; armies of mechanics, gloomy and restless, having no interfusion
amongst their endless files of any gradations corresponding to a system of
controlling officers; these spectacles, which are permanently offered by
the _castra stativa_ of combined mechanics in Glasgow and its dependencies,
(Paisley, Greenock, &c.,) supported by similar districts, and by turbulent
collieries in other parts of that kingdom, make Scotland, when now
developing her strength, no longer the safe and docile arena for popular
movements which once she was, with a people that were scattered, and
habits that were pastoral. And at this moment, so fearfully increased is
the overbalance of democratic impulses in Scotland, that perhaps in no
European nation--hardly excepting France--has it become more important to
hang weights and retarding forces upon popular movements amongst the
labouring classes.

This being so, we have never been able to understand the apparent apathy
with which the landed body met the first promulgation of the _Veto_ Act in
May 1834. Of this apathy, two insufficient explanations suggest
themselves:--1st, It seemed a matter of delicacy to confront the General
Assembly, upon a field which they had clamorously challenged for their own.
The question at issue was tempestuously published to Scotland as a
question exclusively spiritual. And by whom was it thus published? The
Southern reader must here not be careless of dates. _At present_, viz. in
1844, those who fulminate such views of spiritual jurisdiction, are simply
dissenters; and those who vehemently withstand them are the church, armed
with the powers of the church. Such are the relations between the parties
in 1844. But in 1834, the revolutionary party were not only _in_ the
church, but (being the majority) they came forward _as_ the church. The
new doctrines presented themselves at first, not as those of a faction,
but of the Scottish kirk assembled in her highest court. The _prestige_ of
that advantage, has vanished since then; for this faction, after first of
all falling into a minority, afterwards ceased to be any part or section
of the church; but in that year 1834, such a _prestige_ did really operate;
and this must be received as one of the reasons which partially explain
the torpor of the landed body. No one liked to move _first_, even amongst
those who meant to move. But another reason we find in the conscientious
scruples of many landholders, who hesitated to move at all