Is Ulster Right? Part 9

(He might as well have added that he knew perfectly well that no arrests ever would be made.) Then he would go to a political meeting and say that the peaceful condition of Ireland was shown by the small number of criminal cases returned for trial at the a.s.sizes; and would bitterly denounce the "Carrion Crows" (as he designated the Ulster members) for trying to blacken the reputation of their country.

One instance may be given more in detail, as typical of the condition to which Ireland had been brought. Lord Ashtown (a Unionist Peer residing in County Galway) began issuing month by month a series of pamphlets ent.i.tled "Grievances from Ireland." They contained little besides extracts from Nationalist papers giving reports of the meetings of the United Irish League, the outrages that took place, and the comments of Nationalist papers on them. His object was to let the people in England see from the accounts given by the Nationalists themselves, what was going on in Ireland. This, however, was very objectionable to them; and one of their members asked Mr. Birrell in the House of Commons whether the pamphlets could not be suppressed.

Mr. Birrell made the curious reply that he would be very glad if Lord Ashtown were stopped, but that he did not see how to do it. What he expected would be the results of that remark, I do not know; but no one living in Ireland was much surprised when a few weeks afterwards a bomb outrage occurred at the residence of Lord Ashtown in the County Waterford. It was a clumsy failure. A jar containing gunpowder was placed against the wall of the house where he was staying and set on fire. The explosion wrecked part of the building, but Lord Ashtown escaped unhurt. He gave notice of his intention to apply at the next a.s.sizes for compensation for malicious injury. The usual custom in such cases is for a copy of the police report showing the injury complained of, to be sent to the person seeking compensation; but on this occasion the police refused to show Lord Ashtown their report, stating that they had received orders from the Government not to do so. But shortly before the case came on, a report, not made by the police authority in charge of the district, but by another brought in specially for the purpose, appeared in the Nationalist papers. This report contained the remarkable suggestion that Lord Ashtown had done it himself! When under cross-examination at the trial, the Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary who made the report was obliged to confess that he did not believe that he had, but had only inserted the suggestion in obedience to instruction received from the Government.

Lord Ashtown proved his case and was awarded compensation. But the matter did not end there. He had employed a surveyor, Mr. Scully, to draw plans and take photographs showing the amount of the damage. Mr.

Scully was surveyor to the Waterford Corporation. It was proposed at the next meeting of the Corporation that he should be dismissed from his office for having given evidence for Lord Ashtown. The motion was carried unanimously, eight councillors being present; and at the following meeting it was ratified by eight votes to two. A question was asked about the matter in the House of Commons; and Mr. Birrell, with the figures before him, replied that Mr. Scully had never been dismissed.

Two other instances of this period must be briefly referred to. It has already been shown how the Irish Parliament endowed Maynooth as a College for Roman Catholic students both lay and theological; and how Trinity College, Dublin, opened its doors to all students, without distinction of creed. But the Roman Catholic Church turned Maynooth into a seminary for theological students only; and the bishops forbade young laymen to go to Trinity. In 1845 Sir Robert Peel attempted to supply the want by founding the Queen's University, with Colleges at Belfast, Cork and Galway, where mixed education should be given in secular subjects, and separate instruction in those appertaining to religion; but that again was denounced as a "satanic scheme for the ruin of faith in the rising generation"; and the crusade against the university was so successful that in 1879 it was destroyed and another--the Royal University--put in its place. This in its turn was abolished in 1909; the College at Belfast was raised to the status of a University, and a new University ominously called the "National University" was founded into which the existing Colleges at Cork and Galway were absorbed, with a new and richly endowed College in Dublin at the head. It may seem strange that the Radical Government who are pledged to destroy all religious education in England should found and endow a Denominational University in Ireland. But the matter could be arranged by a little judicious management and prevarication; it was represented in Parliament that the new University was to be strictly unsectarian; during the debate, Sir P. Magnus, the member for the London University, said that he had no reason to believe that there was any intention on the part of the Chief Secretary to set up denominational Universities in Ireland; he accepted his word that they were to be entirely undenominational. Then, when the Act was pa.s.sed, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin was appointed Chancellor of the National University, with a number of Jesuits as Professors, and Cardinal Logue stated as follows:--

"No matter what obstacles the Nonconformists may have inserted in the Const.i.tution of the University to keep it from being Catholic, we will make it Catholic in spite of them."

Personally, I do not object to denominational Universities. I regret that young men who are going to live in the same country should not be able to study law and medicine together; but if that is their feeling and the feeling of their parents, I admit that having separate Universities may be the best solution of the difficulty. But if so, let it be openly avowed that the University is denominational; to "make it Catholic" and at the same time to say that it is no injustice to Protestants that County Scholarships paid for by the ratepayers should be tenable there and nowhere else, seems to me absurd.

The other incident to which reference must be made was the great Convention held in Dublin in 1909. The Nationalists, believing that a Home Rule Bill would soon be introduced, devised the scheme of a.s.sembling a monster Convention, which would be evidence to the world of how admirably fitted the Irish people were to govern their own country. It was attended by 2,000 delegates from all parts of the country, who were to form a happy family, as of course no disturbing Unionist element would be present to mar the harmony and the clerical element would be strong. Mr. Redmond, who presided, said in his opening address:--

"Ireland's capacity for self-government will be judged at home and abroad by the conduct of this a.s.sembly. Ireland's good name is at stake, and therefore every man who takes part in this a.s.sembly should weigh his words and recognise his responsibility."

The meeting ended in a free fight.

At the end of 1909 Mr. Asquith did a very clever thing. A general election was pending, and he wished to avoid the mistake which Gladstone had made in 1885. He therefore, at a great meeting at the Albert Hall unfolded an elaborate programme of the long list of measures which the Government would introduce and carry, and in the course of his remarks said that Home Rule was the only solution of the Irish problem, and that in the new House of Commons the hands of a Liberal Government and of a Liberal majority would in this matter be entirely free. He and his followers carefully abstained from referring to the subject in their election addresses; and Mr. Asquith was thus free, if he should obtain a majority independent of the Irish vote, to say that he had never promised to make Home Rule part of his programme; but if he found he could not retain office without that vote, he might buy it by promising to introduce the Bill and refer to his words at the Albert Hall as justification for doing so. The latter happened; hence the "Coalition Ministry." The Irish party consented to please the Radicals by voting for the Budget, and the Nonconformists by voting for Welsh Disestablishment, on condition that they should in return vote for Home Rule. As Mr. Hobhouse (a Cabinet Minister) expressed it in 1911:--

"Next year we must pay our debt to the Nationalist Members, who were good enough to vote for a Budget which they detested and knew would be an injury to their country."

But the people of England still had to be hood-winked. It was hardly likely that they would consent to their representatives voting for the separation of Ireland from Great Britain; so the Nationalists and their Radical allies went about England declaring that they had no wish for such a thing; that all they desired was a subordinate Parliament leaving the Imperial Parliament supreme. Thus Mr. Redmond suggested at one meeting that Ireland should be conceded the right of managing her own purely local affairs for herself in a subordinate Parliament, subject to the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament; and at another meeting said:

"We are not asking for a Repeal of the Union. We are not asking for the restoration of a co-ordinate Parliament such as Ireland had before the Union. We are only asking that there should be given to Ireland a subordinate Parliament. We therefore admit the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. That means that after this subordinate Parliament is created in Ireland, if the Parliament is foolish enough, rash enough, as it never will be, but if it were foolish enough and criminal enough to use the powers given to it for injustice or oppression of any cla.s.s or creed, the Imperial Parliament would have the power to stretch forth the arm of its authority and to say 'you shall not do that.'"

Of course it may be argued that they had changed their minds; that in former times they worked for separation, but now realised that a subordinate Parliament was all that Ireland required. But unfortunately for this theory, they have themselves repudiated it; when Mr. Redmond was accused of speaking with two voices, one in America and one in Great Britain, he pa.s.sionately replied:--

"I indignantly deny that accusation. I have never in my life said one word on a platform in America one whit stronger than I had said in my place on the floor of the House of Commons.

I have never in America or anywhere else, advocated the separation of Ireland from Great Britain."

How far this is true, the quotations from his speeches which have already been given, will have shown. But the Government have kept up the farce; Mr. Winston Churchill said during the debate on the Bill of 1912:--

"The Home Rule movement has never been a separatist movement.

In the whole course of its career it has been a moderating, modifying movement, designed to secure the recognition of Irish claims within the circuit of the British Empire."

But not even the immediate prospect of Home Rule can be said to have made those parts of Ireland where the League is supreme a happy place of residence to any but advanced Nationalists. The following report of a case in the Magistrate's Court at Ennis in November 1912 will speak for the condition of the County Clare:--

Patrick Arkins was charged with knocking down walls on the farm of Mrs. Fitzpatrick in order to compel her to give up the farm. Inspector Davis gave evidence that from January 1910 to that date there were 104 serious outrages in his district.

In 42 firearms were used, 27 were malicious injuries, 32 were threatening notices, 1 case of bomb explosion outside a house, 1 robbery of arms, and 1 attempted robbery. A sum of 268 had been awarded as compensation for malicious injury and there were claims for 75 pending for malicious injuries committed during the week ended 11th inst. There were two persons under constant police protection, and 16 receiving protection by patrol. Head Constable Mulligan said that Mrs. Fitzpatrick was under police protection. Since February 11th, 1912, there had been 12 outrages in the district, Mrs. Fitzpatrick was under almost constant police protection. Acting Sergeant Beegan deposed that there had been 12 outrages on the Fitzpatrick family during the last four years; these included driving cattle off the lands, threatening notices, firing shots at the house, knocking down walls, spiking meadows; the new roof of a hay barn was perforated with bullets, and at Kiltonaghty Chapel there were notices threatening death to anyone who would work for Mrs. Fitzpatrick. Timothy Fitzpatrick gave similar evidence as to the outrages, and said that his father had taken the farm twenty-one years ago, and had paid the son of the former tenant 40 for his goodwill.

(I may add that Arkins was committed for trial, convicted at the a.s.sizes and sentenced to seven years penal servitude; and was released by Mr. Birrell a few weeks afterwards.)

In another Clare case, in February of the present year, the resident Magistrate said as follows:--

"It is a mistake to say that these outrages are arising out of disputes between landlord and tenant; nine out of ten arise out of petty disputes about land. What is the use of having new land laws? A case occurred not long ago in this county of a man who had bought some land twenty years ago, and paid down hard cash to the outgoing tenant. The man died, and left a widow and children on the land for fourteen years. But in 1908 a man who had some ulterior object got the man who had sold the farm to send in a claim under the Evicted Tenant's Act, which was rejected. That was what the advisers of the man wanted--they only wanted a pretext for moonlighting and other disgraceful outrages, and the woman was kept in a h.e.l.l for four years. A man was caught at last and convicted, and one would think that this was a subject for rejoicing for all right-minded men in the county. But what was the result? A perfect tornado of letters was printed, and resolutions and speeches appeared in the public press, condemning this conviction of a moonlighter in Clare as an outrage against justice."

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, in a sermon preached in December 1912, referring to County Clare said:--

"That county had had an evil record in the matter of crime, and they were so accustomed to outrages of almost weekly occurrence around them that it was not easy to shock them.

There was an inoffensive family sitting round the fireside with a couple of neighbours. They had given no offence, they had wronged no man, they had crossed no man's path. But that inhuman beast went to the door and lifted the latch, and there, at a few yards distance, fired into that innocent group of men, women and children, as if they were a flock of crows, killing the mother outright and almost blowing the forehead off a young girl. There was no denying the fact that that brutal murder was the natural outcome of the disgraceful system of intimidation and outrage that had been rampant for a long time in certain districts of that unhappy county and of the immunity from punishment enjoyed by the wicked and cowardly moonlighter. In addition to their other acts of savagery, they had shot out the eyes of two men within the last couple of years. A decent, honest man was shot on the road to Ennis. The people pa.s.sed the wounded man by and refused to take him into their car through fear. Not one of these well-known miscreants was brought to justice. The murderers of poor Garvey, the cow-houghers, the hay-burners, were said to be known. In any other country, for instance in the United States, such ruffianism would be hunted down or lynched; but there, in the places he referred to, they had a curtain of security drawn round them by the cowardice or perverted moral sense on the part of the community amongst whom they lived.... It was only last Thursday night, before the county had recovered from the shock of Mrs. O'Mara's murder, that right over the mountain an unfortunate postman was shot on the public road between Crusheen and Baliluran for no other reason apparently than that another fellow wanted his job of one and six-pence a day! It has come to this, that if you differ with one of them for a shilling, or refuse to give him his way in everything the first thing that comes into his head is to moonlight you.... They have not elevation or social instinct to settle their petty disputes by process of law provided for the purpose by a civilized society, nor have they Christianity enough to bear a little wrong or disappointment for Christ's sake. No, nor the manliness even to meet an opponent face to face and see it out with him like a man; but with the cunning of a mean and vicious dog, he steals behind him in the dark and shoots him in the back, or murders the helpless woman of his family, or shoots out the eyes of the poor man's horse, or cuts the throat of his bullock and spikes his beast upon a gate."

Nor has the present year brought much improvement. In May 1913, Mr.

R. Maunsell was fired at and wounded close to the town of Ennis. His crime was that he managed a farm for a Mr. Bannatyne, whose family had been in possession of it for about sixty years, but who had recently been denounced by the United Irish League and ordered to surrender it.

As he has refused to do so, he is now compelled to live under police protection.

The abolition of landlordism and the acquisition of firearms can hardly be said to have brought peace and tranquillity to the County of Clare.

And as to Galway, we may gather the state of affairs from the report of a case tried at the Winter a.s.sizes of 1912. Three men were charged with having done grievous bodily harm to a man named Conolly. Conolly swore that he knew a man named Broderick who had become unpopular but he (Conolly) kept to him and this brought displeasure on him from the accused and others. On the night of the 11th September he went to bed; he was subsequently awakened and found 44 grains of shot in his left knee and four in his right. He then lay flat on the floor. Other shots were fired through the window but did not strike him. The judge said the district was a disgrace to Ireland. Day after day, night after night, heaps of outrages were committed there, and not one offender was made amenable to justice. The jury disagreed, and the accused were again put on their trial. The judge in charging the jury on the second trial said that then, and for some time, the district was swarming with police, and though outrages were frequent, it was impossible for them to bring anyone to justice. No one was sure he might not be fired at during the night; and people were afraid to give evidence. The jury again disagreed.

During the autumn of 1912 an effort was made to hold a series of meetings throughout the south and west of Ireland to protest against Home Rule. The conduct of the Nationalists with regard to them supplies a striking commentary on Mr. Redmond's statement at Banbury not long before, that all through his political life he had preached conciliation towards those who differed from him on the question of Home Rule. The meetings were in some cases stopped by force; at Limerick the windows of the Protestant Church and of some houses occupied by Protestants were smashed; at Tralee the princ.i.p.al speaker was a large farmer named Crosbie; all his hay and sheds were burned down, and he was awarded 600 compensation by the County Court Judge.

But an incident had occurred in the north which, though in a sense comparatively slight, has, in consequence of the circ.u.mstances connected with it, done more to inflame the men of Ulster than persons not living in Ireland can realise. In June of last year a party of Sunday School children from a suburb of Belfast went for a picnic to Castledawson (co. Derry) under the charge of a Presbyterian minister and a few teachers and ladies. On their way back to the railway station, they were met and a.s.sailed by a procession of men belonging to the Order of Hibernians armed with pikes who attacked the children with the pikes and with stones, seized a Union Jack which a small boy was carrying, and knocked down and kicked some of the girls and teachers. Worse might have happened had not some Protestant young men, seeing what was going on, come to the rescue. The minister was struck with stones whilst he was endeavouring to get some of the children to a place of safety. No Nationalist has ever expressed the slightest regret at the occurrence. Several of the aggressors were tried at the Winter a.s.sizes and sentenced to three months' imprisonment. Before the end of the term they were released by order of the Government. Mr.

Birrell, in justifying his action, said that the judge had remarked that there was no evidence before him of actual injury. This, like many of his statements, was literally true; but he omitted to mention that he had prevented the evidence from being given; the injured women and children were quite ready to give their testimony, but were not called by the counsel for the crown.

It is unnecessary to say that this foretaste of Home Rule government has made the Presbyterians of Ulster more determined than ever to resist it to the bitter end.

I shall next proceed to consider the Bill which the Government have introduced as a panacea for the woes of Ireland.

CHAPTER XIV.

CRITICISM OF THE BILL NOW BEFORE THE COUNTRY.

That the maintenance of the Union is possible, and that complete separation is possible, are two indisputable facts. But the question is, was Wolfe Tone right when he said that these were the only two possibilities; or is there a third one, and if so, what?

Residents in the Dominions will naturally be inclined to reply "Yes; place Ireland in the position of a colony possessing responsible government, such as New Zealand." It is a taking idea; but a little reflection will show the falseness of the a.n.a.logy. The relations between the Mother Country and the self-governing colonies (now often called "Dominions") have grown up of themselves; and, like most political conditions which have so come about, are theoretically illogical but practically convenient. The practical convenience arises partly from the friendly spirit which animates both parties, but still more from the nature of the case. The distance which separates the Mother Country from the Dominions causes the anomalies to be scarcely perceptible. In theory the Sovereign, acting on the advice of British Ministers, can disallow any colonial statute, and the British Parliament is supreme--it can pa.s.s laws that will bind the colonies, even laws imposing taxes. But we all know that if the Home Government were persistently to veto laws pa.s.sed by the large majority of the people in New Zealand, or the British Parliament were to attempt to legislate for the colonies, relations would at once become strained, and separation would be inevitable. The only important matters on which the Home Government attempts to bind the colonies are those relating to foreign countries (which are necessarily of an Imperial nature) and those as to which the colonies themselves wish to have an Act pa.s.sed, such as the Act establishing Australian Federation. In other words, the "supremacy of Parliament," which is a stern reality in England, has very little meaning as regards New Zealand. Even if the people of New Zealand were to manage the affairs of their country in a manner contrary to English ideas--for instance if they were to establish State lotteries and public gambling tables--England would be but slightly affected, and certainly would never think of taking steps to prevent them. And those matters in which the Home Government is obliged to act are just those in which New Zealand has no desire to interfere; for instance, New Zealand would never want to appoint consuls of her own (which was the immediate cause of the separation between Norway and Sweden); in the very few cases in which New Zealand desires to make use of political or commercial agents abroad, she is content to employ the British representatives, for whom she is not called upon to pay. If New Zealand attempted to take part in a European war in which England was not concerned--the idea is almost too absurd to suggest--the only thing that England could do would be to break off the connection and repudiate New Zealand altogether.

And if New Zealand desired to separate from the Mother Country, many people would think it a most grievous mistake, but England certainly would not seek to prevent her doing so by force; and though England would in some ways be the worse for it, the government of England and of the rest of the Empire would go on much the same as before. In certain points, it is true, thoughtful men have generally come to the conclusion that the present state of affairs cannot go on unchanged; the time is coming when the great Dominions must provide for their own defence by sea as well as by land; and whether this is to be done by separate navies working together or by joint contributions to a common navy, it will probably result in the formation of some Imperial Council in which all parts will have a voice. That however, is a matter for future discussion and arrangement.

But when we turn to Ireland, everything is different. The two islands are separated by less than fifty miles. Ireland has for more than a century been adequately represented in the Imperial Parliament; the journey from Galway to London is shorter than that from Auckland or Dunedin to Wellington. So long as Europe remains as it is, Great Britain and Ireland must have a common system of defence--which means one army, one navy, and one plan of fortifications. Again, Irishmen, traders and others, will constantly have to make use of government agents in other countries. Now unless Great Britain is to arrange and pay for the whole of this, we are met at once by the insoluble problem of Irish representation in the British Parliament. If Ireland is not represented there, we are faced with the old difficulty of taxation without representation; if Ireland is represented there for all purposes, Ireland can interfere in the local affairs of England, but England cannot in those of Ireland; if we have what has been called the "in-and-out" scheme as proposed by Gladstone in 1893--that is, for the Irish members to vote on all questions of an Imperial nature, but to retire when matters affecting England only are under discussion--then, even if the line could be drawn (which is doubtful) we might have the absurdity of an English ministry which possessed the confidence of the majority of Englishmen and whose management of England met their approval, being turned out of office by the Irish vote, and England being governed according to a policy which the majority of Englishmen detested. Of course it may be said that there ought to be a number of small Parliaments in the British Isles, like those in the Provinces of Canada or the States of Australia, with one great Parliament supreme over them--in other words, Federation.

That might be a good thing, although it would in its turn start many difficulties which it is unnecessary now to discuss, for it is not Home Rule nor does Home Rule lead to it. Federal systems arise by the union of separate States, each State giving up a part of its power to a joint body which can levy taxes and can overrule the local authorities. In fact, when Federation comes about, the States cease to be nations.

(I must here remark in pa.s.sing that constant confusion has been caused by the various senses in which the word "nation" is used. Thus it is often quite correctly employed in a sentimental sense--we speak of Scottish National character, or of the National Bible Society of Scotland, though Scotland has no separate Parliament or flag and would on a map of Europe be painted the same colour as the rest of Great Britain. Quite distinct from that is the political sense, in which the Irish Nationalists use the word when speaking of being "A Nation once again," or of "The National Independence of Ireland.")

It might be possible for the United Kingdom to be broken up into a Federation (though it is strange that there is no precedent in history for such a course); but that would not be "satisfying the National Aspirations of Ireland." In fact, as Mr. Childers, one of the ablest of English advocates of Home Rule, has stated: "The term Federal, as applied to Irish Home Rule at the present time, is meaningless."

But when we come to examine the existing Bill, which will become law in 1914 unless something unforeseen occurs, we find that it is neither the Colonial plan nor Federation but an elaborate system which really seems as if it had been devised with the object of satisfying n.o.body and producing friction at every point. England (by which of course I mean Great Britain; I merely use the shorter term for convenience) is not only to pay the total cost of the army, navy and diplomatic services, including the defences of Ireland, but is also to grant an annual subsidy to Ireland commencing with 500,000 but subsequently reduced to 200,000. Whether the English taxpayer will relish this when he comes to realise it, may be doubted. Certainly no precedent can be cited for a Federal system under which all the common expenditure is borne by one of the parties. And further, the present Government state freely that they hope to carry out their policy by introducing a Bill for Home Rule for Scotland and possibly also for Wales. Will the Scotch and Welsh consent to contribute towards the government of Ireland; or will they demand that they shall be treated like Ireland, and leave the people of England to pay all Imperial services and to subsidize Ireland, Scotland and Wales? Then again, Ireland is to send forty-two representatives to what is still sarcastically to be called the "Parliament of the United Kingdom," but will no doubt popularly be known as the English Parliament. They are to vote about the taxation of people in Great Britain, and to interfere in local affairs of that country, whilst the people of Great Britain are not to tax Ireland or interfere in any way with its affairs. This is indeed representation without taxation. Of course it is inevitable that the Irish members will continue to do what they are doing at present--that is, offer their votes to whatever party will promise further concessions to Irish Nationalism; and they will probably find no more difficulty in getting an English party to consent to such an immoral bargain than they do now.

The provisions as to legislation for Ireland are still more extraordinary. The Irish Parliament is to have complete power of legislating as to Irish affairs, with the exception of certain matters enumerated in the Act; thus it may repeal any Acts of the Imperial Parliament pa.s.sed before 1914. On the other hand, the English Parliament (in which Ireland will have only forty-two representatives) will also be able to pa.s.s laws binding Ireland (and in this way to re-enact the laws which the Irish Parliament has just repealed), and these new laws the Irish Parliament may not repeal or overrule. Now this power of the English Parliament will either be a reality or a farce; if it is a reality, the Irish Nationalists will be no more inclined to submit to laws made by "an alien Parliament" in which they have only forty-two representatives than they are at present to submit to those made by one in which they have 103; if it is a farce, the "supremacy of the Imperial Parliament" is a misleading expression.

The Lord Lieutenant is to act as to some matters on the advice of the Irish Ministry, as to others on the advice of the English. Anyone who has studied the history of const.i.tutional government in the colonies in the early days, when the governor was still supposed to act as to certain affairs independently of ministerial advice, will see the confusion to which this must lead. Suppose the Lord Lieutenant acts on the advice of the English ministers in a way of which the Irish Parliament do not approve, and the Irish Ministry resign in consequence, what can result but a deadlock?

But most extraordinary of all are the provisions as to finance. The Government appointed a Committee of Experts to consider this question.

The committee made their report; but the Government rejected their advice and subst.i.tuted another plan which is so elaborate that it is only possible to touch on some of its more important features here.

I have already said that the English Parliament will have no power to tax Ireland. That statement, however, must be taken subject to two reservations. The Bill provides that if ever the happy day arrives when for three consecutive years the revenue of Ireland has exceeded the cost of government, the English Parliament (with the addition of twenty-three extra members summoned from Ireland for the purpose) may make new provisions securing from Ireland a contribution towards Imperial expenditure. As this is the only reference to the subject in the Bill, the general opinion was that until those improbable circ.u.mstances should occur, the English Parliament would have no power to tax Ireland; but when the debates were drawing to a close, the Government astonished the House by stating that according to their construction of the Bill, should any new emergency arise at any time after the Bill becomes law (for instance, a great naval emergency requiring an addition to the Income Tax) it would be not merely the right but also the duty of the Imperial Chancellor of the Exchequer to see that the charge should be borne by the whole United Kingdom--in other words, the Parliament in which Ireland possesses only forty-two representatives may and ought to tax Ireland for Imperial purposes.