The San Francisco call., 1898-07-24
IRISH WEEK
 IN THE HOUSE
 OF COMMONS An Interesting Review
 by Clancy. STRUGGLE FOR LOWER TAXES AN UNJUST DISCRIMINATION AMOUNTING TO ROBBERY. When Ireland Does to England What the United States Has Done to
 Spain Her Rights May
 Be Recognized.
STRUGGLE FOR LOWER TAXES
AN UNJUST DISCRIMINATION AMOUNTING TO ROBBERY.
BY J. J. CLANCY.

fRirS-duTlng which the most con- spicuous incident has been the blos- soming out of Sir William Harcourt, the Liberal leader, into full-blown ''No Popery" crusader-the House of Commons has returned to the subject of Ireland. We have just passed through another Irish week in that assembly, and it certainly has not been the least interesting since the session began.
 The week commenced with a discussion
 of the financial grievance of Ireland, word or two about which may be useful before I deal with the debate. When the
 union of 1SGO between Great Britain and Ireland was accomplished by the act of union of that year, 1t was provided, in
 consequence of the great disproportion between the debts of the two countries, that Ireland should never be taxed on the high British level till two contingencies occurred, namely, till the debts of the two countries came to bear to each other certain specified proportion, and till the circumstances of the two countries be- came similar By fixing the contribution of Ireland to the imperial expenditure at an extremely high ngure the nrSt event was brought about in 1S16 the Irish debt having been raised in the interval from about twenty millions sterling to one hundred and twelve millions Thereupon, without waiting for the occurrence Of the second event. the eXchequers of the two countries were amalgamared and Ireland was declared to be subject to the same taxation as Great Britain. The act or Parliament, however, by which thls Nlo- latiOn of the act of the union was effect ed contained provisions for glNiuS 10 Ire land certain exemptions and aDdtt- ments" and down to 1858 certain articles of consumption were actually taxed less in Ireland than in Great Britain, while up to that time the income tax had never been extended to Ireland.
 But in that year Mir. Gladstone, about whom so many IriShuen have gone lnto raptures of late commenced the process which he himself completed in 1863 ot ma king imperial taxation uniform Tn all respects through Great Britain and Ire land The results have been very strlk- ing. In the ten years between 1893 ana 1S63 the taxation of Ireland rose 5Z per cent while that of Great Britain rose only IS per cent: and if the present state prevailed in 1900 we find thar whereas the of Great Britain per head or tae population has largely decreased Wilie inc pOpuIatiou has trebled, the taxation per head in Ireland has doubled while the pOpulation is below that of lSOJ ana IS less than half what it was nfty years ago.
 A continual protest against this system of robbery by taxation has, of course, been kept up by Ireland, but without CT feet though the late Sir Stafford North cote ( afterWard Lord Iddeslelgh) Tor many wears leader of the English Tory party signed in 1864 a report or com mittee of inquiry in which 1t was de- clared that ireland was one of the heaviest and England one Of the nghteSt taxed countries in the world. The sec ond home rule bill of MT: Gladstone was indirectly the means of flaming into a flame the Irish agitation on thls subject The discussion of it's financial proVlslonS resulted in the appointment Of royal commission to inquire into the SuDJect' and that body. composed of eX-oficlalS of the British Treasury itself and other experts and representing all political par ties all but unanimously reported that Ireland taking into account Its relative taxable capacity. was oVer-taXed to the extent of nearly G300O00O a year. This report walked up all Ireland with the ex- ception of Belfast and for the last two years all political parties in Ireland out side that town and all classes also have united in an agitation for the relief of the grievance. It is in response to this agi- tatfOn that the matter has been brought up in the House of Commons, and there Is no doubt that the last will not be heard of 1t for many a day in that assembly.
 Mainly through the efforts of MT. John Redmond, the leader of the Independent party, the Irish members of all sections with five Orange exceptions from TTlster) have been induced to act together in this matter in the House of Commons. and 1t was at the request of the united body that Mir. Redmond became it's spokesman on Monday by opening the de- bate The selection of MT. Redmond was of course, an excellent one. No man in
 
 ness and directness. and on this occasion his characteristic qualities as an orator were admirably manifested. Among the other speakers on the Irish side were MT. Ieckv. the distinguished historian, who sits for the University of Dublin. Mr. Lecky speaks like his books and with the most extraordinary fiuency, but he does so Tn such a singsong, monOtonous style that what he says usually loses half it's effect He, however, Is listened to and with respect. and seldom fails to infln~
 .f1Tw .f hE IrfE TFafr afe-A party also. Colonel Saunderson, lent the aid of his rough-and-ready eloquence to the cause for which Mir. Redmond plead ed and he was followed on the same side in the discussion which ensued by MT. Edward Blake. the Canadian Irishman, who is not quite a success in the British famous English lawyer, who is onesof the few English advocates of Ireland in this matter and who Is one Of the most ef- fective sneakers in the House of Com mons: Mir T. M Healy. whose char acteristics as parliamentarian l need hardly describe, and who on this Ccca- sion poured out stream of biting inVec- tive and sarcasm on the British op- ronents of the Irish cause, and others, English and Irish of lesser note.
 The answer was the old one. The Chan celor of the EXchequer. unsYmpathetlc, dull and dry E dust. denied the existence of the grievance complained of altogeth- CT. His point was that every man was taxed tne same in every part Of the NiIte fi0EOCT1S-tDe very LnlUS NtlH which Irishmen find fault. contending that under the act of union they are entitled 10 bN taxed at 9 lower rate than either Englishmen or Scotchmen; he would not consent as 2 UniOniSt to treat Ireland as a separate geographical en- uty and. finally. he found 2 setoff for any oVertaXation which might exist in the eXtraVagant expenditure in Ireland a seton, hv the way. which does not exist and which can only he represented as existing by counting as Irish expendi- ture enormous sums which are act ually spent in Ireland for imperial pur- poses and by counting as imperial eXpen- dlture other enormous sums which are spent in England for strictly English pur- poses This line of argument was adopt ca also by MT. Balfour at the close of the debate, and there was scarcely more con- tort 10 be derived by Irishmen from the deliverance of Sir William Harcourt who. speaking in behalf of the Liberals at one and the same time indorsed the main finding In the renort of the Royal Com mission and denied that any man in Ire land ought to be taxed less than any man In corresponding circumstances IT, England. What the effect of this answer will be in Ireland I do not like fo nre- dict. In other days not long gone bv- namely. when Parnel was at the head of the Irish popular movement-indigna ton would soon find vent in action Al