showed most genuine national patriotism, together with a greatly enhanced measure of the Imperial patriotism traditional with it.  Internal taxation, except in time of war, was still comparatively light; depressed home industries were judiciously encouraged by bounties; no attempt was made at vindictive retaliation upon British imports, though Irish exports to Great Britain were still unmercifully penalized; and sums, growing to a relatively enormous size during the French War, which began in 1793, were annually voted for the Imperial forces.  This voluntary contribution, which had averaged L585,000 in the eleven years of peace, from 1783 to 1793, rose to L3,401,760 in 1797,[98] and in 1799, when Ireland was paying the bill for British troops called in to suppress her own Rebellion, to L4,596,762, out of a total Irish expenditure for the year on all purposes, military and civil, of L6,854,804.  Not more than half, on the average, of these war expenses were met out of the annual taxes.  Debt was created to meet the balance; but neither the debt, heavy as it was, nor the taxes, were intolerably burdensome—­that is, if we regard Ireland as financially responsible for Imperial wars and for the suppression of a Rebellion which was provoked by scandalous misgovernment.  Tax revenue rose from L1,106,504 in 1783, when the free Parliament first prepared a Budget, to L3,017,758 in 1800, and averaged a million and a half.  In the same period the total amount of the funded and unfunded Irish Debt rose from L1,917,784 to L28,541,157, almost the whole of this increase having taken place in the seven years of war immediately preceding the Union.  In Great Britain both Debt and taxation had risen in a larger ratio, and were relatively far greater.  For example, in the six years, 1793-1798 inclusive, L186,000,000 had been added to the British Debt, only L14,000,000 to the Irish Debt.  In 1801 the British Debt stood at L489,127,057; the Irish Debt at L32,215,223.

II.

FROM THE UNION TO THE FINANCIAL RELATIONS COMMISSION OF 1894-1896.

The Union of 1800, therefore, could not be justified on the ground that a poor country would profit by fiscal amalgamation with a rich country, and Pitt and Castlereagh, when framing the Union Act, recognized that truth by leaving Ireland with a separate fiscal system, as before; though the administration of this system was, of course, now to be wholly in British hands.  There were to be separate Exchequers, Debts,[99] taxes, and balance-sheets, with the following restrictions:  That prohibitions against imports and bounties on exports (corn excepted), should cease reciprocally in both countries; that, with the exception of 10 per cent. ad valorem duties on a variety of articles named, there should be mutual free trade; and that no tax on any article of consumption should be higher in Ireland than in Great Britain.