Although the political relations between Scotland and England would seem to have been of the smoothest since the Act of union, and in spite of the fact that on the whole the merging of the two peoples under one Government has tended hugely to the benefit of Scotland, it is the Scotch fashion to lament the union with groans and to insist that 1707 was a black year for Scotchmen. I believe that were it not for the circumstance that Scotland cannot produce capable men even in the way of agitators we should soon have at St. Stephen’s a Scotch party which would be just as troublesome and just as noisy and truculent as is the Irish party. I believe, too, that within twelve months’ time as big a[195] demand for Home Rule and as much disquiet and rebellion could be got up in Scotland as have ever existed in Ireland. Fortunately, however, the Scotch possess neither the requisite agitators nor the requisite pluck to indulge in serious demonstrations against the Imperial Government. So that they have to content themselves with futile grumbling and petty acts of disloyalty. The Scot has always been more or less of a fine hand at a treason. Out of Scotland has come the only treasonable organisation which England can boast of at the present day. I refer, of course, to that absurd group of persons who once a year decorate the statue of Charles I. at Whitehall with cheap wreaths, and circulate leaflets which profess to prove that the reigning monarch in these realms is a usurper, and that our only true monarch is a woman by the name of Mary, who lives somewhere on the Continent. In any country but England these gentry would be laid by the heels; though the mere fact that they are Scotch renders them quite ineffective.[196] We can afford to smile at them. All the same, we must remember that if they could make trouble they would. Even in the matter of the King’s Coronation the Scotch have managed to give us the usual display of stupid insolence. Writing to his paper in May last, the Scottish correspondent of the Times said:

“The approaching coronation of the King and Queen seems to have awakened rather less enthusiasm in certain quarters than either the Jubilee or the Diamond Jubilee of her late Majesty. It would be absurd to make much of the difference, but it does exist. In a word, the celebration of the event will be distinctly more official than the rejoicings over the two notable epochs of Queen Victoria’s later life. Two circumstances have helped to bring this about—the Royal proclamation of two successive holidays, and what is known in Scotland as the ‘numeral.’ They are both absolutely sentimental considerations, but they have had a slight influence. Trades councils, becoming ‘permeated’[197] with Socialism, protest against what they are pleased to call the ‘mummery’ in London, and the association of themselves therewith through local rejoicings, and the idea of losing two days’ pay in one week is just sufficient to arouse their resentment, which some corporations have tried to appease by ignoring the proclamation, or applying it, on their own initiative, to one of the days only. The ‘numeral’ connotes the quasi-patriotic objection to the assumption of the title of King Edward VII. by his Majesty. Some Scotsmen persist in refusing to see that, in calling himself the Seventh Edward, the King neither intended to, nor did, insinuate that he was the seventh of that name who had reigned over the United Kingdom, and they declaim in grotesque fashion against the payment of any kind of homage to the Crown. Their insignificance is shown by the snub administered to them recently by the Convention of Burghs, which is nothing if it is not truly and characteristically Scottish: their influence is no less unmistakable[198] in the resolution of several public bodies to omit the ‘numeral’ from the inscription on their coronation medals, and in the untimely fits of economy that have overcome some local authorities not as a rule averse to feasting.”

It is the old tale over again. The Scotch braggart cry—“unconquered and unconquerable”—is made to rend the welkin whenever the opportunity serves. Edward the Seventh, of course, cannot be Edward the Seventh of Scotland. It would never do. Therefore the “numeral” must not appear on Scotch medals, and the rejoicings are to be as far as possible of an official character. The ululation over the loss of two days’ pay also is eminently Scotch. There is a time for work and a time for play, says the wise man; but the whey-faced Scot plays always with a certain disconsolateness because he feels that he is losing money all the time. The fact is, that Scottish life and Scottish manners............