The Burden of Taxation

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 14, 6 April 1905, Page 6

The Burden of Taxation

In tihe oourse of a speech in Dublin Mr. J. E. Redmond referred to the burden of unjust taxation under which Ireland was weighed down, and cited the finding of the Financial Relations Commission which admitted that Ireland was entitled, under the Act of Union, that her taxation silwuld be m accord with her taxable capacity as compared with that of Great Britain, and declared that Ireland' ( s relative taxable capacity was not, in the opinion of any single member of the Commission, more thjan one-twentieth. The effect of this finding was that in tihe year ending March 31, 1894, -when the total taxation of Ireland was £7,5&8,649, the Commission decided that at least 2$ millions too' much had been extracted from the country. Since the finding of the Commission there has been a steady decline in the population, which to-day is about 200,000 less than it was in 1891. During the same ten years (said Mr. Redmond) the taxation has gone on steadily increp^ing. The total" rqven'uo from Ireland in 1893-4 was, as I have said, £7,568,6149. In 1 9.02-3 it had risen to ,£10, 205, 500, This year it w,as estimated by Mr. Clancy, in his admirable slpeech on the last Budget, at £10,378,000, the highest figure yet reached. That is to say, since the \crdict of the Commission the taxation of Ireland has increased, rojughly speaking, by £3,0,0.0,000. This enarmowsi increase has fallon on all classes in the community. The levied from income tax in Ireland has been dojubled. The direct taxation has risen by about half a million. But the real hardship of the case is in t|be eniormojus rise of indirect taxation. These taxes fall up oft the poor, and hardest of all on the very poor. D/uring the last ten years the cost of government has gone steadily up. In 1895 it cost £5,970,000 to run the government of Ireland, leaving as an Imperial contribution from Ireland the balance of the total revenue of the country, amounting to £2,176,000. In 1902 the cost of Dublin Castle government had gone up from £5,970,000 to £7,214,000, and the Imperial contribution had risen 'by £200,000 or £300,000,.