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survive Union though in a modified state; that Parliament will be left to judge of the local affairs of Ireland? Really this seems almost too much for men's feelings—a Parliament; a sort of National Vestry for the Parish of Ireland sitting in a kind of mock legislative capacity after being ignobly degraded from the rank of representatives of an independent people and deprived of the functions of an inquisitorial power exercising and enjoying the greatest authority any Parliament can possess."
Canning said:—
"There can be no mode of arrangement devised for the several possible differences and disagreements between the two kingdoms short of Union which will not take away from the Parliament of Ireland even the shadow of independence and deprive it of all freedom and dignity in the points most essential to its very being as a Parliament."[1]
The views thus expressed and held then universally in Ireland are the views held to-day by nearly every Unionist in the country. There is no halting between the Union and Repeal of the Union. No more authoritative expression of the combined views of Irish Unionists from the North, South, East, and West of Ireland can be given than the resolution of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland, an assembly closely resembling, as Lecky says, in its constituent elements Grattan's Parliament. In 1893 its members unanimously declared against Gladstone's Home Rule Bill; and as loyal subjects of the British Empire protesting against its threatened disintegration, the dismemberment of the Empire, and the consequent ruin of our position and influence among the nations, added:—
"We call on all true patriots who have the welfare of their native land at heart, to repudiate a measure which, under the semblance of Home Rule, imposes new political disabilities, injurious commercial restrictions,
- ↑ See Ball, Irish Legislative Systems, p. 237.
