net had fallen into error, though
in every case the error was fostered by the party opposite; and he pointed
to the vital fact that though the party opposite were in good time, they
never dreamed of altering the policy. He asked triumphantly how they would
have fared in the Afghan dispute, if the policy anterior to 1880 had not
been repudiated. In his address he took the same valiant line about South
Africa. "In the Transvaal," he said, "we averted a war of European and
Christian races throughout South African states, which would have been
alike menacing to our power, and scandalous in the face of civilisation
and of Christendom. As this has been with our opponents a favourite
subject of unmeasured denunciation, so I for one hail and reciprocate
their challenge, and I hope the nation will give a clear judgment on our
refusal to put down liberty by force, and on the measures that have
brought about the present tranquillity of South Africa." His first speech
was on Ireland, and Ireland figured, as we have seen, largely and
emphatically to the last. Disestablishment was his thorniest topic, for
the scare of the church in danger was working considerable havoc in
England, and every word on Scottish establishment was sure to be
translated to establishment elsewhere. On the day on which he was to
handle it, his entry is: "Much rumination, and made notes which in
speaking I could not manage to see. Off to Edinburgh at 2.30. Back at 6.
Spoke seventy minutes in Free Kirk Hall: a difficult subject. The present
agitation does not strengthen in my mind the principle of establishment."
His leading text was a favourite and a salutary maxim of his, that "it is
a very serious responsibility to take political questions out of their
proper time and their proper order," and the summary of his speech was
that the party was agreed upon certain large and complicated questions,
such as were enough for one parliament to settle, and that it would be an
error to attempt to thrust those questions aside, to cast them into the
shade and the darkness, "for the sake of a subject of which I will not
undervalue the importance, but of which I utterly deny the maturity at the
present moment."(160)

On Nov. 27 the poll was taken; 11,241 electors out of 12,924, or 87 per
cent., recorded their votes, and of these 7879 voted for Mr. Gladstone,
and 3248 for Mr. Dalrymple, or a majority of 4631. So little impression
had been made (M94) in Midlothian by Kilmainha