Above : Another Picture Of George III

Its importance lay in the frequency with which, when the question of a legislative union between Ireland and England came to be discussed, those who favoured the measure alluded to it as an example of the danger which might arise of the separation of the two countries in the event of a Regency, owing to the selection of different rulers by the Parliament of each. If, however, the question is viewed in the light of reason and common sense, it will appear that, in actual practice, any danger of this kind was little likely to arise, and could, at any rate, be guarded against by means much simpler and less drastic than the amalgamation of the legislatures. A Regency is not, in the history of most countries, of frequent occurrence. In the event of its becoming necessary, owing to the incapacity or minority of the sovereign, to appoint a Regent, some one person would be generally available, as there had been in this instance, whose claims would be so strong as to make it in the highest degree unlikely that either the English or the Irish legislature would ignore them. Should, however, a positive safeguard have appeared desirable, it would have been perfectly easy to extend, by a short Bill passed through the Irish Parliament, the Act of 1541, which decreed that the sovereigns of England should also be sovereigns of Ireland, so as to provide that, in the event of a Regency, the de facto Regent of England should be Regent of Ireland also. Such an Act was, during the debates on the Legislative Union, proposed by a member of the Opposition, but was opposed by the Government, on the ground that it would be an insufficient remedy for an evil which only the amalgamation of Parliaments could really cure.