expenditure, they quoted the unchallenged evidence of Mr. Murrough O'Brien[109] to the effect that the system of Imperial loans for temporary emergencies and charity loans--"made to keep the people quiet or to keep them alive"--tends to increase the poverty of Ireland, "does not prevent the recurrence of famine, distress, and discontent," and that "a great deal of the money nominally meant to be spent on productive works has been misspent and wasted." They also dwelt, with emphasis, on official figures showing the extravagance of Civil Government in Ireland, the cost having risen from 1s. 10d. per head of the population in 1820 to 19s. 7d. per head in 1893, whereas the cost of Civil Government in Great Britain had only risen from 1s. 7d. to 11s. 5d. The charge for legal salaries and five principal Departments in Ireland was double the right figure according to population, and represented an excess cost of nearly L200,000. In wealthy and progressive Belgium, Civil Government cost 10s. per head, or little more than half as much per head as in Ireland.[110] The absurdity of representing such excess charges and the wasteful expenditure of a blundering philanthropy, as a recompense for over-taxation, was manifest. Meanwhile, the rise in the cost of Irish Government, coupled with a stagnant revenue, had decreased the annual contribution of Ireland to Imperial services, which had fallen from five and a half millions in 1860 to two millions in 1894; unless, indeed, half the cost of Irish police, virtually a branch of the Imperial Army, and costing double the amount of Scottish and English police, were to be reckoned, not as an Irish expense, on the principle adopted by the Treasury, but as a part of Imperial expenditure. In any case both partners suffered from excessive and unwise expenditure in Ireland. The gist of their conclusions was as follows:[111] 1. It is impossible, under the Union, to vary taxation for the benefit of Ireland. 2. Additional benevolent expenditure in Ireland is not a remedy for over-taxation.[112] "We entertain a profound distrust of benevolences, doles, grants-in-aid, by whatever name they are called, ... or by whatever machinery it is proposed to distribute them, convinced, as we are, that in some form or other political influence or personal interest will creep in so as to defeat, in part at any rate, the attainment of the objects for which the expenditure is made." 3. "We believe that the expenditure of public funds cannot be wisely and economically controlled unless _those who have the disposal_ of public money are made _responsible_ for raising it as well as spending it." Grants of money "tend to weaken the spirit of independence and self-reliance," the absence of which qualities "has been the main cause of the backward condition" of Ireland.