Chapter LI: Political and Social Movements

THE scope of this chapter naturally assumes a somewhat general character, as the course of political events in Scotland was greatly influenced by external power and circumstances; she had not a government of her own, and even the spirit of the British Ministry often seriously affected the executive in Scotland during the latter part of the last century, and the early part of this one. I will, in the first place, indicate briefly the political state of the nation in the later part of the eighteenth century; and in the second, touch on the rise of political discussion, of the principles of liberty and freedom, political rights, and reform; the attempts to suppress them, and their ultimate triumph.

In the last century there was no popular representation in Scotland. The town councils elected the burgh members of parliament. Excepting Edinburgh, which had a member to itself, there was only one member for a district of four or five burghs: for instance, Perth, Dundee, St. Andrews, Cupar, and Forfar, were classed together, and had but one member; Aberdeen, Montrose, Arbroath, Brechin, and Inverbervie, formed another group, with one member of parliament, and so on amongst the other burghs. The mode of election was this:――Each town council elected a delegate, and these five or four delegates met and elected the member of parliament. And it is a well ascertained fact, that the Governments of the day, instead of bribing the town councils, bribed the delegates, or, for the sake of economy, only one or two of them, if this could secure a majority. Such was the representation of the burghs of Scotland prior to 1832.

I have examined the rolls of the freeholders or electors of the different counties of Scotland, as made up at the meetings for electing their representatives to the Parliament, summoned to meet at Westminster on the 10th of August, 1790, and find that the total number of electors was then 2652. So in those days it was an easy matter for the Government to manage the elections as they thought fit. The public press was only in its infancy, and a pretty hard struggle had to be fought ere it obtained freedom of discussion. Corporations and public bodies might speak for themselves, but the opinion of the general community was not recognised as having any claim to be heard or consulted. The Government of those days recognised no public opinion save that which issued from themselves or their official organs. So long as the mass of the people plodded on quietly at their daily occupations, the corruption of the political fabric was concealed behind its official trappings; but when the French Revolution burst out, it sent a shock of alarm and panic into the heart of every Government in Europe.

The effects of this soon appeared in the administration of Scotland. The terror of revolution seized the British Government; reason itself shook, and justice and humanity were for a time driven beyond the gates of mercy. Everything rung with the French Revolution, which was made the all in all for about twenty years. “Everything, not this or that thing, but literally everything, was soaked in this one event.”¹ Although there is no evidence that any considerable number of persons in Scotland ever embraced the French revolutionary principles, there were, of course, many people who wished to reform the existing political system of government. But the reigning Toryism of the time, in order to retain its monopoly of power, fixed upon all reformers and opponents the stigma of Jacobins, revolutionaries, and seditious persons. The real Whigs were then very few in Scotland, and they were viewed by the Government and its supporters with extreme suspicion; even such a man as Dugald Stewart was an object of great secret alarm for several years. When such was the feeling in Edinburgh, we may easily imagine what must have been the position of men who held liberal opinions in the country at large; still, such persons existed throughout the nation, but were subjected to contumely, insult, and personal loss and danger for many years.

¹ Lord Cockburn’s _Memorials of his Time_, page 80; 1856.

In the end of the year 1792, some attempts were made to form political associations; and in December, a meeting of delegates was held in Edinburgh, some of whom had come from Ross and Sutherlandshire. The Lord Advocate, Dundas, immediately set the arm of the law in motion, and the most notable and talented man connected with the movement, Thomas Muir, was arrested on the 2nd of January, 1793, but was liberated on bail.¹ After instructing his legal agent to inform him whenever a criminal indictment was served upon him, he proceeded to France. His trial was finally fixed on the 25th of February; but Muir failed to reach Edinburgh on the day fixed for his trial, accordingly he was declared an outlaw, and his name deleted from the roll of the Faculty of Advocates. He returned to Scotland in July, and was at once apprehended; and on the 30th he was brought before the Court and charged with sedition. The indictment was of enormous length――a curious mass of legal verbiage; but the chief point in it was that the prisoner at the bar was connected with political associations, whose sole end was to agitate for parliamentary reform. Braxfield, then Lord Justice-clerk, was the leading spirit in this trial, and in the other political trials of the period; and it has long since been admitted that he was notoriously prepossessed and prejudiced against all persons charged with political crimes.² The juries were usually packed in these trials, and there was not only a bias against such prisoners, but also an absolute straining for convictions was manifested by the bench; nothing so grossly unjust had taken place in Scotland since the seventeenth century.

¹ Mr. Muir was born in Glasgow in 1765, and educated at the
Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Having chosen the
legal profession, and studied law, he was called to the
Scottish bar in 1787. He was a man of high intellectual
abilities, and an ardent advocate of political reform.

² “But the giant of the bench was Braxfield. His very name
makes people start yet. Strong built and dark, with rough
eyebrows, powerful eyes, threatening lips, and a low
growling voice, he was like a formidable blacksmith. His
accent and his dialect were exaggerated Scotch; his language,
like his thoughts, short, strong, and conclusive.”

“It is impossible to condemn his conduct as a criminal
judge too gravely, or too severely. It was a disgrace to the
age. A dexterous and practical trier of ordinary cases: he
was harsh to prisoners even in his jocularity, and to every
counsel whom he chose to dislike.... It may be doubted if he
was ever so much in his element as when tauntingly repelling
the last despairing claim of a wretched culprit, and sending
him to Botany Bay or the gallows with an insulting jest;
over which he would chuckle the more from observing that
correct people were shocked. As he once said to an eloquent
culprit at the bar: ‘Ye’re a verra clever chiel, man, but
ye wad be nane the waur o’ a hanging.’ Hang was his phrase
for all kinds of punishment.... He, as the head of the
Court, and the only powerful man it contained, was the real
director of its proceedings. The reports make his abuse of
the judgment-seat bad enough; but his misconduct was not
so fully disclosed in formal decisions and charges as it
transpired in casual remarks and general manner. ‘Let them
bring me prisoners, and I’ll find them law’ used to be
openly stated as his suggestion when an intended political
prosecution was marred by anticipated difficulties.... Mr.
Horner, one of the jurors, in Muir’s case, told me that
when he was passing behind the bench to get into the box,
Braxfield, who knew him, whispered, ‘Come awa, Maister
Horner, come awa, and help us to hang ane o’ thae daamned
scoondrels.’”――Lord Cockburn’s _Memorials of his Time_,
pages 113‒117.

Muir admitted that he had agitated concerning the representation of the people in parliament, but denied having used seditious language or disseminated seditious literature. The judges were prepossessed against him, the jury was packed, and there was little hope for the prisoner at the bar; nevertheless, Muir addressed the jury in a memorable speech, which occupied three hours in its delivery. When he concluded, a shout of applause was raised by the audience in the gallery and the passages of the court, the echo of which is not even yet spent. In vain Lord Braxfield shouted “Clear the court,” and he then said, that this applause which the prisoner had received had only confirmed his conviction that it would be dangerous to allow Muir to remain in the country. He next concentrated all his powers, and rose to sum up and address the jury, and amongst other and equally remarkable things, his lordship said:――

“This is the question for consideration. Is the panel guilty of sedition or is he not. Now, before this question can be answered, two things must be attended to that require no proof. First, that the British Constitution is the best that ever was since the creation of the world, and it is not possible to make it better. For is not every man secure? Does not every man reap the fruit of his own industry, and sit safely under his own fig tree? The next circumstance is that there was a spirit of sedition in this country last winter which made every good man uneasy. Yet Mr. Muir had at that time gone about among ignorant country people, making them forget their work, and told them that a reform was absolutely necessary for preserving their liberty, which, if it had not been for him, they would never have thought was in danger. I do not doubt that this will appear to the jury, as it does to me, to be sedition.

“The next thing to be attended to is the outlawry. Running away from justice――that was a mark of guilt. And what could he do in France at that period? Pretending to be an ambassador to a foreign country without lawful authority, that is rebellion; and he pretends to have had influence with those wretches, the leading men there. And what kind of folks were they? I never liked the French all my days, and now I hate them. The panel’s haranguing such multitudes of ignorant weavers about their grievances might have been attended with the worst consequences to the peace of the nation and the safety of our glorious Constitution. Mr. Muir might have known that no attention could be paid to such a rabble. What right had they to representation? I could have told them that the parliament would never listen to their petition. How could they think of it? A government in every country should be just like a corporation, and in this country it is made up of the landed interest, which alone has a right to be represented. As for the rabble, who have nothing but personal property, what hold has the nation of them? What security for the payment of their taxes? They may pack up all their property on their backs and leave the country in the twinkling of an eye, but landed property cannot be removed.”¹

¹ _The Martyrs of Reform in Scotland_, by A. H. Millar, F.S.A.
Scotland.

Muir, as a matter of course, was found guilty, and sentenced to transportation for a period of fourteen years. Other persons were tried this year and the following one for similar offences, and every one of them for a first offence were sentenced to transportation. Amongst those were Gerald, Hargarot, and Palmer. Political discussion and political meetings were completely suppressed for a considerable time in Scotland. But these trials left a deep impression upon the popular mind, and on the minds of all thinking men. In 1844, a stone monument was erected to their memory on the Calton Hill burying ground, Edinburgh.

The Government employed a set of spies, who often brought innocent and unsuspecting persons into the iron grasp of the criminal law. After the trials of 1793 and 1794, the Government seems to have imagined that Glasgow was the chief revolutionary centre in Scotland, although, in fact, there was no such thing in the nation, save what the Government itself was creating. When any Government purposely employs and pays men to discover sedition among a peaceful community, these men, in the interest of their trade, will soon create a show of the article required by their employers. This was what occurred in Glasgow between 1816 and 1820; that there was distress, and consequently discontent, in Glasgow, is well-known; but that there was anything like an organised conspiracy against the Government there is no evidence whatever.

By the operations of the spies and paid agents of the Government, three or four men were arrested and imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh in 1816, where they were kept for a considerable time. When the trial of these men began, it at once became evident that the whole affair had been manufactured to order; and it was shown in open court that the Advocate-depute had tampered with a witness, and endeavoured to corrupt him. The trial broke down, and “the prison and castle gates were instantly opened, and all the kindred prisoners walked forth.”

But in the year 1820, three men, Hardie, Baird, and Wilson, were executed for political offences which they were led into by the agents of the Government of the day; and other fifteen men were, at the same time, and for the same offence, sentenced to transportation.

Liberal principles in politics, and freedom of discussion, slowly advanced in Scotland; and incidents occasionally happened to convince the party in power that they were not quite immortal. The younger class of Whigs, represented by the _Edinburgh Review_, fought bravely and effectually, and by and by the clouds began to disperse, and the political atmosphere became clearer. The calm and reasonable teaching of Adam Smith and of Dugald Stewart had begun to tell; the press, too, was beginning to gather some influence; but the most powerful wave which was rapidly increasing in volume and momentum issued from the commercial and trading class. The wealth of this class was increasing, and it was them especially which rendered the first Reform Bill, not a matter of choice to be decided by this or that party, but a matter of absolute necessity. The new bill, therefore, gave this class power, and free trade won the day; but, though this great measure of reform swept off innumerable abuses, and introduced a better system of representation, it was far from satisfactory. The body of the people were still left outside the Constitution, and outside the legislature; they had no vote or voice in the government of their country. Hence, agitation for political reform, instead of being abated, shortly became more general and intense than it had ever before been, and the Chartist movement arose.

As might have easily been foreseen, the Chartist movement commenced almost immediately after the passing of the Reform Bill. They were, however, more troublesome in England than in Scotland. Their programme of reform was enounced in distinct terms and published to the world, and consisted of the following points:――(1) Universal Suffrage; (2) Vote by Ballot; (3) Annual Parliaments; (4) Payment of Members; (5) Abolition of the Property Qualification; and in 1848, they adopted the principle of equal electoral districts or proportionate constituencies. The more important of these points have already been embodied in the political system of the country; and the Chartists are, therefore, entitled to be considered as the real and only fruitful political reformers since 1833. From about 1843 to 1851, they had associations, clubs, and meeting-houses in Scotland; and many of their lecturers travelled through the country and delivered speeches at public meetings in the centres of population. One of their last meetings was a Democratic Conference, held in Edinburgh, in 1852.

In fact, many of the workmen in the chief towns of England: Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Newcastle, and the chief seats of industry in Lancashire and Yorkshire, as well as in the chief towns of Scotland, were extremely disappointed with the Reform Bill of 1832; as it was merely drawn to admit the commercial and middle class to political rights and power. So the cry for political reform was continued; and one responsible statesman ventured, about 1862, to announce that, in his opinion, the time had arrived when an extension of the franchise might safely be made. The announcement was received by many of the organs of public opinion with utter amazement, and by some it was treated with scorn and contempt. But shortly after the death of Lord Palmerston, the subject of representative reform was taken up by Earl Russell’s Administration, and in the spring of 1866, a measure called “The Representation of the People Bill” was introduced in parliament. It proposed a £7 franchise for burghs, and some other forms of qualification for a vote; the Government, a little later in the session, also introduced “The Redistribution of Seats Bill;” but, properly speaking, the two halfs were intended to form one measure. The whole measure was fiercely assailed in its principle and its details by Mr. Robert Lowe, then member for the burgh of Calne. In the course of the debates on the measure, he delivered three or four powerful and long speeches against it; in one of which his peroration was as follows:――

“I have said that I am utterly unable to reason with the Chancellor of the Exchequer for want of a common principle to start from; but there is happily one common ground left to us, and that is the second book of the Æneid of Virgil. My right honourable friend, like the moth which has singed its wings in the candle, has returned again to the poor old Trojan horse, and I shall, with the permission of the House, give them one more excerpt from the history of that noble beast.... The passage which I am about to quote is one which is, I think, worthy the attention of the House, because it contains a description not only of the invading army of which we have heard so much, but also a slight sketch of its general:――

‘The fatal horse pours forth the human tide,
Insulting Sinon flings his firebrands wide――
The gates are burst; the ancient rampart falls,
And swarming millions climb its crumbling walls.’

I have now traced, as well as I can, what I believe will be the natural results of a measure which, it seems to my poor imagination, is calculated, if it should pass into law, to destroy one after another, those institutions which have secured to England an amount of happiness and prosperity which no country has ever reached, or is ever likely to attain. Surely the heroic work of so many centuries, the matchless achievements of so many wise heads and strong hands, deserve a nobler consummation than to be sacrificed at the shrine of revolutionary passion, or the maudlin enthusiasm of humanity! But, if we do fall, we shall fall deservedly. Uncoerced by any external force, not borne down by any internal calamity, but in the full plethora of our wealth and the surfeit of our too exuberant prosperity, with our own rash and inconsiderate hands, we are about to pluck down on our own heads the venerable temple of our liberty and our glory. History may tell of other acts as signally disastrous, but of none more wanton, none more disgraceful.”

A considerable number of the Liberal members followed Mr. Lowe in his opposition, and on a division the measure was thrown out; and Earl Russell’s ministry resigned. The country was soon in a flame of agitation. Demonstrations in favour of parliamentary reform were held in every city and town of any importance throughout Scotland. This time the manifestations were determined and unmistakable, and it was seen that longer resistance to the united voice of the people was hopeless. Accordingly, the Conservatives introduced a Reform Bill, which, as every one knows, was worked into form by the Opposition in committee, and in its reamended state finally passed. But I have perhaps come down far enough, and shall only observe that at present a single division of Lanarkshire or of Aberdeenshire contains twice as many voters as all the counties of Scotland put together had at the end of the last century.

At the beginning of the present century, the position of the working classes with respect to civil, municipal, and political rights were very different from the status in which they now stand. In short, as we have seen, the people had no political rights, nor political freedom, till a recent period. The struggle to obtain those rights was a long and severe one; but various influences and circumstances have contributed to place the people in the commanding position which they at present enjoy.

The gradual diffusion of education and intelligence, and organisation and association among themselves for mutual benefits and ends, have done much to advance the body of the people. Trades unions have been viewed from very different standpoints; but without entering into a discussion or endless details, by attempting to justify the principles and the action of those unions in all the varied directions of their operation, I take them as a whole, and consider their results. When the liberty of the subject was so restricted that it was a crime to unite or associate for mutual benefits and ends, the effect of this was that Trades Unions in the early part of the present century were unlawful associations, and treated as such. Now injustice always begets injustice in some form. It is not surprising, therefore, that in their early stages trades unions were not always reasonable and fair in their proceedings. The Combination Laws were only partly repealed in 1825.

Upon the lines just indicated, there can be no doubt that those unions have done a vast amount of good. They have enabled workmen in some degree to hold their own, to obtain equal justice, and civil and political rights. In short, in the intense struggle of competition during the last fifty years, workmen could not have existed without their unions.