Page:Home rule; Fenian home rule; Home rule all round; Devolution; what do they mean?.djvu/61

57 would have placed the Irish Parliament in a position immeasurably inferior to that it ever occupied during all its history. As to the finance of the Bill, it is now universally admitted it would have left Ireland bankrupt. It contained every element for inducing either total separation as a relief from English domination, or civil war to compel obedience to its irritating provisions. Ireland was to be taxed without representation. The taxes so imposed were to be collected by decrees of a Court subject to an English Executive, and enforced by the armed forces of the Crown in the anticipated refusal of the Irish Sheriffs to obey them.

In case of war, if the Irish Legislature refused to contribute, not a penny extra contribution could be compelled, however urgent the strain on the Imperial resources. While buried in the clauses of this extraordinary measure lay the extraordinary provision that, though the Irish Parliament could not pass a law concerning certain subjects, it might, with the consent of the Queen in Council, appropriate Irish revenue and taxes for the purposes of such forbidden subjects. Thus, though a law made for the endowment of religion should not be made, an annual tax to be paid for the support of the Roman Catholic clergy or any other sectarian object would be possible. It is unnecessary to go into details of objection both from the British and Irish, as well as from the Imperial view of this measure framed in language studiously ambiguous and inconsistent. Almost in every clause it contravened the elementary principles of Constitutional Government as it had hitherto existed in England and Ireland. It was im-