The fulfilment of treaty obligations required differential taxation, but administrative convenience was best served by a uniform system of taxation.

In the struggle between the two, conscience was as usual defeated.

The Chancellor, according to the practice which has overridden the Act of Union budgets for Great Britain, drags the schedule of taxes so fixed through Ireland like a net, and counts the take.

That, in the process, the pledge of England should be broken, and her honour betrayed, is not regarded by the best authorities as an objection or even as a relevant fact.

In the more sacred name of uniformity Ireland is swamped in the Westminster Parliament like a fishing-smack in the wash of a great merchantman.
But let one illusion be buried.