(3) The third method which most strongly recommended itself to Mr.
Childers was to give compensation to Ireland by making an
allocation of revenue in her favour, to be employed in promoting
the material prosperity and social welfare of the country.
This is the course which has been pursued by Unionist statesmen, and
finds practical expression in their Constructive policy. The results
cannot be better proved than by the fact that within the six years from
1904, during which the statistics of Irish Export and Import trade have
been kept, her commerce has increased in money value by more than
twenty-seven millions. At least four-fifths of that great increase
represents a corresponding increase in British trade with Ireland.
Mr. Childers wrote in 1896--
"Apart from the claim of Ireland to special and distinct
consideration under the provisions of the Act of Union, and upon
the ground that she has for many years been, and now is,
contributing towards the public revenue a share much in excess of
her relative taxable capacity; I think that Great Britain as a
manufacturing and trading country would in the course of time be
amply repaid by the increase of prosperity and purchasing power in
Ireland for any additional burdens which this annual grant to
Ireland might involve.
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