To sum up once more, the cost of the Irish Government as paid out of the common purse in the last completed financial year was L11,344,500, or L2 11s. 9d. per head of the population, as compared with a cost per head of L1 9s. 2d. in England, and in Scotland of L1 13s. 31/2d.  But this is not the minimum figure with which we have to reckon in considering the Home Rule scheme; some items show a marked increase in the Estimates of the current year:  (1) The increase in Old Age Pensions, not certain yet, will be at least L250,000. (2) The Land Commission is L544,000, as compared with L414,500. (3) Universities and Colleges, L186,256, as compared with L166,000. (4) Department of Agriculture, L426,609, as compared with L415,000. (5) Registrar-General’s Office, L29,020, as compared with L13,000. (6) Valuation and Boundary Survey, L44,581, as compared with L30,000. (7) Public Works and Buildings in Ireland, L273,370, as compared with L215,000.  Even with allowance for over-estimates, especially in the last of these items,[132] we must anticipate an increase of nearly half a million under the above heads, to which we must add L150,000 recently allocated by the Road Board to Ireland for the year 1911-12, and L34,750 already allocated by the Development Commissioners.  If Ireland comes prematurely into the National Insurance scheme, and assumes eventual financial responsibility for her share of the cost, that will be an additional source of expense; but it is to be hoped that her leaders, in common prudence, will henceforth endeavour to stem the rising flood of Irish expenditure, and so facilitate the retrenchments imperatively necessary under Home Rule.  As it is, the total outgoings of the current year (1911-12), swelled by the increases shown above, will probably amount to L12,000,000, while this total will in its turn be added to by the office costs of the Irish Legislature and the salaries of Ministers.

The scheme framed cannot assume immediate economies, and a responsible Ireland alone can decide the nature and extent of the drastic economies which must be made in the future.  Beyond the brief remarks and hints made in the course of this chapter, I myself venture only to lay down the broad proposition that, to the last farthing, Irish revenue must govern and limit Irish expenditure.  For any hardship entailed in achieving that aim Ireland will find superabundant compensation in the moral independence which is the foundation of national welfare.  She will be sorely tempted to sell part of her freedom for a price.  At whatever cost, she will be wise to resist.

If Irish revenue is to be the measure of Irish expenditure, it follows that it must be wholly, or at any rate predominately, under Irish control.  Let us look a little more closely, therefore, into its amount and composition.

III.

IRISH REVENUE.