He referred then at length to the Report of the Primrose Committee on Irish Finance, dated October 1911.[11] That Committee had for its chairman a great English Civil Servant; three of its members were famous English financiers; another was the Professor of Political Economy at Oxford.  Of the two names associated closely with Ireland, one was Lord Pirrie, whose fortune had been made in Belfast, and the only Irish Nationalist was the Bishop of Ross.  They had reported unanimously for giving to Ireland full fiscal powers.  “We tried hard,” Redmond said, “to get the principle of their Report adopted in framing the Bill of 1912.”  Government insisted on adhering to the plan of “contract finance” which their own non-partisan committee of experts had explicitly condemned.

He quoted several passages from the weighty argument by which the Committee had justified its conclusions, especially those dealing with the contention that the power would be used to set up a tariff against British goods.

“Ireland is not a nation of fools.

“If in framing a new Constitution you go on the assumption that every power you confer will be abused, it would be far better to desist from your task altogether, and instead of increasing the powers of a people dead to all sense of responsibility and manifestly unfit for political freedom, you had better disestablish all existing forms of constitutional government and advocate the government of Ireland as a Crown Colony.  But none of us so distrust our people.

“Dr. O’Donnell has proposed a solution of the difficulty about imposing a tariff against England by means of a Conference between the two nations.  Other suggestions will be made.  Protection may be found for Ulster by giving to them disproportionate representation.  It may be found in the power of the Senate, it may be found in the power to suspend.  If we are agreed somewhat on the general lines of the Primrose Report, the outstanding difficulty will be capable of adjustment.

“Sir Crawford McCullagh rightly pointed out the terrible burden of war taxation, which is at present over twenty millions, and he said we cannot go on on those lines, and we must get back to pre-war burdens or the country will be ruined.  How are we to get back?

“If nothing is done by us, and the war goes on, as it may, for some years, we may easily be paying thirty, forty, or fifty millions, and generations to come will have to bear a crushing load.  The income tax is certain to be raised, and excess profits also, and no part of Ireland will suffer more than Ulster, and especially Belfast.

“The highest interest of Ulster, therefore, is a speedy settlement whereby the increase of war taxation will cease and Ireland’s contribution to Imperial purposes will either disappear or, to put it at the very lowest, be limited and stereotyped.