6,691,000l., or 20 per cent.; or, allowing for the decrease of population, an increase per head of 21 per cent. The statistics as to the net capital value of property on which Estate Duty was paid afford further confirmation of the same view. During the four years 1897-1900 the average annual value in the case of England and Wales was 217,520,000l.; in the four years 1908-11 it was 237,505,000l., showing an increase of 19,985,000l., or 9.1 per cent.; but, allowing for the increase of population, there was an actual decrease per head of 3 per cent. In the case of Ireland, the average amount for the first period was 12,190,000l., and for the second 13,248,000l., showing an increase of 1,058,000l., or 8.6 per cent. But on a per capita basis, the increase in the case of Ireland was 11 per cent. The banking statistics indicate, even more clearly than the Income Tax and the trade returns, the striking advance that has taken place within recent years in the well-being of the people of Ireland. The Banking Supplement of the 'Economist' of October 21, 1911, shows that between 1901 and 1911 the deposits in the Joint Stock Banks of England and Wales increased by 162,454,000l., or 25.5 per cent. Within the same period the deposits in the Scottish Joint Stock Banks decreased by 714,000l. or 0.7 per cent.; while the deposits of the Irish Joint Stock Banks increased from 48,428,000l. to 65,418,000l., an expansion of 16,990,000l., or 35 per cent. On a per capita basis there was an increase in the case of the English and Welsh banks of 13.4 per cent.; in the case of the Scottish banks a decrease of 7 per cent.; and in the case of the Irish banks an increase of no less than 37 per cent. The railway returns point irresistibly to the same conclusion. Between 1896 and 1910 the gross receipts of the railways of Great Britain increased by 32,811,000l., or 37.8 per cent. During the same period the gross receipts of the Irish railways advanced from 3,478,000l. to 4,474,0007. -an increase of 996,000l., or 28.6 per cent. But again, making the comparison on a per capita basis, we find that, while in the case of Great Britain the increase was only 18.5 per cent., in Ireland it was 34 per cent. It is not unreasonable to claim that another ten years of the present constructive policy would bring Ireland into such a condition of prosperity as would remove Vol. 217.-No. 432. X Home Rule from the category of urgent political questions, and render Ireland a contented as well as an integral part of the United Kingdom. On the other hand, the adoption of the present Bill would jeopardise the whole fabric of Irish finance; it would inevitably check her economic development, and could not fail to embitter her relations with Great Britain. So far as it is possible to form an opinion, the present Bill cannot become law, in the most favourable circumstances, until at least two years have elapsed. The protagonists of Federal Home Rule might be fairly asked to join the Unionists in a demand that the interval should be employed in an investigation of the economic position of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and of their financial relations with each other. If a Royal Commission were appointed to enquire into the true revenue, the true expenditure, the taxable capacity, and the fair contribution to Imperial Services of each division of the United Kingdom, there might be some ground for hope that Parliament would be in a position, if the majority of the people of Ireland still expressed a strong desire for self-government, to enact a measure of Home Rule for Ireland which would be equitable to her three partners, consistent with a comprehensive system of Federal Government, and likely to afford a reasonable prospect of finality. If the peoples of England, Scotland and Wales should then manifest an overwhelming desire for a form of government similar to that which it is proposed to concede to Ireland, material would be available for the framing of a scheme of Federal Government which would be fair and honourable to all the peoples comprised in the United Kingdom. GENERAL INDEX TO THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. 401, forming Volume CCI., and containing a General Index to the volumes from CLXXXII. to CC. of the QUARTERLY REVIEW, is Now Ready. The QUARTERLY REVIEW is published on or about the 15th of Price Twenty-four Shillings per Annum, post free. LONDON: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited, 4. The Elizabethan Reformation. 5. Music and Drama 6. The Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum. 7. The Philosophy of Henri Bergson 8. The United States Steel Corporation 9. Turkey under the Constitution 10. The Growth of Expenditure on Armaments 11. Tripoli and Constantinople 12. The Duke of Devonshire and the Liberal Unionists. 13. Home Rule Finance 1. The Younger Pitt 2. Beau Nash and Bath 3. The Elizabethan Age in Recent Literary History 4. Cavour and the Making of Italy 5. The St Lawrence 6. Thackeray and the English Novel 7. Agricultural Labourers and Landlords 8. John Henry Newman 9. The Wonderful Adventures of Dr Cook 10. Garden Cities, Housing and Town-Planning 11. The Face of the Earth 12. The Chinese Revolution 13. The Coal Strike 14. The Church in Wales Index to Vol. CCXVI No. 432.-JULY, 1912. |