Page:Home rule; Fenian home rule; Home rule all round; Devolution; what do they mean?.djvu/23

19 involved in a war in which Great Britain refused to be a party."

The subordinate Irish Parliament, whose fiscal policy, whose trade, whose legislation—was by British Acts of Parliament dominated by England,—whose executive was English, whose Courts of Law were according to English decisions subject to the control of the English Court of King's Bench and the British House of Lords, and in a country where the Mutiny Act was perpetual, and no necessity existed to summon the Legislature annually to vote an Army Bill, emancipated itself without striking a single blow in actual civil strife, by raising an armed force to protect its shores from invasion, and demanding from England independence from subjection to Britain or the British Parliament.

In doing so it followed the example of the Parliament of Scotland, for the Union of Scotland was necessitated just as the Union of Ireland by the arming of the Scottish people by the Parliament of Scotland in the reign of Queen Anne. Scotland, like Ireland, was hampered in her trade by the English Parliament. The throne of Scotland was wholly separate and distinct from the throne of England, and a different person might be entitled to each. The Scotch Convention Parliament had conferred the Crown on William and Mary, then on William, and then on Anne, but after Anne it was uncertain what would happen. It still remained for the