But, whatever the reason, it is obviously not to the credit of the Scots M.P.s and their constituents that such measures should have to be supinely forgone; the realities of the Scottish national position treated as unrealities while the catch-vote tactics of professional politics are permitted to monopolize public and Parliamentary attention; and the whole principle of democracy in regard to Scottish affairs stultified in this obscure but overwhelming fashion. Somehow or other the situation must be changed, so that measures corresponding to the actual requirements of our nation can be carried into the field of practical politics—and not allowed to “fail to carry” in this way. The whole impression of Scottish politics is like that of a man dominated by a sort of a nightmare he cannot shake off. He would fain get back to his true self—but he cannot move. Just as reading certain papers one gets a wholly disproportionate and unfortunate conception of the world as a place where murders, divorces and all sorts of sensations and scandals are dominant—so the present political system entirely distorts and misrepresents the real condition of Scottish affairs and bogs the attention of the electors in all manner of “professional political” issues which have little or no bearing on their interests, while the latter are excluded from the “sphere of practical politics.” What is wanted is a movement to shake off all the old shibboleths, the tyranny of the catch-phrases; and to found a new conception of politics on the basis of a practical concentration upon the actualities of our national situation.