Mr. Rathbone has declared his intention not to stand again
for the Carnarvon boroughs, in a letter in which he adheres to his view that the Church in Wales ought to be disestablished, and congratulates himself on having helped to terminate the almost feudal dependence of the Welsh people on their territorial magnates. He declares his opinion that Wales has now surmounted the danger that her interests will be overlooked in Parliament, and he devotes a good part of his letter to warning his constituents that they may suffer a great deal more by raising the cry of Home-rule for Wales and clamouring for a system in which Wales would lose more by shrinking into a separate Principality, without any adequate share in the Kingdom of which it is but a small part, than it could possibly gain by extruding Englishmen from any influence in Welsh affairs. That is a very im- portant consideration, and Mr. Rathbone has probably done Wales more service by warning her of that danger, than he has by helping to obtain for her a victory over the politicians of her greater neighbour. Home-rule for Wales would vir- tnally mean that Wales should be sent to Coventry in the larger affairs of England instead of taking her full share of English privileges and duties.
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