been quite keeping to my ruling. He has been travelling, I hope unconsciously, beyond my ruling. It is not in order to discuss the financial relations between the two countries. The only thing which has been in order so far has been what he said with reference to the appointment of the Commissioners.
§ Mr. GINNELLI am keeping as close as possible to your ruling, Sir. Really, all I say has reference to this committee, which is a living lie. It is under the control of the Government, and affects the daily lives of the Irish people. In these cases of ascertained fraud committed by the protector on the protected the convicted stepmother cannot be allowed to assume the airs and functions of a judge, and to measure the amount of restitution she has to make to her victim. This is actually what the Committee is doing at the present time. In Ireland our knowledge of British Imperial greatness is 1163 limited so far as the mass of the people are concerned, to the magnitude of the British plunder out of Ireland. If the wealthiest nation in the world refuses to pay her debt—
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERI really must ask the hon. Member to observe my ruling. I think he must understand now from what I have said clearly what is in order. He must not pursue the general considerations, over which he has spent a good deal of time already.
§ Mr. GINNELLI will bring my remarks to a quick conclusion under your narrow ruling, to which I entirely submit. Every Member of the House must admit that it is ail extremely narrow ruling with reference to a real live matter oppressing the people. If we do not get justice when Liberals are in power, who say they desire and intend to give it—if their professions are sincere it can be had for the asking—when are we going to get it? Justice means full restitution of excessive taxes. Our claim for full restitution being based upon the plainest justice, refusal can be based only on power, and an evasion can be based only on fraud. We claim full restitution from a Government which we have steadily supported, in some cases against our principles and interests, even when that Government was increasing the excessive taxes of our country. We claim full restitution from a Government which calls itself Liberal and just, and professes friendship and sympathy towards our country, and which is pledged to restore us full self-government. We claim full restitution at the opportune moment, when this Liberal and friendly and sympathetic Government, so indebted to us, is wallowing in surplus revenue which Irish votes have helped them to acquire We claim full restitution at the last moment, when the long account between the two countries must be totted up and closed and the balance struck. We claim full restitution when one of the two countries has set up a secret committee to act behind the back of the other in order to manipulate the details upon which the amount of the balance must depend. We claim full restitution with the unanimous and irresistible support of the Irish people, so unanimous and so irresistible that whenever this claim can be brought to vote no Irish Member except an office holder will dare to vote against it.