gizmo_2655 wrote on Feb 4^th, 2012 at 11:20pm:

The Australian flag was not the official flag at the time of Federation. In fact the current flag was only  formalised as such on 14 February 1954 when the head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, gave Royal Assent to the Flags Act 1953.



As for the army, the colonial forces were not unified until after Federation. The different units remained under states/colony until the Federal Government passed the  Defence Act of 1903. These forces were not allowed to serve overseas.

The AIF was formed in 1914. Australian soldiers remained under British command, and were considered fairly expendable as the mission to Galipolli demonstrates (Australian troops were also poorly equipped and supplied by the British). Australian soldiers served under the British flag.



It was not until John Curtin's government that Australia showed any independence from Britain, when Curtin diverted troops from being sent to fight Nazis to instead defend Australia from the Japanese (the British had abandoned Australia, Singapore and Malaya to the Japanese)

falah wrote on Feb 4^th, 2012 at 4:49pm:


Pardon???
Australian Flag, Australian Army, Australian Prime Minister....

Good luck to the Scots, I hope they get their Independence back.

Support for independence drops by as much as 8 per cent if the SNP’s preferred question is dumped in favour of one backed by pro-Union campaigners, a major new poll has revealed.

The survey, conducted by YouGov, and published yesterday by Conservative donor Lord Ashcroft, showed that 41 per cent of people currently back independence if asked using Alex Salmond’s preferred question.

The First Minister has suggested asking people simply: “Do you agree Scotland should be an independent country?”

But when pollsters asked another group of Scottish residents a different question – “Should Scotland become an independent country or should it remain part of the United Kingdom?” –the numbers backing independence fell to just 33 per cent.

Support for the status quo, meanwhile, rose from 59 per cent under Mr Salmond’s preferred question to 67 per cent under the second option.

The poll also tested a third question with people asked: “Do you agree or disagree that Scotland should be an independent country.” The simple inclusion of the word “disagree” saw support for independence drop by two points to 39 per cent and support for the Union rise by two to 61 per cent, compared to the SNP’s preference.

Cofgod wrote on Feb 6^th, 2012 at 4:52am:


I'm not sure they had much choice at the time...

O would, ere I had seen the day
That Treason thus could sell us,
My auld grey head had lien in clay,
Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But pith and power, till my last hour,
I'll mak this declaration;
We're bought and sold for English gold-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

... with items such as Post office boxes bearing the initials ER rather than EIIR as is seen in the rest of the UK.

By the early eighteenth century, Scotland was a kingdom in crisis. Her economy had been severely weakened by a series of major harvest failures beginning in 1695. The `Lean Years' of the 1690s were compounded by the catastrophic failure of the Darien Scheme and the attempt to establish a Scottish imperial outlet, the colony of Caledonia, on the Isthmus of Darien. Deliberately sabotaged by the combined efforts of the English East India Company, the international financial markets at Amsterdam and King William, it is estimated that almost 25% of Scotland's total liquid capital was lost in the Darien venture.

Anglo-Scottish relations were in a similar state of crisis. Increased English political management of Scottish affairs had led to greater criticism. One contemporary commentator observed that Scotland would `be no longer a province to England, or dance attendance at the door of an English court'. The Glencoe Massacre of 1692, sanctioned and implemented by the Crown in tandem with approval by Lowland elites, had intensified Highland-Lowland divisions.

The Revolution Settlement of 1689-90 had led to a more powerful Scottish Parliament. The two most powerful periods of the Scottish Parliament's existence can be defined as 1639-51 and 1689-1707. During the era of Covenanting control, the Scottish Parliament emerged as a mature political and institutional forum and was one of the most powerful assemblies in Europe. Drawing on the Scottish Constitutional Settlement of 1640-41, a programme of constitutional reform was renewed from 1689 onwards. The Scottish Parliament was by no means a `weak' institution when it was abolished in 1707.

The Treaty of Union was clearly unpopular among the wider Scottish people. Civil unrest and public disorder took place in several Scottish towns and the threat of widespread civil unrest resulted in the imposition of martial law by the Parliament. George Lockhart of Carnwath, a Jacobite and the only member of the Scottish negotiating team who was not pro-incorporation, noted that `The whole nation appears against the Union'. Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, an ardent pro-unionist and Union negotiator, observed that the treaty was `contrary to the inclinations of at least three-fourths of the Kingdom'.
Public opinion against the Treaty as it passed through the Scottish Parliament was voiced through petitions from the Scottish localities. Anti-union petitions were received from shires, burghs, presbyteries and parishes. The Convention of Royal Burghs also petitioned against the Union and not one petition in favour of an incorporating union was received by Parliament.

Many members of the [political group known as the] Squadrone [Volante] had invested heavily in the Darien Scheme and they believed that they would receive compensation for their losses; Article 14, the Eqivalent granted £398 085 10s to Scotland to offset future liability towards the English national debt. In essence, it was also used a means of compensation for investors in Darien.

Bribery and financial persuasion were also prevalent with £20 000 sterling (£240 000 Scots) being despatched to Scotland for distribution by the Earl of Glasgow. James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry, the Queen's Commissioner in Parliament received £12 325 sterling, the majority of the funding. The bulk of this funding was used in the payment of spies and agent provocateurs.