of game, to be kept up by the proprietor, for the benefit of the glen, as in old times.  I said that these seemed to me to be Utopian demands.  If you all fish, and shoot, and drown the keepers in the linn, I urged, there will soon be no game left for any of you.  No Game-laws, I observed, and you will obviously have no poaching.  There will be nothing to poach, and no fun in doing it.  They said that they would pay keepers to hold the Southern bodies off, out of the rates, and the rates would be paid by the Laird—­meaning me.  I said I knew that several Lairds were standing on this platform, but that, personally, if my land and rents were to be taken away, I did not see how the rates were to be got out of my empty sporran.  This was a new idea to them, but I cheered them up by saying I was in favour of Compulsory Access to Mountains, with no Personal Option in the matter.  This was what the people needed, I said—­they needed to be made to climb mountains, beginning with Box Hill.  On Bank Holidays, I remarked, they never go to the top.  They stay where the beer is.  I would have a staff of Inspectors, to see that they went.  The general limbs and lungs would be greatly improved, and the sale of whiskey, from private stills, would be increased.

This unlucky remark divided my Party.  The Free Kirk Minister wore a blue ribbon, and was a Temperance-at-any-price politician.  Two of “The Men,” however,—­a kind of inspired Highland prophets—­had a still of their own, and they and the Minister nearly came to blows.  The Party then withdrew, giving three cheers for Mr. GLADSTONE, but not pledging themselves to vote for me.

The Eight Hours’ people were at me next.  I said I saw that the Bill would provide employment for a number of people, but I added, that I did not see who was to pay the wages, nor who was to buy the goods.  For, I remarked, you certainly cannot compete with foreign countries at this rate, and at home the Classes will be competing with you, being obliged to have recourse to manual labour.  They said that was just what they wanted, everybody to labour with his hands.  I answered that many of the Classes, a poor lot at best (cheers), would come on the Parish.  Who was to pay the rates when everybody was working, and nobody was buying what was made?  If there were no markets, where were you to sell your produce?  They said they would live on the land.  I answered that the land would not support the population:  you would need to import bread-stuffs, with what were you going to pay for them?  I added that my heart was with them, but that they could only attain their ends by massacring or starving three-fourths of the population, and who knew how he himself might fare, with a three-to-one chance against his survival?  Suppose it did not come to that, I urged, suppose the Bill gave all the world employment; suppose that, somehow, it also paid their wages, or supported them, in a very short time you would need a Four Hours’ Bill (cheers), a Two Hours’ Bill, a One Hour’s Bill, of course with no fall in wages.  The constitution of things would not run to it.