The Income Tax was applied to Ireland in 1853 at the rate of seven pence
in the pound. Ten years later it had risen to seventeen pence. At the
same time an additional duty of eight pence a gallon on Irish whiskey
was exacted, which in two years was multiplied fourfold, while in 1858
Disraeli assimilated for the first time the whiskey duty in the two
islands by raising it in Ireland to 8s. a gallon. The result of this new
departure in taxation may be summarised by saying that the Irish revenue
was raised from just under five millions in 1850 to nearly eight
millions in 1860, and that, too, at a time when, of all others, her
distress demanded special treatment and care.

Although the process of assimilation was carried far in 1853 and the
subsequent years, fiscal unity has never been completely effected. To
this day Ireland secures exemption from the Land Tax, the Inhabited
House Duty, the Railway Passenger Duty, and the tax on horses,
carriages, patent medicines, and armorial bearings. It will be said, no
doubt, that Ireland ought to show due gratitude for these exemptions,
but though they raise collectively a sum of £4,000,000 by their
incidence in England, Scotland, and Wales, it is calculated that if
applied to Ireland they would bring in not more than £150,000 a year, a
sum so small that one may ask whether it would bear the cost of
collecting.

By way of set-off to the imposition of income tax, which it should be
noted was at the time said to be "temporary," Mr. Gladstone wiped out a
capital debt of four millions, but it must be pointed out that, in the
fifty years which have ensued, a sum of between twenty millions and
thirty millions has been collected in Ireland as income tax. Objection
cannot--beyond a certain point--be taken to the incidence of this tax,