cluded, as people in the same stage of knowledge have always concluded, that they belonged to an order of things in nature over which they had no control or influence, an order which could be changed, not by their improved agricultural practice and better roads, but by their prayers, and their prayers only. The land was not cultivated; the farming which did exist was simply a scratching of the surface of the ground; the climate was a wet, unkindly one, and therefore it was always very likely that the harvests would be late and light. Dearths did happen; the crops did occasionally fail, and famine in consequence paralysed and blighted the land. And why? Because, in the first place, all the conditions necessary to agricultural prosperity were wanting; and in the second place, because there was no free trade in corn. It was impossible to better the climate, but it was possible to improve the soil. It was impossible to prevent late and bad crops, but it was possible to prevent famines. And if, therefore, in times of scarcity the situation of Scotland was deplorable, it was chiefly because there were no means of reaching the distressed districts, and no conveyances to carry food to the starving and dying.

*

This state of things did not begin to mend until 1750, in which year the first Turnpike Act for Scotland was passed. From that moment a happy change crept over the face of everything; the stirrings of a new life thrilled along the numbed frame of the nation. County after county looked to its roads, opened up hundreds of miles of permanent way, and spent tens of thousands of pounds on these and new bridges. Road reform, in fact, as the statute book abundantly shows, became the question of the day, and along with agriculture, then pushed on with much earnestness by the Society of Improvers, completely absorbed the attention of the landed gentry till the end of the century.†

Somerville, p. 305, 384. This writer puts the matter very clearly; he sees the causes and also the remedies.

† As an example of what was done, see Douglas's General View of the Agriculture in the Counties of Roxburgh and Selkirk, 1798, pp. 198, 200.

Such was the outward aspect of things in town and country in Scotland at the Union. If such homesteads and farmsteads --if such a mean and poor condition of life—are not what we have usually associated with the last heroic period of Scottish history, it may be owing to our looking at everything belonging to it with the exaltation of feeling not unnatural to the interested spectator. Touched by the spectacle of our enduring sires, we may never have felt any call to look closely into the commonplace of their lives, and the rude details of their daily circumstances. And we have in consequence been fooled by the enchantments of vagueness, and blinded by the glamour and fantasies of romance. An acquaintance with

facts like those here given should do much to put us right. They ought to make certain to us the particulars in which the Present differs from the Past, and enable us to mark the immense, the almost fabulous change which has taken place since then. Nor can there be in any but a strangely prejudiced mind a doubt as to whether the Union has been fruitful of blessings, and whether the Scotland of to-day is not a fairer country, and life more pleasant now than in the good old times.' If we could add to the foregoing facts the characteristic traits of the inner life of the town and country-if we could supplement this picture of the Country with a companion picture of the political and intellectual condition of the People (and this we may attempt on another occasion), we should be tenfold more impressed with both the change and the progress which our Fatherland has made since the days of Queen Anne, and should heartily endorse the opinion of Mr. Lecky, that No period in the history of Scotland is more momentous than that between the Revolution and the middle of the eighteenth century-for in no other period did Scotland take so many steps in the path which leads from anarchy to civilisation.'*

* History of England in the 18th Century, Vol. II.

p. 22.

ART. IV. THE MEAN' IN POLITICS.

1. Desultory Reflections of a Whig. By the Right Hon. EARL. COWPER. The Nineteenth Century, May, 1883.

2. What is a Whig? By the Right Hon. EARL PERCY, M.P. The National Review, June, 1883.

3. A Protest against Whiggery. By George W. E. RUSSEL, M.P. The Nineteenth Century, June, 1883.

4. The Whigs; A Rejoinder. By the Right Hon. Earl CowPER. The Nineteenth Century, July, 1883.

6

5. The Future of Whiggism. By GEORGE BYRON CURTIS. The National Review, July, 1883.

6. The Future of the Radical Party. Fortnightly Review, July, 1883.

SIR

IR, I perceive you are a vile Whig,' is one of the polite repartees attributed to Dr. Johnson; and to judge by the articles which have recently appeared in the current magazines, the Whigs of the present day deserve even greater censure than the great lexicographer bestowed upon them. In the month of May, Lord Cowper ventured upon some 'desultory' and not very brilliant, though, as one would have thought, perfectly inoffensive, 'reflections of a Whig.' The very mention of the hated word, however, seems to have been quite enough. What is a Whig?" sarcastically demands the Tory Lord Percy. Let me 'protest against Whiggery,' indignantly exclaims the Radical Mr. George Russel, M.P. The Future of Whiggism' is self-destruction says the National Review. The Future' is in the hands of the Radical Party alone,' cries the Fortnightly. It is our desire to defend a great and illustrious party against the bitter attacks of violent and extreme men on both sides of politics, that prompts us to approach this subject at the present time.

The well-known doctrine of Aristotle that in everything there may be an excess, a defect, and a just or mean' amount, and that virtue consists in attaining the mean between the two extremes, has always seemed to us fully more applicable to questions

theory which contains much truth. Everyone for instance must admit with Aristotle that the virtue of courage consists in attaining the mean between rashness and cowardice, just as the virtue of liberality lies between the extremes of extravagance and meanness; but our business at present is with politics, and the proposition which we advance is that a Whig occupies, and has always occupied in the history of his country, the mean or just position between the extremes of Toryism and Radicalism. 'Whatever is, is right,' may be roughly described as the motto of the extreme Tory, whatever is, is wrong,' as that of the extreme Radical; while the Whig is neither unduly biassed in favour of antiquity, nor foolishly desirous of novelty for the mere sake of change. Surely political 'virtue' consists in arriving at the just mean between the old-fashioned Tory who regards every existing law, every uneducated child, even bad drains, with smiling complacency simply because he is used to them, and the noisy Radical who denounces the House of Lords, the Church, the landowners, in short every existing institution which is not fashioned exactly according to his own ideas? In truth this doctrine of the mean applies to most questions. Take such a matter as the use of alcohol. Is there not a right mean between the extreme teetotaller who thinks it wicked even to give alcohol as a medicine, and the 'fine old English gentleman' who drinks his bottle of wine at dinner daily, and whom the very name of total abstainer seems to throw into a passion? between the total prohibitionist who would have the sale of alcohol in any part of the United Kingdom made a penal offence, and the easygoing friend of the publicans, who would allow the most fertile cause of crime and misery in the world to be sold promiscuously, unchecked and unrestrained? Or on the land question, between the Tory landowner who regards his tenants very much as a superior class of serfs, and the Radical who preaches nothing less than a species of Communism?

To give an illustration of a good mean,' attained by the Whigs on a political question; it has always seemed to us that Lord Young in his Scottish Education Act of 1872 admirably struck the mean between the extremes of

he had a party eager for the absolute maintenance of religious teaching in schools, enforced by Act of Parliament, and without any opportunity of relief for those whose parents might conscientiously object to it. The parent was to be forced to send his child to school, and having got there, it was to be compelled to receive religious instruction which its parents might consider to contain grave error. On the other side stood the extreme Radical demanding, though an overwhelming majority of the Scottish people earnestly believed in the Christian religion, and were eagerly desirous of having their children instructed in the Presbyterian form of that belief, that this was the one subject which was to be absolutely forbidden from the school code. A parent was to be forced to send his child to school, and while there it might be instructed in every conceivable subject except in that one which its parent considered as far above all others in importance, and for the sake of which he might very possibly have been willing to sacrifice all the rest of the education given. In short, ninety-nine men who wanted religious teaching were to be deprived of it for the sake of one who didn't. Lord Young's 'mean' was as follows. First, an extraordinary power is given to minorities to elect a representative to School Boards by means of the cumulative vote; secondly, the Board have full power to decide in favour of no religious teaching, if they think proper; thirdly, no Government money is paid in respect of religious teaching, though it is given on account of all other subjects; fourthly, if religious teaching be given at all, it must be either at the beginning or end of the school hours, and every child must have perfect liberty to stay away from such instruction, if its parent desire it. Surely the most bitter sectarian or atheist has nothing to complain of here? He can, in the first place, use his influence to get his own representatives returned to the Board; if he fail in that object, he has only to direct his child to go to school half-an-hour later, or to leave half-an-hour sooner; and finally, if he chooses to set up a sectarian or non-religious school of his own, he will receive the Government grant for it, provided