Page:Home rule; Fenian home rule; Home rule all round; Devolution; what do they mean?.djvu/28

24 and to refuse the Royal Assent in Ireland. But neither of these checks applied to resolutions or proceedings of Parliament not taking the form of Bills. The Irish Parliament could adopt and give expression to whatever views it chose upon questions of trade and commerce, foreign policy, treaties, and other relations with foreign Powers. And even in the case of Bills where these checks did apply little was to be expected from them, since statesmen would be reluctant to use a power which must place the Crown by itself in an attitude of hostility to one of the nations subject to its rule.

The expression so often used on Nationalist platforms when the demand is reiterated for an "Independent Irish Parliament," is therefore thoroughly well understood in Ireland. It is the demand for a Parliament supreme in Ireland as was the Parliament of 1782.

Any modified measure such as "Devolution," or "Home Rule" of the Gladstonian or any other type, if ever granted, will be only used, as has been over and over again proclaimed by all the leaders of the Nationalist Party, and as every one in Ireland knows, for the purpose of extorting further concessions until the absolute Independence of Ireland and the Irish Parliament is secured. There is no halting place between the Union and the absolute Independence of the Irish Parliament. The British people will be only befooled if they are misled by utterances on English platforms