CHAPTER VI.

SCOTLAND AND IRELAND.

I. SCOTLAND.

THE accentuation of differences among Liberal leaders, which issued in Lord Rosebery's letter to the Times in February announcing, or accepting, a "definite separation" between himself and Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, was, perhaps, taken more seriously by the rank and file of the party concerned in North than in South Britain. It was in Glasgow that Lord Rosebery addressed his first important meeting after that declaration, and expounded the objects of the Liberal League formed to permeate the Liberal party, from within, with the views and temper of a sane Imperialism; and in the same city there was early formed a branch of the new organisation. Another sprang up in Edinburgh, and the members of both bodies. evolved an amount of activity fully equalling, if not surpassing, the subsequent desires of the Liberal Imperialist leaders. Towards the neutralisation of the influences brought to bear by the Liberal Leaguers, and the maintenance of the party on more purely Gladstonian lines, the efforts of a society calling themselves the Young Scots were directed. No opinion could with much confidence be hazarded as to the comparative success of these competing propagandas, but there could be no doubt that that of the Liberal League was more in harmony than its rivals' with the temper which the Scottish people had for years shown on Imperial questions. Neither of them appeared to come up to the political standards of the majority of those really young Scots who, with or without the aid furnished by Mr. Carnegie's benefaction, were receiving the highest academic training. For while in England, whether in consequence of discontent at the Education Bill, or the corn duty, or out of mere desire for a change, or the hope that another set of Ministers would be more efficient, the electors in several constituencies exhibited a decided growth of anti-Ministerial feeling, at the Scottish universities there was a distinctly Unionist demonstration. At Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh, Mr. Ritchie, Mr. Wyndham and Sir Robert Finlay were elected Lord Rectors against Mr. Asquith, Mr. Morley and Sir Edward Grey respectively. To set against these moral and prospective gains, however, the Ministerial party lost one actual Scottish seat-that for Orkney and Shetland. For these island groups Mr. J. C. Wason was returned in 1900 as a Liberal Unionist. In the summer of 1900 he went into Opposition with reference to the Education. Bill and other matters, and after a certain interval resigned his seat and offered himself again to the constituency as an Independent Liberal. He was returned in October by a much

increased majority, the votes recorded for him being 2,412 as against 2,001 for Mr. McKinnon Wood, the official Liberal candidate, and 740 for Mr. T. W. S. Angier (C.).

In commerce and manufactures the year was on the whole a good one for Scotland, the shipbuilding, iron and steel, and mining industries all having been prosperous, and happily free from serious labour disputes. The trade outlook, however, was not considered generally promising for 1903. In Glasgow the year was marked by an active agitation conducted by a body calling itself the Citizens' Union, against the policy of municipal socialism, particularly as embodied in a great housing scheme on the part of the Corporation, which was to involve the purchase of fifty acres within or without the city, and power to expend three quarters of a million. The results of the municipal elections at the beginning of November were not altogether decisive, as, while the candidates favourable to municipalisation on a large scale were on the whole victorious, the most influential exponent of that policy, Lord Provost Chisholm, was beaten by over 1,000 votes by Mr. Scott Gibson, in the Woodside Ward. A few days later, however, the housing project of the Corporation received for the time, at any rate, a fatal blow by the decision of the Parliamentary Commissioners who, under the Scottish Private Bill Procedure Regulations, had inquired into the Provisional Order promoted by the Corporation. The Commissioners found the preamble, so far as concerned the acquisition of land, not proved, and only authorised the raising of 150,000l. (instead of 750,000l.) with a view to completing certain housing schemes connected with the Act obtained by the Corporation in 1897.

The fourth report of the Scottish Congested Districts Board for the year ending March 31, 1902, bore testimony to the continued prosecution of much beneficent work in the Highlands and Islands. This included the enlargement of crofters' holdings, and the creation of new holdings, on the mainland and in the islands, the distribution of potato seed and seed oats, the conduct of potato-spraying experiments, advantageous in regard alike to yield and to protection from blight, in the outer Hebrides, the encouragement of a beginning in the cultivation of turnips and other vegetables in Lewis, additions to the number of rams, bulls and stallions available for use in the congested districts, and grants for boatslips, pier additions, beacons, guiding lights, and other marine works at various places on the wild Northern coasts. The income of the Board for the year (including a balance of 61,8677. at April 1, 1901) was 115,2421., and the expenditure 43,4841. (of which 11,8831., being loans, would be repaid to the Board), leaving a balance of 71,7587.

A further attempt on the part of the small dissentient minority of the Free Church to secure the funds and property held by the Free Church before its union with the United Presbyterian Church was defeated by the Second Division of

the Court of Session, which decided (July 4) that the regularity of the proceedings on the part of the majority of the Free Church Assembly leading up to the formation of the United Free Church could not be impugned. The peace of the United Church was much disturbed by an attempt to "libel" for heresy, in connection with Higher Criticism of the Old Testament, Dr. George Adam Smith, a highly esteemed professor in the Church's theological seminary at Glasgow. The proceedings with that object failed, both in the college committee, which supervises the United Free Church seminaries, and afterwards in the General Assembly, where by a large majority a motion endorsing the finding of the college committee, while mildly suggesting a little more prudence to Professor Smith in future, was carried against a resolution for further investigation. It was observed with concern, however, that the Sustentation Fund of the United Free Church was on a down grade.

II. IRELAND.

At its close it seemed conceivable that the year 1902 would be reckoned one of exceptional importance in Irish history, as having furnished a turning-point whence a start had become really possible towards a social and economic development happier than Ireland had hitherto known. But much of its course was gloomy and menacing in a high degree. Several Members of Parliament had been prosecuted before resident magistrates in December, 1901, for taking part in unlawful assemblies in connection with the agrarian agitation of the United Irish League, and sentenced to short terms of imprisonment. It did not lessen the difficulties of the Government, in attempting to deal with the agitation under the ordinary law, that when some of these cases came before the Irish High Court on appeal in February, while the convictions were indeed confirmed, Chief Baron Palles, a judge highly respected for his independence and learning, dissented, and pronounced it as his opinion that the proceedings were illegal and void. Only a few days later, at the Spring Assizes at Sligo, Carrick-on-Shannon, Nenagh and Longford, attention was directed by the judges (Justices Andrews, Kenny, Madden and Lord Justice FitzGibbon), in addressing the Grand Juries, to the increasing prevalence of boycotting and combinations interfering with personal liberty. There was no doubt that the strength of the United Irish League organisation was growing and its spirit becoming increasingly defiant. According to its own published statements (April 2) as many as sixty new branches were formed in the first three months of the year and hundreds of those established had contributed to a special fund for the defence of persons who might be prosecuted under the Crimes Act. the annual meeting in Dublin (April 10) of the Irish Unionist Alliance very strong observations were made, in the report of

the Executive Committee and by well-known speakers like Professor Dowden and Mr. Macartney, M.P., as to the urgent necessity for an employment by the Government of the powers in their possession for the protection of loyal and law-abiding citizens.

No surprise indeed was felt in any quarter when the LordLieutenant issued proclamations (April 16) putting into force several of the leading provisions of the Crimes Act of 1887, relating to special juries, change of venue, and summary jurisdiction in cases of intimidation and illegal conspiracy, over extensive areas. They included, with some variation as to the powers called into requisition in different places, the counties of Cavan, Clare, Cork, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary and Waterford, and the cities of Cork and Waterford. This step on the part of the Government was received with speeches of more than usual violence on the part of Nationalist politicians. Shortly before it was taken the announcement had been made that, acting on the advice of his Ministers, the King had decided not to visit Ireland (as he had contemplated doing) during the year. Doubts were felt among British Unionists on the question of, as it might be thought, punishing Ireland socially for the display of discourtesy and even brutality on the part of a group of politicians on the occasion of the announcement of Lord Methuen's disaster (see p. 86); but when the Irish situation as a whole was considered, it appeared very possible that the advice given to his Majesty was, in truth, most in accord with his comfort and the fitness of things.

The situation did not improve during the summer; indeed, it appeared in some respects to become increasingly strained. A number of evictions took place on the Frenchpark Estate of Lord De Freyne in County Sligo. It was hardly alleged that the De Freyne tenantry could not pay their rents as reduced by the Land Courts, but only that it was intolerable that they should see near neighbours paying at rates, either in rent or in purchase instalments, still further reduced as compared with their own burdens, through the action of the Congested Districts Board, who had bought the adjoining estate from Lord Dillon.

In connection with this dispute, evidence was afforded of efforts towards a concentration of forces on the landlords' side with a view to more aggressive action against the United League. Lord De Freyne, it was announced, would seek injunctions in the High Court against Mr. Redmond and other Parliamentary members of the League to restrain them from interfering with his tenants and inciting them to resist lawful demands, and it was understood that this step was taken in pursuance of the policy of a new Landlords Trust, formed (with the hope of securing a capital of 100,000l.) for the purpose of defending the rights of all law-abiding people against organised intimidation. Mr. Redmond and his friends replied with notices of legal proceedings against the chief members of the

Landlords' Trust. At the same time the campaign of the League was vigorously prosecuted in the country, and was powerfully aided by the publication in newspapers of notices of boycotting sentences directed against individuals who failed to obey the injunctions of the local branches of the organisation. It was with the special object of checking this practice, as pursued in particular by Mr. William O'Brien's paper, the Irish People, that in a proclamation (Sept. 1) further extending the operation of the Crimes Act, and making the total area so dealt with more than half of Ireland, the city of Dublin was included. At a great demonstration in the Phoenix Park this action on the part of the Executive was denounced as a flagrant insult to an exceptionally orderly and crimeless community; and Mr. Wyndham, the Chief Secretary, who had lately become a member of the Cabinet, which did not include Lord Dudley, who had been appointed to succeed Lord Cadogan as Viceroy, was held up as the principal object of public reprobation. The action taken, however, under the Crimes Act proclamations, for the prevention of the newspaper publication of boycotting notices from Dublin as well as other centres, and the general pressure exercised by summary prosecutions and sentences, not very severe but very inconvenient and disagreeable, against the local organisers of intimidation up and down the country, unquestionably exercised a very considerable effect in checking the agrarian agitation.

Meanwhile, however, there had appeared indications, at first mainly on the landlords' side, and, as it seemed, in not very influential quarters, of a desire to seek a termination of the agelong dispute between themselves and their tenants, if that could be done on other conditions than those of financial ruin to themselves. In August Captain Shawe-Taylor, of Castle Taylor, County Galway, addressed a letter to a number of landlords and to Mr. Redmond and other professed exponents of the tenants' point of view, proposing that a conference should be held between a few selected representatives of both sides with a view to a settlement. The published replies which he received from leading men on either side appeared by no means encouraging. He was not to be discouraged, however, and about the same time some landlords in the South-West, including Mr. TalbotCrosbie, of Ardfert Abbey, and Mr. S. H. Butcher, met together and passed resolutions in favour of a conference with representatives of the tenants as to the terms on which the latter might fairly become proprietors. The movement thus started went forward, despite the frowns of great proprietors, and even the scornful suggestion made by Mr. Redmond, speaking at Waterford (Sept. 11), that it was a "white flag" held out by a section of landlords. It was encouraged rather than otherwise by the terms of a brief statement on the subject issued a few days earlier by the Chief Secretary. "No Government," he said, "could settle the Irish land question, it must be settled' by