The Attorney-General made a , speech on Wednesday in the Colston
Hall, Bristol, in which he gave-in his adhesion to the policy of Mr. Asquith, Mr. Camp1)011-Bannerman, Sir George Trevelyan, and other Members of the Cabinet, who go in, like Mr. Labouchere, for " Home-rule all round,"—that is, for stimulating particularism even where no one would have thought of it, except for the purpose of keeping Ireland in countenance. He thought the principle of the Irish Home- rule Bill should be extended to England, Scotland, and Wales, leaving the Imperial Parliament! in the position of a mere Federal link between these ill-balanced partners in political power. This shows how rapidly political logic is converting the Gladatonian politicians to this worst of all the heresies of the day. Nothing more destructive has ever been conceived than this cutting-up of the United Kingdom into an ill-knitted con- federacy, which can only be galvanised into the kind of particu- larism of which only Irishmen had ever dreamt seven years ago, by dint of irritating all those jealousies between England, Scotland, and Wales of which Church controversies might Perhaps prove themselves to be prolific. We have heard of Divide et impera, as applied to the disintegration of foes ; but if the Gladstonians are to succeed, they will have to apply it to the separation of friends. And they will find the dividing a great deal easier than the Imperial botching which is to follow it.
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