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A HISTORY
UF THF.
IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVKR-TAXATION.
\
lALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
'i/i/^-'-Y/C,,
^ 4
A HISTORY_^ ''^^-^
OF THE
IRISH POTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION,
FROM 1853 TO 1897.
> ,) 5 > > '
BY
THOMAS KENNEDY,
M
B.A., ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND:
r.ARRISTER-AT-LAW ;
FITZGIBBON GOI.D MEDALLIST AND O'HAGAN GOLD MEDALLIST OF THE LAW STUDENTS'
DEBATING SOCIETY OF IRELAND ;
/■'or some time Honorary Secretary to the All-Irelaud Committee of the
Financial Relations League.
DUBLIN :
HODGES, FIGGIS, & CO., Ltd., GRAFTON STREET,
BOOKSELLERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, & CO.
1897.
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CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface ix
WuRKs ON Irish Taxation .. w
CHAPTER I.
Major-Generai. Dlnne i
CHAPTER n.
Mr. Gladstone's E<jualizeu Taxation 5
CHAPTER HI.
The Jibes and Sneeks of "The Times" ../ 8
CHAPTER IV.
Serjeant Heron on Irish Decay 11
CHAPTER V.
General Dunne refused an Inquiry 14
CHAPTER VI.
John Blake Dillon 20
CHAPTER VII.
The Corporation of Dublin 22
CHAPTER VIII.
Joseph Fisher 26
CHAPTER IX.
Agitation and Organization 32
M53491
VI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER X.
Protest i-.y Loud RIouris 36
CHAPTER XI.
Mr. Glausi'one grants an Inquiry 41
CHAPTER XII.
GiiNERAi, Dunne's Select Committee 45
CHAPTER XIII.
Rei'okt 01- General Dunne's Committee 53
CHAPTER XIV.
"Dublin University Magazine" 5^
CHAPl'ER XV.
The O'Conor Don on the Evidence received i;v the Irish
Taxation Committee 59
CHAPTER XVI.
Sir Josei'h N. M'Kenna 64
CHAPTER XVII.
Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Goschen on Royal Commissions... 6tj
CHAPTER XVIII.
O'Neill Daunt and the Irish Home Rule League ... 71
CHAPTER XIX.
Sir Joseph N. M'Kenna 77
CHAPTER XX.
Mr. Mitchell Henry and Mr. Isaac Butt So
CHAPTER XXI.
Sir Joseph N. M'Kenna moves for a Select Committee ... 89
CHAPTER XXII.
Mr. Goschen suggests a Committee of Inquiry 93
CONTENTS. vn
CHAPTER XXIII.
I'AGIC
"The Times," Lord Monteagle, and Sir Roi;ert Giefen 99
CHAPTER XXIV.
Mr. C. S. Parnell and Sir Joseph N. M'Kenna 102
CHAPTER XXV.
.\l'l'OINT.MENT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION I09
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Roval Commission iiS
CHAPTER XXVII.
Rkiort of the Royal Commission 125
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Attitude of the Government 132
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Proposed New Commission i35
CHAPTER XXX.
Ruined Ireland 151
CHAPTER XXXI.
Organization i54
APPENDIX.
Two Petitions to Parliament i59
Lord Lieutenants of Ireland, 1853 10 1897 162
Chancellors of the Exchequer, 1852 10 1897 163
Extracts from Ikish Speeches on the Budget of 1853 ... 164
Irish Taxation mentioned in Parliament 169
Index ^73
PREFACE,
The Royal Commission on the Financial Relations of
Great Britain and Ireland, appointed by Her Majesty's
warrant on the 26th May, 1894, reported in the autumn
of 1896 that the increase of taxation laid on Ireland
between 1853 and i860 was not justified by the then
existing circumstances. The increase amounted to
between two and three millions sterling per annum, and
has been since levied. It was secured by the imposi-
tion of income tax and succession duties in 1853, and
by the increase of stamp and spirit duties between
1853 and i860. This augmented taxation was in excess
of Ireland's just relative contribution to the Imperial
Exchequer, and a violation of her constitutional rights
under the Treaty of Union. No more inopportune
time could have been chosen for imposing it. A famine,
the most dire which has stricken a European country
in the nineteenth century, had but recently devastated
the land. Commerce and manufactures had commenced
that decline which has continued to this day. The
injurious effects of the Free Trade policy and repeal of
the Corn Laws were already apparent, and population
had commenced to fly from the country.
No weicfhtier task devolves on a statesman than that
of safeguarding the finances of his country. What must
its plight be when a nation has no control over its
taxation ? The Treasury representatives, whom the
Act for the Amalgamation of the Exchequers seemed
to secure to Ireland, have long disappeared. The fiscal
X PREFACE.
polic)- of the empire has been shaped quite indepen-
dent!}' of the generally ineffectual votes of the Irish
representatives. Though powerless to prevent it. did
they not protest against the imposition of the unjusti-
fiable burden of 1853-60? Did they not unceasingly
attempt to have it removed ?
Mr. Arthur J. Balfour said at INIanchester, on the 9th
January, 1897, that it was only in October or November,
1896, that the Irish discovered that England was rob-
bing them of about ^^2,700,000 a year for fifty years.
Some notable Irishmen spent their lives trying to con-
vince England of this. Not an echo of the taxation
miserere which the Irish chanted for the past forty
years reached Mr. Balfour. General Dunne, Lord
Claud Hamilton, Robert Longfield, Q.C., Joseph Fisher,
John Blake Dillon, the O'Conor Don, Sir Joseph N.
M'Kenna, O'Neill Daunt, Mitchell Henry, and Isaac
Butt have written their names in the history of Ireland
by the attitude they took up on its taxation. The First
Lord of the Treasur)-, who was a Chief Secretary for
Ireland, never heard of them. A knowledge of Irish
history seems not to be essential to a ruler of Ireland.
Though English members fled the House of Commons
whenever the question of Irish taxation was raised, the
subject nevertheless pursued them in The Times. It
is sad to see justice delayed and defeated ; sadder after
repeated refusals to hear it denied that it was ever
claimed. Irishmen, in and out of the House of Com-
mons, have protested against over-taxation during the
past forty years. If Sisyphus, in addition to doing his
own work, were loaded with the burden of xAtlas, his
task would then be comparable to theirs. They had to
penetrate the Cimmerian darkness which enveloped the
Treasury accounts, and then essay the hopeless task of
convincing the inconvincibility of England. The increase
of taxation was accompanied by a concealment of its
PREFACE. XI
incidence and aiTKJunt. The Irish i^olden fleece was
both stolen and hidden. The Treasury exacted all it
could, then suppressed the amount, and mystified the
account. When the Irish members became excessively
clamorous, some occasional scraps of information were
doled out to them. Whenever they put their case for
redress before Parliament, they were met either with
denial, evasion, or spurious political economy. The
Treasury, like the wolf in Aesop's fable, changed its
attitude as often as it was disconcerted by the force of
truth. The loss of an argument only stimulated it to
find a new one. According to Mr. W. E. Gladstone,
taxation had nothing to do with the poverty of Ireland.
Sir Stafford Northcote admitted that Ireland was the
most heavily taxed country in Europe. He did not see
his way to remedy it, as the burdens of the poorer dis-
tricts of Great Britain would be thereby increased. Mr.
Lowe's doctrine of individual taxation was afterwards
preached from the front benches of the House of Com-
mons and the leading columns of TJie Times. It held
the field for years, and died hard. In the sixties and
the seventies EngH.sh financial authorities, from Mr.
Gladstone down, denied that expenditure had anything
to do with taxation. Now their trump card is that
expenditure is a set-off against over-taxation. They
refuse to apply this new-found test to the past, as the
balance would then go against them. They are consis-
tent in nothing but in exacting the last penny out of
Ireland.
For twenty years — from 1853 to 1873 — the Irish Con-
servative members led the way in whatever protests
were made. When the wrong grew hoary, its custody
passed from them and became the heritage of the
Nationali-sts, who made all they could of it when-
ever a lull in their other occupations gave them
leisure. Trinity College, Dublin, is often supposed by
Xll PREFACE.
the Irish masses to be generally inimical to their best
interests. Nevertheless the principal pioneers of the
protest against over-taxation were educated within its
walls. In the fifties and the sixties it gave to the
financial side of Irish public life General Dunne, Robert
Longfield, John Blake Dillon, and Sir Joseph M'Kenna,
who early diagnosed the running sore which was to
drain so much life and vitality out of Ireland. In the
seventies Professor Galbraith and Isaac Butt held aloft
the lamp of taxation knowledge, as do now, amongst
others, Mr. A. W. Samuels, (^).c., and Mr. E. P. Culver-
well, F.T.C.D. The former, meeting the Treasury on its
own chosen ground, has, in his examination of the
Expenditure Account, ably impeached the legality and
accuracy of the classification of Exchequer expenditure
on which it relied to establish its case of a " set-off."
The latter, in a masterly letter to Tlie Times of the
5th January, 1897, fearlessly proclaimed that Irish
Unionists had advisedly championed the Irish side of
the over-taxation controversy, and that a Government
must be deemed good or bad according to the justice
or injustice of the taxation which it imposed.
The gulf between Ireland's capacity to bear taxation
and her actual contribution to the Imperial Exchequer
was pointed out long before the report of the Royal
Commission. In 1863 Joseph Fisher estimated that
the tax revenue of Ireland was one-tenth of that of
Great Britain, and the relative taxable capacity of Ire-
land only one-fourteenth. The respective fractions for
1867 were given by Mr. Synan in the House of Com-
mons as one-ninth and one-nineteenth ; whilst O'Neill
Daunt calculated them in 1873 at one-ninth and one-
seventeenth. The discrepancy between the imperial
taxation of England and Ireland was exhibited with
most startling effect in 1882 by Sir Joseph M'Kenna
when he showed that the whole imperial taxation of
PREFACE. xiii
Great Britain could be raised b\- an income tax of
2.S, 6d. in the pound ; wliilst an income tax of 5.S. 3d.
would be necessary to raise in Ireland its imperial
taxation. In 1887 he proved that the imperial taxes
of England other than the income tax were five times
the income tax, of Scotland seven times, and of Ireland
twelve times.
The Irish case against over-taxation was proved again
and again in the House of Commons during the past
thirty years. The Royal Commission has merely
affirmed it on appeal, and vindicated the motives and
action of the men who made it. England cannot plead
prescription. The Irish claim for justice was made too
frequently and too comprehensively to be barred by
any statute of limitation. The Royal Commission has
not yet brought redress. "Who would be free themselves
must strike the blow."
Appeals for a union of Irishmen on this question were
often made. They came first from the Conservative
ranks. General Dunne, one of the upper class Irish
Protestant gentry ; Joseph Fisher, a typical middle
class Irish Protestant Dissenter; and Robert Lonefield
a distinguished Protestant Conservative Irish lawyer,
asked for a union of Irishmen to settle the proper taxa-
tion of the country. Similar appeals came from the
Nationalist ranks. O'Neill Daunt, the veteran Repealer;
John Blake Dillon, the amnestied Young Irelander; and
Isaac Butt, the moderate and constitutional Home Rule
leader, declared that it was the duty of all Irishmen to
co-operate in reducing taxation. At the present day
there has been a wonderful union of all classes of the
Irish people at public meetings and at public boards;
but though men differing as much as Mr. Healy,
Mr. Lecky, Mr. Horace Plunkett, Mr. Redmond, and
Col. Saunderson strove to promote united action in the
Hou.se of Commons, they were not successful.
xiv PREFACE.
1 have endeavoured to show, I hope not without some
success, that excessive taxation was imposed and per-
petuated on Ireland in defiance of the oft-repeated
protests of her representatives; that pubHc opinion in
Ireland at an early stage adequately recognised what a
grievous oppression this taxation was ; and that the
harsh and unyielding attitude of successive ministries
during the past forty years leaves no room for doubt that
no more serious and difficult problem confronts the
Irish people than that of securing the restitution and
readjustment of this excessive taxation.
I have in many instances quoted the ipsissiina verba
of speeches, resolutions, motions, &c. I trust that this
book will be found more useful on that account.
I have to express my thanks to the Right Honourable
the O'Conor Don, Sir J. N. M'Kenna, Mr. Mitchell
Henry, and Mr. Charles Dawson for lending me pub-
lications which have materially assisted me. I am also
much indebted to Mr. James Maclvor, of the King's
Inns Library, and Mr. T. W. Lyster, of the National
Library of Ireland.
THOMAS KENNEDY.
9 Bruokfield Terrace,
donnvbrook, dui'.lin,
18/// November, 1897.
WORKS ON IRISH TAXATION.
HOW IRELAND MAY BE SAVED. By Joseph Fisher. London:
Ridgway, 1862.
THE CASE OF IRELAND; TOGETHER WITH SOME LET-
TERS ON THE EXCESSIVE TAXATION OF IRELAND.
By Joseph Fisher. London: Ridgway, 1863.
REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF THE MUNI-
CIPAL COUNCIL OF DUBLIN ON THE STATE OF THE
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS BETWEEN IRELAND AND GREAT
BRITAIN. Dublin : Dollard, 1863.
DEBT AND TAXATION OF IRELAND. By Joseph J. Murphy.
Reports of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland.
Dublin : Ponsonby, 1864.
THE IRISH TAXATION COMMITTEE. By The O'Conor
Don, M.P. Dublin: Fowler, 1865.
FINANCIAL RELATIONS BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND
IRELAND, AND THE PRESSURE OF TAXATION UPON
IRISH RESOURCES. By W. J. O'N. Daunt. Dublin : Robert
Chapman, 1873.
THE FINANCIAL AND ECONOMICAL CONDITION OF IRE-
LAND. By Mitchell Henry, m.p. Dublin: Irish Home Rule
League, 1875.
THE INCIDENCE OF IMPERIAL TAXATION ON IRELAND.
By Sir Joseph Neale M'Kenna, m.p. Dublin: Irish Home
Rule League, 1876.
IMPERIAL TAXATION: THE CASK OF IRELAND PLAINLY
STATF^IX By Sir Joseph M'Kexna, m.p. London: Rivingtons,
1883.
FISCAL RELATIONS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM AND
IRELAND. P)y William F. Bailey. Dublin : Hodges, Figgis,
& Co., 1886.
THE IRISH LAND (^)UESTION ; OR, IRELAND, THE PROCESS
OF EXHAUSTION, 1801 TO 1880 (BOTH INCLUSIVE),
EXAMINED AND EXPLAINED. By Sir Joseph .M'Kenna, m.p.
London : Ridgway, 1SS7.
xvi WORKS ON IRISH TAXATION.
THE FINANCIAL RELATIONS OF GUEAT IJKITAIN AND
IRELAND. r>y .'\N Irishman. Dulilin: /•'rec/iian\s JoKnial, i?><)2.
ENGLAND'S WEALl'lI IRELAND'S FOVERTV. I!y Thomas
Lough, M. p. London: Downey, 1896.
ENGLAND'S DEBT TO IRELAND. By J. P. Mau.vsell, m.a.
Dublin: Daily Express, 1897.
THE OVER-TAXATION OF IRELAND: A RECORD OF
MEETINGS, 1896-97. Dublin: Freeman' s Journal , x^f)"] .
THE FINANCIAL RELATIONS QUESTION: EXPENDITURE
ACCOUNT. By A. W. Samuels, q,c. Dublin: Sealy, Bryers,
& Walker, 1897.
SOME FEATURES OF THE OVER-TAXATION OF IRELANU.
By Nicholas J. Svnnott. Dublin : Sealy, Bryers, & Walker, 1897.
FINANCIAL RELATIONS BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND
IRELAND. By Thomas P. Whittaker, m.p. Hull: Eastern
Morning Neivs Co., 1897.
THE FINANCIAL RELATIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND
IRELAND. By Sir Edward Clarke, q.c. London: Stevens
and Haynes, 1897.
THE OVER-TAXATION OF IRELAND. By Hon. Edward
Blakil, m.p. Dublin: Sealy, Bryers, & Walker, 1897.
Works bv Mr. W. J. O'Neill Daunt, in which
Irish Taxation is mentioned.
EIGHTV-FIVE YEARS OF IRISH HISTORY. London: Ward
iSc Downey, 1886.
A LIFE SPENT FOR IRELAND. London: Fisher Unwin, 1S97.
HISTORY. ■■•*,:;■, ;.,
OF THE •',"..,.:.► .^ 1 "'' ■^
IRISH PROTliST AGAINST OVRR-TAXATION.
CHAPTER I.
A.D. 1853.
MAJOR-GENERAL FRANCIS PLUNKETT DUNNE.
On the 1 8th April, 1853, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, who
was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Coalition
Government of which Lord Aberdeen was Prime
Minister, John Sadleir a Lord of the Treasury, and
William Keogh Solicitor-General for Ireland, announced,
when introducing the Budget, that he would extend
the income tax to Ireland. The poverty of the country,
the full measure in which it already contributed to
imperial revenue, and the necessity, on grounds of
public policy, of offering some inducements to absentee
landlords to reside at home, had hitherto prevented its
extension.
Knowledge after the event, which is everyone's, has
made it clear that Ireland was face to face with a crisis
fraught with disastrous consequences to her material
well-being. It may be asked, how did her people
demean themselves ? and who amongst them made
timely and opportune protest? Into the breach created
by Mr. Gladstone stepped Major-General Francis
Plunkett Dunne. The gage of battle cast down by the
wizard of finance he instantly took up. Resistance to
B
t
2 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
and protest against the financial injustice done to his
country he made the great purpose of his life. Upheld
by his well-founded belief in the justice of his cause,
gallant soldi/ev (hat he was, he led for years a forlorn
hope against tl^e injustice and inconvincibility of
England,; Utisucdessful in his objects and unappre-
ciated in his actions, time has more than amply
vindicated both. If ever there be a Pantheon of
distinguished Irishmen, his shall be no obscure corner
therein. His name shall ever be indissolubly associated
with the Irish protest against the over-taxation imposed
by Mr. Gladstone. On his father's side he traced his
descent in unbroken line from the ancient Irish chief-
tains of Brittas ; whilst his mother was sister to the first
Earl of Bantry. Born in 1802, he graduated in Trinity
College, Dublin, and entered the army as cornet in the
Dragoon Guards Retiring from the army in 1840,
he entered Parliament, and represented Portarlington
from 1847 to 1857, and the Queen's County from 1859
to 1868. A Conservative, he held office as Private
Secretary to Lord Eglinton when Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland in 1858-59. He died on 6th July, 1874, and
an obituary newspaper notice states that no man in
the Queen's County was more generally or deservedly
popular. In private life he was all that was estimable
— courteous, honourable, and upright, a perfect gentle-
man, beloved by the poor as well as by the rich, and
a thorough Irishman and lover of his country. All
those who held intercourse with him during his long
and honourable career were well aware of his sterling
honesty and worth.
The Budget proposals of Mr. Gladstone which called
forth the opposition of General Dunne may be thus
briefly stated : — The revenue for 1852-53 showed a sur-
plus of i^2,46o,cxDO. A committee of the House of Lords
had recommended that the charges on the famine-
.MAJOR-GKN. FRANCIS I'LUXKETT MUXNE. 3
Stricken districts of Ireland, amounting to i^26o,ooo a
year, and called " Consolidated Annuities," should be
partially extinguished. It was a clear case for remis-
sion, and the surplus made it quite easy. Mr. Gladstone
remitted the " Annuities," but imposed the income tax.
For the shilling he gave a\va\' with his left hand he
exacted a pound with his right. General Dunne
attacked the new departure in fiscal policy on the
23rd May, 1853, by the following motion : —
That it is expedient, before additional taxation be extended to
Ireland, that a select committee be appointed to inquire into and
consider the fiscal and political relations and relative taxation of
Great Britain and Ireland, and to report whether the latter
kingdom does not bear her fair sliare of imperial taxation.
The speech in which he introduced his motion was
one of great moderation ; and the justice and obvious
necessity of his proposal should have commended it to
Parliament. He foretold that this Budget would inflict
greater injury upon Ireland than any former Budget
that he remembered. He did not stand there to deny
that Ireland ought to bear her fair share of taxation —
he did not even at the moment say that the income tax
ought not to be extended to that country- — but what he
contended was, that before Ireland was to be saddled
with a heavier load of taxation than she had hitherto
borne, a preliminary inquiry should take place into the
resources of the country ; and he further maintained
that, if they extended this tax to Ireland without first
instituting such an inquiry, they would be guilty of a
direct breach of the articles of the Act of Union. It
was now proposed to impose a burden of an addi-
tional half a million and upwards of taxation upon
Ireland by the introduction of the income tax, and
Ireland would not receive any benefit from the extra
charge. It was most unjust to call upon Ireland to
4 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
submit to this additional contribution without first
instituting this preHminary inquiry into her resources
relatively to England under the terms of the Act of
Union. The motion was seconded by Mr. Macartney,
who thought it the height of injustice in any Govern-
ment to come forward with such a proposition as this,
which must be regarded as an aggravation of the
financial oppressions under which Ireland suffered.
Lord Claud Hamilton also supported General Dunne,
and the following notable protest was made by Mr.
John Francis Maguire, the Member for Dungarvan :—
The attempt to gull the people of Ireland into an a2:)proval of
this tax by saying that the present proposition was a good bargain,
because they would have to pay £4(50,000 instead of £200,000, to
which they were at present liable, was worse than a financial
juggle. It was, if he might say so in parliamentary language, an
Exchequer swindle. The trick was so stale, the juggle so plain,
and the real object so unconcealed, he could only express his
wonder at any man representing an Irish constituency being gulled
by it.
Mr, Maguire was in Parliament from 1852 to 1872,
and during those twenty years he was the popular
leader. His great sincerity, ability, and earnestness
were unselfishly devoted to the service of his country.
With the exception of the notable protest recorded
above, some minor references, and his evidence before
General Dunne's Committee, he does not seem to have
grasped the terrible reality of over-taxation, and to
what extent the material depression of the country
was due to it, but devoted himself to the solution of the
religious and agrarian problems of the Irish difficulty.
General Dunne's motion was met in the most hostile
manner by Mr. Gladstone, and though the Irish Con-
servative and Popular members united in urging on the
Government the expediency of this preliminary inquiry,
they were defeated, the voting being 61 for the motion
and 194 against.
MR. GLADSTONE'S "EQUALIZED TAXATION.
CHAPTER II.
A.D. 1853.
MR. W. E. GLADSTONE'S " EQUALIZED TAXATION."
When Mr. Gladstone increased the taxation of Ireland
in 1853, he was well aware of the state of the country,
admitted the circumstances of the awful calamity which
had lately visited it, and acknowledged that traces of it
remained in many social and economic forms and in a
burdensome debt. But all Ireland was not alike, and
there were '^certain districts'' which did not need to
shrink from their full taxation, and which had no
reasonable claim or plea to offer for exemption. These
words were no sooner uttered than forgotten. The
extension of the income tax and the increase of the
spirit duties were not confined to " certain districts" but
applied to the whole island. The phrase " certain
districts " covers all that has ever been since contended
for in the phrases ''separate entity" and ''geographical
taxation" He argued that the new taxation would
advance a great step towards establishing an equaliza-
tion of taxation between the three countries. Having
declared that he would remit the " consolidated annui-
ties," impose the income tax, and increase the spirit
duties, he plumed himself that he would thereby make
a great stride towards advantages which he hardly
knew how to appreciate — namely, bringing the two
countries towards the establishment of the principle of
"equalized taxation" He brushed lightly aside all
arguments founded on the poverty of the country, and
utterly ignored her treaty rights.
The pretext he availed of to justify on principle the
increase of Irish taxation was elevated by him into
6 ■ IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
an economic doctrine, and dignified with the name of
" equalized taxation^ It was reserved for a later period
to show how utterly unjust was his policy ; how dis-
astrous to the material condition of Ireland ; how
his intentions failed, if they were such, to secure con-
tributions proportioned to ability from Great Britain
and Ireland; and that his plausible and high-sounding
doctrine of " equalized taxation " was one of the most
fatal of economic heresies, and one made the pretext for
the most oppressive financial injustice to Ireland. The
taxes on commodities chiefly consumed by English-
men were levelled down year by year. Those on articles
principally used in Ireland were made heavier. This
duplex action was maintained for years for the impo-
verishment of Ireland and the enrichment of England.
No greater sophistry was ever preached than that of
" equalized taxation." It was the greatest engine of
oppression in Ireland during the second half of the
nineteenth century.
Neither can he be absolved of culpability for the evil
effects which followed. The consequences to Ireland
have been — without exaggeration — almost incalculable.
The taxation since raised was in excess of the country's
requirements and capacity. The amount contributed
for imperial services over and above local expenditure
in Ireland was, in 1859-60, i^ 5, 3 96,000 ; in 1869-70,
^4,488,210; in 1879-80, ^3,226,307; and in 1889-90,
£2,6y6,gyo. An average of these sums is ^6^3,946,872, or
in round numbers ;^4,ooo,ooo. The Irish contribution to
the Imperial Exchequer, over and above local expendi-
ture, for the forty years from 1853 to 1893 amounted
to iJ^ 1 60,000,000. All this money was spent out of the
country. It is only a little short of the war tribute
which France paid Germany. The policy of raising
more taxes than are required for necessary and essential
expenditure has at all times been condemned by sound
MR. GLADSTONE'S " EQUALIZED TAXATION." /
political economists. Mr. Gladstone when Chancellor
of the Exchequer made the following statement on over-
taxation in the House of Commons on 12th June,
1863:-
I am very uiuch inclined to question a proposition which I
understood him to lay down — that taxation is no diminution of the
wealth of a country, provided the money raised by its means is
spent in the country in which it happens to be levied. I do not
know that this is the time or place to discuss a point of political
economy ; but I may observe that I regard that proposition as a
fallacy. In my opinion, taxation which is unnecessary for the
real purposes of government is an entire waste of public money,
and leads to bad consequences, whether it is spent in tlie country
in which it is levied or not.
If the consequences of an excessive revenue, even
when spent within the country in which it is raised,
are bad, how much more intensified the evils must be
when the expenditure is made out of the country.
General Dunne's request for an inquiry was reason-
able and just. Mr. Gladstone advanced no valid
argument why it should not be entertained. There was
no necessity for haste. No deficit had to be met. A
desire to do what was just, rather than what was
brilliant, would have prompted an examination of the
condition of the country. Recent events bore heavily
on Ireland. The establishment of the poor law system
had added considerably to local burdens. The repeal
of the Corn Laws rapidly destroyed the Irish export
grain trade. The failure of the potato had caused the
famine. Irish manufactures, with few exceptions, were
declining. Land was going rapidly out of cultivation.
The people were fleeing from the countr)-. These were
danger signals sufficient to cause the boldest of Chan-
cellors of the Exchequer to pause. Yet heedless of all
protests Mr. Gladstone persevered with his scheme.
The only bright spot in this dark chapter was that
he intended that his new imposts should be temporary.
8 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
" The taxation we propose for Ireland would in the
first two years be considerably higher than the tax-
ation we propose to remove ; but if we look to the
time when, as I have said, Parliament will be in a
position to part with the income tax, Ireland will
enjoy, and enjoy for a long term of years, a much
larger remission of consolidated annuities than it will
have to bear of additional burdens in the shape of
spirit duty."
Forty-four years have elapsed, during twenty-five of
which Mr. Gladstone was a member of the Cabinet,
and his promise remains unfulfilled.
CHAPTER III.
EVENTS IN A.D. 1 86o.
THE JIBES AND SNEERS OF "THE TIMES." GENERAL
DUNNE APPEALS TO ALL IRISHMEN TO UNITE ON
THE QUESTION.
TJie Irish Quarterly Reviezv for January, i860, con-
tains an article on "The Debt and Taxation of Ireland."
It appeared from a Parliamentary return, No. 159,
issued in 1859, that the Irish contribution to the
Imperial Exchequer for the last financial year was
iS^8,8oo,ooo. Irish local expenditure for the same year
amounted to ^4,178,000. The surplus of revenue over
expenditure remitted from Ireland to England was
;^4,462,ooo. The writer does not examine these figures
in the light of over-taxation or economic drain, but
deems them a complete answer to the sneers of
TJie Times at Irish insolvency. The campaign of
calumny against Ireland was so effectual that the writer
EVENTS IN A.D. 1 86o. 9
merely plucked up courage enough to say that Ireland
was paying her way, and was meeting every charge, just
and unjust, necessary for her government. No bolder
answer was yet attempted ; whilst the fact, which later
investigation has made evident, that she was contribu-
ting far beyond her ability and her treaty rights to the
Imperial Treasury was known to few in Ireland, so
successful was the work of financial juggle and Treasury
suppression.
The collection of extracts from TJie Times and other
English papers printed in the article had considerable
influence in directing Irish opinion to the question, and
influencing by repulsion the movement soon commenced
in Ireland and in Parliament. They are as follows : —
Rackrent landlords and exacting persons collect their dues by a
soldiery paid by English taxes. — Quarterly Review.
The Treaty of Union with Ireland has already been, in more
than one respect, materially modified. According to it, Ireland,
besides providing for her own establishments, was to bear two-
seventeenths of the entire public expenditure of the empire. But
no part whatever of this condition has been fulfilled. Down to
this liour Ireland has not (mainly because of her being afflicted
with an overgrown alien Church) contributed one single shilling to
the general expense. — Courier.
Look at the amount of taxes paid by Ireland generally, and see
how she fulfils the terms of the Union contract. By that treaty
she ought to contribute towards the revenue of the empire 3 (sic)
parts out of 17. Taking the whole revenue of the United Kingdom
at £48,00y,8()0 in round numbers, 3-17ths (sic) would be some-
thing near £5,000,000, whereas the revenue raised in Ireland has
not for some years past, as we hear, exceeded £5,000,000 or there-
abouts. Yet Ireland has retained the whole of her rejjresentatives,
though she has fallen short of her revenue by a third. — Times.
Ireland is a loss to this country. Her revenue does not cover
her proportion of the debt and the exi^enses of her civil and mili-
tary establishment. — Times.
Ireland is a trouble, a vexation, and an expense to this country.
We must pay to feed it and keep it in order. We are paying its
paupers, its labourers, its policemen, its sailors. ^ Tunes.
lO IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
The Celt counts with the lame, the bliud, the sick, the aged, and
the insane as an impotent class. — Times.
AVe have hospitals, poor-houses, prisons, asylums, and Con-
naught. — Times.
For a whole generation the prolific wretchedness of the unre-
claimed Celt has made Ireland a continual drain on the resources
of this country, and for three years the burden of public benevo-
lence has pressed with fearful force upon every industrious class
of this island. — Times.
There is no sadder chapter in the literary history of
the financial controversy between Great Britain and
Ireland than the sustained and implacable hostility of
T/ie Times to the just claims of Ireland.
In the House of Commons, on 30th March, i860,
General Dunne renewed his protest, and appealed for
a union of all classes in Ireland to settle the fair
taxation of the country. He said he took the oppor-
tunity of protesting against the unfair taxation to which
Ireland was subjected as compared with England, and
which was quite opposed to the spirit and terms of the
Act of Union. He estimated the imperial taxation at
;^9,ooo,ooo, and the absentee rent at ^^4,000,000. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer had spoken of the increase
of wealth as justifying the income tax. He denied
that the wealth of Ireland was increasing : the returns
showed it was diminishing ; 500,000 acres of land had
gone out of cultivation since 1847 ; foreign imports
and exports were less than in 1790. Where was the
prosperity in Ireland to entitle the Chancellor of the
Exchequer to add to its taxation ? Money spent on the
defence of England was no advantage to Ireland. He
hoped that ere long every Irish Member would come to
Parliament pledged to settle the fair proportion of
taxation to be borne by Ireland; but until that arrange-
ment was made every Irishman ought to object to any
additional taxation whatever. He submitted that it
was high time that taxation, as between Ireland and
SERJEANT HERON, Q.C., ON IRISH DECAY. II
I
England, should be settled on a proper basis, because
at present he was perfectly satisfied that they paid
what was not fair.
He received no support, and his motion to reduce the
income tax for Ireland from tenpence to ninepence was
defeated. The Chancellor of the Exchequer alone
replied to him, and relied on his old argument of equal
taxation.
Again, as in 1853, General Dunne was before his
time. Though on all sides the evidence of Irish decline
was accumulating, its true cause, owing to the fierce
passions called into play by several political and reli-
gious questions, was not yet generally recognised.
CHAPTER IV.
A.D. 1862.
SERJEANT HERON, Q.C., ON IRISH DECAY.
" An unjust system of taxation does not, any more
than poisoning of the blood by impure air, forthwith
evince its specific action ; the operation is nevertheless
deadly, because it is continuous and the evil cumulative."
For nine years Ireland had borne the increased bur-
dens imposed in 1853. The spirit duties had swept
most of the distilleries from the land, and the income
tax was the last straw which forced many a nobleman
and gentleman into the Incumbered Estates Court.
The steady drain of capital had indirectly crippled
almost every industry. National decay and decline were
apparent to all, but are nowhere better shown than in
the writings of a distinguished Irish lawyer.
Denis Caulfield Heron, Q.c, LL.D., was a brilliant
student of Trinity College, Dublin, Professor of Juris-
12 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
prudence in the Queen's College, Galway, and Bencher
of the King's Inn. He was third Serjeant-at-Law, and
an accomplished writer on constitutional history and
jurisprudence. In a paper read before the Statistical
and Social hiqiiiry Society of Ireland on 20th January,
1862, he made the following remarks on the then con-
dition of Ireland :—
" The decrease of the Irish population, as regards the
original number, as regards the number of square miles
in the country, and as regards the historical features of
the case, there being neither civil war nor religious per-
secution, is perfectly unparalleled in ancient or modern
history.
" The rental of Ireland is less in 1861 than it was in
1805. The wealth of the country is decreasing. A pro-
gressive decrease in population and in the production of
wealth is a sign that something is not right in the legal
and social conditions of a country. Population is every-
where proportioned to the means of subsistence. And
the decrease in the cultivation of the land, and the
decrease in the number of domestic animals in Ireland,
have now rapidly commenced upon the decrease of
population being accomplished. Men decay, but wealth
does not accumulate.
"The population that has remained in Ireland has
deteriorated from the year 1841. The best educated,
the most energetic of the peasants have emigrated
during the last fifteen years. Population is not the sole
test of prosperity— it is one of the tests. Produc-
tion of wealth is not the sole test of prosperity— it is
one of the tests.
" The diminution of population, the diminution of cul-
tivation, the diminution of domestic animals in Ireland,
all show that in the present struggle for existence, which
nations as well as individuals undergo, Ireland is beaten.
" One of the causes of the decrease of production is
SERJEANT HERON, (^C, ON IRISH DECAY. 1 3
that the best of the peasantry under the present system
emigrate.
" For various reasons the Poor Law system has not
worked well in Ireland. It has been one of the pro-
minent causes in late years of the degradation of the
peasantry,
" But whilst the peasantry have declined in numbers,
have the upper classes in consequence been prosperous ?
From October, 1849, to August, 1859, the gross amount
produced by sales in the Incumbered Estates Court
was i^25, 190,839. The exultation manifested at the
disappearance of the Irish peasantry is easily to be ex-
plained by what Savigny terms the foreign historical
causes. But I have never been able to understand the
exultation manifested at the enormous amount of ruin
amongst the aristocracy and gentry of Ireland which
these figures demonstrate. I regret that so many Irish
gentlemen are annihilated off the soil of Ireland.
"It is asserted that the prosperity of Ireland is rapidly
and progressively increasing for the last sixty years,
certainly for the last fifteen years. One of the alleged
scientific tests of progressive prosperity is the enormous
number of ruined peers and gentry sold out by the
Incumbered Estates Court.
" The number of the professional and educated classes
in Ireland is diminishing. The number of students
annually entering Trinity College from 1845 to 1849
averaged 351. During the last few years it has averaged
290.
"The number of practising barristers is rapidly dimin-
ishing. In 1788 the names of 622 barristers appeared
in the Dublin Directory. The number of barristers
paying their subscriptions to the Law Library of the
Four Courts amounted to 690 in the year 1850. In
1 861 it amounted to 427.
" County society is vanishing out of Ireland. There
14 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
are more ruins of castles and abbeys in Clare and
Galway than there are gentlemen's houses inhabited by
a resident proprietary.
" As compared with the progress of Europe, Ireland
is now a much less desirable place to live in than it
was at the commencement of the nineteenth century.
Under the present system it will continue every year
to be a less desirable place to live in."
CHAPTER V.
A.D. 1863.
GENERAL DUNNE REFUSED AN INQUIRY.
The alarming decay so evident in Ireland, and the
growing belief that over-taxation was the chief cause,
found expression in the House of Commons on
1 2th June, 1863, when General Dunne moved —
That a select committee be appointed to inquire into the causes
of the present depressed condition of Ireland and the effects of
the taxation she now bears.
He stated that he had desired to bring the motion
on earlier in the session, but was prevented by the
death of Sir George C. Lewis. He scornfully alluded
to the small attendance of members as certain proof
that the House of Commons took little interest in the
condition of Ireland. Notwithstanding the statements
daily made of the fabulous growth of prosperity in
Ireland, he asserted that the improvement of the
country was not as great as might have been expected.
He emphatically deprecated the idea that he entertained
any wild views of violently interfering with the Union ;
but he held that the only basis on which it could be
GENERAL DUNNE REFUSED AN INQUIRY. 1 5
maintained was that of mutual interest and perfect
equality. He enumerated amongst the indications of
the impoverishment of Ireland — first, the diminution
of the population, which could not be attributed to any
want of industry of the people, for they prospered
elsewhere ; second, the decay of agriculture exhibited
by the falling-off in the area under cultivation, repre-
senting an annual loss of ;^ 10,000,000. As almost
everything in Ireland depended on agriculture, its decay
meant universal depression. The decrease in live stock
between 1856 and i860 represented a loss of i^i 2,000,000.
Green crops and potatoes were going out of cultivation.
The foreign import and export trade was greater at the
time of the Union than it was then. There was a
continual decrease in the number of mills and of the
persons employed therein. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer, in his financial statement, had admitted
that capital in Ireland was diminishing and that distress
prevailed, to which General Dunne replied that there
was only one thing increasing in Ireland, and that was
taxation. It was estimated that the customs, excise,
stamps, inland revenue, and income tax yielded about
;^7,ooo,ooo ; but he believed the actual taxation was
higher. He quoted from Lord Castlereagh, Sir Robert
Peel, Mr. Corry, Mr. James Fitzgerald, Mr, Farnell,
Mr. Wellesley Poole, who had all protested that Ireland
was not called upon to submit to an excessive amount
of taxation beyond what she was able to bear. The
consolidation of the Exchequers in 1817 was not an
equalization of taxation. Seeing that the taxation of
Ireland had been at various periods one-twelfth, one-
seventh, and one-tenth of the imperial taxation, and
that up to the present moment there had been no
re-adjustment, he charged the English Government
with a glaring infraction of the Treaty of Union. The
Irish had a right to a re-adjustment of their taxation.
l6 IRISH TROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
He hoped the House would take the matter into con-
sideration, in order to determine whether Ireland was
justly or unjustly taxed. They were bound by the
Act of Union to treat Ireland fairly, and that had never
yet been done. Some of the returns issued were plainly
and palpably false. What he wished was to have some
means by which to arrive at a proximate rate of fair
taxation and apportionment of the debt due by each
country. Was it not fair that a re-adjustment of debt
and proportion of taxation should even now, at the third
recurrence of the stipulated period, be made? Ireland
suffered from the immense pressure of taxation, and
that was one principal reason why the country was
exhausted of its capital. A great portion of the
taxation of Ireland was drawn out of the country and
spent in England. Little of the imperial revenue was
spent out of England, and expenditure there on dock-
yards, arsenals, and public works benefited the working
classes. The drain of taxation from Ireland was con-
tinual, and there was also the annual drain of the
incomes of absentees. He was certain that, as long as
the present system of taxation was pursued with regard
to Ireland, her condition would not materially improve.
He regretted to see the population of Ireland falling off,
and that many of her industrious sons were flying to
other countries. He concluded by apologizing to the
House that a soldier was not, perhaps, the best fitted
to deal with the question.
The Irish members who supported General Dunne in
this debate were Mr. Robert Longfield, Q.C., Conserva-
tive member for Mallow ; Mr. W. H. Gregory, Conserva-
tive Member for County Galway ; Mr. W. H. F. Cogan,
Liberal Member for Kildare ; the Right Hon. James
Whiteside, Conservative Member for Trinity College,
and afterwards Chief Justice of Ireland ; and Mr. John
Francis Maguire, the popular or Independent Opposition
GENERAL DUNNE REFUSED AN INQUIRY. 1 7
Member for Dungarvan. The demand for inquiry into
the taxation of the country was made and most strongly
supported by Conservative members.
Mr. Longfield said that a debt of gratitude was due
by everyone connected with Ireland to General Dunne,
who must have impressed the House with the fairness of
his views, and the sincerity with which he put them
forward. Test his figures in every possible way, they
established that there had been a decrease in the funded
property of Ireland, a decrease in her agricultural
produce, a decrease in live stock, and ultimately a
decrease in the population. From 1852 to the present
time the growth of taxation had been rapid and
uniform, and the country had drooped under the addi-
tional burden. Blame could not be laid upon the law
of landlord and tenant, the grand juries, or the Estab-
lished Church, for these had been in existence prior to
1852, and in spite of them the prosperity of Ireland was
progressive. The change must be sought in events sub-
sequent to 1852. Taxation alone had increased since
then. With the single exception of the assessed taxes,
the uttermost strain of fiscal imposition had been put
upon the weakness of Ireland. Taxation had been actu-
ally doubled in ten years. A few years ago there were
ninety-five distilleries in Ireland. Mr. Gladstone's sys-
tem of taxation had already reduced them to twenty-
five. The relative proportion of the taxation ought to
be adjusted according to the articles of the Union.
General Dunne had said that taxation had a great deal
to do with the decline of prosperity in Ireland, and the
remission of taxation might have a great deal to do
with a revival of prosperity.
Mr. Whiteside supported General Dunne. He did
not ask for inequality of taxation, but, considering the
admitted distress in Ireland, was it not reasonable to
inquire whether Ireland was able to bear, in her present
C
1 8 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
position, the amount of taxation imposed on her, and
then to inquire whether the taxation might not generally
be reduced as regards the whole empire. It would be
an important result of this motion if the representatives
of Ireland were obliged to look into the general taxa-
tion of the country, and seek for a common remedy by
the diminution of the common burden. He then ironi-
cally remarked that nothing was so fertilizing, nothing
so improving, as the increase of the burden of taxation.
It was no answer to the present request for an inquiry
to mention taxation not pressed upon Ireland. Taxa-
tion must be regulated according to the ability of the
country to bear it. It was unwise to oppress the energies
and exhaust the resources of a nation.
Mr. Gladstone, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer,
replied for the Government. He was glad that the
question had been brought seriously before the House.
He demurred to General Dunne's arguments. Whilst
there was distress in Ireland, it could not be ascribed to
taxation. There was no proof or presumption that
fiscal injustice was done to Ireland. He presumed that
General Dunne would not press for the appointment of
a select committee, which would excite hopes, but make
little progress with an inquiry involving so many details.
He did not deny there was distress in Ireland, but he
believed the interruption to her recent great and real
progress would soon disappear.
The statement of the intentions of the Government
was decisive, and the motion was negatived without a
division.
TJie Morning Post (London), in an article on the
debate, admitted that it was a melancholy fact that the
prosperity of Ireland, so far from increasing, had been
on the wane during the past three or four years. What-
ever might be the remedy for the present condition of
affairs in Ireland, it did not lie, as seemed to have been
GENERAL DUNNE REFUSED AN INQUIRY. IQ
suggested by General Dunne, in a revised system of
taxation in Ireland, or the expenditure therein of a
large amount of the public revenues.
The Times, having taken forty-eight hours to consider,
praised the Irish Members for the tone, temper, and
moderation with which they had debated the motion.
Having made some remarks on the fertility of the
country, emigration, the Established Church, and lack
of prosperity, it proceeded : —
A more important issue was raised l)y Colonel Dunne when he
undertook to show that Ireland was taxed more heavily than
England and Scotland. It required some boldness to raise this
question, for it always has been accepted as a settled fact that
Ireland had, in the adjustment of this imperial taxation, been
placed in a position of advantage to which uo part of an empire
has a right while it is permitted to enjoy absolute political equality.
. . But tlie facts now stand confessed that, even of the
taxes she does pay, Ireland pays very much less than England
per man ; that she has many exemptions to which she has no
ri«^ht, for they are exemptions from taxation on luxuries and
property, which are alike capable of paying taxes in poor as in
rich countries ; and, further, that a larger proportion of public
money is spent in Ireland than is spent in England or Scotland,
having regard to the money raised in each country, and to the
respective populations. This demonstration is complete ; it has
been made in the face of the world, and has been found un-
answerable. We hope that this part of the question is set at
rest for ever.
The Times in the role of a prophet on Ireland was
more ludicrous than ever Mother Shipton had been.
So far from the question being set at rest for ever, a
movement had already commenced in Ireland which
forced the taxation question so rapidly to the front that,
despite the great civil war in the United States, the
French war in Mexico, and the cotton famine in
Lancashire, it largely engrossed the attention of Par-
liament during the two succeeding years.
20 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
CHAPTER VI.
A.D. 1863.
JOHN BLAKE DILLON.
The protest which the Irish Conservative Members
were making against over-taxation was to become
general in Ireland, and receive all the impetus which an
aroused public opinion can give it, owing to the action
of a great popular leader. After the amnesty of the
Young Ireland chiefs, John Blake Dillon returned from
exile in America to Dublin. For some time he con-
fined himself to his practice at the Bar, but later on
entered the Municipal Corporation of Dublin as Coun-
cillor for the Wood Quay Ward. Duffy, in Young
Irelcmd, says of him, that all his studies and projects
had direct relation to the people. Codes, tenures, and
social theories were his familiar reading. He saw with
burning impatience the wrongs inflicted on the indus-
trious poor. He desired a national existence primarily
to get rid of social degradation and suffering. The
Times said of him that, though he held extreme views
on Irish politics, he was respected by all parties as
an honourable, upright, truthful, and earnest man, and
that everyone who knew him felt that he acted from
conviction and a sincere love of his country. The
practical bent of his genius, and his intense yearnings
for the economic prosperity of Ireland, naturally
attracted him to the over-taxation question, which he
determined to raise in the Municipal Council. Accord-
ingly, he had a special meeting of that body summoned
on the 2 1 St April, 1863. To a full chamber, in an
earnest, passionate speech, replete with arguments and
facts, he laid bare the financial wrongs perpetrated on
Ireland since the Union. He read the extracts from
JOHN BLAKE DILLON. 21
The Times quoted in Chapter III, and inveighed
against their coarseness and calumny. The financial
problem of the moment could be solved by the answers
to two questions. First, Was Ireland now charged with
a just and fair proportion of the expenditure of the
empire, and no more? Second, To what extent were
Irish taxes expended in Ireland, and how far might they
be regarded as a tribute raised in this country to be
expended elsewhere ? It seemed to him that one of
the worst features of the case was that, whilst expen-
diture in Ireland remained stationary, her burdens
increased with marvellous rapidity. The taxation of
Ireland had been enormously increased, whilst the
increase of home expenditure was comparatively insig-
nificant. He alluded to the overwhelming evidences of
Irish decay visible on all sides; and, in conclusion, urged
that the time was favourable for redress, as the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, having a large surplus, could
afford to be just. He submitted that the abolition of
the income tax in Ireland would not be more than a due
compensation for the injustice it had sustained. In the
debate which followed ten members of the Council joined.
Party feeling ran high when allusion was made to other
questions of the hour, but ultimately Mr. Dillon's motion
for an inquiry into the public accounts of Great Britain
and Ireland was carried unanimously. The notable
protest which the Corporation were about to make was
almost entirely Mr. Dillon's work. The lucid and con-
vincing case which he presented united on this occasion
members of a Council divided on many burning party
social and religious questions. With foresight and wis-
dom, he selected the Council Hall of Dublin as the best
vantage-point available from which to give the widest
publication to his conclusions and belief on over-taxa-
tion. He clearly realized the economic evils of which it
was the root, and desired the union of all Irishmen to
22 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
end them. On the ist June, 1863, he moved in the
Municipal Council that it be a recommendation of that
Council that all Irishmen should combine in some well-
devised effort to put an end to a system of spoliation
which was rapidly converting this fair and fruitful and
once populous country into a desert. The Report on
Public Expenditure ultimately drawn up is a model of
accurate research, argument, and deduction. It was
entirely his inspiration and work, and entitles him not
alone to the gratitude of his countrymen, but also to a
foremost place amongst political economists. There is
a remarkable coincidence between some of its conclu-
sions and the findings of the Royal Commission of 1894.
Finally, it supplied Irishmen with ample materials on
which to base an unanswerable case for redress.
CHAPTER VII.
A.D. 1863.
THE CORPORATION OF DUBLIN ON THE PUBLIC
ACCOUNTS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
At a meeting of the Municipal Council of Dublin, held
on Tuesday, 21st April, 1863, Alderman Atkinson, /oai^u
tenens, in the chair, it was moved by Councillor Dillon,
and seconded by Alderman John Reynolds, and carried
unanimously : —
That a special committee be ai)23ointed to inquire aud report
to the Council as to the state of the public accounts between
Ireland and Great Britain.
On the motion of Councillor Dillon, seconded by Coun-
cillor Draper, the following members were appointed to
form the Committee : — The Lord Mayor, Alderman J.
DUBLIN CORrORATION ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS. 23
Reynolds, Alderman Martin, Councillors Knox, Gray,
Martin, Draper, M'Swiney, Byrne, Sullivan, and Dillon.
The Committee elected Councillor John Blake Dillon
chairman. The Report contains the following : —
"Your Committee deemed they would most efifectually
carry out the views of the Council by inviting the
co-operation of gentlemen whose names had been pro-
minently before the public in connection with the
subject of international finance. With that view they
communicated with Mr. Staunton, the Collector-General
of Dublin, and with Mr. Fisher of Waterford, each of
whom had laboured with laudable energy to diffuse
information on the subject. Both these gentlemen
promptly responded to the invitation of )-our Com-
mittee, and have given evidence. Your Committee,
understanding that Mr. Delahuntx' of Waterford held
views adverse to those of Mr. Fisher and Mr. Staunton,
and being desirous that the Council should, as far as
possible, be made acquainted with all that could be said
on either side of this important question, invited Mr,
Delahunty also to communicate his views. He kindly
consented to afford the Committee the benefit of his
information." These gentlemen were examined by the
Committee, and their evidence is printed as an Appendix
to the Report.
The Committee proposed for inquiry the following
six questions, the comprehensiveness and exhaustive
character of which cannot be too highly commended : —
(i) Was the financial arrangement embodied in the
7th Article of the Act of Union just towards Ireland ?
(2) Assuming that arrangement to be just, were its
terms fulfilled or violated by the Act 56 George III,
which consolidated the two Exchequers ?
(3) Is the actual taxation of Ireland excessive or
otherwise, as compared with the taxation of Great
Britain and other countries, and with its own resources,
24 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
and having regard to the past financial transactions
between Great Britain and Ireland ?
(4) To what extent are the taxes raised in Ireland
expended in Ireland?
(5) How has Ireland (as compared with Great Britain)
been treated by the Imperial Legislature in the remission
and imposition of taxes ?
The Committee made a minute and careful examina-
tion of all the points raised in the questions, which is
fully set out in the Report, and answered them as
follows : —
The first : — in the negative.
The second : — That the financial arrangement of the
Union, unjust though it was towards Ireland, was
violated to Ireland's detriment by the Act which con-
solidated the two Exchequers in 18 17.
The third : — That the present taxation of Ireland is
excessive, as compared with that of Great Britain and
other countries, and greater than the past transactions
of Great Britain and Ireland, or a due regard to the
extent of its present resources, would warrant.
The fourth : — That, of the entire revenue raised in
Ireland, the portion annually expended in England or
elsewhere out of Ireland amounts to about ^4,000,000.
The fifth: — That at the close of the war of 18 16 the
first important reduction of taxation took place, and we
find in that year a repeal of taxes to the amount of
^17,196,324, the benefit of which Ireland shared to the
extent of ;^i 63, 155, being less than one per cent.
(Return, 1843, No. 573.) From the period last mentioned
to the year 1842, inclusive, the Return just referred
to shows a total reduction of taxes amounting to
£47,^66,664, which was apportioned between the two
countries as follows : —
Taxes repealed in Great Britain, i^45, 549,68 3
Do. in Ireland, ... 2,416,981
DUBLIN CORPORATION ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS. 25
In more recent years the imposition, in quick suc-
cession, of the income tax, of increased stamp duties, of
increased spirit duties, has helped to swell the annual
remittances to England, and consequently to aggravate
the depression of our industry and the distress of our
people.
The Report proceeds : —
" In entering upon some of the discussions contained
in this Report, your Committee have felt they might
be open to the observation that these questions no
longer possessed any present interest — that they belong
to a past generation, and, having been closed by lapse
of time, cannot now be re-opened. Your Committee,
however, venture to hope that a more accurate know-
ledge of the financial transactions of the past generation
may have the effect of preventing future financial
injustice, and of silencing an assertion by which every
application for aid in effecting public improvements,
emanating from Ireland, is met in the House of
Commons and by the English press — the assertion
that Ireland has always been, and still is, an expense
and a burden to Great Britain. If it were more gene-
rally understood that Ireland has, in times past,
contributed more than her due share of the public
burdens, and that she is still paying more than a fair
proportion, and, finally, that of the large revenue which
is raised in Ireland not one-half is expended at home,
we should be less frequently accused of endeavouring to
relieve Irish distress and subsidizing Irish enterprise
with ' English money.' Ireland owes no debt to
Britain, and she has a right, which every country has, to
have her own money mainly spent within her own
borders. This, at least, is a question the present
practical importance of which will hardly be questioned.
And your Committee are of opinion that the Council
would establish a claim to the lasting gratitude of the
26 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
country if, inviting the co-operation of other representa-
tive bodies throughout Ireland, they would initiate a
combined effort to obtain some compensation for past
and present financial injustice by a diminution of
existing taxation, and by the expenditure on works of
public improvement in Ireland of a fair proportion
of those taxes which are now annually remitted to
England."
CHAPTER VIII.
A.D. 1862-63-64.
JOSEPH FISHER.
Joseph Fisher, born in Youghal in 18 16, was a
member of the Society of Friends. The Fishers were
well known and esteemed in Youghal, and always took
a foremost part in any work which had for its object the
amelioration of the social and material condition of
the people. He was educated at the Friends' School,
Newtown, Waterford ; was elected a guardian of the
poor for Youghal Union in 1848; and removed to
Waterford in 1854, when he became editor and pro-
prietor of TJie Waterford Mail. Discussion was general
in Ireland about 1862 as to the cause of the very
apparent decline and decay of the country, and
the Chamber of Commerce of Waterford requested
Mr. Fisher to prepare a case for counsel as to the legal
rights of the Irish people under the Treaty of Union.
The work thus commenced grew into his book, TJie Case
of Ireland, which, at the time it was published, was the
ablest impeachment of the fiscal policy pursued by
England towards Ireland since the Union. In a series
of letters addressed to Lord Carlisle, the Whig Viceroy
of Ireland, he stated his conviction that the system of
taxation imposed by the Whigs was the principal cause
JOSEPH FISHER. 2/
of the ruin of the country. His writings reveal him to
have been a man of great sympathy, zeal, ability,
and earnestness. He played no inconsiderable part in
directing the attention of the Irish people in 1863-64
to the question of taxation.
On the i6th March, 1864, Mr. J. B. Dillon, in address-
ing the Corporation of Dublin, said of him : —
Mr. Fisher has given us, in his Case of Ireland, a book which,
without vouching the accuracy of all its conclusions, I am not
afraid to characterize as a work exhibiting great ability and great
research, and which, emanating from a Conservative and a
Protestant, by its tone of manly patriotism recalls the days of
Molyneux and Swift.
From the office of T/ie Waterford Mail, on 13th
January, 1863, he issued a letter to the people of
Ireland on the excessive taxation of the country.
Mr. Fisher expressed the following views : —
The capital of Ireland decreased from 1859 to 1862
by over eight millions — that is, by one-tenth of the
entire capital. The excessive and most unfair taxation
which had been placed upon the country must be
reckoned the most striking cause of this decrease.
The drain of Irish capital was in defiance of the
principles which guided the statesmen who framed
the Act of Union. Those principles were based on a
proposition so simple and so rational, that the meanest
mind could appreciate its import — namely, that the two
islands. Great Britain and Ireland, should contribute to
the imperial revenue in proportion to their respective
means. In 1862 the annual income of Ireland assessed
for income tax was ^22,746,344, and the income of the
United Kingdom ^^301, 345,867. The Irish income was
one-fourteenth of the whole.
Mr. Gladstone came into office in 1853, and during
his career loaded Ireland with taxes. He imposed
the property and income tax upon lands and income ;
28 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
he burdened trade and commerce with stamp duties ;
he loaded property with legacy duties ; he increased
the excise by nearly doubling the spirit duties. During
the five years ending 1862, the amount which the pub-
lished returns admitted was raised by taxes in Ireland
was ^33,583,332, that is, £i4,2g4,oiy over what Sir
Robert Peel received in the five years from 1841 to
1846. And instead of this being in the proportion of
one to fourteen, as it ought to have been, it was as one
to ten. This was a very great injustice.
The relative amounts which had been raised by
taxation in Great Britain and Ireland, and the great
increase which had taken place in the amount which
Ireland had paid, deserved attention. Not only had
Ireland been very heavily taxed within the past seven
years, but also the proportion which her contribu-
tion bore to that of the empire had been seriously
increased.
The Irish revenue returns stated our payments in the
five years ending 1862 had been ^^33, 500,000, but they
did not include the receipts of the Irish Post Ofifice,
which had been over ;^ 1,000,000 ; they did not include
the receipts from Crown Lands in Ireland, which had
been nearly ^^"2 50,000 ; nor did they include customs
paid in England on goods consumed in Ireland. If
these items had been added, it would have made the
Irish payments to the revenue in the five years ending
1862 at least ^^36,000,000, and those of Great Britain
^^303,000,000 ; or, in other words, the annual average
payments from Great Britain had been i^6o,6oo,ooo,
and from Ireland ;^7,200,ooo.
The equitable mode of adjustment would be that
each country should contribute in proportion to its
income ; nay, that very principle was affirmed in the
income tax itself, for the income of ;^200 a year paid
the same poundage as that of i^20,OOQ. But when this
JOSEPH FISHER. 29
principle was applied to Irish taxation, the grievous
wrong inflicted on Ireland was evident, and was made
plain in the following simple manner : — The annual
income of Great Britain was ^^"278, 599,525, and her
annual average taxation ^60,600,000, or at the rate
of four shillings and sixpence in the pound. The annual
income of Ireland was £22,746,^^4, and her average
annual taxation ;^7,200,ooo, or at the rate of six shillings
and sixpence in the pound ; so that Ireland was paying
to the imperial revenue at the rate of two shillings in
the pound on her income more than Great Britain.
This was not, and could not be, just to Ireland.
Ireland had, during the five years ending 1862, con-
tributed to the Imperial Exchequer ^2,000,000 a year
more than her fair proportion ; and that was one of the
causes, if not the principal cause, of her depression.
Money raised as poor rate was spent in the country ;
the amount raised as income tax was spent out of the
country. Everyone who paid income tax had so much
less to spend at home ; and therefore the tradesman
and artisan suffered, trade and commerce languished,
and the country showed retrogression.
It was for the people of Ireland to say if they thought
the great increase of taxation was right, just, and proper.
He appealed to the Irish people on January, 1863: —
Now for the remedy. If you think with me that Ireland is too
heavily taxed, that .she is drained of that capital which ought to
be used to improve her system of tillage, to extend her trade and
commerce, and to employ her people, you have legal and constitu-
tional means of explaining your grievances and of asking for
redress ; and the present juncture is particularly favourable. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer has a large balance to his credit, as
the revenue of last year exceeded the previous one. The property
and income tax was, last session, continued only for a year, and the
whole financial system of the empire must undergo revision. If
you are satisfied with your condition — if you believe that Ireland
is prosperous — if you consider she is fairly taxed, you have merely
to sit still and do nothing. Should you decide on this course,
30 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
and if any of your representatives try and obtain "justice for
Ireland," the finance minister will quietly put him down by
sayin", "The people of Ireland are satisfied with their condition."
But if you feel with me that you have been unfairly taxed, and
that our c«jmmon country has been injured thereby, you are bound
by the claims of that country, you are urged by dictates of justice
and right, to adopt every legal and constitutional way of expressing
your opinions. I believe, in so doing, you will have the sympathy
and support of a large section of the English people, who have,
I am confident, no wish to save their own pockets at your expense ;
and who, if you represent your case to them, will not only admit
the injury which has been done to you, but will aid you in
obtaining redress. You will have the support of the large landed
proprietors and great commercial interests of your own country,
who, lest the imputation of selfishness should have been imputed
to them, have heretofore refrained from stating the grievances
they suffered. It rests with you, the Irish people, to make a
vigorous and combined effort to raise your country from the slough
into which she has fallen. If you are calm, resolute, temperate,
and combined — if you will resort to those means which are legal
and constitutional of expressing your grievances— you may (and I
fervently hope you will) succeed in bringing back to Ireland the
sunshine of prosperity, and see her flourish under a more equitable
system of taxation. If my feeble eflbrts but evoke in your bosoms
the desire to improve the condition of Ireland, and to remove the
incubus which presses upon her, I shall feel — what must to any of
her sons be the highest reward— that I have tried at least to
promote the prosperity of my native country.
On the 23rd January, 1863, he again addressed the
people of Ireland : —
Were Ireland in a really prosperous condition— were her crops
increasing, her land more productive, her flocks and herds becom-
ing more numerous— were her people employed and contented—
were pauperism and crime declining— were her exports in excess
of her imports, and her investments gradually becoming greater— I
should most gladly rejoice in her prosperity ; and in this happy
state of aftairs, I Avould not be disposed to press too far the ques-
tion of unfair taxation, which has so greatly injured us ; but when
I see that Ireland is depressed, partly from the ungenial seasons
with which it has pleased God to visit us, and partly from the
effects of what seems to me to be vicious legislation ; and when I
JOSEPH FISHER. 3I
find that our taxation exceeds by more than fifty per cent, the
proportion which either in equity, by a comparison of our means,
or by contract under that treaty which called the Parliament of
the United Kingdom into existence, I cannot refrain from lifting
my voice and using Tuy pen (feeble though their utterance may be)
to obtain for Ireland that relief from taxation to which she is, by
equity and by contract alike, entitled.
In Letter XV of TJic Case of Irelmid, published in
London, September, 1863, he wrote : —
The question of taxation is neither a party nor a sectarian ques-
tion ; it is, in the broadest significance of the word, an Irish
question. I have endeavoured to treat it in the same spirit, and
having laid the case of Ireland before you, the Irish people, it
remains for you to act thereupon in a way which will secure to you
and your children the rights to which by justice, as well as by
agi'eement and contract, you are entitled. You should jjress your
case upon the attention of Parliament — you should call upon your
representatives to demand the adjustment of the public burdens
in such a way as to relieve Ireland from undue taxation. You
should make the question essentially a national one, and pursue it
with vigour and determination until you accomplish your object,
and you will find your reward in the advancement of your native
land. If I can aid the Irish people in any well-directed effort to
bring back to our country that pi-osperity which she has once
enjoyed, and to which she is so fully entitled, I shall feel that I
am only discharging the duty which every Irishman owes to his
native land.
The conckiding letter (XVI), September, 1863, con-
tained : —
The Debt with which Ireland has been charged is illegal.
The Taxation with which Ireland has been loaded is illegal.
The BuKDEXs which have been laid on her shoulders are illegal.
I therefore urge my fellow-countrymen of all classes, creeds,
and professions, to unite in endeavouring to get rid of the exces-
.sive taxation which has been placed upon Ireland. I call them to
union on behalf of their country. They have right and justice,
truth and equity, on their side ; and if they will calmly, peace-
fully, and unitedly stand for the cause of Ireland, whose case I lay
before the whole world, they will find that those eternal principles
32 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
of justice, which are immutable, must jjrevail — that an end must
come to the wrong and injustice that has been inflicted upon this
country.
No more strenuous jDrotest was made against the
over-taxation of Ireland than that of the patriot Quaker
of Youghal, no more zealous worker aroused public
opinion on the question, no more tactful leader sought
the union of the people for the attainment of practical
results, no more critical witness grappled as successfully
with the Treasury officials and their bewildering arrays
of statistics before the Select Committee of 1864.
Thirty-three years have passed, and the eternal, im-
mutable principles of justice, which he believed would
soon prevail, still fail to regulate the financial affairs of
Ireland. Be it not said that he has written in vain.
His appeal of 1863 was re-echoed from a hundred Irish
platforms in 1896-97.
CHAPTERIX.
A.D. 1863-64.
AGITATION AND ORGANIZATION.
At a banquet in New Ross on 7th October, 1863, the
toast of
The re-adjustment of the taxation of Ireland
was given and spoken to.
At a special meeting of the Dublin Corporation on
Tuesday, the 27th October, 1863, the report of the
Select Committee on the Public Accounts of Great
Britain and Ireland was unanimously adopted, and it
was ordered that 500 copies be printed and circulated
amongst Members of Parliament and Irish public bodies.
AGITATION AND ORGANIZATION. 33
The Nation thus commented on the unanimous adoption
of the report : —
Bufc the work they have done is of immense value. They have
placed on record an authentic statement of an undeniable griev-
ance, which presses on all Irishmen, without distinction of class or
creed, and from which the whole country should demand to be
relieved. We hope the other corporations of Ireland will take up
the question, and not only these, but also the boards of guardians,
the town commissioners, the chambers of commerce, and, in short,
societies of all sorts. Ample ground for a strong national move-
ment of all creeds and parties against the flagrant injustice of our
taxation is furnished by the admirable report which now has the
sanction and authorization, by unanimous vote, of the Dublin
Corporation.
The review of Mr. Fisher's book which appeared in
The Cork Examiner was written by O'Neill Daunt, and
called forth a letter from Mr. Robert Longfield, Q.C.,
M.P., in October, 1863, in which he stated that the taxa-
tion of Ireland was recently duplicated, and that the
country was groaning with the grievous oppression of
excessive taxation, and he thus replied to the appeal for
united action on this question : —
I quite agree with you in thinking how very desirable it would
be if we could eff'ect anything like a concurrence of action, or even
of opinion, on this subject in our 105 membei's ; but I do not forget
that on Colonel Dunne's motion this year connected with the taxa-
tion of Ireland there were scarcely forty members in the House.
O'Neill Daunt, in reply, said : —
The subject of Colonel Dunne's motion is far too important, and
the wrong inflicted on Ireland is too susceptible of proof, to be
suftered to pass into oblivion.
On Monday, the 14th December, 1863, a public meet-
ing, convened by requisition
For the purpose of considering what steps should be taken to
procure a reduction in the taxation of Ireland,
D
34 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
was held in Waterford. The chair was taken by the
Mayor, and there were also present the High Sheriff,
the President of the Chamber of Commerce, and many
leading citizens. The following resolutions were unani-
mously adopted : —
(1) That the increase which has taken place in the taxation of
Ireland is highly injurious to her interests ; that she is now taxed
more heavily in proportion to her income than Great Britain ; and
that this disproportional increase in her taxation is contrary to the
Act under which Ireland became an integral portion of the United
Kingdom.
(2) That the excess of taxation absorbs a large portion of the
property of Ireland, and thereby jjrevents the increase of the funds
which would afford employment to the ijeojile, and it has thereby
increased emigration from Ireland, and thus lessened the material
strength of the empire.
(3) That the amount unfairly taxed from this country, to a
return of which we are indisputably entitled, has been demon-
strated to exceed two millions per annum, which would more than
suffice for the payment of the grand jury rates, amounting to
£1,088,828 ; the poor rates, amounting to £578,789 ; the medical
charities, £100,858 ; and the total abolition of the income tax,
amounting to £740,500 per annum, to the relief of which it should
be applied.
Finally, the meeting appointed a committee to carry
out its object, form an organization, and prepare a
petition for presentation to Parliament.
The committee thus formed in Waterford went
steadily to work, and in quick succession held public
meetings and formed branch organizations — at Water-
ford, with the Mayor as chairman ; at Limerick, with
the Mayor as chairman ; at Kilkenny, with the Mayor
as chairman ; at Clonmel, with the Mayor as chairman ;
at Carrick-on-Suir, with a Deputy-Lieutenant as chair-
man ; at New Ross, with the Chairman of Town Com-
missioners as chairman ; at Dundalk, with the President
of the Chamber of Commerce as chairman. The follow-
ing address was circulated throughout Ireland : —
AGITATION AND ORGANIZATION. 35
THE KEDUCTION OF TAXATION.
Inasmuch as the taxation of Ireland for imperial objects exceeds
the amount which this country should pay, either upon a com-
parison of her income with that of the United Kingdom, or
according to the conditions of the Act of Union between Great
Britain and Ireland, and inasmuch as this excessive taxation
absorbs those funds which would otherwise aflbrd employment to
the Irish people, and help to prevent emigration;
It is desirable that an association should be formed, which should
use every lawful means to benefit Ireland by obtaining a just reduc-
tion in her taxation, or the application of the surplus over her
rightful proportion to the diminution of local burdens ; and that
all those who contribute to the funds shall constitute the members
of this association, which shall be called
The Association for the Rechidion of Taxation in Ireland ;
And the executive pro tern, consist of the presidents and secre-
taries of the branch associations which have been or may be formed ;
and that the National Bank be treasurers thereto.
On the 8th February, 1864, the text of a petition to
Parliament, which set forth the over-taxation of Ireland
and claimed redress, was read at a meeting of the
Dublin Corporation. Resolutions were adopted at
many public boards, of which that of the Limerick
Corporation and of the Thurles Board of Guardians,
respectively, are here set out : —
Adopted at a meeting of the Corporation of Limerick
on 30th January, 1864 —
That the best thanks of this Council and of every Irishman are
due to the Dublin Corporation for the Report on the State of the
Public Accounts between Great Britain and Ireland received this
day, and we hereby pledge ourselves to co-operate with them in
obtaining from the Imperial Parliament such remedial measures in
financial matters as will relieve Ireland from the embarrassments
under which she labours.
Adopted at a meeting of the Guardians in Februar}-,
1864—
That our marked thanks, as Guardians of the Poor in the Union of
Thurles, County Tipperary, are eminently due and are hereby given
36 IRISH TROTEST AC.AINST OVER-TAXATION.
to the Municipal Council of Dublin, and in a special manner to the
honest, patriotic, and intelligent chairnian of its Special Committee
on the State of the Public Accounts between Great Britain and
Ireland, John Blake Dillon, Esq., for the clear exposure contained
in their rejDortof the wrong inflicted on Ireland by unjust taxation,
and that our clerk transmit to them a copy of this resolution, with
the assurance of our very earnest desire to co-operate with them in
demanding redress.
Such was the state of feeling evoked in Ireland in the
winter of 1863-64. Public opinion was beginning to
recognise that the decay of the country was in great
part really attributable to excessive taxation. When
General Dunne again, on the 26th February, 1864,
asked for an inquiry, he was accorded by the House
of Commons quite a different hearing to that which
had been previously given to him.
•CHAPTER X.
A.D. 1 864.
THE STATISTICAL AND SOCIAL INQUIRV SOCIETV OF
IRELAND.
PROTEST BY LORD MORRIS.
On Wednesday, the i6th March, 1864, Mr. Joseph J.
Murphy read a paper before the Statistical and Social
Inquiry Society of Ireland on the " Debt and Taxation
of Ireland." It was practically a reply to the " Report
of the Special Committee of the Municipal Council ot
Dublin on the State of the Public Accounts between
Ireland and Great Britain." The figures in the Report
were taken as correct, but the inferences drawn by the
Committee were challenged. The accuracy of the state-
ment that Ireland paid as much as it was able to pay
previous to 1853 was denied. Lowering of taxes on
PROTEST BY LORD MORRIS. 37
commodities in England, their increase in Ireland, the
expenditure of a large proportion of imperial revenue
in England, the greater benefits conferred on England
by reductions and remissions of taxation, were all jauntily
made little of as of no consequence. The finding that
the taxation of Ireland is excessive as compared with
that of England was described as " a most extraordinary
statement." It was admitted that it would be possible to
impose nominally equal taxes in such a way as to be
really very unequal ; but no effort was made to prac-
tically apply this salutary rule to the circumstances of
Ireland. In conclusion, he avowed his belief that
Ireland needed something very different from untaxed
incomes for the rich, and cheap whisky for the poor,
but wisely abstained from mentioning his panacea.
The following quotation will briefly show his fallacious
arguments and begging of the question : —
The proof advanced by the Committee for the astouuding asser-
tion that we are more heavily taxed by our lighter rates of taxation,
is merely that our total taxation is larger than that of Great Britain
in proportion to the wealth of the two countries as indicated by
the income tax returns. In other words, it is a grievance that the
indirect taxes are more productive, in proportion to the income tax,
in Ireland than in Great Britain. In no case would this be a
grievance unless the taxation were imposed so as to be really
unequal. But the high relative productiveness of the indirect
taxation of Ireland is in part due to the propensity of our people
to prefer spirits, which are heavily taxed, to beer, which is mode-
rately taxed ; and the low relative productiveness of the income
tax is partly due to the lower average of income in Ireland, which
causes fewer of them to come within reach of the tax ; partly to
the small size of farms in Ireland, which exempts nearly all farmers
fr6m the tax ; and partly to a favourable difference in the law,
which charges the tax on real property and on agricultural tenants
by a very moderate official valuation, instead of the actual letting
value.
In the discussion which followed the reading of the
paper, Mr. Shannon referred to the declining state of
33 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
the country as a reason why Ireland should be exempt
from undue pressure of taxation, and expressed the
hope that the present movement, which had been so
well conducted by Mr. Dillon, would produce beneficial
results for the country.
Alderman Dillon begged to make a few observations.
He had not come prepared to make an elaborate reply.
Anything that he said should not be taken as the best
that could be advanced in answer to that gentleman. As
regards the payment of the two-seventeenths, Ireland's
quota fixed by the Treaty of Union, Mr. Murphy urged
that Ireland was unable to pay it, and did not pay it.
Mr. Dillon said that either answer was a good one. If
they did not pay it, it was reasonable to suppose that
they were unable to pay it ; and if they were unable
to pay it, it was clear that they should not be called
upon to do so. If it were stipulated that Ireland should
pay two-seventeenths, and she did not pay it, what
other conclusion would he come to than that her
revenue broke down under the weight ? He concluded
by expressing his emphatic dissent from the proposi-
tion that Ireland should be considered as if she were
an English county.
A most important speech was delivered by Mr.
Michael Morris, Q.C. (now a Law Lord, Lord Morris of
Spiddal). He said that his friend Alderman Dillon,
with his practical patriotism and great ability, had
applied himself to the question of taxation, and had
disposed of a good many of the arguments of the
lecturer as applicable to the taxation of the country at
the time of the Union, and up to the year i8i6. He
did not intend to refer to either of those periods, because
he thought than an inquiry referring to those times was
rather of an antiquarian character. The questions which
affected them most were, how the taxes stood at present,
what they were in the year 1864, and where they were
PROTEST BV LORD MORRIS. 39
spent. Sydney Smith said that no man was certain of
anything in his hfe but of his death and the taxes he
had to pay. Applying this saying to this country, he
might say that death and taxes were almost synony-
mous terms. He should object most strongly to the
lecturer's argument that taxes should be put upon
what he called pernicious luxuries. The lecturer seemed
to have some extraordinary dislike to whisky, and,
according to him, it was no matter if five millions of
taxes were raised on the commodity, because he con-
sidered it pernicious. He was one of those who
considered that taxes were raised for the purpose of
revenue, and not for the purpose of putting down by an
indirect mode any species of industry. He believed
that up to the year 1852 Ireland paid her full share of
the taxes of the empire ; yet they had this startling
fact that, from 1852 to the present time, new taxes
were put upon this country to an amount which the
learned lecturer admitted was ^1,750,000. The taxes
of this country since 1852 had increased 33 per cent.,
without an increase of i per cent, in England. He was
old enough to recollect that even in 1852 there were
wise persons who then complained that Ireland was
excessively taxed ; but even assuming that in 1852 the
taxation was reasonable— the taxation since that time
having increased 33 per cent. — was there any particular
cause for such an increase ? Sir Robert Peel, in conse-
quence of the repeal of the Corn Laws, reduced the
taxation of this country. Now, what took place since
1847, assuming that up to 1852 Ireland was paying her
fair share, that she should be burdened with two millions
more of taxation ? To use the words of Sydney Smith,
he thought a man should be trepanned before he could
be convinced of the justice of it. It was said that
Scotland and Yorkshire existed, although no taxes were
spent there ; but was it any argument to say that,
40 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
because one man was strong enough to bear an injury,
every other man should bear it ? It was new to him
to hear that taxes were not spent in Yorkshire and
Scotland ; and it certainly was an extraordinary notion
that taxes could be taken out of a country and spent
elsewhere without injury to that country. If he met
anyone foolish enough to make such an assertion, he
would not think it worth his while to answer him. The
report of the Committee of the Corporation showed
that a large amount of the taxes of the country was
spent out of it. Lord Byron said that the Union
between this country and England was like the union
between the whale and the thing it swallowed. Ireland
participated in the payment of taxes, but not in their
expenditure. The question which he would suggest to
the practical patriots was, Should not the taxation of
this country be spent at home ? The Irish people
should not be treated as milch cows. There was every
disposition shown to take those taxes off and spend
them elsewhere, so much so that they were now nearly
dry cows. He hoped every prudent man, as he con-
sidered he was himself, would join his friend Alderman
Dillon in his truly patriotic proposal with reference to
taxation, and that that proposal would be ventilated far
and near. He believed it would take a man better able
to deal with figures than the learned lecturer was to
prove to this country the contrary of what had been
shown by Alderman Dillon.
AN INQUIRY GRANTED TO GEN. DUNNE. 4I
CHAPTER XI.
A.D. 1864.
MR. GLADSTONE GRANTS AN INQUIRY TO
GENERAL DUNNE.
The discussions at public boards and at public meet-
ings in Ireland in 1863-64, the overwhelming Irish case
made out in the publications of Mr. Dillon and Mr.
Fisher, and the aroused state of Conservative and
popular public opinion in Ireland, had effect on the
House of Commons; for when, on the 26th February,
1864, General Dunne again brought forward the motion
rejected in 1863, he was listened to by a full and atten-
tive House. He said that a great change had come over
public opinion in Ireland. He never knew the attention
of her people to be so thoroughly and earnestly directed
to the consideration of her material interests — hitherto
much neglected — and especially to the amount of taxa-
tion imposed on her as compared with the rest of the
kingdom. In Dublin a committee appointed to investi-
gate the matter had taken evidence from witnesses on
both sides, and had made an extremely clever report
very much in accordance with his views. Similar in-
quiries had also been conducted in Waterford, Clonmel,
Limerick, and other towns. He hoped that was the
commencement of an agitation in which every Irishman
would take part, and which would bring the question
fully and fairly before the legislature.
The great difficulty was the paucity of information.
The returns were often contradictory, and no clear
accounts seemed to have been kept of the different
taxes in Ireland. The object of taxation in Ireland was
to get from the country as much as could be squeezed
42 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
out of her. He rested his case on two grounds — first,
the Treaty of Union ; and second, the relative abihty of
each country to bear taxation. On both grounds Ire-
land was entitled to more favourable treatment than she
received. It was not his opinion that the emigration of
the people ought not to form a subject for regret. He
could not help thinking that it must be a loss to any
country to have its population flying from its shores.
Having quoted ample statistics to show the diminished
capacity of the country to sustain heavy burdens, he
turned to the question of taxation, and he found that
in the last decennial period it had increased from
^48,560,000 to ;^52, 893,000. A nobleman who had
spent a great deal of money in Ireland, and who had
lately returned from the West, assured him that until
the present year he had never despaired of the prospects
of the country. He defied any Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer to add a farthing to the taxation of Ireland.
The people were flying from the country, and no more
taxes could be paid. Two returns had been moved for
— one showing the proportion of taxation to population,
and the other the proportion of taxation to property.
The test of population he considered to be by no means
a fair one, if the plan were adopted of dividing the in-
come by the number of inhabitants. This system was
manifestly greatly to the advantage of the rich country
over the poor one ; because in the rich country wealth was
much more largely diffused, and in the poor country the
rate of valuation was much lower. Ireland had become
impoverished by a load of taxation. He asked the
House, was there anything unreasonable in a recon-
sideration of the Treaty of Union for the purpose of
ascertaining whether the promises held out by that
Treaty had been fulfilled, and whether, considering the
relative wealth of the two countries, the method of taxa-
tion was just and equal. If he had proved that every
. AN INQUIRY GRANTED TO GEN. DUNNE. 43
species of wealth and industry had been lessened in
Ireland, he thought the House could not refuse an in-
quiry to ascertain whether the present taxation of
Ireland was not greater than she could bear. The Irish
people had turned their attention to this subject with
the same ardour that they frequently displayed on far
inferior questions. He moved
For a select committee to consider the taxation of Ireland, and
how far it is in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of
Union, or just in reference to the resources of the country.
Mr. Hennessy seconded the motion.
Sir Edward Grogan stated that the conviction was
strong and general in Ireland that the country was
grossly over-taxed, and that it was entitled to relief
Lord Dunkellin concurred that Ireland suffered from
over-taxation. Mr. Longfield considered that there
was injury caused by unjust imposition and unwise re-
mission of taxes since 1852.
Mr. Gladstone, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer,
said, that although the Government would not of them-
selves have proposed the appointment of such a com-
mittee, yet, under the circumstances, finding in the
House of Commons a decided desire on the part of Irish
members for the appointment of a committee to inquire
into Irish taxation, they thought it would not be wise to
oppose such an inquiry. He admitted that Ireland bore
her full proportion of all taxes incident on the labouring
population. He admitted and deplored the distress in
Ireland, whether it was due to taxation, emigration, or
deficient harvests. He hoped that it would soon draw
to a close, and that the future career of Ireland would
be one of happiness and prosperity.
Opinion in Ireland considered that, in whatever sense
the Committee on Parliamentary Taxation might ulti-
mately report. General Dunne was well entitled to the
44 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
gratitude of his countrymen for the persistent, and so
far successful, efforts which he had made to effect a set-
tlement of the much vexed and most intricate question,
the fiscal relations between Great Britain and Ireland.
When first he entered upon the controversy, there was
everything to discourage, and little to sustain, his appli-
cation for redress ; but his personal popularity did much.
He spoke for an hour and three-quarters, and was lis-
tened to with patience and attention. Some Irish
opinion considered that the true financial case should
be one of indemnity, reparation, and restitution to
Ireland.
Nothing could possibly exceed the misrepresentation
and acerbity with which The Times commented on the
debate : —
In dealing with the Irish debate of Friday, not only is it neces-
sary to apply a grain of salt, but when that is done the grain of
salt is all that remains. We are disposed to be most charitable
{sic) to the Irish members, but then our charity must be that which
covers a multitude of sins, and therefore every word they said.
When it comes to review the recent movement in
Ireland, it is flagrantly untruthful : —
Honourable mention was made of the committees which have
been sitting in the less busy and prosperous Irish ports and towns
for three years, with nothing to do but make out a case of financial
depression ; but it was confessed that their reports were contra-
dictory, on a wrong basis, and good for nothing.
No such confession was made. It was simply invented
by The Times. After the lapse of more than forty years,
these reports are worthy of careful study and examina-
tion for their accurate survey of history, their correct
application of the principles of political economy, and
for their correct deductions.
The fierce attack it made on General Dunne, the dis-
graceful travesty of truth and fact which appeared in its
GENERAT. DUNNE'S COMMITTEE. 45
pages, the sharp contrast between its tone and that of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, boded ill for the final
result of the inquiry so auspiciously commenced with
the unanimous approval of the House of Commons,
CHAPTER XII.
A.D. 1864-65.
GENERAL DUNNE'S COMMITTEE,
"The busiest bit of Irish politics just now is Colonel Dunne's
Committee to inquire into Irish taxation." — O^Neill Dannfs
Diary.
On the 8th March, 1864, the Select Committee granted
to General Dunne was appointed. It originally con-
sisted of fourteen members, but on the 9th March one
was added, making fifteen. Eight represented Irish
constituencies, six English, and one Scotch. In nation-
ality, seven were Irish, seven English, and one Scotch.
In politics, eight belonged to the Conservative party, and
seven to the Liberal. It held twenty-six sittings.
Most exhaustive evidence, both oral and written, was
tendered. An account of its members, who they were,
and the witnesses they examined, will help towards
understanding the character of the report finally
adopted.
Sir Edward Grogan, Bart., was Conservative Member
for the City of Dublin. He was educated at Trinity
College, Dublin, where he took honours. He was
called to the Bar in 1840, and entered Parliament
in 1 84 1. He was a firm supporter of the P^stablished
Church. He zaas absent fj-oiii the division in wJiich
General Dunne's Draft Report was rejected.
46 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
Sir Frederick William Heygate, Bart., was Conserva-
tive Member for the County of Londonderry. He
was an Englishman, born in Kent in 1822. He was
educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge.
" Though opposed to violent and unnecessary change,
he would lend his aid to reform all proved abuses."
He voted for General Dunnes Draft Report.
Robert Longfield, Q.C., was the Liberal-Conservative
Member for Mallow. He graduated with honours at
Trinity College, Dublin, was called to the Irish Bar in
1834, admitted a Queen's Counsel in 1852, and first
elected to Parliament in 1859. He voted for General
Dunne s Draft Report.
Mr. John Pope Hennessy, afterwards Knight of
Malta and K.C.M.G., was Conservative Member for
the King's County. Born in Cork in 1834, he studied
at the Queen's College, Cork, entered Parliament in
1859, and was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple
in 1 86 1. He was appointed Governor of Labuan in
1867, of the West African Settlements in 1872, of the
Bahamas in 1873, of the Windward Islands in 1875, of
Hong Kong in 1877, and of the Mauritius in 1882.
Here he quarrelled with Mr. Clifford Lloyd, and retired
on full pension. He ivas absent from the division in
which General Dunnes Draft Report ivas rejected.
Sir George Conway Colthurst, Bart, was added when
Mr. Monsell was discharged. He was Liberal Member
for Kinsale, having entered Parliament in 1863. He
voted against General Dunne's Draft Report.
Lord John Thomas Browne was Liberal Member for
Mayo. He was the third son of the second Marquis
of Sligo. Born in Westport in 1824, he served in the
Royal Navy as midshipman and lieutenant from 1837
to 1850. He voted for Genei'al Dunne s Draft Report.
The O'Conor Don (Charles Owen) was Liberal Mem-
ber for Roscommon. Born in Dublin in 1838, and
GENERAL DUNNE's COMMITTEE. 47
educated at Bath, he represented Roscommon in
ParHament from i860 to 1880. Was High Sheriff of
Sligo in 1863, and is now (1897) Her Majesty's Lieu-
tenant and Gustos Rotulorum for Roscommon. He is
a Senator of the Royal University of Ireland, a Com-
missioner of Intermediate Education, and a Privy
Councillor. He was a member of the Royal Com-
mission on the Financial Relations of Great Britain
and Ireland in 1894-5-6, and was elected chairman of
that Commission on the death of Mr. Childers. He
voted for General Dimne's Draft Report.
Mr. Banks Stanhope was added when Lord Stanley
was discharged. He was Conservative Member for
■North Lincolnshire. He voted against General Dimnes
Draft Report.
Sir Stafford Northcote, afterwards Lord Iddesleigh,
was Conservative Member for Stamford. He was born
in London in 18 18, educated at Eton and Balliol Col-
lege, Oxford. Called to the Bar in 1847, he succeeded
his father as eighth baronet in 185 1. He was in the
House of Commons from 1855 to 18S5, and was raised
to the peerage in the latter year. He was President of
the Board of Trade, Secretary of State for India, Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, and First Lord of the Treasury.
He died in 1887. He published in 1862 Tzventy Years
of Financial Policy, at page 214 of which he records that
Mr. Gladstone " ultimately raised the spirit duties to
ten shillings a gallon, or very nearh' four times the
duty paid on Irish spirits before 1853." He makes no
remark on the justice or equity of thus quadrupling Irish
taxation. He voted against General Dnnncs Draft
Report, and his report ivas then adopted instead.
Mr. Edward Howes was Conservative Member for
East Norfolk. Born in 181 3, he was educated at
St. Paul's School and Trinity College, Cambridge,
of which he became a Fellow. First elected in 1859.
He voted against General Dunne's Draft Report.
48 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION,
Mr. Alexander Struthers Finlay was Liberal Member
for Argyll. Born in 1806, he was educated at Harrow.
First returned to Parliament in 1857. Published in
1864 Our Monetary System. He was absent from the
division in luhich General Dunne's Draft Report zvas
rejected.
Sir Robert Peel was Liberal Member for Tamworth.
Born in 1822, he was the eldest son of the second
baronet of that name, and was educated at Harrow.
He filled important diplomatic positions from 1844 to
1856. Was Chief Secretary for Ireland from July, 1861,
to November, 1865. He voted against General Dunnes
Draft Report.
Mr. Robert Lowe was Liberal Member for Colne.
Born in i8ir, he was educated at Winchester College
and University College, Oxford, He went to Australia
in 1842, and soon rose to distinction as a lawyer and
politician. Having amassed a considerable fortune, he
returned to England in 1850, and entered Parliament in
1852 as Member for Kidderminster, He was leader-
writer on The Times, President of the Board of
Trade from 1855 to 1858, Vice-President of the Com-
mittee of the Council on Education from 1859 to 1864,
Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1868 to 1873, when
he resigned. He was raised to the peerage as Viscount
Sherbrooke in 1880. He was frequently in conflict with
his own party, and proposed a tax of one halfpenny on
each box of lucifer matches in 1871. He voted against
General Dunne's Draft Report.
Mr. Thomson Hankey was Liberal Member for Peter-
borough. Born in London in 1805, he was a West
India merchant and a Director of the Bank of England.
He voted against General Dunnes Draft Report.
The witnesses examined in 1864 were — Sir Colman
Michael O'Loghlen, Bart, Q.C., of the Irish Bar. He
was born in 18 19, and was educated at Trinity College.
GENERAL DUNNE'S COMMITTEE. 49
He was in Parliament from 1863 to 1877. His evidence
was on the Act of Union and the Act for amalgama-
tion of the two Exchequers. He stated as his opinion
that in the financial treatment of Ireland both Acts
were broken.
Mr. William George Anderson was principal Clerk in
the Finance Branch of the Treasury.
Mr. Henry William Chisholm was Chief Clerk of the
Exchequer.
Mr. John Blake Dillon gave evidence on 6th and loth
May, 1864. He ably, thoroughly, and broadly presented
the Irish case.
Mr. Joseph Fisher gave evidence on 13th May, 3rd,
7th, and loth June. He most ably presented the Irish
case, examined the Treasury accounts since the Union,
and frequently came into sharp conflict with Mr.
Chisholm.
Mr. William Donnelly, C.B., head of the department
for making out agricultural statistics in Ireland, was
examined on loth June.
The Right Hon. Joseph Napier, Lord Chancellor of
Ireland, 1858-59, gave evidence on 14th June, principally
on the seventh article of the Act of Union. His
evidence was "miserable." — O'Neill Daunt.
Mr. Nicholas Philpot Leader, M.P., Conservative
Member for Cork, gave evidence on 14th June, princi-
pally on the state of County Cork.
Mr. Alexander Lambert, County Treasurer for Mayo,
gave evidence on 17th June, principally on the distress
in the West of Ireland.
The Rev. Dr. O'Regan, P.P., Kanturk, Co. Cork, gave
evidence on 17th June, principally on the marked
declension in the condition of the peasantry, and that
the depressed condition of the country was attributable
to increased taxation.
Mr. John Francis Maguire, M.P., gave evidence on
E
So IRISH PROTEST ACxAINST OVER-TAXATION.
2 1st June, principally on the decay of foreign trade and
shipping at Cork, and on the attenuated expenditure
of revenue in Ireland.
Mr. Edward Senior, Poor Law Commissioner for
Ireland, gave evidence on 24th June that Ireland had
unquestionably gone back since 1842.
Mr. John Stephen Dwyer, of Limerick, gave evidence
on the 28th June on the rental and valuation of Ireland,
the great decline in its prosperity, and that every
industry and every class were oppressed by excessive
taxation.
Colonel Knox Gore, Lieutenant of County Sligo,
gave evidence on ist July that the people of Ireland, of
all classes, were not in as sound a state as at the time
of the Union ; and that the drain of income from the
country left it in such a state that it was not able to
bear taxation which in England would be considered
fair; and that the taxation of Ireland with reference to
the resources of the country was most inequitable.
The Earl of Leitrim, examined on the ist July, gave
evidence that Ireland had deteriorated in a manner
most awful to contemplate ; that the principle on which
England treated Ireland was beggar her neighbour ;
that the distress in Ireland was directly traceable to
taxation ; and that the raising of taxes in Ireland to
spend them out of Ireland must be the ruin of every-
body carrying on business in Ireland ; and it was an
act of positive dishonesty to carry on public works in
England with Irish money.
Sir Percy Nugent, a resident Irish landlord, gave
evidence on ist July that parts of Ireland were now
infinitely worse off than they were before the famine ;
that he himself sensibly felt the increased taxes.
The papers handed to the Committee in 1864 were
principally by Mr. Fisher and Mr. Chisholm, and were
exhaustive tables of statistics to support the Irish and
English cases respectively.
GENERAL DUNNE'S COMMITTEE. 5 1
The witnesses examined in 1865 were —
The Marquis of Clanricarde, who gave evidence on
arterial drainage on 17th March.
Mr. Henry Hinckman Barnes, SoHcitor to the Public
Works Loan Commission, London, gave evidence on
the loans made to Ireland.
Mr. Alexander Stewart, Solicitor to the Board of
Works in Ireland, gave similar evidence.
Colonel M'Kerlie, Chairman of the Board of Works,
gave evidence on the 3rd April on loans and arterial
drainage.
Mr. William Andrews gave evidence on 27th April on
Irish fisheries.
Mr. James Redmond Barry, Assistant Commissioner
of Fisheries in Ireland, gave evidence on 27th April
that, generally speaking, the fisheries of Ireland were
declining.
In a debate on the state of Ireland, on 24th February,
1865, in the House of Commons, on a motion by Mr.
John Pope Hennessy, the subjects of Irish taxation and
General Dunne's Committee were introduced by Mr. W.
E. Gladstone, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The Irish claim to have the taxation levied in Ireland
spent in Ireland he denounced as a principle fraught
with every kind of mischief to Ireland. He laid down
the general doctrine
That to attempt to regulate the public expenditure on any other
principle than that which proceeds upon the plan of taking from
the subject the smallest amount sufficient for our purposes, and
spending the money so obtained in the manner which will cause it
to <ro farthest in the attainment of the public objects in view, would
be to proceed on an erroneous system.
He then pointed out a number of Irish exemptions,
alluded to the draft reports of the Committee on Irish
Taxation, and, though the labours of the committee had
not concluded, expressed his preference for that of Sir
Stafford Northcote.
52 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
General Dunne replied. He said that he had asserted,
first, that for sixty years no fair account had been kept
between the two countries, and as a consequence that
Ireland had been charged with what she was not charge-
able with. By the evidence of the Government officials
he had proved that proposition. Second, he had asserted
that the accounts of the taxation were not in accordance
with the Act of Union. He had proved it. Third, he
had asserted that Ireland was not taxed according to her
ability to pay taxation. He had proved it. The Irish
members did not shrink from having this question dis-
cussed. He denied that Ireland was a province of
England. Ireland was a kingdom bound by close ties
to England, and no man was more anxious than he
that those ties should be drawn as close as possible.
He agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that
the object of taxation ought to be to draw as little as
possible from the pockets of the people, and that it was
the duty of the Government to administer it with the
utmost economy. If that test were applied to Ireland, it
failed.
The Government drained Ireland, not of water, but of
people and money. He understood the very natural
preference of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for Sir
Stafford Norhcote's report rather than for those of the
Irish members.
The Marquis of Salisbury (then Lord Robert Cecil)
intervened in the debate, and urged the Government to
contribute toward the restoration of prosperity and
happiness in Ireland.
Mr. Lowe admitted that the Irish argument; that the
taxation of Ireland was similar to the taxation of
England, that Ireland was poor and England was rich,
and, therefore, that Ireland should not bear the same
taxation as England ; would be a very good argument
if taxation were adjusted on a cast-iron principle.
RErORT OF GEN. DUNNES COMMITTEE. 53
Taxation was regulated according to ability. Ireland
would be richer if she paid no taxes ; but it appeared
impossible to sa\^ that it was the incidence of taxation
which ground down the Irish people.
Mr. Gladstone's public statement of his preference for
Sir Stafford Northcote's draft report, at a time when the
decision of the committee was, so to speak, sub j'udicc,
was most unwarrantable and unjustifiable. It un-
doubtedly helped to secure its adoption, and thereby
perpetuated the burden of over-taxation on Ireland.
CHAPTER XIII.
A.D. 1865.
REPORT OF GENERAL DUNNE'S COMMITTEE.
An ample case was laid before the Committee, even
more than sufficient on which to base clear and definite
conclusions. General Dunne was chairman, and pre-
sided over the meetings with tact and ability. Rarely
has the spectacle been witnessed of an Irish soldier
directing the deliberations of a committee of expert
English financiers, two of whom were afterwards to
attain to front rank as Chancellors of the Exchequer.
General Dunne was unwearied in his exertions, was in
the chair at every meeting, and took a leading part in
the examination of witnesses. The Irish case was well
presented. Mr. Dillon and Mr. Fisher ably challenged
the manner in which the financial provisions of the
Treaty of Union had been carried out, and overwhelm-
ing evidence of the decay of the country and its
diminished ability to bear taxation was given by them
and other witnesses. Towards the close of the session
of 1864 three draft reports were submitted, one by
54 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
General Dunne, the second by the O'Conor Don, and
the third by Sir Stafford Northcote. No final decision
was arrived at in 1 864, on account of the late period of
the session when they were presented. On the re-
appointment of the Committee in 1865 an additional
reference was added, which necessitated the taking of
more evidence, and the recasting of the draft reports —
To inquire into the system upon which advances are made and
repayments required by the Imperial Government for drainage and
other works of public utility in Ireland.
The particular nature of this reference would seem to
show that the Treasury officials were not satisfied that
the inquiry was tending in England's favour. On the
1 8th May, when the Committee met to consider their
final report, they first, by a majority of ten to one,
rejected the following resolutions proposed by Mr.
Longfield : —
1st. — That from the length of time which has elapsed since the
Union of Great Britain and Ireland, and the complexity of the
accounts relative to the taxation of the two countries, it is impos-
sible for the Committee now to say, with any degree of certainty,
whether the present taxation of Ireland is, or is not, in accordance
with the Articles of Union.
2nd. — That the taxation of Ireland has been greatly increased
since 1852, while the taxation of Great Britain has been propor-
tionally diminished, and the present taxation of Ireland is oppres-
sive and unjust with reference to the resources of the country.
3rd. — That there should be afforded by the legislature, from
imperial resoiirces, greater facilities than now exist for useful and
remunerative expenditure in Ireland to develop her resources.
They then proceeded to consider General Dunne's
draft report. The gallant soldier and incorruptible
politician had come to clear, precise conclusions on
the issues submitted, as the following paragraphs will
show : —
(20) Your Committee, therefore, cannot entertain a doubt that
during this period [1817-1853] the taxation of Ireland was not in
REPORT OF GEN. DUNNE'S COIMMITTEE. 55
accordance with the lU'oviHioii.s of the Treaty of Union, nor jufst in
reference to the resources of the country, and so far replies to the
inquiries referred to it.
(34) Without further pursuing these details, your Committee
refers to your consideration tlie evidence given of the decline in
Ireland of almost all kinds of commercial and manufacturing pro-
I^erty, and submits that it clearly shows that Ireland has become
less able to bear excessive taxation.
(00) The amount which is chargeable f(n' income tax in England
£276,119,814, and in Ireland it is £23,014,094. Thus it shows a
poundage rate of 4s. 0|d. in England, and of 6s. 3^d. in Ireland,
for imperial taxation on the valuations given ]jy the Government
returns ; and in our local taxation of 2s. 32d. in the pound for
England, and 5s. 7jd. in the pound for Ireland. With such evi-
dence before it, your Committee can come to no other conclusion
than that the present taxation of Ireland is oppressive and unjust
with reference to the resources of the country.
The evidence received by the Committee more than
amply justified these conckisions, and the Report of the
Royal Commission of 1894 shows that they were mode-
rate and just. When the draft report was submitted to
the Committee, there voted fojir for, and seven against.
The following table shows how the voting went : —
Ayes :
Sir Fkedekick Heygate {an Englishman representing
an Irish cunstituencii.)
Mr. Longfield
(Irish).
Lord John Browne
(Irish).
The O'Conor Don
(Irish).
JNoes :
Sir Stafford Northcote ...
... (English).
Mr. Howes
... (English).
Sir Robert Peel ...
... (English).
Mr. Lowe
... (English).
Mr. Hankey
... (English).
Mr. Banks Stanhope
... (English).
Sir Georgk Colthurst
(Irish).
Absent from the Division :
Mr. Hennessv
(Irish).
Sir Edward Grogan
(Irish).
Mr. Finlay
(Srotrh).
56 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
The Irish Parh'amentary representatives were a
majority of the Committee, and if they had done their
duty to their country, it is not too much to say that,
Ireland might have been spared much of the financial
oppression of the past thirty years. All the English
members were present, and voted against General
Dunne's report. Immediately after the division was
taken, he left the chair, and took no further part in the
Committee's subsequent proceedings. All his energy
and devotion, all his years of labour and unwearied
application, were in vain. The cup of success was
dashed from his lips at the final moment owing to the
defection of one Irish member and the abstention of
two. True to the last, he refused to sign the majority
report.
Sir Stafford Northcote's report was then adopted,
with some amendments. Its general nature may be
gathered from the following paragraphs : —
It is not sui'prising that the large increase which your Committee
have noticed in the genei'al taxation between 1852 and 1862, and
agam in the local taxation since 1845, should have given rise to
complaint. Nor is it surprising that louder complaints should
have been made in Ireland than by other parts of the United
Kingdom. The pressure of taxation will be felt most by the
weakest parts of the community ; and as the average M^ealth of the
Irish taxpayers is less than the average wealth of the English
taxpayers, the ability of Ireland to bear heavy taxation is evidently
less than the ability of England. Mr. Senior, whose evidence
upon the position of Ireland will be found very suggestive, remarks
that the taxation of England is both the heaviest and lightest of
Europe, the heaviest as regards the amount raised, the lightest
as regards the ability to bear that amount ; but that in the case of
Ireland it is heavy both as regards the amount and as regards the
ability of the contributor ; and he adds that England is the most
lightly taxed, and Ireland the most heavily taxed, country in
Europe, though both are nominally liable to equal taxation.
If Ireland were to be relieved of two or three millions of
taxation on the ground of her poverty, and those two or three
millions had to be made u]j by an addition to the taxation of
REPORT OF GEN. DUNNE'S COMMITTEE. 57
England, the burdens of the poorer districts of Great Britain would
actually be increased for the purpose of diminishing the burdens,
not only of the poorest, but also of the richest, districts of
Ireland,
It admitted that there had been departures from
the terms of the Treaty of Union, strictly interpreted
— -that the recent levelHng up of taxation in Ireland
had caused complaint. It indicated tests of the com-
parative ability of the two countries, but did not push
the investigation to its logical conclusion. It admitted
that Ireland had recently suffered, but denied that it
was owing to the pressure of taxation. Expenditure
on such works as naval arsenals must be regarded from
a national point of view. Mr. Lowe strongly insisted
on the principle of " individual taxation." Nevertheless,
the reason advanced by the Committee for declining
to recommend a reduction of Irish burdens was that
the burdens of " the poorer districts of Great Britain "
would be thereby increased.
O'Neill Daunt, in a letter of the 3rd June, 1865,
addressed to the Secretary of the National League,
epitomized the majority Report : —
Its omission of cardinal facts ; its fallacious reasoning on facts
isolated from other.s which are essential to their due consideration ;
the candour with which our leading statements are confessed to be
true ; the absence of all notion that we are entitled to any redress
.... Colonel Dunne and his allies are entitled to our hearty
thanks for what they have eflected.
Sir Edward Hamilton described the report as
" somewhat impotent." Irish opinion characterized it
as a palpable evasion of the issues submitted, and
as clearly showing that in money matters England was
unwilling to treat Ireland fairly and honourably. No
action was taken on it, and it remains to this day a
dead letter.
58 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
CHAPTER XIV.
A.D. 1865.
THE DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE."
The Dublin University Magazine for April, 1865, had
the following remarks on Irish taxation : —
" Close thinkers will not forget that important remis-
sions of indirect taxation have been made from time to
time since modern financial principles were established
by the introduction of Free Trade, which have been
arranged with especial regard to the development of
particular manufactures and branches of commerce that
were purely English interests. By those remissions
Ireland received injury, being visited as a consequence
with an augmented income tax and an increase of
indirect taxes, as in the case of the excessive duty on
spirits, resulting in the shutting up of distilleries and
the annihilation of the employment of large numbers of
workmen."
It then quoted with approval the following views of
Lord Dunkellin : —
He maintained that the imposition of the income tax on Ireland
was unfair towards that country. When the late Sir Robert Peel
imposed the tax on England in 1842, he did not extend it to
Ireland, but he subjected her to two other additional burdens
which he regarded as an equivalent for that exemption. He laid
on a duty of Is. per gallon on spirits manufactured in Ireland, and
he also raised her stamp duties to the same level as the English
stamp duties. Well, how did matters stand with Ireland in 18()5 .'
Why, when Sir R. Peel placed the extra shilling on Irish spirits,
the tax was augmented to only 3s. 8d. per gallon, and since then
the Irish spirit duty has been doubled. The increased stamp duty
also remained ; and, in addition to that, they had been burdened
with the income tax itself, which they were forced to pay before
they got their income. That was the state of things under which
they had the grim satisfaction of l^eing congratulated Ijy the
THE O'CONOR DON ON THE EVIDENCE. 59
Chancellor of the Exchequer on their immunity from taxation.
The tendency of their financial policy had been to destroy rather
than to stimulate the industry of Ireland.
The article then continued : — " What is complained
of is, that in the arrangement of taxation English
interests alone are regarded, and that the effect is to
throw an undue proportion of the public burdens upon
Ireland. Suppose it be asked that the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, in framing his next budget, should con-
sider what remissions or re-adjustment of taxation he
can devise which would have the effect of extending
any important department of Irish enterprise, will
Mr. Lowe give him support ? If he desire to act with
perfect fairness, he ought ; but, instead of being guided
by equity, he is found declaring that ' it is not the
incidence of taxation that has ground down the Irish
people.' Has it been for their benefit that special taxes
have crushed important industries ? "
CHAPTER XV.
A.D. 1865.
THE O'CONOK DON ON THE EVIDENCE RECEIVED BY
THE IRISH TAXATION COM>.HTTEE.
The discussions in the English and Irish press on the
report of General Dunne's Committee, the controversies
on matters of fact and principle which it evoked, and
the contradictory opinions to which it gave rise, caused
the O'Conor Don to publish an examination of the
evidence. He treated it calmly and dispassionately,
made no effort to strain after effect, weighed the argu-
ments advanced on both sides with judicial impartiality,
and adduced temperate and logical conclusions. Never-
theless, the studied moderation of his examination
6o IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
made his conclusions not only persuasively convincing,
but also a most formidable indictment of English fiscal
policy towards Ireland. He pointed out that similar
taxation imposed on peoples differing in habits, wants,
commerce, and manufactures could not produce similar
results ; that Irish opinion was convinced that the
Act of Union placed an unjust burden on Ireland, and
that its provisions had been fraudulently carried out.
He enunciated the doctrine that —
Equality of taxation iu no way depends on similarity in the
actual taxes ;
and that since 1853, whilst the balance of remission
was in favour of England, the balance on the side of
taxes imposed was on the side of Ireland. An exami-
nation of taxation statistics for the period from 1852 to
1862 disclosed results to which must be attributed the
general outcry in Ireland of late years respecting taxa-
tion, A discussion was idle which urged a difference
between the taxes on a country and those on the
individuals who lived in it. Indirect taxes, levied on
wants and not on means, unquestionably pressed more
heavily on some classes of individuals than on others.
He replied to the individual taxation argument by
stating that, theorize as we might, there was more than
a geographical distinction between Great Britain and
Ireland — the difference between them was as great as
between nations at different extremities of the globe.
He concluded with the statement that, if contribution in
proportion to resources was in force, Ireland would
have a strong claim for a remission of taxation. His
summarized conclusions are here set out iti extenso : —
1st. — That in the Act of Union the jji-inciple of payments
towards the general expenditure pi'oportionate to the resources of
the two countries was clearly recognised.
2nd. — That it was so recognised and laid down at the basis of
THE O'CONOR DON ON THE EVIDENCE. 6l
the Union, because at that time the liabilities of the two countries
in the way of national debt were not considered to be respectively
proportionate to their resources, the debt of Ireland being com-
paratively lower than the debt of Great Britain.
3rd. — That the contributions of each towards the general expen-
diture were settled in the proportion of two for Ireland and fifteen
for Great Britain, this being the estimate then made of the relative
resources of the two countries.
4tii. — That at the time of the Union a reduction in taxation and a
diminution in debt, through the instrumentality of the sinking fund,
were apparently confidently expected, and the heavy charges con-
sequent on the great European war seem not to have been
anticijiated.
5t;h. — That these heavy charges were to a great extent instru-
mental in falsifying the expectations of the framers of the Union,
and that luider these Ireland completely broke down, not being
able to meet by revenue the amount of her proportion of contri-
l)ution, partly from the fact of her not reaping the same collateral
advantages from the war as Great Britain, and partly also because
the proportion was, perhaps, originally too great.
6th. — That during the continuance of the war the taxation of
Great Britain increased more than 100 percent., and her debt
nearly 70 per cent. ; whilst, with an almost similar increase in her
taxation, the debt of Ireland has been quadrupled, this undue
increase in her debt arising from the fact that she failed to raise by
revenue as great a proportion of her contribution as was raised by
Great Britain.
7th. — That in consequence of this failure she lost the advantage
which in 1800 she possessed, and at the end of the war was subject
to a larger proportionate debt than Great Britain.
8th. — That this result having taken place, the exchequers were
amalgamated, and all distinctions arising out of the proportionate
contribution of revenue were done away with, one general financial
system for the United Kingdom being established, although under
it exact similarity in taxes was not adopted.
9th. — That since the amalgamation of the exchequers taxes have
been repealed to the amount of £77,008,829, and taxes imposed to
the amount of £40,710,802, leaving a balance of remissions of
£37,257,907 ; but of this Ijalance Ireland enjoyed only i-30 per
cent., and Great Britain 98-04 per cent.
lOth. — That through these remissions the trade, commerce, and
prosperity of the United Kingdom have largely advanced ; but that
62 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
in those benefits Ireland has not participated to the same extent as
Great Britain, probably in consequence of her comparative want of
trade and manufactures.
11th. — That during the last ten years a large increase in the
taxation of the kingdom had taken place ; but the increase had
been proportionately greater in Ireland than in Great Britain,
the increase in Ireland having been since 1855, 52 per cent., and in
Great Britain only 17 per cent.
12th.— That during the same period the increase in the wealth
of the two countries, as estimated by the returns to the income tax,
was 10 per cent, for Ireland, and 21 per cent, for Great Britain.
13th.— That thus, whilst there has been an absolute increase in
the taxation of Great Britain, there has been a comparative de-
crease, the advance in her resources being at a more rapid rate
than the advance in her taxation ; but that in Ireland there has
been both a comparative and absolute increase in taxation, the ad-
vance in wealth being there in a lower ratio than the advance in
taxation.
14th.— That these contrary results from a similar system of
taxation seem chiefly to be due to the extraordinary elasticity of
British resources, and to the great development which her trade
receives on the reduction of taxes aflecting it— an elasticity and
development not enjoyed in Ireland.
15th.— That at the present day Ireland is subject to no tax from
which Great Britain is free ; but Great Britain is subject to certain
imposts, making a revenue of about £4,000,000, from which Ire-
land is exempt ; but that it does not appear that, were these im-
posts extended to Ireland, they would yield a considerable amount
of revenue.
10th.— That under this system of almost identical taxation
Ireland contributes about 10 per cent, of the general revenue,
whilst her wealth, as tested by the income tax returns and other
data, does not appear to be more than 7 per cent.
17th.— That of the entire revenue of Great Britain, 59-9 per
cent, is contril)uted by taxes on articles of general consumption,
which in the main are taxes on population, and 21-8 per cent, by
direct taxes, or taxes on wealth ; but of the revenue of Ireland,
75 per cent, is contributed by taxes on articles of consumption, and
only 14 per cent, by taxes on wealth.
18th.— That, with the exception of the tax on spirits, there does
not appear to be any tax pressing peculiarly on any branch of Irish
industry, and the comparative greater heaviness of taxation in that
THE O'COXOR DON ON THE EMDENCE. 6^
country appears to be due to the comparative poverty of its
inhabitants.
19th. — That the local taxation of Ireland, as far as such can be
ascertained, bears a still greater proportion to that of Great
Britain than the imperial taxation of the one country does to that
of the other, the proportions of local taxation being 11 '7 per cent,
to 88"3 per cent., whilst imperial taxation, as above stated, is
C(mtributed in the ])roportion of 10 per cent, to 90 per cent.
20th. — That as regards grants in aid of local taxation, including
in them the grant for the Irish Constabulary, the proportion
received by Ireland is considerable, but is now lower than before
the repeal of the Corn Laws, many grants having been since made
to Great Britain in consideration of the supposed injury done to
the landed interest through the ;ibolition of protection.
21st. — That on this ground, also, the payment of the entire
expense of the Irish Constabulary was placed on the Consolidated
Fund, notwithstanding which the proportion now received by
Ireland is smaller than before, although it cannot be said that she
derived more benefit than Great Britain from the establishment of
Free Trade.
22nd. — That at various times sums have been set aside for
grants or advances for works of public utility, and, as a rule, it
does not ajipear that any loss to the State has arisen from this
practice, although at some exceptional periods, such as that of the
Irish famine, sums were advanced the repayment of which had to
be remitted.
23rd. — That under the Land Improvement Acts £1,804,467 has
been advanced in Ireland, none of which has been remitted ; that
of this £1,460,178, principal and interest, has been repaid, and the
rest is in regular coui'se of repayment.
24th. — Finally, that in all these grants and advances Ireland
seems to have fairly participated ; and that, according to the
reports of the Commissioners of Public Works, she seems to have
been greatly served by them.
64 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
CHAPTER XV I.
A.D. 1866-67-68.
SIR JOSEPH N. M'KENNA.
In an address to his constituents at Youghal, on the
2ist September, 1866, Sir Joseph N. M'Kenna made the
following statement concerning the over-taxation of
Ireland : —
The policy of the Whig Government in respect to Ireland has
been one of constant and continuous exhaustion, of exorbitant and
increasino- taxation, of taxation augmented, not in proportion to
the increased requirements of the State, but augmented in the
ratio of the obvious and proven deterioration of the sources of com-
mercial and agricultural profit in Ireland I tell you
that to this increased taxation— unaccompanied by any fair distribu-
tion of the imperial outlay in this country— is wholly due the
fact that the battle for life is keener in Ireland, as a chronic condi-
tion than in any other civilized country on the face of the earth.
It is in a great degree because of the heartless taxation that the
people are fleeing away.
This clear and emphatic declaration preceded the
perennial Parliamentary protests against the over-
taxation of Ireland which Sir Joseph M'Kenna was
soon to commence. He was most methodical in the
manner in which he attacked the existing financial
arrangements. He first moved for and obtained Parlia-
mentary returns of revenue, population, resources, and
expenditure. He then subjected these to the keenest
and most subtle analysis yet made of the Financial
Relations of Great Britain and Ireland. For twenty
years he raised the question with such apparent fruit-
lessness as would have deterred a less convinced and
determined enthusiast, and during that long period
his voice seemed that of one crying in the Parliamentary
SIR JOSEPH N. M'KENNA. 65
wilderness. Unchecked by defeat and undismayed by
indifference, he returned again and again to the subject.
In reah'ty he was making headway. In those debates
in which he tried, session after session, to impress his
views on the Government of the day, he evolved canons
of international finance, the application of which to
the circumstances of Ireland made a case which neither
the public financiers nor the political economists of
England could answer, and which ultimately necessitated
exhaustive examination b)' the ablest experts whom it
was possible for the State to appoint. The cogency of his
reasoning, his lucid presentation of facts, and the dogged
perseverance with which he pursued his subject, places
him in the front rank of those who protested against the
over-taxation of Ireland. He was born in Dublin in
1 8 19, educated at Trinity College, and called to the Bar
in 1848. He unsuccessfully contested New Ross in 1859
and 1863, and Tralee in 1865. He represented Youghal
from 1865 to 1868, but was defeated at the General
Election of the latter year. Re-elected for Youghal in
1874, he sat in Parliament until 1892. He gave evidence
before the Royal Commission on the 6th December,
1894. He was a director of the National Bank of
Ireland, and his connection with that great institution in
1853, when the additional taxation was imposed, gave
him exceptional opportunities of ascertaining what the
real condition of Ireland was, and his impressions are
thus graphically recorded in TJie Case of Ireland Plainly
Stated : —
The financial legislation against Ireland which has led to the
frightful disparity which now exists was initiated by Mr.
Gladstone in 1853. I remember the first step in that fatal
new departure as if it were yesterday. I am, therefore, about to
treat of a course of financial policy of which I have been a
witness since its inception. . . . Society in Ireland, which
shortly after the famine had been disturbed by the revolutionary
fever of 1848, had weathered both storms, and was jiassing by
F
66 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
degrees into that condition of approximate solvency which in
frugal and thrifty populations is sometimes mistaken for prosperity.
The Irish people were not, however, prosperous in 1851, 1852,
or 1853. I passed those years amongst them in the various dis-
tricts and centres of their struggling agriculture and restricted
commerce. I was just as conversant with their actual state in
three of the four provinces as the doctor who issues his daily or
hourly bulletins is of his patient's condition. My bulletins in
those days were not unhopeful. That, however, is all I can say in
that direction. In 1853 I had to deal literally with thousands of
cases where the least extra strain on accruing resources would
have produced insolvency and ruin, and where nothing but the
honesty and industry of the farmers and traders could have pulled
them through. These cases were not exceptional ; they were the
majority.
I have devoted this chapter to impressing on the reader's mind
that in 1853 Ireland, still suffering from the terrible effects of the
famine of 1846-47 and the revolutionary fever of 1848, was Imrely
approaching convalescence, and still by no means a proper subject
for increased taxation.
On the 9th July, 1867, he formally raised the question
in Parliament by the following motion : —
That the financial policy pursued towards Ireland within the last
fourteen years has been seriously oppressive.
He said that he would treat the subject without party
spirit and without exaggeration. The remission of the
"Consolidated Annuities" in 1853 had been made the
excuse and plea for the greatest injury ever inflicted
by the Parliament of the United Kingdom on Ireland—
an injustice which was at the root of all the subsequent
discontent and disaffection — an injustice to which not
all the genius of Liberal statesmen, nor all the platitudes
of spurious political economy, could reconcile thought-
ful Irishmen. Taxation had been increased by ;^2,ooo,ooo
per annum, and what had followed had been natural
enough — namely, discontent, political disaffection, poli-
tical complications, smouldering rebellion. The new
taxes which had been imposed, and for which no
SIR JOSEPH N. M'KENNA. 6"]
compensating duties had been performed for the
country, had seriously impaired the condition of all
classes in Ireland. He reviewed \.\\e per capita taxation
in Ireland from 1841, and showed that it had been
enormously and disproportionately increased. He was
supported by General Dunne, who reiterated his con-
viction that the taxation of Ireland was wholly out of
proportion to her resources ; by Lord Dunkellin, who
hoped that the Government, when adjusting the financial
burdens of the next year, would consider whether there
were not grounds for the complaints made of the
injustice and inequality of taxation in Ireland ; by
Sir Frederick Heygate, who declared that no policy
could be worse than that of equal taxation for Ireland,
and that the subject of Irish taxation ought to be dealt
with independently of party politics ; by Mr. Synan,
who stated that the wealth of Ireland was one to nine-
teen compared with that of England, whilst taxation
was as one to nine ; by Mr. Bruen, who considered that
some small justice might be done to Ireland if taxes
were modified or reduced. Mr. Hunt, who, as Secre-
tary for the Treasury, represented the Government in
the debate, maintained that the increase of taxation of
which complaint had been made was really evidence
of increase of material prosperity. As regards the
increasing proportion of taxation to population, he
pointed out that it was the natural consequence of a
decrease of population caused by the emigration of the
poorer people, who contributed little to the revenue.
In withdrawing his motion. Sir Joseph M'Kenna said
that the taxation of Ireland anterior to the Union had
been one-fortieth of the entire taxation of the United
Kingdom, that it had been one-tive/fth in 1853, and was
then one-ninth.
On the loth, 12th, 13th, and i6th March, 1868, there
was a full-dress debate on the state of Ireland, in which
68 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
all the s^rcat Parliamentary spokesmen, from Mr. Glad-
stone and Mr. Disraeli down, took part. Religion,
education, landlord and tenant, were all considered ; but
it was reserved to Sir Joseph M'Kenna to point out
that much of what was wrong in Ireland was due to
taxation. It had a great deal to do with discontent.
Taxation was the rent paid for the use of the British
Constitution. That Constitution was a most valuable
article, but the rent the Irish people paid for the use of
it had been raised from ^4,400,000 in 1853 to ;^6,700,ooo
in 1865, owing to the legislation of a Liberal Govern-
ment bent on applying to Ireland what they called
equal and similar laws, the crotchet in their heads at the
time. The additional burden of ^2,300,000 then im-
posed upon Ireland amounted to far more than the
revenue of the Protestant Church twice over. The
increased pressure of taxation had much more to do
with Irish discontent than right honourable gentlemen
opposite imagined. Mr. Lowe said in the same
debate : —
I believe it is supposed in America in Fenian cii-cles tliat we tax
Ireland most unmercifully ; but the fact is rather that Ireland
taxes us.
CHAPTER XVII.
A.D. 1868 TO 1873.
MR. GLADSTONE AND MR. GOSCHEN ON ROYAL
COMMISSIONS.
Mr. LysteR O'Beirne, m the address issued by him to
the electors of Cashel in 1865, thus referred to taxation :
I equally reprobate the financial legislation of late years, which,
in defiance of solemn compacts, has taxed the poorest districts of
this country as heavily as the wealthiest districts of England.
ROYAL COMMISSIONS. 69
On the 1 6th July, 1868, he asked the Chief Secretary
for Ireland
Whether his atteutiou had been directed U> the iuetiuality uf
taxation between Great Britain and Ireland shown by Return
No. 345, printed by (jrder of the House on 22nd June last, by
which it ajijiears that the amount of revenue for each £100 of
assessed property and income tax paid by Great Britain in 1854
was £23 18s. lljd., while that paid by Ireland was £27 15s. lid.
By Great Britain in 1861, £21 9s. 5^d.
By Ireland in 1861, £29 2s. lid.
By Great Britain in 1866, £17 14s.
By Ireland in 1866, £29 10s. 7id.
And whether he proposes, during the recess, to consider this
inequality of taxation with a view to its being remedied ?
Mr. Sclater-Booth, in reply, said : —
The attention of Her Majesty's Government had been drawn to
the return lately moved for by the hon. member, and an inquiry
had been made, and was being continued, into the causes, which
appeared to show, on the face of a return the hon. member
referred to in his question, what was certainly not in accordance
with the common impression, that the taxation of Ireland was in a
higher ratio than that of England. One cause, probably, that
tended to that was that the basis of Schedule A in Ireland was
notoriously lower than the basis of Schedule A in England.
General Dunne and Sir Joseph M'Kenna lost their
seats at the General Election of 1868. Irish Church,
Irish Land, and Irish Education mainly engrossed the
attention of Parliament from 1868 to 1874, and the
question of Irish taxation retreated into the background,
until in 1873 the Home Government Association again
brought it to the front.
In a debate on the local taxation of England on 23rd
February, 1869, some very important views were ex-
pressed by Mr. Goschen and Mr. Gladstone on the
duties of Royal Commissions, of the bounds within
which their investigations ought to be confined, and on
the nature of things which did not properly come within
70 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
their sphere. Mr. Goschen, who was President of the
Poor Law Board, said : —
He had not yet said that the grievance complained of was not a
real and serious grievance ; but he maintained that, if such a
grievance existed, there was but one tribunal which could apply a
remedy, and that was the House of Commcnis itself. He did not
believe that the majority of the House would be prepared to refer a
question of policy of this kind to a Royal Commission. Royal
Commissioners were usually appointed to inquire into intricate
and complicated questions of fact.
If, therefore, the Government did not feel it to be compatible
with their duty to refer a question of such great moment to a
Royal Commission, he trusted that no one in the House, or in the
country, would see in that determination the slightest intention to
disregard the views which had been put forward, or to ignore the
importance of the subject itself. On the contrary, if the Govern-
ment desired to get rid of a troublesome question, and to put it
aside for two or three years, no proposal could be more welcome to
them than that of hanging ujJ the subject, as so many others had
been hung up, by agreeing to the motion for its reference to a
Royal Commission.
Mr. Gladstone said that Mr. Goschen's speech had
placed the House in possession of the views enter-
tained by the Government, and he continued : —
The right honourable gentleman pointed out that, as in the
view of all men, and as in the view of the honourable mover of the
motion himself, the two questions of imperial and local taxation
were too inextricably mixed up together, and that to devolve upon
a Commission, under such circumstances, the examination of the
advisability of a general re-adjustment of local taxation was,
in point of fact, to place in the hands of that Commission the
question of imperial taxation, and to give the Commission that
initiative which the House would not permit its own private
members to exercise.
It can be clearly gathered from these views, first, that
the policy of determining the incidence of taxation is the
exclusive right of the House of Commons ; second, that
the proper and peculiar duty of a Royal Commission is
O'NEILL DAUNT AND HOME RULE LEAGUE. yi
to inquire into intricate and complicated questions of
fact ; third, that Royal Commissions are sometimes
appointed to hang up troublesome questions for two or
three years ; and fourth, that the re-adjustment of taxa-
tion is a question which properly belongs, not to a Royal
Commission, not to the private members of the House
of Commons, but to the Government of the da)-.
CHAPTER XVII I.
A.D. 1873.
WILLIA:\I JOSEPH O'NEILL DAUNT AND THE IRISH
HOME RULE LEAGUE.
In 1873 the Irish Home Rule League was busy making
preparations for the next General Election, and
diffusing such literature as would affect the coming
battle at the polls. Amongst the pamphlets issued was
A Report of the Coiniiiittee appointed by the Council
of the Home Government Association to examine the
Financial Relations betiveoi Great Britain and Ireland
and the Pressure of Taxation upon Irish Resources. The
chairman of the committee which drew it up was
Mr. William Joseph O'Neill Daunt. He was born
on 28th April, 1807, at Tullamore, but resided for the
greater portion of his life at Kilcascan, in West Cork.
His ancestors, an Anglo-Norman family long settled
in Ireland, held estates in Cork. He early joined the
Repeal movement, and was elected for Mallow \\\ 1832,
but unseated on petition. When the agitation for
Repeal became vigorous, he was entrusted with the
charge of the movement in Leinster and Scotland.
After its failure he took a greater interest in the
72 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
taxation of the country than in any other pubHc ques-
tion. He severely criticised the extension of the in-
come tax to Ireland by Mr. Gladstone in 1853, and
assisted the agitation of 1863-64 which secured the
appointment of General Dunne's Committee. The taxa-
tion of Ireland was ever present in his mind, and in
his writings, speeches, and magazine articles, he
made frequent mention of it. It was in some measure
due to him that the Home Rule League brought it
again prominently forward. Mr. W. E. H. Lecky says of
him, in the Introduction to his Diary, that he wrote on
the financial aspects of the Union with special authority,
and that he largely contributed towards bringing the
question to the forefront. He died on 29th June, 1894.
Mr. M'Laren, a Scotch member, had obtained a
Parliamentary return of taxation, from which it was
sought to be shown that Ireland was undertaxed. Mr.
O'Neill Daunt, on the 15th March, 1873, wrote that he
examined the returns to find out the Irish contribution
to the Imperial Exchequer : —
I found no separate statement of the Irish revenues. The con-
tributions of the three kingdoms are indiscriminately thrown
together, whereas, \\\i to 1870 inclusive, the Irish payments were
separately specified. This mode of lumping British and Irish pay-
ments e;i fjia.sse facilitates mystification at our expense.
Castlereagh, when adjusting the relative taxable capacities of
Great Britain and Ireland, said that an income tax existing in both
countries would afi'ord the best test. Pitt exjjressed the same
opinion. There was then no income tax in Ireland. Now we have
got one ; and tried by this test, it appears that Ireland's share of
the general wealth is not much more than a seve)itee7ith part, whilst
the Imperial Government extorts from her nearly one-ninth of the
general revenue. Yet our British friends cry out for more !
more !
From the office of the Home Government Association
he issued, on 17th March, the following supplementary
letter to the Home Rule address to the Irish people : —
O'NEILL DAUNT AND HOME RULE LEAGUE. 73
The amount of taxation imposed on Ireland by the Imperial
Government is, as we all know, exorbitant, dishonest, and griev-
ously oppressive. Taking as a criterion of the relative taxable
ability of the two islands the amount of property assessed in each
to income tax, it appears that, while our national wealth is scarcely
more than one-seventeenth of the general wealth of the empire,
our masters wring out of us about one-ninth of tlie imperial taxes.
Yet their greed is insatiable ; and a new valuation of Ireland is
contemplated, in order to extend the basis of Irish taxation. Mr.
Gladstone's leading idea in governing Ireland appears to be to
extract the last possible shilling from the country. He added 52
per cent, to our taxes in 1853, at a moment when we were
scarcely beginning to recover from the eifects of one of the most
prolonged and terrible famines recorded in history.
At a public meeting held in Great Brunswick Street,
Dublin, on 30th April, 1873, he moved—
That the Home Government Association api^oint a committee to
investigate and report on the Financial Relations of Great Britain
and Ireland, and that Mr. Butt and Mr. Cornelius Dennehy be
requested to act on the committee.
The motion was adopted unanimously.
At a public meeting on 3rd June, 1873, he announced
that the report on the Financial Relations was in the
printer's hands, and would speedily be disseminated
through the kingdom. In the course of his speech he
said : —
The Union, in its financial aspect, is a swindle. The English
members of General Dunne's Committee seemed totally unconscious
that Ireland had any separate financial claims. They ignored the
fact that Great Britain at the Union owed a debt more than sixteen
times larger than the Irish debt, and that Ireland had never been
given one farthing of compensation for being subjected to an
equality of taxation with Great Britain. Their minds were fully
prepossessed with the theory of union, a union of burdens, but
not a union of expenditure ; for although they were staunch
friends of incorporation where money was by its means to be taken
out of Ireland, yet they did not for one moment admit that incor-
poration gave Ireland the least right to have her own money spent
within her own borders— in fact, they stoutly argued against expen-
diture in Ireland.
74 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
The report of the committee was finally adopted at
a public meeting of the Home Government Association
on 25th June, 1873, on the motion of Mr. Cornelius
Dennehy, seconded by Mr. Alfred Webb.
It examined the seventh article of the Act of Union,
the speeches made on it when it was under discus-
sion, how it worked out till 18 17, and then pronounced
the following verdict : —
Your committee doubt if history records a more remarkable
instance of audacious and gigantic fraud than this whole trans-
action. The kingdom of Ireland is deliberately overcharged ; and
when the overcharge results in national insolvency, it is availed of
as a pretext for exorbitant taxation.
It then pointed out the admission made in the report
of 181 5, that Ireland had been subjected to a burden
which experience had proved too great, and asked what
was the obvious remedy in such a case pointed out by
common sense and honesty . Clearly, to have fixed a
contribution commensurate with Irish comparative
resources. This was not done. The Act of Union pre-
tended to protect Ireland from equality of taxation with
England " until the respective circumstances of the two
countries should admit of uniform taxation." If these
words meant anything, they must have meant that
equality of burden should not be imposed until Ireland
became wealthy enough to endure it. In 1853 she was
miserably poor, and her poverty was aggravated by a
prolonged famine. As the condition of Irish wealth
implied by the Act of Union had not occurred,
Mr. Gladstone thought he could extract an argument
for increased taxation from Irish poverty ; and, accord-
ingly, he argued that as Ireland was poor, a man with
i^i50 a year in Ireland was proportionately richer than
a man with ^150 a year in England, and consequently
that his income was at least as fit a subject for taxation.
O'NEILL DAUNT AND HOME RULE LEAGUE. 75
The special merit of this logic is, that the poorer the
country the stronger the argument for taxing her.
It then examined the proceedings of General Dunne's
Committee, alluded to the defection of the Irish
members, the admissions made in Sir Stafford North-
cote's report, and thus comments on his inept con-
clusions: —
Then, as to Sir Stafford's notion that there would be hardship iu
transferring to Great Britain taxes to be removed from Irish
shoulders, there is not the least hardship in compelling either men
or nations to pay their own just debts. We have seen that the
whole scope and spirit of the Act of Union, and of subsequent im-
perial legislation, was to subject Ireland to British burdens which
she had no part in contracting, and this notwithstanding certain
illusory pretexts of protection made by Lord Castlereagh and em-
bodied in the Union statute.
It then pointed out that, in the twenty years ending
1872, Mr. Gladstone had wrung from Ireland ^^"45, 184,090
more taxes than had been contributed for the twenty
years ending 1852 ; that the English members of
General Dunne's Committee always treated Ireland as
an integral part of tJie empire when burdens were con-
cerned ; but that tJie empire only meant England when
outlay was in question. It then outlined an equitable
re-arranrement : —
'fc>^
Each country should be separately taxed for its own pre-
Union debt charge. Ireland should also bear the burden of so
much of her post-Union debt as bears a true projjortion to her real
relative ability ; and her contribution to imperial expenses should
be also proportioned to her relative ability.
Finally, its conclusions were thus summarized —
Ireland complains that she is unjustly treated by the Imperial
Parliament in respect to taxation for the following reasons : —
1. — She is entitled to a lower rate of taxation than Great
Britain on account of the great disparity between the British and
Irish national debts at the time of the Union, not a shilling of
J^i IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
which pre-Uuion debts has ever been paid. The British debt was
then more than sixteen times larger than the Irisli debt ; and
solemn promises were given to Ireland that she never would be
brought under the pre-Union burdens of Great Britain. But in
violation of these promises, Ireland has been brought under those
burdens by the equalization of her taxes with those t)f Great
Britain ; and she never has been given an equivalent for the load
thus imposed on her.
2. — Such taxes as by the Act of Union were to have been borne
in common ])y both countries ought (in the words of Lord Castle-
reagh) to have been apportioned with a strict regard to the measure
of Ireland's relative ability. But the Act of Union over-estimated
the relative ability of Ii'eland, the result of which excessive
estimate was necessarily to involve Ireland in enormous and
disproportioned debt.
3. — ^Ireland affirms that this debt was fictitious, in so far as it
originated in an overcharge on her comparative resources ; yet that
this fictitious debt has been treated by English statesmen and by
the imperial legislature as if it were morally and equitably binding
upon Ireland. It has been made the pretext for extorting from
Ireland amounts of revenue enormously in excess of her real
relative ability ; and at this moment insatiable statesmen are
engaged in new projects of augmented extortion.
4. — Ireland complains that by the financial legislation of the
Imperial Parliament she is deprived of the enjoyment of her own
surplus revenues, the exclusive use of which surplus the fifth clause
of the seventh article of the Union professes to secure to her ; and
she suffers heavy loss from the expenditure in Great Britain or
elsewhere abroad of an inordinate amount of Irish revenue.
In The Nation of 2nd August, 1873, appears an able
and exhaustive review of the Report of the Co)nuiittee of
the Home Government Associatio7i on the Financial
Relatiojis of Great Britain and Ireland : —
The total financial loss which Ireland, directly and indirectly,
has sustained since the Union is now over £400,000,000 sterling.
In 1855 it was estimated at £355,000,000, but this estimate did not
include several important items which should have been taken into
the calculation. Indeed, the direct and indirect plunder of Ireland
since the Union — without estimating the loss resulting from the
destruction of Irish manufactures and commerce — may be fairly set
SIR JOSEPH N. M'KEXNA. 77
down as £500,000,000. This, certainly, is monstrous in the extreme;
hut the system has been so recently adjusted as to facilitate the
extraction of further taxation from Ireland according to the most
approved economic English theories. Acts of " amelioration " in
Ireland always end in the plunder of the people.
Having referred to the imposition of taxation in 1853,
the article proceeds : —
Indeed, if anything could shatter or shake the heresy of faith
in Mr. Gladstone, the knowledge of his unscrupulous plunder of
Ireland shown in this report sh(juld do so. It was, we believe,
after imposing the income tax on Ireland that he remitted tlie duty
on pepper, that the Irish people might have the condiment cheap
to season their vegetables. It was while disendowing the Church
that he managed to draw into the Imperial Exchequer large sums
of money previously spent in Ireland, without the Irish people
benefiting one farthing by the transaction.
The Report excited the attention of the veteran pro-
tester against over-taxation, and in a letter of 3rd
September, 1873, ^vritten from Brittas, General Dunne
remarked : —
I think Mr. Daunt"s pamphlet on Irish taxation a capital rhvme
of the injustice done to Ireland in this important point, and I
hope it will draw the attention of the Irish people with more effect
than I had been able to do with my committee and the report I
attempted to get adopted.
CHAPTER XIX.
A.D. 1875.
SIR JOSEPH N. M'KENNA.
On 1 2th March, 1875, Sir Joseph M'Kenna again raised
in the House of Commons the question of Irish taxation
by the following motion : —
That the complaints which have been made that the Imperial
taxation of the United Kingdom presses more severely on Ireland
78 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
than on Great Britain, and extracts a greater revenue from Ireland
in proportion to her actual means, are worthy of the earnest con-
sideration of Her Majesty's Government, with a view to the
adoption of measures for the equitable distribution of the pressure
of taxation, so that each of the countries constituting the United
Kingdom shall contribute to the imperial revenue in proportion to
its actual means.
He said there was a certain propagation, a certain
dissemination, perhaps, he might better term it, of
plausible but illusory evidences of Irish prosperity and
progress. He called them " Dublin Castle statistics "
from their incompleteness.
They were insufficient data, and were consequently
calculated to mislead, and did mislead the public, and
to some extent the official mind, when they were
adduced to justify or mystify the enormous increase in
the amount of imperial taxation levied off Ireland.
Income tax returns for 1872 showed the valuation of
England as ;^4 5 5,000,000, and of Ireland ^26,000,000.
Incomes of England exceeded those of Ireland seven-
teenfold, whilst the Irish contribution to taxation was
one-eighth.
He had, on 1st May, 1874, moved for returns, which
disclosed on their face and as a whole a system of con-
stant and progressive financial injustice to Ireland, such
as no people who understood the subject could submit to
with patience, and such as no poor country could suffer
without injury. They showed that, side by side with
an actual reduction of ten per cent per head in Great
Britain, the taxation per head in Ireland had been
trebled. But how had all that come to pass ? What
were the imposts that had squeezed all that money out
of so poor a population ? To which of them did he
take exception ? He objected to the excessive total
which was raised off Ireland, augmented by taxes
which were chiefly imposed at the instance of so-called
SIR JOSEPH N. M'KENNA. 79
Liberal Governments ; but it certainly was not their
financial policy towards Ireland which had entitled them
to that honourable designation. It was scarcely a fitjjure
of speech to say that since 1841 — or he would take a
later date to mark the epoch, and say since the famine
of 1846 — the British finance minister had caught the
unhappy Irish people by the throat, and wrung from
them sums which, were they not vouched by the returns
to that House, would seem to all men as incredible as
to him they appeared exorbitant and unjust.
At present the resources of Ireland — perhaps he would
more accurately express it, her annual yield of profit —
was disproportionately, inordinately, and, he submitted,
unjustly carried off by imperial taxation. The over-
taxation of Ireland represented an additional burden on
Ireland heavier relatively than the annual charge on
France consequent on the Prussian war indemnity, and
France was seven times as populous as Ireland and
thirty times as rich.
Mr. Butt formally seconded the motion.
Mr. A M. Sullivan said that the House had probably
for twenty years not listened to a more important speech
on the condition of Ireland than that which had been
made that evening by Sir Joseph M'Kenna. He likened
the figures adduced to show a slight increase in Irish
progress to those relied on by baby-farmers. A child
might increase a pound and a half in weight in two
years, and that small increase might be the result of ill-
treatment. This state of things was the fulfilment of
the prophecies of Grattan and the Plunkets, who had
told the Irish Parliament that incorporation with Eng-
land would attract the wealth of Ireland to the greater
wealth of England, and that, whereas Ireland under her
own Parliament had a comparatively light taxation, she
would, when joined to England, " stagger under a weight
which was a feather on the shoulders of the wealthier
people."
8o IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVl'.R-TAXATION,
Mr. Sullivan played a considerable part in the taxa-
tion question. He was a member of the special com-
mittee of the Dublin Corporation which investigated the
question in 1863, and his paper, The Nation, gave at all
times special prominence to the many protests which
were constantly being made in Ireland.
The O'Conor Don said there was nominally equality
of taxation between the two countries, yet in reality
there was no such equality. He quoted from Sir Staf-
ford Northcote's Report of 1865 to show that the present
system of taxation fell more heavily on Ireland than on
any other part of the United Kingdom.
Sir Stafford Northcote, who was then Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and Mr. Lowe, the late Chancellor of the
Exchequer, replied. The latter relied again on the
Individual Taxation argument, and said that to estab-
lish a case it must be shown that the individual Irish-
man must be shown to be more heavily taxed than the
individual Englishman in similar circumstances. This
proof could not be adduced.
The motion was negatived without a division.
CHAPTER XX.
A.D. 1874 TO 1877
MR. MITCHELL HENRY AND MR. ISAAC BUTT.
One of the first members returned for an Irish con-
stituency on the Home Rule programme was Mr.
Mitchell Henry, Born in Lancashire in 1826, he fol-
lowed the profession of medicine, and attained to
considerable eminence as surgeon to the Middlesex
Hospital. His father, who was an Ulster Irishman,
MR. MITCHELL HENRY AND MK. ISAAC BUTT. 8 1
died in 1862, and left a very considerable fortune to his
son. Mr. Mitchell Henry bought a district in Conne-
mara, and built there the handsome residence of Kyle-
more Castle. His kindness to and sympathy with the
people, his great intellectual ability and strength of
character, united to his adoption of Home Rule prin-
ciples, caused him to be unanimously elected for Galvvay
in 1 87 1. His first parliamentary reference to the over-
taxation of Ireland was on the 2nd July, 1874, on the
occasion of the Home Rule debate.
He referred to the fact that the Irish contribution to
the imperial revenue was increasing ; but that was
not evidence of increased prosperity, but a direct cause
of the nation's poverty and rapid decline. Ireland
was taxed far beyond her powers, and far, indeed,
beyond what she ought fairly to contribute. With all
the political and social benefits Mr. Gladstone had con-
ferred on Ireland, he had shown himself most inequitable
in his taxation of so poor a country, and had inflicted
great injury upon her. By imposing the income tax in
1853, and by equalizing the spirit duties shortly after,
the revenue had been raised from about ^^4,500,000 to
;!^7 ,000,000, a sum out of all proportion to the wealth of
the country. The total wealth of Ireland was only
one-seventeenth that of England, yet she contributed
one-eleventh to the imperial revenue.
The defeat of Sir Joseph M'Kenna's motion of 1875
gave rise to a very vigorous agitation in Ireland in the
winter of 1875-76. At a public meeting, held in the
Rotunda, Dublin, on 26th October, 1875, Mr. Mitchell
Henry moved —
That the financial results of the Union and the present economic
condition of the country demand the serious attention of the Irish
people, and afford convincing proof of the evil effects of the L"fnion,
and of the urgent necessity of restoring parliamentary institutions
in Ireland.
G
82 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
The speech in which he supported the motion was
not alone a most masterly and comprehensive state-
ment of the Irish case, but also most eloquent. It
was particularly telling in the force and cogency with
which it dealt with Mr. Lowe's argument of individual
taxation, and was a most effective reply. The history
of the period since the Union, the principles of the
taxation which then, as now, bore heavily on Ireland,
were all grappled with. He declared —
No wonder that English statesmen wish to substitute the
principle of the taxatioti of indiiiiduals for geograjihical taxation ;
but the basis of the Union was geographical taxation and relative
national ability ; and if Irishmen lose sight of this, their case is
gone.
In a passage of singular power he referred to the ruin
which had come upon Ireland: —
It was the dreadful burden of taxation imposed on Ireland by
the Union, combined with absenteeism and cruel laws, that
reduced the Irish people to the condition of the most ill-fed and
miserable people in Europe, so that when their only sheet-anchor
— the potato — failed, they had absolutely nothing to fall back
upon, but died in crowds, or, homeless and starving, were forced
to fly from the land of their birth.
At a public meeting in Dublin, held on the 2nd
November, it was unanimously resolved —
That the admirable speech delivered at the last meeting of the
League by Mr. Mitchell Henry, m.p., be printed and circulated by
the League, and that the Council be requested to take steps to
carry this into effect.
Sir Joseph M'Kenna, at the same meeting, moved : —
That the attention of the representatives of Ireland in the
Imperial Parliament is earnestly requested to the subject of the
unfair incidence of imperial taxation on the Irish people.
Dr. Ward, M.P., who seconded the motion, referred
to a recent return, which showed that the average
MR. MITCHELL IIENRV AND MR. LSAAC HUTT. 8
yearly income of an Englishman was ^i8; of a Scotch-
man, £iT,; and of an Irishman, £4. The Irishman had
to pay in taxes out of his ^"4 income £1 6s. id. ;
whilst the Englishman paid in taxes only £2 9s. id.
out of his income of £18.
The Nation of 6th November, 1875, in an article
headed " Fifty Millions Stolen," remarked : —
Mr. Mitchell Henry and Sir .J. M'Kenna have proved conclu-
sively a certain inequality in imperial taxation whereby Ireland has
been robbed of £2,500,000 a year for the past twenty yeai's— in all
£50,000,000 of money— over and above an equal poundage with
Great Britain. No one has been able to answer this astounding
charge. No one has been able to deny it.
On 9th November, 1875, at a public meeting held
under the auspices of the Home Government Associa-
tion, in the Rotunda, Dublin, it was unanimously re-
solved : —
That the speech of Sir Joseph N. M'Kenna on the unequal
pressure of imperial taxation on Ireland be printed and circulated
at the expense of the League.
The speech was subsequently printed and circulated.
Mr. Isaac Butt, Q.C., M.P., proposed the following
resolution at the same meeting : —
That it appears expedient that steps should be taken to prepare
a petition to Parliament against the unfair amount levied on Ire-
land under the present arrangement of taxation, and claiming for
this country relief from this unjust burden, either by a review of
the relative taxation of the two countries, so as to place it upon a
more equitable basis, or by applying the amount now collected from
Ireland beyond her fair contribution to the relief of the local
taxation of this country.
He Stated that he had drafted a petition, but, on
account of its great importance, he preferred to have it
approved of It was perfectly established that Ireland
contributed to the revenue of the United Kingdom an
84 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
amount far exceeding the proportion she ought to pay
according to relative ability. In that year (1875) the
imperial system of taxation was exacting from Ireland
three and a-half millions more than she ought to pay.
He then appealed to all Irishmen to unite on the over-
taxation question : —
This question of over -taxation was no Home Rule question.
It was a question on whicli men who were not Home Rulers might
perfectly join. It was a question for all Irishmen. It was a
grievance that might be redressed by the English Parliament, and
it was one that ought to be redressed by the English Parliament
next year if they were prepared to do it. He appealed to the Con-
servatives of Ireland — to the Conservative gentry, whose properties
were oppressed by this unjust taxation. He appealed to the Con-
servative Press to aid in exposing this monstrous injustice, and
in demanding redress for it. Shame would attach to the Irishman
who would keep back from exposing such an injustice, and de-
manding redress for it, because he might think that in so doing
he was helping the cause of Home Rule.
The earnest and determined propaganda of the Home
Rule League against over-taxation attracted the atten-
tion of Tlic Times, and on the 8th November it had an
article on this " well-worn theme." It attacked Mr.
Mitchell Henry and Sir Joseph M'Kenna, and described
the latter as the Parliamentary proprietor of this special
grievance. The downright untruth of its comments
may be gathered from its statements that the proportion
of Ireland's contribution to imperial revenue
Was not fixed as an international compact at the Union,
and that Ireland was growing in wealth. It is a shallow
article, written in a narrow spirit, sneering at cheap
whisky, but nevertheless is unmistakable evidence that
the question of Irish taxation again caused anxiety in
England.
Professor Galbraith, Trinity College, Dublin, at a
public meeting on 30th November, moved : —
MR. MITCHELL HENRY AND yiK. LSAAC liUTT. 85
That this meeting views with satisfacticjii the printed copy, now
laid on the table, of the Report of the Si^eech oi Mitchell Henry,
Member of Parliament for the County Galway, and desires to
return its sincere thanks to the honourable gentleman for the zeal
and great ability he has displayed in exposing the many instances
of fiscal grievances which Ireland sufiers from her connection with
Great Britain under the terms of the legislative union.
At a Conference of the Home Rule Members of
Parliament, held on 4th January, 1876, at which thirty-
one were present, it was unanimously resolved that the
excessive taxation of Ireland should be vigorously
pressed on the attention of Parliament.
Accordingly, on 23rd May, 1876, Mr. Mitchell Henry,
on the third reading: of the Ciisto)ns and Inland Revetiue
Bill, moved an amendment for the purpose of discussing
Irish taxation : —
That, in the opinion of this House, no financial arrangements
can be satisfactory which are so framed as to make no provision
for relieving Ireland from a burden of taxation beyond her ability
to pay as compared with Great Britain.
He said that there was no more unpopular subject in
the House than Irish financial grievances, because the
House believed that they were of an unsubstantial
character. After long and earnest study, he had come
to the conclusion that they were of a substantial and
practical nature. He affirmed that within the last
twenty-three years the taxation of Ireland had been
doubled, whilst the population had declined by 2,500,000
persons. During the past five years ^42,000,000 had
been raised in taxes ; and of the annual levy of
^8,500,000, nearly i^6, 500,000 were raised in customs
and excise duties, and were paid by the poorer classes
of people. Having alluded to Mr. Lowe's individual
taxation argument, he continued : —
The case of Ireland is that l)y this heavy taxation you have
removed, and do remove, such an inniiensu proiitirtion of the
86 IRISH PROTEST AGAINSI" OVER-TAXATION.
income of the country, that not only have the people been obliged
to fly to happier climes to gain a livelihood, but there is nothing
left to develop the resources of the country. The country is borne
down by the excessive character of the taxation, and the abject
and miserable poverty, the result in part of it, is one of the chief
causes of discontent in Ireland.
He pointed out that the burden of taxation was
infinitely and shamefully heavier in Ireland than in
England. He compared the total annual incomes of
England and Ireland, and showed that taxation in
England amounted only to is. 8d. in the pound, whilst
in Ireland it amounted to 3s. 46. in the pound. He
challenged contradiction on this, and was prepared
to refer it to arbitration. He showed the severity of
local taxation in Ireland, and that exemptions of
assessed taxes were a mere bagatelle compared with
the excessive exactions. He pointed out the decay
which had taken place in almost every industry in
Ireland, and that emigration was due to excessive
taxation. He concluded by appealing to the Irish
members on both sides of the House to support his
amendment.
The O'Conor Don seconded the amendment, and said
that the belief sedulously fostered in the press that
Ireland was lightly taxed was the greatest fallacy that
ever existed. Indirect taxation bore severely on the
Irish community, which, as a whole, was poorer and less
able to bear the burden than the English people.
The Irish members who joined in the debate were
Sir Joseph M'Kenna, Dr. Ward, and Mr. Isaac Butt,
who said : —
When they had a community, they could not take away money
from the community without injuring it. From the time of the
Union down to the present day, the finance of Ireland had always
been dealt with as sijmething belonging to a separate conamunity,
and when remissions were made in favour of any class in Ireland,
they always heard of the boons granted to that country.
MR. MITCHELL IIENRV AND MR. ISAAC BUTT. 8/
Sir Stafford Northcote, who vv^as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, replied for the Government, and took up a
hostile attitude.
The amendment was withdrawn by leave.
In the course of a long article on the debate, TJie
Nation of 3rd June wrote : —
We need scarcely ask our readers to give an attentive perusal to
the important speech of Mr. Mitchell Henry on Irish taxation.
The proofs and arguments there adduced to show that Ireland is
overweighed in this respect are simply unanswei'able. No amount
of quibbling and glozing on the part of English Chancellors of the
Exclieijuer, past or present, can disprove the hard facts brought
f(jrward by the Member f(jr Galway.
TJie Times of 30th May referred to Sir Stafford
Northcote's colourless summary of a report adopted
by General Dunne's Committee in 1865, ^'^^ thus
proceeds : —
This was eleven years ago, and since that time the subject has
been raised, we know not how many times, by Irish members
emulous oi distinction. They turn to it again and again, now one
and now another leading the attack, and always in face of them is
this stronghold of Mr. Lowe's position, that they can no more turn
than we can turn the conclusions of the fourth proposition of the
tirstbook of Euclid. Yet it does not, as far as we can discover,
disconcert them in tlie least.
The usual abuse about whisky was reiterated, and
Sir Stafford Northcote was complimented on having
advanced from his statement of 1865, that —
With equal taxation the tax will press more heavily upon the
poorer than upon the richer country
to the adoption of the severer doctrine of Mr. Lowe of
individual taxation.
The subject was again raised in the House of
Commons by Mr. Mitchell Henry, in a set motion, on
5th June, 1877 : —
88 I ilSII TROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
(1) That the burden of imperial taxation imposed on Ireland is
excessive and out of projjortion to her financial ability to bear it as
compared to England.
(2) That this inequality is a violation of the promises made at
the Union, atid occasions a loss of capital which, accompanied by
the annual absentee drain, is the main cause of the small material
progress of the country.
(3) That to tax a poor country on the same scale as a rich one
is in itself unjust and opposed to sound economic principles ;
whilst the fact that the excessive taxation raised in Ireland is in
great measure expended out of Ireland forms an aggravation of the
injustice, and makes permanent improvement hopeless until the
present mode of dealing with Irish revenues is altered.
In the speech in which he introduced it, he said that
the more he studied it the more he saw the iniquity
of the present arrangement. He believed that the
misery that occurred in Ireland — and the miseries that
occurred in England owing to her connection with Ire-
land — had arisen in a large measure from the financial
relations of the two countries. He then made an able,
exhaustive review of Irish fiscal history, and asked,
How had Ireland been treated of late? The answer
was : In the last twenty-five years the taxation of Ire-
land had been doubled. She then paid ;^8,500,ooo to
the finances of England, against i^4,ooo,ooo paid twenty-
five years previously. During twenty-five years her
population diminished one-half, which meant that Ire-
land was paying four times as much as she paid twenty-
eight years previously. If the Irish people were foolish
enough to give up the question of geographical taxation,
their case was gone. Ireland should be taxed in pro-
portion to her financial ability as compared with England.
It was not a question of individual taxation. It was the
question of the taxation of a nation. Ireland was
treated as a man treated a field when he took a crop of
grass off it every year and never bought any manure to
put on the ground. The man expected the field to go
on yielding him crops, but in time it became barren.
SIR J. M'KENNA MOVES FOR A COMMITTEE. 89
Mr. Butt said, if they selected any tax which fell
heavier on the people of Ireland than on the people of
England, they undoubtedly placed a greater burden on
the one country than on the other.
Mr. Mitchell Henry, in closing the debate, said that
the question was one full of complications, and a vast
amount of labour was required to get behind it ; but it
would recur and become better understood every year
by the Irish people, and he believed they would soon
learn the various forms the question assumed and make
it worth while for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to
meet their complaints.
The motion on this occasion was pressed to a division,
and there voted for 34, and against 152. The minority
included J. G. Biggar, I. Butt, E. W. Grey, Mitchell
Henry, Sir Joseph M'Kenna, Charles S. Parnell, O'Connor
Power, W. A. Redmond, and A. M. Sullivan. The tellers
for the minority were Captain Nolan and Richard
Power.
CHAPTER XXI.
A.D. 1882.
SIR J. M'KENNA MOVES FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE
ON IRISH TAXATION. THE HOUSE
COUNTED OUT.
On 1 8th April, 1882, Sir Joseph M'Kenna asked for the
appointment of a select committee
To inquire and report whether, since the year 1851, the new and
additional duties which have been levied off Ireland have not in-
creased the pressure of imperial taxation on the population of that
portion of the United Kingdom to such an extent that, having
regard to the total property and income of the inhabitants of each
island respectively, the imperial taxation of Ireland is now doubly
90 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
heavier than that of Great Britain ; whether the entire imperial
taxation of Great Britain does not barely exceed the produce of an
income tax of 2s. 6d. in the pound, and whether that of Ireland
does not exceed what would be produced by an income tax of
5s. 3d.
He said there was no finding of the committee of
1865 which anticipated, answered, or decided in any
way upon the issue raised by the present motion, which
was one for the appointment of a committee to inquire
into a state of facts without parallel in modern history,
and into a course of legislation for the last twenty-nine
years which had led to results without precedent in this
or in any other country of the world. Calling things
by hard names and bad names was not his habit, for
that was neither proof nor argument. It was impos-
sible to find words in which to describe the financial
policy pursued towards Ireland since 1853 unless one
had recourse to very strong terms. His chief difficulty
was, not to be moderate in referring to the injustice
which had been done, but to find words to describe
the ignorance of honourable members in former Parlia-
ments and in this on the subject. Even this lack of
information was scarcely so remarkable as the self-com-
placency with which those honourable members seemed
to contemplate the conduct of Great Britain and this
Parliament towards Ireland in modern times ; for it was
not infrequent to hear the fiscal legislation of the United
Kingdom referred to as if Ireland were in that respect
a favoured and cherished sister. There never was a
greater delusion. There was no country in Europe in
which so large a proportion of the total income of a man
was levied by the State taxman as in Ireland. To
assume that identity of imposts in all cases meant
equality of taxation was a monstrous delusion. The
articles selected for taxation should be equally in
demand, equally used, and equally consumed in both
SIR J. M'KENNA MOVES FOR A COMMITTEE. 91
countries, otherwise identity of imposts meant the very-
opposite to equality of taxation. A moderate tax on
cheese would fall heavily on the bulk of the English
people, and would scarcely affect the Irish in the least.
Raising the taxation of Ireland in 1853 was the modern
method of sowing dragons' teeth, with a parallel result
to the ancient precedent. From 1853 Dublin Castle
represented Ireland as making great strides towards
material prosperity, whilst the country was really
struggling in vain against the wasting process. The
logical corollary to Mr. Lowe's argument of individual
taxation was that France and Tunis were two geo-
graphical expressions, and that a heavy tax on dates
and a light tax on grapes would be fair between the
French and Tunisians. Aesop's fable of TJie Fox and
the Stork had long since put boyhood and manhood on
their guard against such shallow sophistry. He went
into elaborate figures to justify his views.
Two efforts were made to count the House out, the
second of which was successful before he had concluded.
Discussion was stopped for the time being ; but some
more powerful exorcism than a connt out was necessary
to lay the spirit of the gigantic crime perpetrated on
Ireland.
When Sir Joseph M'Kenna was refused a hearing by
the House of Commons, he addressed the English
people in a pamphlet, published in 1883 in London :
Imperial Taxation : The Case of Ireland Plainly Stated.
Its forty-six pages bristle with facts. The transparent
clearness of its homely style merits its title. It is rich
in economic aphorisms. Its brevity is commendable,
its reasoin'ng irresistible, its deductions convincing, and
its conclusions unanswerable. It proceeds from cause
to effect with logical sequence, and enunciates canons
of international taxation with striking clearness and
originality. Viewed in the light of the Report of the
92 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER -TAXATION.
Royal Commission, it is a marvel of prophecy. The
following extracts, all of which will be found useful in
the present controversy, are made from it : —
Political oppression in modern times is mostly financial.
The true principle of taxation is to raise the minimum
amount necessary for the needs of the State with the
most equitable distribution of its incidence.
The justice or injustice of imposing a particular tax does not
altogether depend on the nature of the impost itself, for a particular
tax may be fair enough in the abstract, yet unjust in its applica-
tion. For instance, there may be eight subjects for taxation,
each equally proper in the aVjstract to sustain an impost ; but if
from five of these the State has already gathered the full amount
which the community ought to pay on all, the three subjects which
had hitherto escaped taxation should remain untaxed until the
burden could be equitably distributed over the entire.
The evils inflicted on Ireland, and the benefits which
accrued to England owing to the financial system of
1853-
Thus the policy of 1853, which impoverished Ireland, has
marched together with the reduction of English taxes and repay-
ment of the national debt, pari passu, in grand procession for thirty
years.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer of an empire ought
to be able to establish a system of identical imposts,
with safeguards for the readjustment of any unequal
incidence.
The science of political federation, and of the distribution of
taxation and revenue in empires, has advanced sufficiently to
enable any accomplished Chancellor or statesman to propound a
perfectly equitable scheme for the maintenance of identical im-
posts throughout an empire made up of many states, with popu-
lations of various habits of living, containing provisions to redress
any unequal incidence of the levies as they first aft'ect the respec-
tive peoples or divisions of which the empire is composed.
SIR J. INI'KENNA MOVES FOR RETURNS. 93
The comparative wealth and poverty of states consti-
tuting an empire must be taken into account when
adjusting taxation between them.
Before in'onouuciiig the taxation of any country fair or unfair, if
the country be one of several constituting an empire or confedera-
tion, the taxation must be viewed in relation to the comparative
wealth or poverty of the inhabitants of the respective countries
wliich constitute the empire or confederation. The actual sum
contributed, without other data, is no guide whatever.
The Irish case for redress of over-taxation is un-
answerable.
The injustice towards Ireland in tlie matter of imperial taxation
is so great, that nothing but the shallowest and silliest svi))stitutes
for argument are ever adduced, or are adducible, in defence of the
present system.
CHAPTER XXII.
A.D. 1886.
SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA MOVES FOR RETURNS.
MR. fiOSCHEN SUGGESTS A COMMITTEE OF INQUIRV.
The disastrous termination of his motion for a select
committee in 1882 neither silenced nor deterred Sir
Joseph M'Kenna, and again, on 23rd February, 1886, he
returned to the subject with the same irrepressible
ardour and determination. At different intervals during
the previous twenty years he had vainly tried to
arrest the attention of the House of Commons ; but at
length he was to receive a patient and sympathetic hear-
ing. He moved for a
Return of the gross imperial revenue of Ireland derived from
taxation and of the pojiulation of Ireland for the years 1851, 18G1,
1871, and 1881, and a like return for Great Britain for the same
years, being in both cases a continuation, in like form, of Parlia-
mentary Paper No, 407 of Session 1874,
94 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
In moving for the return, he alluded to the " count
out," by means of which the Government officials
thought fit to put an end to the discussion in 1882.
There was no danger of that to-night ; but if English
and Scotch members attended to him, they would
understand many things connected with Ireland which,
at first sight, did not appear to be connected with
imperial taxation. He did not accuse any party of
intentional injustice to Ireland in the matter of imperial
taxation. He was content with showing how the taxa-
tion of Ireland increased in the face of a waning
population, whilst the taxation of Great Britain had
been so regulated and the revenue husbanded that the
pressure of taxation was continuously lightened, so that,
whilst it increased in amount, its incidence on each head
of the population was constantly growing lighter. He
quoted Adam Smith's canons of taxation, and asserted
that they had been grievously violated in the case of
Ireland. He mentioned that the taxation per head in
Ireland in 1841 was 9s. 6^d. (which was very severe),
and in 1871 it was £1 6s. id.
Adam Smith's rule that taxation should be levied on
the subjects of a state in proportion to the incomes they
enjoyed under its protection applied in strongest force
to empires made up of several nationalities, where the
possessions of an entire people could be measured with
approximate accuracy. He was told that the taxation
per head of the people of Great Britain greatly ex-
ceeded the taxation per head of the people of Ireland.
Yes, but the taxation per head of the people of Ireland
was five times that per head of the people of India; but
that did not prove that the people of India were not
more heavily taxed than the people of Ireland. Taxa-
tion ought to be estimated and levied according to
wealth. He adduced the comparison per head of
population simply to show that there was progressive
. SIR J. M'KENNA MOVKS FOR RETURNS. 95
alleviation in the case of Great Britain, and an extra-
ordinary progressive increase of burden in Ireland. His
letritimate arguments on the relative powers of Great
Britain and Ireland to sustain taxation had been met
with every form of evasion. One right honourable
gentleman, a Chancellor of the Exchequer, who then
adorned the Upper House, had the temerity to say that
Ireland was not taxed at all, but that the individuals
who happened to reside in Ireland were taxed ; that the
taxation was just, as the same tariff was applied in
Ireland and Great Britain; and he thus disposed of all
grievance, ignoring that unless the habits of the people
of Great Britain and Ireland were identical, and their
wealth relatively equal, identity of impost was no
guarantee of equality of taxation. Another right
honourable gentleman, who had been translated to the
same convenient haven, admitted the general facts, and
that a case of disparity was made out, but raised the
phantom of an argument that greater disparity might
be shown between districts in England. Not the
slightest attempt was made to show why the taxation
of Ireland should have been increased by i^3,ooo,ooo a
year contemporaneously with a decrease of 3,000,000 of
the inhabitants of the unfortunate country. In no part
of the world did so monstrous a system of fiscal injustice
prevail as that of the United Kingdom towards Ireland.
He attributed no malign designs to anyone, and it was
for the curious to determine whether this was the work
of the permanent officials or of the gentlemen who held
Her Majesty's seals. The whole imperial taxation of
England could be commuted by an income tax of 2s. 6d.
in the pound. The whole imperial taxation of Ireland
could not be commuted at less than an income tax of
5s. 3d. in the pound. He had heard ad nauseam that
there was nothing abnormal in the taxation of Ireland,
that she was a favoured nation, treated with sisterly self-
96 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION,
sacrificing affection by Great Britain ; yet the highest
statistical authority in the service of the Government
recently confessed that Ireland ought not to fairly con-
tribute more than half her present contribution. He
then dealt with the case suggested in mitigation, namely,
that of expenditure : —
As a matter of account between tlie imperial exchequer and
Ireland, the locality in which the charge for imperial objects was
expended had nothing to do with the distribution of the burden of
the cliarge. He freely admitted that the local trade of the district
in which imperial funds were expended benefited somewhat by
the expenditure ; but that was not the point, and had no earthly
connection with the distribution of the charge amongst the tax-
payers of Great Britain and Ireland.
Sir Thomas Esmonde seconded the motion. Ireland
was overtaxed, having regard to the amount of the Irish
national debt at the time of the Union, and having
regard to the poverty of the people compared with the
people of England. He made a complete and careful
analysis of the Irish and English debts before and after
the Union to show the unfair treatment in that respect.
The second objection to the present taxation was the
absence of manufactures and commercial enterprise
from Ireland.
Mr. Goschen expressed his sense of the extreme im-
portance of the question raised by Sir Joseph M'Kenna.
He regretted that the matter had not been dealt with
at an earlier stage. If there was an Irish case, everyone
must be most anxious to examine it to the very bottom,
and those who were anxious to maintain the legislative
Union felt all the more bound to see that no financial
injustice was done to a country which was in a minority
in the House. Every motion which came from the Irish
quarter substantiating even a prima facie case of finan-
cial injustice ought to be probed to the bottom. The
fact that a distinguished statistician had stated that
MR. GOSCIIEN SUGGESTS AN IN'OUIRV. 97
Ireland was paying too much towards imperial taxation
added additional importance to the motion. He then
stated that a return would not be sufficient to show
whether Ireland was paying too much or too little, and
then remarked : —
What will some time or other be necessary, if it is not clone on
the present occasion, is that the principles (of taxable capacity)
should be grappled with by a committee or otherwise, and that
then, applying those principles, we should see whether or not we
could come to some agreement. I am sure the bulk of the popula-
tion of both countries would wish to come to a fair agreement upon
this matter. I have thought myself of moving to substitute a com-
mittee on this occasion for a return ; but I have reason to believe
that that, in the present position of Irish affairs, would not be a
very convenient arrangement, and I further think it will be wise,
and may advance the matter, if the return should be procured with-
out any delay. But if nothing should come of the presentation of
the return, I trust at some future period that this question may be
renewed, and that we may endeavour by some such means as may
be in our power to probe this very important question to the very
bottom to see if a grievance exists, and, if a grievance really exists,
to set to work to remedy it in a spirit of justice and ecpiity to all
parts of the United Kingdom.
Mr. John Dillon, Mr. J. F. X. O'Brien, and Colonel
Nolan spoke from the Irish benches.
Mr. Gladstone (First Lord of the Treasury) spoke of
the excellent spirit which pervaded the debate. Com-
mittees were appointed to examine this question and of
" boltinc: it to the bran." The committee of 1863-64
(su-) was appointed to determine whether Ireland paid
excessively or not in proportion to her means. Yet
that committee came to no conclusion and made no
report upon that portion of the subject. The com-
mittee gave great attention and labour to the general
investigation, yet gave the go-by to that question, for
the simple reason that it could not arrive at any amount
of unanimity, even by a majority. He considered that
H
98 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAX ATIUN.
income tax was not a sufficient test of relative ability,
but that the average of legacy and succession duties for
a number of years was the fairest test which could be
obtained. He admitted that the proportion of two to
fifteen fixed at the time of the Union was too high.
He concluded : —
I beg members to remember that this is a subject that does not
bear being handled l»y demonstrative evidence. Debate it as long
as you will, appoint as many committees as you will, it will still be
in the main a matter of argument. The best security and guarantee
we can have for arriving with tolerable facility at some tolerably
fair conclusion is that all gentlemen should endeavour to approach
the question in a thoroughly considerate spirit, and with an abate-
ment of all extreme opinions. If they do that, I believe the matter
is perfectly capable of a practical solution ; and it is because I think
the temper that has been shown to-night affords considerable pro-
mise of progress in that direction, should the necessity arise, that
I congratulate the honourable gentleman and the House upon the
spirit with which the debate has been conducted.
An explanation of the very remarkable change in the
demeanour of both English parties on the question of
Irish taxation must be sought in the political circum-
stances of the time. Irish complaints, so often made in
the past, had almost invariabl}' been met with callous
indifference. Nevertheless, the great change of attitude,
irrespective of the motives which prompted it, was a
hopeful augury for the future of the Irish ca.se.
"THE TIMES," LORD MONTEAGLE, SIR R. GIFFEN. 99
CHAPTER XXIII.
A.D. 1886.
" THE TIMES," LORD MONTEAGLE, AND SIR ROBERT
GIFFEN.
The remarkable change in English public opinion was
manifested more clearly in the columns of The Times
than even in the discussion in the House of Commons.
The infallibility of past years of that journal was laid
aside, and instead it adopted a mild agnosticism
towards such difficult problems as incidence of taxation
and the tests by which the capacity of contribution was
to be measured, on which it was wont to dogmatize so
incontrovertibly. On the 24th February, 1886, it
expressed the following views : —
We cordially agree with Mr. Goschen that those who are most
strongly in favour of maintaining the legislative Union ought to be
the readiest to support a demand for inquiry by the Imperial
Parliament into every case of alleged grievance that can be sup-
ported by any show of reason and by anything approaching to
trustworthy evidence. ... A committee to inquire into the
subject — though the Prime Minister reminded the House that
previous inquiries, of which there have been many, resulted in no
decisive conclusions — would appear to Ije desirable. The actual
incidence of taxation has to be determined, as well as the tests by
which the capacity of contribution is to be measured, and at
present there is the widest diversity of opinion on both points.
We are inclined to think, therefore, that Sir John Lubbock is
right in questioning whether an inquiry would show any kind
of unfairness to Ireland in respect of her fiscal burdens as
compared with the rest of the United Kingdom. But that is no
reason why Mr. Goschen's suggestion of a select committee,
w^hich even Mr. Dillon recognised as conceived in a kindly spirit,
should not be adopted.
TOO IRISH PROTEST ACiAINST OVER-TAXATION.
In The Times of 27th February, Lord Monteagle
expressed satisfaction at the spirit of conciliation dis-
played in the recent debate, and hoped it would continue
to prevail. He then discussed the '' relative ability " of
the two countries — a question on which the widest
diversity of opinion prevailed : —
((() The exports and imports of Ireland for the year 1882
amounted to eleven millions, and those of the United Kingdom to
720 millions, giving a proportion of 1 : 05.
(/>) The customs and excise of Ireland for the same year
amounted (as far as I can ascei-tain) t(j six millions, and those of
the United Kingdom to forty-six millions, giving a proportion of
2 : 1.5.
((•) Taking the proportion of population, which is 1 : 7, the three
together give a proportion of 1 : 21, which is singularly close to the
income tax test, viz., 1 : 20.
But public attention was still more earnestly focussed
on the taxation of Ireland by the remarkable contri-
bution to the March number of The Nineteenth Century,
1886, by Sir Robert Giffen. He was chief of the
Statistical Department of the Board of Trade, and his
reputation was second to none in England as a sound
thinker and writer on economics and finance. Not the
least noticeable feature of his opinions was his marked
tendency to adopt optimistic views on the seriously
debated questions of his time which related to the
material well-being of England. His pictures of
economic England and economic Ireland contrast as
sharply as Dante's visions of the Paradiso and Inferno.
Painting darkness and decay was a task as unusual to
him as it was uncongenial, and was done in the case of
Ireland because no other picture was possible. His
official position, and the admitted authority of his
opinions, ensured a wide discussion for the article. It
estimated the economic value of Ireland to Great Bri-
tain mainly from the English standpoint. It noticed
SIR ROBERT GIFFEN. - > '> lOI
the relative and absolute increase of population m
England, and the relative and absolute decrease in
Ireland. It showed that the residuum of people remain-
ing in Ireland was not equal in industrial character and
resources to an equal number of the people of Great
Britain. The taxable income of Ireland was so low,
and its resources so slender, that, as a partner of a rich
state like Great Britain, Ireland was insignificant, and
hardl}- counted one way or the other. He summed up
his conclusions on Irish decline in the following graphic
paragraph : —
Tu put the matter shortly and in the roundest figures — tliere
can, of course, be no exact figures of income and capital — Ireland,
in population, has sunk from one-third to less than one-seventh
in wross income, from two-seventeenths to less than one-seven-
teenth ; in capital, from a proportion that was material to about
oue-twenty-fourth only ; in taxable resources, from a proportion
that was also material, being, perhaps, about one-tenth, to a pro-
portion that is almost inappreciable — the proportion of only one to
fifty. In resources Ireland has, no doubt, increased absolutely.
The Irish people are much better ofi' individually, partly because
there are fewer people than there were fifty years ago, but with
much tlie same resources ; but as a community in relation to Great
Britain there is an immense decline.
When he came to write on Irish taxation, he merely
re-echoed the Irish complaints of thirty years, though,
admittedh', the discovery by him was new, and the result
of his own investiirations —
'fc>'
I desire likewise to call attention to the fact, which has come
out incidentally, that Ireland is overtaxed in comparison with
Great Britain. It contributes twice its proper share, if not more,
to the Imperial Exchequer. The taxation in one view is not repre-
hensible ; it is levied in the shape of indirect taxes, mainly on
spirits and tobacco. The Irish masses could untax themselves by
the simple expedient of consuming less spirits and tobacco. This
is the easy view wliich has often been acted upon when the subject
has come up hi the Imperial Parlianient. Long ago, in 1804, when
there was a committee on Irish taxation, Mr. Lowe embarrassed au
102 iRfSii i^rotp:st against over-taxation.
ablo witness, " Mx\ E. Senior, a pour law inspector in Ireland, and
well acquainted with Irish poverty, by putting this very point.
But it is not the right view. How much of the expenditure of the
Irish people on spirits and tobacco is really wasteful is not cer-
tainly known. People who have so little taxable income have, at
any rate, a claim to have the money taken from them by the Govern-
ment applied for their special benefit. At present nearly the
whole taxable income of the Irish people is, in fact, absorbed by the
State. The taxable income being about £15,000,000 only, the
Imperial Government, as we have seen, takes nearly £7,000,000,
and local taxes are over £3,000,000 more, or about £10,000,000 in
all. So large a proportion of taxation to taxalile income would be a
serious fact for any country, and there can be little accumulation
in Ireland under such conditions.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A.D. 1886-87.
MR. C. S. PARNELL AND SIR J. N. M'KENNA.
Mr. Boyle O'Reilly, of The Boston Pilot, made
inquiries of Sir Joseph M'Kenna early in 1886 about the
financial provisions of the Home Rule Bill. The
interrogatories were thus summarized by Sir Joseph
M'Kenna:—
" Do these (financial) clauses provide for any sufficient
alteration in the incidence of taxation to remedy the
evils which you demonstrated in your pamphlet on
Imperial Taxation (Rivingtons, 1883) which you were
good enough to send me ? I ask because they do not
appear to me to do so."
These questions were submitted to Mr. Parnell, and
he re-read Sir Joseph M'Kenna's pamphlet of 1883.
The interview which took place between Mr. Parnell
and Sir Joseph M'Kenna is thus recorded by Sir
MR. C. -S. PARNELL AND SIR J. N. M'KENNA. IO3
Joseph in The Irish Daily Iiuiependeitt of 6th August,
1892 : —
" He next asked me if, on the hypothesis that he
considered that my views were right, I thought he
would be justified in maintaining silence about them to
Mr. Gladstone. I answered that, in my opinion, it
would be right for him to say to Mr. Gladstone that he
(Mr. Parnell) was aware that certain members of the
party, who had promised to support the Bill on the
second reading, had told him that they would go for
amendments in committee, without which they would
regard the financial clauses as oppressive. Mr. Gladstone,
I presumed, would say to him, and I believe subse-
quently did, that all reasonable amendments would have
fair consideration. I advised that in such case the
subject should not be followed up until the second
reading had passed.
" Mr. Parnell then asked me if I could give him the
texts of the amendments to consider. I offered an
objection to doing so, which Mr. Parnell accepted. I
told him that it would only embarrass him to have them
so as to have to admit to Mr. Gladstone that they had
been already formulated. Mr. Parnell then said to me,
' I trust implicitly to your knowledge of the subject, and
that you will be able to give me in good time the text
of all amendments you think vital, and we shall confer
as to who had best move each.' I answered Mr. Parnell
0)1 this head to the exact effect of what I now indite."
'"The amendments which I will formulate shall be
very few, and such as will commend themselves, by the
equities o)i the face of them, to every dispassionate
mind. Some of the most objectionable clauses will
be adequately met by allowing the words of the Bill to
stand, and interpolating the words save as hereinafter.
My amendments need not be verbose ; they would be
mostl)', if not wholly, in the nature o{ provisoes. I would
I04 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
aim at getting the Irish Secretary and Irish Attorney-
General (with Mr. Gladstone's approval) to assent to
most of them without controversy in committee, or to
propose them. I would allow Mr. Gladstone a very free
hand apparently to pile up, as he has done in prospect,
burdens on Ireland's future revenue ; but I would unload
them all again by the pjvviso that the total contributioti
of Ireland to imperial revenue should not exceed the propor-
tion of the revenue relatively to the income tax exacted from
England and Wales by the Imperial Parliament.'"
" Mr. Parnell then asked, ' Can this be done practi-
cally ? ' I answered, ' Yes ; it only involves another
ledger in the Treasury and a corresponding one in
Dublin. Mr. Robert Giffen will be easily able to
show Mr. Gladstone, if there be the ivill,what the way
is. We shall only ask what is fair, and I promise
you there shall be no equitable flaw in any one of
our provisoes.' "
" When we had got so far in our conversation, Mr.
Parnell had nearly read over- — as I believe for the
second time— my pamphlet of 1883. He then asked
in a very kind fashion, ' Would it be too much,
M'Kenna, to ask you to write another pamphlet on
nearly the same lines, but, if possible, not driving so
hard as this one does at Gladstone, but showing
what we could do for ourselves on the Land Question if
our means had not been mopped up by the imperial
tax-gatherer since the Union ? ' "
" I answered, ' If you wish it, I shall do so certainly ;
but I shall require some fresh returns to justify me in
issuing a fresh pamphlet. I will move at once for the
requisite papers, and perhaps Mr. Gladstone will let me
have them. The pamphlet Mr. Boyle O'Reilly writes
upon is, I believe, quite out of print, and, except a few
copies which I early retained for myself or for our own
party, they are not to be had for love or money.' "
MR. C. S. PARNELL AND SIR J. N. M'KENNA. 105
" Shortly after this conversation, whilst Mr. Gladstone
was still in power in 1886, I moved for the requisite
returns, which Mr. H. Fowler, then Secretary of the
Treasury, with Mr. Gladstone's concurrence, at once
assented to grant. I subsequently prepared, agreeably
with my promise to Mr. Parnell, a fresh resume of the
Irish financial case as against Great Britain, starting
from the passing of the Union at the end of a.d. 1800,
and brought down to 1880. This is the pamphlet
published by and at Ridgway's, Piccadilly (1887),
where it is still to be had. Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet had
retired from office in 1886, not on the rejection of the
Home Rule Bill, but as the result of the General
Election which followed its rejection in that year.
" Mr. Parnell, to whom I sent proofs of the pamphlet
of 1887 before I would authorize its issue, commenced
to read them in my presence. He observed soon that
he thought I had shown too little tenderness for Mr.
Gladstone in paragraphs 60, 61,62, and 63, considering
his position towards us since 1886. I offered to strike
the paragraphs out ; but I excused their appearance in
the proof, because the English Liberals, I said, parti-
cularly the Radical section of them, were steeped in
ignorance and prejudice, and continually prated when
some morsel of relief was proposed for Ireland, as if to
propose such a thing were a fraud on the English tax-
payer ; and I thought it needful that some one should,
in forcible language, say something/^;- contra, although
it may not be agreeable for some of them to read that
this Irish cause of ours is not one of ancient history, but
mainly one of the present era. When I had said this,
Mr. Parnell, who had previously put his pencil through
the four paragraphs, bracketed them anew, and wrote
' stet ' in the margin.
" When Mr. Parnell came to paragraph 90 (of the 100
paragraphs of which the pamphlet of 1887 is made upj,
I06 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
he said, ' I was about saying to you you had forgotten
to point out how the Land Question was only part of
the financial one, but I see that you forget nothing.'
He then read the remaining ten paragraphs slowly to
himself without saying a word, and then remarked,
' Now I know why you desired to retain the three or
four paragraphs I at first objected to. You were right ;
it is a great satisfaction to me that you re-wrote the
case in plain English, and that it is on record. I am
sincerely obliged to you.'
" This is all I have now to say ; but every line which I
have written in this letter is part of the case which
Ireland has to consider if Mr. Gladstone assumes power,
Mr. Gladstone is, doubtless, a wiser man than when, an
admirer of the Union, in 1853, he made such wonderful
concessions to the British taxpayer, and so far as Ireland
was concerned simply made a grab in the dark. The
only defence of Mr. Gladstone's conduct in 1853 is that
he was, in fact, then in the dark; he did not know what a
horrid business the Union was, and so he made it worse
than ever by levying fresh and oppressive taxation off
Ireland under its powers.
"Home Rule or no Home Rule, what has to be done
is to appropriate to Irish purposes solely the three millions
sterling a year, or whatever it may be, more or less, which
the English Government now raises from Ireland in
excess of the proportion which she ought to bear as
measured by the yield of the income tax in England,
Scotland, and Ireland."
In the debate on the Home Rule Bill on 8th April,
1886, Mr. Parnell made the following statement on the
relative ability of Ireland: —
I have every conviction — I do not want to go into the question
to-night, but after carefully reading the article by Mr. Giffen,
which has attracted so much attention, and a long communication
which appears in The Times of this morning from a gentleman who
MR. C. S. PARNELL AND SIR J. N. M'KENNA. 10/
evidently knows what he is writing about — I am convinced tliat it
is clear that one-twentieth is a far better standard of the relative
share of the two countries than that most unfortunate standard of
one-fifteenth which the right hon. gentleman has adopted. We could
show several standards much more favourable to us, based upon
the various commodities consumed in Ireland, and which will show
that Ireland is a very much poorer country in comijarison with
England than is expressed by the proportion which the right hon.
gentleman has selected. I have every confidence that when the
time conies when this Bill is in committee, and when we put for-
ward our case, the conscience not only of the House of Connnons,
but of the right hon. gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
will be touched in regard to this matter, and that the Prime Minister
will see that his zeal for making a good bargain for his own country
in imperial questions has misled him into doing an unintentional
injustice to Ii-eland in regard to this question of the contribution
towards the imperial expenditure.
Sir Joseph M'Kenna wrote the pamphlet as requested
by Mr. Parnell, and it was pubHshed in the following
year. The Parliamentary returns which he had moved
for in February had been issued, and enabled him to
bring his case up to date. The pamphlet of 1883 differs
very much from that of 1887. The former was confined to
an examination of the over-taxation from 1853 ; the latter
reviews the whole period since the Union. The taxation
raised in Ireland from 1800 to 1850 was compared with
the taxation raised from 1856 to 188 1. In other words,
the taxation of the first fifty years of the Union was
compared with the last twenty-five: —
The fiscal results of the first half-century, so far as Ireland was
concerned, and u, are before us : the sum of £2I(J,l!J0,5(i7 com-
prises not only all the legitimate and reasonable taxation of the
half -century, but also — so far as they involve money payments
within the fifty years — all the corruptions and exactions made to
fall on Ireland in connection with the business of the Union. Let
me not minimize the total. I have ample reason to charge it as
excessive, and if I refrain now from doing so, it is because I have
to compare the total exactions of the first fifty years of the Union
with a much worse period which ensued, in respect of which the
I08 IRISH PPOTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
framers of the Union are in no sense responsible, save that, when
they were all in their graves, Mr. Gladstone proposed and carried
through the Imperial Parliament sucli measures of unjust financial
exaction as would have been impossible in a native Parliament.
I proceed now to compare the first fifty years of Union taxation
with the twenty-live latest years included in the returns of 17th
September, 1886. If nothing abnormal liad occurred — if the taxa-
tion of a famine-stricken and continuously dwindling population
had only kept pace with the average taxation from the Union up to
1851— the taxation for the twenty-five years up to March, 1881,
would have amounted to £108,095,283, and no more ; but instead
of that sum the imperial taxation of Ireland for the twenty-five
years amounted to £108,741,237.
I wonder whether people generally, without something in the
nature of a rebellion to stimulate their cogitative faculties, can
realize what it is to the inhabitants of a poor country to be shorn
in this fashion of £00,645,945 sterling in twenty-five years, in excess
of a taxation ivhich was itself excessive, for it was on a scale that
sufficed to appease the utmost avidity or raj^acity which, with any
show of reason, can be charged against the British Parliament and
Government for the first fifty years of the Union.
The following analysis of the imperial taxation of
the United Kingdom was the clearest and subtlest yet
made, and most graphically represented the excessive
taxation of Ireland : —
I commend to the careful consideration of English statesmen the
following analysis, constructed from the latest dissected returns we
have of the actual and relative gross amounts of i-evenue derived
from taxation of the United Kingdom and of the three realms
respectively.
The figures analysed are founded on those given in Parliamentary
Return 108, of April 13th, 1886, and apply to the financial year
1884-85. The respective totals are as follows : —
England and Wales, total taxation, ... £57,327,686
Scotland, do. do. ... 8,825,941
Ireland, do. do. ... 7,755,001
Total, ... ... £73,908,628
An income tax for all i)ractical purposes identical, and fairly
enough designed to be of identical relative incidence, applies to all
three countries.
APPOINTMENT OF A ROVAL COMMISSION. 109
The yields from income tax contained in the above and from (dl
other imperial taxes for each of these reahns are as follows : —
1 fv All Other ^ ^ 1
Income iHx. ,„.j„.,.ial Taxes. totals.
England and Wales, ... £10,214,091 £47,113,595 £57,327,680
Scotland, ... ... 1,137,001 7,088,940 8,825,941
Ireland, ... ... 571,678 7,183,323 7,755,001
Totals, ... £11,922,770 £01,985,858 £73,908,028
It requii'cs no laborious argument to establish from the foregoing
figures first, that the relative means of each of these realms to pay
other imperial taxes can be more closely approximated by measuring
the relative yield of each to the income tax than l)y any other
process open to our adoption.
Now let me point out what the above figures establish. They
prove that for Ew/latid (so terming England and Wales) her other
imperial taxes are not equal to Jice times her income tax ; that for
i^cotland her other imperial taxes do not equal seven times her
income tax ; l)ut for Ireland her other imperial taxes consider-
ably exceed tivtlre times her income tax.
The pamphlet made a great impression on leading
Liberal statesmen, more particularly on Mr. Childers,
and contributed to deepen the growing belief in England
that the oft-reiterated Irish complaints against excessive
taxation were not without foundation.
CHAPTER XXV.
A.D. 1890-94.
MR. THOMAS .SEXTON.
MR. JOHN E. REDMOND ASKS FOR AND OBTAINS THE
APPOINTMENT OF A ROYAL COMMISSION.
On 20th May, 1890, Mr. Thomas Sexton, in the debate
on the Customs and Inland Revenue Bili, inquired if the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, before he levied this
no IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATIOX.
increased duty, which would affect Ireland in a particu-
larly burdensome manner, had asked himself whether
the Irish contribution to the revenue was not already
enough. For the last forty years Ireland, a country of
decreasing population and of decreasing capacity to
bear fiscal burdens, had been the victim of a long and
steady course of the most wanton fiscal aggression. In
England the consumption of wine, beer, and spirits was
6^ gallons per head ; in Scotland it was 4^ gallons
per head ; and in Ireland it was only 3 gallons per head_
If the taxation were fair, it would bear some relation to
the consumption. In England it was 14s. id. ; in
Scotland it was i8s. lod. ; and in Ireland it was 13s.
per head, whereas it really should have been — in
England, 14s. id.; in Scotland, 9s. 4d.; and in Ireland,
6s. 3d. He protested against the mean, aggressive, and
disgraceful fiscal policy which weighed down the two
poorer members of the imperial partnership for the
benefit of the richer party. He asked had the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer formulated any principle with
regard to the relative capacity of the countries which
were partners in the United Kingdom to contribute to
the common purse. The contribution of England to
the imperial revenue, judged by the four direct taxes of
probate, licences, stamps, and income tax, was light.
She contributed 81 per cent, of the whole revenue. On
probate she contributed 87 per cent. ; on licences, 86 per
cent. ; on stamps, 89 per cent, ; and on income tax, 87 per
cent. Ireland's contribution to the imperial revenue
was 8 per cent. On probate duty it was 4^ per cent. ;
on licences, 47 per cent. ; on stamps, 37 per cent. ; and
on income tax, 4*4 per cent. Judged by these four tests,
Ireland's contribution to the imperial revenue was
double what it ought to have been. He claimed a
select committee, as a matter of right, to consider the
incidence of imperial taxation, and he asked the House
appoin'tmi:nt of a royal commission. hi
to suspend the proposal for the increased taxation of
Ireland until the committee had reported whether the
present taxation of Great Britain and Ireland was toler-
able and fair, and what steps should be taken, if the
Irish burden were found to be undue, to reduce the
contribution to such an amount as would appear to be
a more just contribution from the relative capacity of
each country to the common purse of the United
Kingdom.
Mr. Goschen, in repl>' to Mr. Sexton, said he thought
he was prepared to grant an inquiry into the financial
relations of the two countries. He would not pledge
himself further without consulting his leader (Mr. W.
H. Smith, First Lord of the Treasury), but he would be
prepared to throw as much light as possible on the
financial relations of the two countries. If inquiry
showed that injustice had been done to any part of the
United Kingdom, steps would be taken to afford redress.
In the debate which followed on that and the succeeding
day, Mr. John Dillon and Mr. T. M. Healy took part.
Mr. Dillon said he was glad that there was to be an
inquiry, and that it would have the best possible results ;
and Mr. Healy asked would the committee be nominated
on party lines or of financial experts. Xo inquiry had
taken place since that by General Dunne's committee
thirt)' years ago.
On the 14th July and on the ist August, Mr. Sexton
asked Mr. Goschen what steps he intended to take for
the appointment of the Select Committee on the Finan-
cial Relations of the Three Kingdoms. On 12th August
Mr. Goschen, in reply to Mr. Sexton and Mr. T. VV.
Russell, said that it was desirable to have a meeting of
the Committee on Financial Relations that session, in
order that they might consider what line the inquir)-
would take, and what information would be required
from the departments. The terms of reference to the
112 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
committee were announced on the 13th August as
follows : —
That a select committee be appointed to consider the present
financial relations between England, Scotland, and Ireland, and to
report —
(1) The amount and proportion of revenue contributed to the
Exchequer by the people of England, Scotland, and Ireland re-
spectively :
(2) The amount and proportion of revenue which, under recent
legislation, is paid to local authorities in England, Scotland, and
Ireland respectively :
(3) The amount and proportion of moneys expended out of the
Exchequer (a) upon civil and local government services for the
special use of and (b) upon collection of revenue in England,
Scotland, and Ireland respectively :
(4) The amount and proportion of State loans outstanding, and
of State liabilities incurred for local purposes in England, Scot-
land, and Ireland respectively :
(5) How far the financial relations established by the sums so
contributed, paid, advanced, or promised, or by any other existing
conditions, are equitable, having regard to the resources and popu-
lation of England, Scotland, and Ireland respectively.
A discussion took place on these terms of reference,
in which Mr. T. M. Healy, Mr. Thomas Sexton, and
Mr. Arthur O'Connor took part. Mr. Sexton said of
the reference that it was "in part irrelevant, in part
too restricted, and in part misleading."
The committee nominated consisted of twenty-one
members, of whom four were Irish — Mr. T. W. Russell,
Mr. Thomas Sexton, Mr. John Dillon, and Mr. Arthur
O'Connor. They met once, and ordered some returns
to be printed.
Early in the next session, on 27th February, 1891,
Sir Thomas Esmonde asked the First Lord of the
Treasury to state when the Committee of Inquiry into
the Financial Relations between Ireland and Great
Britain would commence its investigations.
Mr. Goschen replied that he was anxious to push the
APrOINTMENT OF A ROYAL CO.M.MISSION, II3
matter forward, and would immediately take measures
to have the committee re-appointed.
Mr. Sexton thanked him, and Sir Joseph N. M'Kenna
asked that additional Irish members should be added,
to which Mr. Goschen did not assent.
Again, on 27th April, 1891, Sir Thomas Esmonde
asked when the committee would sit. Mr. Goschen
replied that the Government and Opposition members
were read}', and that the committee would be appointed
as soon as the Irish members gave notice of the names.
Mr. T. Sexton called attention to the inconvenience of
the delay arising from the non-appointment of the com-
mittee, and Mr. Goschen replied that he would put the
committee on the paper.
On nth June, Mr. Sexton asked how the Exchequer
contribution of ^40,000 per year in aid of local taxation
was calculated, and Mr. Goschen replied that it was on
the Probate Duty basis.
On i8th June Mr. H. H. Fowler asked the Chancellor
of the Exchequer when he intended to move for the
Committee on Financial Relations. Mr. Goschen, in
reply, said it had been put down twice, but could not
be taken after 12 o'clock, owing to objections by Welsh
members. He hoped he would move it that evening.
On 22nd June Mr. Goschen moved for the appoint-
ment of the committee, but the Welsh members again
objected. In the course of the discussion, Mr. Goschen
made use of the expression — " separate fiscal entity"
Again, on 23rd June, Mr, Goschen moved, and the
Welsh members repeated their objections.
On 9th July Mr. Thomas Sexton moved the reduction
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's salary b}- ^1,000,
to call attention to the non-appointment of the Com-
mittee on Financial Relations. The Irish contribution
to the Imperial revenue was a scandalous and intolerable
grievance. Ireland was paying her double share to the
I
114 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
Imperial revenue. He was prepared to advance proofs
that Ireland was paying ^3,000,000 a )-ear to the
Imperial revenue more than she should pay. The other
Irish members who took part in the debate were Colonel
Nolan and Mr. T. P. O'Connor. The motion was
defeated by 1 54 votes to 94.
In the session of 1892 the Government was frequently
asked when the special committee would be appointed.
The reply was invariably given that the Government
was willing to move the appointment, but the Welsh
members or the 12 o'clock rule stood in the way.
Finally, on the 12th May, Mr. Goschen moved the
appointment of the committee. The Welsh members
sought to have Wales specifically included, but Mr.
Goschen objected, and said —
We cannot agree to accept Wales in tliis inquiry as a separate
financial entity in onr fiscal system.
It being midnight, the debate stood adjourned, and
the committee was never appointed.
On 8th August, 1892, Mr. J. E. Redmond, in the
debate on the address after the change of Govern-
ment, said : —
There is one portion of the Home Rule scheme which, when we
come to discuss it in this House, will i)robably prove the o-nx of
the whole business. I mean the financial portion of it. But it
would be manifestly absurd for me, on an occasion such as this, to
enter into that. All I will say is, that the financial portion of the
scheme of 1880 was never acce^jted by the late Mr. Parnell, who
always made a reservation to the efi"ect that he w^ould endeavour in
committee to deal with and amend it. Further than that, I believe
the experience of the last six years lias convinced many men that
the financial arrangements jjroposed in the Bill of 1886 were unjust
to Ireland, and would probably, if passed into law, have resulted
in the bankruptcy of the country before many years had elapsed.
On loth February, 1893, on the motion of Mr. J. J.
Clancy, a "return showing for the years ending 31st
APPOINTMENT OF A ROYAL COMMISSION. II5
March, 1890, 1 891, and 1892 respectively (i) the amount
contributed by England, Scotland, and Ireland respec-
tively to the revenue collected by the imperial officers ;
(2) the expenditure on English, Scottish, and Irish ser-
vices met out of such revenue," was ordered.
Frequent questions on financial relations were asked
in the early part of the session of 1893, and on the
22nd June Mr. Gladstone explained the revised financial
clauses of the Government of Ireland Bill. On the 3rd
July Mr. Provand, member for the Blackfriars Division
of Glasgow, asked for the re-appointment of Mr.
Goschen's Select Committee to inquire into the Finan-
cial Relations of Great Britain and Ireland ; and in the
discussion which arose, Mr. J. E. Redmond put the
following question : —
May I ask whether, in view of the fact that the new financial
scheme is of a provisional character, the right honourable gentle-
man will consider the advisability of issuing some tribunal such as
a Royal Commission to investigate the financial relations between
the two countries, so that, at the end of the provisional time con-
templated, the House will be in a j^osition to know with some
degree of accuracy what the proper contribution of Ireland to the
imperial expenses should be ?
On 13th July Mr. J. E. Redmond again asked : —
I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. E. Glad-
stone) whether he will appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into
the financial relations between England and Ireland since 1800,
wdth a view of fixing the pennanent contribution of Ireland to the
Imperial Exchequer on a just and equitable basis after the establish-
ment of an Irish Parliament.
In reply Mr. Gladstone said : —
I have given much attention to this question. I am aware that,
for the purpose of fixing definitely the financial relations of the two
countries, the present information available is insufticient, and it
follows, of course, that the subject ought to be probed to the
bottom, and all possible information acquired for tlie purpose.
Undoubtedly the Government think the best means of acquiring
Il6 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
tliut information would be by a Royal Commission ; and it is, there-
fore, the intention of the Government that Her Majesty shall be
advised to issue a Commission to inquire and report into the
question.
Mr. Goschen intervened to know if Mr. Gladstone
would go back to 1800, or confine himself to the general
proposition of inquiry into the present financial relations
of England and Ireland and those of the immediate
past. Mr. Gladstone thought it best that the inquiry
should commence with the Union,
A most important discussion took place on the 27th
July, 1893, on an amendment moved by Mr. Sexton to
one of the financial clauses of the Home Rule Bill, which
contained a proposal for the appointment of a committee
to regulate Irish finance during an intermediate period.
Mr. Sexton wished to entrust this committee with the
work of inquiring and reporting on Irish relative capacity
to contribute to imperial charges. Mr. Gladstone said
he did not think the committee was one well qualified
to conduct a large and searching inquiry such as should
take place. He considered that a Royal Commission
would be better suited, and urged Mr. Sexton to with-
draw his amendment. In reply to Mr. Goscheii, who
said that the committee would be better for ascertaining
principles, and a Royal Commission for ascertaining
facts, Mr. Gladstone said : —
In my opinion, the sole and undivided responsibility for deter-
mining principles in connection with charges to be allocated in the
ultimate arrangements between England and Ireland must rest with
Parliament. In the first place, we nuist give unbounded powers of
inquiry into the facts ; and if we give the Commission that power,
it will be impossible to prohibit the Commission from suggesting to
the Queen, to the Government, and Parliament the inferences
which may appear to arise out of the facts. I do not see liow that
can be shut out. It never has been shut out. But no power f)f
the responsible executive Government can be made over to a Com-
mission. I should certainly, in order that the inquiry may be
APPOINTMENT OF A KOVAL COMMISSION. II7
conducted with ade(]uato wei^^lit, desire to see various interests and
classes represented. I should desire, for instance, to see what are
called the propertied and privileged classes — to see the classes con-
nected with the land— represented. I think a Coniiuission would
be an official instrument. But the greatest care must be taken to
avoid the possibility of a sus])icion that the Counnission is to
takeout of the hands of Parliament any portion of its duties or
responsibilities.
Mr J. E. Redmond said that a case was made out for
a Commission, and that both sides desired one. A Com-
mission would go on, even though the Home Rule Bill
did not become law.
Mr. T. W. Russell said that, whether Home Rule was
granted or not, a Commission to inquire into the
financial relations of the two countries would be useful.
Mr. Redmond had asked for and obtained a Commission,
and now Mr. Sexton asked for a committee to inquire
into a question which Mr. Redmond had already been
promised would be inquired into by a Commission.
Finally Mr. Sexton withdrew his amendment by leave.
On the 1st September Mr. Redmond asked Mr. Glad-
stone when the Government proposed to issue the Royal
Commission on Financial Relations, and Mr. Gladstone,
in reply, said it would be properly issued early in the
next year.
On the 1st December Mr. Gladstone said, in reply to
Mr. Sexton, that the Royal Commission would issue
early next year, and that the terms of reference would
be sufficiently comprehensive.
Mr. Redmond, Mr. Hayden, and Mr. J. J. Clancy,
a.sked on nine or ten subsequent occasions when the
appointment of the Commission would take place, and
ultimately the Royal Warrant was issued on 24th March,
1 894.
It8 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
CHAPTER XXVI.
A.D. 1894-95-96.
THE ROYAL COMMISSION.
It would be difficult to gather together for the inquiry
men more distinguished in the realm of finance than
those selected. Mr. Childers, Lord Farrer, Lord Welby,
Sir Robert G. C. Hamilton, and Sir David M. Barbour
had all long and honourable careers in the public
service, and owed their rank to the faithful and capable
discharge of onerous duties in regulating, during the
greatest period of expansion, the finances of important
Government departments. No less successful in the
management of the finances of great banks were the
O'Conor Don, Sir Thomas Sutherland, Mr. B. W. Currie,
Mr. Charles E. Martin, and Mr. Henry F. Slattery.
They had all the knowledge and experience which fall
to the lot of directors of these great institutions.
Mr. Thomas Sexton had shown himself a capable
financier in the conversion of the municipal debt of
Dublin ; and Mr. Blake had been Treasurer to the Law
Society of Canada. Mr. Childers, Lord Farrer, Sir
David Barbour, and Mr. Hunter were all writers of
admitted eminence on economic and historical subjects ;
whilst Mr. Childers, Lord Welby, Sir Robert Hamilton,
the O'Conor Don, the Hon. Edward Blake, Mr. B. W.
Currie, Mr. J. E. Redmond, and Mr. Thomas Sexton had
all experience in investigation, having served with
distinction on Parliamentary Committees or Royal
Commissions. A sketch of each member of the Com-
mission will reveal its high character even more
conspicuously.
The Right Honourable Hugh Culling Eardley
Childers, who was first chairman of the Commission,
THE ROVAL COMMISSION. II9
was born in London in 1827, Graduating at Trinity
College, Cambridge, in 1850, he went to Australia in
that year. He soon became a member of the recently
established Government of Victoria, and held office till
1857, when he returned to England as Agent-General
for that colony. He at once proceeded to his M.A.
degree at Cambridge, and became a student at Lincoln's
Inn. He entered Parliament as Member for Fontefract
in i860. He served with great credit on two select
committees — the first on Transportation, in 1861 ; the
second on Penal Servitude, in 1863. He was one of the
Royal Commissioners who investigated the Constitu-
tion of the Law Courts in 1869. He held office as Lord
of the Admiralty, 1864-65; Financial Secretary of the
Treasury, 1865-66 ; Lord of the Admiralty, 1868-71 ;
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1872-73 ; Secre-
tary of State for War, 1880-82 ; Chancellor of the
Exchequer, 1882-85 J Home Secretary, 1886. He was
the author of pamphlets on Free Trade, Railway Policy,
and Natiofial Education. When not holding office, he
was a director of some of the great banking, insurance,
railway, and steamship) companies. He was at all times
more a man of business than an orator or debater, and
possessed the highest qualifications of ability, erudition,
sense of duty, and experience. He was in every way
qualified to guide the deliberations of the Royal Com-
mission on the Financial Relations of Great Britain and
Ireland. He died on 29th January, 1896.
Reginald Earle, Lord Welby, born in 1832, was
educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He
entered the Treasury in 1856 ; was Private Secretary to
the Financial Secretary of the Treasury, 1859-61 ; Head
of the Finance Department, 1871-81 ; Auditor of the
Civil List, 1881-85 ; Permanent Secretary to the Trea-
sury, 1885-94, on retiring from which he was raised to
the peerage. He was chairman of the Royal Commis-
sion on Indian Military and Civil Expenditure.
T20 TRTSTT PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
Thomas Henry, Baron Farrer, born in 1819, was
educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford ; was
called to the bar in 1844 ; Assistant Secretary of the
Marine Department of the Board of Trade in 1850 ; and
Permanent Secretary of the Board of Trade, 1862 to
1886. His published works are A Menwranduni show-
ing the Alterations wJiicJi ivould he made in the Present
Law by theE^tactinent of tJie Merchant Shipping Act, 1870;
Fi^ee Trade versus Fair Trade ; The State in its Relation to
Trade ; Gold Credit versus Prices. The Times of 3rd
June, 1893, says of him : — " The claims of Sir Thomas
Farrer to new honours will be gladly admitted, even by
his most pronounced political opponents. He has
always shown himself a stout party man, so far as the
limits of his official position would allow, and perhaps
at times a little further ; but he is a thinker and writer
of acknowledged ability, who has served the nation long
and well. It is, by the way, a little curious that he
should be .selected for new dignities at a time when he
is manifestly growing a trifle restive at the economic
vagaries of some of the ' advanced ' school of London
Progressives. He has always been a good Radical, but
a good Radical of the school which cannot get over the
fundamental fact that two and two make four, and
that no amount of sentimental ' gush ' will turn them
into five."
For a life of the O'Conor Don see page 48, He was
a director of the National Bank of Ireland.
Sir David Miller Barbour, K.C.S.I., born in 1841, was
educated at the Queen's College, Belfast ; entered the
Bengal Civil Service in 1863 ; was Secretary to the
Government of India in the Finance and Commerce
Department, 1873 to 1887; member of the Council
of the Governor-General of India, 1887 to 1893. He
published in 1886 The Theory of Bimetallism and the
Ejects of the Partial Demonetisation of Silver on Eng-
THE ROYAL COMMISSION. 121
land and India. He is a recognised authority on Indian
finance.
Sir Robert George Crookshank Hamilton, born in
1836, was educated at Aberdeen University. His
father was a first cousin to Lord Macaulay. He
entered the Civil Service in 1855 as temporary clerk
to the War Ofifice. He was soon sent as a commis-
sariat clerk to the Crimea, After his return he was
appointed to a clerkship in the Office of Works, where
he became known to the Treasury. In 1861 Mr. Lowe,
who was Vice-President of the Education Department,
selected him to take charge of education finance. In
1869 he was placed at the head of the financial branch
of the Board of Trade. The recent extension of the
work of the Board of Trade necessitated the employ-
ment of an acknowledged financial expert. In 1878 he
was made x^ccountant-General of the Navy, and in 1882
Permanent Secretary of the Admiralty. He was Under-
Secretary for Ireland from 1882 to 1886, and Governor
of Tasmania from 1886 to 1893. He was Secretary to
the Royal Commission of which Sir Lyon Playfair was-
chairman, which inquired into the organization of the
Civil Service. He was a member of the Royal Com-
mission on Colonial Defences, 1881-82, and of the Royal
Commission which inquired into the working of the
political constitution of Dominica in 1893. He died on
22nd April, 1895. TJie Freeman's Journal Record says
of him : — " Evidence of his views on one most important
question considered by the Commission was given by
Sir Robert Gififen. He was strongly opposed to the
view that, in considering the taxation of Ireland, the
country should be held responsible for imperial expen-
diture, or what the Treasury terms ' local services.' It
is well known that during his Irish Secretaryship he
made strong recommendations on the extravagance of
the cost of civil government in Ireland as administered
132 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
by imperial officials. In a signed article published in
The Speaker he pointed out that, under imperial control,
the cost of the administration of the law has become so
extravagant that there is an average of ^700 a year legal
patronage for every practising barrister in Ireland."
Sir Thomas Sutherland, K.C.M.G., LL.D., born at Aber-
deen in 1834, was educated at the Grammar School and
University of that city. He entered the service of the
P. and O. Company, and represented that company in
China for some years. He was for several years a
member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, and
was one of the founders of the Hong Kong Docks and
the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. He is chairman
of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Com-
pany, a director of the Suez Canal Company, of the City
Bank, of the Bank of Australasia, and is a Chevalier of
the Legion of Honour.
Bertram Wodehouse Currie.born in 1827, was educated
at Eton. He afterwards travelled abroad, and acquired
a mastery of foreign languages. On returning home he
entered his father's banking business. In 1880 he was
appointed to the Board of the Indian Council, from which
he retired in 1895. To his energy, resolution, and sound
business capacity was due the liquidation, in 1890, by
the Bank of England, of the affairs of Messrs. Baring,
though the bills payable by that firm amounted to
i^i 5,750,000. In 1892 he represented England at the
International Monetary Conference at Brussels, and was
High Sheriff of London in that year. In 1893 he was a
member of the committee which, under the presidency
of Lord Herschell, decided on sanctioning the closing of
the Indian Mints to the free coinage of silver, and in 1895
he initiated the Gold Standard Defence Association.
He died on 29th December, 1896.
William Alexander Hunter, born in 1844, was educated
at the University of Aberdeen. Called to the Bar in
THE KOVAL COMMISSION. I23
1869, he was Professor of Roman Law at University
Collef^je, London, from 1869 to 1878. He was Examiner
in Jurisprudence to the University of London from 1879
to 1884. He is the author of a work on Roman Law
which has already become a classic, and has marked
an epoch in the English study of the subject.
Gustav VVilheim Wolff, born in 1834, was educated at
a private school in Germany and at Liverpool College.
He became a draughtsman in the Queen's Island Works,
Belfast, in 1858, and subsequently a partner in the great
shipbuilding firm of Harland and Wolff
John Edward Redmond, born in 1856, was educated at
Clongowes Wood and Trinity College, Dublin ; entered
Gray's Inn, June, 1880; was called to the Bar there in
1886, and to the Irish Bar in 1887. He has represented
Irish constituencies in Parliament since 1881. He was
a member of the Royal Commission on the Irish Land
Laws.
Thomas Sexton, born in Waterford in 1848, was
educated in that city. Became a writer on The Nation
newspaper in 1869. He was High Sheriff of Dublin
in 1887, and Lord Mayor in 1888 and 1889. He con-
verted the debt of Dublin, and thereby effected con-
siderable economy in the city finances. He was in
Parliament from 1880 to 1895.
The Honourable Edward Blake, born in 1833, was
educated at the University of Toronto. Called to the
Bar in 1856, he was President and Treasurer of the Law
Society of Upper Canada in 1879. He was Chancellor
of the University of Toronto in 1876 ; Premier of
Ontario, 1871-72 ; and Minister of Justice, 1875-77. He
was elected to the Imperial Parliament for South Long-
ford in 1892.
Mr. Charles E. Martin is Deputy-Governor of the Bank
of Ireland.
Mr. Henry F. Slattery was Chairman of the National
13ank of Ireland.
124 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
The terms of reference were : — To inquire into the
financial relations between Great Britain and Ireland,
and their relative taxable capacity, and to report : —
1. Upon what principles of comparison, and by the
application of what specific standards, the relative
capacity of Great Britain and Ireland to bear taxation
may be most equitably determined.
2. What, so far as can be ascertained, is the true pro-
portion, under the principles and specific standards so
determined, between the taxable capacity of Great
Britain and Ireland.
3. The history of the financial relations between
Great Britain and Ireland at and after the legislative
Union, the charge for Irish purposes on the Imperial
Exchequer during that period, and the amount of Irish
taxation remaining available for contribution to im-
perial expenditure ; also the imperial expenditure to
which it is considered equitable that Ireland should
contribute.
The witnesses examined were : — Mr. Herbert H.
Murray, C.B., Chairman of the Board of Customs ; Mr.
Thomas J. Pittar, Principal of the Statistical Office of
the Board of Customs; Mr. Alfred Milner, Chairman of
the Board of Inland Revenue; Sir Edward W. Hamilton,
K.C.B., x\ssistant Secretary to the Treasury; Mr. Henry
A. Robinson, Commissioner of the Local Government
Board for Ireland; Sir Joseph M'Kenna ; Dr. T. VV.
Grimshaw, Registrar-General of Ireland ; Mr. William
L. Micks, Secretary to the Congested Districts Board for
Ireland ; Mr. John Chaloner Smith, President of the
Institute of Civil Engineers in Ireland ; Most Rev. Dr.
O'Donnell, Bishop of Raphoe, and member of the Con-
gested Districts Board, Ireland ; Mr. W. P. O'Brien, C.B.,
formerly Poor Law Inspector and Local Government
Inspector, and Vice-Chairman of General Prisons Board,
and Assistant Royal Commissioner on Labour ; Sir
REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION. 1 25
Richard H. Sankey, K.C.B., C.E., Chairman of the Board
of Pubh'c Works, Ireland; Mr. Murrough O'Brien,
Member of the Land Commission, Ireland ; Mr. John
G. Barton, Commissioner of Valuation, Ireland ; Mr. W.
F. Bailey, Assistant Commissioner, Irish Land Com-
mission ; Mr. G. F, Howe, Surveyor of Taxes ; Mr. E.
J. Harper, Surveyor to the London County Council ; Sir
Robert Giffen, K.c'.is., LL.D., Controller-General to the
Commercial, Labour, and Statistical Department of the
Board of Trade ; and Mr. Thomas Lough, Member of
Parliament for West Islington. The Commission made
a most exhaustive examination.
CHAPTER XXVI I.
A.D. 1896-97.
REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION.
EFFECT IN IRELAND.
In the autumn of 1896 the Royal Commission com-
pleted its labours and issued its reports.
Of the thirteen surviving Commissioners, eleven (the
O'Conor Don, Lord Farrer, Lord Welb)', Mr. Blake,
Mr. Currie, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Martin, Mr. Redmond,
Mr. Sexton, Mr. Slattery, and Mr. Wolff) signed a joint
report, setting forth the following conclusions : —
"(i) That Great Britain and Ireland must, for the
purpose of this inquiry, be considered as separate
entities.
" (2) That the Act of Union imposed upon Ireland a
burden which, as events showed, she was unable to
bear.
" (3) That the increase of taxation laid upon Ireland
126 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
between 1853 and i860 was not justified by the then
existing circumstances.
" (4) That identity of rates of taxation does not
necessarily involve equality of burden.
"(5) That whilst the actual tax revenue of Ireland is
about one-eleventh of that of Great Britain, the relative
taxable capacity of Ireland is very much smaller, and
is not estimated by any of us as exceeding one-
twentieth."
Eight separate reports were added, including one
each by the two dissentient Commissioners, Sir David
Barbour and Sir Thomas Sutherland.
The phrase in the first conclusion of separate eritity
erave rise to much discussion. Mr. Goschen, when
Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 22nd June, 1891,
denied that Wales was a separate fiscal entity when
moving the appointment of a select committee to
mquire into the financial relations of England, Ireland,
and Scotland.
The second conclusion was only another version of
that of the Parliamentary Committee of 1815, which
reported that the debt and taxation of Ireland after
the Union was a burden ivhich experience lias proved too
great.
The third conclusion was reiterated by Irishmen, both
in and out of Parliament, from 1853 onwards. Succes-
sive Governments, whether Liberal or Conservative^
cither denied or ignored it.
The fourth conclusion enunciates a canon of inter-
national taxation which was a necessary answer to
Mr. Gladstone's doctrine of equalized taxation. This
canon is foreshadowed in the writings of the O'Conor
Don, but was stated with unmistakable clearness by
Sir Joseph M'Kenna :—
The fallacy which underlay all his (Mr. Gladstone's) reasoning
was the assumption that identity of imposts on articles consumed in
REPORT OK THE ROYAL COMMISSION. 12/
Great Britain and Ireland was equivalent to equality of taxation of
the two countries. It would dignify that assumption to describe it
as a sophism. . . . Proclaiming tlie principle of e(iuality of
taxation, he substituted for real equality the spurious device of
identical imposts.
The fifth conckision states the proportion of Irish
over-taxation. The several reports contain a concrete
estimate for the financial year 1893-94. Ireland con-
tributed, according to Mr. Childers,
in round numbers, about two and tliree-quarter millions in excess
of that which she would have contributed if taxed according to her
relative taxable capacity ;
and this was adopted by the O'Conor Don, Messrs.
Redmond, Martin, Hunter, and Wolff.
According to Lord Farrer, Lord Welb>', and Mr. B.
W. Currie —
She contributed about two and a-half millions more than she
would have contributed if taxed according to what we believe to be
her relative taxable capacity.
According to Sir David Barbour, one of the two
dissentient Royal Commissioners —
Ireland paid about two and three-quarter millions sterling more
than she would have paid if the total revenue taken from her had
been in proportion to her "taxable capacity."
Messrs. Sexton, Blake, and Slattery found that the
proportion of Irish to British taxable capacity was as
I to 36.
The publication of these findings, clothed with all the
authority of a Royal Commission, found Ireland bled as
white as veal by excessive taxation. Mr. Arthur
Balfour's academic declaration at Alnwick on 20th July,
1895, that the poverty of Ireland was in part the work
of England and Scotland, expressed a truth whose far-
reaching character he can have scarcely realized, and for
128 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
the reparation of which, it is not evident whether it be
the will or the power that he lacks.
Since 1853 Ireland had been a battle-ground whereon
was waged along series of political, religious, and social
wars. Domestic events had so thoroughly widened the
breach between classes, that scarcely a bond remained
on which to unite them, save the common ruin which
has overwhelmed all. This makes the memorable pro-
tests of 1896-97 all the more remarkable. Her Majesty's
Lieutenants of Cork, Sligo, Dublin, Limerick, Ros-
common, Louth, Wexford, Carlow, Kildare, Galway,
Meath, Kerry, and Donegal, in compliance with requisi-
tions, called public meetings, which were attended by all
classes of the community. Resolutions were unani-
mously adopted at these meetings, of which those passed
at Cork are here set out as representative of all : —
(1) That this meeting of the taxpayers of the City and County
of Cork hereby expresses its sense of the enormous national
importance of the findings of the Royal Commission on the
Financial Relations of Great Britain and Ireland, and declares its
belief that the futui*e prosperity of Ireland and the social
happiness and welfare of her people are vitally concerned in
securing such a re-adjustment of the present system of taxation as
will give eftective relief to the Irish taxpayer from a burden
which that report conclusively proves to be excessive and unfair.
(2) That it is the duty of the Government to take immediate
steps to give effect by remedial legislation to the conclusions
suggested by the report of the Royal Commission.
(3) That we call upon the Irish Parliamentary representatives
of all shades of political opinion to give to the question of the
excessive taxation of Ireland the prominence which its importance
deserves, and to pi'ess it as a united national demand.
(4) That the Earl of Bandon and proposers and seconders of
the foregoing resolutions be appointed a permanent committee
(with power to add to their number) to watch the progress of this
movement, and to take such action as may be necessary to ensure
its success ; and that copies of these resolutions be forwarded to
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chief Secretary to the Lord
Lieutenant, and the leaders of the Irish Parliamentary Parties.
REPORT OF TIIK ROYAL COMMISSION. 1 29
Similar resolutions were adopted at most Irish public
boards, municipal and poor-law ; and Earl Cadogan,
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, thus referred to the cha-
racter of the movement in a speech delivered at Belfast
on 20th January, 1897 : —
I hope my words will be endorsed by everyone present, that
there never was a movement in Ireland apparently more unanimous
throughout the country, among all sections and parties in the
country, and one which has been discussed in various districts and
by men of various sympathies in a more calm and temperate and
sober spirit, in the liistory of political controversy. I must say I
have been very much struck by the manner in which this move-
ment has been organized and carried out in Ireland. Of course,
there have been exceptions to the rule which I have laid down
fi'om time to time. We have specimens of the rampant rhetoric
of amateur rebels ; we have occasionally heard language which,
perhaps, we may regret, and to which we do not attach any undue
importance ; Ijut taking the meetings throughout the country as a
whole, and taking into consideration all I have had an opportunity
of reading — perhaps more than any gentleman present — consider-
ing all the resolutions passed at these meetings, it is impossible to
deny that the attitude of the Irish people at this time, the manner
in which they are pressing their desires and wishes, has been such
as to leave nothing to desire, and, further, to render it imperative on
the Government and Parliament to inquire into and discuss this
matter, which is regarded with such universal interest in Ireland.
The columns of TJic Times for the months of December,
1896, and January, February, March, 1897, contain a
long array of correspondence from Lord Castletown,
the Earl of Dunraven, Lord Farrer, Mr. Bagwell,
Professor E. P. Culverwell, F.T.C.D., Mr. Malcolm Inglis,
Sir Joseph M'Kenna, Mr. Robert Sanders, and a host
of others, which, taken in connection with a series of
special and leading articles, shows unmistakably that
the question of Irish taxation monopolized during those
months the attention of England. A fierce war of
passion, prejudice, hatred, ignorance, cynicism, and
criticism was waged round the five majority findings
K
130 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
of the Royal Commission. Now that the storm has
abated, these findings, uninjured and unimpaired, hold
the field.
At the memorable meeting in the Mansion House,
Dublin, on the 28th December, 1896, a committee was
formed to co-operate with such committees as might be
appointed by other cities, counties, and public bodies
to secure the success of the movement. This com-
mittee met weekly, and on the 9th February, 1897, at a
conference of delegates from twenty-seven out of the
thirty-two Irish counties, held under the presidency of
the Earl of Mayo, the constitution and membership of
the committee were much enlarged.
On i6th February, the All-Ireland Committee, for so
it came to be named, unanimously passed the following
resolution : —
That this committee are of opinion that the Irish Parliamentary
representatives of all shades of opinion should hold a conference,
and take immediate united action on the (question of the over-
taxation of Ireland and the proposed Royal Commission ; and that
copies of this resolution be sent to all the Irish Members of Parlia-
ment.
Correspondence took place, on the 19th, 20th, and
22nd February, between Mr. Patrick O'Brien, M.P., and
Captain Donelan, M.P., in which Mr. John Dillon was
asked to sign a circular, calling a conference of all Irish
members. Mr. Dillon wrote : —
With reference to the proposal you made to me to-day, I beg to
say that 1 shall be prepared to advise my friends to attend any
conference of Irish members of the House of Commons which
may be arranged to consider the possibility of common action on
the over-taxation of Ireland, and the proposed Royal C<Mnmission.
The following circular was finally issued on the 25th
February, signed by Colonel Saunderson and Messrs. T.
M. Healy, Horace Plunkett, and J. E. Redmond: —
REPORT OF TFIE ROYAL COMMISSION. 131
In view of the forthcoming debate on the question of the financial
relations between Great Britain and Ireland, it has been suggested
that a conference of all Irish members should be held, so that au
interchange of views should take place upon the matter, it being
understood that attendance at such conference does not imply
either acquiescence in or disagi'eement with the findings of the
recent Commission. We beg, therefore, to request your attendance
at such a conference on Tuesday, the 9th March, at five p.m., in
Committee Room No. 12.
The i\ll-Ireland Committee, at a largely attended
meeting on the 26th February, passed a resolution
approving of the conference.
The conference took place on 9th March, and was
attended b}^ sixty-three Irish members. Colonel
Saunderson took the chair, and Messrs. Abraham,
P. O'Brien, T. B. Curran, and Horace Plunkett were
appointed honorary secretaries. A sub-committee,
consisting of Colonel Saunderson, Mr. T. M. Healy,
Mr. J. J. Clancy, and Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, was ap-
pointed. Fifty-one Irish members attended the second
meeting on the 13th March. Colonel Saunderson again
took the chair. Mr. J. J. Clancy read the resolution
adopted by the sub-committee: —
That the findings of the Royal Commission on the Financial
Relations between Great Britain and Ireland disclose a dispropor-
tion between the taxation of Ireland and its taxable capacity as
compared with the other jjarts of the United Kingdom which
deserves the immediate attention of Parliament.
This did not meet with the unanimous approval of the
conference, which separated after passing a hearty vote
of thanks to the chairman.
In the meantime a deputation from the All-Ireland
Committee was received by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer on the 5th March. The deputation con-
sisted of the Lord Mayor of Dublin ; Sir Joseph
N. M'Kenna, D.L. ; Mr. Simon Mangan, Her Majesty's
T32 IRTSTT PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
Lieutenant for County Meath ; Count Plunkett, Barrister-
at-Law ; Mr. R. Keating Clay, ].V., Solicitor, Chairman
of the Dalkey Town Commissioners; Captain Loftus
Bryan, D.L., Wexford ; Alderman M. M. Murphy, Solicitor,
Kilkenny; Mr. More O'Ferrall, D.i,., Kildare; Major
Johnson, J. r., Chairman of the Glenties Union ; Mr. James
Ross, ].v., Edgeworthstown ; the Hon. Martin Morris,
J.P., High Sheriff, Galway; Mr. W. H. Cobbe, J.P., Chair-
man, Mountmellick Guardians; Alderman Hadden, J.P.,
Wexford; Mr. P. O'Conor, Barrister-at-Law, Roscom-
mon; Mr. Daniel J. Wilson, Barristcr-at-Law; and
Alderman Sir Robert Sexton, D.L., Dublin. The depu-
tation was introduced by the Right Honourable Horace
Plunkett, and was authorized by the All-Ireland Com-
mittee to call the attention of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer to the over-taxation of Ireland disclosed by
the Royal Commission, and if he cxpres.sed any views in
favour of further inquiry, to object to the appointment
of a second Royal Commission,
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A.D. 1897.
THE ATTITUDE OF THE GOVERNMENT.
"The Times "of 29th December, 1896, declared that
Parliament was the sole authority which should settle
the taxation of Ireland : —
VVe have contended, surely not without reason, that issues of such
vital importance to the whole jjopulation of the United Kingdom
should be determined l)y no authority less than Parliament itself.
Mr. Goschen, with the concurrence of his chief, in the
Ministry of 1869, stated that the Government would
THE ATTITUDE OF TIIIC (JOVEKNMENT. 1 33
not refer the /cV/ij affecting taxation to a Royal Com-
mission. Mr. Gladstone approved of that then, and
repeated his approval in the debates of 1893. The
attitude assumed by the Government was also con-
demned by Mr. Goschen in 1869 — i.e., proposing the
appointment of a Royal Commission, so as to hang up
a troublesome question for two or three years.
The Government attitude can be best understood
from the following pronouncements.
The Marquis of Lansdowne, Minister for War, in the
debate on Lord Castletown's motion in the House of
Lords, on 5th March, 1897, said : —
I Hill uut here to contend that, for purposes of statistical coui-
parison, Ireland may not, in one sense of the words, be regarded as
a "separate entity." No one will, I suppose, deny that an indis-
criminate system of taxation may operate unequally upon difterent
parts of the same country, or that, in the imposition of taxation, a
prudent financier should always take care that no tax presses with
undue severity upon a particular section of the community, whether^
that section be represented by a class or by a geographical area ;
nor will it be disputed that, when the limits within which the class
is distributed coincide wdth a well-defined geographical area, the
inequality, if there is one, becomes more marked, and the sense of
wront' more acute. These considerations must obviously apply
with peculiar force in the case of Ireland ; and if we mean that the
two countries should start with a common system of taxation, and
that we should then, having regard to all these considerations, ask
whether that system presses inequitably upon Ireland, we need not,
I think, quarrel with those who describe Ireland as a "separate
entity." I would even go further, and say, that to deny to her
the position of a " separate entity " in this sense is to Hy in the
face of facts. Not a year passes without some legislation of specia
application to Ireland ; and I think that it may fairly be said that,
in iiroportiou as her individu;ility in such respects is a marked
individuality, she has a stronger claim to separate consideration
for fiscal purposes.
In the debate on Mr. Blake's motion in the House of
Commons on 29th March, Sir M. Hicks-Beach, Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, admitted that the burden
134 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
ii-n posed on Ireland by the proportionate contribution
required by the Act of Union was more than she could
bear, and that Irish complaints against the imposition
of taxation in 1853 were justified. He showed that
there was large expenditure in Ireland, and that such
expenditure was a set-off against over-taxation, and
declared that further investigation was necessary.
I want an inquiry into it by persons whose verdict may be ac-
cepted as conclusive by honourable members below the gangway,
as well as by ourselves, and I maintain that it cannot be contro-
verted that this inquiry has formed no part whatever of the work
of the late R(jyal Commission, and that it cannot, as Lord Farrer
has suggested, be fairly and properly settled merely by Treasury
returns. We desire in this matter to do full justice to the claim of
Ireland, aye, and of Scotland, too, under the proviso as to par-
ticular exemptions and abatements in the Act of Union : we desire
that the facts as to expenditure shall be also carefully investigated ;
and when these facts are fully ascertained, when the meaning of
that proviso is laid down, and its application to our existing cir-
cumstances is shown by a tribunal in whose verdict both sides may
have confidence, then T can assure the House it will be our desire
to endeavour to do full justice in this matter to the poorest parts
of the United Kingdom. But, under this one condition, we will
take no step whatever to depart from that system of connnon tax-
ation which was established in 1817 ; we will do nothing to impair
either the financial or the political permanence of the Union
between Great Britain and Ireland ; least of all will we give any
countenance to the monstrous doctrine that any part of the United
Kingdom should be relieved froni its fair obligation to contribute
to the necessities of the national debt and of the Army and Na\^,
and to the maintenance of our great empire.
Before the conclusion of the debate Mr. Goschen de-
clared that the cardinal issue to be referred to the new
Commission was : —
Whether the sum spent on local purposes in Ireland ought to be
treated as a set-off or not. . . . The matter must be looked at
as a whole, and we must take the doctrine of set-ofF as it has
been taken previously on various occasions.
THE PROPOSED NEW COMMISSION. 1 35
He defined the duty of the new Royal Commission
as follows : —
First, ought there to be a set-off, and if so, was that properly
calculated in the Treasury returns? Secondly, ought there, or ought
there not, to be a contril)ution towards imperial expenses from
Ireland ( and thirdly, is there anything in the circumstances of to-
day that would require the application and giving effect to that
part of the Act of Union that requires that under certain circum-
stances abatements and exemptions are fair to the poorer country ?
History again repeated itself Defeated in the original
position it took up, the Government did not think of
doing right, but looked around for a new position. Not
a single reference in Mr. Goschen's proposed inquiry of
1897 was contained in his references to the select
committee of 1890-91-92.
CHAPTER XXIX.
A.D. 1897.
THE PROPOSED NEW COMMISSION.
THE TERMS OF REFERENCE STRONGLY OBJECTED TO.
On the I ith February, 1897, Mr. A. J. Balfour announced
in the House of Commons the terms of reference to the
new Royal Commission which the Government pro-
posed to appoint. The "All-Ireland" Committee,
which met at the Mansion House, Dublin, on the
1 2th February, unanimously adopted the following
resolutions : —
(i) That this meeting protests against the appoint-
ment of a second Commission to further inquire into any
matters already inquired into and reported on by the
late Royal Commission.
(2) That whilst fully sympathizing with the financial
claims of Scotland, we consider that, having regard to
136 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
the report of the late Royal Commission, the just claims
of Ireland are prior to, and should not be delayed for
or complicated with, those of Scotland.
(3) That the terms of reference to the proposed Com-
mission on expenditure common to England, Ireland,
and Scotland are most unfair and unjust to Ireland.
At a later stage, in June, the All-Ireland Committee,
after consultation with the leading Irish authorities on
the question, issued the following memorandum : —
" The All-Ireland Committee urgently presses upon
the Irish representatives in Parliament the great impor-
tance of demanding a modification of the terms of
reference to the new Commission as announced by the
Government.
" It is essential to secure that the constitutional rela-
tions of Great Britain and Ireland in fiscal matters,
provided for in the Act of Union and the Act for the
Amalgamation of Exchequers, shall not be left out of
consideration by the new Commission, and that this
Commission, which is (according to the statement of the
Government) to be supplementary to the former one,
shall not ignore the question of the comparative wealth
and comparative progress of Great Britain and Ireland
since the date of the Union, and the fact of the great
difference between the taxation borne by Ireland and
her taxable capacity.
" It is also urged that the consideration of the case of
Ireland should not be retarded by an investigation into
the fiscal position of Scotland. The terms of reference
to the former Commission were limited to the financial
relations between Great Britain and Ireland. If the
supplementary Commission is directed to inquire into
the case of Scotland, there will be a departure from the
scope of the previous inquiry. It is submitted that, if
the people of Scotland demand an inquiry into the
financial position of their country, this should be the
subject of investigation by a separate Commission.
THE PROPOSED NEW COMMISSION. 1 37
" The Committee further submit that the question of
any re-adjustment or reduction of expenditure on Irish
services is one to be dealt with by ParHament and the
Government as a matter of poHcy, and cannot be
properly considered by a Commission inquiring into the
financial relations of Great Britain and Ireland,
" The second proposed term of Government reference
would practically involve a prolonged investigation into
all the Civil Service and other departments of the State
in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and into the posi-
tion, pay, and duties of the Government officials in the
three kingdoms. Again, the expediency of reducing or
re-adjusting the expenditure on Irish local services can-
not be considered on the grounds of financial advantage
alone, without taking into account historical, social, and
local influences, which must be weighed before any pro-
fitable conclusion can be reached."
The terms of reference to the new Commission pro-
posed by the Government are as follows : —
1. To inquire and report how much of the total expenditure
which the State provides may properly be considered to be expendi-
ture common to England, Scotland, and Ireland, and what share
of such common exj)unditure each country is contributing after the
amount expended on local services has been deducted from its true
revenue.
2. How the expenditure on Irish local services which the State
wholly or in part provides compares with the corresponding
expenditure in England and Scotland, and whether such Irish
expenditure may with advantage be re-adjusted or reduced.
3. Whether, when regard is had to the nature of the taxes now
in force, to the existing exemptions, and to the amounts of the
expenditure by the State on local services, the provision in the Act
of Union between Great Britain and Ireland with regard to par-
ticular exemptions or abatements calls for any modification in the
financial system of the United Kingdom.
At the convention held in the Mansion House,
Dublin, on 22nd April, 1897, the following resolution
was passed : —
138 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
That this convention further protests against the terms of
reference to the new Commission announced by Her Majesty's
Government, and condemns them as framed in disregard of Ireland's
constitutional rights, and as one-sided, and as relegating to a Com-
mission questions of policy and expediency tit for determination by
Parliament alone.
The All- Ireland Committee suggest that the Govern-
ment terms of reference should be modified as follows : —
1. To inquire aiid repcjrt whether or not it is the true meaning
of the Act of Union and the Act for the Amalgamation of the
Exchequers that the amount of Exchequer expenditure for civil
administration in Ireland, or any, and if so, what part of such
expenditure, should be taken into account in considering the rela-
tive cajjacity of Great Britain and Ireland to bear taxation, and the
proportion in which sucli taxation is borne by them respectively.
2. How much of the total expenditure whicli the State provides
may (within the meaning of the Act of Union and the Act for the
Amalgamation of the Exchequers) be considered to be expenditure
common to Great Britain and Ireland, and what share of such
common expenditure each lias been and is contributing after the
amount expended upon services which (having regard to these
statutes) may be considered local services has been deducted from
its true revenue.
3. How much of the total expenditure which the State provides
for purposes considered as aforesaid common to Great Britain and
Ireland has been and is, on an average, actually expended in
Great Britain or Ireland respectively.
4. How the expenditure which the State provides in aid of
Irish local rates, or in support or aid of services in Ireland, which
in Great Britain are supported out of local rates, compares with
similar expenditure in Great Britain.
5. Whether, when regard is had to the nature of the taxes now
in force, to the existing exemptions, to the comparative wealth of
Great Britain and Ireland, to the comparative rate of theii- national
progress, and to the amount of the expenditure by the State as
aforesaid in Great Britain or Ireland respectively, the provisions
in the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland with
regard to particular exemptions or abatements call for any modi-
fication in the financial system of the United Kingdom, or for the
transfer to the Imperial Exchequer of the liability for the support
of any services in Ireland at present, wholly or in part, maintained
from local rates in Ireland.
THE PROPOSED NEW COMMISSION. 1 39
" N.B. — The proposed modification of the terms of
reference is not to be taken as in any way detracting
from the objections entertained to the appointment of
any new Commission."
In the debate in the House of Commons on 30th
March, 1897, Sir Edward Clarke, Q.C., thus referred to
the proposed new Commission :^" The real question in
this debate is whether there is to be a further inquiry
with reeard to certain matters which it is necessary to
ascertain. Now, Sir, I believe I can show the House
that the appointment of a new Commission is wholly
unnecessary. I find in the terms of the reference to the.
new Commission which has been laid before the House
that the first thing it has to do is to inquire and report
How much of the total expenditure for which the State provides
may he properly considered expenditure common to England,
Scotland, and Ireland, and what share of such common expenditure
each country is contributing after the amount expended on local
services has been deducted from the true revenue.
There is no doubt that that question indicates matters
upon which the Government and Parliament ought to be
informed in dealing with this subject. But no one can
suggest a single question contained in that paragraph of
the reference to the new Commission which has not been
fully and completely answered by the officials of the
Treasury on the best information they could possibly
obtain. The amount of imperial expenditure on Ireland
is not a matter of dispute ; the returns are laid before
the House every year, and we have the amount of local
expenditure in each of the three kingdoms stated in a
complete table. Then we are to get the true revenue of
each of the three kingdoms ; and the moment you have
these figures it is merely a subtraction sum in order to
answer the question put in the first reference. Upon
these very questions a great amount of labour has
already been expended by the representatives of the
Treasury."
I40 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
He then alluded to the Select Committee of 1890;
to the terms of reference to it ; to the return pre-
sented to the House by Mr. Jackson on the loth of
July, 1891 (No. 329); to the further return presented
by Sir John Hibbert, the then Secretary to the Trea-
sury, on the 24th of February, 1893, giving the actual
figures to the end of the financial year 1891-92 ; to
the evidence of Sir Edward Hamilton ; and then con-
tinued : —
" With the figures supplied from these authoritative
sources it is perfectly easy to calculate the amount of
Ireland's contributions to the imperial expenditure from
the year 1889-90 down to 1896. 1 will not give the
totals, for the figures are many, but it is easy to take the
result on a percentage. The average contribution of
Ireland to imperial services for that period was 3-44 per
cent. I cannot understand what additional information
the Government can possibly want, or where they are to
go for it. The First Lord of the Treasury said himself
on February i6th :—
As all the information that can be obtained about the estimated
taxation of Ireland and Great Britain was laid before the late Com-
missi(jn, it may be assumed that the new Commission will not lind
it necessary to go into that again.
"Now, the figures which show a percentage of contribu-
tion to the imperial expenditure of 3-44 have been seized
upon by the opponents of the Irish claim as if they
absolutely disposed of it. The argument is that the
Irish claim to pay taxes in the proportion of one to
twenty, but that, as a matter of fact, they are only con-
tributing to imperial expenditure in the proportion of
one to thirty-two or thirty-three.
" Sir David Barbour says in his report : —
On the assumption that the taxable capacity of Ireland is one-
twentieth of that of the United Kingdom, Ireland paid in 189^-94
about two and three-quarter millions sterling more than she would
THE PROPOSED NEW COMMISSION. I4I
have paid if the total revenue taken from her had been in propor-
tion to her taxable capacity. In the same year there was expended
for frisli purposes about three and three-cpiarter millions in excess
of what would have been admissible if the expenditure for Irish
purposes had also been in proportion to Ireland's "taxable
capacity." On the whole account, Ireland may be said to liave
>)een a gainer in 1893-04 of about one million sterling : or, in other
words, after meeting the expenditure for Irish purposes, she con-
tril)uted about one million less towards imperial purposes than she
would have done if her contribution for imperial purposes had been
in proportion to her "taxable capacity."
" Sir David Barbour seems to think that that disposes
of the whole question, and the Edinburgh reviewer takes
much the same view. But it seems to me that this pro-
portion of one to thirt\--two is highly disputable. The
representatives of Ireland upon the Commission, it is
true, did not greatly resist its acceptance ; they ex-
plained that they attached comparatively little import-
ance to it, because in their opinion the calculation was
irrelevant. The Irish representatives were, however,
perhaps remiss in allowing the figure to pass unchal-
lenged, because there is very good reason for believing
that this alleged contribution of only one-thirty-second
to the imperial expenditure is a loose calculation
altogether. But, if I were objecting to the claim of
Ireland in this matter, and refusing to consider her case
upon the ground that there was no grievance of this
kind, I certainly should not appoint another Com-
mission, for a new Commission will probably examine
the figures more exhaustively. We have some means
of correcting the calculation ourselves. The distinction
between payments for local services and the amounts
contributed to the imperial revenue began in 1890, in
the reference to the committee then appointed ; and the
Treasury, in the report which they then supplied, dealt
with 'imperial services, English services, Scotch services,
and Irish services,' and said that expenditure on the
142 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
National Debt service and expenses incurred under the
National Debt Redemption Act, the Naval Defence
Fund, Army services. Ordnance services, and Navy ser-
vices, must be regarded as strictly imperial. They also
said that the expenditure charged upon the Consoli-
dated Fund included items which were clearly imperial,
or which could not be divided between the three
kingdoms. Lord Welby's name appeared upon this
paper as that of the Treasury official who supplied
the information ; and, of course, Lord Welby was not
likely to quarrel with his own classification before the
committee. The authority for that classification was
found when Sir Edward Hamilton came to be ex-
amined, and gave his evidence, which will be found in
the second volume of the report of the evidence at page
124. He said that he appeared there as the represen-
tative of the Treasury, and he said that he had talked
the matter over with his colleagues, and that he was ex-
pressing not merely his personal opinion, but that of the
Treasury. The declaration of Sir Edward Hamilton
was made to the Commission on the 14th of November,
1895, when his superiors at the Treasury, for whom he
professed to speak, were the present First Lord of the
Treasury (Mr. Balfour) and the present Chancellor of
the Exchequer (Sir M. Hicks-Beach). Then he went
on to give a history of this classification. He was
asked if it was a Treasury classification simply, and his
answer was : —
Yes. Mr. Goschen was the original authority for it, and it
has been carefully considered since. I do not mean to say that
exception may not be taken ; it is a line that is difficult to draw.
" So far as this distribution of figures is concerned, it
has so clearly and distinctly the strongest authority of
the Treasury, that I do not think Her Majesty's Govern-
ment can expect that any further investigation of the
THE PROPOSED NEW COMMISSION. I43
matter will alter the figures to the detriment of Ireland ;
but it might quite possibly alter them the other way.
Sir Edward Hamilton in his evidence — Question 10,511
— said the item for the collection of taxes in Ireland was
a moot point. Again — Question 10,518 — he said the
Lord Lieutenant's charge was a moot and doubtful
charge. He was pressed with regard to education in
the Queen's Colleges, which is a very large item, amount-
ing to a million. That also he thought was a moot
charge. Then comes the police. He admitted the
proposition that, instead of one and a-half million —
^1,439,000 -being charged to Irish expenses, as is done
under the calculation with which I have been dealing, a
large proportion of it ought to have been charged to
imperial expenditure ; and if these alterations were made,
they would very largely alter the figure with respect to
Ireland. In the return of 1891 the figures giving the
contribution to imperial expenditure show a percentage
of about 3 or 4 per cent. There v/as an appendix to
that return, showing the percentages of expenditure in
1889-90, 1890-91, and 1891-92 on English, Scotch, and
Irish services ' after the cost of the police in each of the
three kingdoms (so far as that cost is met out of revenue
contributed to the Exchequer, or under the Local Taxa-
tion Act), and the special grants for light railways and
distress works in Ireland, have been deducted from
that expenditure.' Who suggested in 1891 that that
should be deducted ? Of course, the authorities then in
power. Why ? Because it must have occurred to some
of them that it was not fair to charge all this against
Ireland in her local account, and that a portion at least
ought to be deducted. I hope I am making it clear. It
brings me to this point. The Edi7ibiirgh reviewer deals
with this question in one of the most interesting pas-
sages of his article, and he comes to the conclusion that
if you made adjustments which might be reasonable
144 IKI'SH PROTEST ACJAIXST OVEK-TAXATIOX,
upon this particular figure, you would deduct from it —
from the local expenditure of Ireland — a sum of three-
quarters of a million ; and he says that that would still
leave Ireland short of the contribution which, according
to her taxable capacity — one in twenty — she ought to
pay. If you make the alteration in the figures and the
allowance which the Edifiburgli reviewer suggests to be
a fair allowance, you will find that Ireland contributes,
and has contributed, to the imperial expenditure in the
proportion of one in twenty-two, which is very little
indeed short of the full contribution which anybody
suggests that she ought to make. I think there are
other considerations which undoubtedly ought to be
borne in mind ; and possibly, if this new Commission is
to be appointed, it would be as well to take some note
of the extent to which the moneys voted by Parliament,
whether for English, Scotch, Irish, or imperial purposes,
are expended within England, Scotland, and Ireland
respectively. I confess I do not think the calculation is
legitimate at all, for reasons which stand apart from this
discussion of the figures ; but if you deal with this matter
on the footing that there are three taxable entities or
areas to be considered, and you are endeavouring to
ascertain the burden upon these areas, it is obvious that
the question how much expenditure takes place within
the limits of each area, is a most important question. Of
the money expended on the public service in Ireland, I
should think a good deal comes to England ; but of the
money that is expended on the public service in England,
I am afraid very little flows over to Ireland ; and should
it be thought necessary again to investigate these figures
which we all have at hand, I hope that the Commission
will be entitled to examine what proportion of the sums
voted under each head of expenditure is actually ex-
pended in the country to which the account refers. Now,
let me pass at once to the second question stated in
THE l'R(jrOSED XI.W CO.M>riSSION. 145
this reference upon Financial Relations. The second
question is — •
How the expenditure on Irish local services, for which the
State wholly or in part provides, compares with the corresponding
expenditure in En'^land or in Scotland, and whether such Irish
expenditure may with advantage be readjusted or reduced.
Surely we want no Commission about that. There are
two questions, and two questions only. The first is,
how Irish local expenditure, classified as I have already
shown, compares with the local expenditure of England
and Scotland. We know it : we have all the figures,
and have had them for years, and if there was another
Commission to-morrow, the only thing would be for Sir
Edward Hamilton to hand in again a copy of the state-
ment which he handed in before, and which gives the
whole information on the subject. The other question
put is this : whether Irish expenditure may with advan-
tage be readjusted or reduced. Now, really, it seems a
little absurd to refer that question to a Commission. The
question is not how it should be reduced, but whether it
could with advantage be readjusted or reduced. O'Conor
Don, the chairman of the late Commission, says in his
report that the possibility of reducing it maybe a proper
subject for a separate inquiry. But it is not a question
of the possibility of reducing it. The question put
b\- the Government is, whether it could with advan-
tage be readjusted or reduced. I refer them to page 50
of the report — the report of Lord Farrer and his col-
leagues, who say : —
We are of opinion that the excessive expenditure of Ireland which
we have described, although it may be no justification for the
excessive taxation of Ireland, is at once a pecuniary loss to the
taxpayers of Great Britain and a cause of demoralization to Ireland.
And no Commission you ever have will recommend more
strongly than that the readjustment or reduction of
Irish expenditure Hut if }'ou want a stronger testi-
L
T46 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
mony, and from another quarter, I refer you to page 105
of the report of Mr. Sexton. Mr. Sexton contends that
the present cost of administering Ireland is very excessive,
and there says : —
For this flagrant evil of wasteful .uul disproportionate expendi-
ture there is but one remedy.
" Of course, the remedy that was proposed was one
which goes into the question of political action. But
upon the question whether expenditure in Ireland is ex-
cessive, or whether it can with advantage be readjusted
or reduced, that Commission are absolutely clear and
unanimous in their reports. Just let me put this prac-
tical consideration to the House. Suppose a new Com-
mission were appointed, and it reported, in answer to
this second paragraph, that the expenditure in Ireland
could with advantage be readjusted and reduced, you
would have learned nothing new, you would have
learned exactly what this Commission has told you.
But suppose the Commission were to report that the
expenditure upon civil government in Ireland was
moderate in amount and reasonable in character, and
that it produced an effective and satisfactory result in
economical and good government, the House would
tear up the report with ridicule. We know the facts
better than that. I know the reason of much of this
extravagant expenditure. Hon. members opposite have
said, so long as this country was dealing with them in
a way which they did not approve of, and incurring ex-
penditure which they did not desire to sanction by their
votes, they were determined to get all they could ; and
as long as they were being taxed so heavily, they meant
to get as much back as they could, and did not mind
very much whether it was the salary of an unnecessary
judge or was expended in any other way. The way
in which this House has dealt with Irish expenditure
THE PROPOSED NEW COMMISSION. 147
has been perfectly grotesque. Last night the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer said that, if hon. members
opposite would assist in making a little reduction in
the excessive cost of the judicial establishment in
Ireland, he would promise them that they should have
full advantage of every shilling of the saving."
Mr. T. M. Healy : " He denied that to-day."
The Chancellor of the Exchequer : " No, I did not.
I adhere to every word of that statement. I said I
could not deal with matters of the past, and that I was
only responsible for matters of the future."
He then referred to the late appointment of an Irish
judge, and resumed : — " I would like to call attention to
the third paragraph in the terms of reference to the pro-
posed Commission, the words of which are extremely
important, I think, because these words do carry with
them a most important acknowledgment of the case of
the Irish members : —
Whether, when regard is had to th3 nature of the taxes now in
force, to existing exemptions, and to the amount of expenditure
by the State on local services, the provision in the Act of Union
lietween Great Britain and Ireland with regard to " particular ex-
emptions or abatements " calls for any modification in the financial
system of the United Kingdom.
" Sir, I confess I think that the insertion of those
words in that reference is a very important fact. It
recognises that the Act of Union is still in force, con-
tinued as it was, and having effect given to it, by the
Act of 1816, and it acknowledges the right of the Irish
people now to come with the Act of Union and the Act
of 1 8 16 in their hands, and to claim, if they can show
o-ood cause in the circumstances of their country, to
have exemptions or abatements. But just let me
suggest this, that the question now has passed from
the region of Treasury investigation and of financial
fact into a region of most controversial discussion of
148 IRISH rROTKST AC.AINST OVER-TAXATION.
political matters. I must, in passing, say that I greatly
regretted to hear from the Chancellor of the Exchequer
last night that he proposed to take a judge from Eng-
land, and one from Scotland, and one from Ireland to
serve on the proposed Commission. I do hope we are
not going on with the practice of withdrawing judicial
officers from their proper work to put them upon Com-
missions with which they have nothing to do, and upon
which their authority will practically be of no use at all.
It is acknowledged by the terms of this reference that
the Act of Union and the Act of 18 16 are still effective
instruments for the protection of Ireland, if the circum-
stances of Ireland entitle her to claim such protection ;
and what does this House care about the report of one
judge, or of three judges, as to what they say is the
meanincf of these words ? The House of Commons
must construe them for itself, and will construe them,
as I believe, not in a technical or niggardly spirit, but
with the desire to give full effect to the pledge which
was contained in those Acts as to the treatment, and
separate treatment, which Ireland should receive."
He then mentioned the Marquis of Salisbury's classi-
fication of Royal Commissions, and continued : —
" If it is only financial fact that is to be obtained, we
do not want a Commission. If the Chancellor of the
Exchequer gave directions to the Treasury officials, he
would have within the next week reports upon all these
points given by persons whose authority would never be
questioned, and he would gain nothing if they were
filtered, as Sir Edward Hamilton's report was, through
the different members of a Royal Commission. If, on
the other hand, we are going to adopt the second kind
of Royal Commission, and to shut up violent persons to
fig-ht out between themselves in the Commission-room
the meaning of the Act of Union and the Act of 18 16,
surel)' it would be far better to let us have the facts stated
THE PROPOSED NEW COMMISSION. I49
before the House, and to let us, here in the House, and
not within the Hmits of a Royal Comrru'ssion, have these
questions fought out. Let me say further, the question
now referred to in that third paragraph of the terms of
reference is a serious question of polic)-, and it is not a
question of fact at all. We have got all the facts ; the
question is whether, in dealing with Ireland, you are
entitled to set off the expenditure upon the local services
in Ireland against her general contribution. I confess I
take the strongest view that you are not. Upon this I
would refer specially to the terms of the Act of 18 16.
It is perfectly clear that the scheme of that Act was
that the taxes being imposed, such taxes as Parliament
might think right, the produce of those taxes was to
come into a common fund, and out of that fund the
expenditure was to take place by one authority, which
is the authority of this House, and for all the purposes
of the empire. To my thinking, the expenditure upon
the payment of the police in Ireland is as much an
imperial charge, in the true sense of the word, as any-
thing else that appears on our accounts. When I hear
these conflicting voices, when I hear it said from that
side.
Oh, your expenditure is an imperial expenditure ; when yuu
spend money in Ireland, you are spending money at tlie direction
of the Council of tlie whole nation, and for purposes which it
thinks wise ;
and when, on the other hand, I hear it said.
Oh, you must not consider that as an imperial expenditure ; I am
going to look and see how much you cost us ; I am going to make
out a balance of account, and see what we are to debit and credit
Ireland with —
I ask myself with some wonder,
Which is the Unioni.st voice ?
" If this were truly and properly to be called Irish
expenditure, I could see no escape from the conclusion
I50 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
that it must be governed by Irishmen according to Irish
ideas. It is because I believe that the expenditure
which is under the control of this House, the great
majority here being representatives of Great Britain, is
all imperial expenditure, that I would protest against
the attempt to cut and carve up the accounts with regard
to England and Scotland and Ireland with a debit and
credit account, as if they were mere branches which were
connected together by commercial associations, but were
not part of the one imperial whole. I must say, from
my own point of view, I feel very strongly that while
it is necessary, in order that we may fulfil our treaty
obligations to Ireland, and the obligations we came
under in 1816, that we should carefully regard the con-
dition of Ireland, and endeavour to deal fairly and
generously with her in her need, if need be proved to
exist, we should absolutely refuse to cut up the accounts
of our imperial expenditure because we happen to spend
one sum of money in Ireland, as if Ireland herself had no
separate and exclusive control in it. I would just like
to add, almost in parenthesis, that there is this fatal flaw
about this calculation : you are trying to split the taxa-
tion as if it did not matter how large is the taxation you
impose so long as you spend it upon the population
where you raise it. According to that theory we should
be doing Ireland, in her poverty and trouble, no harm at
all if we were to impose three millions more taxes per
annum upon her, always provided that we doubled the
number of her police, and gave her more judges, and, for
the special benefit of the landlords of Ireland, gave her
an army of assistant-commissioners."
This utter pulverization of the pretexts for the appoint-
ment of a second Commission, and the exposure of the
irrelevancy and purposeless nature of the proposed
inquir)', seem to have settled the matter, as, after the
lapse of seven months, no Commission has been
appointed.
RUINED IRELAND. 15I
CHAPTER XXX.
RUINED IRELAND.
The following is taken from Mr. Murrough O'Brien's
memorandum, Appendix II, Volume I, of the Report of
the Royal Commission :—
" The misery and moral evils caused by over-taxation,
and the misspending of the Irish revenue, cannot be
measured in money or expressed in figures." Two of
the four economic causes of Ireland's poverty and non-
progression in prosperity, as compared with the rest of
the United Kingdom, are : —
"(i) Over-taxation for over ninety years.
" (2) Drain of absentee rental.
" The manifest symptoms of this poverty are : —
"(i) A continually diminishing population.
" (2) Decaying towns and villages.
" (3) Emigration.
" (4) Migration of labourers for temporary employ-
ment to Great Britain and the United States.
"(5) Annually recurring distress and periodical famines.
" (6) Persistent and unabated social and political dis-
content
" (7) The appearance of the mass of the people, their
houses, clothes, and food.
" It is doubtful whether Ireland has increased at
all in wealth during the last thirty years, although,
owing to the diminishing population, it may be shown
statistically that there are more acres of land, pounds of
valuation, miles of railway, &c., per head of the popula-
tion ; but this is not prosperity.
" No poor agricultural country such as Ireland could
stand the continued drain of excessive taxation she has
152 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
been subjected to, and of remittances to absentees
without the economic effect of such unremunerative
payments becoming evident. These payments are
equivalent to a perpetual bad harvest or annual
cattle plague. If the entire potato crop or the
saleable produce of Ireland's live stock were annually
carried away without return, or if absentee payments
were made in one sum as a tribute, the magnitude of
the economic drain would be clearly recognised. The
evil is no less because these payments without return are
made to a number of individuals, or go to support the
dignity, maintain the strength, and reduce the debt of
Great Britain."
The following observations by Mr. Charles Booth are
taken from Appendix X, Volume II, of the evidence
received by the Royal Commission : —
" The view is commonly held- that in general well-
being Ireland has enormously improved since the
famine. No evidence of this improvement is to be
found in the occupation returns, which, on the contrary,
point to a demoralization of industry likely to be the
cause as well as consequence of poverty and waning
trade, and certain to be the source of political dis-
content. I know that figures may be, and are, drawn
from bank deposits and other returns, which seem, to
tell a different story. I shall not attempt to reconcile
this conflict of evidence. To do so would be beyond
the scope of this paper. I can only state the con-
clusions to which the census returns point.
"In the picture of desolation which the Irish figures
afford there seems little room for delusion. When
industries decay, those who have been supported by
them cling to their employment as long as possible,
. . . and the numbers given include many who no
longer find a living in what they profess to do. . . .
In such a case the facts are assuredly worse than the
figures disclose."
RUINKl) IRELAND. 153
0{ general labourers, a very numerous class in Ireland,
he says : —
" They sprang into existence, not from any need of
their services, but as the outcome of agricultural and
industrial distress and charitable doles on an enormous
scale."
Domestic servants wqvq in 1841, 4-2 per cent, of the
population ; in 188 1, 8-2 per cent., there being an actual
positive increase of 85,000. Mr. Booth remarks : —
" What is the explanation of these remarkable figures?
It would be simplest to show they are incorrect ; . . .
but I have found no loophole of escape, and the com-
parison of successive decades shows how gradually the
position of Ireland was reversed, from being the most
economical to being the most extravagant in domestic
.service. The only explanation which suggests itself is
that servants are more numerous where poverty makes
service cheap.
"The decrease in those employed in agricultu}'e,iho\xg\\
affecting each branch, shows itself, of course, mainly in
the labourers and farm servants, who have fallen from
1,326,000 in 1 84 1 to 329,000 in 1881.
" In 1 841 there were 72,000 persons occupied in build-
ing: in 1 88 1 there were but 56,000."
" The total employed at manufacture has dropped
from 989,000 to 379,000 (or 617 per cent.)."
154 IT<I^n PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
CHAPTER XXXI.
A.D. 1897.
ORGANIZATION.
A Convention was held in the Mansion House,
Dublin, on 22nd April, to establish an organization with
the object of redressing the over-taxation of Ireland
disclosed by the report of the late Royal Commission.
The attendance was most representative and influential,
and letters of apology were read from leading men in
all parts of the country. The Convention was addressed
by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, the Earl of Mayo,
Mr. R. Keating Clay, J.P., Solicitor ; the Rev. Mr.
Finlay, Protestant Dean of Leighlin ; Dean White, p.p.,
Nenagh ; Professor Culverwell, f.t.C.D. ; Dr. Joseph E.
Kenny, Mr. Arthur W. Samuels, Q.c. ; Mr. John Carolan,
j.p. ; Mr. J. F. Riordan, Solicitor ; Captain O'Callaghan
Westropp, J.p. ; Mr. John Sweetman, Mr. Robert
Sanders, J.P. ; and Mr. Richard J. Kelly, Barrister-at-
Law. The following resolutions were adopted : —
The Earl of Mayo proposed the first resolution, as
follows : —
That this Convention expresses its dissatisfaction with the posi-
tion taken up by Her Majesty's Government in the recent debate
on the tinaucial relations between Great Britain and Ireland,
protests against the appointment of the proposed new Commission,
and declares that the people of Ireland are determined l>y every
legitimate means to prevent any delay in giving to Ireland the
relief to which she has been found entitled.
Professor Culverwell, F.T.C.D., proposed the second
resolution, as follows : —
That an organization, to be called the Irish Financial Reform
League, be now constituted, with branches in each county and
ORGANIZATION. 155
city in Ireland, to further the uiovenient fur the redress of the
imperial taxation in Ireland, and to maintain the financial rights
to which she is constitutionally entitled. That every person who
subscribes one shilling a year to this League shall be admitted a
member thereof, and that it be referred to the All-Ireland Com-
mittee to draw up the basis on which this League shall be founded.
That a subscription list be opened, pending the formation of the
organization referred to in this resolution, to defray the preliminary
expenses which have been already incurred, and the further
expenses which must be met in forming this League, and in
advancing the objects which the All-Ireland Committee are
advocating.
Mr. Samuels, (^.C, proposed the third resolution, as
follows : —
That this Convention further ])rotests against the terms of
reference to the new Commission announced by Her Majesty's
Government, and condemns them as framed hi disregard of
Ireland's constitutional rights, and as one-sided, and as relegating
to a Commission questions of policy and expediency tit for
determination l)y Parliament alone.
Captain O'Callaghan Westropp then proposed the
fourth resolution, as follows : —
This Convention demands that there shall be forthwith granted
to Ireland relief identical with that conferred ujjon England by the
Agricultural Rating Act of 189(3, by which farmers in England are
granted from the Imperial Exchequer relief to the extent of one-
half the rates payable ( )u their agricultural holdings ; and this
Convention calls upon all Irish representatives in Parliament to
take steps forthwith to secure that in this respect right be done.
The All-Ireland Committee in due course issued an
address to the people of Ireland, and the constitution
of the Irish Financial Reform League: —
TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND.
In accordance with the resolution passed at the Mansion House
Convention on the 22nd April, 1897, the All-Ireland Committee now
lay before their fellow-countrymen the Constitution of the Irish
Financial Reform League.
156 IRISH TROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
It is evident that passing events, buth in and out of Parliament,
each day proclaim the necessity for, and show the advantage of,
united action on the part of all Irishmen to secure the redress of
their financial grievances.
They therefore appeal with confidence to the people of Ireland,
of all classes and every shade of politics, to support and extend this
League throughout the length and breadth of our country, in the
full confidence that the significant unanimity hitherto displayed on
this question will continue, and, deriving from organization fresh
vigour and power, will, in this weighty matter, secure that " right
be done."
As the organization (jf the Irish Financial Reform League, and
the conduct of the movement in a systematic and business-like
manner, will necessitate considerable expenditure, the All-Ireland
Committee consider that the time has come to appeal to their
countrymen for that financial support which has hitherto been only
asked from and afforded by the members of the committee.
Subscriptions, either direct or through local branches of the Irish
Financial Reform League, will be received and acknowledged by
the Hon. Treasurers of the League. Cheques and postal orders
may be made payable to ' ' Irish Financial Reform League, Mansion
House, Dublin."
IRISH FINANCIAL REFORM LEAGUE.
1. That this League be called the " Irish Financial Reform
League."
2. The objects of this League are to secure united action on the
part of all Irishmen in furthering the movement for the redress of
the over-taxation of Ireland, and to maintain the financial rights to
which she is constitutionally entitled.
3. Every person favourable to the objects of this League may
become a member on the payment of one shilling a year to the
funds of the League. On his subscription being received, and his
name enrolled in the list of members, a card of membership will be
delivered to him, which will entitle him to admission to the general
meetings of the League.
4. That the All-Ireland Committee Meeting in Dublin be consti-
tuted the Central Body of the League .
5. That representatives be nominated to act on the All-Ireland
Committee by local committees of the League, to be formed in the
counties, cities, and towns of Ireland.
6. That in the event of there being no local committee, the
League shall invite local taxpayers to form a committee.
URCJANI/.ATION. 157
7. That all subscriptions when received by local committees be
forwarded to the " Treasurers, All-Ireland Committee, Mansion
House, Dublin," after defraying expenses.
8. That the Lord Mayor of Dublin for the time being and the
Ear) of Mayo be Treasurers to the Irish Reform League Fund.
The moneys received to be lodged by the Treasurers to the credit
of the Irish Financial Reform League, at the National Bank,
College Green, Dul)lin.
The organization has been extended to many parts
of Ireland, and very influential meetings have been held
for that purpose ; amongst others, in Carlovv, with the
Right Honourable Henry Bruen presiding ; and in Cork,
with the Earl of Bandon presiding. At the latter meet-
ing, held on the 2nd November, the O'Conor Don made
an earnest appeal to Irishmen to unite on the taxation
question. From the day he entered Parliament, thirty-
seven years ago, he has been invariably found on the
Irish side of this question. He supported General
Dunne, Sir Joseph M'Kenna, and Mr. Mitchell Henry
when they raised it in Parliament. He voted for General
Dunne's Draft Report, and on the death of Mr. Childers
was elected Chairman of the Royal Commission. His
life is the bridge which joins these two great epochs in
the Irish effort for redress. No one recognises more
full)- than he, who has played his part so honourably
and well in the history of the movement, why all the
protests of the past ha\c been fruitless, and how vital
it is to Ireland that the justice which he has seen so
long delayed should be immediately done. Years of
experience have shown him how impossible it was, and
h(nv difficult it will be, to overcome the hostilit}- of
the predominant partner, and that it is not because a
good case has been made out, and clothed with the
authority of a Royal Commission, that redress will
follow. His admitted integrity and wisdom, his long
and faithful services to the cause of reform of Irish
Taxation, his recognised authority and disinterestedness,
158 IRISH PROTHST AGAINST OVER-TAXATIOX.
add a special pathos to the appeal he made at Cork,
which shall be the most fitting conclusion of this
History : —
To a really united Ireland nothing could be refused ; and as the
Financial Reform League has this unity for one of its principal
objects, it is surely deserving of your support. Now, my lords and
gentlemen, I have trespassed long on your attention, and it would
be unpardonable on my part to occupy more of your time ; but I
would fail in the chief object for which I came amongst you if I
did not endeavour to impress upon you, as strongly as my poor
abilities permit, the great, the far-reaching, the lasting importance
of this unity of action. Why should not we be, at the end of this
century, "United Irishmen" in the truest, the broadest, and, at
the .same time, the most constitutional sense ? The liberties which
we enjoy, the powers which we can exercise, the influence which
we can bring to bear on the whole government of this United
Kingdom if we are only united, are so vast, so overwhelming, that,
if but rightly used, they are irresistible. I ask you, then, to-day
to form a branch of this association. I a.sk you to support it con-
tinuously, resolutely, perseveringly. I ask you to do so in the
words of an address issued to your countrymen one hundred years
ago — noble words, no matter what became the subsequent career of
those who penned them. I ask you to endeavour to obtain a unity
of mind and a knowledge of each other. To know each other is to
know ourselves, the weakness of one and the strength of many.
Union is, therefoi'e, power ; it is also wisdom ; but it can be
bi'ought about by only one I'ule of conduct — to attend to those
things in which we agree ; to exclude from our thoughts those in
which we differ, remembering that nothing can be good for one
part of the nation which has not for its object the interest of the
whole.
APPENDIX.
TWO PETITIONS TO PARLIAMENT.
A.i>. 1804.
Petition read at a meeting of the Dublin Corporation by Mr.
John B. Dillon, on 8th February, 1804, unanimously adopted by
the Municipal Council on 15th March, and presented in state by
the Lord Mayor, Peter Paul M'Swiney, at the Bar of the House of
Connnons on 20th April, 1804 : —
TD THE KNIGHTS, BURGESSES, AND CITIZENS IN
PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED.
The Petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses
OF THE City of Dublin
Sheweth :
That by two returns made to your honourable House, dated re-
spectively the 2()th February, 1802, and the 30th .lune, 1803, it
aj»pears that the net ordinary revenue of Ireland, on an average
of three years ending on the 31st December, 1802, amounted to
£0,472,088. That the people of Ireland pay, in addition to the
above sum, at least one million sterling in custom duties paid in
British ports on articles consumed in Ireland, and a further sum of
£200,000 from Crown rents and the Post Office, both of these
sources of revenue being expressly excluded from the returns
above mentioned ; and your petitioners therefore submit that the
annual revenue now raised from Ireland somewhat exceeds
£7,<>00,0(IO. That, by the returns al)ove referred to, the average
amount of pul)lic expenditure in Ireland during the same three
years ajipears to have been £3,905,838. That, in the expenditure
as above stated, the advances made out of the Consolidated Fund
for public objects are not inchided, neither are the repayments on
account of said advances included in the income as above stated ;
))ut your petitioners iiud by the same returns that during the three
l6o IRISH rkOTESI' ACTAIXSr OVER-TAXATION.
years referred to the repaynieiit.s exceeded the sums advanced by
£333,150. That a comparison of the income of Ireland with the ex-
penditure will show that, of tlie revenue raised in this country, the
amount expended at home is very little over one-half ; the home
expenditure being £3,905,838, and the balance expended in Eng-
land or elsewhere amounting to about £3,700,000. That, on an
average of ten years ending 1851, the public revenue paid in
Ireland amounted to only £4,400,000 per annum, as against an
average of £(5, 472, (588 for the last three years ; and that, owing to
the great increase in our taxation, the annual remittances from
Ireland to England have grown during the last fourteen years from
about £700,000 to about £2,700,000. That the rents remitted
from Ireland to absentee proprietors are estimated by your peti-
tioners to amount to between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000 annually ;
and that, accordingly, between absentee rents and the portion of
her income expended abroad, Ireland seems to be depleted to an
amount between seven and eight millions sterling per annum.
That the annual value of all the real property in Ireland, including
the houses of its towns and cities, as well as lands, amounts, by
official valuation, only to £12,324,853 ; and when this amount is
compared with that which is annually sent out of the country, we
cannot reasonably hope for the accumulation of capital, or the con-
sequent growth of remunerative industry, as long as this ex-
hausting drain is permitted to continue. That, when the Act of
Union between Great Britain and Ireland was passed, the public
debt of Ii-eland amounted only to £26,841,219, the debt of Great
Britain being at the same time £420,305,944 ; and that, in sixteen
years after the passing of the Act of Union, Ireland was declai'ed
liable for the entire of the British debt, incurred as Avell before as
after the Union, on the alleged ground that she had failed to pay
the proportion of the imperial expenditure which had been assigned
to her, while it was on all hands admitted that the proportion .so
assigned to her was much larger than an impartial comparison of
her ability with that of Great Britain would have warranted. And
your petitioners feel that they re-echo a sentiment all but uni-
versally shared by the Irisli people in expressing their dissatisfac-
tion with an arrangement which subjected Ireland to an enormous
debt, in the contracting of which the representatives of the Irish
nation took no part, and from the expenditure of which the Irish
people derived no benefit. It would not be dilhcult for your peti-
tioners, by a reference to past dealings with this country, to show
that some compensation is due to her ; but they will content them-
selves with declaring that, in the history of her connection with
APPENDIX. l6l
Great Britain, they are unable to find any title in the latter
country tu the tribute which is now levied from the too scanty re-
sources of Ireland. Your j^etitioners pray that your honourable
House may, either by remission of taxes, or by increased expendi-
ture in this country, establish a closer approximation than now
exists between the income and expenditure of Ireland. And your
petitioners will ever pray.
A.I.. 1897.
The Municipal Council of Dublin, at their monthly meeting on
1st March, 1897, unanimously resolved to present a petition to
Parliament. It was presented in state l)y Lord Mayor R. F.
M'Coy on the 29th March. It was drawn up by Mr. Arthur W.
Samuels, q.c, and Mr. J. J. Clancy, Barrister-at-Law, m.p.,
instructed by the Law Adviser to the Corporation.
TO THE HONOURABLE THE COMMONS OF THE UNITED
KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED.
The Petition of the Right Honoukable the Lokd Mayor,
Aldermen, and Burges.ses of Dublix
Sheweth :
That under the Treaty of the Union between the kingdoms of
Great Britain and Ireland a constitutional right is guaranteed to
Ireland to have her circumstances specially considered in reference
to the imposition of taxation by the Parliament of the L'nited
Kingdom and to the incidence of .such taxation.
That this right has been constantly and continuously insisted
upon in Parliament by the representatives of Ireland of all political
parties since the Union.
That the final report of Her Majesty's Commissioners appointed
by Royal Warrant of 2Gth May, 1894, to inquire into the Financial
Relations of Great Britain and Ireland establishes, nevertheless, the
fact that, whilst the actual tax revenue of Ireland is about one-
eleventh of that of Great Britain, the relative taxable capacity of
Ireland is very uuich smaller, and is not estimated by any of the
Connnissioners as exceeding one-twentieth ; and, consequently,
Ii'eland is now taxed to an amount of between two and a-half and
three millions pounds per annum in excess of her proper proportion.
That this grave injustice to Ireland, as further appears from tlu;
said report, has been brought about not only by the imposition of
a financial burden at the time of the L^nion which, as events
M
1 62 IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
showed, she was unable to bear, but by a serious addition to that
burden in 1853 and several succeeding years, which was not
justified by the circumstances of Ireland, but which, nevertheless,
has been continued and even increased since that time.
That this burden of excessive taxation has seriously inj ured, and
is seriously injuring, the material interests of Ireland, and has con-
tributed in no small degree to retard her connnercial progress and
prevent her industrial development, and that so long as it exists it
must continue to have that result, and to constitute a grave national
grievance affecting all classes of the Irish population.
That your petitioners feel confident that, in laying these views
before your honourable House, they are giving expression to con-
victions firmly held and well nigh universally entertained by the
citizens of Dublin.
Your petitioners therefore pray that your honourable House will
take into consideration the grievance disclosed by the said report,
and will, at an early date, adopt such measures as justice may
dictate to redress that grievance and to alleviate its efl'ects. And
your petitioners will ever pray.
Lord Lieutenants of Ireland,
1853 to 1897.
1853. George Earl of Carlisle.
1858. Archibald Earl of Eglinton.
1859. George Earl of Carlisle.
1864. John Lord Wodehouse, afterwards Earl of Kimberlev.
1866. James Marquis of Abercorn, afterwards Duke.
1S68. John Earl Spencer.
1874. James Duke of Abercorn.
1876. John Duke of Marlborough.
1880. Francis Earl Cowper.
1882. John Earl Spencer.
1885. Henry Earl Carnarvon.
1886. John Earl of Aberdeen.
i886. Charles Marquis of Londonderry,
1889. Lawrence Earl of Zetland.
1892. Robert Baron Houghton, afterwards Earl Crewe.
1895. George Earl Cadogan.
appendix. 163
Chancellors of the Exchequer,
FROM 1852 TO 1897.
1852. W. E. Gladstone, 28th December.
1S55. Sir George C. Lewis, 5th March.
1858. Ben-jamin Disraeli, 27th February.
1S59. W. E. Gladstone, June.
1866. Benjamin Disraeli, 6th July-
1868. George Ward Hunt, 29th February,
186S. Robert Lowe, 9th December.
1873. W. E. Gladstone, August.
1874. Sir Stafford Northcote, 21st February.
1880. W. E. Gladstone, 28th April.
1882. H. C. E. Childers, December.
1885. Sir ^L Hicks-Beacii, 24th June.
1886. Sir W. V. Harcourt, 6th February.
1886. Lord Randolph Churchill, 26th July.
1887. George J. Goschen, 3rd January.
1892. SiK. W. V. Harcourt, i8th August.
1895. Sir M. Hicks-Beach, July.
SPEECHES OF IlilSR xMEMBEKS ON THE
BUDGET OF 1858,
MR. W. T. FAGAN.
Extracts from a Speech made by William Trant Fagan,
Member for Cork City, on 'J5th April, 1853, in the
House of Commons. Mr. Fagan was a merchant and Alder-
man of Cork, and had filled the office of Mayor of that city.
He was a Repealer.
He freely admitted that the superstructure of the financial
scheme of the right hon. gentleman was grand— statesmanlike ;
but the keystone of the arch on which it was erected was the in-
quisitorial income tax to be extended to Ireland — not to Ireland
prosperous and prospering, but to Ireland downtrodden and
struggling from the sad efi'ects of a five years' famine. He felt it,
therefore, a duty to his constituents and to the country of Avhich
he was one of the representatives, to off'er the proposition the
most strenuous opposition.
He had shown, then, that fur the benefits conferred on Ireland
by the continuance in times of peace of an income tax she already
pays her quota, without the necessity of extending that tax to
Ireland. But he proposed to go further and show that, by the
solemn treaty of the Union, Ireland was not bound to contribute
to the general expenditure beyond her relative ability with the
ability of England, to be ascertained by certain fixed and unalter-
able criteria. That was the principle on which the financial
portion of the Act of Union was based. Taking these criteria as
the basis of the calculations, it was ascertained and settled at the
Union that Ireland's contribution to the general exijenditure
should be two-seventeenths ; that, in case the relative ability of
both countries should alter, there should be a revision of the
proportion to be contributed in periods of twenty years, unless in
APPENDIX. 165
the meantime the debts of the two countries, which at the Union
were at the ratio of 1 to 10, should approximate to 1 to 7A, in
which case the two exchequers should be consolidated, and thence-
forward there should be a common taxation.
Tlius one (debt) increased four times (Ireland's), while the other
increased but one-lialf (England's). This proved beyond questiim
that the principle of the Union — namely, that each country should
contribute according to its ability — was violated from the very com-
mencement of tliat Act. The consequence was that, before the
period of revision came round, the two debts had approximated to
the relative proportion of 1 to 7'h, and the Exchequers were con-
solidated in 181G. This never could have occurred had Ireland
only contributed according to the solemn contract she had entered
into. Her relative ability to contribute would be periodically
revised, and they would now be in a position, under the force of
the Union Act, to ascertain and determine the fair j^roportion she
should be called upon to pay.
Wliy, since 1815, while €i">l, 000,000 of taxes have been taken off
the slioulders of England, Ireland has received a relaxation
amounting to only £2,900,000 sterling up to 1840. He had now
established beyond question that, l)oth before and after the con-
solidation of the Exchequers, Ireland ought not to be forced to pay
more than her relative ability to the general taxation, that ability
to be ascertained according to the criteria set forth in the seventh
article of the Union— namely, her relative income and her relative
consumption of beer, spirits, sugar, wine, tea, and tobacco. Now,
the ratio of Ireland's consumption to tliat of England's in these
articles is as follows : — Beer, 1 to 25 ; spirits, 1 to 3 ; sugar, 1 to
15 ; wine, 1 to 12 ; tea, 1 to 9 ; tobacco, 1 to 0. This gives an
average consumption of 1 to llh. Well, the income of England is
ascertained to be £250,000,000. The income of Ireland is about
£20,000,000, or 12i to 1. The compound ratio, then, of con-
sumption and of income is 12 to 1, being England's ability
relatively to Ireland to contribute to the general expendi-
ture, which amounts to £52,000,000. Ireland pays into tlie Ex-
checpier, exclusive of unacknowledged taxes, £4,000,000 a year,
Ijeing one-twelfth of £48,000,000, England's contribution. Her
unacknowledged taxation — that is, the duties paid in England on
tea, siigar, wine, tobacco, coffee consumed in Ireland — is computed
1 66 IRISH PROTEST AC'tAINST OVER-TAXATION.
to be nearly £1,000,000 a year. Consequently, Ireland pays now
more than she ought under the terms of her treaty with England,
independently of her local taxation, which, including county cess,
poor rates, and municipal taxes, amounts to £2,000,000 a year, or
five shillings in the pound on the saleable property in Ireland,
while England's local taxation is but £12,000,000 on £100,000,000
saleable property, being less than 2s. 4d. in the pound.
MR. ISAAC BUTT.
Extract from the Speech delivered by Mr. Isaac Butt in
THE House of Commons on 2nd May, 1853. Mr. Butt was
then a Conservative member.
If they were to have the income tax as an imperial tax, then he
would ask the committee to go fairly into the whole question of
the financial relations of Ireland. He would ask them to consider
what was its local taxation, and what share of the national debt
Ireland in justice would be said to owe. Let them appoint a com-
mittee to inquire into that subject, and he ventured to say that no
man would come out of that committee without the impression that
Ireland was over- taxed.
MR. THOMAS CONOLLY.
Extract from a Speech of Mr. Thomas Conolly in the
House of Commons on 2nd May, 1853. Mr. Conolly was
a Tenant Right member.
Statistics would show that that country (Ireland) already paid
her full share of taxation, and that the claim for any greater
amount was devoid of justice. The gross income of Ireland was
calculated at £20,000,000, whereas the gross income of Great
Britain, according to the authority of the right hon. baronet the
member for Halifax (Sir C. Wood), then Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, was stated at £250,000,000. He took that to be the
proportion which the taxation of Ireland ought to bear to that of
Great Britain, or about 1 to 12|. The gross revenue of the empire
was £52,000,000, of which Great Britain contributed £47,840,000,
and Ireland £4,160,000. Now, the net produce of the Irish
revenue, on an average of ten years from 1835 to 1844, was
£4,104,000, so that Ireland had been paying a small amount above
APPENDIX. 167
her quota in proportion to her gross annual income. And yet it
was now proposed to violate the Union c<jmpact by materially
adding to the Ijurdens of Ireland, and thus destroying that relative
proportion which ought to exist.
LORD CLAUD HAMILTON.
Extract from a Speech op Lord Claud Hamilton, delivered
IX THE House of Commons on 23rd May, 1853. Lord
Claud Hamilton was a Conservative member.
The right hon. gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) had relied on the old
story of the remission of the consolidated annuities. But the right
hon. gentleman knew well he never could have got the whole of
the annuities after the report and evidence on that subject printed
by the other House of Parliament. Giving him credit, however,
for the whole, the remission was not half the amount of the income
tax. Would the right hon. gentleman, with all his skill in ciphere,
show that this was a benefit to Ireland ? Then, as to the spirit
duty, how could the Irish people be materially benefited ] Had
not the experience of 1842 shown what would be the result of
that measure? Had the right hon. gentleman attempted to answer
all those arguments, it would not have been necessary to re-advert
to tliem. The right hon. gentleman was bound to defend his
financial position, but had failed to do so. The position of Ireland
was exceptional, and the taxation to be imposed would most pro-
bably be permanent. If there was to be a permanent tax riveted
on the country under pretence of a temporary tax, the condition
of the country ought to be investigated, and some endeavour
made to vindicate the policy proposed. It was only the right hon.
gentleman's evasion of all these topics which had created the
necessity for noticing them again at a late period of the evening,
when the House was far more full than when they had first been
brought forward. There was a derangement of the balance of
taxation between the two countries, which had been arranged at
the time of the Union as the basis of their financial positions.
The terms then agreed upon were that the two countries were
to unite as to future expenses on fi strict measure of relative
ability. He would not go into the figures. The right hon. gentle-
man proposed a new scheme afiecting the fiscal relations between
the two countries. The total amount of remission to England,
after deducting tlie £250,000 of additional income tax, was
1 68 IRISH PROTEST At^AINST OVER-TAXATION.
€1,200,000, and the amount of increase of taxation applicable
exclusively to Ireland was £658,000, wliich, after deducting the
£200,000 remission of consolidated annuities, left an increase of
taxation to Ireland of £458,000, thus granting large remissions to
England, while imposing new and lieavy l)urdens on Ireland. How
could tlie right hon. gentleman justify this disprojjortion ?
EARL OF MAYO.
Extract fkom a Speech delivered by Lord Naas, afterwards
Earl of Mayo, in the House of Commons, on 27th May,
1853.
He believed that the tax-paying capal)ility of Ireland was much
greater then (1845) than it was at ^jresent, and therefore the
objections of those higli financial authorities would prevail and
apply witli far greater force now ; and to show this, it was only
necessary to remind the committee that the circulation of Ireland
w.is one-third less than it was in 1845 ; that the exportation of
cattle and corn was abnost nearly one-third less ; and that, whereas
in 1845 3,000,000 quarters of grain and malt had been exported,
only 1,324,000 quarters had l)een exported last year. So that, in
l)oint of fact, it was impossible to make out tlie case that the tax-
])aying capacity of Ireland had been enlarged since 1845. He was
justified, therefore, in asking what were the causes which had
enabled the Government to come to a different conclusion from that
of the Government of 1845, and also what was the amount expected
to be realized from an Irish income tax.
APPENDIX. 169
IRISH TAXATION MENTIONED IN
PARLIAMENT.
1S53, 25tli May. Py General Dunne.
i860, 30th March. Py General Dunne.
1863, i2thjiine. Py General Dunne.
General Dunne's Select Commit fee sat dt/n'nq^ 1864-65, ami reported in
1S65.
1564, 26th February. Py General Dunne.
1565, 24th February. By Mr. W. E. Gladstone.
1867, 9ih July. By Sir Joseph N. M'Kenna.
1S68, 13th March. By .Sir Joseph N. M'Kenna.
1S68, i6ih July. By Mr. O'Peirne.
General Dunne and Sir Joseph N. M'Kenna lost their seats at the
General Election ^ 1S68. Sir Joseph N. M'Kenna was re-elected in 1S74.
1874, 1st May. By Sir Joseph X. M'Kenna.
1874, 2nd July. By Mr. Mitchell Henry.
1875, i2th March. By SiR Joseph N. M'Kenna.
1876, 23rd May. By Mr. Mitchell Henry.
1877, 5ih June. By Mr. Mitchell Henry.
1882, 18th April. Py SiR Joseph N. M'Kenna.
1886, 23rd February. By Sir Joseph N. M'Kenna.
1886, 8th April. Py Mr. Gladstone and Mr. 1'arnell.
1S90, 30th May. Py Mr. Thomas Sexton.
1890, i4ih July. By Mr. Thomas Sexton.
1890, 1st August. By Mr. Thomas Sexton.
1S90, I2th August. By Mr. Thomas Sexton. •
1890, 13th August. By Mr. Thomas Sexton.
Mr. Goschcn's Select Committee held one sitting, but 'oas never re-
appointed.
1891, 27ih February. By Sir T. G. Esmonde, Part.
1891, 27th April. By Sir T. G. Esmonde, Bart.
1891, nth June. By Mr. Thomas Sexton.
1891, i8th June. By Mr. H. IT. Fowler.
I/O IRISH PROTEST AGAINST OVER-TAXATION.
S91, 22nd June. By Mr. Goschen.
891, 23rd June. By Mr. Goschen.
891, 9ih July. By Mr. Thomas Skxton.
892, 231x1 February. By SiR JosEi'H N. M'Kenna.
892, 3rd March. By Mr. Hunter.
892, 8th March. By Mr. S. Evans.
892, 2ist March. By Dr. Clark.
892, 22nd March. By Mr. A. O'CONNOR.
892, 31st March. By Dr. Clark.
892, nth April. By Mr. H. H. Fowler.
892, 5th May. By Mr. G. J. Goschen.
892, 6th May. By Du. Clark.
892, i2th May. By Mr. G. J. Goschen.
893, loth February. By Mr. J. J. Clancy.
893, 24th February. By Sir John IIibbert.
893, 9th March. By Mr. Cochrane.
S93, 17th March. By Colonel H. Vincent.
893, 9th May. By Lord R. Churchill.
893, i5tli May. By Mr. William Kenny.
893, i6th May. By Mr. Cochrane.
893, 22nd June. By Mr. Gladstone.
893, 3rd July. By Mr. Provend.
893, nth July. By Mr. Goschen.
893, 13th July. By Mr. J. E. Redmond.
893, 2ist July.
893, 24th July.
893, 25th July.
893, 26th July.
893, 27th July.
893, 25th Au<,Hist. By Mr. Cochrane.
893, 1st September. By Mr. J. E. Redmond.
893, 1st December. By Mr. T. Sexton.
894, I2ih January. By Mr. Sexton.
894, 13th February. Colonel Nolan.
894, 13th March. By Mr. J. E. Redmond.
894, 19th March. By Mr. J. J. Clancy.
894, 19th April. By Mr. W. Field.
894, 30th April. By Mr. L. Hayden.
894, 4th May. By Mr. L. Havden.
Th
Financial Clauses
of
Home Rule
Bill.
e Royal Commissmt sat during 1894-95-96, and reported in 1896.
897, 2ist January. By Mr. M. Ferguson.
897, 22nd January. By Dr. Clark.
897, 26th January. By Sir W. Dunne.
897, 29th January. By SiR T. G. Esmonde, Bart.
APPENDIX.
171
1897, 2nd February. By Mr. J. Dillon.
1897, 8th February. By Mr. D. Mac.\leese.
1897, 9th February. By Mr. J. J. Clancy.
1897, nth February. By Mr. J. Dillon.
1897, I2th February. By Mr. P. O'Brien.
1897, i6th February. By Mr. Vesey Knox.
1S97, i8th February. By Mr. J. H. Dalziel.
1S97, 22iid February. By Mr. J. E. Redmond.
1897, 23rd February. By jNIr. J. J. Clancy.
1897, 5th March. By Lord Castletown.
1S97, 18th March. By Mr. J. Dillon.
1897, 29th March. By Mr. Blake.
1897, 22nd July. By The Earl of Mayo.
I N D E X
Aberdeen, Lord, 1.
Abraham, Mr. W., 131.
Address to Irish people, 35, 155.
Agitation on over-taxation, 32, 128.
All-Ireland Committee, 130, 131, 135,
136, 137, 138.
Amount of over-taxation, 2i, 28, 29,
34, 42, 55, 62, 66, 69, 72, 75, 76,
78, 83, 86, 88, 94, 101, 107, 110,
127.
Anderson, Mr. W. G., 49.
Andrews, Mr. William, 51.
Association for Reduction of Taxation,
34, 35.
forms liranches, 34.
Bagwell, Mr., 129.
Bailev, Mr. W. F., 125.
Balfour, Mr. A. J., 127, 135.
Bandon, Earl of, 128, 157.
Barbour, Sir D. M., 120, 126, 127, 140,
141.
Barnes, Mr. H. H., 51.
Barry, Mr. J. Redmond, 51.
Barton, Mr. J. G., 125.
Beach, Sir M. Hicks, 131, 133, 134,
142, 147.
Blake, Hon. Ed., 123, 125, 127, 133.
Booth, Mr. Charles, 152.
Browne, Lord John Thomas, Life, 46.
votes for General Duiine's Draft
Report, 55.
Bryan, Captain Loftus, 132.
Bruen, Mr. Henry, 65, 157.
Butt, Mr. Isaac, member of Home
Rule Committee on Financial Rela-
tions, 73.
seconds Sir J. N. M'Kenna's
motion in 1875, 79.
proposes a petition to Parliament,
83.
asks for a union of Irishmen, 84.
supports Mr. M. Henry, 89.
Byron, Lord, 40.
Byrne, Councillor, 23.
Cadogan, Earl, 129.
Castletown, Lord, 129.
Carolan, Mr. J., 154.
Case of Ireland^ 26, 31.
Childers, Right Hon. H. E. C, 118,
127.
Chisholm, Mr. H. \V., 49, 50.
Clancy, Mr. J. J., 114, 117, 131.
Clanricarde, Mar([uis, 51.
Clarke, Sir Edward, 139-150.
on projjosed terms of reference,
139.
on first term already answered, 139.
on Irish contribution to Imperial
Treasury, 140.
on under-estimation of L'ish con-
tribution, 140.
on Sir D. Barbour, 141.
on new Commission unable to
further minimize Irish contri-
bution, 141.
on the Treasury classification of
expenditure, 142.
on apt)cryphal nature of Treasury
classitication, 142, 143.
on wliere im2)erial expenditure
takes 2)lace, 144.
on already sufficient answer to
second term of reference, 145.
on Lord Farrer's answer to pro-
posed second term of reference,
145.
on Mr. Sexton's answer, 146.
on third term, 147.
on construing Act of Union, 148,
149.
on Government attitude, query, is
it a Unionist attitude '. 149, 150.
on expenditure, no answer to
over-tHxation, 150.
174
INDEX.
. Life, 4(i.
General Dunne's
Clay, Mr. R. K., 132, 154.
Cobbe, Mr. W. H., 132.
Cogan, VV. H. F., supi^orts General
Dunne, 10.
Colthurst, Sir G. C
votes against
Draft Report, 55.
Consolidated Annuities, 3.
Corl: Examiner, 33.
Cork, meeting at, 128, 157.
Corn Laws, 39.
Curran, Mr. T. B., 131.
Culverwell, E. P., 129, 154.
Currie, Mr. B. W., 122, 125, 127.
Dennehy, Mr. C, 73,74.
Dillon, Mr. John, 97, 111. 112, 130.
Dillon, J. B. Life and character, 20.
brings over-taxation of Ireland
before the Corpoi-ation of Dub-
lin, 20.
quotes the insults of The Tuiies, 21.
his motion for a select connaittee
to examine the public accounts
of Great Britain and Ireland
nnanimously carried, 21.
appeals for a union of Irishmen, 22.
on Joseph Fisher. 27.
Guardians of Thurles, on, 35.
Statistical and Social Inquiry
Society of Ireland, 38.
gives evidence before Gen. Dunne's
Committee, 59.
Donelan, Capt. , 130.
Donnelly, Mr. W., 49.
Draper, Councillor, on Public Ac-
counts, 23.
Dublin, Corporation of, on Public
Accounts of Great Britain and
Ireland, 23.
select committee, 20, 23.
unanimously adopts Re})ort of
Select Committee on Public
Accounts, 32.
text of a petition to Parliament
read, 35.
petitions to Parliament, 159, 101.
Dublin UnirersUy Ma^jazine, 58, 59.
Dunkellin, Lord, 43.
in Dublin University Ma<ja::inc, 58.
supports Sir J. N. M'Kenna, 07.
Dunne, Major-General, opposes exten-
sion of income tax to Ireland, 1.
life, 2.
Dunne, Major-Gen. — continn^d.
motion for inquiry before exten-
sion of income tax, 3.
moves to reduce income tax, 10.
calls on Irishmen to unite im the
taxation question, 10.
refused a select committee, 14, 15,
10, 17.
on Irish decay, 15.
accuses England of a breach of the
Union, 15.
asks for a select committee in
1864, 41, 42, 43.
Irish opinion of Gen. Dunne, 44.
attacked by The Times, 44.
O'Neill Daunt on, 45.
composition of liis select com-
mittee, 45, 40, 47, 48.
replies to Mr. Gladstone's stric-
tures, 51, 52.
action as chairman of select com-
mittee, 53.
draft report, 54, 55.
voting on draft report, 55.
abandons his select committee,
55, 50.
supports Sir .J. N. JM'Kenna, 07.
l(jst his seat in Parliament, 09.
on the report of the ILane Rule
League on Financial Rela-
tions, 77.
Dunraven, Earl, 129.
Dwyer, Mr. J. S., 50.
Edinhurgh Review, 141, 144.
Esmonde, SirT. G., 90, 112, 113.
Exchequer, Irish contribution to, G, 8,
24, 28, 42, 02, 75, 81, 83, 142, 144.
Expenditure, Irish, 134, 145, 140.
no answer to over-taxation, 7, 90.
a set-off" to over-taxation, 134, 135.
not a set-oft' to over-taxation, 149.
Farrer, Lord, 120, 125, 127, 129, 145.
Financial Reform League, 150.
Finlay, Mr. A. S. Life, 48.
absent from the division on Gen.
Dunne's Draft Report, 55.
Finlay, Rev. Mr., 154.
Fisher, Joseph, gives evidence before
the Select Committee of the Corpora-
tion of Dublin on the Public Ac-
counts of Great Britain and Ireland,
23.
life of, 20.
INDEX.
175
Fisher, Joseph — continued. \
on the excessive taxation of Ire- 1
hind, 27, 28, 2l>, 30, 31, 32. ^ '
appeals to Ii-ishmen to unite, 30,
31, 32.
before select connuittee of House
of Commons, 32, 49.
Fowler, Mr. H. H., 113.
Freein<ni''s JonrnnJ JrieconI, 121.
Galbraith, Professor, on Mr. Mitchell
Henry's speech, 85.
Geograi)hical taxation, 5, 82.
Gitfen, Sir Robert. Life, 100.
on Irish decline and taxation,
101.
gives evidence before Royal Com-
mission, 125.
Gladstone, Mr. ^V. E.
imposed the income tax, 1.
income tax to be temporary, 8.
on over-taxation, 7.
opposes inquiry before extension
of income tax, 4.
opposes General Dunne's motion
for an inquiry, 18.
agrees to the appointment of a
select committee, 43.
on General Dunne's Committee,
51.
prefers Sir Stattbrd Northcote's
report, 51, 53.
on Royal Commissions, 70.
on Mr. Goschen's suggested
special committee, 07.
on the Royal Commission, 115,
110, 117.
Gore, Colonel Knox, 50.
Goschen, Mr. G. J., on Royal Com-
missions, 70, 132, 133.
suggests the appointment of a
special committee, 90.
promises redress if injustice dis-
closed, 111.
appoints special committee, 112.
on separate fiscal entity, 113.
on separate financial entity, 114.
on proposed new Commission,
134, 135.
Gray, Councillor, on public accounts,
23.
Gregory, W. H., supports General
Dunne, 10.
Griiiishaw, Dr. T. W., 124.
Grogan, Sir Edward, 45.
absent from the division on Gen.
Dunne's Draft Report, 55.
Hiidden, Alderman, 132.
Hamilton, Lord Claud, supports Gen.
Dunne's protest against the income
tax, 4.
Hamilton, Sir R. G. C, 121.
Hamilton, Sir E. W., 124.
Haukey, Mr. Thomson. Life, 43.
Harper, .Mr. E. J., 125.
Hayden, Mr. L., 117.
Healy, Mr. T. M., Ill, 112, 130, 131,
147.
Hennessy, Mr. J. P. Seconds General
Dunne's motion, 43.
life, 40.
absent from the division on Gen.
Dunne's Report, 55.
Henry, Mr. Mitchell. Life, 80.
refers to lri.sh taxation on 2nd
July, 1874, 81.
speech in Dublin on 20th October,
1875, 81.
motion on Irisli taxation on 23rd
May, 1870, 85.
motion on Irish taxation on 5th
June, 1877, 87.
Heron, Serjeant, on Irish Decay,
i 11.
Heygate, Sir F. W, Life, 40.
votes for Genenil Dunnes Draft
Report, 55.
supports Sir J. M'Kenna, 07.
Home Rule League. Report on Irish
Taxation, 71, 73, 74, 75, 70.
members agree to press Irish taxa-
tion, 85.
Howe, Mr. G. F., 125.
Howes, Mr. Edward. Life, 47.
votes against General Dunne's
Draft Report, 55.
Hunt, Mr., replies to Sir J. Is.
M'Kenna, 07.
Hunter, Mr. W. A., 122, 125^, 127.
Income tax, 1, 11, 27, 29, 37, 55, 09,
72, 81, 100, 104, 108, 109, 110.
Individual taxation, 57, 00, 80, 82.
Inglis, Mr. Malcolm, 129.
Jci.s/i Qiiarteiiij Ixevieir, 8.
Irish insolvency. The Times on, 8.
Irish decay, 11, 12, 13.
Irish Daily Independent, 103.
176
INDEX.
Ireland, description of
in liibo, 7, 05.
in 18(52. 12.
in 1895, 151.
Serjeant Heron's, 12.
8ir Robert (kitten's, lol.
Murrough O'Brien's, 151.
Charles Booth's, 152.
Johnson, Major, 132.
Kenny, Dr. J. E., 154.
Keogh, William, Solicitor-Cileneral in
the Government which imposed the
income tax, 1 .
Knox, Councillor, Committee on Public
Accounts, 23.
Lambert, Mr. A., 49.
Lansdowne, Marquis of, 133.
Leader. Mr. N. P., 49.
Lecky, Mr. VV. E. H., 131.
Leitrim, Earl of, 50.
Limerick, Corporation of, 35.
Association, 34.
Longtield, Robert, supports General
Dunne, 10, 43.
on Irish decay and taxation, 17.
on a union of Irishmen, 33.
life, 46.
resolutions for Select Committee,
54.
votes for General Dunne's Draft
Report, 55.
Lord Mayor of Dublin. Member of
Committee on Public Accounts, 22.
presents petition at bar of House
of Commons, 159.
Lough, Mr. Tliomas, 125.
Jliowe, Mr. Robert. Life, 48.
on Irish taxation, 52.
votes against General Dunne's
Draft Report, 55.
on individual taxation, 57.
on the Fenian views of Irish tax-
ation, 08.
Mr. Mitchell Henry on, 80.
The T Ivies on, 87.
Macartney, Mr. , secondsGen. Dunue,4.
Maguire, John Francis, opposes ex-
tension of income tax to Ireland, 4.
life, 4.
supports General Dunne, 10.
gives evidence before General
Dunne's Committee, 49.
Mangan, Mr. Simon, 131.
Martin, Alderman, on Committee on
Public Accounts, 23.
Martin, Councillor, on Committee on
Public Accounts, 23.
Martin, Mr. C. E., 123, 125, 127.
Mayo, Earl, 130, 154, 157.
Micks, Mr. W. L., 124.
Milner, Mr. A., 124.
Monteagle, Lord, on relative ability,
100.
Morning Pud on Irish decay, 18.
readjustment of taxation not the
remedy for Irish decay, 18.
Morris, Lord, on taxation of Ireland,
28.
Morris, Hon. Martin, 132.
Murphy, Mr. J. J., on debt and taxa-
tion of Ireland, 30, 37.
Murphy, Alderman M. M., 132.
Murray, Mr. H. H., 124.
M'Kenna, Sir Joseph,
life, 04, 05.
on Irish over-taxation in 1800, 04.
The Case uf Ireland Plainly Stated,
05.
description of Ireland in 1853, 05.
raises the question of taxation in
Parliament in 1807, 00 ; in
1808, 08; in 1875, 77; in 1882,
89 ; in 1880, 93.
lost his seat in Parliament, 69.
moves a resolutiijn on 2nd Novem-
ber, 1875, 82.
asks for the appointment of a
select committee, 89.
publishes Imperial Taxation ; The
Case of Ireland Plainly Stated,
91.
moves for returns in 1886. 93.
and Mr. C. S. Parnell, 1U2.
publishes The Irish Land (Question
considered in connection with
Mr. Gladstone's Taxation, 107.
asks for increased Irish represen-
tation on Mr. Goschen's Com-
mittee, 113.
gives evidence before the Royal
Conunission, 124.
on identical imposts, 120.
writes to The Times, 129.
member of the deputation to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer,
131.
INDEX.
177
31'Kerlie, Colonel, 51.
M'Swiney, P. P., 23.
Napier, Right Hon. Joseph, 49.
Nation, The, on Rejiort of Corporation
Committee, 33.
on the Report of the Home Rule
Committee, 70.
on Mr. Gladstone's system of tax-
ation, 77.
on Sir Joseph M'Kenna and Mr.
Mitchell Henry, 83.
on Mr. M. Heniy's motion of
1875. 87.
New Ross, banc|uet at, 32.
Northcote, Sir Stafford. Life, 47.
Mr. Gladstone exjaresses a prefer-
ence for his report before adop-
tion, 51.
votes against Gen. Dunne's Draft
Report, 55.
general nature of his report, 06, 57.
O'Neill Daunt on report, 57.
Sir Edward Hamilton on, 57-
The Times on, 87.
Nugent, Sir Percy, 50.
O'Beirne, INIr. L., on Irisli taxation,
68, U9.
O'Brien, Mr. P., 130.
O'Brien, Mr. W. P., 124.
(3'Brien, Mr. Murrough, 125, 151.
O'Conor Don. Life, 40.
draft report, 54.
votes for General Dunne's draft
report, 55.
on evidence received by General
Dunne's Committee, 59.
supports Mr. Mitchell Henry, 86.
member of Royal Commission, 1 20.
signs majority report, 125.
Sir Edward Clarke on 145.
appeals for a union of Irishmen,
157.
O'Connor, Mr. P., 132.
O'Connor, Mr. T. P., 114.
O'Donnell. Most Rev. Dr., 124.
O'Ferrall, I\Ir. More, 132.
O'Loghlen, Sir C. M.,48.
O'Neill Daunt. Review of Mr. Fisher's
book, 33.
on Gen. Dunne's Connnittee, 45.
on Sir Stafford Northcote's Re-
port, 57.
life, 71.
O'Neill Daunt — rontinnt'd.
chairman of Home Rule Com-
mittee on Financial Relations,
71.
replies to Mr. M'Laren, 72.
on the financial aspect of the
Union, 73.
O'Regan, Rev. Dr., 49.
Parliament, motions in, 3, 14, 43, 60,
78, 85, 87, 89, 93, 113.
select committee, 45, 111.
Parnell, Mr. C. S., supports Mr. M.
Henry, 89.
and Sir J. N. M'Kenna, 102.
on Ireland's relative ability, 100.
Peel, Sir Robert (2nd Bart.), .39.
Peel, Sir Robert (3rd Bart.). Life, 48.
votes against Gen. Dunne's Draft
Report, 55.
Pittar, Mr. T. J., 124.
Plunkett, Coinit, 132.
Plunkett, Mv. Horace. 130, 131, 132.
Redmond, Mr. J. E., 114, 115, 117,
123, 125, 127, 130.
Reynolds, Alderman, member of Com-
mittee on Public Accounts, 23.
Report of Municipal Council of Dublin,
22, 23, 24. 25.
Mr. J. J. Murphy on, 30.
Lord Morris on, 40.
Limerick Corporation on, 35.
Thurles Guardians on, 35.
General Dunne on, 41.
Report of Home Rule League on
Financial Relations, 71, 72, 73, 74,
75, 70.
Riordan, Mr. .1. F., 154.
Robinson, Mr. H. A., 124.
Ross, Mr. .lames, 132.
Royal Commission.
cannot decide on policy, 70, 110,
149.
appointed, 117.
members, 118-124.
witnesses, 124.
terms of reference, 124.
report of majority, 125.
meetings held to consider report,
127.
Government propose new, 134.
135.
Sir Edward Clarke on proposed
new, 139.
178
INDEK.
Royal Commission — cunfinued.
Sir Edward Clarke on referring
policy to, 149.
Russell, Mr. T. W., Ill, 112, 117.
Salisbury, Marquis of, 52.
Samuels, Mr. A. W., 154, 155.
Sadleir, John, Lord of the Treasury
which imjjosed income tax on Ix'e-
land, 1.
Sanders, Mr. Robert, 129, 154.
Sankey, Sir R. H., 125.
Saunderson, Col., 130, 131.
Select Committee of Corporation of
Dublin, 20, 23.
report, 23, 24, 25.
asks for a combined eflbrt on part
of Irishmen, 26.
General Dunne on, 41.
Senior, Mr. Edward, 50, 102.
Separate entity, 5, 125, 126, 133.
Sexton, Alderman Sir Robert, 132.
Sexton, Mr. Thomas, on the Customs
Bill, 109.
asks for appointment of select
committee, 111, 113, 116, 117.
life, 123.
signs majority report, 125.
estimates Ireland's taxable capa-
city, 127.
Sir Edward Clarke on, 146.
Shannon, Mr., 37.
Slattery, Mr. H. F., 123, 125, 127.
Smith, Sydney, 39, 40.
Statistical and Social Inquiry Society
of Ireland, 12, 36.
Smith, Mr. J. C, 124.
Stanhope, Mr. Banks. Life, 47.
votes against Gen. Dunne's Draft
Report, 55.
Staunton, Mr., Collector-General of
Dublin, gives evidence Ijefore the
Corporation Connnittee on Public
Accounts of Great Britain and Ire-
land, 23.
Stewart, Mr. Alec, 51.
Sullivan, A. M., on Corporation Com-
mittee on Public Accounts of Great
Britain and Ireland, 23.
supports Sir J. N. M'Kenna in
1875, 79.
interest in the taxation ques-
tion, 80.
supports Mr. M. Henry, 89.
Sutherland, Sir Thomas, 122, 126.
Sweetman, Mr. Jolni, 154.
Synan, Mr., supports Sir J. N.
M'Kenna, 67.
Taxation, equalized, 5, 6.
geogra))hical, 5, 82, 88.
over-, 7.
Irish, Quarteiin Review on, 10.
results of over-, 11, ]6, 30, 04,
82, 151.
Terms of reference, 43, 54, 112, 124,
135, 137, 138, 145.
Sir Edward Clarke on, 139.
Thnes, The, on Irish insolvency, 8, 9, 10.
hostility to Ireland, 10.
on Gen. Dunne's motion for an
inquiry in 1863, 19.
on adjustment of Irish taxation,
19.
on expenditure of Irish taxa-
tion, 19.
on the appointment of a select
connnittee, 44.
attacks General Dumie, 44.
on the Home Rule agitation on
taxation, 84.
on Sir Joseph M'Kenna and 3Ir.
Mitchell Henry, 84.
advocates an incjuiry, 99.
on the Irisli movement of 189()-97,
129.
declares that Parliament alone can
settle taxation, 132.
Thurles, Guardians of, on over-
taxation, 35.
Union, Act of, 3.
Joseph Fisher on, 27.
Corporation of Dublin on, 23,
24.
General Dunne on, 16, 52.
public meeting in Waterford on.
34.
address of Association for Reduc-
tion of Taxation on, 35.
O'Contn* Don on Irish opinion
of, 60.
O'Neill Daunt on the financial
aspect of, 73.
Tlie Nation on the financial
aspect of, 76.
Mitchell Henry on financial re-
sults of, 81, 82, 88.
The Times on, 84.
INDEX.
179
Union, Act of — (■oiitinved.
proposed new Connnission and,
134, 135, 138.
Sir Edward Clarke on. 147,
148.
Union of Irishmen on taxation, Gen.
Dunne asks for. 10.
John B. Dillon asks for, 22.
Corporation of Dublin asks for,
20.
Ml'. Robert Longtield on, 33.
O'Neill Daunt on, 33.
Mr. Butt asks for, 84.
The All-Ireland Committee asks
for, 130.
appeal for in the House of Com-
mons, 130, 131.
Union of Irishmen — rontiiincd.
appeal by All-Ireland Committee,
156.
appeal by O'Conor Don, 158.
Ward, Dr., on Irish taxation, 82.
Waterford MaiK 2(i, 27.
Waterford, meeting at, ."Jo, 34.
Webb, 3Ir. Alfred, 44.
Welby, Lord, lll», 125, 127, 142.
Westropp, Cajjt. < rCallaglian, 154, 155.
Wilson, Air. D. J., 132.
^Vllite, Dean, 154.
White.side, Chief .Justice, supports
General Dunne, 10.
on the over-taxation of Ireland,
16, 17.
Woltf, Mr. G. W., 123.
('. W. UiBBs & Sos, Printei-s, Dubliu.
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