e a grant specially to any of these purposes would be superfluous
unless the intention were to maintain Imperial control over the service
in question. As I urged in Chapter X., none of the services mentioned
above ought to be retained under Imperial control. Extravagance in the
first three will not be properly checked, save by a responsible Ireland.
Nor will extra money on Education be properly spent until it is raised
and spent by Ireland. There are no other services, with the possible
exception of Posts, to which a subsidy could possibly be applicable.
Even in that case an earmarked subsidy would be out of place. But Posts
are outside the point we are discussing. If for mutual convenience they
were to be kept under Imperial control--a step which would not render
imperative Irish representation at Westminster--their finance would
remain, as at present, common to the whole United Kingdom. There is
officially held, on bad evidence, to be a loss on Irish Posts of
L249,000, and this loss is debited against Ireland, and goes to swell
the deficit we have been considering. With the Posts under Imperial
control, the initial deficit to be made good by subsidy would be reduced
by the amount of the loss. Should it, however, be decided that Ireland
is fairly entitled to a share of the large general profit earned by the
Postal Services of the United Kingdom, the annual profit so attributable
to Ireland would be set off against the annual subsidy as long as the
subsidy lasted, and after it was at an end would be a clear item of
revenue to Ireland. My own opinion, as I stated in Chapter X., is that
the Irish postal system, whether standing by itself it shows a profit or
a loss, ought to be under Irish control.

III.

FUTURE CONTRIBUTION TO IMPERIAL SERVICES.

This must be left a voluntary matter for Ireland, as it is for the
self-governing Colonies. There is no contribution from Ireland at
present, and to fix a future date at which a fixed contribution, like
that from the Isle of Man, should begin, is a course hardly practicable
even if it were desirable.

IV.

IRELAND'S SHARE OF THE NATIONAL DEBT.

Until two years ago Ireland, of course, contributed, _inter alia_, to
the annual interest and sinking fund, amounting in 1910-11 to
L24,554,000, on the National Debt of the United Kingdom. It is
impossible to estimate her share of the capital of the Debt, and I
scarcely think that anyone would seriously propose to encumber