Mr. Adam, the Liberal Whip, addressed the East and North
of Scotland Liberal Association at Edinburgh on Wednesday. After referring to the remarkable increase of Liberal Peers and eldest sons in Scotland, Lord Rosebery, Lord Fife, Lord Tweed- dale, Lord Camperdown, Lord Dalrymple, Lord Ramsay, and the Duke of Roxbarghe having all recently come to the front on the right side, he proceeded to discuss electoral prospects. In fifteen elections the Liberals had lost no seat, while they had won two, Donegal and Sheffield, and he thought the prospects in Scotland and in English boroughs "very cheerful indeed." The trouble is in the English counties, in which out of 174 seats only twenty-seven Liberals are returned. A great change of feeling has, no doubt, passed over the. English counties, but Liberals are reluctant to go to the great expense and labour of contesting them on a hope. Mr. Adam believes if candidates would step forward, they would find more- chance than they could possibly have imagined. Organisation was required in that direction, and for the rest, their clear duty was to keep pegging away, and, so inform the people of the kind of Government it was which was now in power. All that is very sensible, but we should like to have heard a word as to- the expediency of Liberal tenant-farmers contesting the county seats. This will be the freest county election ever fought, as- the fanner, threatened by the landlord, has only to say that he should be delighted to lose his lease, and the landlord must apologise.
Previous page
