The Federalist policy of the Home-rulers is announced authoritatively at
last. The first definite signal was given by Mr. Asquith, in a speech at the Oxford University Palmerston Club dinner, at the Oxford Town Hall, last Saturday. The retention of the Irish Members, he said, in the Parliament of Westminster was now admitted to be necessary ; and this admission involved political consequences. "Either the retention of the Irish Members at Westminster must be pro- visional, or the retention of English and Scotch local business in the Imperial Parliament must be provisional. He was strongly of the latter opinion, and he believed that Irish Home-rule must be presented to the country as the first step in a process of devolution and delegation which must, sooner or later, be applied (not necessarily in the same form) to the other parts of the United Kingdom. This was the true way of combining Imperial union with local liberty. But on this and many other points the party looked for, and had a right to expect, guidance from its trusted leaders." That speech showed us that we were on the eve of a public announcement of Mr. Gladstone's new policy, and the announcement came in the speech at St. Austell on Wednesday, when the claims of Scotland and Wales to local Parliaments were asserted, and asserted especially in connection with the question of Church Disestablishment. Strange that the parcelling of the United Kingdom should have been first authoritatively demanded at the Palmerston Club ! We shall expect next to have the nationalisation of the land demanded at a Salisbury Club.
