and the Gladstonian Mr Currie join in recommending that the Irish people should levy their own taxes and control their own expenditure. This is perfectly right and natural for Home Rulers to do. They are further extolled as experts in finance and affairs. This is just, and the more just it is, the more damnatory to the conclusions of the majority of their brethren is their conviction as business men that no other efficient remedy can be found.

The next report bears the signatures of Mr Sexton, Mr Edward Blake, and Mr Henry Slattery. In their opinion there is but one remedy -that of "casting upon Ireland the duty of conducting and providing for her own administration," with for a period "exemption from any burden in connection with Imperial expenditure." This is separate Parliament, separate Exchequer, Home Rule in the widest sense, except that Great Britain is left to pay the whole cost for Ireland as well as herself of army and navy, diplomacy and debt. Mr Edward Blake only signs this report under reserve, publishing at the same time an individual draft report of his own. He has, however, no separate remedy to propose.

Sir David Barbour, who reports alone, holds that if an estimate is formed of taxable capacity, that of Ireland being taken at onetwentieth of the United Kingdom, then she contributes more than her share from indirect taxes. The reason of this is, that she consumes an excessive proportion of spirits as compared with beer. To meet this, there are only two remedies possible: either to relieve the spirit - drinker at the expense of the beer-drinker, or to reduce the duties on excisable articles in Ireland, thus setting

up a customs barrier between the two countries, a proposal Sir David Barbour emphatically condemns. The only change or remedy suggested in the report is that wasteful and extravagant expenditure should be reduced in Ireland, and that that country should be allowed, as a sort of illogical concession, the exclusive advantage of any savings that could be effected in the cost of internal government. The benefit would be applied “in such form as might be approved," a suggestion which does not seem to put things much further forward.

The last separate report is by Sir Thomas Sutherland. He traverses the conclusions of his colleagues, and supports the present financial system of individual taxation as just and necessary so long as this country acknowledges only one Government and one Exchequer.

The draft report by Mr Childers, the chairman, left by him at his death for the consideration of his colleagues, enters more fully into the remedies to the alleged inequality by which Ireland pays one-thirteenth of the revenue of the United Kingdom, her “taxable capacity being one-twentieth. He says three courses present themselves

1. A change in the general fiscal policy of the United Kingdom. Less might be received from the Irish and more from the British taxpayer if part of the duty on tea and tobacco were transferred to meat, live stock, and dairy produce imported from abroad.

The same end might be attained if taxation on tea, beer, tobacco, and spiritsespecially spirits-were greatly reduced, and the gap filled by increased taxation on in

come, property, and commercial transactions, because these fall more heavily on Great Britain and less on Ireland. This Mr Childers only cites to dismiss as bearing its own condemnation.

2. The reduction of customs and excise duties in Ireland, so that all commodities consumed there should be free except in the case of whisky and beer, which might still be lightly taxed.

This also Mr Childers condemns, holding unlike his colleagues the O'Connor Don and others - that the revival of custom-house barriers between the two islands is utterly inadmissible.

Some

3. The payment, by way of "compensation," to Ireland for -to begin with a period of fifteen years of 21 millions per annum, being the adjusted amount which he considers Ireland is now providing in excess of what she ought to provide under the theory of "taxable capacity." Strange as it may appear as it has appeared to his colleaguesMr Childers emphatically recommends this last alternative. authority must be found to administer this gigantic dole, some objects on which it is to be spent. On the former point no indication is given; but as to the latter, the leading suggestion is that the money should be applied in compensation to the railway companies for reducing very largely -by not less than one-half-the rates for passengers and goods over the Irish railways. Irishmen, rich or poor, are to travel half-price at the cost of Englishmen and Scotchmen, poor or rich! The position, therefore, at which we have arrived under the guidance of the Commission is, that IF the

people of Ireland are now taxed with undue comparative severity, one of the following methods of redress must be adopted:

Either the erection of a separate Parliament and Exchequer in Ireland, unfettered as to financial expedients;

Or the reduction on rates of duty levied in Ireland, with its necessary concomitant & customs barrier between the two islands;

Or the payment out of the Imperial Exchequer of 2 millions or more, to be dispensed by some Irish board for the benefit of Irish railways.

The first has been condemned by the people of the United Kingdom by the return of a Unionist majority of 150 votes.

The second is contrary to the whole policy of the present century. Mr Gladstone in his Home Rule Bill of 1886, while leaving to the Irish Parliament the right to levy other taxes, expressly reserved all power over customs and excise to the Imperial Parliament, so as to avoid the very evil Lord Farrer and others are ready to accept. Again, in the Home Rule Bill of 1893 the same policy was followed because he was "not prepared to face a very inexpedient and very inconvenient system of different sets of trade laws."

The third is supported by Mr Childers alone, and will surely be rejected by public opinion as dangerous and grotesque.

Having now laid side by side the remedies that the members of this Commission have discovered for an alleged wrong, it is time to see on what grounds it is asserted that this wrong has any real existence. Bearing continually in mind that the object of this paper is to place in briefest form before the reader facts and

come, property, and commercial transactions, because these fall more heavily on Great Britain and less on Ireland. This Mr Childers only cites to dismiss as bearing its own condemnation.

2. The reduction of customs and excise duties in Ireland, so that all commodities consumed there should be free except in the case of whisky and beer, which might still be lightly taxed.

This also Mr Childers condemns, holding unlike his colleagues the O'Connor Don and others — that the revival of custom-house barriers between the two islands is utterly inadmissible.

3. The payment, by way of "compensation," to Ireland for —to begin with—a period of fifteen years of 21 millions per annum, being the adjusted amount which he considers Ireland is now providing in excess of what she ought to provide under the theory of "taxable capacity." Strange as it may appear-as it has appeared to his colleaguesMr Childers emphatically recommends this last alternative. Some authority must be found to administer this gigantic dole, some objects on which it is to be spent. On the former point no indication is given; but as to the latter, the leading suggestion is that the money should be applied in compensation to the railway companies for reducing very largely -by not less than one-half-the rates for passengers and goods over the Irish railways. Irishmen, rich or poor, are to travel half-price at the cost of Englishmen and Scotchmen, poor or rich! The position, therefore, at which we have arrived under the guidance of the Commission is, that IF the

people of Ireland are now taxed with undue comparative severity, one of the following methods of redress must be adopted :

Either the erection of a separate Parliament and Exchequer in Ireland, unfettered as to financial expedients;

Or the reduction on rates of duty levied in Ireland, with its necessary concomitant & customs barrier between the two islands;

Or the payment out of the Imperial Exchequer of 2 millions or more, to be dispensed by some Irish board for the benefit of Irish railways.

The first has been condemned by the people of the United Kingdom by the return of a Unionist majority of 150 votes.

The second is contrary to the whole policy of the present century. Mr Gladstone in his Home Rule Bill of 1886, while leaving to the Irish Parliament the right to levy other taxes, expressly reserved all power over customs and excise to the Imperial Parliament, so as to avoid the very evil Lord Farrer and others are ready to accept. Again, in the Home Rule Bill of 1893 the same policy was followed because he was "not prepared to face a very inexpedient and very inconvenient system of different sets of trade laws."

The third is supported by Mr Childers alone, and will surely be rejected by public opinion as dangerous and grotesque.

Having now laid side by side the remedies that the members of this Commission have discovered for an alleged wrong, it is time to see on what grounds it is asserted that this wrong has any real existence. Bearing continually in mind that the object of this paper is to place in briefest form before the reader facts and