The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who unveiled a tablet to
the memory of Mr. Thomas Ellis at a chapel near Bala on Tuesday, paid a generous tribute to the patriotism, sincerity, and high principle of the late Liberal Whip. He concluded with a glowing forecast of the future of Wales :—" Some of us may live to see with our own eyes a Wales that is independent and free; a Wales fearing God and no one else." Viewed by itself, this statement might not have attracted serious attention, especially as Mr. Lloyd George was speaking in Welsh. But it is impossible' to regard it as an irresponsible effusion in view of the speech delivered on the same occasion by the Master of Elibank, in which the following passage occurred Who knew that, with the evolution of Government and the increasingly heavy responsibilities thrown upon the Mother .of Parliaments, the time was not far distant when, as in our English-speaking Commonwealths across the seas, both Saxon and Celt would be called upon within our shores, and under a Parlianientary system, to give free exercise to that genius of self-government with which Providence had so highly endowed them ? " Taken in connexion with Mr. Birrell's speech to the Eighty Club on July 25th on the same lines, the Master of Elibank's forecast has not unnaturally been interpreted by the Radical Press as foreshadowing the ultimate inclusion of "Home-rule all round" in the Liberal Party programme.
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