ld grievance and of expecting "restitution" for funds
unwarrantably levied in the past is hard to shake off. Restitution has
gone too far already. Perpetuated, it would ruin Ireland. Home Rulers
worth their salt must leave this cry to those Unionists who descend to
use it; but it is surely amazing that any Irishman, least of all those
who claim to represent the wealth and intelligence of the country,
should tolerate a political system which inexorably involves a fiscal
system so humiliating to Ireland. Until three years ago it could easily
have been put an end to without affecting the independent solvency of
Ireland, even on the basis of an enormously swollen civil expenditure,
and with the inclusion of services strictly Imperial in origin and
character. Now it is a different matter, and we are faced with the
opposition of British statesmen who, by sustaining the Union, drove
Ireland to the verge of insolvency, and now use insolvency as an
argument against Home Rule.

One respects the clean and honest side of Unionism, but there can be
nothing but reprobation for the meanness of this latter-day argument.
For generations Ireland herself has asked to be free both from coercion
and bribes, sanely conscious in her soul that both are equally
demoralizing. The aim--though in the past not generally the conscious
aim--of Unionism was to sap the moral fibre of Ireland now by one means,
now by the other. At last the aim is avowed, so that men who applauded
Mr. Chamberlain in 1893 for sneering at Irish patriotism as a "sickly
plant which needed to be watered by British gold" merely because her
contribution under the Home Rule Bill was to be small are now urging
Ireland to maintain the Union--in Mr. Walter Long's words--for its
"eleemosynary benefits."[114] Ireland herself must and will rise to a
higher moral level than that, when she is fully awake to the gravity of
the situation. Those who love her most will not lose a minute in
explaining that situation. Too much time already has been lost.

FOOTNOTES:

[97] The Treasury Returns of 1869, "Public Income and Expenditure," in
two volumes, are the basis of all information up to that date.

[98] Mr. Secretary Pelham in this year estimated that Ireland, though
contributing nothing in money to the Navy, had furnished no less than
38,000 men to the Navy since the beginning of the war.

[99] Pre-Union Debts were to be separate. Post-Union Debt _contracted
for Imperial services_ was