HOW SCOTLAND FOUGHT.

Evening Star, Issue 12763, 16 March 1906, Page 1

HOW SCOTLAND FOUGHT.

The Rev.- J. Baxr, of Glasgow, supplies .the ‘British Weekly ’ with a summary erf the late election campaign in Scotland, from which we take the following: “ A revolt! Sire, this is a Revolution." Such were the words Hashed on my mind as on the night of the Glasgow elections I looked down from a window in George square on the vast multitude gathered to await the polling results, as these wore nightly thrown on the screen ' by the proprietors of the ‘ Daily Record and Mail.’ Never had such a crowd been seen in the city. I could nob help noticing that the loudest cheers of .ah went up when the picture of Gladstone was thrown on the screen, for were we not back again in the triumphal days of the Midlothian campaign? The same enthusiasm swayed every hamiet in the land. I know a village in. Perthshire, with 700 inhabitanis, where every voter went to the poll with the exception of an old man who was seriously ill. In the parish of Fenwick, Ayrshire, a famous old weaver, who will be a hundred years old next May, was driven two miles to the poll. IFo remembers the Radical uprising of 1819,' but never, save iu 1832, has he seen anything to compare with the present free flow of Liberalism. We were lately told that in the English deluge the Ark had found an .Ararat on the lofty peak of Birmingham. There is no Ararat in Scotland. We have an u Arthur’s Seat,” but no Arthur. Our Ark has something like the “ eight souls ” of Noah’s salvage., But, indeed, with us. Ark and all >.s gone, and, as in Virgil’s shipwreck, we see only a few survivors here and there in. the vast whirlpool— Apparent ran nantes in gurgito vasto. Nothing in Scotland could withstand the onrush of the Liberal flood. The boast of heraldry, patents of ancient. lineage, were all in vam; the Scottish nobility were thrust rudely aside. Sir John Stirling Maxwell, of - Pollok, was swept out of Glasgow; the Marquis of Tulhbardiue (son of the Duke of Athol) out of East Perthshire; LcvesonGower, of the House of Sutherland, out of that shire; and the Marquis of Graham (the eldest son of the Duke of Montrose) out of the county of Stirling. Immemorial monopoly of a seat, indispensable services, were of no avail, for Kirkcudbright is without Sir Mark Stewart. Peebles and Selkirk have dispensed with Sir Walter Thorbum, and East Renfrew is to get along without Sr Hugh Shaw Stewart. Ancient methods of granting sites for churches have not sufficed, for Momrose Burghs preferred John Moriey to Colonel Sprot. Tariff Reform locks and bridges were ail carried away in the flood: Bonar Law is out of Blackfriars, and Parker Smith is swept down the Clyde. The liquor power, said to be irresistible, has proved weak as tow, for Forfarshire gave Captain Sinclair a 3,519 majority over J. M. Bernard. But there still remained in Scotland one influential body, one potent leader who could rescue some seats from the, flood. Clad in Radical attire, Mr MNeilagc came forth with the. sound of the pibroch and the calling of men to rally the Free Kirk hosts in the wilds of Inverness, and Cromarty, and Ross. But at sight of Mr M'Neilage the battle forthwith was changed into a race, there was .a, stampede of voters to the banners of Dewar and Weir, who camehome with majorities of 2,108 and 2,112. Of seventy-two scabs in Scotland the Conservatives at last election held thirty-eight, having for the first time secured a majority of the representation. On the poll now declared there are fifty-seven Liberals, two Labor representatives, and ten. Conservatives, We have carried every constituency north of the Forth with the exception of Wick Burghs and St. Andrews, where opinion has always been so finely balanced that in lAS there was a political tie, while to-day thc^Conservativo holds the seat by the precatiouifspiajority of twenty-three. In some Nortfetfn constituencies a notable feature has been the attenuated support accorded the Conservatives; they had 931 in North Aberdeen, 786 in Elgin Burghs, and 483 all told in Caithness-shize. On the other side, Scotland almost rivals England in the matter of mammoth majorities. Mr Hope had 4,916 in West Fife, Mr McKinnon Wood 3,405 in Glasgow, Mr M'Crae had 4,174 in Edinburgh, Mr Bryce had 4,446 in Aberdeen, and Mr Robertson 5,411 over the highest Conservative in Dundee. The quality of the defeats, again, was as notable as their dimensions, tjnfortunately, we had no one of Cabinet rank on whom we might lay our hands, but wherever there was a late Minister of the Crown we defeated him. We threw out the Attorney-General in Inverness, the Lord-Advocate in Bridgeton, and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade in the Blackfriars Division. Of the ten Conservatives now returned, no fewer than four owe their seats to a divided Progressive vote. Of the ten Labor candL :d*tes in Scotland* not ons escaped, a-direc-

i In future ejections it wffl b ® ® e< ?S m£ed there are Scotch i constrtpeocKo for which Labor can present indisputable claim. As it is, ScothutiAas /reason to be highly satisfied with her first two menrt«rs returned under the Labor Ecpmsentytaon Committee. Mr Alexander Wilkie. . of the Shipowners’ Society, at the -great re' v ceptaon he received in Newcastle after his rdturii for Dundee, declared that ho was ,as strong a. Liberal as anyone, and only wanted : Adbcrals to assist them to carry out their programme. And the victory of Mr Barnes . a Blwmis was a popular one, not, only with Labor men, but also with many Liborals. One United Free Chmssh minister informed me that he .had been working for Mr Barnes among his friends who had votes in the division. •. , ,