Note 569:1 — Chapter XXX

The Caucus is Largely a Sham.

The Scotch National Union.

The Union hitherto described covers England and Wales alone, although the Scotch and Irish organisations are entitled to send to the Conference twenty delegates apiece. North of the Tweed there is a separate National Union of Conservative Associations for Scotland. It is a copy of the English body, but except for the twenty delegates is entirely independent. It has a conference which adopts resolutions as ineffective as those passed farther south. It has six territorial divisions; but, owing to the fact that Scotland is in the main Liberal, several of these are not very vigorous, and do not raise money enough to have councils of their own. All the divisions are very much under the control of the Central Council of the Scotch Union, to which they send their reports for approval. They are, indeed, largely ornamental.

But if the National Union for Scotland is independent of the English Union it is by no means free from the influence of the whip's office. The party agent for Scotland, who has a right to attend—although without a vote—all meetings of the central and divisional councils and their committees, is appointed by the principal agent in London, and, like the secretaries of the divisions in England, is practically his subordinate. In this way the whip and the principal agent, acting through the agent for Scotland and the local agents, and fortified by subsidies at election times, maintain a real control over the whole party organisation throughout the kingdom.