On Monday, Mr. Balfour moved the introduction of his three
Bills to drain the land within the catchment areas of the rivers Bann, Barrow, and Shannon. He declared that this country owes something like a historic debt to Ireland for that least excusable of all our acts of injustice towards her, the crushing of the Irish industries by Parliament. It was not a hopeful policy, he said, for Governments to set on foot new industries in Ireland. Where Great Britain showed under Schedule D of the Income-tax a profit return of £9 per head of population, Ireland showed only a profit return of 22 per head of popula- tion. Hence Mr. Balfour did not propose to set on foot new Irish industries, a task to which he thought the State unequal. Nor did he propose at present to give larger grants for technical instruction. With regard to technical instruction, Ireland is already far in advance of Great Britain. In ten years, from 1877 to 1887, no less than £800,000 has been spent on industrial schools in Ireland out of Imperial sources ; and in fifty years, from 1837 to 1887, £400,000 has been spent on teaching agriculture only, while the annual grant out of Imperial sources is about £14,000 a year.
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