Character Sketch. 



359 



hewers of wood and the drawers of water for the 

 superior race from beyond the Border. 



In the Church of England we might at least have 

 expected to find a preserve of Anghcanism. For the 

 Scotch are. as a nation, not Episcopalians, and from of 

 old time they had no love for Bishops. But even in 

 this jealously-guarded fold we find the Scot triumphant. 

 A Scotchman sits in Lambeth Palace on the throne 

 of Archbishop Laud, and a brother Scot is the Metro- 

 politan of the Northern province. Nor is this the only 

 time that Scots have climbed to the Archicpiscopal 

 throne. 



These are facts — those stubborn " chiels that winna 

 ding and daurna be disputed." The Ottoman Turk 

 fills the chief places in the Ottoman Empire with men 

 of his own race. But then the Ottoman Empire 

 honestly proclaims itself to be the Ottoman Em[)ire. 

 If it had gone on calling itself the Greek Empire wliilc 

 filling all the high-administrative posts with Turkish 

 pashas, it would have afforded us an apt parallel to 

 what we witness in England to-day. How long. I 

 wonder, will it be before it is officially declared that 

 the so-ce.lled English language is a Southern dialect 

 of the Scotch ? 



We make no complaint. Why should we complain ? 

 The English are at least good sportsmen, and, there- 

 fore, good losers. We have had a fair field and no 

 favour. We have not been adversely handicapped ; we 

 have been beaten on our merits, and we bow our head 

 defeated before our victorious conquerors. What we 

 have to learn from them is obvious. They have won by 

 brain and character. If we have to win back our 

 right to be self-governed — an English nation and an 

 English Church governed by Englishmen — we must 

 go to school as the Scotchmen did. And here I 

 cannot resist the temptation of quoting a classic 

 passage from .Macaulay's speech on Education. It 

 was delivered in 1847, but every word is as true to-day 

 as when the speech was delivered :^ 



A hundred and fifty years ago England was one of the besl- 

 govcrncd and mo,t prosperous countries in tlic world ; Scotland 

 wa.<, perhaps, the rudest and poorest country that could lay any 

 claim to civilisation. The name of Scotchman was then 

 uttererl in this part of the island with contempt. The ablest 

 Scotch statesmen contemplated the degr.ided state of their 

 poorer countrymen with a feeling approaching to despair. It 

 IS well known that Fletcher of Saltoun, a brave and accom- 

 plished man, a man who had drawn his sword for liberty, who 

 had suffered proscription and exile for liberty, was so much 

 iHsgusled anri ilisfnaye<l by the misery, the ignorance, the 

 idleness, the lawlcsinc.-s of ilie common people that he proposed 

 to make many thousands of them slaves. Nothing, he thought, 

 but the disciplitic which kept order and enforced exertion among 

 tl e negroes of a sugar colony, nothing but the l.ash ami the 

 stocks could reclaim the vagalwmls who infested every part of 

 Scotland from llnir indolent and predatory habits, and compel 

 them to support lliemsclves by steady labour. lie, therefore, 

 soon afier the Krv.lution, published a pamphlet in which he 

 earnestly, and, as I Ijelicve, from the mere impulse of' humanity 

 and palriorism, reMimmcnded lo the estatcii of the realm lliis 

 sh.-irp remedy, « In. Ii alone, as he conceived, could remove the 

 evil. Within a Irw months after the publiialion of that 

 pimphlel a very lilf rent remedy »vas applied. The P.irli.iment 

 which .sal at Kdiiibuigh pa.ssed an Act for the establishment of 



parochial schools. What followed ? An improvement such as 

 the world had never seen look place in the moral and intellectual 

 cliaracter of the people. Soon, in spite of the rigour of the 

 climate, in spite of the sterility of the earth, Scotland beca'-.s: 

 a country which h.ad no reason to envy the fairest portions of 

 the globe. Wherever the Scotchman went — and there were 

 few parts of the world to which he tlid not go — he carried his 

 superiority with him. If he was admitted into a public office, 

 he worked his way up to the highest post. If he got employ- 

 ment in a brewery or a factory, he was soon the foreman. 

 If he took a shop, his trade was the best in the street. If he 

 enlisted in the army, he became a colour-sergeant. If he went 

 to a colony, he was the most thriving planter there. The 

 ".Scotchman of the seventeentli century had been spoken of in 

 London as we speak of the Ksipiimaux. The .Scotchman of 

 the eighteenth century was an object, not of scorn, but of envy. 

 The cry was that wherever he came he got more than his share ; 

 thai, mixed with Englishmen or mixed with Irishmen, he rose 

 to the top as surely as oil to the top of water. And what 

 produced this great revolution? The Scotch air was still as 

 cold, the Scotch rocks were still as bare as ever. All the 

 natural qualities of the .Scotchman were still what they had 

 been when learned and benevolent men .advised that he should 

 !)e flogged, like a beast of burden, to his daily task. IJiil the 

 State liad given him an education. That education was not, 

 it is true, in alt respects what it should have been ; but, such as 

 it was, it h.ad done more for the bleak and dreary shores of the 

 Forth and the Clyde than the richest of soils and the most 

 genial of climates had done for Capua and Tarentum. 



Whatever the cause may be, the fact is only too 

 apparent. The coal strike has been dominated by 

 ^Ir. Smillie, a Scotchman. But for him it is generally 

 believed the Federation would have yielded to the 

 earnest and persuasive pleading of Mr. Asquith. But 

 the word of the Scotch miner prevailed over the word 

 of the Prime Minister of the Crown. Hence the strike. 

 Of .Mr. Smillie's personality little is known outside 

 mining circles. 



.\t the other end of the social scale we have Lord 

 Rosebery, who has been evolved by a process of 

 natural selection into that unique but most necessary 

 functionary, the Orator of the Empire. When anyone 

 is wanted to say the word of the hour in the ears 

 of the whole Empire, e\-er\one turns by a kind of 

 instinct to the Laird of Dalmeny. 



In the Press the Scotchman, the Irishman, and the 

 Welshman are everywhere to the front. Mr. Donald, 

 a Scotchman, edits the Daily Cbroitide, with Mr. Jones, 

 a Welshman, as his chief of staff. Sir W. Robertson 

 Nicoll, from his throne in the British WceJdy. issues 

 weekly decrees on all matters of belief and conduct, 

 pronouncing with equal confidence upon the Divine 

 nature of the Christ and the literary merits of the 

 kailyard school. .Mr. Nicol has left the Morning Post 

 for fields afar. T. P. O'Connor in his weekly and his 

 monthly lays down the law with all the authority of 

 an uncrowned king. Mr. Garvin wields the .sceptre 

 of Irish rhetoric from his dual throne of the Pall Mall 

 (iazclte and the Obserper. Outside the Ilarmsworlh 

 Press, where also the junior partner has his representa- 

 tives, almost the only journalists of infitience of luiglish 

 birth are the Spenders and the brood that shelters 

 under the wings of Mr. Massingham. 



If we turn to btisiness it is the same thing. Last 

 month I described the gigantic opcnilions of Lord 



