this and twopence off the other—a sort of appeal, I regret to say, which is not only confined to Radical orators, but in which Unionists also are sometimes too apt to indulge.

And, now, gentlemen, only one word in conclusion—a brief and inadequate reference to a vast subject, but one to which I am at all times and seasons specially bound to refer. After all, my chief quarrel with the Radical party—not with all of them—I do not say that for a moment—but with a far too large and influential section—is their anti-patriotism. I use the word advisedly. It is not that they are unpatriotic in the sense of having no affection for their country. It is that they are deliberately and on principle—I do not asperse their motives; I do not question their sincerity and conviction—anti-patriotic, opposed to national as distinct from cosmopolitan ideals. They are not zealous for national defence; they have no faith in the Empire; they love to show their impartiality by taking sides against their own country; they object to their children being taught respect for the flag. But we Unionists are not cosmopolitans, but Britons. We have no envy or ill-will towards other nations; a man is not a worse neighbour because he loves his own family. But we do hold that it is not our business to look after others. It is our business to look after ourselves and our dependencies, and the great kindred communities who own allegiance to the British flag. We want to draw closer to them, to stand together; and we believe that the strength and the unity of the British Empire are of vital and practical importance to every citizen. In all our propaganda, and in all our policy, let us continue to give that great principle a foremost place.

UNIONISTS AND THE EMPIREToC

Edinburgh, November 15, 1907

I am greatly reassured by the very kind reception which you have just given me. To tell the truth, I had been feeling a little alarmed at the fate which might await me in Edinburgh. From a faithful perusal of the Radical Press I had been led to believe that Scotland was seething with righteous indignation against that branch of the Legislature of which I am, it is true, only a humble and very recent member, but yet a member, and therefore involved in the general condemnation of the ruthless hereditary tyrants and oppressors of the people, the privileged landowning class, which is alleged to be so out of sympathy with the mass of their fellow-countrymen, although, oddly enough, it supplies many of the most popular candidates, not only of one party, at any General Election. Personally, I feel it rather hard to be painted in such black colours. There is no taint of hereditary privilege about me. I am not—I wish I were—the owner of broad acres, and I am in no way conscious of belonging to a specially favoured class. There are a great many of my fellow members in the House of Lords who are in the same position, and who sit there, not by virtue of any privilege, but by virtue of their services, or, let me say in my own case, supposed services, to the State. And while we sit there—and here I venture, with all humility, to speak for all the members of that body, whether hereditary or created—we feel that we ought to deal with the questions submitted to us to the best of our judgment and conscience, without fear of the consequences to ourselves and without allowing ourselves to be brow-beaten for not being different from what we are. We believe that we perform a useful and necessary function. We believe that a Second Chamber is essential to the good government of this country. We do not contend—certainly I am myself very far from contending—that the existing Second Chamber is the best imaginable. Let there be a well-considered reform of the House of Lords, or even, if need be, an entirely different Second Chamber. But until you have got this better instrument, do not throw away the instrument which you have—the only defence, not of the privileges of a class, but of the rights of the whole nation, against hasty, ill-considered measures and against the subordination of permanent national interests to the temporary exigencies of a party.

It is said that there is a permanent Conservative majority in the House of Lords. But then every Second Chamber is, and ought to be, conservative in temper. It exists to exercise a restraining influence, to ensure that great changes shall not be made in fundamental institutions except by the deliberate will of the nation, and not as the outcome of a mere passing mood. And if the accusation is, that the House of Lords is too Conservative in a party sense, which is a different thing, I admit, from being Conservative in the highest and best sense, that points not to doing away with the Second Chamber, but to making such a change in its composition as, while leaving it still powerful, still, above all, independent, will render it more representative of the permanent mind of the nation.

But let me be permitted to observe that the instance relied on to prove that the House of Lords is in the pocket of the Conservative party is a very unfortunate instance. What is its offence? It is said that the Lords rejected the Scottish Land Bill. But they did not reject the Scottish Land Bill. They were quite prepared to accept a portion of the Bill, and it is for the Government to answer to the people interested in that portion for their not having received the benefits which the Bill was presumably intended to bestow on them. What the Government did was to hold a pistol at the head of the House of Lords, and to say that they must either accept the whole straggling and ill-constructed measure as it stood, or be held up to public odium for rejecting it. But when the Bill was looked at as a whole, it was found to contain principles—novel principles as far as the great part of Scotland was concerned, bad principles, as the experience of Ireland showed—which the House of Lords, and not only the Conservatives in the House of Lords, were not prepared to endorse. Was it Conservative criticism which killed the Bill? It was riddled with arguments by a Liberal Peer and former Liberal Prime Minister—arguments to which the Government speakers were quite unable, and had the good sense not even to attempt, to reply. And that is the instance which is quoted to prove that the House of Lords is a Tory Caucus!

Now, before leaving this question of the House of Lords, let me just say one word about its general attitude. I have not long been a member of that assembly. I do not presume to take much part in its discussions. But I follow them, and I think I follow them with a fairly unprejudiced mind. On many questions I am perhaps not in accord with the views of the majority of the House. But what strikes me about the House of Lords is that it is a singularly independent assembly. It is not at the beck and call of any man. It is a body which does not care at all about party claptrap, but which does care a great deal about a good argument, from whatever quarter it may proceed. Moreover, I am confident that the great body of its members are quite alive to the fact that they cannot afford to cast their votes merely according to their individual opinions and personal prejudices—that they are trustees for the nation, and that while it is their duty to prevent the nation being hustled into revolution, as but for them it would have been hustled into Home Rule in 1893, they have no right to resist changes upon which the nation has clearly and after full deliberation set its mind. And when the Prime Minister says that it is intolerable arrogance on the part of the House of Lords to pretend to know