THE WELSH GLADSTONIANS' REVOLT. T HE disintegrating tendency which is inherent
in the Home-rule policy is already bearing its natural fruit in Wales. There the Welsh Gladstonians are getting restive under the heavy demands on their loyalty to their leader, and while a few of them are crying out for Welsh Home-rule, a considerably larger number are demanding that Welsh Disestablishment should be coupled closely to Irish Home-rule,—so closely that a pledge is proposed for the candidates at the General Election requiring them to refuse to vote for Irish Home-rule except on the condition that the Welsh Church shall be disestablished without the intervention of another dissolution by the same Parlia- ment, and, if possible, in the same Session, in which Irish Home-rule is carried. The letters addressed to influential Liberals in North Wales asking whether they approve of the exaction of this pledge, show a small majority in favour of it; and though it is, of course, extremely doubtful whether such a pledge will be either generally approved by the Welsh Liberals, or even, if it should be generally approved, will be practically enforced, the serious discussion of the subject is quite enough to show that the Welsh particularism has been stimulated by the great deference paid to Irish particularism, and that for the future there will be a good deal of rivalry and jealousy between the two, from which the unity of the Gladstonian Party cannot but suffer. The Scotch are so enthusiastic in their following of Mr. Gladstone, and are .so canny and prudent besides, in spite of their trenchant political Radicalism, that they will probably be the last to move in the direction in which Ireland and Wales have moved already,—the last, we mean, to insist on the right to claim for their own particularist ideas a position of equality, or more than equality, with the particularist .ideas of other branches of the Kingdom. But that, too, doubtless will come in time. The very principle of the Home-rule movement is not only particularist, but in- clined to postpone the particularism of other sections of the State to the particularism of the section to which the elector himself belongs. Home-rule for Ireland will be, if it is ever gained, the reward of those who have postponed the interests of the United Kingdom to the interests of Ireland ; and of course that cannot be remembered by other parts of the United Kingdom without bringing with it the belief that they might best win any little object of their own by an agitation of the same character. We give the Scotch credit for the caution and the moderation which will render them much less grasping in the application of that lesson in political selfishness to their own particular case, than either the Irish, who had, indeed, been taught selfishness by the selfishness of those who ruled them, or the Welsh, who, under the influence of their religious teachers, have hungered and thirsted after Disestablishment till they identify it with the interests of absolute morality ; but even to the Scotch this mischievous object-lesson in the advantages of a selfish particularism will be brought home in time.
The main interest, however, of the situation in Wales is, that it teaches us how rapidly the crop of disintegra- tionist tares which Mr. Gladstone has sown, springs up. His own idea has been that he has been teaching the people of Great Britain to think as much of Ireland as of themselves, nay, for the present, while Ireland is still so full of discontents, even more of Ireland than of them- selves. And for a time, no doubt, he seemed to have some success. The willingness of the people of Great Britain to put their own political interests out of the account, and to give themselves up to Mr. Gladstone's generous counsels, was extremely creditable to their disinterestedness, though not to their political sagacity, for they should have known that the views of a small part of the Kingdom, and especially of the most disaffected of all the parts of the Kingdom, could not be safely taken as a guide to the welfare of the whole ; and that it was for the welfare of the whole, not of the part, that they should have been most deeply concerned. But now, long before the time has come for carrying Mr. Gladstone's counsels into practice, we see that this spirit of disinterestedness is collapsing, and the engrossing spirit of particularist selfishness is taking its place. If these things are done in the green tree, what would be done in the dry P If, before any one of the four countries which are supposed to be entitled to Home-rule has even drawn up its plan and agreed upon its demands, the rivalry between the four as to the equality of their rights, and the order in which they shall achieve those rights, is breaking into full activity, what would be the natural course of things if those rights should ever be wholly or partially realised ? Mr. Gladstone is very fond of pressing upon his followers that all would go smoothly with the Imperial Parliament, if only local interests could be locally attended to. Nor should we quarrel with the doctrine if Mr. Gladstone meant by local interests what we mean by local interests, which is, however, very far from the case. What he includes in local interests is just what, as is now obvious, the Welsh include in local interests,— namely, profound jealousy of the interference of either the whole or any other part of the country, in the settlement of any but their own affairs. Here are the Welsh not only expressing the utmost determination not to have their ecclesiastical affairs settled for them by the English and Welsh acting together, but encouraging each other to- exact a pledge from their representatives that Ireland shall not get what she wants unless at the very same time, or at all events in the very same Parliament, Wales gets what she wants. Wales has every bit as much right as Ireland to be separately treated, if not even a better right,—this is the sentiment at the heart of the new movement, and it is a sentiment which will certainly not dwindle the more it is gratified. If Disestablishment for Wales is promised simultaneously with Irish Home- rule, "Kymric autonomy" will receive more and more earnest support, and the Scotch will be forced into demanding that, first, Disestablishment of the Scotch Church, and then Scottish Home-rule, shall be placed on an equality with Welsh Disestablishment and " Kymric autonomy." Here is a political appetite which grows with what it feeds on. We can hardly exaggerate the rivalry there would be between the various local Parliaments, if ever such local Parliaments were really established. It would be a race which of them should show most acuteness and obstinacy in mortifying the central power and paring down its rights. The movement for Local Government has been altogether diverted from its true course by Mr. Gladstone's unfortunate policy. Instead of being a movement for the devolution of genuinely local affairs on local bodies, it has become one for the paralysis of the central power, and the promotion of rivalries between the co-ordinated sections of the Kingdom ; and that is just what we believe that it will remain till the Home-rule movement receives some peremptory and unmistakable veto from the constituencies at large. If we looked to the mere party consequences of this unfortunate Welsh movement, we might be foolish enough to congratulate ourselves on the rapid growth of the difficulties which beset Mr. Gladstone. We do not envy him the task which appears to be before him,—of deciding which of the various particularist movements that he has fostered are to be first crowned with success, and which of them are to wait for another Parliament and a distant triumph. But the difficulties placed in Mr. Gladstone's path, severe as they are, are nothing to the mischief done by exciting these petty jealousies in the heart of different sections of our country. It is true, no doubt, that these jealousies will counterbalance each other, and that the total result may be nothing but an equilibrium of mutual interferences, a balance of rivalries, a setting- off of one centrifugal force against an equal and opposite centrifugal force. But though that may be the external result, the internal result will be a much less united Kingdom, a much more seriously disunited King- dom, than any which has been known for a century back. The dragon's teeth have been sown, and are yielding their usual crop of selfish violence and mutual envy. We may, and we believe we shall, defeat Home-rule. But after Home-rule has been defeated, we shall be left with a weaker national sentiment, a more querulous group of subordinate nationalities, a more sullen feeling in the Imperial Parliament, a poorer patriotism, and, on the whole, a feebler State.
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