GOVERNMENT OF SCOTLAND BILL.

HC Deb 15 May 1914 vol 62 cc1467-549

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr. BOOTH

On a point of Order. I wish to ask you, Sir, whether, in view of the importance of this Bill and to the fact that if this Bill passes a second time it will go automatically to a Standing Committee unless the House otherwise determines, you can intimate whether the measure will be treated as one which would be allotted to the Scottish Standing Committee under Standing Order No. 47, Section 2? I wish also to ask you, further, whether your attention has been called to Clause 7, Sub-section (6), which was not included in the Bill of last year, and to the statement by friends of the Bill that the inclusion or deletion of those provisions is practically a Committee point, and whether the alteration of the franchise by extending it proposed by the Bill as it now stands will not be such a vital alteration as to make the Bill practically a different measure from that submitted for Second Beading?

Mr. SPEAKER

With regard to the first question, I do not think that my mind is quite made up about the matter; but I should say, on the information which I have at present, that the Bill can hardly be considered as exclusively Scottish. A proposal to set up a Parliament in Scotland is a matter which concerns others besides Scotland. Therefore, I should probably not send the Bill to the Scottish Committee. With regard to the other point, I think the question of the hon. Member for Pontefract is rather too hypothetical. It presupposes, first, that this Bill will be passed; secondly, that it will go to a Standing Committee; and thirdly, that that Standing Committee will make an alteration in it. My answer would depend on what happens, and I had better wait until I see the Bill back. It is perfectly obvious that Clause 7, Sub-section (6), is a very important part of the Bill, and if that were struck out, the general provision in the Bill would be very different from what it is at the present moment. I cannot say further than that.

Mr. MACPHERSON

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

The House will not expect me to apologise for asking leave to move the Second Reading of a Bill which is to give a large measure of self-government to my native country. This Bill is, to all intents and purposes, the same as the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Mr. Cowan) last year, with the consent and concurrence of a united Scottish party, so far as that party is composed of Members sitting on this side of the House. There is, however, this year, a Clause introduced at the request of the majority of the Scottish Members—[An HON. MEMBER: "Not of a majority!"]—giving the franchise to a large number of the women of Scotland. I see around me many of my hon. Friends who have in the past, either by Bill or by Resolution, supported the principle of Home Rule. I could wish that this was no party measure. I could wish that on an occasion such as this, when national and Imperial issues are at stake, I had the support of hon. Members opposite as well as of my Friends upon this side. I cannot claim perfection for the Bill which I am introducing. It may have all the demerits of a Bill that has not yet been passed through the scathing fires of criticism in a Committee of this House. But I do claim that it embodies that unquenchable and indefinable spirit of nationalism which hon. Members opposite cherish equally with us. I claim, too, that it is an expression—a clear and definite expression—of that sane and practical desire of Scotsmen for local self-government which has come down to us from the past.

Scottish nationalism is not a question of party. It is not narrow; it is not embittered; it is not the product of mere semi-insular pride. Strong as is our attachment to our native country, its-literature, its history, and its traditions, the strength of that attachment has not lessened but increased that broader side of the national spirit which glories in the inheritance and the continuance of an Empire which has come down to us largely through the wisdom, the powers, and the statesmenship of our kinsmen who have gone before. I, for one, would be no party to the introduction of a Bill which would in any way impair that inheritance, or deprive my fellow countrymen of their share in the performance of the high Imperial duties which they have performed in the past, and which they perform now in the Imperial Parliament. No person can urge that in this Bill we are seeking separation from the Imperial Parliament. No Scot ever does seek separation from the Imperial Parliament. The most bitter opponent of the Bill in any part of the House cannot hurl that accusation against us. In this Bill Scotland claims her privilege and her right to bear the burden of Empire through her elected representatives, and to take her share in controlling the destinies of this Empire in a supreme Parliament in London. The elected representatives to the Imperial Parliament, until a further and more complete scheme of devolution is instituted in this country, will remain at the present number of seventy-two.

But while Scotland claims the right to her share in the government of the Empire in the Imperial Parliament, she equally claims the right and the privilege to perform and to control the limited and local functions which are peculiarly her own. That is a claim which she insisted upon before the Union of 1707, and she has never relinquished it since. That claim can have none of the catch-words of party urged against it. No one can urge that she has ever been, or ever would be, a disloyal element in the United Kingdom, or seek by any actions of hers to weaken the Constitution or imperil the Throne. In peace and in industry, she has, by her science, her art and her education, raised and strengthened the ideals of the United Kingdom. In war she has nobly borne her share of the burden through her money and through her manhood. No one can urge, either, that she is not fit to control her own peculiar destiny, or that there are warring elements of different races and religion inside her confines which cannot pursue the Christian path of peace. Her power to control and to govern is a great and undisputed fact in our Imperial history. Her national Presbyterianism, which in its essence means the right to control the temporal side of the communal religious life of the country, has been a factor in strengthening that power of government; and that religion is broad and tolerant enough to welcome into its midst the adherents of any other religion. One great outstanding fact—and it is one of the strongest arguments in favour of Home Rule—is that the great bodies of religion in Scotland have never found it necessary to display their bitterness and their differences before the Philistines. They have themselves attempted, in their own native country, by the methods of peace and without the aid of politics, to present a united front before the world. I question if a people which presented so effectively in the past a united front against the imposition of an alien religion would ever have split themselves asunder on a vexed question like patronage in the Church, or any other question, if they had had a legislature of their own in their own native land.

Nor can it be said that there is no demand for this Bill. I am fully aware that the argument presented against this Bill last year was in the main that there was no demand for it, and I may be told that nothing has emerged since then to alter the situation. A demand is none the less sincere, none the less ardent, if it is quietly expressed. The demand for the union of the churches to which I have referred has not been tempestuously shouted on the hill-tops, but no one will deny that it is a strong and powerful demand, spreading itself quietly among the silent thinking men of the country, and supported by them consistently with the undemonstrativeness of the race. The demand for the good government of Scotland in accordance with their own ideas is just as forcible. There is no question that so far as the party to which I belong is concerned, by every means in its power, by platform, press and pamphlet, it has expressed that demand in Scotland, and the question is now the principal plank in our political platform. Hon. Members opposite may seek to belittle that fact on the floor of this House. They may refer, as they have done in the past, to the "nursery politics" of the young Scots on the Home Rule Council. But any Englishman knows that to be a Scot is a virtue, and to be young is no crime. These men have the courage and the ability to give expression to what the solid thinking men of the country have been thinking for a long time in Scotland. I may be speaking in ignorance, but I know of no resolution passed by hon. Members opposite in Scotland, whatever the attitude they may have taken on the floor of the House!—nor do I know that they have held any meeting in Scotland in contra-distinction to the principle of Home Rule for Scotland. If that fact is true it is eminently significant. In the past all parties have welcomed signs and premonitions of local self-government. The advent of the Scottish Office, parish and county councils, Private Bill legislation, even if they have not fulfilled all that was expected of them, were, when first introduced, received as measures of satisfaction and relief. So long ago as 1892 the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour), speaking, I think, in St. James' Hall, London, said:— There is another question which I had at heart for many years, on which I pledged myself when I was Scottish Secretary, which pledge I have endeavoured to carry out in the course of the present Session as Leader of the House—namely, to give Scotland that which I think she has a right to claim, the local management of her Private Bill legislation—without cost, without expense, and without the trouble of coming to Westminster. A year or two before that the leading newspaper of Scotland—at least it was at that time—whether it is so or not may be a matter of dispute—I refer to the "Scotsman," in a very able leading article—and everyone present knows that the "Scotsman" as a paper is all for union—said:— The truth is that the existence of such a body as the Convention"— That is the Convention of the Royal Burghs— is likely to he of the greatest utility in the building up of a complete system of local government. When every county and every burgh obtains its governing council, what can be more simple, and what is likely to he more useful, if not absolutely necessary, to make the convention fairly representative of them all. It would then be truly a national convention, fairly representative of them all. It would then he a national convention, to the care of which might be entrusted all the overlapping interests of the various divisions of the country, and such national questions as are too large for the councils, and yet may be better dealt with in Scotland than at Westminster. These quotations are from a very remarkable document which was published the other day. I refer to the Special Report of the Royal Convention of Scottish Burghs, drawn up by an ex-Unionist candidate, and signed by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh on behalf of the convention. The composition of this body is worth noting. It is avowedly non-party. If it has a political colour that political colour has always been regarded as Unionist. The meeting in Edinburgh in April last embraced 404 representatives from 200 burghs, only two Scottish burghs being unrepresented. The members embraced 166 lord provosts, provosts, and ex-provosts, 125 town clerks and ex-town clerks, and 57 magistrates and ex-magistrates. The population of Scotland in 1911 was 4,759,455, which, deducting the rural population of 1,617,000, gives a burghal population of over 3,000,000. These delegates are men of affairs, devoting much time to public life and to administration, anxious without any self-interest to see the affairs of their country administered in the best way. Men who would do nothing to endanger the commercial or financial institutions of their country, or weaken any arrangements with England which is to the mutual advantage of both countries.

Historically their unanimous plea for devolution is interesting. They strenuously opposed the Incorporating Union of 1707. They humbly supplicated the High Commissioner and the Estates against a Union—to use their words— By which our Monarchy is suppressed, our Parliament extinguished, and in consequence, our religion, church government, claim of right, laws, liberties, trade, and all that is dear to it, daily in danger of being encroached upon, altered, or wholly subverted by the English in a British Parliament. They saw the King and Parliament depart for London, but they steadily went on their way, and stronger and more representative than ever, they hope to see the representative of the King return and a Scottish Parliament in their midst. This Bill, if it does not give a bicameral system, guarantees, at all events, the fruition of their hopes in a Single Chamber of 140 representatives in Scotland. The question arises: Why is it that after two centuries of trial of the Incorporated Union there is a unanimous demand on the part of those business men of Scotland—that they have been forced to this conclusion? I am not going into the great reason from the point of view of Imperial efficiency, which my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk Burghs dealt with so effectively last year. He produced in Debate, if I remember aright, and with admirable care, the opinions of the greatest Parliamentarians of the last three generations in support of his view. Those opinions included the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London. Nor am I going to labour the strong incentive of sentiment which dominates the individual nation as it does the world. These men are business men. They have watched the ever-increasing congestion of business with which an overweighted and overburdened Imperial Parliament has to cope. They have watched millions of money extracted from the taxpayers' pockets without adequate discussion. They have watched the needs of Empire grow, and every branch of public work in the public departments swell proportionately in volume. Such a strain on the heart of the Empire can have but one effect on its limbs. They are starved and limp. The Antipodean leap of the kangaroo, or the revolutionary callousness of the guillotine, are to them but mutilation and murder, founded in folly and perpetuated in the mere interests of one party or another. They see Timbuctoo taking precedence of Tomintoul, and both being sacrificed. They see Scottish Estimates grudgingly receive two short days of Parliamentary time, and Scottish Bills, few in number, badly mutilated. Except my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, there is no one in modern politics who is so comparable to Atlas as my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland. The whole of Scotland is upon his broad shoulders alone. He is a sort of political Pooh-bah. Land, law, lunacy, local government, agriculture, prisons, housing, roads, the Board of Agriculture, and a host of other things he has to administer, not in Scotland, not with the aid of a Scottish Board, but 400 miles away.

Mr. WATT

And at a small salary too!

Mr. MACPHERSON

It is sufficient to drive him to seek the repose of another place. It is more than human strength can endure to be a Cabinet rolled into one. It is more than Scotland can stand to see her needs neglected, her wishes flouted, and her legislation baffled. She has been driven to make her claim clear and defined, and that claim has been nowhere more eloquently stated than it was stated by that great Nationalist, Professor Blackie, more than twenty years ago, when he said: It's an independent kingdom, inheriting its own laws, boasting its own Church, and marked by a distinctive type of character of culture. Scotland has a right to demand that her public business shall be conducted seriously on Scottish ground, in a Scottish atmosphere, and tinder Scottish influences, not hustled and slurred over hastily in an Imperial Parliament. Its laws are its own, and its legal system is the most perfect if it is also one of the most difficult in the world. There could be nothing more ludicrous than to hear English Members discussing "hamesucken, multiplepoinding, blench dispositions, Emphyteusis, stillicide, and ad avizandum." One cannot help quoting what has been quoted before. I refer to quotations from pre-eminent authorities like Professor James Mackinnon and Sir Archibald Alison. The latter, referring to the three volumes of Statutes of the Old Scots' Parliament, said that:— They contained more of the spirit of real freedom, more wise resolution, and practically beneficial legislation, better provision for the liberty of the subject, than is to be found in the whole thirty quarto volumes of the Statutes at large, and all the efforts of English freedom from Magna Charta to the Reform Bill. The testimony of the former is equally emphatic:— In their benevolent care of the poor, both from starvation and from the litigious oppression of the rich, in the protection of the subject from arbitrary imprisonment, in the recognition of the right of all prisoners to be defended by counsel, in the establishment of a system of popular education, in the humane restriction of the death penalty, the old Scottish Parliament had anticipated legislation which came to the people of England more than a century after the Union. The Imperial Parliament can thus safely devolve the power to legislate to a Parliament in Scotland, with the right to control its own private legislation. There need be no safeguards for civil rights, nor safeguards for religious liberty, though they are in the Bill. If they are in the Bill, it is but to assure those who did not know Scottish feeling, and there are many of those in this House. Her religion is as distinctive as her law. She has fought for her spiritual independence on many a field, and so national and independent is that religion that even if the Archbishops of Canterbury and York cross the border to their native home they are but Dissenters. It has its divisions and its bodies, but its doctrines of predestination and fore-ordination, its confession of faith and its trusts and its declaratory acts, baffled for days the legal luminaries of another place, though the man in the street in Scotland knew all about them. Her system of education has long been the envy of the world, since the days of John Knox. It is her noble rage, which penury can ne'er repress, and its object is to make the path of "the lad of pairts" easy from the village to the university. More than anything else she desires that system administered by her own people in their own way in their own country. She knows little or nothing of the ecclesiastical squabbles and differences in the administration of education in England, but she knows her own mind with regard to the administration of her own system, and to-morrow she would abolish the cumulative vote and legislation by minute, and readjust the distribution of the Education Grant, and pay rural teachers a living wage.

Her land laws and her land tenure are different. The taxation and rating of land in this Bill is but a continuation of her present right through her local bodies. Her land legislation has been delayed by an unrepresentative body in another place, sixteen of whom make a pretence of representing her by electing themselves to represent themselves. It is no wonder that in the Bill, knowing this and remembering the effectiveness of the wise and sagacious laws of her own unicameral system, we refuse to inflict a Second Chamber upon her. And in this House, her land laws, long rotten ripe for change, have been delayed and muddled in their slow progress in Grand Committee and on the floor of this House by the interference and votes of men who are out of sympathy and in dire ignorance of the clamant demands of the Scottish people. I am not, of course, referring to Scottish Members. One of the most striking figures ever given were those quoted in the "Scottish Nation" last week. There it was stated that the excess of births over deaths in 1913 was 47,476, and the excess of immigrants was 46,167. This means that the population of Scotland in 1913 only increased by 1,309 souls. This alarming flow of emigration must be stopped. It is draining the country of its best blood. The vast majority of these people have no desire to leave their country, and if land legislation were passed in accordance with the long expressed wish of the Scottish people and along Scottish lines, as it could undoubtedly be in a Scots Parliament, we should not now be confronted with the deplorable facts such as these. Not only are they not encouraged to attach themselves to the land of their fathers, but the industrious population who toil valiantly by sea suffer by the depredations of the illegal trawler.

Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY

Why do your own Government suffer it?

Mr. MACPHERSON

However anxious my right hon. Friend might be to combat that evil, his hands are tied by Imperial needs, and when these men in their thousands pursue their calling around the coast they are precluded from voting, though they have paid their rates and taxes. How different from the privileged case like this! I recollect in his speech in this Debate last year that the hon. Member for the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen—he is not in his place now, though he is always cavilling at other people if they are absent—

Sir GEORGE YOUNGER

The hon. Member is not very well.

Mr. MACPHERSON

I am sorry. He drew a vivid picture of a dinner that was given to him by seventeen constituents in Vancouver. Apart from his colleague in the representation of the universities, I do not think that any other Member could find seventeen of his constituents there unless they were voteless and landless exiles. By a curious coincidence during the last three weeks I have received resolutions from voteless Scottish societies in Vancouver and elsewhere in Canada and America, urging upon the Government to give Scotland Home Rule. The absurd anomaly of the university vote and voters in Vancouver who pay no rates and taxes will be abolished by this Bill. I have not elaborated the separate character, customs, culture, characteristics and ideas, methods and principles of Scotland, nor have I dealt with the absurd contention that by a grant of self-government to Scotland you will create antipathies against England. We have no wish to interfere in purely English affairs, and, except for old age pensions, national insurance, and Labour Exchanges, and the interests which are at present regulated by Scottish law administered by Scottish officials, and provided for by Scottish Estimates, we leave all to the Imperial Parliament; nor have I entered into the merits of federalism. We believe in the words of Mr. Gladstone spoken in 1889:— I hold all judicious devolution, which hands over to subordinate bodies duties for which they are better qualified by local knowledge, and which at the same time sets free the hands of Parliament for the pursuit of its proper business, does not weaken it, but Strengthens it, and gives vitality to it, and makes the people more than ever disposed to support the supremacy of Parliament. And when we get Parliament in Scotland every man will regard it as the highest honour as a patriotic Scotsman to be in his native Parliament. Disraeli, in one of his works, when considering all that the world owed to the empires of the past, could find nothing which the world owed to the barbaric splendour of Egypt or Assyria: all the best things in the world came from, Athens and Jerusalem. These were small communities, but their characteristics and nationality found their full and adequate expression. We wish Scotland to be allowed to direct her own individuality in her own way, and we are confident that her strength will be the Empire's also.

Mr. WILLIAM YOUNG

Like the hon. Member who has just sat down it will not be necessary for me to offer an apology to the House in rising to second the Motion made by my hon. Friend with such eloquence and in such sympathetic terms. It will not be said, I am sure, that my hon. Friend has failed to set forth and extol with all due modesty the superior gifts of his fellow countrymen and their inherent capacity for self-government. The Bill, or, at any rate, the main principles of the Bill, are such that I think the measure, or, at any rate, the major part of it, cannot fail to recommend itself to the favourable consideration of the House. That being the case, it will not be necessary for me to make a long speech. Personally, I am very much opposed to long speeches, even when they come from the Front Benches. With regard to this measure, I do not say that there may not be some anomalies in the Bill which has been introduced by my hon. Friend. Possibly we may hear some criticism from the opposite side of the House with regard to those anomalies, but where they exist, if they do exist, they do not in my opinion minimise or in any way detract from the great principle embodied in this Bill, namely, that in the opinion of the vast majority of the people of Scotland the time has arrived when Scotland should have a separate Parliament of her own—subordinate, of course, to the Imperial Parliament—with an Executive responsible to it for the management of purely Scottish affairs. We want a Parliament composed of men not only with the necessary local knowledge, but also sympathetic in every way with the ideals and political aspirations of the people of Scotland.

That cannot be looked upon as an extravagant demand on the part of a people who from time immemorial have shown an excelling capacity for self-government, and have done so much to advance civilisation and the principles of democracy and self-government in every part of the world. In these days when we hear from both sides of the House and in the public Press so much about federalism and devolution—I agree that the latter is the more correct term to use in our case—when we hear so much of devolution being the real solution of all our difficulties, and the only remedy for relieving the overwhelming and ever-increasing burdens which press on the Imperial Parliament, it seems to me that a measure of devolution for Scotland, for the management of purely Scottish affairs, is one which ought to be welcomed by every Member of this House, no matter on which side he may sit, and on the part of everyone who has an earnest desire to maintain the efficiency of this House and make it not only in name, but in fact, the real Mother of Parliaments of our whole Empire. At a time when we on this side are supporting the ideals and aspirations of the overwhelming majority of the Irish people, and their desire for national self-government for which they have so long, patiently and nobly struggled, and which we hope may be gratified on the basis of a lasting peace and goodwill which will tend to the welfare and prosperity of the whole community throughout a united Ireland, surely at such a time it is neither inappropriate nor inopportune that the principles of national self-government for Scotland which are embodied in this measure should receive the approval of this House.

I indicated a few minutes ago that the Bill may not be entirely free from anomalies, and if I might anticipate criticism from the other side I would say that the present representation of Scotland in this Parliament would be only temporary until such time as a measure for devolution for England was placed upon the Statute Book. I am inclined to think that both measures, as well as one for Wales, would have to be placed on the Statute Book simultaneously, and, when that is done, then there could be a proportionate reduction made in the representation all round. Until that is brought about, I, for one, do not believe that the people of Scotland will agree to any diminution in their representation in the Imperial Parliament. I greatly fear that in our efforts to obtain national self-government for Scotland, or any measure of devolution, we may be seriously retarded by what I may be permitted to call the apathy of England, or at any rate, of the South of England. I do not for one moment wish to cast any reflection on the political intelligence of the English electorate, but I think I may say without offence to our great southern neighbour that the political intelligence and education of the people of Scotland is at any rate very considerably in advance of what is generally found in a good many parts of England. That, I think, is admittedly the case, and, therefore, it is hardly to be wondered at that the people of Scotland desire a legislative assembly of their own, which will more truly represent their ideals and carry into effect the advanced and progressive principles which for so long have received their approval and support.

The hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) has dealt so fully with the distinctive claims of Scotland from the internal point of view that it would be quite useless for me to give any repetition of his arguments for the purposes of this Motion. I base my support of this Bill entirely on the ground of sane Imperialism. The development of the United States, Australia, and South Africa clearly point to the trend of modern political development. Federalism or devolution, call it what you will, according to all the dictates of experience and political theories, is manifestly the next stage in the evolution of the British Empire. The success of an Empire like ours, with its endless variety of races and diversity of interests, traditions, and ideals, lies not in one Government seated in London, but in a federation of communities under one Crown and one flag, each working out its more intimate political destiny in its own peculiar way. Lord Rosebery put the case well, I think it was at Cardiff, when he said:— I view Home Rule from the highest Imperial ground, because I believe that the maintenance of our Empire depends not upon centralisation, but upon decentralisation. The Liberal party, in my opinion, will never find its full strength until it has enlisted all the power, sympathy and freedom, that it would gain in every part of the United Kingdom by a systematised devolution of local business to the localities themselves. 1.0 P.M.

That, in my opinion, is the case for this Bill from the Imperial point of view, and, if time permitted, it would not be difficult to make out an equally good case both from a business and a financial standpoint. The proposition which I desire to state without further proof—and it is so self-evident as to seem to me axiomatic—is this: The Imperial Parliament fails in its duty because it neglects—not wilfully, I admit—much necessary work, for the reason that it is severely overtaxed, and because a very great deal of the work which it does is often done in a slipshod and indifferent manner. In the interests, therefore, of the four nations which compose the United Kingdom, and of the Empire as a whole, all-round devolution—Parliaments—not for Ireland and Scotland alone, but for England and for Wales as well, are imperatively required. In a word, Home Rule all round is needed to save the British Parliament from a state of what can only be described as inefficiency, and, it may indeed be, ultimate impotence. Before I sit down I feel bound to make my position quite clear with regard to a Clause which has found its way into this Bill since it was last introduced. It is a Clause which, in my opinion, can only complicate, and perhaps destroy, the hopes of those who anticipated an early realisation of a measure of national self-government for Scotland. I need scarcely say that I refer to the Sub-section of Clause V, which proposes to give votes to women, including married women, on practically the same terms as men. I desire not only to make my position perfectly clear with regard to this, but to state here on the floor of the House that whilst I am a convinced supporter of national self-government for Scotland. I am opposed to the Sub-section of Clause 7, to which I have referred, and which proposes to confer the Parliamentary franchise upon women. Why should this Parliament dictate to the people of Scotland any more than it did in the case of Ireland—though I admit the same supremely undemocratic line of action was attempted by suffragists in the case of the Irish Home Rule Bill—whether they are to grant the Parliamentary franchise to women or not. That surely is a matter which should be left to the people of Scotland themselves, and, when they get their national Parliament, as I sincerely hope they will, then if a majority in favour of woman suffrage is to be found in that Parliament I, for one, shall have very little to say with regard to it, and neither perhaps will my hon. Friend. What are the facts with regard to the Clause in question? It was only approved by a small majority at a meeting of Scottish Members at which there were only some twenty-eight Liberal Members present, or less than half the total number of Liberal Members; but, if you take the whole of the Scottish representation in this House, there is a decided majority against the proposal to extend the Parliamentary franchise to women. It is, perhaps, not an easy matter to be certain about anything in this world, but if there is anything on which I do not harbour a shadow of doubt, it is that the vast majority of the people of Scotland, including the women of Scotland, are profoundly opposed to extending the Parliamentary franchise to women, and they are profoundly opposed to any measure which would place in the hands of woman the balance of political and governing power. There is no accounting, however, for the actions of suffragists, both male and female, for to me they appear under the dominating influence of their obsession, to be not only prepared to wreck this measure, but they are even prepared to disintegrate and ruin the Liberal party itself.

The Mover of the Second Reading of the Bill very wisely, perhaps, on his part, said little or nothing with regard to this Section of the Bill. We are, therefore, left somewhat in doubt as to whether he really adheres to this Section or not, or whether it has his approval or otherwise. At any rate, I am glad to say that I do not occupy any equivocal position in regard to this question. While, of course, I may be mistaken, still I think in this case that I have behind me the vast majority of the people of Scotland. I greatly regret, in view of the importance of the measure as it originally stood, my hon. Friend who introduced the Bill did not take a more firm stand with regard to this question. The addition of this undoubtedly highly controversial Clause to the Bill can only result in the withdrawal of support which would otherwise have been most heartily given to the measure. It has been no desire of mine to initiate in this House a Debate upon woman suffrage, and, if the Debate does resolve itself into a discussion upon this matter, I, for one, will accept no responsibility with regard to it. The responsibility must rest on the shoulders of those who were responsible for introducing this Clause in the Bill. I have been informed that many Members have been urged to come to this House, not for the purpose of supporting Home Rule for Scotland, for which they care very little, but for the purpose of supporting the question of votes for women.

Mr. JAMES HOGGE

On a point of Order. Do we understand that the hon. Member is seconding this Bill?

Mr. SPEAKER

The hon. Member is seconding the Bill, but not the whole Bill.

Mr. YOUNG

On the other hand, I understand that some Members who would otherwise have voted against the Bill have stayed away because they are in favour of votes for women, so that it is a rather difficult matter for an ordinary Scottish Member like myself, unacquainted with such tactics, to decide as to whether this is really a Home Rule Bill for Scotland or a measure to serve the purposes of those who first of all are women suffragists and anything else afterwards. Having said so much, I only desire to add that while I fully support the general principles of the Bill, in so far as they propose to grant self-government and a National Parliament for Scotland, subordinate to this Imperial Parliament, I reserve my full right to oppose in Committee, or at any subsequent stage of the Bill, the Clause on the subject to which I have referred, and even to vote against the Third Reading of the Bill, should it ever reach that stage, provided that the Clause in question should not be deleted. With these reservations—

Mr. HOGGE

It is a Scottish joke.

Mr. YOUNG

With these reservations, which I have felt bound to make in order that my position may be perfectly clear, I beg to second the Bill.

Mr. MACKINDER

I beg to move to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."

I move to defer the Second Reading of this Bill till a date when I hope and believe this House will have gone to its reckoning. There is one matter in which I desire to imitate the two hon. Gentlemen who have spoken upon this Bill. They have spoken of it without passion, and for a very natural reason, because there is no passion behind them. The hon. Gentleman who spoke in the first instance described to us the excellences of Scotland—excellences which have been preserved after two centuries of the Union. The hon. Gentleman who spoke second spent a large part of his time in criticising a very important Clause of this Bill which he told us was inserted by a bare majority out of twenty-eight Scottish Liberal Members—that is to say, a minority of one Scottish party in this House and a minority, of course, of the representatives of Scotland. If that is the way in which this Bill has been prepared, then I understand how it is that the hon. Gentleman who proposed it hardly referred to the terms of it, and that the hon. Member who seconded it does not appear in the list of no fewer than fifteen backers of the Bill. Presumably he was brought here and given the position which he has held in order that somehow or other his support to the Bill might be obtained. The Bill comes to us with very slight credentials. I am perfectly willing—and I hope in what I say it will be evident—to admit that hon. Members on the other side have as sincere a wish for the good and glory of Scotland as we have on this side. Our difference is merely as to the methods by which we would promote it, and I will ask them to believe that, though we are going to vote—if it comes to voting—against the Bill, it is not from any sense or wish to steam-roller the United Kingdom or to crush out the lesser nationalities. In harmony with the Mover of this Motion, I realise to the full that humanity owes as much to Athens and Florence as it does to the Roman Empire. I realise in these days, when all society is being averaged, that it is a great thing to preserve such nationalities as the Swiss, the Norwegian, and the Scottish, and, if I oppose this Bill, it is because I believe, and sincerely believe, that measures of this kind will make not for the greatness but for the smallness and parochialism of Scotland. I approach this question from a certain point of vantage. I had not the privilege to be born in Scotland, but I am of Scottish descent, and my father obtained the inspiration of his life from such education as he was able to afford in what was then known as the Andersonian University, and in the Royal Infirmary at Glasgow. Therefore, as representing a Scottish constituency, and having looked at Scotland from my childhood's days from outside, and yet been more or less intimately connected with it, I think that possibly I belong to one of that large group of expatriated Scots—expatriated either in their own lives or in the lives of their forefathers, who, therefore, see Scotland from a point of view different from that of those who live within Scotland. I shall not forget a year ago, during the Glasgow holiday, having a visit from two excellent constituents whom I took round this House. They had never left Scotland before. They had marvelled at the wonders of London, and, when we shook hands and they thanked me for having shown them the courtesies of the place, they remarked, "We had no idea that London was a much finer place than Glasgow."

Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY

Question.

Mr. MACKINDER

I say that, because it admirably illustrates what is finest in the position of Scotland within the United Kingdom. These men gloried in Glasgow, and yet, having seen London, they took a larger point of view. I believe that what we want is to maintain Scottish nationality and to maintain it, fused and mingled with our British nationality as a whole. The hon. Gentleman who moved this Motion said Scotland had no hostility to the Imperial Parliament. Agreed. But we must take longer views in this matter, and the question is, not what the feeling is to-day, but what the feeling might be after a long process of friction between Parliaments representative of the two nationalities. The hon. Gentleman referred to the pro posed union of the Churches in Scotland. In some sort of way he seemed to think-that a Scottish Parliament would promote that union. I have sat in the Assembly in Edinburgh—[An HON. MEMBER: "Which?"]—and I have seen the annual comedy which is indicative of what I will call the distant politeness of the civil and ecclesiastical powers in Scotland.

Mr. MACPHERSON

I am sure the hon. Gentleman does not willingly misrepresent me. I referred to the proposed union of the Churches to show that a demand for that union was a silent demand, and, though not tempestuous, was evidently effective.

Mr. MACKINDER

I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his correction. I would also draw attention to the fact that he used the words "local government," but he hardly spoke of this Bill. I agree with him that local government is what we silently desire in Scotland, but we have to deal with the Bill, which deals with something more than local government. May I, in a few words, give one or two fundamental reasons why we sitting here, in the interests alike of Scotland, of the United Kingdom, and of the Empire, oppose this Bill and any Bill like it. We, Sir, are Unionists. We believe in union and devolution. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] If hon. Members will wait, I will deal in a moment with devolution. We believe in union, so that the nation may be able to act unitedly in times of crisis and be prepared all the time so that it may so act in the time of crisis, and we believe in devolution in order that it may be efficient. The word "Devolution" and the kindred word" "Federalism" really involve the whole of a discussion of this kind in a fog, and it is necessary to go a little closer into the matter and get behind these mere names. Let me go to the position of the Irish Bill at present before the House to indicate what I mean. There we have a case of nationalism, and there we have a Bill, as we believe, of separatist trend. We believe that because within that Bill you have, as it seems to us, a great source of friction, and that under the influence of the nationalist spirit, that source of friction will lead inevitably to a very wide breach. Devolution, to our mind, involves no recognition of nationalism. We have too great a belief in the virility of Scottish nationalism to believe that merely administrative institutions are needed to maintain it. The Report of the Convention of Royal Burghs has been referred to, as was inevitable, by the hon. Gentleman who moved this Motion, and I would like to dispose of that matter before I proceed further. The final paragraph in that Report is worthy of a little attention, and will show how little of passion and how much of practical business there is in that Convention of Royal Burghs:— It is submitted that the question of devolution is one, however, which should be treated as a whole, after mature deliberation, and solely with a view to adding to the strength, prosperity and maintenance of the Empire. It is not advisable to apply the principle to any portion of the British Isles in a form which would be impossible of application, if the desire for it arises in every part. Your committee are of opinion that a federal system of local government affords a possible means of relieving the Imperial Parliament from a good deal of unnecessary local legislative detail. It should be applied to suitable divisions of the Kingdom where the inhabitants have racial and national instincts and traditions in common. It need not necessarily be con-tined to the geographical boundaries of each separate country.

Mr. PRINGLE

That is the exception to provide for Ulster.

Colonel GREIG

Will the hon. Member finish the Report and read on?

Mr. MACKINDER

I did not think it was of great importance, but I will read it, as the hon. Member wishes it. They are also of opinion that such a system will broaden the base of Imperial Government, and prepare the way to world-wide federation of the umpire—if not of the English speaking race. That simply reproduces what has gone before.

Mr. JAMES HOGGE

That is the passion.

Mr. MACKINDER

The statement "not necessarily geographical boundaries" is clearly an indication of the fact that what the convention had in mind was not the recognition of nationalism, but practical measures of devolution. I draw a sharp distinction between a return to the nationalities from which this country has been built up by the long and difficult process of history, and devolution in a businesslike sense for the better administration of the country. There is the gulf which is between the two parties in this House. We believe in effective union for national purposes in face of the remainder of the world. We believe that we have progressed from a heptarchy in this country and a pentarchy in Ireland and in Scotland, and that we have progressed from a system of tribal units in this country slowly and by degrees, and, in the last two degrees, by the Acts of Union, until we have achieved, in the face of many difficulties, a Union which you now propose to break up. It is something totally different from devolution for purposes of local administration. We would maintain the unity of the country for effective purposes. I know that many will reply that between nationalism such as I have described it, tending towards separation, and Unionism such as I have described it, there is the blessed system of federation. I do not believe in federation within this United Kingdom, for reasons which I am going to give. Before I do so I should like to recognise frankly that this Bill is intended not to promote separation, but to promote federalism. The belief of those who are behind this Bill is that they are seeking to do something different from what is aimed at by those who are behind the Irish Bill. I recognise frankly that, by excluding power over Customs and Excise, and by the fact that there is no Post Office, and by many other points which are in this Bill, it is clearly indicated that the motive of those who are behind it is a federal and not a separatist motive. My criticism will be not of their immediate motive to-day, but of what the inevitable trend of this Bill will be as it works out in the national history.

I want to apply three tests to this Bill in order to see what this trend must be. The first question is, where is the residuum of power? That is a very important question, although it would seem an abstract one. If I may point to the distinction between the Canadian and the United States Constitutions I shall make my point per fectly clear. In the case of Canada, the residuum of power is at Ottawa. In the United States the residuum of power is not at Washington, but in the centres of the various States. Following the bad example of the Irish Bill, this Bill enumerates not what the Scottish Parliament may do, but what the Scottish Parliament may not do, leaving to the Scottish Parliament all those things which may arise from the progress of civilisation in the future. which things, in a single lifetime, may easily bring about difficult questions of jurisdiction as between the Parliament at Westminster and the Scottish Parliament. I believe that any system which leaves the residuum of power, not in the central authority, but in the local authorities, is bound to lead to a very great difficulty When the United States was made, Alexander Hamilton clearly foresaw the Civil War, which was fought out two generations later. He strove all he knew to obtain the residuum of power at Washington and not in the States. He believed in devolution. He sought for national "unity. He was defeated. State parochialism prevailed, and the result was that when we came to the 'sixties of last century you had the Civil War, which in the end, no doubt, became a Civil War, concerned with slavery, but in the beginning and fundamentally was a war for the maintenance of State rights, for the maintenance of power, and for the residuum of power within the Constitution. No one could have foreseen, except a statesman of the foresight of a Hamilton, at the time of the making of the American Constitution that such would be the result. I believe within that question of the residuum there lies this further one that if you leave the residuum to local authorities you will have a constant temptation to those local authorities, with new circumstances which may arise in the future, to attempt to interfere with the authority of the central power. This country may be involved in some difficulty in the future, and the question may easily be upon a line involving a question as to the residuum of power, and at once you have your local authority passing resolutions and protests against the action of the national authority, it may be in the face of the rest of the world. I believe no system of devolution is safe which does not preserve to the central authority the residuum of the powers which may be exercised in future.

Then I turn to the second point which I would apply as a test to this Bill as to what will be its tendency. I refer to the method of representation which is provided within the Bill. First of all, there is representation in the United Kingdom Parliament. It is to remain as at present. In other words, Scotland is to manage her own affairs, and she is also to help to manage the affairs of this country. There is a quite obvious reason for that, because if Scotland agreed to a reduction in the number of her Members on the ground that she was to manage her own affairs, and had no just right to interfere with the affairs of England and Wales, Scottish Members opposite would abandon their alliance with the Liberal party in this country, and the Liberal party would turn upon them and proclaim them ungrateful. If you were to leave England alone, I imagine that the Liberal party for some time to come, within this country, would have a comparatively small chance. I read an article by a considerable authority in the academic study of constitutions in the "Manchester Guardian" the other day, by the late candidate for the Central Division of Glasgow, in which he said, of course, Ireland stood apart as a result of the long struggle that has taken place. He had stood as a Liberal candidate in Scotland, and did not want to say too much with regard to the Scottish claim for Home Rule. But that Wales should become independent! Horror of all horrors? What would happen to the Liberal party in England? What would happen to all possibility of advance in England? You Liberals on the other side from Scotland confuse your party with the voice of Scotland. You are maintaining your seventy-two Members in the English Parliament and you are attempting to impose your Scottish Liberal will upon the people of England. It is the spirit of tyranny. You believe that the ideals which are yours now are the ideals for all time. You believe that you are right, and that there is no other right. You believe you have a right, not only to rule England in the meantime, but also to determine on what conditions England should obtain her Parliament, and on what conditions she shall come into the federal system.

Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT

Do you represent Camlachie? We represent the majority of our constituents.

Mr. MACKINDER

The hon. Gentleman has raised the point, and I am bound to give him the reply which I have before now given in this House. With your present single-Member system in Scotland, you have an overwhelming and a grotesque majority in this House. Everyone of you, on an average, represents 6,000 electors. By a few triangular accidents and university accidents, we Unionists manage to get into this House, and on this side of it we have a sufficient number of representatives to represent, not 6,000, but between 25,000 and 30,000 Unionists. The hon. Member's gibe is one that recoils on himself every time. What he attempts to do is again and again to exercise that tyranny which characterises the party opposite. With their shortsighted, limited imagination they think that they represent Scotland, because with the present system of election they manage to be here in what I describe as a grotesque majority. That same thing would hold in Scotland. They think they can rule Scotland like the Parliament of the Commonwealth. The minority will not be represented. The majority will be there represented by four to one, whereas the parties in Scotland are not so very unequal. The Unionists are in a minority, no doubt, but not so unequally as all that. The result of this measure would be, by the system of representation that you set up, that one party in Scotland would rule Scotland, and that that same party would send a contingent to this House which, acting with the minority in this House, would rule England. That same party, acting with the minority in this House, would determine on what conditions England is to get her Parliament, and would determine on what conditions you are to set up a federal system in this country. It is delightfully arranged for the sole and single purpose of riveting, for good and all, the tyranny of the present Liberal party upon this country. As though the leap in the dark were not sufficient, they leap into double darkness and attempt to push their tyranny still further by imposing Women Franchise upon Scotland. They are willing to leave to the future nothing for the future to settle. They so little trust free government that they wish now, once and for all, to settle, as far as they can, all the details in every part of the country.

I pass from that to the third test, which I will apply to this Bill in order to ascertain what its effect will be. I will apply the test to the financial Clauses. I find that those Clauses are a pale imitation of the corresponding Clauses in the Irish Bill. You are going to set up an Exchequer Board. There is to be an Exchequer Board to settle the differences between Ireland and England. Presumably there will be an Exchequer Board between Wales and England. I suppose you will have to have a super-Board to settle the differences between them. I will ask the House to notice also that in these Clauses, as in the Irish Clauses, there are dates involved. You take a certain figure as at a certain date. The dates will not be the same in the Irish Bill and in the Scottish Bill, and presumably not in the future in the Welsh Bill. You will, therefore, have a system in which you will have different authorities for the purpose of mending differences between the separate units of this country, and they will be dealing with different dates in each case. You will have Chinese complexity set up, and all manner of differences of tradition in the settlement of disputes. Of course, the only possible thing you can have to settle all that would be what I describe as a super-Exchequer Board—in other words, judicial Government at the best, bureaucratic Government at the worst, and certainly not free Government by the Parliaments of the different countries.

The German Federation at the present time is involved in financial difficulties of the very kind which I imagine would be set up by the system you are proposing in this Bill. It is notorious that in the case of the German Federation the matricular contributions which were settled at the time of the constitution of the present Empire, have, notwithstanding German industrial prosperity, constantly involved Ger man Imperial finance in the very greatest difficulties, solely because there is a system, quite comparable to the system of transferred sums, which it is difficult to alter. In regard to that system the statement is constantly made that it was not an ordinary piece of legislation, but a treaty between the States. We have heard enough of the permanence of the treaty between Ireland and this country in the Act of Union. If you are going to say that there is a treaty involved every time you will be involved in difficulties exactly similar to those under which the German Empire has suffered, and which have rendered the path of that Empire in financial matters notoriously inconvenient.

I believe the effect of that residuum of power, notwithstanding the overriding power given under Section 31, would be best. I believe your representation system would have for effect to give you tyranny of one party in the State, and would not give you the give-and-take between parties which alone can render free Government rational. Your financial system is of a kind which will involve you in endless complications and difficulties. For these three reasons I believe you would have an endless series of friction under this Bill, and if you once set up separate national Parliaments and equip them with national organs, you may be certain that the friction arising will tend to drive them apart, and reverse the course of history, instead of continuing it in the direction which the last thousand years has established.

I believe this Bill, or any similar Bill, is bound to do harm and to bring catastrophy. I say so because I believe that this United Kingdom is not a fit and proper place in which to try the experiment of federation. There is an idea that because federation has cured the ills of Canada and Australia, therefore it is of universal application. It is the quack medicine and nostrum of the age that you must apply federation to all cases. I suggest for two reasons that this is not a suitable case. In the first place, in Scotland you have the great city of Glasgow, with its Clyde and suburbs, and a population representing one-fourth of the people of the country. Glasgow could never have been created by Scotland had the Empire not been contributory. Curiously enough, you hardly find the name of Glasgow in the earlier pages of the Report by the Convention of Royal Burghs. If it is named at all, it is named late in the list. It was an insignificant place among the burghs of Scotland at the time the Union was passed. Glasgow was created because the Empire was thrown open to Scotland. It is not because Glasgow is within Scotland that she became great, but because she had the privileges within the Empire, not at a time of Free Trade, but at a time when the Empire was closed to the competitors in the world. Glasgow was invited to share the privileges of English traders in trading with the rest of the world. Glasgow came in and shared the narrow privileges of the navigation laws. Glasgow was already great before our country took to Free Trade, before her portals were thrown open to the world. Glasgow was created by Scots simply because the close privileges of the Empire were thrown open to that city. Glasgow is too great to be ruled by the remainder of Scotland. Only a few months ago Glasgow promoted a Bill for the purpose of extending the boundaries, and, if I may say so, every hand was against Glasgow. [An HON. MEMBER: "No!"] Many authorities appealed against Glasgow in connection with that Bill, and where did Glasgow have the case tried? The Bill was brought up here, and the case was heard by three Englishmen and an Irishman. Scotland acquiesced in the extension of Glasgow. Do you think there would have been the same acquiescence if the case for the extension of Glasgow had been put before the representatives of the remainder of Scotland? [An HON. MEMBER: "Yes!"] At the present moment you have a great tradition in this House as to the impartiality of Private Bill Committees. Do you think that that would continue in the Scottish Parliament if faced with questions involving the huge interests of Glasgow? The four Members who listened impartially in this House to the case for the extension of the boundaries of Glasgow knew that if their decision was attacked, the attack would be brought in this whole House, where the representatives of all portions of the Kingdom would be present. If a Private Bill were promoted in Scotland after you have set up a Scottish Parliament, before whom would it be brought? Before the representatives of Scotland.

Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT

Hear, hear.

Mr. MACKINDER

Yes, before representatives jealous of the industrial conditions of Glasgow. What is one of the chief reasons why Belfast resents Home Rule in Ireland at present? It is not merely because of the religious difficulty, but because Belfast is the one industrial town in Ireland, and does not wish to be ruled, with good will it may be, by the ignorance of rural Ireland. The same would hold in regard to Scotland. There is a vast mass of industrial interests and knowledge in the Clyde area of Glasgow which should not be legislated for by the Highlands, and even by Edinburgh, but which ought to be legislated for by the representatives of the remaining districts of this country who understand such questions. The only other reason I urge against this Bill, or any similar Bill, is this very simple one: There is not in the world a federation of free Governments which contains a predominant partner. Even in Canada you have proximately balancing one another Quebec and Ontario; and in Australia you have proximately and balancing one another New South Wales and Victoria. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about Tasmania?"] Tasmania would join either Victoria or New South Wales, if either attempted to tyrannise over the remainder of the States. You have every security that there should be no tyranny exercised by any predominant power, first, because there is no State which is appreciably larger than the other States, and, secondly, because you have a number of Stater, that would join in defence of any State which was imposed upon. The same is true of the United States and Switzerland, and the only case in the world that you can cite in which there is any similarity to these islands is that of the German Empire. There you have a Prussia that manages her own affairs and the Empire. Theoretically the smaller States have some influence in foreign affairs, but practically they have none. There you have an illustration of what paper Constitutions mean. By the Constitution of Germany it is specially and cautiously laid down that there shall be a Foreign Affairs Committee upon which Prussia is not even to be represented, but the smaller Powers are there to protect their rights. What has happened? That Committee never meets. What happens is that the Prime Minister of Prussia is the Chancellor of the Empire. Bavaria has control over her own affairs, but little control over the affairs of the federation. In this country you would have the one case in the world to which Germany is a parallel. It will be a federation, one part of which is four times as large as the remaining parts put together.

What would be the effect of it? It would be as soon as England was equipped with her Parliament, as soon as those questions which divided Englishmen, such as the Church and education, were removed and delegated, then in your British Parliament you would have a solid phalanx of Englishmen whose purpose would be to see that the minor nationalities and States paid their share of the cost of the Empire. They would be there not merely as advocates, but by virtue of their dominant power, they would decide the issues at stake. The effect of this Bill might be that Scotland would manage her own affairs, but it would ostracise Scotland from any influence in the affairs of this country. England would henceforth take in tow the United Kingdom in such a way that she has never done before. Think of the glorious position of Scotland at the present moment, stimulating and influencing our national life! Even in the English Church the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York are Scots, and even in this House three of the great parties in the State are led by Scotsmen. Think of the position and influence of Scotland in the affairs of the Empire which you are going to sacrifice! [An HON. MEMBER: "No!"] You may take the short view: you may say that the men who are here now, of whom we are proud in this House, will be able to maintain their position, but when we are considering the national life and our Constitution we have to look far beyond the lives of those now living, and even their children.

What would be the tendency of all this? It would inevitably be that Scotland, Ireland and Wales would live their own little lives, and England would lead the United Kingdom free from interference. The Scottish nationality has taken care of itself under a united Constitution for two centuries past, and Scottish nationality is as strong to-day as it was at any time during the last two centuries. Scottish nationality is doing vast and grand service for our Empire. Great careers are open in this country for Scots. Are you going to sacrifice all that in order that you may obtain what you might equally well obtain from the sittings of a Standing Committee, not at Westminster, but in Scotland? Alter your system of representation so that the Unionists of Scotland will have a fair representation here, and then you will not need to have English Members on Scottish Committees to balance, the injustice of the present time. Give us some sort of weight in the councils of Scotland. Give us a fair representation of Scots, and then you may have a Standing Committee really representing Scotland.

That Committee might sit in Scotland instead of here. Our Unionist method is the traditional method of caution in this country. Let us not have faked institutions of this descripton. Let us take the institutions which have worked, although they may have worked at times with dfficulty, and let us develop from them, retaining all that is worth while in the present system, and advance slowly, and gradually, and carefully, without all this paraphernalia of nationalism which is asked for by only a small body, and by an artificial demand which they create. Let us do that which Scotland really wants. Let us give her facilities for the practical transaction of her business. I maintain that you can do that perfectly well if you alter your system in the way I have suggested, and then you can move your Standing Committee to Edinburgh to deal with these matters affecting Scotland, the final decisions being reserved for review by the United Kingdom. You do not desire a nationality equipped with the organisation which would necessarily lead, not to efficiency of local government, but to a return to all those things which in the past have weakened British unity.

Mr. WATSON

I rise to second the Amendment.

The hon. Member for Boss and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) asked that this question might be treated as a non-party matter. If he means that we are prepared to treat it as a question of what is good for the United Kingdom and Scotland, then we are perfectly ready, and only too willing to treat it as a non-party question, and I do not think anybody wishes to treat it otherwise. If, on the other hand, he is referring to anything else, he must remember that there is a fundamental difference between the parties who sit on opposite sides of this House on one question, and that is whether the Union of the United Kingdom is to be preserved or not. In so far as in our view this Bill tends to create separation and a breaking up of that Union, it necessarily follows that as a party we are against any such measure. We did not hear very much either from the Mover or Seconder about what was contained in this Bill. The hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty said nothing about woman suffrage which is introduced into this Bill for the first time, and the hon. Member for East Perthshire (Mr. William Young) admitted that there were anomalies, but he said that the question of woman suffrage ought never to have been included in the Bill, and he said he was against that part of it.

Various reasons have been given for the promotion of this Bill. The first is that Scotland wants Home Rule. Last year we were told by the hon. Member who moved the adoption of this Bill that Scottish Liberals claimed 85 per cent. of the representatives who sit in this House from Scotland. I am glad to say that since that time that figure has been altered, and 80 per cent. would be nearer the mark now. I may add that it only needs a General Election for a still greater reduction in the percentage to be effected—[An HON. MEMBER: "Wait and see."]—apart from the question of over-representation, which my hon. Friend has just referred to. We were told last year that the question of Home Rule for Scotland was the most absorbing political question after the land question. If that is so, all I can say is that it certainly absorbed very little of the five weeks during which I was recently engaged in an election in Scotland, for I never mentioned it myself. I was only asked questions about it twice, and since then I have heard nothing more of it. Personally I have not come across any great desire in Scotland for Home Rule. One knows, of course, from reading the newspapers, that the Young Scots Society are very keen for it, and are working very hard for it, but, as to the result of that work, I, personally at any rate, have seen precious little result. The hon. Member for Ross (Mr. Macpherson) referred to the question of the Church union as being a silent one. I differ from him entirely. I do not know whether, among the large correspondence which we Members of the House of Commons get—far too much in my experience—he has been less, or more, fortunate than I have, but I have certainly received a great deal of literature, and very valuable literature, on this particular question of the Church union, letting me know what has been done from time to time, when the various members of the committee sat, and the result of their labours. To say that it is a silent movement is far from the fact. It is a movement in which every Scotsman is not only interested, but is able to satisfy his interest by reading about it in the public Press.

The position is very different in regard to the question of Scottish Home Rule. An hon. Member suggested that if there had been a "Scots" Parliament—I am glad, by the way, to notice that he adopted the word "Scots," and not the word "Scotch" as adopted with regard to the Education Department—sitting in Edinburgh on the Free Church, the decision arrived at might very easily have given greater satisfaction. I do not follow that at all. My own opinion is that it would have created a great deal more friction than there was, and that it was just as well that the subject should be removed from the somewhat heated atmosphere of Scotland to what was a less heated atmosphere at this end of the island. The hon. Member for Ross said that there was a claim of this kind made before the Union. We have not heard very much about the historical argument, and I am not altogether surprised, because it is certain that the Union, in the main at any rate, has done enormous good for Scotland, and, in my opinion, for England as well. I think it had two main effiects—one positive, and the other negative. It undoubtedly brought commercial prosperity to Scotland which otherwise it might possibly not have known. The hon. Member who has just spoken, the Member for the Camlachie Division (Mr. Mackinder), referred to that point in reference to Glasgow. I may assume that hon. Members know their Scott, and I would like to quote a passage from the famous "Bailie Nicol Jarvie." I may state that, among other things, the influence of the Jacobites and the chance of their succeeding was successfully and largely crippled by the Union. If Scotland had remained separate, it is quite possible—nay, probable—that, with the help of foreign intervention, we should certainly have had very much longer internecine strife in these islands, with possibly the success of the Jacobites. "Andrew Fairservice," who had Jacobite tendencies, and was always grumbling at the Union, started on a journey to the fastnesses of the Highlands to see Bob Roy. A shoe was cast, and he began grumbling, and blamed the Union. Bailie Nicol Jarvie said:— Whisht, sir, whisht! It's ill-scraped tongues like yours that make mischief atween neighbourhoods and nations. There's naething sae gude on this side o' time but it might hae' been better, and that may be said o' the Union. Nane were keener against it than the Glasgow folk, wi' their rabblings and their risings and their mobs, as they Ca' them nowadays. But it's an ill-wind blows naebody glide. Let ilka ane roose the ford as they find it. I say let Glasgow flourish! Whilk is judiciously and elegantly putten round the town's arms by way of byword. Now, since St. Mungo catched herrings in the Clyde, what was ever like to gie us flourish like the sugar and tobacco trade? Will onybody tell me that, and grumble at the treaty that opened us a road west-awa yonder? 2.0 P.M.

Sir Walter Scott, the writer who put these words into the Bailie's mouth, recognised the enormous commercial prosperity brought to Scotland, and, above all other places in Scotland, to Glasgow. It has been suggested, among other reasons, that administrative difficulties might be solved by means of such a measure as this. I myself think that another method of solving these administrative differences would be to have local governments on a basis separate from national government, and that is the great distinction between the views held on this side of the House and the views of hon. Gentlemen opposite. We do not hear so much about congestion now, but I think it is possible that many of the electors of this country would prefer a rest from the amount of legislation which is passed through the machine in this House, or has been passed through in recent years, and it might be more popular if it was not going ahead so fast. The last and main question is that of nationality. The hon. Member for the Camlachie Division has dealt with it. Nobody is prouder of being a Scot than I am; I can boast of being a pure Scot, not having a drop of English blood in my veins, and I regard it as an honour that I represent a Scottish constituency in this Parliament. My view is that our pride in Scottish nationality is not bounded by geographical limits. Scotsmen, with their characteristics and their vigorous nature, would be the first to grumble if their nationality were bounded by geographical limits.

Dr. Johnson said a truer word than he thought when he said that the "best road was the road out of Scotland." Many Scotsmen have successfully followed that road since the Union, with the result that in almost every other English-speaking nation there are Scotsmen found in ruling positions. [An HON. MEMBER: "The road to London!"] The road leads through London to many other places. The poet Burns was called in aid last year on the question of Scottish Home Rule. If he were living now, he would not have gone to Edinburgh, but would have come to London. That is true beyond doubt. He would have come to London because he would have found many of the finest Scotsmen living here, and he would have found help from his own countrymen here. Therefore I say with regard to this question of Scottish nationality, that it is a mistake to try and bind it by geographical limits. It is not a question of that at all. What are our objections to this Bill? They are, in the first place, that this measure tends to break up the Union of the United Kingdom. I do not propose to deal with that part of the case any further after what the hon. Member for the Camlachie Division has said. I heartily agree with what he said, and I certainly could not put it so well. We also object to this measure partly because of its strange resemblance—though it has some dissemblance—to the Irish Home Rule Bill. It has enough distinction to make it certain that the two would form any system of federalism to the United Kingdom along with a third Bill, even if that were possible or desirable. So far as concerns its being a practical question, in our view it cannot be said to have reached that stage. The Report of the Convention of the Royal Burghs is a very interesting document, to which I desire to call attention. First of all, you will notice in a passage that has been already read that they certainly would not welcome this Bill, because it deals with a partial scheme of devolution. I would like hon. Members to bear in mind what it was the Convention of the Royal Burghs stated in "Act 12, 1909":— Whereas the convention is a corporation: the time has arrived for it seeking a definite place in the local government of Scotland."' [An HON. MEMBER: "Read the last part of it."] The hon. Member can read anything he chooses, but I have no intention of being otherwise than fair in reading the passage to which I have referred. Take another point, that of single-Chamber Government, and there I will read what the Convention says. They are opposed to that point because they say, on page 14:— In a modern legislative assembly it is submitted there should be two Chambers. The first, a large democratic House, popularly elected on one franchise, similar to and at least as wide as the existing municipal franchise. The second, smaller in number, elected indirectly by popular selection. They suggest that the convention might have representation in the Upper Chamber. They say:— The Second Chamber should be vested with full power of revisal and rejection of measures sent from Commons. It should not have the power to initiate legislation, and provision should be made for a joint sitting on any measure sent a second time, after its first refusal, from the Commons to the Second Chamber. It should have a continuous life, but one-fifth of its members might retire annually, being capable of reelection. I think it was the hon. Member for Ross who referred to the fact that there are only sixteen representative peers in the House of Lords at present, but he omitted to mention the enormous number of Scottish peers who sit as peers of the United Kingdom, or as holding peerages of England in that House. Scotland is certainly fully represented there, and I think I can say, without offence to any Englishman present, that some of the wisest heads in that assembly are those upon Scotsmen's bodies. There is the other point as to the seventy-two Members which it is proposed to retain in the Imperial Parliament. The hon. Member for East Perthshire said, quite frankly, that even when it came to the consideration of devolution for England and the vest he was going to stick to his seventy-two Members. I think he is right. You have there an indication of the points of Friction which are almost certain to arise between this Scottish Home Rule Parliament and the other parts of the United Kingdom. I am glad to see that this Scottish Parliament, if it is ever coming into effective operation under this Bill, will certainly have the chance of dealing with a measure of Tariff Reform, because there is nothing to prevent it giving bounties to home manufactured goods. There is another very striking thing in this measure, and that is the taking of the exclusive power to tax land in Scotland. I cannot help feeling suspicious of that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I have hit it evidently. We all know that there is an active party in Scotland who are keen on the taxation of land values and single taxes, and so on, and who believe, or some of them, that the land should be expropriated from the landowners in many cases without compensation. We have seen some of that ourselves recently. I have a great suspicion of this extraordinary proposal to take power to tax land exclusively for the Scottish Parliament and away from the Imperial Parliament. One will thus have the complication of having two taxing bodies, and we have got quite enough to collect the taxes at the present time, and the system ought to be simplified instead of being added to.

Finally, there is the question of Women's Suffrage. I confess I do not understand why it has been put in at all. I think it is probably to make sure that there shall not be too enthusiastic a majority, if a majority at all, for the Second Reading to-day. It is very striking the way it is put in, because it defies Nature and declares that a woman is to be held as a man. Let me make quite clear what my views are, because I think hon. Members are entitled to receive it, as to the method that should be adopted to help for instance the congestion. I think you have a very good indication of the line in this same Report of the Royal Convention of Burghs. I do not think they altogether stick to their full views in the suggestions, as they call them, in the latter part of the suggestions. On page 13, after pointing out that for ten years they had taken no part in politics—I wish they had kept it up—they say:— The fact being that released from the trammels of party, men of principle endowed with knowledge and experience of the subject with which they are dealing support what is obvious to them as the wise and useful course. I must say I agree with that, and I think the mistake of such a Home Rule measure as this is that the body which you propose to deal with local matters must necessarily be a political body run on political lines. I venture to differ entirely from that view. I think those local matters should be dealt with by a body which is not national in any sense, but local in the truest sense. The extension of local government on those lines is the true remedy, and then you will have bodies dealing with matters not on political lines at all, but on the lines of a "wise and useful course," to use the words of the Convention. We have had in Scotland in operation the Private Legislation Procedure Act of 1899. Personally, I think that might be made a most useful measure, and I think there has been far too much brought up to this country. I do not know that the big corporations in Scotland are altogether blameless. Much more might be usefully kept in Scotland. I do say this, if I may suggest it to the right hon. Gentleman opposite, I think the provision of a permanent chairman on this Scottish Private Legislation Committee would be a useful thing, and would do far more good than anything else, or a select panel which would ensure that you would always have an experienced chairman. I, personally, have been before that body for several years now, and I can say that one of the defects, and one of the reasons for want of confidence where it does exist, has been that people who have not had previous experience, and I am not blaming them, have been in the chair, and you do not have that continuous practice which is necessary and desirable. I think in many other ways private legislation and local administration might be extended. We have in the local Acts and Public Health Acts, and in our own Local Government Acts and County Council Acts, matters committed to the local bodies, and, I think, we might well commit more to them of what is truly local legislation, and thereby limit the amount which this Parliament has to do. Accordingly, on those grounds, I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. EUGENE WASON

It is not a little singular that the two hon. Members who have moved and seconded the rejection of this Bill both sit by minority votes, and I really think that they are wise, in view of that result, to take advantage of making the lengthy speeches they did on the subject. They were, however, very interesting and able speeches from their point of view. I have no desire to quarrel with them or any other Member, including my old opponent the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger), with reference to this question, but I do on one point agree with both Members, and that is that I do not understand why the proposal with regard to Women Suffrage was included in this Bill. I used to support the franchise for women, but I have given it up. I have been appealed to in the most pathetic language, and I have been threatened, but so long as women continue to pursue the course they are following at the present time they will not have my support, either for votes in Scotland or for votes in England. It is by a mistake that my name appears on the back of this Bill. I asked that it might not appear simply for that reason. So far as the principle of Home Rule for Scotland is concerned, there is no firmer believer in it than myself. The hon. Member for the Camlachie Division (Mr. Mackinder), in his very interesting speech, put the case very fairly as between the opponents of Home Rule and hon. Members from Scotland on this side. He said that they were all in favour of devolution, but that devolution was no recognition of nationalism. It is because we on this side are firm believers in Scottish nationalism and in the right of the Scottish people to make Scottish laws in the Scottish capital without the interference of English, Welsh, or Irish Members, that we support the principles embodied in this Bill. I am glad to see the Secretary for Scotland and the Lord Advocate present. They have between them to do the work of half a dozen Departments, which in the case of England and Wales are represented in this House. My right hon. Friend has to represent the Board of Education, the Home Office, and the Local Government Board; he even has a Milk and Dairies Bill in this Parliament, and he has to attend the Scottish Grand Committee. The result is that so far as Scottish affairs are concerned, the Scottish Office is overburdened with work, and we know, as a matter of fact, that the permanent Under-Secretary, owing to the great amount of work that he has had in hand, has been ill for some time and has had to go on extended leave.

Sir G. YOUNGER

Is not the remedy for that the reorganisation of the Scottish Office?

Mr. E. WASON

I would rather make my speech in my own way. It may possibly be done in the way the hon. Baronet suggests, but we think that it can be better done in the way suggested by this Bill. I would ask any hon. Member who has followed, as I have done for twenty years, the course of Scottish legislation in this House, whether he has not seen scores of Acts of Parliament in which the last Clause is, "This Act shall not apply to Scotland?" When there are general Acts applying to Scotland, it requires all the legal talent of the Scottish Office to draft Clauses applicable to Scotland to be included in those general measures. Further, we have had Bills passed in this House applicable to Scotland and Scotland alone. "Horror of horrors," said my hon. Friend the Member for the Camlachie Division, "that Wales should be a nationality." I consider that Wales, Ireland, and Scotland are each and every one separate and independent nationalities, and that the law for those different parts of the United Kingdom ought to be made in accordance with the wishes of the representatives of those countries. Take Wales. We have had letters from English Churchmen whom we know begging the Scottish Liberal Members to abstain from voting for the Welsh Disestablishment Bill. I should be very willing to accede to that request on one condition, and one condition only, and that is that the question should be settled by the Welsh representatives themselves. I say that because I know that if we had had this same system of ecclesiastical rule in Scotland, we would not have tolerated it, or put up with it for so long as the Welsh people have done. So far as the Welsh Church is concerned, I am sure that my hon. Friends agree that the question ought to be settled, not by English, Scottish, or Irish votes, but by the votes of the Welsh people alone.

This day last week hon. Members opposite had a triumph in the rejection of the Sunday Closing Bill. We were appealed to as Scottish Members not to vote on that Bill. There again, I am sure I speak for at any rate, most of my colleagues, when I say that we are quite willing to let Englishmen settle the question in their own particular way, provided they will not interfere with this particular question in Scotland. For over sixty years we have had the benefit of the Forbes-Mackenzie Act, which gives total Sunday Closing—not partial—as was proposed last week, and I venture to say that there is not a Scottish Member opposite who would venture to go to his constituency and ask that it should be repealed. The hon. Member for Perth (Mr. W. Young) quoted a speech made by Lord Rosebery at Cardiff. Lord Rosebery on one occasion in his Liberal days—I am not sure whether it was in the same speech; it was about that time—was speaking on the question of Scotland and Ireland. He was at that time in favour of Home Rule for Ireland, and he differentiated between the two nationalities in this way: He said that in Scotland it was a case of neglect, while in Ireland it was a case of the shoe pinching. We hope next week, or the week after, that the Irish Bill will be safely through both Houses of Parliament and become the law of the land.

MARQUESS OF TULLIBARDINE

What about the amending Bill?

Mr. E. WASON

That, at any rate, is my hope. As the Prime Minister said in reply to a deputation on the question of Scottish Home Rule, when that measure is granted to Ireland there will be a lopsided state of affairs until a similar measure, or something like it, is given to the people of Scotland. I remember perfectly well Mr. Gladstone saying in this House that in the Home Rule Bill of 1886—and I have agreed with all three Home Rule Bills—there was nothing which, if the Scottish Members desired it, they were not entitled to have. I should like to give two quotations, which are very short and very much to the point. The first is as to the reason why we Scottish people claim the right to make our own laws, wholly independent of what Irishmen, Welshmen, or Englishmen desire. There has been a good deal of history introduced into this controversy. I am going to give a quotation from William Earl of Douglas, in the year 1385:— The Scottish people would endure pillage, and they would endure famine and every other extremity of war, but they will not endure an English master. That is our position to-day, and I may remind the House that this year is the six-hundredth anniversary of Bannockburn. We often hear quoted speeches made by the late Mr. John Bright, with whom I had the honour of sitting in this House, and whom I knew fairly well. The speech from which I wish to quote was delivered in the year 1843, at the time when Daniel O'Connell was advocating the repeal of the Union between England and Ireland. John Bright was a friend of Ireland. Unfortunately he did not see eye-to-eye with Mr. Gladstone on his Home Rule Bill. This is what he said about the Scottish people in a letter to a friend in 1843:— I told them that if they were separate from England they might have a Government wholly popular and intelligent to a degree which I believe does not exist in any other country on the face of the earth. That was Mr. John Bright's statement in the year 1843. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Camlachie. I agree that the spirit of nationalism in Scotland is as true and as fervent now as it ever has been. I agree that we shall give effect to that spirit of nationalism in a better way than in any other by seeking to pass the Second Reading of this Bill, and by getting any defects there may be struck out in Committee. I believe until we do get Home Rule for Scotland that the Scottish people will never rest, and never remain satisfied.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

It is just—

Mr. WILKIE

What about Flodden?

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

I will deal with Flodden and Bannockburn later. It is just as well to remind hon. Members that there has always been two sides to this question of Home Rule. It is not all Bannockburn, nor yet is it all Flodden. But it is a very curious fact, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that we have had three speakers on the opposite side—

Mr. HOGGE

Each an hour.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

As the hon. Member for East Edinburgh says, they have each spoken about an hour, and not one of them has yet mentioned the Bill. The hon. Member for Clackmannan and Kinross (Mr. Eugene Wason), who has just spoken, said nothing about this Bill except this; that he was going to vote against it, and that he was very sorry his name was upon it.

Mr. E. WASON

I never said anything of the sort. I said I should vote against the particular Clause in it which gives women the franchise, but that so far as the Bill is concerned, I should vote for it.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

I thought the hon. Gentleman whose name is on the back of the Bill said that it would not have been if he could have helped it.

Mr. E. WASON

I said my name was on it through a misunderstanding, because of that particular Clause dealing with women's franchise.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

Therefore the hon. Member does not support the Bill?

Mr. E. WASON

I never said anything of the sort! If the Noble Lord had done me the credit of listening to what I said he would have discovered that I did my best to make out a very strong case for the whole of the Bill, except that particular Clause.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

I quite understand the hon. Member. It is one of those cases of honest misunderstanding. We have the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) who said a great deal from a sentimental point of view, but he told us nothing at all about the Bill which he was introducing. We have the hon. Member for East Perthshire (Mr. W. Young) who also never mentioned the Bill. In a lengthy speech he only mentioned the Bill from one point of view, and that was that if the certain Clause was still in it when it came before the Committee—and I think it never will—he also would vote against the Bill. These were the three supporters of the measure for Scottish Home Rule.

Mr. W. YOUNG

I never said I would vote against the Bill, but against the franchise for women Clause in it.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

I quite understand the hon. Member. He is going to vote against this Bill giving Home Rule to Scotland if it contains this Clause. He is not a very sturdy supporter of a Bill of this sort. I could not help being entertained by the fact that hon. Members opposite advanced as one of the chief reasons for having Home Rule for Scotland the congestion of business in this Imperial House of Commons. That is one of the reasons. Well, then, we find them here bringing in a measure for Scottish Home Rule which they know cannot possibly become law during the present Parliament. Is not that rather a waste of time? We grumble about the congestion of business and here we are bringing in a Bill for Scottish Home Rule, that hon. Members opposite, as I say, know perfectly well, cannot be considered by this Government even during the existing Parliament. Hon. Members opposite cannot deny that.

Mr. WILKIE

The reason is because time will not allow.

MARQUESS Of TULLIBARDINE

The reason is that I believe in the words of the Prime Minister.

Mr. HOGGE

Since when?

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

Upon this occasion, the 1st April, 1912. The Prime Minister was then asked:— Whether his attention had been called to the provisions contained in the Government of Scotland Bill as ordered by this House to be printed on the 29th of this month, and whether the Government intend to make the Government of Scotland Bill a Government measure in the lifetime of the present Parliament? The Prime Minister's statement was:— The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, and to the other part in the negative. Will that satisfy the hon. Member? Perhaps he will now withdraw his strictures upon another place. I quite admit that that is another Bill, but is the present Prime Minister likely to be more in favour of a Bill which is the same Bill with a Clause added relating to Woman Suffrage? I would suggest to hon. Members that before they talk rubbish on the platforms about the congestion in the Imperial House of Commons they should not only remember that fact, but remember just exactly how many Blocking Motions and speeches of that nature have been made by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh and hon. Members who sit beside him.

Mr. HOGGE

I never made one.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

The next point I should like to touch upon is this: Hon. Members say a good deal about Scotland, but they have got absolutely no mandate for Home Rule for Scotland from their constituencies as a whole.

Colonel GREIG

How do you know?

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

I am here because I voted against it. I am quite well aware that not only hon. Members on that side of the House, but hon. Members upon this side of the House, have been considerably pestered since they have been in Parliament by letters from the Young Scots, but I have yet to learn that the Young Scots are a majority of the people of Scotland! The Mover of the Bill said it was a virtue to be a Scot, and no crime to be young. He had not then heard the speech of the hon. Member for East Perthshire. I would only say that there is, of course, a chance for the Young Scots to grow older and, in consequence, wiser. When we recollect that probably about half the Scottish Liberal Members never mentioned Home Rule for Scotland in their election addresses, how can they say that it was the dominating issue at the last election! It is absurd!

Mr. WILKIE

I did.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

I know the hon. Member did, but, if you really look at the facts, you will find that 104,952 out of a total of 249,953 electors voted for Unionists. Remember, that of all the others, Liberals, about half never mentioned Home Rule for Scotland, and it is rather difficult for hon. Members to come here and say that really they have got a mandate for Scottish Home Rule. I certainly have not time to go through all the election addresses of hon. Members, but I know there is nothing some of them dislike so much as their own election addresses. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about your own?"] Mine was distinctly against Scottish Home Rule. I take the case of the hon. Member for Sutherland. I do not think he is here to-day, although he takes an immense interest in the subject. He mentioned a great deal of the promised Land Bill and of old age pensions, but he avoided Home Rule for Scotland. The hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty, who introduced the Bill, said nothing about it at the General Election, though, I admit, he did at the by-election. He is a great Highlander up there, but he is much quieter when he comes down the country. How is it that the hon. Member who introduced this Bill should have said nothing about the subject in his election address, and never mentioned Home Rule at the General Election? It was the one thing he happened by mistake to leave out. He never mentioned the question of Scottish Home Rule for his native country.

Mr. MACPHERSON

Did I not mention it in my last election address?

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

Before the hon. Member came into the House just now I gave him full credit for having mentioned it at the last election. I see the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland in his place. Let us see what he did upon the subject. We may really look upon the present Bill as almost a vote of want of confidence upon the Secretary of Scotland and his Department. I do not, of course, mean anything personal. We find that in his election address in January, 1910, the right hon. Gentleman never mentioned it or upon the platform, and he got a very big majority. In December, 1910, the right hon. Gentleman did not mention it in his election address; he mentioned it once on the platform, and his majority was considerably reduced. In the hopes of making an improvement when he stood at the by-election in 1912 he not only mentioned Scottish Home Rule in his address, but also on the platform, and he was successful in getting his majority reduced from 4,000 in the first instance to 469 in the last. It cannot be a case of personal unpopularity; the right hon. Gentleman must give us some other reason.

Mr. PRINGLE

You went and spoke against him at the time.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

I do not suppose the right hon. Gentleman omitted to mention it by mistake, because the right hon. Gentleman, I remember, gave his long-suffering constituents four large pages of closely typewritten matter, entitled: Thoughts of T. McKinnon Wood, and in all this there was not a single word about Home Rule.

The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood)

Is the Noble Lord certain of that title? I certainly have no recollection of it.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

It might have been "Political Thoughts of T. McKinnon Wood." I have got it here, and I will show it to hon. Members afterwards if they desire. Then the right hon. Gentleman issued a holograph letter, signed by himself, which also never mentioned Home Rule, but he was a strong Home Ruler all the time. The hon. Member for South Aberdeen never mentioned a word about Scottish Home Rule. The hon. Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Ainsworth), a fellow Highlander, as we all know, was careful to avoid allusion either to Ireland or Scotland. Neither the hon. Member for Roxburgh nor the hon. Member for Brecknockshire mentioned it at all, and the late Whip of the Liberal party, who was then Member for Midlothian, and who must have known what was in the mind of the Government, never said a word with regard to it.

Mr. PRINGLE

Yes, he did.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

The hon. Member for Perthshire and the hon. Member for Perth City were also careful to avoid it.

Mr. FREDERICK WHYTE

That is not the case.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

Did the hon. Member mention Scottish Home Rule at the last election?

Mr. F. WHYTE

I expressly mentioned devolution in 1910, and the Noble Lord knows perfectly well that the issues at all these elections were practically the same.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

That is the reason he never mentioned it. First of all, taking the last election, not the one before, he did not mention it. Why-did he not mention it, if it is such a dominant issue? Now we come to the hon. Member for East Perthshire. The hon. Member, in making his maiden speech to-day—

Mr. W. YOUNG

That is likewise an inaccuracy.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

I am sorry, but I thought it was the hon. Member's first speech. He does not often address the House, but he was so moved by feeling that he had to speak to-day. He must have thought this was an important question, and a dominant one at, the last election. Why did he not mention it? Is it not rather strange. But I think he summed up the matter in his election address when he said:— We are a nation of business men. In business as in most other spheres, of life we do not base our operations upon what a man promises. Then take the case of the hon. Member for Falkirk. He is a very cautious man and careful of what he says, and he was very careful to say nothing about Scottish Home Rule. I will not say that the hon. Member for East Aberdeen, and the hon. Member for Inverness Burghs, showed ignorance of political matters, and I can hardly accuse them of wishing deliberately to deceive their constituents in these matters, unless, of course, they are going to go with us to-day. The hon. Member for East Aberdeen said Home Rule for Ireland is not a leading issue of this election, and he said he was in favour of Home Rule for Scotland as soon as the question of the House of Lords had been settled. With regard to the House of Lords he said, the Upper House would be deprived of the power of vetoing Liberal Bills or of throwing out Liberal Budgets, and they would be reconstituted according to the Preamble of the Bill on a democratic basis. The hon. Member is still waiting for the Preamble, but he is here to-day supporting a Home Rule Bill for Scotland. I sympathise with the hon. Member in what I will call his honest folly. He can do nothing to redeem his pledge of honour. The last I will take is the hon. Member for Inverness Burghs. Of him I will say, in rather colloquial terms, he put the "lid on it." And this Highland gentleman, who represents a Highland constituency, stated that there was no fear of Home Rule during this Parliament, and that it was a furbished toy bogey. If this Bill had been agreed upon by Liberal Members, I would have thought that it should at least have been issued before yesterday, and I think I have some reason to complain that the first information which I could get about the Bill was in a Unionist Dundee paper which gave the Bill. [An HON. MEMBER: "A Liberal paper? "] No, the Unionist paper. I bought both.

Mr. MACPHERSON

Was the Noble Lord not aware before yesterday of what the Bill was?

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

The first time that I ever knew that there was a Bill at all was when the hon. Member waved something at me at the Scottish Committee upstairs, and said, "This is the Bill." I said, "Is it the same?" and he said, "Yes." But I was able to find in the Press all the essential details of this Bill before it was published in this House. So that it is very difficult for us to criticise the Bill in the way in which we ought. Looking at the Bill generally, I cannot understand why proposals for which hon. Members voted in the Irish Home Rule Bill, and which they have defended on every platform throughout Scotland, as being the essense of a proper Home Rule Bill, should be absolutely anathema in Scotland. And these are questions of wide principle, and not matters of detail. I cannot understand, for example, why Ireland should have two Chambers and Scotland only one.

Mr. BARNES

Scotland wants one.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

One would have thought that what was sauce for the Irish goose was sauce for the Scottish gander. What about the Post Office? Hon. Members opposite insisted on throwing out an Amendment which I moved myself with regard to the Postmaster-General retaining control of the Post Office in Ireland. They made every sort of excuse to show that, under a real system of Home Rule, you must have a separate Post Office, and then they bring in a Bill saying, very sensibly I think, that they want to have central control. But why did hon. Members vote against it before when they ask me to support it now? Then if Ireland is fit to look after its own Customs and Excise, I should have thought that Scotland contained men who are equally capable of looking after the Customs and Excise. If it is a bad system for Scot-fend, why is it not a bad system for Ireland? Perhaps hon. Members can explain that. Does the right hon. Gentleman know that the one thing that is going to be cut out of this Home Rule Bill as I understand it, if it comes to an agreement, is the Customs and Excise? The Leader of the Irish party, I understand, is quite prepared to give up Customs and Excise. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I saw it in the Press.

Mr. DILLON

You see many things in the Press.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

Do I understand it is not to be done?

Mr. DEVLIN

Certainly!

Mr. DILLON

I want to know your authority.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

My authority is that I saw it in the paper.

Mr. DEVLIN

Is it the "Morning Post"?

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

It may be. Perhaps hon. Members who represent so much of Ireland would not mind telling us—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"]—and we should then understand what is to be done. Then I should have thought that if Scotsmen are able to look after old age pensions, national insurance, and Labour Exchanges, Irishmen should not be considered incapable of performing the same duties. The hon. Member must not think that I am saying that they are not. I think it probable that they are quite capable, but I am only asking for information. There is one matter for congratulation in the Bill—His Majesty is still to be allowed to reign in Scotland. This is great generosity on the part of the Mover of this Bill. I hope that the hon. Member will be properly remembered when the birthday honours come round. Then there is some room for argument between hon. Members opposite when it comes to the Redistribution of Seats in Scotland under the new Home Rule Bill. I have heard hon. Members ask, "Are these Scottish Members to be paid £400 a year also?" [An HON. MEMBER: "£5,000!"]

Mr. WATT

Scotsmen and Irishmen are willing to give up the £400 a year.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

I have already suggested that hon. Members should give them up to small holders, but so far they have refused.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Maclean)

Hon. Members should not interrupt the Noble Lord.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

Perhaps it was my own fault. The Member for Ross and Cromarty was very careful to state that there was going to be no Redistribution, but that there would be exactly the same constituencies as at present. Therefore, we find among the new Scottish Parliamentary constituencies that North-East Lanark, with a population of 140,000 and 25,000 electors, is to have' the same representation as Caithness with a population of 23,000 and 3,900 electors. I do not think that you will get people in the South of Scotland to care for that. Then Sutherland, with 19,000 inhabitants and only 3,200 voters, is to have exactly the same voice in representation, and very possibly the same Member, an Englishman, returned, by 3,200 voters, as Partick, with 139,000 inhabitants and 26,000 voters. There is only one other Clause in the Bill on which I wish to touch, and that is the qualification of voters. The qualification of the male voter has never been mentioned at all, but I presume he exists. Women are to have the same qualification as men if they are married. Apparently, if they are married, they are to have the same power as men to receive a household qualification during the period required by law to enable persons to be so registered as married persons. I presume that all these married ladies would have separate rooms of their own, and the key of their own door, and a latchkey very likely! If we are to have a separate body controlling affairs in Scotland, although I happen to be a strong anti-suffragist in the Imperial Parliament, I am not prepared to say anything against Women Suffrage for a local Parliament. That is about the only part of the Bill which I might be in favour of.

I submit that the Mover of this Bill has really not given us sufficient reason for all the expense, worry, and trouble that a separate Parliament in Scotland would entail. If he would confine himself to laying a much simpler proposition before the House, a purely businesslike proposition, I am sure he would have a great deal more sympathy on this side. If he had merely suggested giving more control either to certain existing bodies or to a centralised institution of such bodies, possibly, though I have not really thought it out, we might have considered it much more favourably. I consider a separate Parliament, quite apart from all the expense and all the politics which it would "bring into Scotland, would be subversive of the Imperial Parliament, and I am entirely against the proposal.

Surely we might have felt our way gradually and cautiously as business men and as Scotsmen. Would it not be better to take a load off the shoulders of the Secretary for Scotland, who has got an office the duties of which it is impossible for any single man, whether he is clever or not, or whoever he may be, to perform as they exist at the present time? Would it not be cheaper, even if you had to pay for the luxury, to give him an Under-Secretary or two to help him? [An HON. MEMBER: "What, more jobs?"] The hon. Member who supported the Insurance Act ought not to object, but I have still got to learn that the Under-Secretaries of this House are jobs. I was not talking of making more officials. I know that we are going to take over all this vast body of officials under the Insurance Act and other Acts which we have passed over the heads of the people. I was referring to the question of properly delegating duties of Members of this House to the Scottish Office. I am quite certain that we could then have a great deal more satisfaction.' If we did not get satisfaction then, we might, if you like, delegate our duties to some centralised body in Scotland, but I think it would be very unwise to straightway make Scotland a seething pot of politics by setting up a separate Parliament. We get far more from our alliance with England than we should ever get if we broke away from England. Two hon. Members opposite are very good examples of what Scotsmen can do away from their own country. There is the hon. Member who came from a very much smaller life in the North, and who is now a distinguished barrister at the Bar. Why does he want to stop others from having the same advantages? Then there is the hon. Member for Perthshire, who has travelled the world and, I understand, made a great business in Mexico. Do you want to stop all that? Do you want to go back to the small parochial life we used to live? I think it would be the greatest mistake which could possibly happen.

Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR

The Noble Lord must be singularly out of touch with public opinion in Scotland if he has failed to recognise the growth of opinion on the subject of Scottish Home Rule within recent times. He has referred to the argument as to the congestion of business as "rubbish." I wonder whether he has read the Report of the Convention of Royal Burghs, because, if he had done so, he-would have found that what he calls the "rubbish" argument of congestion is specifically referred to in that Report, and that reference is also made to the need of a federal system of local government as a means of relieving Parliament of the unnecessary weight of details.

MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE

l am quite prepared to go upon my own opinion and not upon the opinion of any convention outside Parliament.

Mr. MILLAR

The Noble Lord is entitled to his own opinion. I was only saying that he has not given weight to the opinion expressed in Scotland—by a body which can claim to put forward an impartial view. I am not surprised that the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) is not prepared to accept the opinion of the Convention of Royal Burghs. He is not prepared to accept the opinion of anybody but himself on almost any question. On this subject in Scotland we have recently had very considerable developments. The Convention of Royal Burghs has issued their Report, but it has not been completely quoted, and I should like to draw attention to one of the most important resolutions which it recently passed, namely:— In the opinion of the convention it desirable that the Imperial Parliament, should devolve upon the people of Scotland the control and management of their local affairs by a Legislature and an Executive in Scotland, subordinate to the Imperial Parliament. That is carrying the matter to the same point as we who support this Bill desire to see it carried. Reference has been made by the Noble Marquess to the attitude of Liberal candidates at the last election. I can assure him that the question of Home Rule was not only a matter interesting to Liberal candidates, but also to a good many Unionist candidates. I am glad to see the hon. and gallant Member for St. Andrews Burghs (Major Anstruther-Gray) whom I fought at the General Election, in his place, and I think he will agree that there was considerable interest shown at that election in Scottish Home Rule. Perhaps he remembers a meeting at Cupar, where he delivered a speech. I will quote the Unionist newspaper which reported his speech on 2nd December, 1910:— After making a reference to Home Rule, the speaker was interrupted by cheers. I hear some of you cheer Home Rule.' he said. 'Some, of yon would like Home Rule for Scotland (renewed cheers). 'The Home Rule for Scotland you want might he a very good thing' (cheers). 'But Home Rule for Ireland would be a different thing.' I think the hon. and gallant Member will see that, at any rate, his suggestion was that Home Rule for Scotland might be regarded as a desirable proposition in itself. We have learnt something from the Debates on the Irish Home Rule question. It would be a much simpler question to give Home Rule to Scotland.

Major ANSTRUTHER - GRAY

It depends upon what sort of Home Rule it is.

Mr. MILLAR

We in Scotland can claim that our citizens are law-abiding, and are not in the habit of gun-running or forming themselves into armed forces to oppose the laws of the realm, and there is some hope that such a matter might be settled and settled easily by general consent. Reference has been made by several Members to the question of Church union in Scotland. It seems to me that affords the best possible illustration of our claim at the present time to have our own Scottish Parliament. The hon. and learned Member for South Lanark and others on the other side said that Church questions would be better settled in a British Parliament than in the heated atmosphere of a Scottish Parliament. May I remind hon. Members opposite that the ecclesiastical strife which has given rise to all the disruptions in Scotland was due to the fact that lay patronage, which had been abolished by the Scottish Parliament in 1690, was introduced again by a British Parliament in 1712, and it was following upon that that we had the various secessions, the secession of 1733 and of 1752, and the Free Church disruption in 1843. I would remind hon. Members of what took place before the disruption of 1843. You had at that time a General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, claiming spiritual independence and self-government, and what happened? A petition from the assembly in support of this claim was presented to the House of Commons by Mr. Fox Maule afterwards Lord Dalhousie, who was Member for Perth, and who moved for a Committee of Inquiry. That Motion was supported by a large majority of the Scottish Members, but it was defeated by a majority consisting of English Members, and after that the disruption became inevitable. Now when we are trying again to unite the Churches of Scotland, we are faced with the same difficulty that this problem may have to be dealt with not in a Scottish Parliament, but in a British Parliament, where the views of Scotland may be overriden.

Sir H. CRAIK

May I ask if the views of Scottish Members were overruled, neglected, and set aside by this House of Commons when the Act of 1905 was passed?

Mr. MILLAR

That is a different question, because that Act embodied provisions relating to the formula of the Church of Scotland which gave hon. Members opposite an interest in it which they would not have had otherwise. I would call the attention of hon. Members to what was said by Lord Balfour of Burleigh when dealing with this question at Edinburgh. He reminded those who were listening to him on that occasion of what had taken place in Scotland in the past, and claimed that this Church question was a purely Scottish question. "He was not himself," he said, "much of a believer in Home Rule, but, as far as things Scottish could be decided in Scotland, he was an advocate of Home Rule." He went on to say that if Scotland had been left alone to decide this Church question for itself there would not have been these secessions and difficulties which they had had to deplore, and he advised them "to take care that, whatever happened, when these questions did come up for decision they should be decided by Scotland, according to Scottish ideas." Surely that is an authority which hon. Members opposite are prepared to accept?

Sir G. YOUNGER

Not a bit.

Mr. MILLAR

I venture to submit that Lord Balfour's view was endorsed generally by the people of Scotland when he put it forward in that form. I should like to draw the attention of the House to the attitude which hon. Members opposite have adopted in regard to the spirit of Scottish nationality. According to them, it is capable of doing great things for the Empire, but it is not fit to inspire Scotsmen to properly control affairs in Scotland in their own Scottish Parliament. It is a new doctrine which hon. Members have put forward, that because the limits of Scottish nationality do not coincide with the geographical limit, because, forsooth, there are Scotsmen who leave Scotland to make for themselves a name beyond, that that is an argument against Scottish Home Rule. Surely the hon. and learned Member who spoke of Scotsmen who left not only Scotland, but very often these shores, does not suggest that because they have left Scotland or Great Britain, therefore those who remain should not be allowed to manage their own affairs according to their own desires? That, I submit, is a very foolish argument.

Mr. WATSON

The result of having a separate nationality would, I suggested, be to raise the cries of "Scotland for the Scottish," "England for the English," and "Ireland for the Irish."

Mr. MILLAR

Does that argument apply to our Colonies beyond the seas? Hon. Members opposite are very keen for an Imperial Parliament representing every section of the Empire, and I ask, would it interfere in any way with the interests or views of the Colonies beyond the seas if they had a federal system of government such as, I understand, hon. Members opposite approve of with representation in the Imperial Parliament. I rejoice to think that this Debate records a very substantial advance in the direction of Scottish Home Rule. We are within sight of the attainment of our goal. Hon. Members may laugh, but they know perfectly well, and they will have to recognise that the Irish question is now on the verge of being settled—I use the word "settled" advisedly—and that the Irish Home Rule Bill is soon going to be placed on the Statute Book of the Realm. Scottish Home Rule is a much simpler and much more feasible proposition, and it must necessarily follow. I say, further, that we recognise with gratitude the attitude which the Government and the Secretary for Scotland have taken up in this matter. We are glad to know we have had a frank expression from the Government of their recognition that the demand for Scottish Home Rule must be satisfied at the earliest possible moment.

Hon. Members profess to believe that there is no public opinion in Scotland in favour of the Bill, but if they had been present at the great Conference we had at Edinburgh, and at the public meeting-addressed by my right hon. Friend on the subject of Scottish Home Rule, they would have had their views changed. At that Conference we had representatives of all shades of political opinion in Scotland. It was not confined to one party. The resolution was moved by the Lord Provost of Glasgow, and there were representatives of very many public bodies in Scotland present. Hon. Members will find if they do not recognise it now, that interest in Scotland in this question, which has existed ever since the date of the Union, has been steadily growing. Let me remind them that there has been a continuous protest even from the actual time of the Union against an incorporating instead of a federal union, and that protest has continued through these long years and to-day is stronger than ever. I look forward to a very early day when we shall have Home Rule for Scotland, and I say that hon. Members in meeting this Bill with a blank denial are placing themselves again in a position which, I venture to think, the large majority of their constituents in Scotland will refuse to endorse and that they will find at the next General Election that Home Rule is a much more live question in Scotland than they apparently imagine.

Mr. CLYDE

I do not know that the hon. Member who has just spoken would go the length of saying that there exists in Scotland at the present moment any body of public opinion which would support the particular proposals of the Bill now under discussion. I do not think he was, and I am not sure he would go even the length of saying that there exists in Scotland any settled body of public opinion which has definitely decided in favour of conferring a separate Parliament upon Scotland at all. What I think he means, and what I should be disposed to agree with him in saying, is, that there is a considerable body of public opinion in Scotland which is by no means wholly satisfied with our existing arrangement for the government of the country, and which is more than in a merely incohate form when it directs its criticisms to a great deal of our administrative machinery in Scotland. But after all, if a discussion of this kind is to be of any use, we must try and fasten our minds upon what is really the central thing in the present Bill. The central thing in this Bill is the setting up of a separate Parliament to which is to be entrusted the care and control of legislation on Scottish affairs. To that proposal I am frankly opposed. I quite understand, and there we are all agreed, that where you deal with the great Department of administration as distinguished from the great department of policy, there is almost no limit to which decentralisation may not usefully be carried, or, to put it in another way, those limits are only reached when you find yourselves up against either the problem of expense or the problem of efficiency, for by breaking up too much you may spend too much and you may waste your efforts.

We, however, are concerned with the proposal to set up a separate body to control and care for legislation, or to direct the policy of legislation in what are called "Scottish affairs." I agree with a great deal that has been said about our common Scottish nationality, about our equal share in the pride with which we regard both our traditions and our history, and in our anxiety to do our best to hand on our country's destiny to those who come afterwards undiminshed in its lustre and strengthened, if possible, in its power for good both at home and abroad. But I am going to leave all that chapter out of view, and, if hon. Members will allow me, to look at this from a strictly practical point of view. I am going to ask myself what good are you going to do to my country by setting up a separate Parliament for the control and care of Scottish legislation. I am going to leave out of account every proposal of which I might be in favour, or of which hon. Members opposite might be in favour, within the administrative sphere, saying no more than this, that it would require them to go a long way in that direction before they would be finally prepared to take a different path from the one they now take. When you come to the problem of the control and care of policy, and the problem of conducting legislation, the root question on which one's mind must be made up before we can approach it from a practical point of view is to make quite clear what we mean by a Scottish affair as distinct from an English affair or an Imperial affair. In what I am saying, I am supposing that England and Wales do not exist, and I am treating the matter as if it affected Scotland only.

What do we mean by a Scottish affair which is to be committed for legislative purposes to a separate Parliament in Scotland? There is only one method that I can think of to determine what is a Scottish affair and not an English one. It must be an affair in which Scotland and Scotsmen are interested, and in which England and Englishmen are not also interested. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I thought that some of the scientific defenders of the problem of federalism would be disposed to break away on the ground storey. If you are going to commit to a Parliament elected wholly in Scotland the duty of conducting policy with regard to a certain affair, then either that affair must be one in which Scotland and Scotsmen alone are interested—[HON. MEMBERS "No! "]—or you are empowering Scotland to deal with affairs in which Englishmen are interested without the opportunity of them interfering. The root problem that underlies all the difficulties that are really concerned in a proposal like this—I go much further and say that the problem that lay at the root of the Irish question when Mr. Gladstone tried to solve it, and when his successors have tried to solve it, is always the same—What is an Irish affair? That root problem in the case of Ireland has been snowed over recently because all our minds have been devoted to something vastly more imminent, although a much more temporary state of affairs than your interfering with the principles of our institutions. In connection with this question the root problem is what are the affairs which you are to commit to the guidance of a separate Parliament in Scotland. I should like to know the definition of a Scottish affair which does not resolve itself into the one I suggest, namely, one in which Scotland is solely interested and Scotsmen are entitled to settle themselves.

Mr. MURRAY MACDONALD

Apart from the general speculation, will the hon. and learned Gentleman apply his argument to the question of the Church?

Mr. CLYDE

The hon. Member asks that I should apply my arguments to practical details. That is exactly what I rose to do, and exactly what I want to do. If I touch somewhere about the real distinction, it becomes clear that I am entitled to say that in the sphere of administration I acknowledge hardly any limits which should confine your areas of decentralisation. Why? Because the application of general policy to the conditions which prevail here, there, or elsewhere, is always a local question, in which the interests are all local. If the question be how you are to apply a general law north of the Border, the conditions to which it has to be applied are local, and the interests that are going to be affected by its application in administration are local. It is, therefore, quite right in my view that, within the sphere of administration, local opinion should not only be heard, but I would go the length, almost if not quite, of saying that local opinion ought to be paramount.

Mr. MACPHERSON

That is what we say.

Mr. CLYDE

As to administration, the hon. Member and I would not be far apart, and I did not expect that we should be, but then he is applying this to legislation, which is quite a different thing.

Mr. MACPHERSON

It is local government.

Mr. CLYDE

The hon. Member would say, applying it in regard to purely local affairs. Let me, necessarily very rapidly and generally, survey the area of legislation which is opened and which has been ploughed many times in this House. Let me ask hon. Members always to keep in mind two questions. First of all, we should look at these various Departments, which are affairs exclusively Scottish, in which Scotland has interests and England none, or in which England has interests and Scotland none, and then equally in each case ask whether you think the interests are purely Scottish, to use your own words, or are mixed, in regard to which would it be good for my country to have a separate Parliament to determine them. In Scotland, as in England, our main material interest is our industries, our trade, and our commerce. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Renfrew (Colonel Greig) is, as usual, exceedingly impatient. I may remind him that industry, trade, or commerce knows no distinction at the Solway Firth. More than that, what lies at the basis of our industry, trade, and commerce in Scotland? It would not be unfair to say that the foundation of it all is our transport system—sea, rail, and road. Does anyone say that the control of shipping legislation is an exclusively Scotch affair? I think the hon. Member (Mr. Macpherson) recognises that in his Bill.

Mr. MACPHERSON

Of course, we do.

Mr. CLYDE

Let me take one particular department of it which he would say did not fall under that head. There have been difficulties with trawlers in Scotland. They do not arise out of the fact that there is an Imperial Parliament, or that there is not a Scottish Parliament. They arise out of the circumstances that unfortunately the Imperial Parliament itself has not applied precisely the same legislation North and South of the Border. If it had, those difficulties would never have existed, and do you suppose, if you want to remove them, that your best plan is to make two bodies entitled to legislate about the same thing? If you want to remove them, the wisest thing is not to create separate legislative interests and separate legislative bodies, but exactly the other way. Shipping goes by common consent. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]

Mr. MACPHERSON

The hon. and learned Gentleman has merely referred to trawling. That is a question of administration.

Mr. CLYDE

Then, may I take the whole range of traffic by sea. How much traffic by sea is exclusively Scottish traffic. What would be the use of legislation in Scotland about traffic by sea, if it were limited to Scottish coastwise traffic? Traffic cannot be confined in that way.

Mr. MURRAY MACDONALD

The Bill does not suggest that.

Mr. CLYDE

The hon. Member has not read the Bill.

Mr. MACPHERSON

Sub-section (7) of Clause 2 makes it quite plain that trade and shipping are excluded from the Scottish Parliament.

Mr. CLYDE

Foreign trade, yes. Are you treating English trade as foreign trade? I am talking about what you say you are talking about under the name of purely Scottish affairs, and I am treating of that in relation particularly to England and Scotland, and hon. Members opposite know that. We need not mind about foreign trade. We know that is not touched. I am talking about the distinction between English and Scottish affairs if you can make it, and when you come to shipping, or any questions relating to traffic by sea, the affair is one in which the interests are joint and inseparable between England and Scotland, and cannot constitute a subject of exclusively Scottish interest.

Now I have to ask hon. Members to leave shipping and traffic by sea. Take traffic by land. Under your Bill you commit the whole control of traffic by railway, and the regulation of railways, to the Scottish Parliament, on the ground that that is an exclusively Scottish affair. Three leading Scottish companies run on Scottish metals on English soil, and there is not a question that touches railway traffic in Scotland which you can describe as an affair in which only Scotsmen are interested, and which are not equally the interest of every trader in the United Kingdom. Then your railway transit goes. What becomes of your land transit? If it is only the administration of your roads, as we understand that matter at present, we do not require any question of separation of interests between England and Scotland. The separation of interests is between each administrative district. But there are larger questions, if not already before us, at least on the horizon, about transit by road. It is a thing that is going to be revolutionised, many of us believe, and it certainly looks very like it. The advent of the motor car has changed a great many things with regard to transit by road which used to be purely local, and have made them matters of national concern. If I leave the railway and look at the roads, is there anyone who will tell me that the development of the road system in this country becomes a national affair, exclusively Scottish, when the road happens to touch Gretna, and becomes an exclusively English affair when you get South of Gretna? The thing is nonsense. The affair is just as much the interest of both as is the road itself continuous from Land's End to John O'Groats.

Mr. WILKIE

Have the air.

Mr. CLYDE

The hon. Member says even the road will cease to be the best means of transit, and we shall leave it and fly through the air. Are you going to make a distinction between Scottish air and English air? There is one of these interests which, if you apply the test I have suggested, of a matter which is the interest of Scotsmen, and which they are entitled to regulate for themselves, because it does not affect England, you can touch. I leave the basis of our material prosperity and I pass to something which is in some ways more immediately important. Yon have an immense sphere of legislation which touches things like money—I am not talking about metal, token money, but paper money and securities—a great deal of legislation which deals with all manner of mercantile arrangements—sales, securities, partnerships, companies, remedies against debtors, insolvency, and bankruptcy—a very wide sphere—which touches intimately at every point the life of our national trade and commerce. All these things are interests exclusively Scottish, and entitled to be dealt with as such by an exclusively Scottish Parliament,

Mr. WATT

Are there not difficulties now?

Mr. CLYDE

The hon. and learned Member ought to confine himself to his knowledge of the law of England. Take first of all, the first of these things. At present if the question whether we have a Scottish Act and an English Act is really of any importance, bills of exchange are regulated by the same Statute, the sale of goods is regulated by the same Statute, our partnerships are regulated by the same Statute, and our companies are regulated by the same Statute. Does anyone want to prevent that? If anyone wants to prevent that, why do you want to authorise two separate bodies—the Scottish one with power to do what it likes in this respect, the Imperial Parliament with a concurrent power of legislation, and the English Parliament with the power to do what it likes for itself. The reason why you do not want to do it is that you have to acknowledge, as any sensible, practical person must acknowledge, that there is not one of these things in which Scotsmen and Scotland alone are interested. Our partnerships, our companies, our transactions, our business, are all common to the North and South. There is not one of these things in which you have an exclusively Scottish concern. The hon. Member (Mr. Pringle) says "bankruptcy is not quite the same." He might have gone further than that. He might have pointed out that the method of recovering against debtors is not quite the same. I wonder if he is reflecting on what the history of this thing has been, and what the opinion of the trading community about this thing is! The history of this thing is that the trend of legislation has persistently—gradually, as it ought to be, but persistently—been in the direction of assimilating the two systems of mercantile law into identity. The hon. Member ought to reflect that long ago we began by passing a series of Acts which we called Mercantile Law Amendment Acts, and which are codifying Acts. In every one of these an attempt has been made to gather up the best that was to be found in each of the two systems and make an effective system in law for the regulation of trade affairs which cannot by their nature be confined, or their interest limited, either North of the Border or the South of the Border. The hon. Member for North-West Lanarkshire, who persistently refers to the law of bankruptcy, is forgetting that both in the recent legislation for Scotland and in the recent legislation for England about this, the extreme undesirability of differences in the law in this respect has been prominently kept in view, and, as far as opportunity has afforded, the differences have been modified and avoided.

Let me put this to hon. Members opposite who talk about the public opinion of Scotland. Have you ever found any body of public opinion acquainted with the conditions of business in England which does not regret the existence of any difference in the application of the law of merchants in England and Scotland? [An HON. MEMBER: "Never!"] The hon. Member says "Never!" If so, once more I ask why do you want to encourage, from the point of view of Scotland, the possibility of stamping with permanence or of increasing those differences? It is idle to tell me that you will not do that by having two Parliaments. Two Parliaments—one wearing the Scottish badge and the other wearing the English badge—will never be so much disposed to improve the law and remove imperfections as Scottish and English traders meeting together here in the Imperial Parliament. On the contrary, if you had a Scottish Parliament it is quite natural—I am going to use these words without any offence—that Scottish prejudices and little susceptibilities might be aroused which would prevent the Scottish Parliament from accepting English dictation or following English example, and the tendency will be away from the beneficent path of assimilation or in the way of making the difficulties permanent, and therefore every time you oppose assimilation you are doing harm, and certainly doing no benefit.

I leave that and come to the question of those relations of a social character which affect either the conditions under which industries are carried on or the conditions upon which men employ their workers. How many factories and workshops are there in England and Scotland which are not under the same law? Is there anyone who would wish to have one code of workshop legislation for Scotland and another for England] Are there any of my hon. Friends below the Gangway who represent particularly the interests of labour who think that it would be an advantage for Scottish working people or English working people in mines that there should be a different code for England from that for Scotland? You do not think anything of the kind. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about administration?"] The hon. Member who interrupts me said something about administration. I quite agree with him that it ought to be regulated by local option. There is nothing which, in my opinion, has been more disappointing than our present system of administration, nothing more irritating than the control which is exercised in this matter by the English Home Office over Scottish administrative affairs. I do not want to single out the Home Office in particular, but not infrequently when these things arise and are looked at from the Scottish point of view, with Scottish eyes, the conduct of the officials in English offices seems to us often as arrogant as it is ignorant. But that is administration. There is not one of the things I am mentioning in connection with factories and workshops, coal mine regulations, and the like, which you can call an exclusively Scottish affair. They are equally Scottish and English, and what is more, you cannot meddle with them one one side of the Border without affecting interests on the other side of the Border. Therefore, the idea of encouraging the possibility of there being a parting of the ways about these things, is not only to do no good to my country, but is to put my country in some jeopardy with regard to such protection as Imperial legislation can give.

As to national insurance, I was one of those who did not approve even of the establishment of a Scottish Commission, but I understand that opinions may differ about that. But the idea of encouraging the possibility—and this is in your Bill—of one system of national insurance in Scotland and another system in England, which is what two separate Parliaments would be perfectly entitled to enact, if there was a difference of opinion north and south of the Border—that would not only do no good for Scotland, but it would make what is, at any rate, a difficult and perilous course, a great deal more difficult and perilous than it has actually been found to be. I have pretty well covered the whole of the very large area of legislation in a general way. I have covered by far and away the greater part of that area of legislation which deals with the springs of commercial prosperity and commercial well-being. If you rule all that out, we get a very different proposal from this Bill. England and Scotland in their special circumstances, geographical union, commercial development, and common material destiny, are so closely united, one side with the other, that they cannot make these affairs exclusively their own. I ask you to consider the question, What are you going to do to my country in relation to the matters to which I have referred? I leave that sphere, and come to a, relatively speaking, much more restricted one. For the first time you get within miles of anything of a Scottish character. We have in Scotland an affair in which that country has an interest separate from that of England. We have our own system of personal relations. We have the relations between parent and child, and there you touch the question of education. We have the relations between husband and wife, which are peculiar to Scotland, and we have a system of succession which, in many respects, is peculiar to Scotland.

Mr. WATT

Better.

Mr. CLYDE

The hon. Member says "better." In some respects I think so.

Mr. WATT

In every respect.

Mr. CLYDE

I do not say that. There in another question to which I want to ask seriously the attention of hon. Members. I said that this brings you for the first time within touch of anything which you can with any decency describe as an affair in which Scotsmen have an interest different from Englishmen. Where differences exist they are in the form, and not in the substance. Let me make that good. Ask any Scotsman who has had experience of the working of these things—I do not ask him to give up the personal relationships under the legal system of his own country—is it a good thing or a bad thing that a man's duty to his child or his wife should differ according as he happens to be on one side of the Border or the other? Is it a good thing or a bad thing for Scotland that the relations of a man to his wife may turn on an abstruse question as to whether he is a domiciled Scotsman or whether he is domiciled in England?

Mr. PIRIE

A good thing.

Mr. CLYDE

I ask any Scotsman who knows anything about it—and I cannot help saying in this connection that my profession of necessity brings me across these things every day—whether it is a good or bad thing that the law of succession in two countries so closely knit as England and Scotland should be different?

Mr. COWAN

The law of succession in Scotland may be admittedly a better thing than the law of succession in England, and surely then it is desirable that Scotland should retain the right to frame her own laws in the matter.

Mr. CLYDE

I am obliged to the hon. Member for his courteous interruption, but it has very little to do with what I am going to say, and, to be frank, I think that it has no point at all. I am not asking is it a good thing for the country to have a certain law, but is it a good thing to have these distinctions existing as they are now between the law in Scotland and the law in England? Anyone who knows anything about it will tell you that they are a source of inconvenience, expense, and often of gross injury and wrong. In a country like ours, where people do not restrict their marriages to one side of the Border, where people move about freely from one side to the other, it is a very great misfortune and a very great inconvenience that these distinctions should remain. In my opinion, it is most desirable that there should be complete assimilation between the laws in the two countries, selecting the best features on both sides. You have a chance of getting that in time, notwithstanding national prejudices, in an Imperial Parliament, and the interests which would be served by achieving this are neither Scottish nor English, but for the common good. And you have no prospect, but, on the contrary, you diminish any chance you would otherwise have of getting it, if you commit these two systems to two different Parliaments, representing in these Parliaments two different histories, each of which would be unmixed and unadulterated with influences that otherwise would be brought to bear directly upon the other, or, if that is putting it too broadly, where at least the influences of national tradition and national history, above all, of national prejudice, whether Scottish or English, would be far stronger in a conservative sense, and a detrimentally conservative sense, than they ever could be in the Imperial Parliament, where both meet on an equal footing. Therefore, while I admit that in this comparison you begin for the first time to touch something which you may describe as an approximation to English interests and Scottish interests, I do not consider the differences by any means sufficient to enable you to make this distinction.

But even then I put the question, what good will you do by stereotyping these differences and obstructing the tendency that has been constantly going on to assimilate the law of both countries. I include education. I do so for this reason. The problems which are really presented by education are not problems of policy, but problems of finance and administration. It is not that there is, or ever can be, any material difference in two countries like England and Scotland between the policy of educating our people and improving their efficiency. There may be great difference in applying the money and applying the policy in one part of England and in another, or in one part of Scotland or another. You cannot treat Glasgow and the Highlands in the same way. But it is childish to say that you reach in the Department of education a legislative matter which is exclusively Scottish or any legislative matter which is exclusively Scottish. You do not. The matter is of national importance, both for Scotland and England. Nothing can be worse than that you should have a highly efficient, well educated people in Scotland, and a backward, ill-educated set of working people in England. You do not want anything of the kind. I pass lastly to the two things that remain to my mind. The hon. Member who spoke last seems to think that a special reason for having a separate Parliament for Scotland is because there is a certain form of Church question in Scotland.

Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR

The hon. Member mistakes my point. It was this. The ecclesiastical strife which arose in Scotland was due to the fact that after the Union the decisions of the Scottish Parliament were overruled by the British Parliament, and the trouble has arisen from that, because the views of the Scottish people did not prevail.

Mr. CLYDE

I apologise to the hon. Member. I did not understand him in that sense. In such a case his own argument is one of entirely historical retrospect.

Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR

No.

Mr. CLYDE

I so understand it now, but I may still misunderstand the hon. Member.

Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR

I pointed out that it was equally undesirable now that a settlement of this question should take place in a British Parliament by which effect might not be given to the views of the Scottish people.

Mr. CLYDE

If that is the hon. Member's answer, he may well sleep easily. We are no longer engaged in the discussions about Churches or other things in the days which seem to fill the hon. Member's mind. He need not be afraid of the interference of the British Parliament with Church affairs now in Scotland in the sense in which he is using the phrase. The hon. Member well knows, in reference to interference in these controversies in what we call strictly spiritual matters, that the days for interference of that kind have gone by, not only in the Imperial Parliament, but that they have gone by also for a Scottish Parliament. What chance do you think there would be of getting my Scottish countrymen to bring questions of spiritual independence and the like to the arbitrament of a Scottish Parliament? The hon. Member little understands his countrymen if that is his idea. It seems to me that far and away the wisest thing which we as Scotsmen can do in this matter is to leave our Church question to solve itself, as it is going to do, and not to leave it to either the Imperial Parliament or the Scottish Parliament. Accordingly we may dismiss that matter from view. There is one matter alone left. Here, I think, you have got the nearest approach to a Scottish affair—that is, the land. I am quite disappointed that bon. Members do not perceive that, but it is the one ewe lamb left in the whole flock. Land is the one thing, and very likely the only thing, which the mind of the hon. Member for East Perthshire can take in. That is really your proposal—to set up a separate Scottish Parliament to deal separately with Scottish land. Nobody has proposed that yet. After all, you have mot done badly with Scottish land, even in the Imperial Parliament, but nobody would be such a maniac as to set up a Scottish Parliament to deal with the question of land. In that case alone you approach within measurable distance of any affair which you can say is a Scottish interest and not an English interest.

But even then I am not satisfied myself, though it has a very great deal to do in connection with the relation of the State to the land, and in connection with the relation of individuals to the land. There is a very great deal, indeed, where the interests in land are not exclusively Scottish or English, according as the line happens to be North or South of the Border. Even if I were to admit that in that one Department there is something which might be described as a matter of Scottish and of English interest—I do not think it could be reasonably so described—yet I think that we should have none of those proposals thoughtlessly taken and doubtfully backed, even by the hon. Member for East Perthsire or the hon. Member for Clackmannan and Kinross. Let me point out that the hon. Member for East Perthshire and the hon. Member for Clackmannan and Kinross are shocked at the possibility of a woman being entitled to cast her vote on a matter that affects her status or employment.

Mr. W. YOUNG

Scottish Home Rule does not mean Woman Suffrage.

Mr. CLYDE

That is the exact measure and value of their lifelong devotion to the cause of Home Rule! Apparently it is not worth the risk of a country woman putting her vote into the ballot-box on a question which affects her status or is detrimental to her employment. If that be a fair indication of the view of the Seconder of this Bill and of the hon. Member for Clackmannan and Kinross, if that be a fair indication of their devotion to the principle of Home Rule, I am encouraged to think that on further reflection they might possibly come to agree with the view that the setting up of a separate legislature is expedient neither in the interests of Scotland nor of England, and Scotland might easily find a wider sphere for common action in revising our administrative system.

Mr. HOLMES

This has been a very serious Debate. There is a Scottish word which very well characterises this Debate, and that is the word dreich. I do not think it has been sufficiently historical. As a student of the history of my native country I have always believed that nothing better ever happened either for England or for Scotland than the Union of 1707, though at that time it was a most unpopular Union. There was a very eminent English novelist called Daniel Defoe who had a good deal to do with this Union, and he told us that it was extremely unpopular, for many a long year, among poets of the North country. I must say that poets are always the best historians. They were never tired of laying stress and shedding tears over the lost glories of Edinburgh and the empty Parliament House. It was not for nearly forty or fifty years that the people of Scotland, after the battle of Culloden, acquiesced in the Union. At that time the genius of Scotland, in conjunction with that of England, was free to devote itself to the arts of peace and to the triumphs of industries, and I think that all the world will admit that men like James Watt and Henry Bell did great good not merely to the renown of Scotland, but to the whole civilised world, and to the march of civilisation.

4.0 P.M.

I believe that the Union between Scotland and England is one of the stablest things in existence, because it is not founded upon tyranny or oppression, but upon the voluntary co-operation of two mutually respected people. It is precisely because I desire that the Union between England and Scotland should last for all time that I am a whole-hearted advocate of Scottish Home Rule. This Bill which is being brought forward this afternoon is a business-like proposal for the better conduct of our Scottish affairs. There are a great number of topics and realms in which we in Scotland are entirely different from England, in spite of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman who spoke last. In the realms of education, of law, and of religion, we are entirely unlike the English, and I think in some respects, with due deference to English Members, infinitely superior. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] In education I think we are. Is it therefore reasonable to suppose that topics and problems in these three departments, which touch the whole of human life from the cradle to the grave, would not be best considered where they are best understood? That is the reason why I desire that our Scottish Parliament should be revived, with duties and responsibilities analogous to those of the Imperial Parliament.

As a student of Scottish history I have looked into the work of that old Parliament which used to meet in Edinburgh prior to the union of the Parliaments, and I must say, for legislative far-sightedness, that Parliament ought to have been allowed to coexist as a co-operative auxiliary with the big Parliament in London, and, I think, as a whole-hearted advocate of Scottish Home Rule that England, too, the predominant partner, should not be deprived of that. England at the present moment has not Home Rule. Whenever a specific English topic comes up for discussion on the floor of this House, the 103 Irish Members, the thirty-two Scottish Members, and the thirty Gentlemen from Wales, all intervene in a disturbing and most disconcerting way, if not by Debate, at least through the silence and unanswerable eloquence of the Division Lobby, and prevent England from having her own way in her own affairs. I say that is very pathetic, and is worth thinking about. I myself frankly confess, as a Scottish Member, that there are a good many topics in which it would be rather difficult for a North Briton like myself to take much interest. For example, in those questions which gyrate round topics like Education, Nonconformity, and the Church. I should be perfectly willing to abstain from interfering, if English Members would kindly refrain from obstructing the realisation of those desires which my fellow countrymen have long wished and long striven for in vain. I hope that in the discussion of Home Rule for Scotland our hearts will not be unduly wrung with bitter tirades and harangues about the dismemberment of the Empire. We are all of us, Irish, English, Welsh and Scottish, concerned in the stability of the Empire. The British Empire is founded not upon compulsory concentration, but upon freedom and upon Home Rule, and in that respect lies its great hope for the future. Where there has been oppression and tyranny in the past, wherever there has been lack of respect for subject races, there precisely is our Empire feebler and less stable than it ought to be. Mankind is so constituted that deep love and affection is impossible for any extensive area of the earth's surface, and no greater mistake could to my mind be made than to attempt to stifle the sentiments and aspirations of any small nationality. Those aspirations and those ideals make a great enrichment when they are absorbed in the wider patriotism which takes in the whole circuit of the British Empire. I think the greatest fear that we may have for the continuity of the British Empire is from a bustling and unintelligent jingoism. I think the more Scotland feels herself a separate nationality with an individuality of her own the more valuable we shall be to England in working for the civilisation of the world and the permanence of the British Empire.

Mr. BALFOUR

The hon. Gentleman who has just addressed us has imitated, I think with advantage, the general tone of this Debate, and has spoken with conspicuous moderation. Indeed, while he was pressing for Home Rule for Scotland, he praised the Union between England and Scotland in terms which, I think, must have almost shocked the Home Rulers for Ireland who sit opposite. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Why—because the Union between England and Scotland was, broadly-speaking, on the same lines. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] Broadly speaking, it was on the same lines. That is undoubtedly an historical fact. It may have had much worse results in the case of those hon. Gentlemen. I talk of it as a legislative instrument, and it was on the same lines, broadly speaking, as a legislative instrument as the Union with Scotland. I was delighted, therefore, to find somebody who thought that there could be Home Rule for Scotland which did not in the least militate against the Union between Scotland and England. That doctrine, which I welcome in itself, is a curious illustration of the peculiarity which, I think, has ranged throughout the whole of this Debate. From the first word to the last we have heard nothing really about the provisions of the Bill and the practical operation of the Bill upon particular Scottish interests, except from the hon. and learned Gentleman who spoke last but one (Mr. Clyde); the Gentlemen who have supported this Bill have been conspicuously chary of providing us with any commentary criticism or defence of its special provisions, and the only detailed commentary upon any Clause of the Bill, or upon any consequences which the Bill might have for the Gentlemen who support it was contained in the speech of the hon. Member who seconded the Bill (Mr. W. Young). He, after having given, like other hon. Members who have spoken in defence of the Bill, a few platitudes about the difference between Scotland and England, and the great superiority of Scotland over England, devoted all his critical faculties, not to defending the Bill he was seconding, but to a hostile attack on one particular Clause in the Bill. That is a very odd way of defending a Bill on its Second Reading. Speaking for myself, I should have thought that, as regards the extension of the suffrage to women in Scotland, that many of those who object to the extension of the suffrage to women for the Imperial Parliament—of whom I need not say I am one—would have welcomed the extension in respect to an assembly which, truly or untruly, accurately or inaccurately, hon. Members opposite describe as one concerning merely local administration. But I am not going into that question. I am very glad that that provision has been put into the Bill, although I do not think the Bill is one which either can or will, in anything like its present state, ever receive the assent of this House. I do not know that it is more than a general tribute paid by hon. Members opposite to an important cause.

As regards the Bill itself and the whole discussion upon it, I am sure that those who have addressed themselves to the question of Scottish Home Rule are very sincere persons. But I think that their attitude towards the question of Scottish Home Rule is not, if I may say so with every respect, a very sincere one. I do not in the least mean that they do not heartily believe in Scottish Home Rule, but their treatment of the question lacks that practical sincerity which I think we have a right to demand of them when they are dealing with great national and even Imperial interests. Everybody must have noticed how the speeches of individual Members and the speeches of different Members in favour of the Bill have oscillated between a rather vague nationalism on the one side and local government on the other. They are quite distinct; they appeal to different feelings; and I venture to suggest that nothing whatever would be gained by giving administrative or even legislative Home Rule to Scotland which would help what we admire and believe in as the expression of the Scottish national spirit. That spirit is no doubt the result of a long historic past, going back to the time when England and Scotland were foreign Powers in constant hostility. But it was only after, or in the main after, the Union of the Crowns, and still more after the Union of the Parliaments, that Scotland showed all that she could do in literature, in art, in government, in war, and in all the great exercises of human activity which have rendered the history of our countrymen illustrious. There were great Scotsmen before the Union of the Crowns and before the Union of the Parliaments. There was an important Scottish literature in the Anglo-Saxon tongue before, but the greatest performances of the greatest Scotsmen and the most characteristic performances of Scotsmen have been after those dates. Scotsmen have never been more Scotsmen than after those dates.

I remember distinctly more than one speech in which the Secretary for Ireland has indicated, in very attractive periods, that in his view the movement of Irish Home Rule was intimately connected with a more general spiritual movement, which produced in Ireland works of literature and art which have about them a characteristic Irish stamp. Nobody in this House knows more about literature than the right hon. Gentleman. Certainly I have nothing to teach him in that department of learning. But let him think what Scotsmen have done since the Union, and he will come to the conclusion with me, I think, that there is nothing in the legislative Union which can or ought to check the fine flower of a national spirit showing itself in the highest works of art. That is an entirely different question from the question of administration, a question dealt with so ably by my right hon. Friend I will defy anybody, even the most impartial critic, listening to the speeches which have been delivered on the opposite side, to know which horse hon. Gentlemen really are trying to ride! Is it the administrative question? Do they want to get rid of this or that difficulty in carrying legislation that they want? Do they want to smooth over this or that administrative difficulty which arises, say, between the Home Office and some Scottish interest? Is that what they want, or do they really desire, in one shape or another, to go back upon the history of the past and undo the laborious work of centuries by which we in this island go right back to the time—if you choose—when the Romans left our shores and the Western Empire collapsed? From that day to this the struggle of men or foresight and true patriotism has been to bring together the separate elements in this country, English or Scottish or Welsh—[An HON. MEMBER: "Or Irish!"]—to weld these together and not to crush them out. My hon. Friend who spoke earlier in the afternoon pointed out in a very interesting speech that it is not the crushing out but the welding of these differences which have arisen, either racial or historical, in the course of time, and make the difference between the literature and art of one part of the island and another, which add to the common whole elements which that common whole cannot afford to lose.

What is the use of talking about administration in connection with this Bill? Do not recommend that by appealing to Scottish nationalism, and do not recommend Scottish nationalism by appealing to administration. In so doing you are mixing up two different things. You are turning one face towards what you call nationalism and another to what you call Scottish administration. You are only confusing the two in the minds of those who ought to think clearly on what is, after all, a very complicated problem. I think that is one mark of what I venture in all respects to call a certain insincerity of treatment which hon. Members on the opposite have shown in this discussion. It is not the only sign of that species of insincerity. They want—I think that they avow that they want—something like a general system of devolution all round. How can they allow the Government which they follow to devise any such measure as the Home Rule which we are discussing to-day? Why have not they, with these ambitions for their own country and their own portion of the United Kingdom—why have they not exercised the power which they undoubtedly possess to force the Government, who on this question are clearly divided, so to frame their Irish Bill that it could be part of the general system? They have not done so, and by not dong so they have absolutely betrayed the cause of which they come down here as avowed and earnest advocates. How can you possibly build up a system of devolution if you have Parliaments which you call national, and which you give to something which you call an Executive different powers in one part of the United Kingdom to what you propose to give them in another? How, if you try to carry out your scheme by such crazy methods as that, can you possibly suppose that one of the objects which you propose—the relief of the Imperial Parliament—is going to come to any fruition whatever? Does not the man who has thought least upon these points see that in the first place you cannot continue this process of carrying Home Rule—first to Ireland, then to Scotland, and then to Wales. That is impossible. In the second place, if it were possible, it is only in each case by giving powers to the separate fractions which are of a character than can be extended gradually to the whole. These are both impossible processes, though processes of a different kind in each case.

Let me point out where the impossibility lies in the gradual extension of Home Rule. You are going by what you propose to do, by the Bill which we are reading a third time next week, to deprive the Irish of a large proportion of their representation in this House, and to hand over to them the control of the Customs, the control of the Post Office, and many other things. That is your first step. Your second step, apparently, is to deprive Scotland of none of her representatives in this House, and not to give her control of the Post Office or of the Customs. When you have carried out that second step, I ask what is the position in respect to England? The hon. Member opposite, in surveying the history of the past, seemed to think that the justification of Home Rule for Scotland was the fact that the English did not understand Scottish educational or ecclesiastical affairs. What of the seventy-two Scottish representatives here and the forty-two representatives from Ireland? How is England going to be allowed to manage its affairs until that further time comes when you have extended your system to England and to Wales? Is not the thing, on the face of it, grotesque? You complain that England has not managed your educational affairs as well as you might have managed them, although, at the same time, you explain to us that we Scotsmen have the best educational system in the world. I do not quite understand how the two propositions are to be reconciled, though they have both been laid down in the course of this Debate.

Turning from the Scottish system to the English system, could you have carried any of the schemes of the present Government with regard to English education if you had not the Scottish representation and the Irish representation behind them? I quite agree that these schemes failed, and they failed largely no doubt because the Irish Members did not like that legislation, and, perhaps, because there was no great enthusiasm for it among the Scottish Members. You withdraw from this Parliament all power over Scottish education. Are you going to leave the whole of these seventy-two Scottish Members here to manage English education? You talk in this House about our interference with Scottish educational and ecclesiastical affairs. Supposing Home Rule all round had been carried out—I will not say all round, because that would include Wales—and supposing the Welsh Church Bill were brought forward after a Scottish Home Rule Bill and an Irish Home Rule Bill had been enacted, apart from an English Home Rule Bill, would you have a chance of carrying it if the Scottish Members were not here? That is quite an imaginary illustration, but is it not a conclusive one? How can you possibly imagine a gradual system of Home Rule all round, in which great changes are going to be allowed in our Constitution, and great measures have to be carried out at a time when Ireland and Scotland are both going to have a representation in this House to deal with English affairs? Ireland is to have about half the present representation, and Scotland is to have the full number of Members. It is an impossible scheme.

Mr. WATT

England would hurry up.

Mr. BALFOUR

Yes, but is England likely to approve a scheme in which it is compelled to hurry up under the penalty of having far less power than any other of the parts of the United Kingdom? That argument alone is, I think, quite conclusive against the scheme. Now let me take another impossibility, which even more conclusively shows how insincere is the spirit in which this problem has been approached by the Scottish Members. They have tolerated, as I said a few moments ago, the introduction of provisions in the Irish Bill which could not be introduced into a Welsh Bill, or an English Bill, and which they do not wish to see introduced into the Scottish Bill. Is there the smallest element of stability in a scheme of that kind? A question arises, we will say, in Scotland which the Irish could decide and the Scottish cannot. The Scottish representation in this House would at once say, "You must modify the Scottish Bill; we Scotsmen are as good as Irishmen. Why-should we be placed under disabilities which the Irish Parliament is not under? We insist upon this disability being removed?" And this Imperial Parliament instead of carrying on its own affairs is again plunged into this endless discussion about the rehash of our Constitution. Then, do you think that, after such a change, you can ever move in the direction of diminishing the powers of these local assemblies. It is an almost impossible thing to do so long as the local assembly has behind it what is called patriotic feeling. No doubt if the areas were purely administrative you could reform these areas, or even modify the powers. You could diminish, for instance, the powers of the London County Council. That could be done, but directly you get these subordinate Parliaments, which have behind them national feeling, and both these Parliaments are based upon national feeling, you cannot remove a single power from them without stirring up a hornet's nest of national feeling, and, perhaps in some cases, national prejudice. The result of that will be that if you establish these separate assemblies in a country like this on a national basis, you will not only have diminished the unity of the United Kingdom, but you will have set in motion a machinery which will constantly tend to disintegrate that unity yet further. I agree with what my hon. Friend behind me said about the American Constitution, and the foresight of that great man Alexander Hamilton. The American Constitution suffered the greatest of all modern wars on account of these State rights, which had behind them no feeling of separate nationality. There was a State feeling, but there was no national feeling. You are putting up assemblies in obedience to what you call national feeling. You are deliberately encouraging that national feeling. The assemblies are supposed to be a concession to national feeling. You will regard them as failures if round them there does not crystallise national feeling. Then, having created those national assemblies, on that basis, with all that mass of emotional sentiment behind them, do you think it will be possible to remove from them a single power you have given them? Is it not madness to start one of these assemblies without seeing how you are going to extend your system? It is not worthy of business men. It is not worthy of practical men like my Scottish countrymen whom I am venturing to address. They ought to look at it as citizens, in the spirit of statesmen, taking a broad view and seeing what is the goal at which they are aiming and how it is to be attained. I have never professed to be a lover of Home Rule in any shape of any part of the United Kingdom, but let me say, in passing, that many men who dislike Home Rule all round as much as I do have a feeling that we have got in connection with the Irish question into such an impossible position that almost any escape is better than the appalling prospect they see before them. I do not criticise that attitude, however much I disagree with it, but I do say that everybody who desires to solve this question as a statesman is bound, in my opinion, to look at the United Kingdom as a whole, to make your subordinate assemblies, give them equal powers, to see how you are to devolve upon them the powers which they ought to possess, and not to commit the insane folly of giving to any one of them powers which you dare not give to others, knowing well that the other assemblies to which you do not give the powers will be perpetually asking for them, and that those to whom you have given the powers will never consent to give them up. That is the great crime which Home Rulers all round commit. I think that they are wrong in their logic, but I do not think that they are criminal. I do think that they are criminal when setting before themselves and before separate constituencies in this country this general idea of a separate England, a separate Wales, a separate Scotland, and a separate Ireland, if they do not see that at the very basis of any workable system on those plans must lie a thought-out scheme equally and severally applicable to every separate portion of the United Kingdom.

Mr. McKINNON WOOD

I believe that every Member of the House who has listened to the Debate, or even part of it, must have been struck by the perfectly good humoured and passionless manner in which this subject has been argued. That is indicative of the fact that in Scotland we have no difficulties of passion or prejudice to surmount in regard to the question of local self-government. The speakers on both sides have dealt with the subject in a way that proves that that is true. Upon one point I will venture to express entire agreement with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour)—although in this matter I can no more speak for my colleagues on this bench than he can for those with whom he acts—but I share his hope that the question of the admission of women to the vote in regard to subordinate legislatures might have been separated by friends of Women Suffrage from the larger question of their vote for the Imperial Parliament. That was the only question on which there was any expression of feeling in this Debate. I would point out to those who have a very strong feeling in the matter, that, after all, this question must come before the whole House. It does not affect Scotland alone, and it cannot be sent to a Grand Committee; it must be submitted to the decision of the whole House. In another hope I have been disappointed. I have read in the papers of a body of Union Federalists whom I had hoped to-day to see in the flesh, but I have, as I say, been disappointed.

There has been a good deal of confusion of thought in this Debate. Speaker after speaker has dealt with the advantages to Scotland of the Union. No one denies that one of the greatest sources of those advantages was that Scotland and England were no longer separated by those selfish and foolish laws regarding trade which, before the Union, made them antagonistic countries, but which, after the Union, made their interests one. No one purposes to go back to that state of affairs, and, therefore, to talk about the increased prosperity of Scotland and its development in literature and art is quite irrelevant, for no one is proposing to undo the work of the past in that respect. We are only proposing to divide our work and to divide it locally. I really thought the right hon. Gentleman would not appeal to the spirit of nationalism, regarding it in any sense as a spirit of antagonism between the two countries. We know very well, every one of us, that in the spirit of Scottish nationalism there is no element of hatred, jealousy, or antagonism to England. Too many of us have reason to be grateful for the generous reception we have met with in England, and I am sure no one of us but is aware that England has treated Scotland with remarkable kindness and friendship in every respect. So when we talk about nationalism we do not mean an antagonistic feeling, but we do mean that there are differences in the sentiments and opinions of the two nations. That is where the very able speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Clyde) seemed to entirely break down. I was utterly astonished at that speech. I never heard a speech like it from a Scottish lawyer, whatever his opinions, or from a Scottish politician, whatever his opinions, and I should be very much surprised if the hon. and learned Gentleman were to deliver that speech throughout Scotland. I should be very sorry indeed for the reception he met with.

Mr. CLYDE

I have already delivered it in Edinburgh.

Mr. McKINNON WOOD

The hon. and learned Gentleman must have delivered it to some academic or philosophical institute. I do not think he would go down to St. Rollox and deliver it there. What was his plea? It was for assimilation and uniformity. In some cases he was a little wrong in his facts, but he pointed out, quite fairly, that it was inconceivable we should have one law dealing with oversea traffic in Scotland and another in England. If he had looked at Sub-section (7) of the second Clause of this Bill he would have seen that that matter is dealt with, and that it is impossible for the local legislature to deal with trade in any place out of Scotland. The hon. Member for South Lanark (Mr. Watson) made a mistake also in not having read that Sub-section, because he said it would be possible for the Scottish Parliament to set up a system of bounties. Under that Clause bounties are entirely removed from the powers of the Scottish Parliament.

Mr. WATSON

Not bounties on production.

Mr. McKINNON WOOD

The Sub-section refers to the granting of bounties on the export of goods.

Sir G. YOUNGER

That is another thing.

Mr. McKINNON WOOD

The hon. Member for South Lanark said bounties.

Mr. WATSON

I am within the recollection of the House that I said bounties on production.

Mr. McKINNON WOOD

If it is necessary to strengthen the Clause, we shall not have any objection on this side of the House. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Clyde) said that when we parted from sea traffic and came to railways and roads, there was a difference. I was not able to follow him at all. I have been considering recently the question of the new Grants in regard to roads in Scotland. What do I find? That we cannot possibly deal with the interests of Scotland on the same basis as in England without detriment to Scotland. I do not propose to go into the question of all the matters in regard to which there is a difference in the laws, customs, and administration of Scotland. I will take one point that the hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned. He actually had the temerity to mention education. If we had uniform laws for education throughout England and Scotland, we should have a state of affairs that Scotland would not endure for a week. Fancy having the ecclesiastical squabbles that have disfigured the educational history of England introduced into Scotland! Could there be a more impractical proposal than that we should assimilate the law of education in England and Scotland? That brings me to my answer to the hon and learned Gentleman. I am not in the least afraid of differences in local laws. From some points of view they are even an advantage. I can understand a man taking an extreme party attitude and objecting to Scotland taking a different view with regard to legislation. The hon. Member who moved the rejection of the Bill used a very singular argument, somewhat related to this question. He said that in Scotland we had a grotesque majority. What he meant was that the number of Members represented by the majority of the party was larger than the numbers of voters that voted.

Mr. MACKINDER

I said it was grotesquely large.

Mr. McKINNON WOOD

That is one of the features of our system. Is not exactly the same thing true of Scotland, England, Ireland or Wales? If you lose on it in any one part of the country, you gain in the other. Therefore, there was no point in that remark. Moreover, there is another place, and in that other place there is no representative Liberal peer, which is a grotesque misrepresentation of the country of which the majority are Liberals. The fact of the matter is that we have got the representation that the majority of the electors have given us on exactly the same basis as in England. The hon. Gentleman rather curiously talked about this Liberal majority as being a tryanny. I cannot understand why, except on the principle to which we are accustomed, that a Liberal majority is a tryanny, and that a Conservative majority is good government. That would be the view of an hon. Gentleman who represents the minority in Camlachie. It is not the view of those who represent the majority in the majority of Scottish constituencies. I say quite frankly that I should like to see Scotland free to go ahead in many matters of social reform. We are ahead, we hope, and I am sure, with the consent of many Members on the other side of the House, I dare say the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me on some of the points, though not all of them. We are ahead with regard to education and we are ahead with regard to temperance, and when we are told that the position would be intolerable because we should have one representative body representing four times the population of the other, he understated his case. I think it would be something like eight times as big.

Mr. MACKINDER

Four times all the other bodies put together.

Mr. McKINNON WOOD

What is the point of that argument? Would they be stronger when they were in one body in Scotland than they are now when we are all in one body and we can never carry anything but with their consent? Surely they are stronger when they are members of one body and can entirely override the minority than they would be if we were in separate compartments! The hon. and learned Gentleman thought Glasgow would be injured because now they can appeal to an impartial Committee of two Englishmen and two Irishmen, but they will never get fair play if they have to apply to four Scotsmen. What an extraordinary argument! I do not think that is a good, popular argument, either.

Mr. MACKINDER

They could not be Glasgow men.

Mr. McKINNON WOOD

I think Glasgow men would get fair play from Forfarshire men or Caithness men. I do not know why they should not. It is rather our grievance that we have to be judged by Englishmen and Irishmen. We would rather appeal to Scotsmen, on the whole. We think they would understand our little ways and our little fads better than the Irishmen. We are dealing with a matter of simple administrative and legislative convenience. Everyone admits, the right hon. Gentleman has asserted again and again, that this Parliament is overburdened. Everyone admits that our work would have been better done if we divided it. No one is wanting to interfere with the Imperial Union of the country. None of us would be advocating Home Rule—I certainly should not—if I thought it was to diminish by one jot or tittle our share in the Imperial management of the Empire in which we have as great a concern as Englishmen, and in which we have done our part. That is not the idea. It is a pure question of how best you can make laws and how best you can administer the affairs of the different parts of the country, and after two years' experience in the Scottish Office I have no hesitation in saying that it would be a great improvement if we had Ministers in Edinburgh dealing with agriculture on the spot, with education on the spot, and if we had a right, which we cannot find time to exercise in this Parliament, to meet these cases of social necessity and these small matters of reform, which, though not controversial in themselves, are still very important for the smooth and effective working of the machine at our own time and in our own way. I hope the House will give a Second Reading to this Bill. The question before us is whether we agree or not with the principle of Home Rule for Scotland. The objection of the right hon. Gentleman is that we had not got any perfect scheme which would make the machine work exactly in the same way in regard to Ireland and in regard to England. The pattern of our reform should be in all respects identical, and he said that was a drawback. He said, "You have different regulations as to Customs. You do not propose to adopt what you have given to Ireland. You are going to deal with land differently." How can we help dealing differently with land? The right hon. Gentleman himself and his Government gave land laws to Ireland, which do not exist in Scotland, and which have rendered necessary the separate treatment of Ireland. That is provided for in the Irish Bill. You could not have separate Customs in Scotland. It is not practicable. It is practicable in Ireland to have some slight diversions because it is a separate island. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about Ulster?"] That indicates the difficulty of splitting up Ireland. It is very difficult indeed, and I appreciate the point. If you look back on the whole history of the English Constitution, you find no case of planning out a whole scheme. You have no case where you disregard practical necessities and go in for theoretical symmetry. That is not our national character. We proceed, first, with the most urgent case; and, secondly, to the next most urgent case, adapting our plan to the different circumstances of the different countries, and I can see nothing in that which is foolish, and certainly nothing which is inconsistent with all the conditions of British citizenship.

Sir G. YOUNGER

I am sorry that there is very little time left to deal with the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. As before when he dealt with the question, he has largely referred to the difficulties within his own experience with regard to the administration of Scottish affairs. On this side of the House, of course, we all sympathise—I certainly do—with the difficulties of the right hon. Gentleman. He has very much too heavy a burden to bear. He is four Cabinet Ministers rolled into one. He has sixteen Departments of one kind or another under his charge. He has had another very important one added—namely, the Board of Agriculture, and it cannot be denied that his duties are very great. The answer to that is not that you want a Home Rule Parliament in Edinburgh, but that you want a reorganisation of the Scottish Office. The right hon. Gentleman said that you ought to have Ministers in Edinburgh. Why not have secretaries here for the different departments of work who would be responsible to this House and under the control of the right hon. Gentleman? That would solve the difficulties at once. I do not think there is any necessity for me to deal with the provisions of the Bill. I did so last year at considerable length. I criticised them so far as I could, and I do not intend to repeat my criticism. To-day we have listened largely to expressions of national sentiment. No one denies, least of all myself, that there is a strong national sentiment in Scotland, and I think we ought to turn that to good and not to bad account. I think this particular proposal deals with it in a bad kind of way. We ought to direct it into legitimate channels, and we ought particularly to see that Scottish nationalism does not lose its place in the wider patriotism of the Empire in which it takes a prominent position. I am afraid the Bill would have the effect of weakening that. Scotland at present is in a commanding position as an equal partner in our great Imperial organisation. I am afraid that that position of importance would be greatly diminished by the establishment of a Parliament in Edinburgh, and for that reason I am strongly opposed to it. The right hon. Gentleman complains that very little was said from this side" on the subject of federalism. Federalism is a word in very common political use at present, which is intended to cover a multitude of proposals, none of which have ever been very clearly defined. I do not consider that this particular Bill has behind it the force of pure national sentiment. I believe that it has behind it the force of narrow political nationalism. It is essential for hon. Members opposite at present to justify their policy with regard to Ireland, and they do so by proposing this scheme of federalism for England and Scotland. While I should very strongly welcome some settlement of the Irish question, a settlement which might even involve the setting up of a Parliament for the South and West of Ireland, a settlement which I believe would be disastrous for Ireland and certainly would not be a triumph for Unionism, I do protest strongly against any further change which would result in the setting up of federal Parliaments in Edinburgh or London. I have no mandate from my Constituents to vote for any such breaking up of the Constitution, nor has anyone else in this House, no more than the present Government has a mandate with regard to Ireland for what they are doing, though it certainly was mentioned by our candidates at the last election, and to that extent, it was before he public; but no question of this kind was before the public at all, and I would consider that I was grossly exceeding my mandate if I were to vote for any such proposal with regard to Scotland.

Mr. MACPHERSON rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Sir G. YOUNGER

I do not find any strongly expressed sentiment in favour of this change in Scotland. I spoke the other day in Edinburgh on this question, and made the same declaration as I have now made, and my declaration was most cordially received, as I believe it would be received in every assembly of intelligent Scotsmen. We know the advantages which we have gained from the Union, the enormous commercial advantages to our country, and the great advantages individually to Scotsmen themselves. We are not prepared to give those away.

Mr. MACPHERSON rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Sir G. YOUNGER

The question of devolution is a very different thing. I do not think that there are any of us on this side of the House who are not perfectly ready—[HON. MEMBERS: "Divide"]—to give a system of local councils to Scotland, which councils would have considerable powers and a great deal of authority which no councils at present possess; but we are not going to set up a Government at Edinburgh with an executive responsible to a Scottish Parliament. At that we draw the line.

It being Five of the clock, and objection being taken to further Proceeding, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Friday next (22nd May).

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3.

Adjourned at Two minutes after Five o'clock, till Monday next, 18th May.