Before the Local Government Act was sent on its heaven-born mission of national amelioration another considerable happening had taken place:  the Financial Relations Commission appointed to inquire into the financial relations between Ireland and Great Britain having tendered its report in 1896.  Financial experts had long contended that Ireland was grievously overtaxed, and that there could be no just dealing between the two countries until the amount of this overtaxation was accurately and scientifically ascertained and a proper balance drawn.  It was provided in the Act of Union that the two countries should retain their separate budgets and should each remain charged with their respective past debts, and a relative proportion of contribution to Imperial expenses was fixed.  But the British Parliament did not long respect this provision.  In 1817 it decreed a financial union between the two countries, amalgamated their budgets and exchequers, and ordered that henceforth all the receipts and expenditure of the United Kingdom should be consolidated into one single fund, which was henceforward to be known as the Consolidated Fund.  It was not long before we had cumulative examples of the truth of Dr Johnson’s dictum that England would unite with us only that she may rob us.  Successive English chancellors imposed additional burdens upon our poor and impoverished country, until it was in truth almost taxed out of existence.  The weakest points in the Gladstonian Home Rule Bills were admittedly those dealing with finance.

The publication of the report of the Financial Relations Commission, which had been taking evidence for two years, created a formidable outcry in Ireland.  We had long protested against our taxes being levied by an external power; now we knew also that we were being robbed of very large amounts annually.  The Joint Report of the Commission, signed by eleven out of thirteen members, decided that the Act of Union placed on the shoulders of Ireland a burden impossible for her to bear; that the increase of taxation laid on her in the middle of the nineteenth century could not be justified, and, finally, that the existing taxable capacity of Ireland did not exceed one-twentieth part of that of Great Britain (and was perhaps far less), whereas Ireland paid in taxes one-eleventh of the amount paid by Great Britain.  Furthermore, the actual amount taken each year in the shape of overtaxation was variously estimated to be between two and three quarters and three millions.  Instantly Ireland was up in arms against this monstrous exaction.  For a time the country was roused from its torpor and anything seemed possible.  All classes and creeds were united in denouncing the flagrant theft of the nation’s substance by the predominant partner.  By force and fraud the Act of Union was passed:  by force and fraud we were kept in a state of beggary for well-nigh one hundred years and our poverty flaunted abroad as proof of our idleness