in Ireland. The effect of Gladstone's Budget of
1853 was to reduce the area under barley in Ireland by 134,000 acres in
six years; the Lloyd George Budget has reduced the Irish barley crop by
10,000 acres in one year. Therefore in the framing of the Tariff Reform
Budgets of the future, Ireland's equitable claim under the Act of Union
should be recognised and given effect to.

REFORM OF AGRICULTURAL LAND TAXATION.

Agricultural land in the hands of the farmers who have bought their
holdings under the Irish Land Acts has been made liable to extravagant
burdens by the Lloyd George Budget. These peasant purchasers are treated
as if they were "Dukes." When they discover their real position, their
resentment will be bitter. Form IV. has not yet been circulated among
them. It has been kept back deliberately. It would not suit Mr. Redmond
or the Ministry, should the Irish farmer discover what the actual
working of the new Land taxes means while the legislative logs are still
being rolled by the Radical-Socialist-Nationalist combination. When Home
Rule is defeated Unionist finance should provide that the burden imposed
by these taxes on agricultural progress and national prosperity shall
be removed, and that the benefits conferred by the great Unionist policy
of State purchase on the peasant proprietors shall not be allowed to be
filched away by the Socialist budget, though it was by that very Irish
party, whose first duty should have been to protect them, that the Irish
farmers' interests have been betrayed.

CONSTRUCTIVISM.

It was found by the Financial Relations Commission that Ireland
contributed a revenue in excess of her relative capacity. Mr. Childers,
in his draft report, suggested that practical steps might possibly be
taken to give Ireland relief or afford her equitable compensation in
three different ways--[78]

(1) By so altering the general fiscal policy of the United Kingdom
as to make the incidence of taxation fall more lightly on Ireland.
It was suggested that the taxation upon tea, tobacco, and spirits,
which weigh more heavily on Ireland in proportion to her relative
capacity, because of the habits of the people, and the larger
proportion in Ireland of the poorer classes, might be reduced and a
part of the burden transferred to other commodities. It was,
however, felt, he said, that this would open up questions of such
magnitude--like Free Trade and the inc