On September 29th Sir George Younger made an important speech
to a meeting of representative Scottish Unionists at Glasgow. We are rather surprised to read his reference to Lord Salisbury and his supporters as "out to make trouble in the party, and probably to create a somewhat serious split." We are sure that this remark, uttered no doubt in haste and under the pressure of that irritation which is apt to affect party managers when they talk about an approaching election, does not fairly represent Sir George Younger's considered judgment of Lord Salisbury's motives. Both of them are really working for the establishment of that broad and truly Imperial Unionism by which alone this country can present a solid front to the stormy waves which are beating upon it from all sides. Sir George Younger went on to point out that dissension in the party would only play the game of the extremists and "give seats by the handful to the Labour Party." He announced that he had proposed to his leader, six days earlier, that Ministers should convene a special Conference of the Unionist Party to consider the policy on which the next election was to be fought. Ho trusted that such a Conference would result in agreement amongst all Unionists to erect a bulwark against the extreme Socialist Party, "beneath which is all that is subversive of all the principles we stand for."
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