irtues or demerits of that system, it was certainly not framed with any
reference to the economic conditions which prevail in Ireland." We wait
for the seemingly unavoidable political inference, but in vain.
Professor Hewins is a Unionist. "A 'national' policy for Ireland ... is
never likely to be possible." Well, that is plain speaking, and the more
plainly these things are said the better. Let Unionists, if they will,
tell Ireland frankly that she must eternally suffer for the Union, but
let them not pretend, as they do pretend, that Ireland profits by the
Union.

VII.

FEDERAL FINANCE.

Directly we leave the simple path of financial independence, and
endeavour to construct schemes which on the one hand disguise the
financial difficulties of Ireland, and on the other provide for Imperial
control of Irish Customs and Excise, we involve ourselves in a tangle of
difficulties. A brief examination of these schemes will throw into still
stronger relief the merits of the simpler solution.

First of all, let us dispose finally of the Federal analogy. In Chapter
X. I showed that the framework of Home Rule cannot be Federal, because
the conditions of Federation do not exist in the United Kingdom. One of
the invariable features of a Federation is the Federal control of
Customs and Excise, but I pointed out that an equally invariable
condition precedent to Federation was the willingness on the part of a
self-supporting State, previously possessing complete financial
independence, to abandon its individual control over this realm of
taxation to a Federal Government of its own choosing,[141] and that no
such condition existed in the case of Ireland. But some features of
Federal finance undoubtedly may be made to show a superficial analogy to
Anglo-Irish conditions, and may therefore have an attraction for those
who shrink from giving Ireland financial independence. In the first
place, it is possible to find Federal precedents for the payment out of
the common purse of certain large items of Irish expenditure. There is
no precedent for the payment of Police, but Old Age Pensions, for
example, are paid in Australia by the Commonwealth, not by the States.
The chief point of interest, however, is the mechanism of Federal
finance. The Australian and Canadian Federations are the only two which
suggest even a remote parallel. There the subordinate States are
actually "subsidized" by regular annual payments out of Federal
revenues