It was a ghastly specimen of doctrinaire dogmatism run mad, and though it was not the fault of the Government so much as of the arid doctrines of ill-understood economics which then prevailed in the schools, it did more than anything to embitter the relations between the Irish people and the Imperial Government.  The death-rate from famine and famine-fever was appalling.  The poor law system—­then a new experiment in Ireland—­broke down hopelessly, and agitators were not slow to improve the occasion by denouncing the “callousness” of the Imperial Government.

Nations, as a rule, recover from such calamities as famine, war, and pestilence with surprising quickness; but there were certain incidents connected with the famine of 1846-47 that intensified and perpetuated the evil in the case of Ireland.  We have already referred to the high-and-dry doctrines of laissez faire then in the ascendant, and any real or permanent recovery of Irish agriculture was rendered practically impossible by England’s adhesion to the doctrine of free imports, by the abolition of the Corn Laws, and by the crushing increase of taxation under Mr Gladstone’s budgets of 1853 and the succeeding years.

Ireland was entitled under the Act of Union to “special exemptions and abatements” in taxation, in consideration of her backward economic condition.  All Chancellors of the Exchequer till Mr. Gladstone’s time respected these exemptions, and although no one could suggest, in view of Ireland’s recent progress, that she could have been permanently exempted from the burdens imposed on the British taxpayer, it will be admitted that the time chosen by Mr. Gladstone for abruptly raising the taxation of Ireland from 14_s._ 9_d._ per head to 26_s._ 7_d._ was inopportune, not to say ungenerous.

Sir David Barbour, in his minority report on the Financial Relations Commission, perhaps the most carefully thought out and the most practical of all the many reports emanating from that heterogeneous body, gives a table of the “estimated true revenue” extracted from Great Britain and Ireland respectively from 1819 to 1894.  This table shows that the revenue raised from Ireland was increased between 1849-50 and 1859-60 from L4,861,465 to L7,700,334, and he adds:  “It will be observed that a great and rapid rise took place in the taxation of Ireland during the decade 1850-1860.  This great increase was due to the equalisation of the spirit duties in the two countries, and the extension of the Income Tax to Ireland.  The special circumstances of Ireland do not appear to have received due consideration at this time.  Many arguments of a general character might be employed to justify the equalisation of the spirit duties, and the imposition of an Income Tax, but Ireland was entitled under the Act of Union to such exemptions and abatements as her circumstances might require, and the time was not opportune for imposing additional burdens upon her.”