Mr. Goschen'e masterly speech on Monday was much the most
informing of the financial debate, though it did not cover quite so large a field as Mr. Chamberlain's. He maintained with Mr. Chamberlain that a half-million surplus for Ireland was the only common result that appeared to be arrived at in all the various proposals, and that was, in his opinion, because the Irish Members had laid it down as a primary condition that they could not " run the show for less." Yet Mr. Goschen showed that, in 1853, Mr. Gladstone, when accused of over-taxing Ireland, had replied that the Union had diminished the interest on the Irish debt from £5,900,000 to R4,000,000, and that it was not till 1874 that he discovered, or supposed he had discovered, that we bad been engaged in plundering a poorer country. It was altogether a most graphic and informing speech. The second reading of the financial clauses was carried on Monday by a majority of 35 (226 to 191). On Tuesday, when the Irish Members raised the cry that England should take her hand out of Ireland's pocket (which appeared to mean that we should pay all the cost of Imperial defence, and charge Ireland nothing for it), Mr. J. Redmond's resistance to the clause interposing a delay of six years in giving Ireland the control of her own taxation was rejected by 249 to 53 (majority, 196), Mr. Sexton sup- porting the provisional delay.
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