At the meeting of the Women's Liberal Unionist Associa- tion
held in St. George's Hall, Langham Place, on Tuesday, the Duke of Devonshire very properly reminded hie audience that "so long as the demand for Home-rule is still put for- ward through its representatives in Parliament by a consider- able majority of the people of one of the kingdoms which form the United Kingdom, so long as there are votes to be gained or to be retained by promises—however vague, how- ever indefinite, however insincere—of the sacrifice of the unity of the United Kingdom and of the supremacy of Parliament, so long as this state of things continues to exist, it would be imprudent and rash on our part to assume that a policy will never be adopted again by any party which at no very distant period seemed to be so near attaining success." That, in our opinion, is a most important warning, and we agree also with the Duke of Devonshire when he dwells with great and special force on the necessity for maintaining the unity of the citadel of Empire in the interests of the whole Empire. Yet, strangely enough, the man who specially arro- gates to himself the appellation of an Imperialist—Mr. Rhodes —the man whom we are all asked to bow down to as a pillar of the Empire, recklessly sent £10,000 to men who were engaged in a conspiracy to break up the union of these islands, and thus supplied them with the sinews of war at the moment when our struggle to overcome disruption was at its hardest and bitterest. If the Duke of Devonshire's view is the true one, what are we to say of Mr. Rhodes's action P
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