the remedy which Mr. Childers thought impracticable in 1896 will become eminently practicable with a Tariff Reform Ministry in power.

(2) The second suggestion then made was that there should be a policy of distinct customs and excise for Ireland as apart from Great Britain.  This would involve a customs barrier between the two islands.  The inconvenience of such a course would be immeasurable and disastrous under modern conditions.  It would certainly come sooner or later under Home Rule, but it would be a reversal of the policy of the Union.

(3) The third method which most strongly recommended itself to Mr. Childers was to give compensation to Ireland by making an allocation of revenue in her favour, to be employed in promoting the material prosperity and social welfare of the country.

This is the course which has been pursued by Unionist statesmen, and finds practical expression in their Constructive policy.  The results cannot be better proved than by the fact that within the six years from 1904, during which the statistics of Irish Export and Import trade have been kept, her commerce has increased in money value by more than twenty-seven millions.  At least four-fifths of that great increase represents a corresponding increase in British trade with Ireland.

Mr. Childers wrote in 1896—­

“Apart from the claim of Ireland to special and distinct consideration under the provisions of the Act of Union, and upon the ground that she has for many years been, and now is, contributing towards the public revenue a share much in excess of her relative taxable capacity; I think that Great Britain as a manufacturing and trading country would in the course of time be amply repaid by the increase of prosperity and purchasing power in Ireland for any additional burdens which this annual grant to Ireland might involve.  Looked at simply as a matter of good policy, it would be that often advocated with regard to Crown Colonies of Imperial expenditure with a view to the development of a backward portion of the Imperial estate.  Ireland is so much nearer to and more exclusively the customer of the trading and manufacturing districts of Great Britain than any Colony, that this argument in her case should have redoubled weight.  It is at least probable that, if in place of the fitful method of casual loans and grants hitherto pursued, there was a steady, persevering, and well-directed application of public money by way of free annual grant towards increasing the productive power of Ireland, the true revenue derived from that country might in time be no longer in excess of its relative taxable capacity."[79]

The wisdom of this Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer makes a strange contrast with the folly of the Radical Chief Secretary, who tells England to “cut the loss” at the moment of Ireland’s rapid progress because Irish Old Age Pensions have exceeded in number the reckless anticipation of the Right Hon. Mr. Lloyd George.