tish merchants and growers, her external trade and,
consequently, her internal production, were absolutely at the mercy of
Great Britain. As I showed in Chapter I., Ireland was treated
considerably worse than the most oppressed Colony, with permanently
ruinous results. On the other hand, her internal taxation, never above a
million a year, and her Debt, never above two millions in amount, were
not heavy. But from 1779, through Grattan's Parliament to the Union, a
short period of twenty-one years, Ireland, though still governed on the
ascendancy system by an unrepresentative and corrupt Parliament of
exactly the same composition as before, nevertheless had financial
independence in the sense that her Parliament had complete control of
Irish taxation, revenue, and trade. It was, moreover, in these financial
matters that the Parliament showed most genuine national patriotism,
together with a greatly enhanced measure of the Imperial patriotism
traditional with it. Internal taxation, except in time of war, was still
comparatively light; depressed home industries were judiciously
encouraged by bounties; no attempt was made at vindictive retaliation
upon British imports, though Irish exports to Great Britain were still
unmercifully penalized; and sums, growing to a relatively enormous size
during the French War, which began in 1793, were annually voted for the
Imperial forces. This voluntary contribution, which had averaged
L585,000 in the eleven years of peace, from 1783 to 1793, rose to
L3,401,760 in 1797,[98] and in 1799, when Ireland was paying the bill
for British troops called in to suppress her own Rebellion, to
L4,596,762, out of a total Irish expenditure for the year on all
purposes, military and civil, of L6,854,804. Not more than half, on the
average, of these war expenses were met out of the annual taxes. Debt
was created to meet the balance; but neither the debt, heavy as it was,
nor the taxes, were intolerably burdensome--that is, if we regard
Ireland as financially responsible for Imperial wars and for the
suppression of a Rebellion which was provoked by scandalous
misgovernment. Tax revenue rose from L1,106,504 in 1783, when the free
Parliament first prepared a Budget, to L3,017,758 in 1800, and averaged
a million and a half. In the same period the total amount of the funded
and unfunded Irish Debt rose from L1,917,784 to L28,541,157, almost the
whole of this increase having taken place in the seven years of war