1820 and 1840 the Irish population was a little less than one-half of the population of Great Britain; her contribution for Imperial Services varied from one-eleventh to one-thirteenth.  In 1899-1900 the British contribution was 46-1/2 times the Irish, though the population was less than nine times as large.  If any contribution for Imperial Services from Ireland is justified, and Mr. Gladstone at least acknowledged it, no one can say that the contribution actually taken from Ireland has been excessive.

As already stated we are still without any information as to the financial proposals to be included in the Home Rule Bill of 1912.  The Government have appointed a Committee to advise them upon this subject.  Though the cost of the Committee has been met out of public funds, and sources of information were laid open to them which are not readily available to the public, the Prime Minister has steadily refused to supply to Parliament any information as to the results of their labours.[53] The terms of reference to the Commission; the witnesses examined by them; the information placed at their disposal; the character of the conclusions and recommendations; these have, all alike, been refused to the House of Commons.  But while Parliament has been denied this information, there is every reason to believe that the leaders of the Nationalist Party have been taken fully into the confidence of the Government.  We do not know whether, for example, the Customs or Excise or both will be imposed and collected by the future Irish Parliament.  We do not know whether any contribution will be required for the Irish share of Imperial services.  We are equally uncertain whether any and what purely Irish services will be retained by the Imperial Parliament, and charged on the Imperial Exchequer.  And lastly, the intentions of the Government in regard to the payment of a subsidy from the Imperial Exchequer to the Irish Parliament, with which rumour is busy, are as yet unrevealed.

In spite of this lamentable paucity of information as to the Government plan, I think it can be safely said that no scheme even remotely resembling any of those presented in connection with the two previous Bills can be put forward now.  Each of those schemes would involve the Irish Parliament in a huge deficit from the very outset.  Even if the schemes were adapted to the changed modern conditions the same impassable gap between available revenue and certain expenditure remains.  Those schemes presumably embodied principles which the Governments of 1886 and 1893, and the Nationalist parties of those dates regarded as adequate.  It would be strange if it were otherwise, seeing that an examination and comparison of the separate schemes can discover no other consistent principles except the solitary one of juggling with the revenues, expenditures, and contributions in such manner as would start the Irish Parliament with a small surplus.  In view of the importance of these earlier attempts to secure an approximation to financial equilibrium, it appears desirable to examine how Ireland would fare in modern conditions under each of them.