WHAT IRELANO HAS DONE

Mataura Ensign, 4 November 1911, Page 5

WHAT IRELANO HAS DONE

PLEA FOR HOME RULE. BT ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. —COPTBIGHT. PER UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION. Received November 4, 8.5 a.m. LONDON, Nov. 3. Mr Redmond (leader of the Irish •Nationalist party) addressed a crowded meeting of the City Liberal Club on the economic ancl financial aspect of Home Rule. He declared that it had been England's deliberate policy for two cen.turies to destroy the Irish industries, hence-Ireland's commercial and industrial history was one of continual stagnation. It was hopeless to expect Ireland to rouse herself until she obtained native government. During the greater | part of a centiiry she had been paying 1 £2,250,000 above her fair proportion., During the century she had contributed £329,000,000 for the Army and Navy and the general purposes of the Em-1 pire. The Irish government was the | most costly in the world because it was "not a willing partnership. She was one of the richest countries. Every luxury given to England was extended to Ireland and charged to the Irish revenue, and she had no incentive to economy. Let Great Britain make a bargain with Ireland in a generous final settlement. Parliamentary business was so congested that home rule was equally required lj England, Scvotland and Wales. A remarkable feature of the meeting was that Lord Beauchamp (First Coiamissioner of Works) presided, the Master of Elibank (Patronage Secretary to the Treasury) moving a vote of thanks to Mr Redmond,

The present fiscal union between Great Britain and Ireland is (dcelarod 1-rofessor Oldiiain, cf Dublin University, at the recent congress of the British Associat'-cn) an ill-assorted one. Although now paying a taxation that was relatively even more unjust than 17 years ago, Ireland was to-day showing a deficit on expenditure of about 1? million sterling, whereas 18 years ago she was contributing a surplus of about £2,000,000, available for what was termed Imperial expenditure. The explanation of the paradox was not far to seek. In the public finance of Ireland under the Union there was nothing to co-relate revenue with expenditure. "The position reached at the present time," he went on, "is characterised by three "inequitable features, viz.: (1) Great Britain is now tributary to Ireland by about 1£ millions, a figure that is increasing. (2) Great Britain is also paying Ireland's proportion of Imperial burdens— Army, Navy, and National Debt—a figure which may be put at about £2,000.000 (say, 20 per cent, of Irish rover, ue). | (3) Ireland is paying into the common purse more than her fair proportion, | measured by "taxable capacity," an ex|cess payment of above £3,000,000 per annum. These evils are being endured by both countries in order to maintain Government expenditure in Ireland at a figure wh'ch is quite double what it ought to be. In the course of I'JC years Ireland, besides paying for the Government expenditure in Ireland, has sent across the Channel as her contribution to the British Exchequer a clear net payment of about £330,000,000. This fact—the British profit out of the Union—is a simple deduction from the calculation made by the Treasury of the "contributed" revenue and expenditure for every tenth year. "If it were possible to arrive at an incontrovertible conclusion upon any Irish matter whatever," was Professor Oldham's summing-up, "I would submit the proposition that the present positio nof the public finances of Ireland is an insufferable injury and a grievance to uoth countries. The financial argument for Home Rule was urgent 15 years ago, at the time of the Financial Relations Commission, in the interests of Ireland; but the developments of the last 15 years have now made it equally urgent in the interests of Greal Britain."