he
continual temptation of preserving institutions and payments as they
were, of making changes only of personnel, and of annually appealing to
Great Britain for more money for new expenditure. These appeals could
not possibly be refused. If Great Britain chooses to place Ireland in a
position of financial dependence, she must take the consequences and pay
the bill, as in the past, even if the bill exceeds the revenue derived
from Ireland. But, indeed, under Contract finance, attempts to make
Irish expenditure conform to Irish revenue would necessarily be
abandoned.

Bad as the results must be, we are inexorably driven to some form of
Contract finance directly we relinquish its anti-type, financial
independence. There is very little practical difference between the
Gladstonian and later plans. We may be drawn along the downward path
either by considerations of revenue, or considerations of expenditure,
or by both combined. To retain Imperial control of Customs and Excise,
while crediting the Irish proceeds to Ireland, is in itself equivalent
to making three-quarters of Irish tax revenue take the form of an annual
money grant fixed by Great Britain. If Englishmen also want to retain
control over Irish Police, and Irishmen are short-sighted enough to
desire Imperial control, as a corollary of Imperial payment, of Old Age
Pensions, National Insurance, or Land Purchase, there at once are four
millions, or more than a third of present Irish expenditure, withheld
from Irish authority. To cover the remaining seven millions by a
Contract allowance, instead of going through the pretence of allotting
items of revenue and of deducting a contribution to Imperial services,
is a step which is only too likely to commend itself to harassed
statesmen. But it would not be Home Rule.

This is not a matter of speculation, but of experience. As long ago as
1818, in the case of Canada, we discarded as vicious the old doctrine
that a dependency ought not to be allowed to provide for the whole cost
of government out of its own taxes, for fear that its Legislature would
control policy. If we are going to remove features which make Ireland
resemble a Crown Colony now, do not let us import others which recall
the ancient fallacies of a century ago.

There remains to be considered the important question of loans, and to
that I shall devote a separate chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[136] Hansard, July 21 and 25, 1893.

[137] Both Bills provided for