John Bright (1868)
CHAPTER X.
HOME RULE FINANCE[ToC]
Home Rule finance is already the subject of a whole library of books and pamphlets, and there is some danger that the money question may occupy a place out of all perspective and proportion in the coming controversy. Men quarrel over money very easily, and some of the fiercest opponents of Home Rule still imagine that they can silence the Home Rulers by talking "money" at the top of their voices. But the Home Rulers must not be drawn into that net. They must refuse to view this matter as a question merely of book-keeping and accounts. They must remember always that the financial difficulty is simply another statement of the fact of Irish poverty, and that Irish poverty is due to the Act of Union. It is not any financial arrangement, but Home Rule itself, that will cure the difficulties of Irish finance.
On the one side, the English are being told that they are going to be bled white in order to please Ireland. On the other side, the Irish are being warned by their extremists that England hopes to undo the effects of Home Rule by a dowry of impoverishment. On both sides of the Channel the enemies of Home Rule hope to use this as a weapon to defeat the cause. Let us, therefore, keep our heads, and look at the problem calmly and sanely.
What is the present position in regard to Irish finance? It has totally changed since 1893. It follows, therefore, that the financial proposals of the 1886 and the 1893 Bills are of little value to us as a guide to the policy of 1912.[72] In those days the British Government could cheerfully propose a fixed contribution of over £4,000,000 from the new Irish Parliament, as in the Bill of 1886, or an allocation of one-third of the general revenue of Ireland, for Imperial expenditure, as in the Bill of 1893. Lord Morley has told us that in 1886 Mr. Parnell was gravely disturbed over the finance proposals of Mr. Gladstone. We thought him unreasonable at the time, and perhaps a little mean. I can remember Liberals saying hard things about the Irish attitude in those days. But the events that have occurred since prove that Mr. Parnell, on that occasion, was only exercising his customary shrewdness. He saw to the root of the matter. He was evidently possessed with the fear that he might be saddled with a poverty-stricken Home Rule Parliament, and the course of events since 1886 has somewhat justified his fear.
THE NEW IRISH DEFICIT
For since 1886, two events have happened. The first has been that Ireland instead of being the creditor is now the debtor of England. The most recent Treasury estimate, as given by Mr. Asquith in his first reading speech on the Home Rule Bill of 1912 gives the true deficit of Ireland for 1912-3 at £1,500,000. I am aware that the Treasury estimates are open to many criticisms, which have been brilliantly stated by Professor Kettle in his handbook on "Home Rule Finance,"[73] but for our present purposes we are bound to accept these figures.