Radicalism--an inconclusive, or, still more, a disastrous
verdict--would carry a message of despair to every one in all parts of
our island and in our sister island who is working for the essential
influences and truths of Liberalism and progress. Down, down, down
would fall the high hopes of the social reformer. The constructive
plans now forming in so many brains would melt into air. The old
régime would be reinstated, reinstalled. Like the Bourbons, they will
have learned nothing and will have forgotten nothing. We shall step
out of the period of adventurous hope in which we have lived for a
brief spell; we shall step back to the period of obstinate and
prejudiced negations. For Ireland--ten years of resolute government;
for England--dear food and cheaper gin; and for Scotland--the superior
wisdom of the House of Lords! Is that the work you want to do, men of
Dundee? Is that the work to which you will put your precious
franchises--your votes, which have been won for you by so much
struggle in the past? No; I am confident that this city, which has of
its own free will plunged into the very centre of national politics,
will grasp the opportunity now presented; that its command will not be
back, but forward; that its counsel will be not timidity, but courage,
and that it will aim not at dividing, but at rallying the progressive
forces, not at dissipating, but at combining the energies of reform.
That will be the message which you will send in tones which no man can
mistake--so that a keen, strong, northern air shall sweep across our
land to nerve and brace the hearts of men, to encourage the weak, to
fortify the strong, to uplift the generous, to correct the proud.

In time of war, when an action has been joined for a long time, and
the lines are locked in fierce conflict, and stragglers are coming in
and the wounded drifting away, when the reserves begin to waver here
and there, it is on such an occasion that Scottish regiments have so