gate of which, Great Britain and Ireland form the two chief and preponderating members.

And here, Sir, it will be enough just to observe, what no man, I think, can deny, that in all cafes where it is practicable, one general, fuperintending, and controlling legislature, is the best fitted for the steady, consistent, and rational government of all the parts of that combination of individuals and territories which conftitutes what is denominated a state.

To endeavour to enforce this position by a long train of argument, indifputable as I conceive it to be, would be an unwarrantable wafte of time and words.

It has indeed been faid, in answer to those who have pointed out the obvious inconvenience which might arise from a difference of opinion on any great imperial queftion, as of peace and war, between two diftinct Parliaments, that equal inconveniences would follow from a difference of a like fort between the feveral branches of the fame Parliament; but that fuch differences, though they may be fuggested by theory, have not been found to happen in practice*. I must beg leave to say that they certainly fometimes have happened, both between the two Houses, and between those Houses and the Sovereign, in the British Parliament, and with the hazard, at leaft, of confiderable detriment to the ftate. But there are material diftinctions between the two cafes which have been thus brought into comparifon. The identity of interest between the feveral branches of the legislative and executive government of the fame country is much more direct and fenfible, and therefore, on difcuffion, much lefs apt to be mistaken by either, than what exifts be

Mr. Fofter's Speech, p. 54, 55.

F

tween

tween two kingdoms, though forming parts of the same empire. Besides, there is a facility of difcuffion and explanation, by conference, addrefs, remonftrance, &c. between the respective branches of the fame Parliament, which cannot take place between two diftinct Legislatures.

It is alfo faid, that the checks which the proceedings of the three branches of the fame Parliament produce, furnish a principle to which our conftitution owes its ftability, and that fimilar checks exift between the two fifter Parliaments*. No doubt this is true to a certain extent; but it would be eafy to fhow, that in the case of the two Parliaments fuch checks exift in a very imperfect degree, without any foundation in their formal and legal conftitutionst, and with little more force or efficacy, than those which prevail in the relations of different states, having common interefts, but no link or connexion in their governments. Such checks between the different nations of our part of the globe contributed for a time to maintain what used to be called the balance of Europe; but although thofe of a more fubftantial and operative kind, in concurrence with other causes, have to this day preserved, and, I truft, if perpetuity can belong to human institutions, will ever preferve our frame of government, the other and inferior fort has not been found of equal power in giving permanency to that balance.

• Mr. Fofler's Speech, p. 55.

This is not inconsistent with what is afterwards faid of the jurifdiction the British Parliament may exercise over the executive minifters who advise the King in affenting to, or rejecting Irish bills. That jurisdiction is without power to stop such affent or rejection; and, therefore, forms no immediate or abfolute check, though it may afterwards punish those who have advised the Crown to give or refuse its affent.

I admit

I admit that circumftances of diftance (there may be others) are fometimes fuch as to render fo defirable an object as one common imperial legislature impracticable. Such I take to have been the cafe with regard to our colonies in North America. I believe all fober men of all parties, both here and on that continent, would have agreed, that, could it have been done, the admiffion into the British Parliament of an adequate number of reprefentatives from thence, would have been the happiest method of reconciling the difputes and removing the difficulties which terminated in a civil war, and the feparation of that country from the empire. Dr. Adam Smith, and many others, recommended the experiment. The immense distance, and the uncertainty of regular, periodical, frequent, and early communication between American reprefentatives in Great Britain and their conftituents in America, feem to me to have oppofed infurmountable obftacles to fuch a plan.

But that no valid objection of a like nature exifts in the cafe of Ireland, is, I think, abundantly manifest. Some gentlemen, indeed, of that country have expressed, in very strong language, their ideas of the inconvenience which would attend what they quaintly term a tranfmarine Parliament; and one learned barrifter, at the celebrated meeting of the profeffion which took place early in Dublin, is stated to have pronounced, That a British 'Minifter fhall not, and cannot, plant another Sicily in the bofom of the Atlantic, and that God and nature • never intended that Ireland should be a province *.'

If by this is meant, that the intervening channel is, in the nature of things, an infuperable difficulty in the way

Debates of the Irish Bar, 9th December 1798, p. 47.

of a legislative Union; I anfwer, that in principle (however widely the cafes differ in importance) the reason would equally apply to the islands of Orkney and Shetland, and would have applied, in former times, to the town of Calais. As to the idea, that Ireland, by a Union, will, in any degrading or offenfive fenfe of the word, become a province, in any other fenfe than that according to which the and Great Britain are now provinces of the general empire; I deny it. Ireland, indeed, will no longer be a diftinct kingdom; but neither will Great Britain: they will both become, as it were, aliquot parts of one incorporated realm, inftead of remaining feparate integral parts of the empire.

It is true, that the interpofition of the fea forins a geographical feparation between them, which did not exift in the cafe of England and Scotland. But, on the other hand, Dublin is nearer to London than Edinburgh is; and the journey, notwithstanding the fea paffage, is, I believe, in general, performed in a fhorter time; Cork, Limeric, and Londonderry, the moft diftant confiderable cities in Ireland, from the British metropolis, are nearer to it than feveral of the principal towns in the north of Scotland; and no part of Ireland is fo far removed from this city as the counties of Sutherland and Caithness; not to mention again the Orkney and the Shetland Islands.

Befides, it is to be observed, that Great Britain is the only neighbour of Ireland, and that while the eastern coast of Scotland is open to a near and easy intercourse with other countries, Great Britain intercepts almost entirely all direct communication between Ireland and the continent of Europe, while the immenfe expanfe of the Atlantic divides that iftand from all other parts of the globe.

If we add to thefe confiderations the many and important facilities, or rather invitations, to a more thorough incorporation of England and Ireland-and which now must comprehend Scotland-that did not exist in the former cafe; the fame fyftem of laws, civil and commercial; the fame rules of property; fimilar tribunals ; correfponding forms of legislature; a common origin; extensive confanguinity, and intermarriages; the great number of those who, by fucceffion or acquifition, are daily becoming owners of land in both kingdoms; the fame established religion; the fame course of education, &c. &c.-If we confider all these circumstances, that of abfolute territorial contiguity feems to be infinitely outweiged, and, as it were, totally to vanish from our fight.

Having incidentally cleared away, as I flatter myfelf I have, this objection of the want of immediate juxta-pofition, I fhall not, for the prefent, revert to any farther examination of more general, or, as they are often called, imperial confiderations; but will now proceed to take a view of some of the peculiar benefits which I think Ireland would derive from the propofed arrange

ment.

At present, she has no fhare whatever in the legisla❤ tion of Great Britain, nor, as I have always heard admitted, in that of the empire. Her Parliament can take no part in the regulations neceffàry for the government and administration of our foreign poffeffions in the East and Weft Indies, in Afia, Africa, or America, of those in the Mediterranean, or even of thofe in her own im mediate neighbourhood, in St. George's Channel, or on the northern coaft of France. Is any one fo ignorant as