al, of the United Kingdom, Ireland
included, was to be defrayed out of a Consolidated Fund, and the
arrangements, therefore, for a separate Irish contribution on a fixed
basis to Imperial services were cancelled. Henceforth her Imperial
contribution, for anyone who troubled to calculate it, was represented
by the excess of revenue raised within Ireland over the expenditure in
Ireland. A mutual free trade was also established, not instantaneously,
but in the course of a few years. By 1824 all duties, as between Ireland
and England, had ceased, and in 1826 the custom-houses ceased to record
the transit of goods between England and Ireland, except in articles
such as spirits, on which a different excise duty was charged. No
statistics were compiled, therefore, of Anglo-Irish trade until ninety
years later, when the Irish Department of Agriculture began to prepare
returns. Such was the origin of our Customs Union against the world
(for, needless to say, those were still the days of high Protection),
and it is instructive to compare it with the voluntary pacts of the
German States and South African Colonies, and with their political
results.

In one important point unification was left incomplete. It was
impossible in 1817 to equalize internal taxation in the two countries,
though it was held desirable to do so, because Ireland could not have
borne the higher British scale, and suffered enough under her own.
Regard, too, was had at first to those important words in the Act of
Union which guaranteed to Ireland such "exemptions and abatements" as
might appear fair. But they were soon forgotten. Without any inquiry
into the taxable capacity of Ireland, the stamp, tea, and tobacco duties
were equalized early in the period, the enhancement in Ireland of the
last duty from 1s. to 3s. on raw tobacco, and from 1s. to 16s. on
manufactured tobacco, laying an exceptionally heavy burden on the Irish
poor. Meanwhile the abolition, after the close of the war, of taxes
representing about sixteen millions a year, and purely affecting Great
Britain, gave a relief to her which Ireland did not feel. But it was not
until 1853, when Mr. Gladstone extended the income-tax to Ireland, and
raised the Irish spirit duty, that the principle of "exemptions and
abatements" was most seriously infringed. Mr. Disraeli followed in 1855
with a further elevation of the spirit duty, which was finally equalized
with the British duty in 1858, at 8s. a gallon; whi