We must not misunderstand the relations of the Committee to the Government. They were not appointed to draw a Home Rule Bill. They were to ascertain and consider the fiscal relations between Ireland and other parts of the United Kingdom as they exist to-day, paying special regard to the changes which have taken place in revenue and expenditure since 1896, the date of the Report of the Royal Commission; to distinguish between Irish Local Expenditure and Imperial Expenditure in Ireland; and to consider, in the event of Home Rule being established, how the revenue required to meet the necessary expenditure should be provided. The function of the Committee was, therefore, purely financial. They had to collect financial information, a necessary preliminary to a consideration of the Bill, and to advise as to the method of providing the revenue required. They had no mission to examine the political conditions which must be satisfied by a Bill designed to effect a Constitutional Revolution. That was the function of the Cabinet. The Committee, limiting itself to its instructions, recommended the method of raising revenue which they thought wisest, independently of any but financial considerations. The Government consider the question from a wider point of view. Their measure must be founded on policy as well as finance. They do not adopt the Committee’s recommendations. They decide to retain for a time, more or less indefinite, a closer relation between the two financial systems. Much as I should like greater simplicity, a study of their measure leads me to the conclusion that its provisions are, in the main, wise. Let us then consider how far the provisions of the actual Bill satisfy the conditions needed to insure the success of Home Rule. In the first instance, and for an uncertain number of years, the Imperial Government keeps a tight hand upon the Irish Government. It reserves large powers enabling it to reject, postpone, or test the validity of Irish Bills. It regulates and levies all taxes, and fixes postal rates. It secures the interests of various classes of public servants, and retains temporarily the police under its own control. It fixes Irish Local Expenditure at a certain sum, and it issues that sum yearly to the Irish Government together with a free gift of £500,000 a year for three years, falling gradually to a permanent gift of £200,000. _Normal_ increase of Irish Revenue is appropriated to reduce the deficit to be borne by the British Exchequer. If, therefore, the Irish Government increases its own expenditure beyond the fixed sum allotted to it, it must find the revenue required, and for that purpose powers of taxation are given to it. The nursing hand of the mother is, in fact, present at every point of the Bill, but it must be remembered that a hostile step-mother may, at any time, replace the kindly mother.