[thechat] footer, can't we all just get along?

Martin Burns martin at easyweb.co.uk
Sun May 26 17:28:00 CDT 2002


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On Sunday, May 26, 2002, at 10:59  pm, deke wrote:

>> Wales is not a country. It *is* a nation, *and* a principality, but not
>> a country.
>
> According to my dictionary, if you have an occupied land with a
> sovereign land, then the people, or the land, or the government which
> is sovereign over them can be referred to as a nation, or a country. A
> principality is the territory of a prince, which may or may not be
> sovereign.
>
> By those definitions, England, Scotland, and Wales would be neither
> nation nor country, but simply regions of the United Kingdom of Great
> Britain and Northern Ireland.

Wales is an occupied country, which prior to being occupied was as much
a single nation as (say) Italy was before the Risorgimeto, or Germany
was before Bismarck.

Of course, dictionaries are not usually the thing consulted by
historians, nor by politicians. They do, however, try to form
definitions for terms which may not *have* simple definitions. 'Family'
is another one...

And Scotland of course joined England in the following circumstances:
1) The overwhelming majority of the population [of Scotland] were
against it (there were riots in Edinburgh and Glasgow in protest)
2) The members of the parliament were being offered a large bribe from
England which was reclaimed from Scotland afterwards (ie the deciding
body were bribed with the nation's own money)
3) The leader of the party opposing union was *very* heavily in the pay
of England, and one night after all his colleagues went home, announced
that his party would no longer oppose the bill of union.

As Robbie Burns put it "We were bought and sold for English gowd, sic a
parcel o'rogues in a nation"

As for Scotland being a nation, would having its own separate:
1) Legal system
2) Education system
3) Financial system
4) National Church
be reasonable indicators..?

Cheers
Martin
_______________________________________________
email: martin at easyweb.co.uk             PGP ID:	0xA835CCCB
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