The conclusion is in fact inevitable. Ireland cannot have it both ways.
She cannot have financial independence and financial dependence at the
same time. No Colony has ever claimed or been granted these inconsistent
conditions. If Colonial precedents are cited, their essential
limitations should also be borne in mind. Colonial loans are not charged
on the Consolidated Fund. Nor have Colonial railways been nationalised
with the money and credit of the United Kingdom, in order to favour
local exports at the expense of imports from England.
Our examination of the question brings us to the clear conclusion that
it is only under the existing system of a single Parliament and
Executive for the United Kingdom that the problems of transit and
transport in Ireland, or between Great Britain and Ireland, can be
satisfactorily solved, whether from the point of view of finance,
justice to shareholders, or advantage to the trade and convenience of
both countries.
NOTE.--It has been suggested, since the above was written, that the
balance in the Irish Post Office Savings Banks (now about
£12,500,000) might be available to the new Irish Government, for
advances to farmers and other public purposes. The suggestion
involves the applicability of such advances for the purchase or
amalgamation of the Irish railways under an Irish public authority.
Such a proposal will not bear close examination.
It is an essential condition of the existence of Savings Bank
deposits that the deposits should be always available on the call
of depositors; and this condition would no longer be fulfilled if
the balances were locked up in Irish railways. In fact, if there
was any suggestion that these balances should be used for the
purpose of enabling the Irish Government to run the railways on
uncommercial principles, the deposits would very soon diminish or
disappear--and this apart from the question whether under Home
Rule, the deposits would in any event remain at anything like their
present high figure.