But in the calculation of details an
ignorance was exhibited which passed the bounds of decency. Mistakes of
five or six per cent are, in these complex affairs, not only to be
expected but almost to be desired; they help to depress ministerial
cocksureness. But in this case there was an error of 200 per cent, a
circumstance which incidentally established in the English mind a
pleasing legend of Irish dishonesty. The Insurance Bill was ushered in
with greater prudence. The "government," recognising its own inability
to lead opinion, had the grace to refrain from misleading it. No special
Irish memorandum was issued, and no attempt was made to adjust the
scheme to Irish social and economic conditions. But Budgets afford on
the whole the capital instance of what we may call legislation by
accident. The Act of Union solemnly prescribes the principles on which
these measures are to be framed, and points to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer as the trustee of Irish interests. But nobody of this
generation ever knew a Chancellor of the Exchequer who had even read the
Act of Union; Mr Lloyd George, on his own admission, had certainly not
read it in 1909.
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