Two political campaigns in the Scottish Lowlands mark the beginning and the end of the half century during which the Liberal party rose, had its era of greatness, and fell. They are Midlothian and Paisley. In the first, William Gladstone made use of the new democracy of the Reform Act of 1867 by giving many speeches to vast crowds in a concentrated, spectacular campaign. He also broke new ground by setting out in these speeches the whole sweep of a political point of view, providing both contemporaries and historians with a convenient study in depth of its assumptions and goals. Midlothian was a legend before the cheers had subsided. It began a new era in British politics.The second of these landmark campaigns, that at Paisley, saw Herbert Henry Asquith, the last of Gladstone's protégés as well as the last Prime Minister of a Liberal government, stumping the streets of that industrial town in the first weeks of 1920. It, too, was the object of intense national interest and resulted in important political changes. Similarly, Asquith's speeches covered the whole range of national problems, thus supplying once more a convenient presentation in depth of Liberalism as the leader of the Liberal party conceived it. Paisley provides both a window into the political mêlée which saw the collapse of the Liberals and the rise of Labour, and a reference point in the history of Liberal thought in Britain. In brief, this is consensus Liberalism as it stood at the end of its half century of power and influence.