Sir David Barbour, in his minority report on the Financial Relations Commission, perhaps the most carefully thought out and the most practical of all the many reports emanating from that heterogeneous body, gives a table of the "estimated true revenue" extracted from Great Britain and Ireland respectively from 1819 to 1894. This table shows that the revenue raised from Ireland was increased between 1849-50 and 1859-60 from L4,861,465 to L7,700,334, and he adds: "It will be observed that a great and rapid rise took place in the taxation of Ireland during the decade 1850-1860. This great increase was due to the equalisation of the spirit duties in the two countries, and the extension of the Income Tax to Ireland. The special circumstances of Ireland do not appear to have received due consideration at this time. Many arguments of a general character might be employed to justify the equalisation of the spirit duties, and the imposition of an Income Tax, but Ireland was entitled under the Act of Union to such exemptions and abatements as her circumstances might require, and the time was not opportune for imposing additional burdens upon her." Irish Agriculture was thus almost simultaneously struck down by the greatest famine of the century, which swept away two million of the population, disabled for resuming the competition by the free admission of foreign grain, which in the long run rendered successful corn-growing in Ireland impossible, and saddled with an additional two and a quarter millions of taxation. When remonstrated with, Mr. Gladstone retorted flippantly that he could not see that it was any part of the rights of man that an Irishman should be able to make himself drunk more cheaply than the inhabitant of Great Britain. The taunt would have possessed more relevance if whisky had been an article of importation. Seeing, however, that it was an article of manufacture and export, employing directly or indirectly much capital and labour, the injury to Irish industry was very serious, many distilleries and breweries being obliged to close their doors. As Miss Murray says in her masterly work on Irish commerce[18]:--