Note D, pp.132-133.

[How Scotland Lost her Parliament Contents]

We have avoided in the body of this work referring to the case of Ireland, as although she yields a poor revenue, perhaps she pays as much as she is able to bear. But it is curious to find so many references to the wrongs of Ireland, and none to those of Scotland. We find in the year 1871, while Scotsmen paid per head of population £2, 12s 6¼d. Irishmen paid only £1, 6s 0½d, or less than one half. The Government, however, in their expenditure to Ireland deal in the reverse manner, giving to those who contribute so little nearly five times as much as is granted to the larger contributor, and yet no one thinks that Scotland ought to complain. 

We call for your consideration some instructive figures that you may contrast the treatment Scotland gets compared with what is meted out to Ireland, and you can thus judge whether or not we should subordinate our claim to National Self-Government to that of any other country. These figures refer to the estimates of 1890-91 and are thus up to date.

The reason why Scotland, a comparatively poor country, is so greatly overtaxed is due in great part to the fact that while real estate in Scotland is assessed at its full actual rental under valuations carefully made annually, the valuations in England are made only every third year, and at sums much below the actual rentals. But while that is so it is the drink bill which swells the gross amount of over taxation in Scotland. The habit of Scotsmen is to drink spirits, Englishmen beer, and if both were taxed alike according to their alcoholic strength, the result would be very different. We give the figures of 1887-80. Thus the revenue derived from spirits was £15,218,262, while that from beer only yielded £8,711,532. There can be no doubt that the beer drinkers ought to have paid three times this amount, but the Government dare not offend England’s 465 members, but can set at nought Scotland’s 72.