urban.[107] He laid special stress on the fact that five-sevenths of Irish revenue, as compared with less than half the British revenue, was derived from taxes on commodities of general consumption, pressing heavily on the poor, and set forth the figures showing that the product of these taxes represented a charge of L1 2s. 0.95d. per head of the population in Ireland, and L1 1s. 0.05d. in Great Britain, although the wealth per head of Great Britain, as he admitted, “was much greater than the wealth of Ireland per head."[108] His conclusion was that this state of affairs, though regrettable, could not be helped, because, under the Union, whose permanence he took for granted, a change of general taxation to suit Ireland was simply impracticable.  He did, it is true, point out incidentally that the same hardship might be said to affect poor localities in Great Britain and poor individuals in Great Britain, but he recoiled from the absurd fallacy involved in saying that on that account Ireland was not unjustly taxed.  If he had gone to that length he could never have signed the unanimous Report.

I only mention this latter point because some outside critics have been bold enough to assert the fallacy in its completeness, proving, as they easily can, that the purchase of a pound of tea or a pint of beer is as great an expense to a man with 10s. a week in Whitechapel as to a man with 10s. a week in Connemara.  Such reasoning nullifies the whole science of taxation.  It would be as sensible to say that our whole fiscal system might wisely be transplanted in its entirety to any foreign country or to any self-governing Colony absolutely irrespective of their social and economic conditions and of their habits.  Yet Ireland in these respects has always differed from Great Britain at least as much as any self-governing Colony and many European countries.  The tea-tax produces scarcely anything in France; it produces an enormous amount relatively in Ireland, and is a greater burden there than in Great Britain.  The wine-tax is not felt by Ireland; it is felt more by England; it would cause a revolution in France.  Beer is taxed lightly in the United Kingdom, but the Irishman drinks only half as much beer as the Englishman.  Meat is untaxed, but the Irish poor eat no meat.  Spirits and tobacco are highly taxed, and they are consumed more largely in Ireland than in England.  And so on.  The whole Commission recognized that the circumstances of the two countries were different, and stated “that identity of rates of taxation does not necessarily involve equality of burden.”

Nor could Sir David Barbour have dissociated himself from these conclusions without destroying the rest of his argument.  He pointed out with truth that merely to reduce Irish taxation to its correct level, and to leave Irish expenditure where it was, would be to wipe out Ireland’s contribution to Imperial purposes and leave her with a subsidy from Great Britain of three-quarters of a million.  On the other hand,