Scotland Shows the Way
The example which Scotland is giving to the whole of Britain at this crucial moment is all but perfect. While in the wider sphere economic crisis is being stemmed with improvisation and sudden changes of policy, in Scotland the opening in one week of the Edinburgh Festival of the Arts and the exhibition " Enterprise Scotland" gives heartening evidence of long foresight combined with a shrewd estimate of the needs of the moment. The opening of the Festival, in which Edinburgh sets out to add by music and drama to its magnificent laurels in literature, architecture and paint- ing, was attended by 120,000 people, many of them from abroad. The cosmopolitan character of the occasion is consistent both with the tradition of a great capital city and with a growing need for more and closer contacts between Britain and the rest of the world. The Festival is to be an annual event and there is no reason whatever why it should not equal or surpass Salzburg in welcome competition of artistic achievement. With admirable synchronisation "Enter- prise Scotland " sets out to strengthen the. link between Scotland's growing light industries and the fine arts, by putting the main emphasis on excellence of design in textiles, furniture, printing and so on. Both occasions may be regarded as relatively small beginnings, but it needs no more than one visit for Edinburgh to establish its fascination over the foreign visitor and to ensure his return ; and it is in the margin of diversified light industries that stabilty of employment in Scotland will be achieved. In the meantime the heavier sectors are not lagging. The Glasgow engineering firms are to establish a permanent exhibition centre at which there will be 400 exhibitors by next year. From the peak of cultural achievement to the rock bottom in coal and shipbuilding, co-ordination must go hand in hand with enterprise, and the sooner Scotland's magni- ficent example spreads south the better.
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