WHY ARE THE ENGLISH?
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
Stu,—Mr. McMillan may be right and the Celts clearer thinkers than the Anglo-Saxons, but indeed I find my working-class friends, Celt and English, all clearer thinkers than the more highly educated as regards the present crisis. Recruited from the district in which Mr. McMillan lives is a Scottish regiment. To this day that regiment marches to Church Parade every man holding his Bible in one hand and his weapon in the other. Prior to service being held in the open, a picquet is posted and the officer in charge of the picquet reports "all clear, no enemy in sight" before the religious service takes place.
A curious custom, you will say, in this year of grace 1939.
But that regiment was raised by the old Covenanters, men of simple plain thinking and of determination. They were not men who loved war for its own sake ; but were deter- mined to resist any attempt to interfere with their freedom to worship in the manner they considered right.
They were prepared to resist armed aggression with armed opposition.
That is the reason this Scottish Presbyterian regiment carries its weapons to this day and its old custom is symbolic of its spirit and purpose.
The circumstances of the world are such nowadays that the whole nation must recognise that it has to adopt a like method and be imbued with a like spirit.
The most valuable man in this country at the present time is the man who is highly trained in the use of aims, whether he belongs to the Navy, Air Force or Army. We have far too few such men. All our scientists, financiers, armament works, bootmakers, &c., are merely useful as the auxiliaries of that man, for the knowledge that armed opposition to aggression will be adequate is the only thing that will call halt to the latter. The old Covenanters took pains to see that it was adequate. Unless they had marched with Bible in one hand and weapon in the other, they and their religion would have disappeared. Unless they had known how to use their weapons the latter would have been useless.
My working-class friends realise this truth. I wish the
whole nation did.—Yours, H. LETHBRIDGE ALEXANDER. Aldermoor, Beaulieu, Hams.
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