Let us apply the same reasoning to the present situation. Ireland, by hypothesis, is "overtaxed" by three millions,[118] but if not only the revenue, but the expenditure and contribution to Imperial services of Ireland were all in proportion to her real taxable capacity, which we may estimate now at one-twenty-fifth, we find that she would be a loser by five millions. Her "true" revenue from all sources _ought_ on this supposition to be L6,605,900; it _is_ L10,032,000. Her local expenditure _ought_ to be L2,875,540; it _is_ L11,344,500. Her contribution to Imperial services _ought_ to be L3,730,360; it _is_ a minus quantity of L1,312,500. Sir David Barbour's reasoning, then, leads us to this astounding paradox, that Ireland, while overtaxed by three millions, gains five millions by the arrangement. Moreover, whether we accept Sir David Barbour's reasoning or not, it is a fact that to-day Ireland, which contributed to Imperial services five and a half millions in 1860, and two millions in 1894, now, so far from contributing anything, costs a million and a quarter more than she brings in. This, certainly, was not a result he either anticipated or would have approved of. On the contrary, he anticipated a reduction in Irish civil expenditure, to be saved for Irish purposes, without prejudice to the Imperial contribution. It makes the brain dizzy to compare his anticipation with the reality. How, on the other hand, stands the argument of Lord Farrer and Mr. Currie? They prophesied a great increase in Irish expenditure and the disappearance of the contribution to Imperial services. That has come true. Lord Welby (and indeed the majority of the Commission) was with them in declining to regard excessive local expenditure as a set-off to excessive and unsuitable taxation, and in condemning root and branch the system of grants, aids, and doles as wasteful in itself and as sapping the self-reliance of Irishmen. There again they were right. They were at one with all their colleagues in holding that under the Union it was impossible to differentiate between the taxation of Ireland and Great Britain, and they prescribed, as the only sound remedy, Home Rule. Once more they were right. The figures of to-day constitute the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the Union. For over a century in Ireland we have defied the laws of political economy, but they have conquered us at last. Sound finance demands that revenue and expenditure should be co-related. Ireland's economic circumstances are widely different from those of Great Britain, but she has been included, without any regard to her needs and without any reference to Irish expenditure, in a system of taxation designed exclusively for the capacities and needs of Great Britain. Hence Irish revenue is both excessive and inadequate.