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Editorial in 'The Thistle'
June 1914

Tory stupidity has assumed a new phase. The Convention on the Constitution has, despite the best efforts of the Tory grandees to prevent it, finally reached if not a conclusion, then at least, in the words of the Speaker, a way forward. The various papers and summaries of the discussion having been published in the form of a ‘Blue Book’ the destructiveness of the Tories and their Unionist cronies is now laid bare for all to see. At the Convention the English Tories, acted as if they had the sole claim to be representatives of the Empire. Even before it opened we had already seen the rankest statements of disloyalty, even threats of armed resistance, from Tory and Ulster Unionists alike. It is clear that at the Convention they showed that any loyalty is to themselves alone.

It is curious that they should be so blind to the necessities of constitutional reform in the Parliament of the United Kingdom when ministers who control the policy of the Dominions of Canada and New Zealand, and of the Commonwealth of Australia, can see clearly what should be done to give the British peoples a good working Constitution. Had the Tories and Unionists even the most limited knowledge of what shape democracy has taken in Australia, in Canada, and in South Africa, they never would have dared to provoke a contest which must end in their utter destruction.

When the Premier of Queensland was in Scotland about a year or more ago, he pointed out the necessity for the establishment of sub-national parliaments in the four nationalities of the United Kingdom. And at a later date, on the 27th of October last, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Prime Minister of Canada, concluded a brilliant speech to the Women's Canadian Club at Montreal with similar remarks.

Their wise words embody a policy which would be advocated and endorsed, we venture to say, by every Premier who is at the head of affairs in the British self-governing states beyond the seas. It is a policy which would give peace and contentment to all the four peoples of the British Isles — a portion of English Jingoes and bigoted Orangemen perhaps excepted. Why, then, should the Tories try to refuse the same power to Scotland and to Wales? Surely the Tory party has at last in its stupidity committed political suicide.

The Scots and Welsh two nationalities are not unfitted for self- government. On the contrary they are more fit for it than either England or Ireland. It is because of their complete fitness for self-government; because of their orderliness, their high intelligence, and their indisposition to resort to violence, that their claim for the management of their own national affairs is denied to them. They don't throw bombs, they don't shoot the officers of the law, they don't resort to bribery and corruption in their electoral and other business, and hence, according to the policy of the brutal English majority to now — Liberal and Tory alike — they must be denied the blessings of Home Rule, and be treated as tributary and conquered peoples. That is, and has been, the policy alike of the Radical Lord Morley, and of the Tory Lord Salisbury, and their followers for the last thirty years. The spirit of English liberty, of which we hear so many boasts, seems to have departed, and is now replaced by a spirit of “Bullyism” and of “Jingoism,” which resents any interference with English predominance in Westminster.

The greatest priority must now be the creation of separate parliaments for each of our Nations - even we say, the English. Only then will the English see the truth so long ignored that they are but one component of a greater Union. Whatever happens, the old dirty and shameful policy, born of selfishness and national bigotry, which treats Scotland and Wales as a part of England, with all their national peculiarities levelled down to the English hum-drum standard, and their national interests made subservient to those of England, this must cease. Scotland and Wales in this matter cannot be treated differently from Ireland.

It is without doubt the English majority in Parliament who are to blame for this. That majority had the power to pass measures of " Home Rule All Round," which would effectually put an end to congestion in the Imperial Parliament. Had the English Liberals or the English Tories shown any disposition in the past to make this question of the devolution of the internal legislation of the United Kingdom the question of questions, as it undoubtedly is, the disgrace and the infamy which they have brought on their good name, as a civilised people, would have been avoided. It is only now, faced with challenges by Labour in England and Wales, that the English Liberals have been brought face to face with the consequences of their past failures. Let us hope that the ‘way forward’ suggested by Mr Speaker is not blocked again by the intransigence and disloyalty of the traitorous Tories and Unionist. If the Tories prevent it and so national and rational liberty of the Scots and the Welsh is only to be gained by violent methods, even these may be possible if they are driven to extremity. But what a disgraceful position that would be for the English Tories and the Irish Unionists to take up towards their fellow-citizens in Scotland and Wales.

NOTE on this post: I've belatedly realised this uses much of the same material as another Thistle Editorial. Any rewrite will need to remove the duplication, although the Editor appears not to have been shy of repeating himself!