rley's opinion to the same effect is quoted.]

[Footnote 46: Speech at Whitechapel (_Times_, October 11, 1911).]

[Footnote 47: Sir John Simon at Dewsbury (_Times_, February 8, 1912).]

[Footnote 48: No such charge of ambiguity applies to the forcible
letters of "Pacificus" on "Federalism and Home Rule" (Murray, 1910).]

[Footnote 49: The changes in the Australian Constitution have been in
favour of greater unity.]

IV

HOME RULE FINANCE

By THE RIGHT HON. J. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.

The financial problems connected with the grant of Home Rule in 1912 are
among the most complicated that call for solution, and differ
fundamentally from those which faced the Governments of 1886 and 1893.
And by common consent, the problems are not merely different; they are
immensely more difficult. No clauses in the earlier Bills lent
themselves more readily to destructive criticism; and though the
provisions of the new scheme are still shrouded in mystery, it is
inherent in the conditions under which it must be framed that the
financial clauses will prove to be even less defensible on the grounds
of logic or equity than those of either of its predecessors.

Since the first Home Rule Bill was introduced the interests of
Ireland--social, economic, industrial, and political--have become
increasingly identified with those of the other parts of the United
Kingdom. The commercial, banking, and railway systems of Ireland are
intimately associated with those of the greater and more firmly
established systems of Great Britain. Irish railways are so largely
controlled at the present time by British concerns, and there exist so
many agreements and understandings between them and British companies as
to facilities and rates, that they might be regarded as part of the same
network of communications. Hardly less close are the relations which now
exist between British and Irish banks.

It is not, however, on the commercial side only that greater intimacy
and more firmly established relations exist now than formerly. Irish
industries are agricultural, dairying and manufacturing. In each of
these branches the country is increasingly dependent on the markets of
England and Scotland; while reciprocally the products of the factories
and workshops of Great Britain find in Ireland one of their most
important markets. We do not always sufficiently realise that on the
other side of the St. George's Channel lies a country whose annual
impor