This one settled principle to start Ireland with a surplus
of half-a-million looked, said Mr. Chamberlain, as if Irish Home- rule were a plant of such sickly growth that it required to be watered with British gold. He did not see why the British taxpayer should lose because the Irish people might happen to forswear whiskey. Mr. Chamberlain himself thought that, on the whole, if there were to be Home-rule, taxable capacity to contribute was the fairest measure of the right quota, and that would show Ireland's present quota to be about one- eighteenth of the total ; whereas, under the present scheme, sho is to be required to pay less than half of the sum which one-eighteenth would give us. We are asked to hand over to Ireland about £1,800,000, which she ought to pay, as a sort of equivalent for making the Nationalist Party omnipotent in Ireland, and giving them a controlling voice in British legis- lation as well.
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