d or would have approved of. On the
contrary, he anticipated a reduction in Irish civil expenditure, to be
saved for Irish purposes, without prejudice to the Imperial
contribution. It makes the brain dizzy to compare his anticipation with
the reality.

How, on the other hand, stands the argument of Lord Farrer and Mr.
Currie? They prophesied a great increase in Irish expenditure and the
disappearance of the contribution to Imperial services. That has come
true. Lord Welby (and indeed the majority of the Commission) was with
them in declining to regard excessive local expenditure as a set-off to
excessive and unsuitable taxation, and in condemning root and branch the
system of grants, aids, and doles as wasteful in itself and as sapping
the self-reliance of Irishmen. There again they were right. They were at
one with all their colleagues in holding that under the Union it was
impossible to differentiate between the taxation of Ireland and Great
Britain, and they prescribed, as the only sound remedy, Home Rule. Once
more they were right.

The figures of to-day constitute the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the
Union. For over a century in Ireland we have defied the laws of
political economy, but they have conquered us at last. Sound finance
demands that revenue and expenditure should be co-related. Ireland's
economic circumstances are widely different from those of Great Britain,
but she has been included, without any regard to her needs and without
any reference to Irish expenditure, in a system of taxation designed
exclusively for the capacities and needs of Great Britain. Hence Irish
revenue is both excessive and inadequate.

"Excessive"? "Inadequate"? What do these terms really mean? Let us once
and for all clear our minds of all obscurity and look the facts in the
face. No one knows what Irish revenue and expenditure ought to be, or
would be, if Irishmen had controlled their own destinies. It is useless
to parade immense sums as the cash equivalent of over-taxation; it is
idle to array against them rival figures of over-expenditure. Normal
Irish revenue and normal Irish expenditure are matters of speculation.
For all we know, Ireland, had she been permitted normal political
development, would be raising a larger revenue, and feeling it less;
while it is absolutely certain that she would be paying her own way and
contributing to Imperial services more, in proportion to her resources,
than she did before the Union. The po