All this is for my present purpose
immaterial. My aim is to insist that, in their very nature, they are a
cause of conflict; and that they bring the interest, and, even more,
the sentiment, of Ireland into direct opposition with the power of
England.[85]

All the customs payable at every Irish port are to be regulated,
collected, and managed by, and to be paid into, the Exchequer of the
United Kingdom. Not a penny of these customs benefits Ireland; they are
all--and this is certainly the light in which they will appear to most
Irishmen--a contribution to the revenue of the United Kingdom, that is,
of England. If every taxable article were smuggled into Ireland, so that
not one pound of Irish customs were paid to the English treasury, the
Imperial power would lose, but the Irish State would gain. Ireland would
be delivered from a tax which will soon be called a tribute. If,
moreover, Ireland continues to be treated as financially a part of the
United Kingdom, then free smuggling, which is free trade, would make
Ireland a free port, where might be landed untaxed the goods required by
the whole United Kingdom. It is easy to see how the English revenue
would suffer, but it is equally easy to see that Irish commerce might
flourish. If I am told that the ruin of the British revenue may be
averted by the examination of goods brought from Ireland to Great
Britain--this, of course, is so. But then freedom of trade within the
United Kingdom is at an end. We are compelled, in substance, to raise an
internal line of custom houses; we abolish at one stroke one great
benefit of the Treaty of Union.

The mode, again, in which the customs are levied outrages every kind of
national sentiment. Coast-guards, custom-house officers, and gaugers are
never popular among a population of smugglers; they will not be the more
beloved when every custom-house officer or coastguard is the
representative of an alien power, and is employed to levy tribute from
Ireland.

Another leading feature of the financial arrangements is the charging
upon the Irish Consolidated Fund of various sums rightly due and payable
to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.[86] They are made a first charge
upon the revenue of Ireland. They are to be paid in the last resort upon
the order of the Lord Lieutenant, acting as an Imperial officer. The
necessity for some arrangement of this kind is clear. Millions have been
lent to Ireland, and these millions must be repaid. But