[72] In those days the British Government could
cheerfully propose a fixed contribution of over L4,000,000 from the new
Irish Parliament, as in the Bill of 1886, or an allocation of one-third
of the general revenue of Ireland, for Imperial expenditure, as in the
Bill of 1893. Lord Morley has told us that in 1886 Mr. Parnell was
gravely disturbed over the finance proposals of Mr. Gladstone. We
thought him unreasonable at the time, and perhaps a little mean. I can
remember Liberals saying hard things about the Irish attitude in those
days. But the events that have occurred since prove that Mr. Parnell,
on that occasion, was only exercising his customary shrewdness. He saw
to the root of the matter. He was evidently possessed with the fear
that he might be saddled with a poverty-stricken Home Rule Parliament,
and the course of events since 1886 has somewhat justified his fear.
THE NEW IRISH DEFICIT
For since 1886, two events have happened. The first has been that
Ireland instead of being the creditor is now the debtor of England. The
most recent Treasury estimate, as given by Mr. Asquith in his first
reading speech on the Home Rule Bill of 1912 gives the true deficit of
Ireland for 1912-3 at L1,500,000.
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