2.  Additional benevolent expenditure in Ireland is not a remedy for over-taxation.[112]

“We entertain a profound distrust of benevolences, doles, grants-in-aid, by whatever name they are called, ... or by whatever machinery it is proposed to distribute them, convinced, as we are, that in some form or other political influence or personal interest will creep in so as to defeat, in part at any rate, the attainment of the objects for which the expenditure is made.”

3.  “We believe that the expenditure of public funds cannot be wisely and economically controlled unless those who have the disposal of public money are made responsible for raising it as well as spending it.”  Grants of money “tend to weaken the spirit of independence and self-reliance,” the absence of which qualities “has been the main cause of the backward condition” of Ireland.

4.  “One sure method of redressing the inequality which has been shown to exist between Great Britain and Ireland will be to put upon the Irish people the duty of levying their own taxes and of providing for their own expenditure.”

5.  “If it is objected that the course we suggest may lead to the imposition of new Customs duties in Ireland, we might reply that in this case, as in that of the Colonies, freedom is a greater good than free trade. We doubt, however, whether Irishmen, if entrusted with their own finance, would attempt to raise fiscal barriers between the two countries; for we are satisfied that Ireland, and not Great Britain, would be the loser by such a policy.  The market of Great Britain is of infinitely greater importance to Ireland than that of Ireland to Great Britain.”  The only point on which the three Commissioners differed concerned Ireland’s contribution to Imperial services.  Lord Farrer and Mr. Currie, taking Home Rule as the foundation of their argument, and prophesying, quite correctly, that under the Union, in a few years, Ireland’s contribution would disappear altogether, recommended that no such contribution should be exacted by law until Ireland’s taxable capacity approximately reached that of Great Britain.  Lord Welby, regarding Home Rule as an essential but a distant ideal, was for an immediate reorganization of Anglo-Irish finances which should provide for a large reduction of Irish Civil expenditure, the saving to be devoted, on Sir David Barbour’s principle, to Irish purposes, and for a fixed contribution from Ireland to the Army, Navy, National Debt, etc.  How Lord Welby, consistently with his previous argument, could count upon any reduction of expenditure in Ireland under the existing political system it is difficult to see.  At any rate, subsequent events proved both him and Sir David Barbour signally wrong on this important point.[113]

In every other point the wisdom of the three Commissioners has been abundantly proved by lapse of time.  Do not the conclusions set forth above bear upon them the stamp of common sense?  If it were not for the inveterate prejudice against Home Rule on other than financial grounds, no one would dream of disputing them; for they are based on principles universally accepted in every part of the British Empire but Ireland, and in most parts of the civilized world.  They constitute, in fact, financially, one of the strongest arguments possible for political Home Rule.