The British public has never quite realised what the Report of 1896 signified, or quite understood the effect which it produced on the Irish nation. The Financial Relations Commission was a body created by the Liberal Government in 1894, soon after the defeat of the Home Rule Bill, and partly as a consequence of that defeat. It consisted of fifteen of the ablest financiers in the United Kingdom, including two great Treasury Chiefs, Lord Farrer and Lord Welby, Sir Robert Hamilton, Sir David Barbour, and that great Parliamentary financial expert Mr. W.A. Hunter. The chair was occupied by an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Childers.[75] The Commission sat for two years, and carried out a most searching investigation. They reported in 1896. Their united Report consists of only two pages in the Blue Book,[76] and the essence of it is contained in five short paragraphs, as follows:-- (1) That Great Britain and Ireland must, for the purpose of this inquiry, be considered as separate entities. (2) That the Act of Union imposed upon Ireland a burden which, as events showed, she was unable to bear. (3) That the increase of taxation laid upon Ireland between 1853 and 1860 was not justified by the then existing circumstances. (4) That identity of rates of taxation does not necessarily involve equality of burden. (5) That whilst the actual tax revenue of Ireland is about one-eleventh of that of Great Britain, the relative taxable capacity of Ireland is very much smaller, and is not estimated by any of us as exceeding one-twentieth. Now, what does this amount to? As worked out in the various minority reports, it means that, in the opinion of this Commission, Ireland has been over-taxed for many years at the rate of over L2,000,000 a year. As to the precise sum the Commissioners differ. Some went as high as L3,500,000, others down to L2,000,000, but all, except Sir Thomas Sutherland and Sir David Barbour, set it at about L2,000,000. Mr. Childers, unhappily, died before the close of the Commission. But he wrote an epoch-making Report, in which he estimated the excess of taxation at L2,250,000.[77]