In the event then of those services being taken [pg 153] over by the Irish Government, they would considerably exceed their charges as estimated by the Treasury for 1912-13, and the excess would entail a corresponding increase of charge on the British taxpayer, to be counterbalanced gradually by the normal increase of Irish revenue, which the Postmaster-General estimates, with due reserve, at £200,000 a year, and by the gradual reduction (£50,000 a year) of the free gift of the British taxpayer from £500,000 to £200,000.
It must be remembered that these increased charges on the British taxpayer are not the result of Home Rule, they are an inheritance from the “partnership.”
When these services are transferred from the Imperial to the Irish Government, the Imperial Government will only retain control over the land purchase charges and the regulation and collection of taxes. The former will apparently remain permanently with the Imperial Government, involving an estimated increase of charge on the British taxpayers of £450,000 a year (Treasury Paper 6154). With regard to the latter, it is clearly desirable that at the outset the Imperial Government should be responsible for levying and collecting taxes. If difficulties on that subject should arise in parts of Ireland, the Imperial Government will settle them with an authority which the new Irish Government cannot possess. Clause 26, however, holds out a possibility hereafter of extended autonomy to Ireland. If for three years the revenue of Ireland exceeds the expenditure on Irish services by the Imperial and Irish Governments, the Parliament of the United Kingdom will revise the financial provisions of the Home Rule Act, with a view to securing a proper contribution from Irish revenues to Imperial expenditure, and extending the powers of the Irish Government with respect to the [pg 154] imposition and collection of taxes, and if extension were then granted in a liberal spirit, there would be little left to desire.
Conclusion
I have thus traced the gradual progress towards autonomy contemplated by the Act. It justifies the conclusion that the Government favours autonomy, but seeks to achieve that end gradually and tentatively. With the path thus marked out, it lies with the nation to pursue steadily and resolvedly the great end of reconciliation with Ireland.
It is impossible to consider Home Rule in its financial aspect, without casting a look backward and comparing the result which would have followed the grant of Home Rule in 1886 with the result which has followed its refusal. In the former case Ireland would have been reconciled long ago. She would have been mistress in her own house, and it would have been her interest as well as her policy so to conduct her administration as to insure the success of her autonomy. She would have had full opportunity for reorganising her establishments on a reasonable scale, substituting for an expensive military police an ordinary police, with a saving, as Mr. Gladstone once pointed out, of £900,000 a year. She would have been able to maintain the reasonable contribution to Imperial expenditure which it is her duty as an integral part of the United Kingdom to provide. It would have been worth the while of Great Britain to make a great sacrifice at the outset to attain this solution of the Irish problem, and long before now the solution would have been complete.
The Conservative Party refused Home Rule. They have held power during sixteen out of the twenty-five [pg 155] years elapsed in the interval, and they have had full opportunity to try their alternative policy. That policy has not indeed been the twenty years of “resolute Government,” a euphemism for coercion, advocated by Lord Salisbury. They have tried a policy of bribes and doles, with the result that the Imperial contribution of over £2,000,000 made in 1885 has been dissipated, and that Irish local expenditure alone shows now a deficit of £1,500,000 and a steadily increasing deficit. In short, a total burthen of between £3,500,000 and £4,000,000 has been inflicted on the British taxpayer. The Leader of the Conservatives has now announced with splendid audacity that if the “partnership” continues, if the Conservatives are allowed still to mis-rule Ireland, and to maintain the baleful spirit of ascendancy, they will endeavour to develop in every possible way the resources of Ireland. That is to say, the policy of bribes and doles is to continue at the expense of the British taxpayer. Let the British taxpayer note that, and let him note also that the Conservative Party will find the ways and means for these bribes and doles not by taxes on the wealthy, but by taxes on the food of the people. Ireland will accept the doles; but she will not be satisfied. She will still clamour at our gates for Home Rule, as she has clamoured since 1886, and she will get Home Rule, but the burthen on the British taxpayer will be then how much greater than now?
Appendix
This Report of the Primrose Committee, the Treasury outline of financial provisions, and the speech of the Postmaster-General on the introduction of the Bill offer some vague estimates, perhaps more properly guesses, of Irish finance, one of which, Old-age Pensions, extends to twenty years. It may be interesting to throw these figures together, not (God forbid) as an estimate, but as illustrating opinion prevalent among the experts engaged in the preparation of the Bill.
Income: