Meeting at Hawick
This article was published in The Daily Telegraph on 10 december 1903.
On 9 december 1903, Arthur Conan Doyle was at a meeting in Hawick as a prospective Unionist candidate for the constituency.
Article
Addressing a crowded public meeting at Hawick last night, Sir Conan Doyle, the prospective Unionist candidate for the constituency, said he was a convinced Free Trader, and believed that not only duty and sentiment, but material advantage, lay in that direction. He considered that in retaliation they had an excellent remedy for all their commercial troubles. It was absurd to live in a fool's paradise and pretend that they had no trouble. Were it not for the large increase in Colonial trade, an increase for which they had to thank the Imperial feeling, which was ridiculed in certain quarters, their position would be disastrous. If they should have a national catastrophe let them beware how they tempered with that sentiment, for it was the one thing which stood between them and commercial disaster. He recognised that along the line of Mr. Chamberlain's suggestions there were great political and commercial advantages to be won. The fact that Colonial trade steadily increased, while trade to protected countries decreased, was the main factor in this very difficult question.
