The Commission appointed under Lord Rosebery's Adminis- tration, May 26th,
1894, to consider the financial relations of England and Ireland, and which lost its chairman, Mr. Childers, by death at the beginning of this year (after losing Sir Robert Hamilton also by death early in 1895), has made its final report, to which, however, two of its members, Sir David Barbour and Sir Thomas Sutherland, have not been able to affix their signatures. We should add that the O'Conor Don was elected chairman after Mr. Childers's death. The final report is signed by eleven out of thirteen members, including the chairman, the O'Conor Don, and also Mr. Blake, Mr. Sexton, and Mr. John Redmond of the Irish party. After relating the history of the Commission, the Majority Report gives in the adhesion of its eleven sig- matories to five principles (1) " That Great Britain and Ireland must, for the purposes of this inquiry, be con- sidered separate entities" (which may be true, though for the purpose of any effectual recast of Ireland's and Great Britain's financial relations, they ought, in our opinion, to be treated as one entity); (2) that the Act of Union imposed upon Ireland a much too heavy burden, as the history of their financial relations proves ; (3) that the increase of taxation laid upon Ireland between 1853 and 1860 was unjustifiable ; (4) that an identical rate of taxation does not necessarily involve equality of burden ; (5) that the actual tax-revenue of Ireland is at present one-eleventh of that of Great Britain, and ought not to be more than one-twentieth.
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