140 _ Transactions. 
opening up new outlets for commerce and for our increasing 
population. Without entering on the thorny and forbidden 
ground of controversial politics, he might say that one of the 
most ominous features of the day was the intensely parochial 
character of our politics as a whole, the way in which the 
democracy was intensely interested in local matters—in little 
petty, secondary questions like disestablishment here and loca] 
veto or local option there—while it was perfectly indifferent to | 
questions of vital consequence and vast imperial importance. On 
these small islands we must buy bread if our teeming millions 
were to live, and in order that we may buy bread we must 
sell the products of our industry, and in order that we may 
sell the products of our industry we must have markets to 
send them to; and as the old markets were being gradually 
closed against us by hostile tariffs we must find new markets. 
We must either find new markets, or we must fight to open 
up the old ones, or we must starve. He did not think the 
people of this country would starve. He did not think we should 
have a war of tariffs. Then the real question of the day was the 
opening up of new markets. Let us find these, and the depres- 
sion of trade which had been so long upon us would vanish like 
the morning dew. He thought if the people of Dumfries would 
insist on the connection with the ocean of the great interior 
waterway which Mr Scott-Elliot would no doubt tell them some- 
thing about by the construction of the Mombasa railway, they 
would do something to bring back the prosperity of the country ; 
and so intimately connected in these days were remote countries 
that the whistle of the steam engine on the Mombasa railway 
might be a blythe and cheerful sound in the homes of some work- 
ing men in Dumfries. (Cheers.) Referring to the personal 
adventures of the explorer, Sir James said Mr Joseph Thomson, 
being once asked what was the most dangerous expedition he had 
ever undertaken, replied, ‘‘I believe it was crossing Piccadilly 
one afternoon at four o'clock in the height of the season.” 
(Laughter.) So perhaps Mr Scott-Elliot might tell them that he 
was never in such jeopardy in Madagascar or Uganda as he was 
when he visited some closes in Dumfries and described their 
smells—(laughter)—for then the tongues of municipal authorities 
were turned on him like assegais, and the objurgations of owners 
of property were hurled at him like showers of arrows. 
(Laughter.) But he had often been in great danger, and had to 
trust to his ingenuity and resources. (Cheers. ) 
