viding into two groups of three, under
Lord Farrer and Mr. Sexton respectively, and stating their views in two
different Reports, all agreed that a form of Home Rule giving financial
independence to Ireland was the only solution of the difficulty.

The questions at issue were not at all obscure. Any apparent obscurity
was caused by the terms of reference to the Commission, which assumed
the permanence of the Union, while it was absolutely impossible for the
Commission, divided though its members were in politics, to start work
at all without, as they said, considering Great Britain and Ireland as
"separate entities." The reader must be on his guard against
exaggerating the "over-taxation of Ireland" in its purely cash aspect.
The really important points were: (1) The suitability of the Irish taxes
and the responsibility for levying them; (2) the amount and suitability
of the expenditure in Ireland and the responsibility for its
distribution. In order to see conflicting principles stated in their
clearest form the reader should compare the terse and vigorous reports
of Sir David Barbour on the one hand, and of Lord Farrer, Lord Welby,
and Mr. Currie on the other.

It was Sir David Barbour's great merit that he was not afraid of his own
conclusions. He frankly stated, like all the other Commissioners, that
Ireland's taxation, considered by itself, without regard to Irish
expenditure, was unsuitable and unjust. He recognized that a system of
taxation which was suitable for a rich, industrial, and expanding
country like Great Britain was unsuitable for a poor, agricultural, and
economically stagnant country like Ireland. He had before him the
figures showing that two-thirds of the Irish population was rural, and
that between three and four-fifths of the English population was
urban.[107] He laid special stress on the fact that five-sevenths of
Irish revenue, as compared with less than half the British revenue, was
derived from taxes on commodities of general consumption, pressing
heavily on the poor, and set forth the figures showing that the product
of these taxes represented a charge of L1 2s. 0.95d. per head of the
population in Ireland, and L1 1s. 0.05d. in Great Britain, although the
wealth per head of Great Britain, as he admitted, "was much greater than
the wealth of Ireland per head."[108] His conclusion was that this state
of affairs, though regrettable, could not be helped, because, under the
Union, whose permane