Gladstone and Ireland: a financial approach

Abstract

This article examines William Gladstone’s Irish policy through the prism of his commitment to ‘sound’ finance, a fiscal programme involving low taxation, minimal government expenditure, balanced budgets and free trade. These prescriptions, it argues, served as an unintentional stimulus to Irish nationalism while also encouraging Gladstone’s receptivity to Home Rule, because by the 1880s he had become convinced that the cost of governing Ireland within the framework of the Union was imperilling ‘sound’ finance throughout the United Kingdom. Viewed from the vantage of fiscal policy, it concludes, Gladstone’s approach to Ireland was characterized by ideological rigidity rather than political adaptability.