d if a
moderate contribution for Imperial services is included, the Irish
deficit must range from L2,500,000 to L3,500,000. If by any process of
juggling with the figures the Irish Parliament is again to be started
with a surplus the deficit must have been made good by charging it
against the Imperial taxpayer. But again there is no permanence in such
a surplus. It must disappear if the ameliorative measures which are long
overdue in Ireland are undertaken by an Irish Parliament; and previous
experience has already illustrated that even without the adoption of any
such new schemes surpluses would long ago have made room for deficits.
It will be the duty of the Nationalists party to say definitely what are
the fiscal reserves upon which they can draw in order to establish
permanent equilibrium between revenue and expenditure in Ireland.

Not only does Unionist policy for Ireland involve considerations of
national safety and national honour, but it is also necessary for the
economic welfare of both countries. The remarkable success which has
attended Mr. Wyndham's Land Act of 1903 has alarmed the political party
in Ireland, which depends for its influence on the poverty and
discontent of the rural population of Ireland. Mr. Wyndham in his
article upon Irish Land Purchase shows clearly the blessings which have
followed wherever his Act has been given fair play, and the evils which
have resulted in the suppression of Land Purchase by Mr. Birrell's Act
of 1909. The dual ownership created by Mr. Gladstone's ill-advised and
reckless legislation led to Ireland being starved both in capital and
industry and brought the whole of Irish agriculture to the brink of
ruin, and under these circumstances, Conservative statesmen determined,
in accordance with the principles of the Act of Union, to use a joint
exchequer for the purpose of relieving Irish distress. Credit of the
State was employed to convert the occupiers of Irish farms into the
owners of the soil. The policy of the Ashbourne Acts was briefly that
any landlord could agree with any tenant on the purchase price of his
holding. The State then advanced the credit sum to the landlord in cash,
while the tenant paid an instalment of 4 per cent. for forty-nine years.
It is important to notice that the landlord received cash and that the
tenants paid interest at the then existing rate of interest on Consols,
namely, 3 per cent. The great defect in these Acts was that they applied
o