"WEST IRELAND PAU.
[To me Borrea or me 'Meaux')
Some of the most misleading and unsound articles on the Irish question that I have seen have been published in the Jesuit weekly called America and in the semi-monthly called the Catholic Mind, issued by the America Press, of which Father S. J. Tierney, SI., ia the President. In the issue of the latter publication for March 8th they have done a very deplor- able thing by inserting under the heading How England Exploits Ireland,' a passage from Judge Cohalan'e misleading and unsound speech at the recent convention of Sinn Fein Irish secessionists in Philadelphia. This extract, like all that speech, is simply honeycombed with statements which are either veiled or absolute falsehood, and this statement of mine I should like to prove in the most explicit way.
He says. 'The Childers Commission was made up in the majority of Englishmen.' Of this Commission, numbering fifteen, eight were Irishmen and only four Englishmen, although the population of England constitutes seven-ninths of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, while that of Ireland is only one-ninth.
Neither did the Commission report that Ireland had been overtaxed £2,500,000 per year, as Judge Cohalan says. A majority reported that if it be granted that Ireland, though numbering one-ninth of the popluation, should pay but one- twentieth of the taxes of the United Kingdom, then Ireland was paying .£2,500,000 more than it ought to pay. The absurdity of this claim was easily shown by the ablest economist on the Commission, Sir David Barbour, an Irishman, born in Done- gal. It rests entirely upon the economic fallacy that taxes are paid by a geographical area and not by the individuals living in that area. The framers of our United States Con- stitution punctured that fallacy in 1787 when they unanimously adopted tho provision that all taxes, imposts and excises should be uniform throughout the United States. It is the same absurd fallacy as in the utterances of the wild Socialist orator, descanting upon the concentration of property in a few hands, when he said to hie audience, 'The average property owner- ship of three men in the smoking compartment of a Pullman car the other day was a hundred million apiece.' When asked who the men were he said, The Pullman porter, the Pullman conductor and John D. Rockefeller.'
Judge Cohalan speaks of direct over-taxation of Ireland. There is no direct taxation in Ireland except In the ease of the Income Tax levied on annual incomes over $850. Half the revenue of Ireland comes from duties on alcoholic liquor and tobacco. Whoever in Ireland does not drink liquor, smoke or have a yearly income over $850 practically pays no taxes into the National Treasury. Michael J. P. McCarthy, an Irish Roman Catholic, in his 'Five Years in Ireland, 1895-1900," told the truth about this hoary falsehood of Judge Cohalan in the following words,—
' (a) Because the taxation we pay is altogether voluntary (except the Income Tax) and indirect and levied on things which are not necessaries of life; and
(b) Bemuse they are the same taxes as those levied in Great Britain.'
The last faleehood of Judge Cohalan which I shall expose is
the following: In the year just closed (1918) England took out of Ireland in direct takatieh the sum of 4130,000,000 and ex- pended on the government of Ireland only the sum of about .64000,000, leaving as a balance to the profit of England in that one year from direct overtaxation in Ireland the sum of £18,000,000, or approximately the equivalent of 830,600,000: Now just notice how far he deliberately wanders from the truth. According to Command Paper 165, the total revenue collected was nearly .220,000,000. Nearly one-half of this came from Income Tax and Exeees Profits Tax, so that the very large majority of the working classes of Ireland paid in the way of indirect tespition a little over .610,000,000, or one-third of the amount mentioned by Judge Cohalan.
The amount spent in Ireland from the National Treasury was about .213,000,000, chiefly on the following items: Ethica- lion, old-age pensions, police, land purchase, improved dwell- ings, dz. This was about three million more than the tax revenue, if we exclude the revenue raised by the Excess Profits 'Pax and the Income Tax. It is important to remember here that the only money spent on Public Schools in Ireland comes from the National Treasury. The Irish do not raise a single penny for the support of schools by local taxation, as is the universal rule in England, Scotland, and the United States. The most monstrous of all the falsehoods uttered by Judge Cohalan is the suggested and stated falsehood that England made a profit out of Ireland to the amount of .118,000,000, which she used to her own individual advantage and from which Ireland gained no benefit. He would have us forget that there has been a great war, in which Judge Cohalan was pro-German and worked with Ambassador Bernstorff to help Germany beat the Allies. That £18,000,000 was used in con- nexion with enormous sums from Great Britain and the United States in saving this country and other countries from the destructive brutality of the murderous Hun and thus saving the world for democracy. He tries to make his ignorant, deluded, but admiring Sinn Fein audiences believe that the Army and Navy a the United States and of the United King- dom are not of the slightest advantage to Ireland, and there- fore she should not be required to spend any money for the protection of the United Kingdom or of the United States. Recently President Wilson did a noble deed in making this country, understand that Judge Cohalan insults the conscience of, every honest man, Catholic, Protestant, Hebrew, agnostic, or freethinker. I hare done my best to show not only that, but that 'he also insults the intelligence of every honest-thinking
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