BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

difficulties, we have at last succeeded, with the aid of W. Reginald
Macleod and W. Walter Hadow, in planting the Primrose League in
Scotland."
While Hardman attributed the SGC and its Habitations as
having made "rapid and satisfactory progress,"68
complaints continued
to persist.
A report submitted to the LGC by Lady Ancaster in 1893
regarding operations in Scotland noted
all the keen Primrose League workers complain that very
little help or encouragement is given by the Scottish
Grand Council, and the whole thing is wanting in
energy, and is only kept alive by the efforts of a few
who know the advantage of the Primrose League as a
means to keep the Conservatives together, and the
organization is altogether very weak and dis­
heartening. 69
In a letter to the LGC the following year, Political Secretary
to the SGC, W.W. Hadow, emphasized the problems at hand.
It is difficult to say what can be done to create more
interest in [the] P.L. in Scotland — in counties like
Perthshire, Dumfriesshire, West-Lothian etc the
interest never flags and the Habs are admirably carried
on--in other counties the candidates are against it
though they openly acknowledge that the Conservative or
Unionist Associations conduct their organization
entirely on P.L. lines.
Under these circumstances in these districts it is
not easy to keep [the] P.L. up to its proper
standard. 70
In 1896 Hadow resigned as Political Secretary in order to assume a
position as Commissioner of Prisons in Scotland.71
His departure
68 Minutes of the Grand Council of the Primrose League,
January, 1886.
69 LGC Executive Committee Minutes, 3 November 1893.
70
71
Ibid., 2 March 1894.
The Primrose League Gazette, 1 October 1898, p. 9.