The fixing and collection of taxes will remain with the
Imperial Parliament, Customs, Excise, Post Office, 8r.c., con- tinuing as at present; but of the balance between Ireland's net contribution to the Imperial Exchequer and the annual sum raised by taxation, it is estimated that about £4,000,000 would be handed over to the new Irish Finance Department, and placed under the control of the Irish Council. The powers to be devolved upon the Irish Council will include those generally grouped under the head of Local Government, including Education and Police, and the method of Orders- in-Council will be employed for administrative changes, and even for the modification of land legislation, so long as no new principle is adopted. The whole scheme, it is added, will be open to revision in five years. Many of the details are so obviously conjectural that it is premature to discuss their feasibility. The duties of Chief Secretary, in particular, seem to concentrate an impossible amount of work in one official. Again, it seems very doubtful whether the Nationalists would accept the scheme. Suppose the inhabitants of Belfast and North-Eastern Ulster express a strong desire to be left outside such a scheme. Are they in that case to be allowed to remain outside, or to be forced into it against their will, and if so, on what grounds of logic or justice?
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