Sir William Petty, one of the ancestors of the Lansdowne
family, appears to have anticipated in the seventeenth century what the cry of Home-rule for Ireland, if it were ever seriously pressed, would involve in the way of the cantonising of the United Kingdom. " Erigena," writing to last Saturday's Times, points out that in Sir William Petty's "Political Anatomy of Ireland," published in 1672, he wrote as follows :— "If it be for the good of England to keep Ireland a distinct kingdom, why do not the predominant party in Parliament (suppose the Western Members) make England beyond Trent another kingdom, under commerce, and take tolls and customs upon the borders ? Or why was there ever union between England and Wales, the good effects and fruits whereof were never questioned ? And why may not the entire kingdom of England be farther cantonised, for the advantage of parties ?' That is a very accurate presage of what will happen now if "Home-rule for Ireland" leads, as Mr. Dalziel got the House of Commons a fortnight ago to declare that it ought to lead, to "Home-rule all round." No doubt "the entire Kingdom of England would be further cantonised for the advantage of parties," and still more for the advantage of our Continental foes. It is not often that political foresight passes so nimbly over an interval of more than two hundred and twenty years.
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