AMERICANS have grown used to the perennial British 3conomic crisis and have even grown bored with it; what comes as a surprise to even the best-informed in the United States is the possibility that the United Kingdom, as we now know it, may be in its death throes and may turn into a federal state or two or more separate ones. Irish nationalism and the Irish case against British misrule and indifference are well-known. The new brands of Celtic nationalism are less familiar and so less understood. This article tries to outline some of the main rhetorical postures of the nationalists and the causes for the growing disaffection between London and its so-called Celtic fringes. There are nationalist parties in Cornwall (an English county) and the Isle of Man, but these have made no real impact, even at a local level. The case is quite different in Scotland and Wales, where the national parties, although still commanding a minority of public support, constitute the leading political forces in both regions. At the moment, the three main British parties, Labour, Conservative, and Liberal, are reacting to the nationalist challenge with varying degrees of rage and bafflement. Because of the nationalist successes in parliamentary and local elections, the British Parliament finds itself spending a disproportionate amount of time discussing Scottish and Welsh problems and debating the Labour Government's proposals for limited home rule (or devolution: the new anodyne word in favor).

At this stage, it would be rash to offer any prediction as to the form this limited home rule will take; despite the Labour government's successful passage in November of a bill to give