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"SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME."

FROM THE PAINTING BY M. TISSOT, BY SPECIAL PERMISSION OF MM. MAME ET FILS, TOURS.

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'New Light on the

THE PROGRESS OF THE WORLD.

LONDON, July 1, 1896.

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in

Many things happened last month, some of which occupied considerable Anglo-Irish the newspapers, but that of which Partnership. the results may prove hereafter the most important has attracted comparatively little attention. Certainly, at least twenty times as much space has been given to chronicling the details of the loss of the Drummond Castle, or the cricket match between Australia and All England, than has been devoted to the one item of really supreme importance, which, notwithstanding the fateful issues with which it is charged, has passed almost unnoticed. I refer to the publication of the draft of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the financial relations of Great Britain and Ireland. Ten out of the thirteen commissioners have arrived at a definite conclusion, which is, that for an indefinite time, possibly extending over half a century, we, the predominant partner, have been taxing our junior partner to the tune of two millions and threequarters every year in excess of what he was justly liable to pay. This payment has been enforced by the strong hand of an overwhelming majority. The Irish protested and were silenced, but now the Royal Commission, on which English members are in a great majority, has reported that the Irish were right and that we were wrong to the tune of £2,750,000 every year.

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getting over the terrible significance of this brutal fact. We are rich, Ireland is poor; we are strong, Ireland is weak; we have imposed upon her our system of taxation, with the result that we have compelled her to pay, not one-twentieth of the Imperial revenue, which is all that could fairly be claimed from her, having regard to her wealth and taxable resources, but one-seventh, the difference between these two fractions amounting to no less than two and threequarter millions per annum. If this has been persisted in for half a century, it would mean that we have extorted from our poorer Irish fellow-subjects a sum of 100 millions sterling more than they in justice ought to have been asked to pay. There is no getting over that. It is as hideous as a nightmare to us now that we have discovered it; but in face of this who can marvel that the Irish should feel that England was more of a vampire draining their life-blood, than an elder brother upon whose strength and wealth they could confidently rely to supplement their weakness and poverty?

The

Home Rule

It will be a salutary task, although full Argument for of humiliation and shame for us, to ponder this matter gravely. During the half-century that we have been taxing Ireland to the extent of two millions and three-quarters per annum. above what she ought justly to have paid, who has been the leading financial authority of the English people? Mr. Gladstone and none other! Yet Mr. Gladstone, of all English statesmen, has been host passionately imbued with the desire to do justice to Ireland. Nevertheless, down even to the present day when the Commissioners reported, even Mr. Gladstone seems to have had no inkling of the cruel injustice which our fiscal system was inflicting upon

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