O’BRIEN, William M.P. Grattan’s Home Rule, Gladstone’s, and Asquith’s. An Answer to a Boast.

Cork: Free Press, 1915. Demy octavo. pp. 32. Recent quarter tan calf on marbled boards, title in gilt along spine, with original wrappers bound in. A very good copy. Scarce.

A spirited attack on Redmond’s contention that Asquith’s Home Rule Bill was better than Grattan’s Constitution.
“Under Asquithian Home Rule, the Irish Parliament would have no more power of regulating or reducing taxation imposed in Ireland by the English Chancellor of the Exchequer, than of regulating the movements of the stars. The English Chancellor of the Exchequer might double (and for the repayment of the War Debt will probably double) the present taxation of Ireland, and the Irish Parliament need not even be consulted on the subject. Ireland’s only power of remonstrance would be through the Nationalists left in Westminster, who would be reduced from 84 to 30 or 32 at the utmost. The only power of taxation of any kind conferred upon the Irish Parliament would be Taxation in addition to the Imperial Taxation imposed without their leave.”

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