Lord Rosebery made three speeches in Glasgow on Wednes- day.
In the first, at the luncheon given to the delegates attending the Annual Conference of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture, be delivered, as the honorary president of the Chamber, a most powerful and exhaustive criticism of the Scottish Small Landholders Bill. After having shown its impracticability, its injustice, and the extreme dangers and inconveniences which must arise from the establishment of dual ownership, he pointed out how absolute a negation of the principles of Free-trade, which the Government were brought into power to support, was involved in the measure. It meant complete interference with the laws of supply and demand. " They are going to make a small protected class of peasants in the midst of an unprotected class of peasants. All this they are going to do against the laws of political economy; and I say, if they wish to do that, that I do not deny them. their right to attempt it, but they should pay for it." We agree. The Government have no right to treat the principles of free exchange as if they were applicable only to oversea commerce, and any attempt to do so must end in disaster.
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