country; they object to their children being taught respect for the flag.  But we Unionists are not cosmopolitans, but Britons.  We have no envy or ill-will towards other nations; a man is not a worse neighbour because he loves his own family.  But we do hold that it is not our business to look after others.  It is our business to look after ourselves and our dependencies, and the great kindred communities who own allegiance to the British flag.  We want to draw closer to them, to stand together; and we believe that the strength and the unity of the British Empire are of vital and practical importance to every citizen.  In all our propaganda, and in all our policy, let us continue to give that great principle a foremost place.

UNIONISTS AND THE EMPIRE

Edinburgh, November 15, 1907

I am greatly reassured by the very kind reception which you have just given me.  To tell the truth, I had been feeling a little alarmed at the fate which might await me in Edinburgh.  From a faithful perusal of the Radical Press I had been led to believe that Scotland was seething with righteous indignation against that branch of the Legislature of which I am, it is true, only a humble and very recent member, but yet a member, and therefore involved in the general condemnation of the ruthless hereditary tyrants and oppressors of the people, the privileged landowning class, which is alleged to be so out of sympathy with the mass of their fellow-countrymen, although, oddly enough, it supplies many of the most popular candidates, not only of one party, at any General Election.  Personally, I feel it rather hard to be painted in such black colours.  There is no taint of hereditary privilege about me.  I am not—­I wish I were—­the owner of broad acres, and I am in no way conscious of belonging to a specially favoured class.  There are a great many of my fellow members in the House of Lords who are in the same position, and who sit there, not by virtue of any privilege, but by virtue of their services, or, let me say in my own case, supposed services, to the State.  And while we sit there—­and here I venture, with all humility, to speak for all the members of that body, whether hereditary or created—­we feel that we ought to deal with the questions submitted to us to the best of our judgment and conscience, without fear of the consequences to ourselves and without allowing ourselves to be brow-beaten for not being different from what we are.  We believe that we perform a useful and necessary function.  We believe that a Second Chamber is essential to the good government of this country.  We do not contend—­certainly I am myself very far from contending—­that the existing Second Chamber is the best imaginable.  Let there be a well-considered reform of the House of Lords, or even, if need be, an entirely different Second Chamber.  But until you have got this better instrument, do not throw away the instrument which you have—­the only defence, not of the privileges of a class, but of the rights of the whole nation, against hasty, ill-considered measures and against the subordination of permanent national interests to the temporary exigencies of a party.