proceedings
as the course of an 80 h.p. Mercedes is affected by a cabman's oath.

So much for exclusively Irish affairs. When Ireland comes into some
"general" scheme of legislation the parody of government becomes if
possible more fantastic in character. Let me take just three
instances--Old Age Pensions, Insurance, and the Budget. In regard to the
first it was perhaps a matter of course that no attempt should be made
to allow for the difference in economic levels between Great Britain and
Ireland. This is the very principle of Unionism: to apply like methods
to things which are unlike. But in the calculation of details an
ignorance was exhibited which passed the bounds of decency. Mistakes of
five or six per cent are, in these complex affairs, not only to be
expected but almost to be desired; they help to depress ministerial
cocksureness. But in this case there was an error of 200 per cent, a
circumstance which incidentally established in the English mind a
pleasing legend of Irish dishonesty. The Insurance Bill was ushered in
with greater prudence. The "government," recognising its own inability
to lead opinion, had the grace to refrain from misleading it. No special
Irish memorandum was issued, and no attempt was made to adjust the
scheme to Irish social and economic conditions. But Budgets afford on
the whole the capital instance of what we may call legislation by
accident. The Act of Union solemnly prescribes the principles on which
these measures are to be framed, and points to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer as the trustee of Irish interests. But nobody of this
generation ever knew a Chancellor of the Exchequer who had even read the
Act of Union; Mr Lloyd George, on his own admission, had certainly not
read it in 1909. What has happened is very simple. The fulfilment of
treaty obligations required differential taxation, but administrative
convenience was best served by a uniform system of taxation. In the
struggle between the two, conscience was as usual defeated. The
Chancellor, according to the practice which has overridden the Act of
Union budgets for Great Britain, drags the schedule of taxes so fixed
through Ireland like a net, and counts the take. That, in the process,
the pledge of England should be broken, and her honour betrayed, is not
regarded by the best authorities as an objection or even as a relevant
fact. In the more sacred name of uniformity Ireland is swamped in the
Westminster Parliament like