great bankers, merchants and
manufacturers.

There is another enormous injustice connected with the income tax, and
indeed all the direct taxes to Government, which loudly calls for
remedy--_Ireland pays none of them_. It is high time that England and
Scotland should rouse themselves to a sense of this most unreasonable
and unjust exemption, and unite their strength by the proper
constitutional means to remove it. We are always told Ireland cannot
afford to pay any direct taxes. What, then, comes of its L12,000,000 of
rental? Scotland, with little more than _a third_ of that land rent,
pays it and the assessed taxes besides, without either complaint or
difficulty. But it is said the landlords are so eat up with mortgages,
that they have not a fourth part of their nominal incomes left to live
upon. That is a good reason for only making them pay, as under the
income tax they would, on the free balance, _deductis debitis_. But, in
the name of Heaven, why should the bondholders pay nothing? If they sit
at home at ease in Dublin, Cork, or Belfast, and quietly enjoy
L9,000,000 out of the L12,000,000 of Irish rental, why cannot _they_ as
well pay the income tax as their brethren in London, Liverpool, or
Glasgow? The bondholders of Ireland _alone_, would, if they paid an
income tax, contribute more to the common necessities of the State than
_the whole land and industry of Scotland put together_. So vast are the
natural resources which Providence has bestowed on that fickle and
misguided people, and so few those enjoyed by the hardy and industrious
Scotch mountaineers.

On what conceivable ground of justice or reason can this most monstrous
and invidious exemption in favour of Ireland from income and assessed
taxes be defended? Is it that Ireland with its 12,000,000 arable acres,
and 5,000,000 of mountain and waste, has fewer natural resources than
Scotland with its 4,500,000 of arable acres, and 12,000,000 of mountain
and waste? Is it that 8,500,000 persons now in Ireland, cannot pay even
what 2,900,000 now pay in Scotland? Is it that Ireland is so singularly
peaceable and loyal, and gives so little anxiety or disquiet to the rest
of the empire, that it must be rewarded for its admirable and dutiful
conduct by an absolute exemption from all direct taxation to government?
Is it that the troops required to be kept in it are so few, and in
Scotland so numerous, that the former country may be liberated from
taxation, while the