No attempt is made to credit Ireland with a share of the profits made by English and Scottish companies through business done in Ireland.

The only reliable items in Income Tax are those of A and B (Land, Houses, and Occupation of Land), where in 1908-09 Ireland contributed about 6 per cent. of the total; under other heads, according to the Treasury, only 3.5 per cent.  The writer estimates the true contribution as several hundred thousand pounds more.

Post Office.—­The Treasury give no clue as to how they calculate the profit and loss on Postal Services.  Figures of letters, telegrams, parcels, etc., delivered in Ireland are known from the Postmaster-General’s report, but the report does not distinguish Irish from English postal orders, of which 1211/2 millions were issued in the United Kingdom in 1909-10.  There is good reason to believe that a part of the postal profit now wholly credited to England should in reality be credited to Ireland.

Stamps.—­Far too little allowance is made by the Treasury for stamps on transfers executed through English and Scottish exchanges for shares bought or sold by Irishmen, and for bonds, deeds, insurances, issues of capital, etc.

Tea and Sugar.—­The Treasury base their calculation “on quantities inter-changed between Great Britain and Ireland in 1903-04,” and I learn from the Inland Revenue Department that by this means the consumption per head of the population was arrived at, and that the present official figures are based on the assumption that the relation of consumption per head in Ireland to consumption per head in the United Kingdom as a whole has not altered since 1903-04.  The unreliability of this assumption is manifest.  It is probable that the heavy additional duty on spirits has raised the consumption of tea in Ireland more than in Great Britain, and the figures of Imports compiled by the Department of Agriculture seem to confirm this view.

[135] On the basis of the mean revenue of 1909-10 and 1910-11.

CHAPTER XIII

FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE

I.

THE ESSENCE OF HOME RULE.

Let us now sum up this financial question, and give its place in the general problem of Home Rule.  In Chapter X. I argued that, on broad grounds of political policy, Ireland, in her own interest, and in the general interest of the United Kingdom, should have “Colonial” Home Rule without representation in the Imperial Parliament.  Leaving finance temporarily aside, while observing that any substantial Imperial control over Irish finance would defeat the “colonial” solution of the problem, I endeavoured to show that there were no tenable grounds of a non-financial character for retaining Irish Members at Westminster, nor any dangers to be feared from excluding them.  I have now reviewed