taxes is historically the source of Parliamentary power, and in all
matters of taxation Parliament has absolute freedom of action from one
end of the United Kingdom to the other; whether the income tax is to be
lowered, raised, or abolished, whether some new duty, such as the cart
and wheel tax, shall be imposed, whether the United Kingdom shall
maintain free trade, or return to protection, how taxes shall be raised
and how they shall be spent--all matters in short connected with revenue
are throughout the United Kingdom determined and determinable in the
last resort by Parliament alone.

Hence, as things now stand, no kind of governmental action in any part
of Great Britain and Ireland escapes Parliamentary supervision. The
condition of the army, the management of the police, the misconduct of
a judge, the release of a criminal, the omission to arrest a defaulting
bankrupt, the pardon of a convicted dynamiter, the execution of a
murderer, the interference of the police with a public meeting, or the
neglect of the police to check a riot in London, in Skye, or in
Tipperary, any matter, great or small, with which the executive is
directly or indirectly concerned, is, if it takes place in any part of
the United Kingdom, subject to stringent and incessant Parliamentary
supervision, and may, at any moment, give rise to debates on which
depend the fate of ministries and parties. If there be such a thing as
supreme actual and effective authority, such authority is throughout the
whole of the United Kingdom exercised by the Imperial Parliament, not
occasionally and in theory, but every day and in the ordinary course of
affairs.

This exertion of actual and effective power by the Imperial Parliament
throughout the United Kingdom is a totally different thing from the
supremacy or sovereignty exercised by Parliament throughout the whole