actment.

Another precedent is a guaranteed railway loan to Canada in 1873 of
L3,600,000, which is just now becoming redeemable, while the Crown
Colony of Mauritius received a guaranteed loan of L600,000 in 1892. The
British and Irish taxpayers have also made themselves responsible for
L9,424,000 on account of Egypt; L6,023,700 on account of Greece; and
L5,000,000 on account of Turkey. The total nominal amount of the
guaranteed loans to countries, colonial or foreign, outside the United
Kingdom is L63,647,700. The total amount outstanding on March 31, 1911,
was L59,474,200, and the Government holds securities only to the value
of L4,800,556 against these liabilities, leaving the net liability of
the taxpayer at L54,673,644.

The net liability of the taxpayer at the same date on account of Irish
Guaranteed Land Stocks of all descriptions was L65,764,054.[164] Ireland
has a claim to Imperial credit far superior to any of the Colonies,
dependencies, or foreign Powers mentioned, and the credit should not
entail control, or the representation of Ireland at Westminster.

Incidentally, it goes without saying that Ireland, in common with the
Colonies, should receive the very valuable privilege of having
independent loans raised by herself inscribed at the Bank of England,
and made trustee securities.

2. It may be argued that the Congested Districts Board and the Land
Commission, and through them Irish statesmen, may be subjected to local
pressure hostile to the landlord's interests, and that the Irish
Government would feel itself more free for social and other reforms if
the land question were placed legally outside their purview. My answer
is, in the first place, that Great Britain would cease to lend if her
conditions were unfulfilled; in the second place, that in this, as in
all matters, we are bound to place faith in the self-respect and sense
of justice of a free Ireland--in its common prudence, too; for it would
be a disaster whose magnitude is universally recognized in Ireland if
any course were to be taken which prevented the landlord class from
joining in the great work of making a new Ireland. Fair treatment of the
landlords by a free Ireland, as distinguished from fair treatment at the
hands of an external authority, would do more than anything else to
bring about a reconciliation. That is human nature all the world over.

II. MINOR LOANS TO IRELAND.

It remains only to refer briefly to two other cases whe