CHAPTER VI.

SCOTLAND AND IRELAND.

I. SCOTLAND.

BOTH politically and ecclesiastically 1900 was a memorable year in Scotland. In 1899 there had been seen indications at once of the strength of Liberalism at home, as illustrated by several bye-elections, and of Imperial feeling in relation to external affairs. In the last year of the century these two currents of feeling were destined to come into conflict. The Imperial section of the Scottish Liberal party found exponents of conspicuous ability and weight in Lord Rosebery and Mr. Asquith. Their clearly defined attitude on all questions relating to the South African war brought into sharper relief the persistence of a very different temper among other influential members of the Opposition like Mr. Morley, Mr. Bryce and Sir Robert Reid, and even Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Nowhere, probably, was the extraordinary exhibition of Liberal disunion, afforded by the division (July 25) on the motion for the reduction of Mr. Chamberlain's salary, taken to heart more seriously than in Scotland. More sorrowfully, it may be, but not less surely than in England did large numbers of electors in Scotland who had never before given anything but a Liberal vote conclude that the party, uncertainly led and certainly not controlled by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman at Westminster, had for the moment shown itself disqualified for the conduct of Imperial affairs. This conclusion was not modified by the efforts of Liberal candidates of divergent sections to minimise their differences when the dissolution of Parliament was declared. Thus when the polls were closed it was found that, for the first time since the Reform Bill of 1832, Liberals had failed to obtain a majority among the representatives of North Britain, having lost eight seats-East Aberdeenshire, Edinburgh (South), Dumfriesshire, the Blackfriars and Bridgeton divisions of Glasgow, Sutherlandshire, Orkney and Shetland, and the Wick Burghs, and gained only one-Inverness-shire. Thus a Liberal majority of ten in the representation of Scotland was turned into a Unionist majority of four.

The solid support given to the Unionist Government by the commercial and industrial metropolis of the country, not a single Liberal being returned by the seven divisions of Glasgow, gave to the result of the Scottish elections more than a local interest. Some of its aspects were indicated in an interesting speech made at Leith (Nov. 19) by Mr. Munro-Ferguson, who had shortly before resigned the office of Liberal whip. Two days after Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, speaking at Dundee, had maintained that four-fifths of the Liberal party were in substantial agreement on Imperial questions, and had condemned

the exclusive attitude of the Liberal Imperial Council, Mr.. Munro-Ferguson, a strong Imperialist, declared that it was futile to keep up the appearance of cohesion in the Liberal party when there was no such unity of purpose. He added that personally he saw no ground for alarm in the tendency of the various sections of the party to act independently. On the contrary he believed that that course offered the surest hope of ultimate success, "for the strongest group would attract support, it would come to represent the party, and so an Opposition would be formed which would eventually make a Government.' In the extreme north the indignation already aroused among his constituents in Caithness-shire against Dr. Clark by his pro-Boer attitude was intensified by the appearance of his letters in the correspondence found at Bloemfontein (page 189), and resulted in his decisive rejection at the poll. Nevertheless the Liberalism of the far northern county still declared itself; the successful candidate, Mr. R. L. Harmsworth, a Liberal Imperialist, polling 1,189 against 1,161 for Mr. D. Henderson, a Conservative, while Dr. Clark only obtained 673 votes, and another Liberal, Mr. F. C. Auld, 141. On the other hand, Orkney and Shetland, for the first time in sixtythree years, rejected a Liberal candidate; Sir Leonard Lyell, who had sat for the islands since the last Reform Act, only polling 2,017 votes against 2,057 recorded for his Unionist opponent, Mr. J. C. Wason.

The main determining element of the elections of 1900 in Scotland was, no doubt, the war in South Africa. The Unionists were, however, appreciably aided by the general satisfaction felt at the recent course of legislation affecting Scotland. This embraced the new scheme of procedure enacted with regard to Scottish Private Bills and the Agricultural Holdings Act Amendment Act, by which the machinery for settling differences between landlord and tenant was greatly simplified and the cost reduced.

The confident expectations cherished at the close of 1899 as to the approaching consummation of the union between the two principal Presbyterian bodies outside the Established Church of Scotland were realised in 1900. At the May meetings of the leading representative courts of the Free Church and the United Presbyterian Church the final arrangements for the formal act of union were considered and determined—an attempt on the part of a number of lay office-bearers of the Free Church to secure delay with a view to a direct referendum to the constituent congregations being overruled. The General Assembly of the Free Church and the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church held their last separate meetings on October 30, when the resolution for union was carried by 643 against 27 votes in the former, and unanimously in the latter body. On the following day they formally constituted themselves the "United Free Church of Scotland," in the

Waverley Market, in presence of an audience computed to number 6,000 persons. Principal Rainy, of the Edinburgh Free Church College, the chief promoter of the fusion from his own side-while Professor Orr had been the most conspicuous leader of the movement from that of the “U. P.'s "—was elected first Moderator of the Assembly of the new denomination.

The opponents of the union, though unable to stop the action of the representative bodies of the uniting Churches, were not wholly silenced. Their strength lay chiefly in the Highlands and Islands, where Free Churchism of the older type had persisted much more extensively than in the south. There were a few individual Lowland Free Church congregations in which feeling was very strongly divided on the question of union with the United Presbyterians; but the only Presbyteries which finally withheld their collective approbation from that step were those of Dingwall, Lochcarron, Skye and Inveraray. The total number of the dissentients was not known, but it was considerable enough for them to resolve not only to carry on a distinct corporate existence, but to initiate litigation with a view to the establishment of their title, as the true "Free Church of Scotland," to the edifices and property of the whole of the original Free Church founded at the Disruption in 1843. Assuming that no such catastrophe as the judicial endorsement of this claim happened, there seemed to be every prospect of important economies in effort and expenditure for religious purposes as the result of the fusion. Naturally there were not wanting prophets of dissension and even secession as likely to grow out of the questions of practice and even of principle left over by the uniting bodies for the decision of the United Church. However that might be, it seemed possible that the fusion of the chief outside Presbyterian bodies might lead to a suspension and conceivably a permanent cessation of the agitation for the disestablishment of the national Church of Scotland.

Commercially and industrially, 1900 was in the main a prosperous year for Scotland. In most of the principal departments of manufacture of metal products there was a great abundance of work. The output of the shipbuilding yards fell short by only a few thousand tons of the splendid "record" of 1899. A total surpassing all previous Scottish figures, and also those of England for the year, was attained by the locomotive builders north of the Tweed. The makers of pig-iron, on the other hand, and the manufacturers of malleable iron and steel, were increasingly hampered by the extraordinarily high prices of fuel. And the steel makers found themselves subjected to the competition of the products of foreign and particularly American furnaces at rates which, under existing conditions, it was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to meet. The coal-miners, like their employers, had a remarkably good year. In the textile trades, except in the case of the Dundee jute manufactures, there was a marked falling off in prosperity and in the amount of work required in the latter part of the year.

II. IRELAND.

The three prominent incidents of the Irish history of 1900 were the unexpected visit of Queen Victoria, the development of schisms in the Unionist party, and the apparent consolidation of the forces of Nationalism under the leadership of Mr. William O'Brien. The Queen's visit was understood to spring entirely from her own initiative. Its announcement was led up to by an extremely felicitous act of Royal grace-the intimation that it was her Majesty's pleasure that on St. Patrick's Day, and on all future anniversaries of the day, all the Irish soldiers in her Army should wear a sprig of shamrock in memory of the gallantry of their countrymen in South Africa. Thus a periodically recurring source of irritation between Irish soldiers and their commanding officers was converted by the Queen's intuitive perception into an occasion for the innocent gratification of national feeling.

A few days later it was announced that instead of paying a spring visit as in several recent years to the south of France the Queen proposed to make a sojourn in Ireland. In deciding on this step her Majesty was in no way prompted by political motives, her sole desire being to show her personal interest in her Irish people and to give them an opportunity of coming into direct personal relationship with herself. This being recognised, no check was placed upon the disposition of the Irish people to give the Queen a welcome worthy of her and of themselves. There were some indeed who did what they could to discourage anything beyond the most frigidly civil reception of Ireland's illustrious visitor. Even Mr. John Redmond, while adopting a conciliatory tone in Parliament, wrote a letter to the papers declaring that an address to the Sovereign from the Dublin Corporation must be "either an insult or a lie." Pressure, too, was brought to bear in the same sense upon all Nationalist members of that body by persons of irreconcilable temper. Nevertheless an address was adopted by 30 votes to 22, offering to her Majesty "a hearty welcome on her arrival in the capital city of her kingdom in Ireland," in the assurance that she "came amongst the Irish people above and apart from all political questions.' The Queen signified her pleasure to receive this address, and it was presented to her (April 4) by the Lord Mayor and corporation at the city boundary, together with the keys of the city and the civic sword. About half the members of the corporation, it is true, absented themselves from this ceremony, but the reception given to the Queen all along the route by which she drove from Kingstown pier through Dublin to the Viceregal Lodge showed that popular sympathy was with those aldermen and councillors who had reciprocated the goodwill avowedly expressed by the royal visit. The decorations of houses were abundant and in excellent taste, and the immense crowds which assembled along the line of her Majesty's progress

were always courteous, generally very cordial, and in many cases enthusiastic in their welcome. Her gracious bearing, her thoughtfulness for the feelings of all classes, and the confidence with which she had thrown herself on the chivalry of her Irish subjects appealed to their warm-hearted nature.

During her stay, lasting three weeks, she remained all the time at the Viceregal Lodge, whence she made drives through much of the beautiful scenery round Dublin, and visited without distinction of creed the principal charitable institutions of the capital and its neighbourhood. When on one or two occasions her drives took her through portions of the city, the Queen received a most hearty popular welcome. So she did, notably, at a review held by her Majesty in the Phoenix Park of some 6,000 soldiers, sailors and marines under the command of the Duke of Connaught. The Queen, with the Princesses Helena and Beatrice, who had accompanied her on her visit, left Dublin (April 26) amid the most cordial demonstrations of goodwill from all classes. In a most graciously worded letter, dated from the Viceregal Lodge on the previous day, her Majesty expressed through the Lord-Lieutenant to "her Irish people how very much gratified and deeply touched she had been by her reception." It was felt on all hands that while political questions remained unaffected, the Queen's visit had increased the ties of sympathy and the hopes of mutual understanding between England and Ireland.

During the year that unifying process at work among the Nationalists in the previous twelve months appeared to make further progress. At Westminster during the ordinary session the pact, the outcome of repeated conciliation conferences, was adhered to with loyalty. But more important was the power evolved, at any rate for electioneering purposes, in Nationalist constituencies by Mr. William O'Brien, and that “United Irish League" of which he was the principal founder. This organisation, though its original object was limited to the extension of the holdings of small peasant-farmers in the west at the expense of the large grazing farms, appeared to attract to itself much of the popular support and confidence given in Mr. Parnell's time to the Land League. Agriculturally the year was a fairly good one. Almost all crops were up to the average except the potatoes, and they did well enough where the plants were sprayed with the chemical preparations which the Agricultural Department made everywhere easily obtainable. Practical grievances therefore were not extensively available for the use of agitators. The growth in strength of the United Irish League was explicable partly by the adoption by Mr. O'Brien of the propaganda of compulsory sale to the tenants on easy terms of the holdings in which the great majority of them were doing very comfortably; and partly by a belief that in it lay the most effective means of annoying the British Government. In any case the league's strength grew