and scientifically ascertained and a proper balance drawn.
It was provided in the Act of Union that the two countries should
retain their separate budgets and should each remain charged with
their respective past debts, and a relative proportion of contribution
to Imperial expenses was fixed. But the British Parliament did not
long respect this provision. In 1817 it decreed a financial union
between the two countries, amalgamated their budgets and exchequers,
and ordered that henceforth all the receipts and expenditure of the
United Kingdom should be consolidated into one single fund, which was
henceforward to be known as the Consolidated Fund. It was not long
before we had cumulative examples of the truth of Dr Johnson's dictum
that England would unite with us only that she may rob us. Successive
English chancellors imposed additional burdens upon our poor and
impoverished country, until it was in truth almost taxed out of
existence. The weakest points in the Gladstonian Home Rule Bills were
admittedly those dealing with finance.

The publication of the report of the Financial Relations Commission,
which had been taking evidence for two years, created a formidable
outcry in Ireland. We had long protested against our taxes being
levied by an external power; now we knew also that we were being
robbed of very large amounts annually. The Joint Report of the
Commission, signed by eleven out of thirteen members, decided that the
Act of Union placed on the shoulders of Ireland a burden impossible
for her to bear; that the increase of taxation laid on her in the
middle of the nineteenth century could not be justified, and, finally,
that the existing taxable capacity of Ireland did not exceed
one-twentieth part of that of Great Britain (and was perhaps far
less), whereas Ireland paid in taxes one-eleventh of the amount paid
by Great Britain. Furthermore, the actual amount taken each year in
the shape of overtaxation was variously estimated to be between two
and three quarters and three millions. Instantly Ireland was up in
arms against this monstrous exaction. For a time the country was
roused from its torpor and anything seemed possible. All classes and
creeds were united in denouncing the flagrant theft of the nation's
substance by the predominant partner. By force and fraud the Act of
Union was passed: by force and fraud we were kept in a state of
beggary for well-nigh one hundred years and our poverty flaunted
abroad as p