Mr. George Anderson, the junior member for the city of Glasgow, was born at Liverpool in 1819, and is thus in his 52d year. He is a son of George Anderson, Esq., of Luscar, Fifeshire, by his marriage with Miss Rachel Inglis. His father, who had been in early life in the navy, was for some years managing partner of the firm of Messrs. Dennistown & Co. at Havre and New Orleans, from which he left to be manager of the one branch of the old Glasgow Bank (with which the same house was largely connected) at Kirkcaldy, of which town he was afterwards for many years the highly-respected Provost.

Mr. Anderson was educated partly at Havre, partly at the High School of Edinburgh, and subsequently at the University of St Andrews. On coming to Glasgow in 1841, he entered the concern of Alex. Fletcher & Co., flaxspinners, St. Rollox, and was latterly managing partner of that extensive manufacturing establishment, employing nearly 2000 workpeople; and through his experience there, during 25 years, he acquired that knowledge of the grievances and wants of the working classes which has enabled him to legislate for them since. Mr. Anderson had never taken any part in Municipal affairs, but he had in other ways always done his fair share of public work. The Polytechnic Institution, the Fine Art Exhibitions that preceded the present Institute, the Art Union, the Philosophical Society, the Lock Hospital—of all of these he had been an active promoter or director. In connection with the West of Scotland Angling Club, of which he was a zealous member, he had successfully introduced the grayling into Scotland—an achievement in acclimatisation worthy of being remembered. While President of the Glasgow Skating Club he published a treatise on the art of skating, which is still the most popular manual on the subject, and has, we believe, reached a third edition. In 1859, on the starting of the Volunteer movement, Mr. Anderson took an enthusiastic part, and was among the original officers of the 4th Lanark, with which corps he has continued, being still its senior major; while he has repeatedly advocated, in the House, the claims of the Volunteers to increased assistance as an economical measure for national defence.

His candidature for the City of Glasgow, in 1868, was promoted by the local branch of the Reform League, conjointly with the trade delegates, who held a conference to deliberate on the matter. Previous to that time, our junior member was well known among the proletariat for his well-timed efforts to effect the abolition of the arrestment of wages. In 1852 he started the subject of wages arrestment by a series of letters in the Reformer's Gazette, Daily Mail, and Herald. The subject had long been felt to be a sore grievance and rock of offence among the working classes, and periodical agitations had taken place without leading to any decided action. From the very first Glasgow took the initiative in seeking to modify or get rid altogether of a law which pressed with greater severity on the lower orders than, perhaps, any other enactment that ever found its way into the Statute Books of Scotland. The late Neale Thomson, of Camphill, gave great assistance in that agitation, and a very exhaustive and able pamphlet on the arrestment of wages was published by Mr. Anderson in 1853, which led to the appointment of a Royal Commission; but though the report was entirely favourable to Mr. Anderson's views, nothing came of it, as under the £10 franchise the small shopkeepers were too strong for them, and the work which they had been sanguine of completing in 1854 was left for himself to do alone in 1870. Mr. Anderson wrote frequently on the currency question. His most recent production (published in 1866) was a pamphlet entitled "The Reign of Bullionism"—having previously read a paper on the subject of the Bank Acts to the Social Science Congress at Manchester—in which he advocated a national issue of note currency, and the abrogation of the Bank of England charter, and all other banks' monopoly. His literature was not all, however, of so practical a character; not long before he had edited, jointly with Mr. J. Finlay, a volume containing fifty of the best of the poems written on the centenary of Robert Burns—one of his own, which had been highly commended at the Crystal Palace competition, being among them. The volume is, perhaps, the most fitting tribute to the memory of our national poet that has appeared, and we believe it is now out of print.

In the education question Mr. Anderson had always taken a keen interest. Besides lectures and papers to the Philosophical Society, the Educational Institute, and the Social Science Congress he published two pamphlets pointing out how utterly worthless the half-time education clauses of the Factory Acts had proved, and urging compulsory education, or, in default of that, a quasi compulsion in the form of an educational test, in place of an age test, for youthful labour. He also came prominently before the public on the occasion of an agitation which took place in 1867 in reference to the subject of an education bill for Scotland. It will be remembered that two parties in the city sought to influence the Government of the day for different ends. One party was composed of the religious, while the other represented the unsectarian element, and by both memorials were sent to Parliament urging the claims of Scotland to a more comprehensive system of national education. Mr. Anderson, of course, espoused the cause of the unsectarian party, who went in for compulsory education; and he addressed a meeting in the City Hall, at which several resolutions approving of an unsectarian as opposed to a religious scheme of education were passed by a considerable majority of those present. The Reform Bill of 1868 gave Glasgow a third member, and Mr. Anderson was fixed upon as the most suitable representative of the interests of labour. His candidature, which as we have already indicated, had been invited by the Reform Leaguers and Trades Delegates of the city, was warmly supported by the working classes. A three-cornered constituency, the electors of Glasgow could only vote for two candidates; and as there was a Tory in the field, in the person of Sir George Campbell, it became a rather nice question as to how the three Liberal candidates were to be returned. The Liberal party were equal to the emergency. They agreed to vote for the two lowest candidates on the list throughout the polling, irrespective altogether of personal predilections or sympathies in favour of either. In this way the battle was won in the Liberal interest, and Glasgow vindicated her claim to be esteemed the most Liberal constituency in the kingdom. At the close of the poll, the return was as follows:—

Since he entered Parliament, Mr. Anderson has amply justified the choice of his constituents. He stands in the front rank of advanced Liberals, and is in favour of "Reform being carried to its fullest extent, by three-cornerism being abolished, by dispensing with the payment of rates, and by adopting the Ballot." Retired altogether from private business, Mr. Anderson has every facility, apart from his bent and disposition, for taking an active and intelligent part in public affairs, and he has approved himself a most industrious and zealous legislator. No man is closer in his attendance on the House of Commons. During his first session in Parliament he was present at 128 out of 160 divisions; his second year in Parliament, though he was away ill for a month, was marked by a scarcely less scrupulous and regular attention to his duties, for he was present at 171 out of 264 divisions; and in his third session he was present at 262 out of 270.

Mr. Anderson made his maiden speech in Parliament on the 3rd day of March, 1869. The occasion was the second reading of Mr. Fawcett's Election Expenses Bill, which proposed to throw the expenses of elections on the ratepayers. In the course of his address, which was listened to with the utmost attention, Mr. Anderson said—"To the great bulk of those whom he addressed, the payment of £200 or £300 was in all probability a matter of trifling importance; but undoubtedly the necessity for incurring even that expense had a great effect in limiting the field from which constituencies might choose their members; and if the House were anxious to avoid the charge of desiring to keep Parliamentary honours and political power in the possession of one class—namely, the class of very wealthy men—they must legislate in the direction proposed by the hon. member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett). It should be remembered that in limiting the field from which constituencies might choose their members, the House thereby tended to limit its own intellectual power."

Again, in Committee of Supply on the army estimates, Mr. Anderson addressed the House on the 11th March, 1869; and on the 17th June, 1869, he electrified the "Colonels" of the House by declaring, while speaking of the great expense of the non-effective services and pensions, that "he thought the whole system of pay and pensions in the army was rotten and wrong.... Officers ought to provide for old age out of their incomes, and even if their pay were proportionately increased, the service would gain in efficiency if the change made it less aristocratic, by throwing it open to men without private fortunes, who must live on their pay." Mr. Anderson has persistently, both in season and out of season, kept "pegging away" at the bugbear of Army Reform, and on the 2d August, 1870, he attacked the abuse of sinecure Colonels, and abuses in the higher branches of the army; such as the Colonelcies held by the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, the chief military secretary, and others. Mr. Cardwell, in his reply, alleged that these were honorary, but was afterwards obliged to admit that the Prince and the Duke were each paid for one colonelcy, the former £1350, and the latter £2200. He moved large reductions in the salaries of the commander-in-chief and the military secretary, in respect of their holding incomes from colonelcies, and repeated his motion in 1871. Although he was defeated in these motions, the result has been the restriction of the salary of the military secretary by £700 a year, and a prospective reduction of the commander-in-chief's by £450 at next vacancy. But it is hardly to be expected that these reductions will induce Mr. Anderson to desist from further attempts in the same direction. In 1871 he was selected to second Mr. Trevelyan's motion on army reform, and in speaking on that occasion he again attacked the sinecure colonelcies and other abuses in the administration of the army. He systematically opposes all increase of expenditure, particularly on the army, and in 1870, on the outbreak of the Franco-German war, when Government asked a vote of two millions for increased army expenditure, he was one of a minority of seven who opposed it. In the debate on the abolition of purchase, Mr. Anderson denounced the injustice of razing over regulation prices, and thus rewarding men for knowingly breaking the law. He pointed out that it would lead to officers getting not one, but two over regulation prices, and he afterwards supported Mr. Ryland's motion against that payment.

It is, however, to his Wages Arrestment Act and the Citation Amendment (Scotland) Act that Mr. Anderson stands indebted for his prestige and popularity as a legislator. The first of these is the bill which he introduced last session with the object of limiting the arrestment of wages. In Glasgow, and elsewhere throughout Scotland, the provisions of the measure were discussed with a good deal of personal feeling—one party arguing that the security afforded to shopkeepers by the power of arresting wages enabled them to give credit to working men when they could not otherwise venture to do so; while another class contended that extravagance and distress were the results of too easy access to credit. The general impression, however, appears to be that the bill will be productive of the most beneficial results both to the small shopkeepers and to their customers—the two classes most directly interested in its operation.

In reference to the Citation Amendment (Scotland) Act, which has put an end to keyhole citations in small debt cases throughout Scotland, we may remark that Mr. Anderson aimed, in introducing this measure, at the amelioration of the poorer classes, on whom the keyhole system pressed with undue severity. Previous to the passing of the new Act the officer appointed to serve a summons was permitted—if he did not find the defender at home, or could not obtain access to his house—to place the summons in the keyhole, after six knocks at the door, or to affix it to the gate; and whilst many accidents might readily occur to prevent its reaching the hands of the proper party, it was also not unfrequent for some one interested to take it away, and thus a decree in absence was too readily obtained.

In the Trades' Union and Criminal Amendment Bills he attempted several amendments on behalf of the working man, and was successful in some, particularly in excluding the jurisdiction of Justices of Peace from such cases in Scotland, which renders that Act less oppressive in Scotland than it is in England.

We may briefly indicate, in reference to the rest of Mr. Anderson's Parliamentary career, that he has voted in favour of Mr. Mundella's motion against the increase of the Army Estimates. He has supported the bill for the legalizing of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, and voted in favour of the Irish Church and Land Bills. On the 9th May, 1871, he voted in favour of Mr. Miall's proposed resolution for the disestablishment of the Church of England; while as cognate to this subject, we may add, that he has opposed Mr. M'Laren's Annuity Tax (Edinburgh) Bill, as well as the Church Rates (Scotland) Bill; though, in speaking to his constituents in 1871, he claimed to have been the means of bringing about the settlement of the Annuity Tax question.

During the last two sessions he has repeatedly called the attention of the Home Secretary to the prevalence and results of betting advertisements, and urged the need of further legislation. On mercantile subjects Mr. Anderson is considered somewhat of an authority, and in 1869, when the English Bankruptcy Bill came on, his knowledge of the Scotch system, which the English commercial members wished to adopt, was of some use, and enabled him to take a considerable share in the discussion of the clauses, and to carry a number of amendments, though failing in some important ones, he has taken an active part also in amending the Assurance Companies Bill, and in almost every discussion bearing upon the commercial relations of the country. Speaking against Mr. Delahunty's Money Law (Ireland) Bill in the session of 1869, he declared with reference to the proposed abolition of small notes in Ireland, that "if the House came to the conclusion that small notes ought to be abolished in Ireland, a proposal to abolish them also in Scotland would probably follow; and that it was only with the assistance of her small notes that Scotland had maintained her place in commerce and manufactures by the side of so enormously wealthy a country as England." It is worthy of note that Mr. Anderson is a convert to the abolition of the game laws, which until the session of 1870 he had wished to see only amended, not repealed. He is also in favour of the abolition of the laws of entail and hypothec. Mr. Anderson seems to have a thorough detestation of anything like jobbery. He has several times, by judicious questions in the House, succeeded in stopping a job—such, for instance, as the Colonel Shute scandal, and the proposed pension to the Military Secretary—and though he is a general supporter of Mr. Gladstone's Government he never hesitates either to vote or to speak against them when he thinks them wrong; and as no Government can see any merit in merely supporting them when they are right, he is naturally no great favourite in high quarters.

Mr. Anderson voted against any grant to Prince Arthur, and explained that he "thought it unfair that savings by the abolition of old offices on the civil list should go to the Crown, while the burden of establishing new princes was to be thrown on the people." He has also voted in a minority of four in favour of Sir Charles Dilke's motion for enquiring into the expenditure, under the various classes prescribed by the Civil List Act, declining to accept the general opinion that the vote was a Republican vote, merely because Sir C. Dilke moved it, and as a protest against the Government for refusing the information, and the Opposition Benches for endeavouring to howl down the motion.

Mr. Anderson's speeches are always short, unadorned, and practical. He has endeavoured, by moving a resolution, to reduce the inordinate length of the speeches in the House as the only way of saving time to get through the yearly increasing work of legislation, and he has proposed some other resolutions for facilitating the business of the House.