Sta,—In commenting on a recent case in Scot- land you
referred to " the extent to which England and Scotland are separate countries," the implication being that they are essentially separate. But to what extent are they really separate ? The fortune of war placed the border on the Tweed 950 years ago, but did this involve a blood separation ? Hardly Though the early history of the north of this Island is more obscure than the south, I fancy that most modern historians would agree that the average (i.e. the Lowland) Scot is more Anglian by blood than anything. In the sixth century the Anglians pushed their way westwards from north to south of the Island—certainly from the Forth southwards —taking their language with them, till the previous inhabitants became cooped up in the West—Cornwall, Wales, Cumberland, Scot- land and the Western Isles, which became known' loosely as the Celtic Fringe. Thus an average inhabitant of Edinburgh (which takes its name from the Anglian king Edwin) has closer blood affinity to one of York than the Yorkist has to the Cornishman (and Mr. 'A. L. Rowse has some justification in claiming " I am a Cornishman, not an Englishman ").
Of course, we have become so mixed by marriage and movement that it would be impossible, fortunately, to unscramble the egg. This blessed scrambling process went on, as far as I can judge, till less than a century ago, till it became possible for a column to be erected in the Scottish capital to that English- man Horatio Nelson, whose signal " England expects . . ." cannot have been unknown to its inhabitants.
These islands (for I include Ireland) were steadily becoming one entity, though without stamping on a healthy local patriotism and rivalry—county v. county, parish v. parish.
Is not the centrifugal tendency of the twen- tieth century, appearing in these British Isles, an essential! reactionary and even tragic one ? For at least three centuries there had been a centripetal, unifying force moulding and merging us all into one mellowing whole; but its effects seem to be melting with ever- increasing speed. Such a tiny island, too I Surely, the more we lose our overseas depen-
dencies the more closely we ought to cling together (including Ireland and Wales). Not charity only, but self-preservation begins at home !
I have an idea of my own how this regret- table tendency might be halted, but this letter is already too long to broach it here.—Yours faithfully, 29 Sheffield Terrace, W.8 ALFRED BORNE
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