sitting at Westminster, and comprising both the British and the Irish Parliament.  This body would have corresponded nearly, if not exactly, with the existing Parliament of the United Kingdom, and was intended to come together only on special occasions and for a special purpose, namely the revision or the alteration of the Gladstonian constitution.  For the fuller explanation of the whole of this subject see England’s Case against Home Rule (3rd ed.), pp. 234, 238

Note that England gains little or nothing (as compared with what was offered to her under the Home Rule Bill of 1886) by the Imperial Parliament retaining the power to legislate for Ireland, for even under that Bill the Imperial Parliament (i.e. the Parliament at Westminster when consisting both of British and of Irish members) could legislate for Ireland.

[54] Unionist Delusions, pp. 6-9.

[55] The following passage from the writings of a man whose words, whilst he was yet amongst us, Unionists and Gladstonians alike always heard with the respect due to sense, to ability, to knowledge, and to fairness, deserves attention:—­

‘In Mr. Gladstone’s proposed measure of Home Rule’ [i.e. the Bill of 1886]’ the Parliament sitting at Westminster was no longer to contain Irish members.  I hold this to be an essential feature of the scheme, an essential feature of any scheme of Home Rule.  By Mr. Gladstone’s scheme, Ireland was formally to exchange a nominal voice, both in its own affairs and in common affairs, for the real management of its own affairs and no voice at all in common affairs.  This is the true relation of Home Rule.  As dependent Canada has no representatives in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, so neither would dependent Ireland have representatives in the Parliament of Great Britain.  I am unable to understand why this provision, which seemed so naturally to follow from the rest of the scheme, awakened so powerful an opposition among Mr. Gladstone’s own supporters.  I believe the Irish have no wish to appear in the British Parliament.  They wish to manage their own affairs, and are ready to leave Great Britain to manage its own affairs and those of the “Empire” to boot.  It is very hard to see in what character the Irish members are to show themselves at Westminster.  If they may vote on British affairs, while the British members do not vote on Irish affairs, surely too great a privilege is given to Ireland; it is Great Britain which will become the dependency.  If they are to vote on “Imperial” affairs only, to say nothing of the difficulty of defining such affairs, it will be something very strange, very novel, very hard to work, to have members of Parliament who are only half-members, who must walk out of the House whenever certain classes of subjects are discussed.’ (E.A.  Freeman, ’Irish Home Rule and its Analogies,’ The New Princeton Review, vi. pp. 194, 195.)

Mr. Freeman’s language proves that I have not overrated the essential difference or opposition between the Home Rule policy of 1886 and the Home Rule policy of 1893.