XXII That, by virtue of this Treaty, of the Peers of Scotland at the time of the Union, sixteen shall be the number to sit and vote in the House of Lords,*** and fortyfive the number of the representatives of Scotland in the House of Commons of the Parliament of Great Britain; and that when Her Majesty, her heirs or successors, shall declare her or their pleasure for holding the first or any subsequent Parliament of Great Britain, until the Parliament of Great Britain shall make further provision therein, a writ do Issue under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom, directed to the Privy Council of Scotland, commanding them to cause sixteen Peers, who are to sit in the House of Lords, to be summoned to Parliament, and forty-five members to be elected to sit in the House of Commons of the Parliament of Great Britain, according to the agreement in this Treaty, in such manner as by a subsequent Act of this present session of the Parliament of Scotland [***] This article probably aroused a more bitter opposition than any other. The Scots did not anticipate in consenting to a single parliament that Scotlands representation in it would be so meagre. The Scottish Commoners thought that all their peers would get seats in the British House of Lords, and that their share in the House of Commons should be 170 at least. The English at first placed the figures at 16 Lords And 30 Commoners, and for a time it seemed as though all negotiations were at an end. The compromise of 45 Commoners was finally accepted. On this point Sir Walter Scott writes: It was loudly urged that a kingdom resigning her ancient independence, should at least obtain in the great national council a representation bearing the same proportion the Population of Scotland did to that of England, which was one to six. If this rule, which seems the fairest that could be found, had been adopted, Scotland would have sent sixty-six members to the United Parliament. * * * The Scottish peerage were to preserve all the other privileges of their rank, but their right of sitting in parliament and acting as hereditary legislators, was to be greatly limited Only sixteen of their number were to enjoy Seats in the British House of Lords and these were to be chosen by election from the whole body. Such peers as were amongst the number of Commissioners were induced to consent to this degradation of their order by the assurance that they themselves should be created British peers, so as to give them, personally, by charter, the right which the sixteen could only Acquire by election. The English view is thus stated by Hallam, in his Constitutional History of England : The ratio of population would indeed have given Scotland About one eighth of the legislative body, instead of something less than one twelfth, but no government, except the merest democracy, is settled on the sole basis of numbers; and If the comparison of wealth and of public contributions was to be admitted it may be thought that a country which stipulated for itself to pay less than one-fortieth of direct taxation, was not entitled to a much greater share of the representation than it obtained. Comparing the two ratios of population and property there seems little objection to this part of the union. (Of course the argument is academic nowadays. Although Scotland is well represented in the number of MPs (parliamentary members) it returns to Westminster in London, they are always outnumbered by non-Scottish MPs. The two major UK parties, Labour and Conservative (Tory)- have little to no interest in Scotlands welfare. The Labour party has many Labour voters and seats it wants to keep in Scotland, so they pay lip service to Scottish nationhood. The Tories do not give a hoot what the Scottish want or think, they regard Scotland as a backwater, a colony which can be manipulated and treated as any colony was in Imperial days. Both Labour and Tory use the Scottish office to exert Westminsters will on the Scottish people. Only the Scottish Nationalist Party understands the truth, but the media does not give it TV air time or press coverage to explain to the Scots how they are being degraded and exploited. Of course the media and press are comfortably in the pocket of Westminster. Who knows what incentives are offered to the owners and editors NOT to promote, and actually stifle the truth)
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 20:42:46 +0000
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