has decreased by a quarter of a million, but taxation has increased
from,£7,500,000 to £10,500,000. If Ireland had secured the fixed
contribution, against the height of which she protested, she would
nevertheless have been guarded from such a disproportionate rise of
taxation.

Whatever test be taken, be it population, a comparison of exports and of
imports, the consumption of certain dutiable articles, relative
assessments to death duties, income tax, or the estimated value of
commodities of primary importance consumed, every one of them shows the
relative backwardness of Ireland as compared with Great Britain, in view
of which the fact that the cost of government per head of population is
double in Ireland what it is in England, shows the extent to which the
one is liable in damages to the other. The increased expenditure on the
navy obviously does not benefit equally the two countries, of which the
one only has dockyards and manufactories, and this is especially the
case seeing that the country which lacks these things is also without a
commerce needing defence; while any advantage resulting from a portion
of the army being quartered in Ireland is minimised when it is found
that arms and accoutrements are purchased in England.

The attempt to stultify the findings of the Commission on the ground
that its report was based on a fallacy, since Ireland has no more right
to be considered as a separate entity than an English county, is
remarkably disingenuous in view of the acknowledgment of this in the
separate treatment which she received in the matter of grants made in
relief of local taxation and for the establishment of free education in
the years 1888 and 1890 and 1891. Moreover, it was impliedly admitted
that she was a separate entity in the appointment of a Select Committee
on taxation in 1864, and again by Lord Goschen in 1890, and the whole