[46] Speech at Whitechapel (Times, October 11, 1911).
[47] Sir John Simon at Dewsbury (Times, February 8, 1912).
[48] No such charge of ambiguity applies to the forcible letters of "Pacificus" on "Federalism and Home Rule" (Murray, 1910).
[49] The changes in the Australian Constitution have been in favour of greater unity.
IV
HOME RULE FINANCE
By THE RIGHT HON. J. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.
The financial problems connected with the grant of Home Rule in 1912 are among the most complicated that call for solution, and differ fundamentally from those which faced the Governments of 1886 and 1893. And by common consent, the problems are not merely different; they are immensely more difficult. No clauses in the earlier Bills lent themselves more readily to destructive criticism; and though the provisions of the new scheme are still shrouded in mystery, it is inherent in the conditions under which it must be framed that the financial clauses will prove to be even less defensible on the grounds of logic or equity than those of either of its predecessors.
Since the first Home Rule Bill was introduced the interests of Ireland—social, economic, industrial, and political—have become increasingly identified with those of the other parts of the United Kingdom. The commercial, banking, and railway systems of Ireland are intimately associated with those of the greater and more firmly established systems of Great Britain. Irish railways are so largely controlled at the present time by British concerns, and there exist so many agreements and understandings between them and British companies as to facilities and rates, that they might be regarded as part of the same network of communications. Hardly less close are the relations which now exist between British and Irish banks.