orking population. Nowhere has
this conception of the duty of the State exercised a greater influence
than in Ireland during the last twenty years. The Congested Districts
Board, the Department of Agriculture, the Land Purchase Scheme,
illustrate one phase of its carrying into effect. Old Age Pensions,
cheap labourers' cottages, sickness insurance illustrate another. All
these have been provided out of the United Kingdom exchequer. They could
not be provided out of Irish revenues. Still less could Irish revenues
provide for a continuous extension of this policy in order to keep on a
level with English conditions.

It has been stated by Mr. Churchill that under the Government scheme of
Home Rule, Land Purchase and Old Age Pensions will be paid by Great
Britain. Even if that were a workable arrangement it only covers a small
part of the field. For the rest Home Rule would mean the complete
abandonment of the attempt to level up the social conditions of Great
Britain and Ireland to a common standard. The Irish Government would
never have the means to carry out the same programme of social
legislation as will be carried out in Great Britain. Handicapped in
competition with British industries it would, moreover, naturally be
disinclined, even apart from the question of cost, to apply any
legislation or any regulations which might tend to raise the cost of
production. There will thus not only be an inevitable falling back for
want of means, but, in addition, a continual temptation to the weaker
and more backward State to meet superior industrial efficiency by the
temporary cheapness of inferior social conditions.[88]

But such a policy would not only be disastrous in itself in its ultimate
effect upon Irish national life. It would at once provide a fresh and
valid excuse for effective fiscal differentiation against Ireland in
Great Britain. Once again, as in the eighteenth century, Ireland would
be penalised for being a poor and "sweated" country.

So far the discussion of the economic results of separation has been
confined to Ireland, because Ireland would undoubtedly be the chief
sufferer. Her dependence on the English market, the smallness of her
home market, her backward social condition, would all be insuperable
obstacles to a really healthy development on independent lines. Great
Britain, on the other hand, would suffer relatively much less from Home
Rule. The immediate shrinkage of trade with Ireland, even with an I