There are, of course, other reasons why there should be no delegation of the power to impose Customs and Excise.  The constitutional objections to such a course are overwhelming.  It would involve the abandonment of the plea that Home Rule for Ireland was the prelude to Home Rule all round; in other words, that separation was the condition precedent to federalism.  In every federal system in the world the control of Customs and Excise has been retained by the central authority.  This is true not only of the quasi-federations within the British Empire; it is equally true of the United States, Germany, and Switzerland.  One can scarcely be surprised at the emphatic repudiation which such a proposal received at the hands of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. J.M.  Robertson) when, on February 7, 1912, in a speech at Lincoln, he said—­

“There was, however, just one thing that must remain one for three kingdoms, and that was the fiscal system, Customs and Excise. It was a federal union we want, a federal state. If they were to do as some of his unreflecting Home Rule friends, Irish and English, have done, and demand that Ireland should not only have power to lay taxes but to fix Customs and Excise then they had no State left at all.”

Another obvious objection to such a course is that it necessitates the erection of a Customs barrier between Ireland and Great Britain.  Tariff Reformers are ready to admit that the present fiscal system is at least as injurious to Ireland as to other portions of the United Kingdom.  The power to impose Customs duties on British goods—­and the proportion of British total imports is so large that if this power were limited to foreign goods it would be financially valueless—­would no doubt provide the Irish Exchequer with considerable funds and might be used to develop her prosperity.  But the separation of the Customs systems for the purpose of enabling Ireland to impose tariffs in her own interests would necessarily be followed by a demand for treaty-making powers such as have been successfully claimed and are now enjoyed by British Dominions overseas.  Under a general tariff for the United Kingdom the same advantages would accrue to Ireland without any corresponding damage to British or Imperial interests.

Thus, whether Customs and Excise are handed over to the Irish Parliament or retained by the Imperial Parliament, the consequences are equally embarrassing.  In the one case Ireland would be deprived of the control of some 60 per cent. of her present revenue, and of all power of expansion; in the other, British trade with Ireland might be gravely injured by hostile legislation, and the union of the three kingdoms in financial and commercial policy would be destroyed.  But this is not federation, nor is it a step towards it.  It is separation pure and simple.  Unless we are prepared to accept separation as the end of our policy the control of Customs and therefore of Excise, must remain an Imperial affair.