Lord Rosebery has run up the flagstaff-ladder, and has hi&
hand on the rope ready either to haul down the Home-rule banner or to secure it still more firmly,—according to circum- stances. At least, that is how we read his letter published in the Daily Chronicle of Wednesday, which runs as follows :— "I believe, as I said at the Albert Hall, that every member of the Liberal party would strenuously resist anything like Separation, and I also believe that the only method of dealing- with the congested state of Parliamentary business is by conducting some of it locally. The word Separatist is a mere base coin of party rancour, and those who. use it use it, I am sorry to say, knowing it to be false. The Empire will never be consolidated, as all must, wish to see it, by giving autonomy outside these islands,. and within them tightening concentration ; and without further action in the direction of devolution, every increase in our population represents a farther constriction of the cen- tralising bond. At present we have neither union nor separa- tion, but a condition of things which combines the defects of both systems." If we were Irishmen, and sincerely anxious for bona-fide legislative independence, we cannot say that we should at all like this curious effusion. It is worth noting that the words and phrases, "Home-rule," "Parliament for Ireland," or "Legislative Independence," are nowhere to be found in it. It is really marking time on the word " Separa- tion," and commits Lord Rosebery to nothing except that he and his party are, as usual, "cruelly misunderstood."
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