Now, it is useless to make light of this Report. It was the solemn judgment of the highest financiers of the day on the financial workings of the Act of Union. If we turn back to the debates in Parliament in 1800, especially to the speeches of Pitt, prophesying that the Act of Union would take the wealth of England across St. George's Channel, and apply it to Ireland, we cannot escape some sombre reflections on the short-sightedness of great statesmen. Pitt's judgment was disturbed by the existence of a war with France, which created in him an intense desire to unite the two countries. Otherwise he would probably have foreseen that for a rich partner to unite his finances with a poor partner certainly meant bankruptcy for the one, and probably, in the end, also ruin for the other. Taking the nineteenth century as a whole, the fundamental financial error has been this--that Ireland has been taxed on the theory of equality with England in point of wealth. That equality has not existed. What was a light burden for the one country has proved for the other a burden too heavy to be borne. The result has been that Ireland, being continually overtaxed, has sunk steadily in her resources, and has gradually become less and less of a taxable country. The taxes have returned less and less, and have had to be returned in the form of relief of poverty. A crisis in that situation is now reached, and it is quite clear that we stand at the parting of two roads. Now that the balance is beginning to work against England, it is certain that the only alternative to the restoration of Ireland is the gradual dragging down of England. It is useless and unjust to argue, in answer to this great Report, that Ireland ought not to have been regarded as a financial unit at all. Any country that is an island, and possesses a social organisation of its own, with a definite relationship between rich and poor, must necessarily be a financial unit. But even if that were not so, it is too late to argue the question with any honour. For we must never forget that the whole financial legislation of the United Kingdom in regard to Ireland is based upon the Act of Union, which was practically a solemn treaty between the two countries, passed--we will not say how--by both the British and the Irish Parliaments. It is the essence of that treaty that Ireland entered into it upon certain financial terms, and among those terms was the condition that she should be treated as a separate financial unit. This Report, therefore, immensely strengthens the claim of Ireland to more generous financial terms in 1912 than in 1886 or in 1893. We want to set up in Ireland a high and strong sense of financial responsibility. The control therefore, as well as the expenditure, must be placed as far as possible in Irish hands, and for that purpose the management, as well as the collection, of Irish taxes ought to be left as far as possible with the Irish Exchequer that must be set up.