THE FINANCIAL ASPECT OF HOME RULE

New Zealand Tablet, 27 April 1911, Page 759

THE FINANCIAL ASPECT OF HOME RULE

An interesting debate took place at a meeting held in the Imperial Hotel under the auspices of the Dublin and Counties Liberal Association. The subject of the debate was Could a Home Rule Government pay its way?' Mr. T. W. Russell presided. There was. a good attendance, the audience including some Unionists. Mr. Dudley Edwards opened the debate, and in the course of his remarks he contended that very substantial reductions in the cost of government could be effected under an Irish Legislature, and also that Ireland would so increase in numbers and in prosperity as to increase her taxable capacity and her revenue. *' He believed John Bull had sufficient sense to see that if he could only get a contented and loyal people in Ireland and the long-wished-for understanding between England and the United States it would be worth to him the price of many Dreadnoughts. The chairman said the Budget, hated so cordially, set aside a sum called the Development Grant amounting to something like £700,000 for nothing else but the promotion and development of agriculture. He had been sitting that day with the Agricultural Board approximating a great part of that money for Ireland for the purpose of the reafforestation of Ireland, for increasing and developing and improving their system of horse-breeding, and for establishing a great system of scientific research into the diseases of animals, the diseases of plants, and how to meet them and

deal with them...... Referring to the question of Home Rule, he said that before any scheme of Home Rule was laid before Parliament by a responsible Ministry it would be necessaryhe was using careful language— this whole financial question, the whole question of the financial relations between . England and Ireland, what they were in reality, what their bearing was upon both countries, all that would have to be found out authoritatively, and it would be. With regard to the question of economies in the future government of Ireland, ho thought that they could not be easily secured. There were two classes of expenditure in the government of Ireland. There was reproductive expenditure, and expenditure also very necessary for the government of a country which was not of that character. He would not advise anybody to think that they could save much on the Congested Districts Board within any reasonable time that they could look forward to, and what was more he did not think they ought to look to save money upon it. A part of Ireland that had been the subject of neglect for centuries, that had been left by a great, rich, and powerful Government under this Union in squalor and wretchedness was a positive scandal to Union and "Unionists alike, and he hoped that nobody advocating an_ Irish Parliament, and that no Irish Parliament when it came into existence would ever dream of attempting to find economies there. It was the last place in the world they ought to look for them. The expenditure would have to go on, because these people must be rescued from the shocking state in which the English Government had left them for centuries. And he was not quite sure that they could look within a reasonable time for a very great saving on such a work as the Land Commission was doing. Talk as people did about the enormous expense attendant upon this work. The work was carrying out a revolution. . It was undoing the confiscations of Elizabeth, of Cromwell, and of William. Revolutions could not be carried out in a day, and he would not advise anybody to think that this work could be hastened very much. But there were other savings that might fairly be considered. He was not saying that they could be made, and he had no right to anticipate inquiry into the matter. If anyone came inquiring to the Department of Agriculture he would give a perfectly firm and clear answer that they could not do with less money, but that they could do with a great deal more. The English people had many faults, but they had some great virtues, and one of their virtues was that they could take an eminently reasonable view of a business proposition. The Unionists of the country had got to face the situation. He believed that finance was reconcilable, and would be reconciled, and that before three years were out the bells would ring in that old House in College Green, and the King would open his first Irish Parliament there.