There is not the remotest reason why Restrictions on the endowments of religion and the like should not be hateful to Irishmen.
The limitations, in short, on the competence of the Irish Parliament are inconsistent with the fundamental principle of Gladstonian statecraft.
It is a policy we are told of trust in the people, the limitations are dictated by distrust of the Irish people; Home Rule is to be granted in order that Irishmen may give effect to Irish ideas; the Restrictions are enacted to check the development of Irish ideas, and to impose English ideas upon the policy of Ireland.
As though, however, the Restraints were not enough to cause first irritation and then agitation, the financial provisions contemplated by the Bill are in themselves certain to generate, not future, but immediate discord.
Of the financial arrangements instituted under the new constitution, my purpose is to say very little.

My object is not to show that Mr.
Gladstone's financial calculations are wrong, or that they are ruinous to Ireland or unfair to England.

All this is for my present purpose immaterial.

My aim is to insist that, in their very nature, they are a cause of conflict; and that they bring the interest, and, even more, the sentiment, of Ireland into direct opposition with the power of England.[85] All the customs payable at every Irish port are to be regulated, collected, and managed by, and to be paid into, the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

Not a penny of these customs benefits Ireland; they are all--and this is certainly the light in which they will appear to most Irishmen--a contribution to the revenue of the United Kingdom, that is, of England.