MOTIONS: HOME RULE FOR SCOTLAND, 9 APRIL 1889, R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM (NORTH-WEST LANARKSHIRE)

I wish in a very few words to support the Motion of the hon. Member for Caithness [Dr. Gavin Clark], but I wish to do it on vastly different grounds and reasons from any of those which have been urged by hon. Members who have spoken to-night. I do not wish to support this proposal especially on national grounds. I thoroughly agree with an observation that fell from the hon. Member for Caithness when he said that though there was a great and growing feeling in favour of Home Rule in Scotland it runs on other lines than those of the Radical programme. I believe, Sir, that there is a great and growing demand for Home Rule in Scotland, but it comes, in my opinion, from no sentimental grounds whatever, but from the extreme misery of a certain section of the Scottish population, and they wish to have their own Members under their own hands, in order to extort legislation from them suitable to relieve their misery. That may seem an extreme proposition to state in this House. Hon. Members from Scotland are often fond of representing Scotland as a sort of Arcadia, but I think that, in face of the misery existing in the Highlands and Islands, that we have women in Aberdeen today toiling for 6s. or 7s. a week; that we have 30,000 people in Glasgow who herd together in one room; and in face of the fact that we have a Socialistic agitation on foot in the East and West of Scotland, I must say I do not think the condition of the poor in that country is one very much to be envied. I think it will be found that the same reasons which impel a certain section of the Scottish people to be dissatisfied with the legislation served out to them from this Parliament are not the reasons which have been alleged by other hon. Members. On many public questions public opinion is far riper for legislation than in this country.