Irish Manufacturers and the Home Rule Bill By S. C.
Davidson. (Belfast : McGowan and Ingram.)—Mr. Davidson is the managing director of the Sirocco Engineering Works in Belfast. In this striking and timely pamphlet he sets forth his reasons for believing that the Customs and Excise clauses of the Home Rule Bill would practically ruin all Irish manu- facturing industries. He is fortified by the best legal advice in showing that, under Clause XVI. (not a word of which has ever been discussed in the House of Commons), every article manu- factured in Ireland becomes liable to an Excise duty. It necessarily follows that "every manufacturing conoern . . . would have to be under the supervision of Excise officers, in order that every article manufactured therein could be marked and duty paid before permits for delivery would be given." As a manufacturer, Mr. Davidson declares that such a costly and inconvenient system would fatally handicap Irish industries. We sympathize with his indignant astonishment that a Free Trade Cabinet should propose to enforce such a penalty on prosperous Ulster at the point of the bayonet.
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