PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE.
| England. | Scotland. | Ireland. | ||
Revenue as contributed |
£ |
£ |
£ | |
| Expenditure on civil administration (excluding charges on Consolidated Fund, cost of collection of customs, half cost collection inland revenue,* and Post Office expenditure......... | 22,559,000 | 3,227,000 | 5,919,000 | |
| Balances available for Imperial expenditure, including Post Office..................................... | 90,685,000 | 11,692,000 | 3,586,000 | |
| * If a proportion of the inland revenue (e.g., income tax and estate duties) is reserved to the Imperial authority, the cost of collection of this revenue should be an Imperial charge. This has been roughly estimated at half the total cost of collection of the inland revenue. | ||||
The first fact brought out by this return is that the expenditure for Imperial purposes (including the expenditure on Post Office services as Imperial, for reasons which will appear later) represents about three-fourths, and the national expenditure only one-fourth of the total expenditure.
The second fact to which it is necessary to call especial attention is, that the different countries of the United Kingdom at present demand for their civil administration very different proportions of the revenue which they contribute to the Exchequer, and consequently their contributions to the Imperial expenditure are not proportionate to their revenues. The expenditure on civil administration in Ireland is nearly double that of Scotland, the excess in Ireland being mainly under the head of law charges and police.[1]
Thus, while England contributes 80 per cent, and- ↑ Cf. Table IV. in Appendix. The Royal Irish Constabulary in 1900-01 cost 1,341,000l.., and the Dublin Metropolitan Police 93,000l. If the police force in Ireland were on the same scale relatively to population as that in England, it should cost about half the above sum.
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