The financial provisions of the Bill are of great importance.
A separate fund called the Irish Fund is to be established, and it is proposed to constitute by an Order in Council a separate Irish Treasury. To the new Council are to be handed over for periods of five years the moneys now spent by the eight Departments, and, in addition, a sum of £650,000 a year, part of that money being earmarked, however, for capital expenditure of various kinds. Although Irishmen are relieved of taxes which are paid by Englishmen and Scotch- men, and although Irishmen already have many things provided for them out of the national purse which in England and Scotland have to be provided by the localities, we should not in the least, nor would, we believe, any other Unionists, grudge this extra dole to Ireland if it could be shown that the money would be wisely and efficiently spent. We do not expect the Council to be corrupt, but we do expect that it will use its power, if it is ever called into existence, just like Tammany Hall (which, after all, is an Irish-Celtic institution), to provide for its own friends, and to maintain its own political ideals. Unless all former experience is worthless, it will be a Council of politicians and not of administrators, and of politicians who may be expected to display in a high degree the genius of clanship.
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