THE SCOTTISH LIBERAL ASSOCIATION AND ITS VOTE.
[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR:] Sni,—As a member of this Association, will you allow me to- protest against the way in which the Times deals with important- political bodies,—first wholly omitting to record their proceedings and then giving distorted comments on what its readers have not seen P On Monday it informed England that this body on Friday, October 29th, by a vast majority (after the transaction of some formal business), " practically resolved that the acceptance- of Mr. Gladstone's Home-role policy was to be made a test of Liberalism, and the name of Liberal was to be denied hence- forward to men like Lord Hartington, Mr. Bright, and Mr.. Chamberlain."
It did nothing of the kind. It simply committed the official- Association to the accepted and official programme of the party, and expressed its " continued confidence " in Mr.. Gladstone as leader, and hearty sympathy with his Irish. policy. Of course, the small minority of Scottish Liberals do not like that, any more than you do ; but does an Association speak by its majority or minority P As to the- absurd accusation of driving out all the minority, that is equally. beyond the power, and contrary to the purposes, of the majority. In truth, the only matter for astonishment in the whole affair is how the Scottish Liberal Association comes so late in the day with its adhesion to Mr. Gladstone's policy, to which it is well known that an enormous majority of its members have been,. perhaps foolishly, but still ardently attached. The reason has- just been revealed by some of the members of the minority. The executive, aWhig committee of this too Radical Association, have all the year been fighting off any acknowledgment by the official Scottish Association of the late Prime Minister's official policy,. and three weeks ago held a meeting at which one of its members explained that the Unionists were in a majority, and it was then agreed to try the Association itself, when meeting on October 29th, with a policy of neutrality. I appreciate the reasons which you press week by week upon your readers in favour of such a. policy. But I agree with the mass of my Scottish countrymen. that, in the interest of Liberal union, as well as in. that of national justice and peace, the Home-rule policy is to be stead- fastly maintained. But because an Association finds itself oblige& in October to declare principles to which it was understood: to have been long ago pledged, and which, but for a conspiracy of a few of its officials, it would, as a matter of coarse, have
long ago openly declared,—because it does this, and no more than this, does it follow that the old rule which it has always followed, of including within it every man who calls himself a Liberal, no matter what his private views, should now be
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