But a great deal has happened since 1826. The existence of a Scotsman of Sir Walter’s calibre was a nasty snag for the Government of the day—but the policy behind them could afford to wait, to pretend to yield; it is not every generation, happily, that throws up such a figure to thwart its purposes, although Lord Rosebery _did_ concede that Scotland is “the milch cow of the Empire.” There has appeared no Scotsman since of equal size to do anything analogous and to expose the tremendous losses to Scotland through the financial unification of Scotland with England that has since been consummated. The dangers that Scott apprehended and warded off a hundred years ago are fully battening on Scottish interests to-day, and they are powerless to defend themselves. How powerless is indicated by the fact that the Scottish Press (whose columns are shut to all discussion of national realities) gives prominence to such ridiculous statements as that of Mr Ridge Beedle, prospective Unionist candidate for the Camlachie Division of Glasgow, who says that “it is owing to the Scottish Home Rule Movement that new industries are not settling in Scotland; industrialists are preferring locations in England where continuity and settled conditions are assured.” Thousands upon thousands of Scottish electors are so hopelessly bemused that they swallow an absurdity like that as if it were a self-evident truth. If it were, the difficulties of Scottish Nationalism would be over. Our English competitors would be falling over each other to subsidize it and ensure its success. VIII Here the connection between the diverse movements in Scotland I indicated as so superficially incompatible becomes clear. The Credit Reform Movement is essentially one for the removal of all the false restraints under which humanity is labouring. It is not without significance that its leader, Major Douglas, should belong to the race which has suffered most abominably from the forms under which it has been subjected to two of the greatest agencies—the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution—which the impelling force, which has multiplied these restrains until “civilization” is tending to reduce the majority of mankind to the condition of robots, has utilized in securing that stranglehold on life which it is now visibly exercising. Will Scotland yet produce “Eighth marvel of seven on earth, A Douglas at peace?”