Home Rule as meaning responsible Government and Home Rule as meaning
separate government which underlies the arguments of Liberal Home
Rulers. Ireland has Home Rule in the sense of having free representative
institutions. She is prevented by geographical and economic conditions
from enjoying separate government under the same terms on which the
Colonies possess it. As Mr. Amery points out, the United Kingdom is
geographically a single island group. No part of Ireland is so
inaccessible from the political centre of British power as the remoter
parts of the Highlands, while racially no less than physically Ireland
is an integral part of the United Kingdom. Economically also the two
countries are bound together in a way which makes a common physical
policy absolutely necessary for the welfare of both countries. The
financial arguments which might have made it possible to permit an
independent fiscal policy for Ireland under free trade, have disappeared
with the certain approach of a revision of the tariff policies of
England. There can be no separate tariffs for the two countries, or even
a common tariff, without a common Government to negotiate and enforce
it. If there were no other objection to the establishment of a separate
Government in Dublin, it would be impossible because legislative
autonomy can only be coupled with financial independence.

The financial difficulties in the way of any grant of Home Rule are
fully explained by Mr. Austen Chamberlain. Three attempts at framing
schemes for financing Home Rule were made by Mr. Gladstone in the past.
All the powers of this great and resourceful dialectician were employed
in defending these various schemes in turn. He was not deterred from
pressing any scheme by the fact that in important details it was
inconsistent with or even opposed to what had been previously
recommended. But if there was one principle on which Mr. Gladstone never
turned his back it was in demanding a contribution from Ireland for