Under the scheme of 1886 Irish representatives were not to sit in the Imperial Parliament, but the Government found that under existing financial arrangements there must be financial connection, unless Parliament was prepared to face a different system of trade laws between the two countries, and provision must be made for that connection. Mr. Gladstone, therefore, reversed the decision of the Government in 1886. He proposed to retain Irish representatives at Westminster, reduced in number to 80. They were not to vote on purely British questions, but in his opinion it would be difficult to make that distinction as far as the mass of business was concerned. The Irish representatives would not vote on any tax which was not to be levied in Ireland or on any grant of money for other than Imperial purposes as scheduled in the Bill. By this means Ireland would have a voice, if emergency, such as war, rendered fresh taxation necessary. In the interval between 1886 and 1893 knowledge had been gained to some extent as to what constituted the “true” revenue of Ireland, and the Inland Revenue thought it possible to levy in Great Britain the Excise duties collected in Ireland on articles consumed in Great Britain and _vice versa_. These Excise duties represented the greater part of the sum of £1,400,000, previously described as the difference between duties, so to speak, belonging to Ireland and duties collected in Ireland, a difference estimated in 1893 at £1,800,000. If Ireland retained that difference, as contemplated by the scheme of 1886, it was equivalent to a grant from Great Britain to Ireland. On the other hand the Customs were not able to make the separation thought possible by the Excise.