We publish' elsewhere an interesting letter from Colonel Mildmay, the
Unionist candidate in South Devon. Colonel Mildmay gives with great force the reasons, which we have also constantly urged in these columns, for retaining the name of Unionist for the Conservative, Constitutional, Centre Party now gathered round Mr. Bona'. Law. Surely there could not be a better name. It is true thatthe union with Southern Ireland, but not, of course, with Northern Ireland, has ceased to exist ; but the Unionist Party always stood for a great deal more than the Act of Union of 1800. It stands for that position in regard to the State and its affairs for which Lincoln also stood. Walt Whitman, in a notable passage written several years after Lincoln's death, says that one of the greatest things about Lincoln was that he discovered the new political virtue of unionism, meaning thereby the art of maintaining, not merely the geographical integrity of the State, but its solidarity and homogeneity in opposition to the tendency to dissipation and "fissiparousness" in social and political life. Can a Centre, Moderate, and Constitutional Party stand for anything better than this ? Therefore, let us call ourselves Unionists and be Unionists for the nation and the Empire.
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