ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the split of the Liberal Party in 1886 and the consequent home rule politics of the Gladstonian party supported by regional movements in Scotland and Wales was a modern way to continue the old style of territorial management of benign neglect of local affairs whilst entrusting local elites with their control. It analyses the different concepts of 'home rule all round' and their relation to specific Scottish conditions. The chapter points out that, in the wake of the First World War, further democratisation and social and economic problems shifted the focus of political reform to social reconstruction. Consequently, the idea of home rule all round lost attraction and all the more so after Southern Ireland left the Union and became a dominion in 1921. The consequences of the Reform Act of 1884 on the parliamentary arithmetic of late Victorian Britain meant that the Irish question could no longer be ignored.
