llected" revenue works out at 77.61 per cent.,
or nearly four-fifths.

As the reader is aware, this is not a new feature in Irish finance. It
formed the basis of the Report of the Financial Relations Commission
with regard to the over-taxation of Ireland. Much the greater part of
Irish revenue, even since the abolition of protective duties and the
substitution of direct taxation, has always been derived from taxes on
articles of common consumption, the simple reason being that Ireland is
a country where there is little accumulated wealth from which to extract
direct taxation. In Great Britain, whose circumstances dictate the
finance of the United Kingdom, no less than 54.79 per cent. of the tax
revenue is derived from direct taxation, only 45.21 per cent. from
Customs and Excise.[135]

The Irish figures show that to retain in the hands of the Imperial
Parliament the control of Irish Customs and Excise will be to retain
almost paramount control over Irish revenue; to deny Ireland the main
lever she needs for co-ordinating her expenditure and her revenue, and
for making her taxation suitable to her economic conditions. It will be
to preserve the framework of a fiscal system which the highest financial
authorities have pronounced to be unfair to Ireland, and which
incontrovertible facts show to be uneconomical both for Ireland and
Great Britain.

Meanwhile that system has at length produced a deficit, with which I
shall deal in the next chapter. Its amount, probably exaggerated, must
necessarily remain uncertain under the present fiscal Union. One thing
alone is certain, that it will grow as long as that Union lasts.

FOOTNOTES:

[115] _I.e._, on the generally accepted basis of (1) assessment to death
duties, (2) assessment to income-tax. With regard to (1), in the last
report of the Inland Revenue Commissioners, the figure for the United
Kingdom was L371,808,534; for Ireland, L15,872,302, or 1/234. With
regard to (2), the figure for the United Kingdom was 1009.9 millions;
for Ireland, 39.7 millions, or 1/254. Deduct a small allowance for the
difference between resources and taxable capacity, and the result
approximately is one-twenty-fifth.

[116]

Total revenue (including non-tax revenue) of United
Kingdom (mean of two years. 1909-10, 1910-11) L165,147,500
One-twenty-fifth L6,605,900
Actual "true" revenue contributed by Ireland (mean
of two years, 1909-10, 1910-11)