[28] See pp. 4-6 ante.  This ambiguity underlies and vitiates almost every argument used by Home Rulers, whether English or Irish, in favour of Home Rule.  English Home Rulers emphasise and exaggerate the extent of the control, or the so-called supremacy, which, after the establishment of an Irish Parliament, can and will be exerted in Ireland by the Imperial Parliament at Westminster.  Irish Home Rulers, when addressing English electors, or the Imperial Parliament, often use language which resembles the phrases of their English allies.  But assuredly Irish Home Rulers, when addressing Irishmen, or when collecting subscriptions from American citizens of Irish descent, speak the language of Irish Nationalists and cut down the effective supremacy of the Imperial Parliament after the granting of Home Rule so as to make it consistent with the war cry of ‘Ireland a Nation.’ (Compare Cambray’s Irish Affairs and the Home Rule Question, pp. 48-65.)

[29] Mr. Sexton, Feb. 13, 1893, Times Parliamentary Debates, p. 319; Mr. Redmond, Feb. 14, 1893, ibid. pp. 350-52; and April 13, 1893, ibid. p. 414.  Compare especially language of Mr. Redmond, Irish Independent, Feb. 17, and note that all the arguments for Home Rule drawn from its success or alleged success in the British Colonies imply that the relation of the Imperial Parliament to Ireland shall resemble its relation to the Colonies.  See generally, debate of May 16 in The Times, May 17, pp. 6-8.

[30] Feb. 13, 1893, Times Parliamentary Debates, p. 303.

[31] April 14, 1893, ibid. pp. 439, 440.

[32] Feb. 14, 1893, ibid. pp. 340, 341, 343.

[33] Bill, clause 12, sub-clause (3).

[34] This is the only sense in which the sovereignty of the Imperial Parliament is inalienable.  This should be noted, because a strange and absurd dogma is sometimes propounded that a sovereign power such as the Parliament of the United Kingdom, can never by its own act divest itself of sovereignty, and it is thence inferred or hinted that there is no need for the Imperial Parliament to take measures for the preservation of its supremacy.  The dogma is both logically and historically untenable.  A sovereign of any kind can abdicate.  A Czar can lay down his power, and so also can a Parliament.  To argue or imply that because sovereignty is not limitable (which is true) it cannot be surrendered (which is palpably untrue) involves the confusion of two distinct ideas.  It is like arguing that because no man can while he lives give up, do what he will, his freedom of volition, so no man can commit suicide.  A sovereign power can divest itself of authority in two ways.  It may put an end to its own existence or abdicate.  It may transfer sovereign authority to another person, or body of persons, of which body it may, or may not, form part.  The Parliaments both of England and of Scotland did at the time of the Union each transfer sovereign power to a new sovereign body, namely the Parliament of Great Britain.  The British Parliament did in 1782 surrender its sovereignty in Ireland to the Irish Parliament.  In 1800 both the British Parliament and the Irish Parliament alienated or surrendered their sovereign powers to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.  Compare Dicey, Law of the Constitution (7th ed.), note 3, p. 65.