LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE EAST-LOTHIAN ELECTION, AND ITS LESSONS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SrEcreTon."]
SIB,—There is no Tory reaction in East Lothian. Mr. Finlay's supporters allege this morning, in their anger, that a consider- able number of those who voted for Mr. Buchanan in 1880 went over yesterday, and voted against Mr. Finlay in 1883. The statement seems quite baseless. The real cause of the smallness of Mr. Finlay's poll, in so far as it can be traced, seems to be his position on Scotch Disestablishment. Hence resulted, first, a chill to the Liberalism of the county ; and second, positive abstentions at the poll.
You think these refusals to vote were not justified. As a Scotch elector, I venture to think otherwise. I think they were both justified and called for, purely in the interest of the party. If our party, or if any party, had the prospect of getting rid of this Church question in Scotland, or of postponing it in- definitely, the case might be otherwise. But it is not so. The Liberal party in Scotland, by the mouth of Mr. Glad- stone and Lord Hartington, has deliberately, publicly, and repeatedly, in Parliament and out of it, adopted this Scotch Church question as a question of existing injustice to be in some way set right. That it can only be set right by Disestablishment, they have by no means said. But that Dis- establishment, as one of the possible courses, is to be considered by Scotland, and considered by it even in the course of this Parliament, was explicitly put by the Prime Minister, in his formal answer to the communications made to him on different sides in 1869. I need not say that even were these facts away the position of the non-established Presbyterians in Scotland is such as to make it very certain that they will not submit to the obvious and insolent inequality of the present state of matters. This question, then, is in some form inevitable, and it is not Liberals alone who know it. Dr. Norman Macleod, as Modera- tor, told Mr. Gladstone that in bringing forward the Patronage Act of 1874, when the Conservative Government was in power they had in view "the reconciliation of the Free Churches," and the Lord High Commissioner to the Church, Lord Aberdeen, has just confessed that the failure of that measure was due to the fact that this view was not more publicly stated, and that Scotch Nonconformists were not frankly consulted about it. The Conservatives had their innings then, and failed, for such reasons. The Liberal party has them now, and it has gone farther than the Conservative party did, by admitting the general question of justice, and referring it to Scotch electors for an answer.
Now, in these circumstances, Mr. Finlay could not have com- plained even if a Haddingtonshire elector simply said, " Yon mast answer Mr. Gladstone's question by voting, like me, for Disestablishment in Scotland." Such a strong course might conceivably have been the best for the party, as well as for abstract justice. But Mr. Finlay, acting under very bad advice, and thrust without proper inquiry upon a local association, went much farther than declining to vote for Disestablishment. He pledged himself to vote against it, and at the same time gave and suggested no other solution of the question of justice. He seemed throughout to deny that any such question of justice existed. In so acting, he set himself in opposition to the line already taken by the leaders of his party. He not only rejected the answer which East Lothian ought to give to the question, he rejected the question itself, to the solution of which (for Scotland, not for England) the Liberal party is pledged. In so doing, he did his best to split up that party, and, in my judg- ment, made it the duty of the Liberal electors not to vote for adm,—at least, in the recent contest.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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