THE MIGHTY HOPE
We must not reduce a great human problem to a squabble over pocket-money. We must in this, too, as in the religious and political sides of the question, have faith in the result of freedom. We must believe, as we have every right to believe, that liberty will bring to Ireland a new power over her resources, and a new skill in using them—that her magnificent harbours will no longer be silent, or her rivers empty; that her factories will hum once more with a new life and industry; that the grass will cease to grow in her streets and on her wharves, and that the rich and strong will cease to fly from her shores. All this must be taken into account in any reasonable calculation of the future. It is just as foolish to err from lack of faith as it is to blunder from excess of credulity.
For here, indeed, we have an excellent precedent to give us hope. It was the common evidence of all experts at the time that Ireland grew greatly richer under the twenty years of Grattan's Parliament. The future Irish Parliament will, just as it will be more representative, so supply Ireland with a machine even more efficient than Grattan's Parliament. If so, we have every reason to suppose that within twenty years we shall have a richer Ireland, with a far greater taxable capacity. For can we doubt that the alchemy of liberty will here, too, even in this sordid realm of finance, repeat its ancient power?
FOOTNOTES:
[72] For these proposals see [Appendix D].
[73] For instance, in the absence of Irish Customs the estimates of true Irish revenue can only be approximate. On the expenditure side, too, there are grave matters of consideration. For instance, should the vote for Irish Constabulary be regarded as a local or Imperial charge? Or Irish judges, or even Irish poverty? It was the definite opinion of the Financial Relations Commission that until Home Rule was set up there could be no possible way of distinguishing between local and Imperial expenditure in Ireland.
[74] There are 4,397 civil servants in Ireland with incomes over £160 a year, as against 944 for Scotland. (Inland Revenue Report, 1909-1910.)
[75] The members of this Commission were:—The Rt. Hon. Hugh Childers, Lord Farrer, Lord Welby, the Rt. Hon. O'Conor Don, Sir Robt. Hamilton, Sir Thomas Sutherland, K.C.M.G., Sir David Barbour, K.C.S.I., the Hon. Ed. Blake, M.P., Bertram W. Currie, Esq., W.A. Hunter, Esq., M.P., C.E. Martin, Esq., J.E. Redmond, Esq., M.P., Thomas Sexton, Esq., M.P., and added in June, 1894, Henry F. Slattery, Esq., and G.W. Wolff, Esq., M.P.
[76] C. 8262, price 1s. 10d.