nditure came near Irish revenue
there could be no Irish grievance. Home Rulers and Unionists met on
friendly platforms to denounce the over-taxation of Ireland and to
display figures showing the hundreds of millions of profit made by
Great Britain out of an unconscionable fiscal bargain. This criticism
missed the real point and the unanimity was short-lived. No change could
be made in the system without Home Rule, and the dissension about Home
Rule was strong enough to prevent Irishmen from uniting against a fiscal
system which was not only unjust but demoralizing to Ireland. A Unionist
Government was in power for nine more years after 1896, and a Liberal
Government, pledged temporarily not to give Home Rule, for four further
years. The natural result was that, in default of Home Rule, all parties
in Ireland embraced Sir David Barbour's insidiously attractive
reservation, and have ever since fallen into the habit of regarding
additional expenditure on Ireland, not only on its merits, but as a
set-off to excessive taxation and as something having no relation
whatever to the taxable resources of the country. Nobody took seriously
Sir David Barbour's counsel of perfection about the reduction of the
cost of Irish Civil Government and the allocation of the saving to
Ireland, because such a process was, humanly speaking, impossible.
Expenditure is never reduced except by those who raise the money for it.
On the other hand, in the face of the findings of the Royal Commission,
and in the face of Ireland's economic condition, no Government which
refused Home Rule could have refused large additional Irish expenditure.
Much of it, indeed, was merely an automatic reflection of the immense
growth of national expenditure in the wealthy and expanding
partner-country over the water, and took the form of "equivalent
grants," whether for the corresponding British head of expense or for
something totally different. No doubt some of the money was well spent,
but all of it came in a wrong form, through wrong channels, and was
regarded in Ireland in a false light. Lastly came Old Age Pensions
applied on the British scale to a far poorer population.

Every word of Lord Welby's and Lord Farrer's condemnation was justified
by events; every prophecy they made has been fulfilled. And the worst of
it is that the delay has damaged the prospects of Home Rule. The habit
of dissociating income from revenue becomes inveterate. The habit of
nursing an o