FEDERAL FINANCE.
greater cost of civil government in Ireland, but from the fact that Ireland is a poorer country than England and Scotland. The reports submitted by various sections and individual members of the Royal Commission on the Financial Relations between Great Britain and Ireland, are unanimous on the point that Ireland contributes to the general revenue a sum largely in excess of the proportion which she would contribute were that contribution based on her relative taxable capacity. Mr. Childers places this excess at 2¼ millions per annum.
Two other considerations of great importance must be noted. The commercial and fiscal policy of the United Kingdom has been guided mainly by the interests of Great Britain; and while there has been during the last sixty years an enormous increase in the material well-being of the people of Great Britain, the population of Ireland has diminished to nearly one-half, largely owing to the heavy decline in the value of agricultural produce, and the consequent restriction of the demand for agricultural employment. Mr. Childers summed up the grounds for the claim of Ireland to special treatment as follows:
'Ireland being a country mainly inhabited by agricultural producers, could support its present population upon the corn and meat produced there without having recourse, under ordinary circumstances, to a foreign supply of these articles, and could, at the same time, export a surplus of these foodstuffs. The population of Ireland consumes a rather large amount, in proportion to its wealth, of spirits, tea, and tobacco. This being so, it does not appear that a fiscal system which raises no revenue from foreign foodstuffs, but does raise a
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