The policy of Home Rule is wise in itself, and worthy the statesmanship of a nation always bold in the hour of need, and, as experience of its working is gained, it will commend itself more and more to the commonsense of a practical people, but the immediate success of the first Home Rule Act will depend greatly on the skill and wisdom with which the details of a complicated measure are devised, facing fairly the financial evils consequent on Tory obstinacy, and avoiding, in reasonable degree, offence to popular prejudice and existing interests. The provisions which will adjust the financial relations between the two nations are not among the least difficult of those details, and Parliament must solve the puzzling problem without delay. It must begin by temporarily giving local government in Ireland a fair start at the cost of the British tax-payer. Let us, in the first place, clear the ground from some doubtful arguments which, used as premises, will probably lead the unwary to false conclusions. A plea is often put forward that England is a rich country and Ireland a poor country, and it is argued that identical taxation therefore wrongs Ireland. But England is not a rich country, in the broad sense. It is a country in which there is vast accumulation of wealth, but in which, also, there is a great mass of poverty—poverty probably exceeding the poverty of Ireland, and, therefore, identical taxation if it wrongs the poor of Ireland, wrongs still more the poor of England. Critics arguing from this false premise contend that the extension of the Income-tax to Ireland was a wrong, that is to say, the wealthy man living in Ireland, where living is relatively cheap, ought not to contribute to the national expenditure on the same principle as the wealthy man living in England, where living is relatively dear; or, to put the argument in another form, it is sound finance to take Income-tax from a man in England, struggling on a few hundreds a year. It is unsound finance to take Income-tax from, say, the profits earned in Ireland by the Guinness firm. Nationalists, misled by the plea of Ireland’s poverty, have relied on this argument, and Conservatives also have used it chiefly to discredit Mr. Gladstone, who extended the Income-tax to Ireland; but the argument is false in itself, and cannot be made the basis of sound financial legislation. As a matter of fact, taxes on articles of general consumption, on the necessaries of life, fall heavily on the poor, and the argument of over-taxation applies in great degree to the poor in the great towns of England, and to the poor in Ireland. If, then, the poor of Ireland are to be relieved, the poor of England must be relieved also, and identical taxation would still be the result. The statesman must find a truer gauge by which to measure the relative capacity of the two countries to bear taxation.