ADDRESSES IN SCOTLAND 255 



Referring to his Free Trade speech at Dundee, 

 which the Cobden Club pubhshed, Lord Welby 

 writes : 



11 Stratton Street, 

 February 8th, 1908. 



My dear Avebury — I have read your speech before 

 sending it on to be printed. It is the best defence of 

 Free Trade which I have seen for a long time — admirable 

 — and the Cobden Club is doing a real service to the 

 cause in publishing it. 



I confess I have become anxious about the future of 

 the cause. Our intelligence is that the tariff reformers 

 are working all they know in cottage and public. 



I am afraid the majority of the City are tariff 

 reformers. Is there any means, think you, by which 

 the sensible moneyed men east of Temple Bar could be 

 brought to appreciate the danger which threatens ? — 

 Yours sincerely, Welby. 



Sir Swire Smith writes, referring to the same 

 speech : 



Steeton Manor, 

 Nr. Keighley,' 

 March 27th, 1908. 



Dear Lord Avebury^I have just read your little 

 pamphlet on Free Trade and with all my heart I thank 

 you for it. Tariff Reform is filling the air and it must 

 be met by our best men. One does not often after 

 reading a book presume to write to the author, but 

 in this instance I wish to say how grateful to you every 

 patriotic Englishman — who realises the danger before 

 us — must feel for your sacrifices in preparing that 

 address and in going to Dundee to deliver it. But 

 your labour will be repaid. I began by marking the 

 paragraphs that impressed me by their weight and 

 force, and I find that I have marked nearly every 

 paragraph in the address — which is just packed full of 

 " nuggets," arranged in the orderly fashion of the author 

 in his unexampled simplicity and directness of aim. 

 And I venture to predict that any fair-minded and in- 

 telligent enquirer who reads it will find more facts and 

 arguments in favour of our present system than in all 

 the writings and speeches of the Tariff Reformers put 

 together. 



