and Lord Welby, Sir Robert Hamilton,
Sir David Barbour, and that great Parliamentary financial expert Mr.
W.A. Hunter. The chair was occupied by an ex-Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Mr. Childers.[75] The Commission sat for two years, and
carried out a most searching investigation. They reported in 1896.
Their united Report consists of only two pages in the Blue Book,[76]
and the essence of it is contained in five short paragraphs, as
follows:--

(1) That Great Britain and Ireland must, for the purpose of
this inquiry, be considered as separate entities.

(2) That the Act of Union imposed upon 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 equality 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 is not estimated
by any of us as exceeding one-twentieth.

Now, what does this amount to? As worked out in the various minority
reports, it means that, in the opinion of this Commission, Ireland has
been over-taxed for many years at the rate of over L2,000,000 a year.
As to the precise sum the Commissioners differ. Some went as high as
L3,500,000, others down to L2,000,000, but all, except Sir Thomas
Sutherland and Sir David Barbour, set it at about L2,000,000. Mr.
Childers, unhappily, died before the close of the Commission. But he
wrote an epoch-making Report, in which he estimated the excess of
taxation at L2,250,000.[77]

Now, it is useless to make light of this Report. It was the solemn
judgment of the highest financiers of the day on the financial workings
of the Act of Union. If we turn back to the debates in Parliament in
1800, especially to the speeches of Pitt, prophesying that the Act of
Union would take the wealth of England across St. George's Channel, and
apply it to Ireland, we cannot escape some sombre reflections on the
short-sightedness of great statesmen. Pitt's judgment was disturbed by
the existence of a war with France, which created in him an intense
desire to unite the two countries. Otherwise he would probably have
foreseen that for a rich partner to unite his finances with a poor
partner certain