An Anatomy of Scottish Nationalism
By MORAY McLAREN HE lively correspondence in the Spectator which fol- lowed upon Sir Compton Mackenzie's " Sidelight " on the Scottish conspiracy trial, contained a letter in which the writer suggested that " Home Rule would undoubtedly be a grand thing for England." This kind of comment, usually intended as an urbane pleasantry by means of which the irritating demands of Scottish Home Rulers can be made to look slightly ridiculous, is a frequent sally. It seldom occurs, however, to those who make it, that Home Rule for England would be, something which Scottish Nationalists would be the first to welcome.
There is in the widespread movement for Scottish self- government today very little anti-English feeling. Most Scots people, while conscious of the strong differences between them and their Southern neighbours, like and respect the English, and many of us would be pleased to do the real English a good turn in helping them to be rid of the Scots from West- minster. This is, of course, not wholly disinterested on our part. The politically-minded Scot on the make in London is not an attractive figure. With a few honourable exceptions the Scottish Members of Parliament chosen by the at present Unbreakably exclusive mechanics of the two-party system are of this kidney. They are, if anything, less of an advertisement for the land of their origin than are the rather pathetic tartan- tarnnaied, whisky-drenched crowds that descend upon London at the time of international football matches.
The lack of xenophobia in the Scottish National movement Is a valuable asset, and it is not one usually to be found in a small nation struggling to re-assert its rights. It springs from the fact that modern Scottish Nationalism is primarily animated by a desire for self-respect; and self-respect cannot feed upon hatred or even dislike of other races. It is all the more regrettable, therefore, that what seems to people in Scotland to be a wilful obtuseness in Whitehall, an apparently deliberate concealment from the English public of the. state of feeling, North of Tweed, should be producing an exasperation which alaY well turn to bitterness.
, The growth of feeling in Scotland on the Home Rule question in the last twenty-five years has been remarkable. Before 1914 there had, it is true, been a political movement for Scottish self-government which had existed mostly amongst the radicals and labour supporters, but it was not until the 1920s that Scottish Nationalism in the modern sense began to be generally discussed in Scotland. In the 1920s and until in 1931 the author of the present " Sidelight " articles in the Spectator was elected first Nationalist Lord Rector of Glasgow University, the minority who proclaimed themselves Nationalists were usually dismissed as cranks.
There is nothing of this today. The movement has become altogether too widely supported to be open to this form of ,atrack. One whose youth was spent largely in the fray of the 1920s and early '30s cannot help smiling when he hears " hard-headed Scottish business men " uttering Nationalist expressions which would have been dismissed by their pre- decessors of twenty-five years earlier as typical of the " senti- mental tosh talked by artistic Nationalists.'
In 1949 " Scottish Convention," a body drawn from all classes and parties in all parts of Scotland, issued to the public a covenant pledging the signatories to support for a Scottish Parliament for Scottish affairs. In a little more than a year the covenant had acquired one million seven hundred thousand signatures. These figures were independently checked, and, While it is true that the bona fides of all signatories could not be verified with the exactitude required at an official election, the numbers who voluntarily signed this document, out of a total adult voting population of three and a halt Million, were impressive. The reasons for this remarkable advance in support of Home Rule are to be found in the growing conviction that Scottish affairs are increasingly misunderstood or even wilfully neglected by the swollen body of the Westminster Parliament four hundred miles away. The exasperating delays over Scottish aviation problems at Prestwick, the procrastinations, extending over a quarter of a century, about the Forth road-bridge, the puzzling but obstinate and unexplained disparity between the unemployment ratio in England and Scotland—it varies, but is often twice as high North of Tweed as it is South—the habit the preponderantly English Parliament has of passing legislation designed for English application without reference to Scottish law and with little consideration for Scottish needs —all these are only some of the many examples that contribute to a general impression that the Government at Westminster is too busy, too involved in cumbersome affairs, to be able to pay any attention to the special needs of the northern; but not junior, partner to the Union of 1707. These things have undoubtedly helped to turn what is usually referred to as " level-headed opinion " in Scotland towards Home Rule.
Even level-headed Scots, however, have their sensitive side; and the extraordinarily tactless way in which Scottish demands and Scottish sentiment have been treated by Whitehall in the post-war years has exacerbated feeling here, and has played into the hands of the extremists. It has undoubtedly helped those who have said all along that the only way in which to influence Whitehall is to make a violent nuisance of.oneself, and if necessary to be prepared to be sent to prison as a sign that nuisance is having its desired effect.
No one is going to suggest that the pin-pricks to which Scottish feeling has been subjected in the last five or six years would by themselves cause a disruption of the Union, but they certainly help towards that end, especially when inflicted on a proud and sensitive people. The shabby way in which the Stone of Destiny was smuggled into a police station and thence across the Border after it had been voluntarily returned in-circumstances of some dignity provoked wide indignation. The question of the numeral in the Queen's title can, one supposes, be a matter of argument, but the way in which it was put over " on SCotland was tactless in the extreme. And when pillar boxes which under previous sovereigns had borne no numeral suddenly appeared in Scotland with E II R on them, it seemed like a deliberate affront. The latest example, of course, has been the preposterous mishandling of the con- spiracy trial. With one exception, I have yet to meet anyone anywhere in Scotland who does not consider this a major gaffe on the part of whoever instigated the proceedings. It is a gaffe which, if repeated, may have graver results. The temper of the student bodies in the four Scottish Universities, and amongst the young people all over the country, is not, to put it mildly, conciliatory.
What is the answer to all this from four hundred miles away ? Silence or evasion. The fondness of the present Secretary of State for Scotland for giving, in Parliamentary language, " an answer in the negative," has led to his being described as the " abominable no-man." And it is widely believed that, as long as the present Prime Minister is in power, Scotland will not be forgiven for his defeat at Dundee after the First World War. Elephants, we are reminded, and Winston, never forget. With all his great qualities, however, and with all his minor, but infuriating and dangerous obstin- acies, Sir Winston Churchill will eventually go. And with him, it is to be hoped, will go some of the deliberate deafness in the Government to reasonable Scottish demands as well as some of the arrogant discourtesies to which we have been subjected. If not, the tragedies which were the result of the British Government's blunders in Ireland may yet be repeated within the United Kingdom..
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