[164]Report of the Childers Commission, p. 26.
[165]Since 1896, when the Childers Commission made its report, the overtaxation of Ireland has increased.
[166]Report of Childers Commission: ‘Minutes of Evidence,’ vol. i. p. 17.
[167]Report of the Childers Commission, p. 16.
[168]Report of the Childers Commission, p. 89.
[169]Report of the Childers Commission, pp. 159, 160.
[170]‘Minutes of Evidence,’ Childers Commission, vol. ii. p. 218.
[171]I quote from the Report of the Childers Commission, p. 68, these valuable remarks on the subject: ‘Neither can there then be any question that a system of equal rates of taxes on the same subjects is compatible with the utmost inequality of burdens between two countries contributing to one exchequer. All that need be done in order to exact an undue proportion—unlimited in extent—of the means of either of the countries is to tax the commodities most consumed in that country, and in fixing the rate of the tax on each commodity, to fix the higher rates on the particular commodities most generally in use in that country, and the lower rates on those most consumed in the other. The same kind of effect, of course, may be produced, and the same discrimination exercised, by totally exempting some commodities and taxing others, however lightly. In fact, a system of equal rates of taxes may thus be rendered more easily unjust and burdensome to the country discriminated against than one of differential taxes, because in the latter case, the unequal treatment, and the mode of it being manifest, are more liable to criticism and limitation; whilst in the former, the true effect of the system is disguised by the circumstances that each particular head of tax is at the same rate in both countries.’
[172]Report of the Childers Commission, p. 39.
[173]Ibid., p. 166.
[174]Report of the Childers Commission, p. 11.
[175]Ibid.: Evidence of Mr. Munough O’Brien, pp. 12, 13: ‘The system of Imperial loans for temporary emergencies and charity tends to increase the poverty of Ireland, whose future income is mortgaged to pay interest on expenditure from which there is no return. There is no surer road to ruin for an individual than borrowing money to live upon, and most of these Imperial loans are practically made from time to time to enable the Irish people to live or relieve acute distress and disorder. Loans are almost annually made to keep the people quiet or to keep them alive. Yet this expenditure does not prevent the recurrence of famine, distress, and discontent; it rather tends to cause their recurrence.’
[176]Report of the Childers Commission: Report of Mr. Sexton and others, pp. 102, 103.
[177]Report of the Childers Commission: ‘Evidence,’ vol. ii. p. 18.
[178]Report of the Childers Commission, pp. 194, 195.
[179]6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 116. The works of Messrs. Vanston and Foote on the grand juries of Ireland may be referred to.
[180]The reader may be referred to Mr. Moore’s work on the Irish poor law.
[181]See the Report of a Committee of the House of Lords, and especially of the Evidence, taken in 1884-85, with respect to the administration of the Irish poor law at the time.
[182]For a further account of local government in Ireland, a reader may consult the Report of Mr. W. P. O’Brien on Local Government, 1878, and reports on the towns of Ireland and their taxation about the same date. An excellent tract on the subject was published by Mr. William J. Bailey in 1888, called ‘Local and Centralised Government in Ireland.’ With respect to the system of municipal government in Ireland as it existed before 1840, nothing is so valuable as the Reports of the Commissioners, very able men, charged to inquire into the subject in 1834-35. A useful and well-informed account will also be found in Mr. Barry O’Brien’s ‘Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland,’ vol. i. book v.
[183]I have only been able to sketch the outlines of the measure, the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, p. 1, 62 Vict. cap. 37. A good commentary on it has been written by Mr. Brett of the Irish Bar.
[184]Mr. Lecky, ‘Democracy and Liberty,’ Cabinet Edition, Introduction, p. 13, has well described this vaunted reform: ‘It was a measure introduced in fulfilment of distinct pledges, and it contains very skilful provisions intended to protect existing interests. But, after all is said, it means a great transfer of power and influence from the loyal to the disloyal, and it goes in the direction of democracy far beyond anything that a few years ago would have been accepted by the Conservatives, or by the moderate Liberals.’
[185]For a description of elementary education in Ireland up to 1812, see passages in Wakefield’s ‘Account of Ireland;’ and for a description in earlier and later times, see Mr. Barry O’Brien’s ‘Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland,’ book i. chs. i.-xiv.; Mr. Graham Balfour’s ‘Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland,’ pp. 80-128; the Report of the Commissioners of Irish Education, 1810-21; the important Report of the Powis Commission, 1870-71; and the Reports of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland. Mr. Froude, in his ‘English in Ireland,’ vol. i. p. 514; vol. ii. p. 491, has characteristically eulogised the Charter Schools; but he stands alone; Mr. Lecky, ‘History of England in the Eighteenth Century,’ vol. ii. pp. 200-304, has commented on this odious system as it deserved.
[186]Barry O’Brien, ‘Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland,’ vol. ii. p. 322.
[187]See Wakefield’s ‘Account of Ireland’ for the state of her secondary schools in 1812; Barry O’Brien’s ‘Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland,’ book x. chs. i., ii., iii.; Graham Balfour’s ‘The Educational System of Great Britain and Ireland,’ pp. 203-218; and the Reports of the two Commissions of 1854-57 and of 1878-80, of which the heads were Lord Kildare and the Earl of Rosse.
[188]See the resolutions in Duffy’s ‘Young Ireland,’ pp. 713, 714. There has been much misrepresentation on this subject.
[189]See ‘The Problem of Irish Education,’ by Butt, a masterly and impartial tract.
[190]See for the figures ‘The Irish University Question,’ by Archbishop Walsh,passim.
[191]For further information on the history and the present state of the University system in Ireland, see ‘The History of the University of Dublin,’ by the Rev. J. W. Stubbs, and ‘The Constitutional History of the University of Dublin,’ by D. C. Heron; Howley on ‘Universities;’ ‘What is meant by Freedom of Education,’ by the O’Conor Don; ‘University Education,’ by an Irish Protestant Celt; and especially ‘The Problem of Irish Education,’ by Butt. See also the Irish University Debates in Hansard for 1873, and the very able debate in Trinity College. The reader, too, may be referred to Mr. Barry O’Brien’s ‘Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland,’ book xi.; to Mr. Graham Balfour’s ‘Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland,’ pp. 273-288; to Mr. Godkin’s ‘Education in Ireland;’ and to Archbishop Walsh’s ‘The Irish University Question.’
[192]Too much is not to be made of ‘Nationalist’ clamour; but these remarks of Mr. Dillon, M.P., are significant (Freeman’s Journal, April 13, 1901): ‘I do not believe that these movements will ever succeed ... until that fortress of English domination and anti-Irish bigotry, Trinity College, is for ever swept away, or there is placed opposite to it a truly National University, where the most honoured classes will be the classes of Irish literature and Irish history.’ Archbishop Walsh, a much abler man, has written in the same sense in his work, ‘The Irish University Question.’ The question, he contends, in many passages, must be settled by levelling up or by levelling down, that is, by raising the Catholic University to the position of Trinity College, or by disestablishing and disendowing Trinity College. The evil precedent of the Act disestablishing the Anglican Church in Ireland, will, it is hoped, be eschewed.
[193]See on this subject Mr. Lough’s ‘England’s Wealth, Ireland’s Poverty,’ pp. 88-94.