At the annual meeting of the Midlothian Liberal Asaoeia- tion,
held on Wednesday, a letter was read from Mr. Glad- stone, in which he laments that in consequence of the mistake made by the constituencies in 1886, the country will have to wait for several years before it can undo the mischief it then did, and treats the Act establishing a seven-years' duration for Parliaments as the one stronghold of the present Adminis- tration. Mr. Gladstone congratulates himself that the policy which was rejected by the nation for Ireland in 1886 has nevertheless had the effect of stimulating a strong feeling of nationality in Wales and Scotland. Is he so sure that it has done so ? It has compelled the Home-rule Party to assume that such a feeling has grown up in Wales and Scotland ; and for anything we know, such a Particularist feeling may have arisen. But as yet we have no proof of it, and if it has, the country has as much reason for congratulating itself upon it as France would have for self-congratulation if Brittany and Provence raised a cry for the disruption of France.
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