28.
[53] The reader, in order to understand this account of the proposed constitution of 1886, should remember that under that constitution there were in effect, though not in name, constituted three different Parliaments, which must be carefully distinguished.
1.

The British Parliament at Westminster, containing no Irish members, which was to legislate for Great Britain and for the whole British Empire except Ireland.
2.

The Irish Parliament at Dublin, containing no British representatives, which was to legislate for Ireland, but which was not to legislate for England, Scotland, or for any other part of the British Empire, and was not to have any voice whatever in the general policy of the Empire.
3.

The Imperial Parliament also sitting at Westminster, and comprising both the British and the Irish Parliament.

This body would have corresponded nearly, if not exactly, with the existing Parliament of the United Kingdom, and was intended to come together only on special occasions and for a special purpose, namely the revision or the alteration of the Gladstonian constitution.