SCOTLAND AND HER TOURISTS
By LADY WHITSON
TWO catch-phrases appear frequently in the Scottish Press and public speeches today. They are " southward trend " and " lighter industries." The brains of organizers are required in London and some of the best are being beckoned away. Or only the brass-plate with name is transferred (of the. Bank, Railway Com- pany, Dyeing, Publishing firm or whatever it may be) and the business is to be handled in future by the Southerners. So the phrase " southward trend " has an ominous sound today.
Of " lighter industries " we are likely to hear more in the future. The strong band of Scots without powers " (but not without power) called the Scottish National Development Council are widening their researches. The Scottish Travel Association has lately been making a bid for attention with invitations to the English to see the country.
The traveller—who knows better than the Scot ?- has all the satisfaction of the explorer when he touches the Enchanted Border, while the scholar seems to find himself between the covers of his old history-book when he treads the actual closes and wild corries that have been pressed by sacred feet. Without the geographical setting, the design which we call history has no form.
In Scotland, then, we have our memorials, our clearances, our new roads and bridges which the worldly traveller stays to admire. In these he senses the enduring nationhood of Scotland, no less than in her steamships, tweed factories, and songs. He will learn, too, that there is no history without tears, least of all the history of Scotland. He joins us in the never- ending quest—to lay salt on the nearly obliterated tales and tokens of the past ; thus helping (if I may be further forgiven) towards the embalming of our home- land history in an immortality that is otherwise in jeopardy.
While, however, we pray for the preservation of the past of Scotland, we seek to study a precarious present and to foresee and plan for a desired future. No in- dustry, no country can be run on the principle of the ostrich who hides from the future and calls it discretion. Planning is economical. If a healthy population or a more easily-run city results, saving there must be. All of man's purposes, industrial, agricultural, pastoral, building, horticultural, fruit-growing and canning, communications, transport, markets, no less than natural resources, sea, forest, coal and water-power, must be surveyed and scientifically estimated ; and survey and planning is not a simple affair of poring over a large-scale map with bottles of coloured inks and a ruler.
Sooner or later, too, the latest bogey must be wrestled with. The face of Scotland is bound to suffer change if action ensues. Still the battle of the sites flickers in the cities, and the cry of " Desecration ! " echoes in the glens—substitutes, obviously, for the bloodier feuds of long ago. The face of Scotland, fair though furrowed, will still be her fortune, and still will launch a thousand ships (per annum) in which her admirers cross the oceans to gaze upon its legendary beauty, It was interesting to observe the steady stream of earnest enquirers that sought advice at the Information Bureau of the " Scotland Calling " Exhibition, recently held in the Imperial Institute. No question, however trivial or intricate, seemed to baffle the patient and almost encyclopaedic minds who had challenged London with this display of holiday opportunities for every taste.
The Exhibition, which was arranged by a sub-com- mittee of the Scottish Travel Association, was practical to the last degree, as far as its limited resources per- mitted. Travel by night and day, road and rail, rambling, camping, fishing, climbing, golfing, sailing, flying, " Coming Events " to witness, castles, abbeys, gardens, glens, monuments, summits, solitudes, sea-beaches, river- courses to make for according to your preferences and the ages and pursuits of your children.
The Scottish Travel Association deals with about 4,000 enquiries a year at its headquarters in Edinburgh, and its mailbag will now be greatly increased. Its film library has twenty reels and its lantern slides, with notes, have travelled round Sassenaeh audiences totalling ten thousand. A " Coming Events in Scotland " calendar is sedulously issued in advance, month by month, to the Press, news films and travel agents. Local authorities and hotel-keepers are kept in touch with, and all local guide-books are stocked and distributed. A small Government grant is paid annually through the Tourist Association of Great Britain. For the rest, it depends for support on those Scots whom it seeks to serve. Yet only seventy " Authorities " and four hundred subscribers (mainly hotel-keepers) have as yet responded to its claims. New ground is hard to break.
Of course there will always be a section of people (even in Scotland) to whom brains are suspect. Even more dangerous than brains is imagination. One of our Scottish town-planners said recently : " We cannot do wrong if at the beginning of plan-making we work to the limit of our imagination." To many this sounds like lunacy, to others it is as the light of Dawn. Visions of the future ! Vistas of the past— we cannot see either clearly. Are there mists in our eyes ? " Neither death nor the sun can be looked at steadily ! " said a philosopher ; no, nor Deirdre, nor Flodden ; nor the blood-stained National Covenant ; nor Bruce's sword ; nor Burns' letters nor the banner-be- decked Shrine. Where there is imagination there are tears.
But our travellers, our tourists, our hikers and bikers, and traffickers of Scotland-trove are not to be encouraged to be just looking at things, sad, old and far-off things like these. We will show them our products (from kipper to Cunarder), our football, our cruises and crafts. The best-bred will not remind us of our ancestry of reivers nor seek to rob us, in revenge, of our Sabbath rights. What are they " Searching Scotland " for, if they cannot discern her soul or, discerning, seek to desecrate it ?
If this country of ours is indeed a source of attraction to the stranger, she is an object of peculiar solicitude and pride to those who pass their lives within her boundaries. Not less precious is she to those who dwell in Scotland overseas, to every Scot in exile and to every homing son. To those who care for her destiny she appears both as ancestry and offspring. They—we- seem to be alternately inhibited and inspired in our passionately cautious love of her. Really we are parEntal in our attitude—in our dual desire that her face shall not change, yet we yearn for her to fulfil her potentialities. Lovers of their country are concerning themselves with these.
Mr. Moray McLaren's article on " Showing Scotland to the World " has been unavoidably postponed until next week.
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