Fine fellow, Rosebery, only he was handicapped by being born a peer.  On the other hand, Morley, rising from the ranks, his father a surgeon hard-pressed to keep his son at college, is still “Honest John,” unaffected in the slightest degree by the so-called elevation to the peerage and the Legion of Honor, both given for merit.  The same with “Bob” Reid, M.P., who became Earl Loreburn and Lord High Chancellor, Lord Haldane, his successor as Chancellor; Asquith, Prime Minister, Lloyd George, and others.  Not even the rulers of our Republic to-day are more democratic or more thorough men of the people.

When the world’s foremost citizen passed away, the question was, Who is to succeed Gladstone; who can succeed him?  The younger members of the Cabinet agreed to leave the decision to Morley.  Harcourt or Campbell-Bannerman?  There was only one impediment in the path of the former, but that was fatal—­inability to control his temper.  The issue had unfortunately aroused him to such outbursts as really unfitted him for leadership, and so the man of calm, sober, unclouded judgment was considered indispensable.

I was warmly attached to Harcourt, who in turn was a devoted admirer of our Republic, as became the husband of Motley’s daughter.  Our census and our printed reports, which I took care that he should receive, interested him deeply.  Of course, the elevation of the representative of my native town of Dunfermline (Campbell-Bannerman)[64] gave me unalloyed pleasure, the more so since in returning thanks from the Town House to the people assembled he used these words: 

“I owe my election to my Chairman, Bailie Morrison.”

[Footnote 64:  Campbell-Bannerman was chosen leader of the Liberal Party in December, 1898.]

The Bailie, Dunfermline’s leading radical, was my uncle.  We were radical families in those days and are so still, both Carnegies and Morrisons, and intense admirers of the Great Republic, like that one who extolled Washington and his colleagues as “men who knew and dared proclaim the royalty of man”—­a proclamation worth while.  There is nothing more certain than that the English-speaking race in orderly, lawful development will soon establish the golden rule of citizenship through evolution, never revolution: 

    “The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
    The man’s the gowd for a’ that.”

This feeling already prevails in all the British colonies.  The dear old Motherland hen has ducks for chickens which give her much anxiety breasting the waves, while she, alarmed, screams wildly from the shore; but she will learn to swim also by and by.

In the autumn of 1905 Mrs. Carnegie and I attended the ceremony of giving the Freedom of Dunfermline to our friend, Dr. John Ross, chairman of the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, foremost and most zealous worker for the good of the town.  Provost Macbeth in his speech informed the audience that the honor was seldom conferred, that there were only three living burgesses—­one their member of Parliament, H. Campbell-Bannerman, then Prime Minister; the Earl of Elgin of Dunfermline, ex-Viceroy of India, then Colonial Secretary; and the third myself.  This seemed great company for me, so entirely out of the running was I as regards official station.