POLITICS IN SCOTLAND.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—I observe in the Spectator of November 30th an article on the state of political parties in Scotland. In discussing the popularity of political personalities, the writer asserts that Mr. Balfour is the most popular of living statesmen in Scotland, and has a strong personal following in Scottish politics. Now if any man has such a popularity and such a following, that man is Mr. Chamberlain. Scotsmen regard Mr. Balfour with affection as a man, but the Scot does not allow his affections to obtrude on his politics. In Scotland the old mistrust of the " Tory " party still, I am sorry to say, to a certain extent survives. It is here that Mr. Chamberlain's influence comes in. We in Scotland above all admire un- flinching courage, and detest all that savours of unfair play. Mr. 'Chamberlain has the former, and has been the victim of more than his fair sham of the latter. He stands, moreover, for all that was best in the Liberal party as it was before 1 6, and excites in the minds of his followers an admiration and a devotion which are extraordinary. Liberal Unionism in Scotland is no mere by-word, but a living, potent fact; and as the fighting leader of that section of the Unionist party Mr. Chamberlain's influence is all-powerful. And that brings me to the second point on which I wish to quarrel with the writer of your article. He asserts that any Unionist candidate in Scotland calling himself a Conservative would not thereby lessen his chances of winning or losing a seat. When he says so he proves that he has entirely failed to understand Scottish politics. The Scotsman is slow to change, and, as I have already remarked, has not altogether lost his mistrust of "Toryism" To ignore this is to ignore an essential factor in Scottish politics. In voting for a 'Tory" the average Scotsman would violate all the principles of his lifetime; but in voting for a Liberal Unionist he is supporting a man who, whatever else he is, is not a Tory. The Scottish Unionist holds strongly, and with a faith that cannot be shaken, that the Liberal Unionists have been the educators of the Conservative party, and that they are still the backbone of the Unionist party. Rightly or wrongly, they attribute all the social legislation of that party to the Liberal Unionist influence. The generation which is growing up cares little for these distinctions. But the Liberal tradition is still strong in Scotland, and until the younger generation takes the reins into its own hands that tradition will have to be reckoned with.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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