Mr. Alfred Henriques, who stood as a Liberal candidate for-
Walworth in 1885, and has since become a Home-ruler, writes to Mr. Chamberlain, in a letter published on Tuesday, that he is compelled to abandon Mr. Gladstone's party and ally himself with the Radical Unionists, giving as his reason that Mr. Glad- stone's speeches in South Wales were conceived in the mood of one who wished to raise the spirit of separate nationality in Wales and Scotland to a level with its spirit in Ireland, instead of to tone down the claims of national independence in Ireland to a level with the same claims as put forward in Wales and Scotland. "The impression made on my mind by a perusal of Mr. Gladstone's Welsh speeches was that the principle of nationality, if pressed to its logical outcome, would involve some very remarkable conclusions, and that the policy he advo- • cated was far better fitted to promote political agitation than to secure the ends of orderly government." "It is imperative," says Mr. Henriques, "that the Union should be maintained." Mr. Pitt was forced into the Union by the war with France, and in case of any future war of that magnitude, the smallest risk of separate action upon the part of Ireland would endanger the Empire. Mr. Henriques is right; but the Empire is even more endangered by conceding in principle the right of separate national organisation, than by the actual struggle when it breaks out.
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