IRISH TAXATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5122, 23 August 1877, Page 3

IRISH TAXATION.

(From the Daily Express.) The truth of the old saying that “ there are few things as untrustworthy as facts, except figures,” is finally brought home to us by the periodical debates upon Irish taxation. Here, one would have thought, is an “ Irish grievance” which at least admits of bemg tested, weighed, and measured. It is impossible, it might be said, that an issue which to a great extent resolves itself into a question of dry arithmetic can long remain in dispute ; it is impossible that, on the one hand, Irishmen will long be able to pass off an imaginary grievance as a real one, or, on the other hand, that Englishmen will long persist in treating a real grievance as an imaginary' one. One way or the other the question must surely be soon settled. Such expectations as these would be natural enough, but natural or not, we see how thoroughly they are disappointed. Statistics have been met by statistics, and it remains a drawn battle. No power on earth will convince Mr. Mitchell Henry, Sir Joseph McKenna, and Mr. Butt that Ireland is not unfairly taxed for the maintenance and support of the Empire ; while they themselves make no advance whatever towards convincing their countrymen on this side of St. George s Channel that there is anything but Irish perversity and Irish unreason at the bottom of their complaints. We in England read Mr. Mitchell Henry’s resolutions with a sort of despair at the political wrong-headedness and the unsound economical doctrine which they contain. That “ the burden of Imperial taxation imposed on Ireland is excessive and out of proportion to her financial ability to bear as compared with England,” is a proposition which, to Englishmen, appears a flagrant contradiction to some of the plainest facts. “ That this inequality is a violation of the promises made at the Union” strikes them as a singularly unjust and misleading account of what has happened with regard to the aforesaid “ promises.” And lastly, when they read the statement “ that the expenditure out of Ireland of so large a proportion of the proceeds of Irish taxation forms an aggravation of the injustice, and makes permanent improvement hopeless until the present method of dealing with Irish revenues is altered,” they feel that it is at least equally “ hopeless” to reason with a people who think that such a grievance as as they allege can be remedied by such means

The complainants, in truth, have but one semblance of an argument to which they can, and to which they persistently do, appeal; but that, as we hold, is in itself an essentially fallacious one. They point to the fact that Ireland pays income tax on 324 millions, while England pays income tax on 543 millions. How unfair, then, they say, that Ireland should pay 8 J millions annually towards the Imperial revenue—thus contributing one-eighth of the total amount from an income only equal to the l-17th of the English income. But this comparison is essentially misleading, for the reason that the hulk of the Irish taxation comes, as indeed Mr. Mitchell Henry complains, from a class of the people who are not assessed to the income tax at all, and is, moreover, however the Irish members may protest a crai st the statement, a purely voluntary payment on their part. . The whole grievance comes, in short, to this, that although the taxed incomes of England and Ireland are respectively 543 millions and 32j millions, and their untaxed incomes about 460 millions and 22J respectively, yet Ireland

piays, principally out of these latter incomes, as much as 64 millions in excise duties, instead of the very much smaller sum, which would, as compared with the yield of these duties in England, preserve the ratio of their respective incomes; and the whole explanation of this difference is' that the Irish will not drink beer and will drink whisky, while the. English are, willing to; drink malt liquor to a large extent ■as well as spirits. Such is the sum and substance of this strangest of Irish grievances. The alcohol in beer, complains Mr. Mitchell Henry, is, taxed at the rate of la. 9d. per gallon, while' the alcohol in whisky is taxed at the - rate: of 10s. ■ “ Tax the Englishman’s beer in the same proportion as the Irishman’s whisky, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer could raise ninety millions a year.” No doubt he could ; but would it not be better, instead of taxing the Englishman’s beer like whisky, to induce the Irishman to give up whisky for beer I,