Dividing Ireland: World War I and Partition

208 THE IRISH CONVENTION AND CONSCRIPTION
Convention was to propose, in March 1918, the partition of Ireland
with the exclusion of all of the province of Ulster. 33 The Ulster
Unionists attacked the conclusions of the Convention, having
expected it to be a ‘sincere and patriotic’ attempt to find common
ground between the 1914 Home Rule Act, on the one hand, and
Ulster’s position for the maintenance of the existing constitutional
arrangements on the other. Instead, Ulster Unionists believed that
they were faced with a demand for a form of home rule in excess
of any previous claim, and, in their opinion, demanding:
First—A Sovereign Independent Parliament for Ireland coequal
in power and authority with the Imperial Parliament.
Second—Complete Fiscal Autonomy for Ireland, including:
(a) Power of imposing tariffs and controls of Excise, involving,
as it would, the risk of hostile tariffs against Great Britain
and the disturbance of free intercourse between the two
countries;
(b) Right of making Commercial Treaties with foreign
countries;
(c) Full powers of direct taxation.
Third—Right to raise and maintain a Military (territorial) Force
in Ireland.
Fourth—Repudiation of any liability for the National Debt on
the plea of over-taxation of Ireland in the past. Subject to the
consent of the Irish Parliament, the principle of a small
annual contribution towards Imperial expenditure was
admitted.
Fifth—Denial of the right of the Imperial Parliament to
impose Military Service in Ireland unless with the consent of
the proposed Irish Parliament. 34
The Ulster Unionist delegates rejected a fiscally autonomous
Ireland out of hand. H.M.Pollock, President of the Belfast Chamber
of Commerce, argued that there was no instance on record where
the duality of fiscal control, in countries so interrelated as Great
Britain and Ireland, had worked anything but trouble. In Ireland’s
case it would spell ruin because of their complete dependence on
the sister country. The pages of history, claimed Pollock, furnished
conclusive proof of how fiscal unity had contributed to the
commercial and, as in the case of Germany, the military greatness
of communities previously separated by tariffs. Bismarck, he
pointed out, realised that political union was not sufficient and had