FOOLISH POSTURING"
Sts,—Under the above heading, Mr. Roland D. Lloyd writes in your issue of May 4th a very English letter, just the sort of letter to engender that very spirit which he deplores as " a feature of the Scottish attitude towards England." "They," the English, he says, "took Scotland into partner- ship in their growing empire." Has the writer ever read the history of the Act of Union? Far from England generously, as he would infer, agreeing to take the Scots into partnership out of the goodness of her heart and from entirely altruistic motives, the Act of Union was forced on a very unwilling Scotland indeed, and the eagerness for Union appeared only to be on the side of the English.
Now, as to England's " growing Empire," let us briefly examine that statement. England had no empire whatever until a Scots King linked the Crowns of the two countries. During the century between the Union of the Crowns and the Act of Union, an empire was founded in North America and around its shores, founded by people, who for the most part quit England because of English intolerance. The bulk of this empire was in due course lost because of the same intolerance, and only after the Act of Union did the British Empire grow and prosper—Canada„ Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa and hundreds of smaller lands throughout the world to the colonisation and administration of which Scotland has contributed far, far in excess of the proportion of her populaton to that of her co-partner, England. Scotland has no need to feel jealousy toward England—her record in this war and in all other British wars and British achievements stands too high for jealousy, but a letter such as Mr. Lloyd writes does cause justifiable resentment.—
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