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1899.] CHAPTER VI.

SCOTLAND AND IRELAND.

I. SCOTLAND.

of Scottish affairs in 1899 was calculated to encourage the expectations avowed by Lord Rosebery as to the advancing predominance of Liberal imperialism. In domestic affairs, so far as could be judged from bye-elections, the type of Liberalism specially in favour with Scotsmen—sober, but yet by no means without "advanced" sympathies—was making distinct progress, as the Edinburgh and other elections showed. It was thought that the marked growth in the Radical vote in the metropolitan constituencies was largely due to the popularity of the recently pushed propaganda for the taxation of land values, and a numerously attended conference held at Glasgow in October, when 112 local authorities as well as various political, social and industrial organisations were represented, in connexion with the same movement, showed that it was taking a considerable hold on the public mind. A fiscal policy of that kind, with or immediately after the abolition of the House of Lords, was placed by resolution of the annual meeting of the Scottish Liberal Association at Aberdeen in December in the forefront of the Liberal programme. Yet along with the apparent growth in the quantity and intensification of the quality of Scottish Liberalism there was to be observed on all sides a proud contemplation of the participation of Scotsmen in the discharge of distant imperial enterprises. The heroes of the year, Sir Archibald Hunter and General Hector Macdonald, were warmly welcomed in recognition of their brilliant services in the Omdurman campaign. Lord Rosebery's watchword, "We mean to see this thing through," spoken in Edinburgh after some of the early South African checks, could nowhere have been uttered with more absolute certainty of sympathetic response. The appointment of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman as successor to Sir William Harcourt in the leadership of the Liberal party in the House of Commons was grateful to the feelings of the Scottish Liberals, who recognised the skill with which he discharged the difficult duties of that office. But the strongly imperial speeches in which Mr. Asquith on various occasions dealt with the South African war and its causes commended them to popular feeling more directly than the cautious, critical attitude maintained by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman. In Radical Caithness-shire, Dr. Clark's "pro-Boer" attitude in Parliament after the war began excited great indignation, which took the form at Wick of a resolution of protest from the Town Council, and at Thurso of a burning of him in effigy.

The authorisation conveyed in the general Telephone Act for municipal competition with the National Telephone