The second respect in which Mr. Churchill fatally shows up
the Home Rule Bill is in pretending that it is the jumping-off ground for a vast system of federalism. The Home Rule Bill is entirely anti-federal in character. It admits the local management of Customs and the Post Office, which is a prin- ciple unknown to any federal system in the world. Mr. Churchill's definition of possible areas for parliaments is as wild as anything that has ever come from a responsible British statesman. We notice that the Manchester Guardian
at once points out the absurdity, for example, of imagining that "Lancashire" is a distinct and peculiar area.
"Lancashire is not a single unit, nor is Yorkshire. East Lanca- shire has more in common with the West Rifling of Yorkshire than with West Lancashire, or than the West Riding has with the North. Liverpool is from some points of view the natural capital of Wales rather than a part of Lancashire, and the rest of the Lancashire plain in the West and North has more in common with tho North Riding of Yorkshire than with the industrial hill districts of the East."
How the finance of the prodigious nightmare is to work is, of course, not mentioned. Mr. Churchill desires not only to go back to the Heptaxchy, but to multiply its disadvantages by giving us a Decarchy or a Dodecarchy.
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