In the House of Commons on Tuesday a confused and
somewhat topsy-turvy' conversation took place on an answer made by Mr. Whitley to a question about Irish finance. It is estimated that in the current year the revenue contributed by Ireland will be insufficient to meet the cost of purely Irish services by 21,183,000. This statement was greefed by "loud Nationaliit. cheers," though the plain man might have thought that the facts from the Irish standpoint told rather against than for Home-rule. Ws suppose, how- ever. that the 'cheers meant that at any rate the Saxon was
being made to pay for his iniquities. After the cheers, Mr. John Redmond "rubbed it in" by declaring that, translated into plain words, Mr. Whitley's reply meant that Ireland was being run under the Union at a loss of over a million a year. Mr. Dillon then asked whether Mr. Whitley was aware that under the Home-rule Bill of 1886 Mr. Gladstone proposed that Ireland should contribute three millions a year to the Imperial Exchequer. Upon this Mr. Moore, an 'Ulster Member, asked whether it did not follow that, "were it not for an excess of £1,500,000 a year from the Imperial Exchequer which we get under the Union, there would be an annual deficit of that amount in Ireland." This sally was, we are told, greeted with Nationalist laughter, but "no answer was returned."
