On July 19th, Mr. A. Milner, Chairman of the Board
of Inland Revenue, was examined before the Royal Commission on the financial relations between Great Britain and Ireland, and gave some interesting evidence as to the taxes which Ireland escapes. Ireland, he stated, was exempt from the payment of land-tax, house-duty, and railway-tax, and did not pay the legacy-duty of 10 per cent. on charities. "Ire- land was also exempt from the patent-medicines stamp, which brought in about 2200,000 in Great Britain, nor were estab- lishment licences charged in Ireland. Those were all the important differences, though there were some other trifling differences in stamps and licences, such as male servants duty, amounting to 2144,000; carriages, 2482,000; armorial bear- ings, 276,000; the total of those, excluding dogs, being about 2700,000. The dog-tax yielded 2444,000," Those are notable exceptions. It remains to be seen whether the amounts spent by Irishmen on tobacco and whisky in excess of what is spent in Great Britain, make up a contribution to the revenue greater than that saved by the exemptions just noted,
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