Correspondence

A Letter from Scotland

SCOTTISH HOME RULE [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It is quite clear now, I think, that the chief issue in Scotland at the next general election will be Scottish Home Bole. The official Conservatives must accept the challenge since they have always posed as objectors to the principle. Whether all men of Home Rule sympathies, Conservative, Liberal, Labour and Nationalists, will act together in sending to Westminster a majority of Scottish members in favour of Home Rule, or whether the usual Scottish habit of not co- operating will cause this opportunity to slip past unused, it is impossible to tell. The autumn has seen a rapid succession of events that indicate the existence of a Scottish Nationalism more virile than many of us suspected. Even some Scottish Conservative M.P.s have thought the present system of governing Scotland via the Scottish Office in Whitehall so unsatisfactory and the congestion at Westminster so inimical to Scottish interests that they have felt compelled to suggest several rather ineffective changes in the present machinery rather than let the existing system continue indefinitely.

Hitherto the ordinary citizen has been faced with the vary- ing, but generally extreme, demands of the Scottish National Party on the one hand and a continuance of the existing un- satisfactory governmental machinery on the other, and as many Scotsmen have failed to see wisdom in much of the National Party's programme, they have for long remained inarticulate and apathetic, if anything, rather apt to scoff at specifically Scottish politics.

But persistent Nationalist criticism, for which we must be grateful, is after several years having its effect, and thoughtful men are beginning to see the gloomy results of the present governmental system, not the least of which is the bad habit we have got into of exporting all our most enterprising sons to till other people's vineyards, there being so little opportunity of work or development in our own. Nationalist statesman- ship, however, has not been of a high order ; to hear Mr. R. B. Cunningham Grahame, President of the National Party, speaking with gusto in public about " repealing the Act of Union," making a " solemn Act of Scottish Sovereignty " and entering into a " treaty with England," Scotland having her own territorial forces, her own coinage, and power to send her own ambassadors to foreign courts, &c. ; or to hear the woman who instigated the removal of the Union Jack from the ram- parts of Stirling Castle last summer hailed at Nationalist meetings as the " Joan of Arc of Scotland (poor Joan !) is to understand why the ordinary but useful Scot will have nothing whatever to do with the National Party, sympathetic though he may be to the idea of Home Rule.

Extremism in Nationalist politics is associated with Ireland, and while no one for a moment expects that Scotland, with her different racial characteristics and geographical position would ever find herself engaged, say, in an economic war with England, the fact of Ireland remains, however unfair the comparison may be, and the spectral prospect of a Scottish de Valera emerging from Clydeside naturally agitates the cautious Scot whenever a Scottish Tory M.P. in a diatribe against nationalism points a warning finger across the Irish Channel.

This sununer and since then, discussions on Scottish Home Rule, often interesting and sometimes futile, have filled many columns in the Scottish daily Press. The old apathy seems to have gone. The Glasgow Herald has indeed been hostile and Anglophile, but the Daily Record, a Glasgow penny paper with a large circulation all over Scotland, and later the Scotsman of Edinburgh have taken a lead in ventilating the matter ; and naturally, as soon as the subject was seen to make good " copy " Lord Beaverbrook, encouraged by the existence of a Scottish relative who was announced on the front page, entered the lists armed with the Daily Express.

Much dormant national feeling has inevitably been stirred by this Press activity, but in July the Home Rule movement received even greater practical aid in the publication of Sir Alexander MacEwen's book, The Thistle and the Rose. This is a stimulating work dealing with Scotland's problem to-day, packed with interesting data and shrewd analysis and inspired by an unusually intelligent type of patriotism. Sir Alexander MacEwen is a Highlander of wide culture, having had con- siderable administrative experience in Scotland as well as doing valuable work for the Scottish National Development Council. His book reveals his knowledge of Scotland and of Europe, and his appreciation of the essential relations of Scotland to the British Empire.

Not many weeks ago an influential meeting of " Mode- rates " took place in Glasgow under the chairmanship of the Duke of Montrose. It was the first of its kind, and a sign that moderate opinion in Scotland was no longer to remain inar- ticulate. Shortly afterwards another meeting of the same group was held, and at it a scheme for Scottish self-government on moderate lines, with the minimum of separation from Eng- land, was considered and approved. The main points of the proposals were summarized by Sir Alexander MacEwen as follows :

" (1) That Scotland should have a Parliament which would have the final legislative authority on Scottish affairs ;

(2) That the powers of that Parliament should be on matters not expressly reserved to the Imperial Parliament or other body that might take its place, and should include the power of controlling finance and taxation ; (3) That certain matters, like peace and war, defence, foreign and Dominion affairs, should bo reserved to the Imperial Parliament.

The draft scheme provides that the Scottish Parliament's powers of control of finance and taxation should be subject to (a) what may hereafter be decided with regard to Customs and Excise, (b) contribution by Scotland for her proportion of Imperial expendi- ture ; and it is proposed that a Statutory Commission on which Scotland should have a representation of not lees than one-half should be set up to determine these matters without involving a Customs barrier between Scotland, England and Wales, and Northern Ireland ; the Commission to have powers to set up a Customs Union and a Joint Treasury Committee.

Other proposals are the finality of the Supreme Courts of Scotland, Scots control of immigration into or deportation from Scotland, continued representation of Scots Peers in the House of Lords, and continuation of the present Scots representation in the House of Commons for Imperial matters, pending the setting up of a Council of the United Kingdom and ultimately a Council of the Empire. Executive power would, of course, continue vested in the Crown."

This policy, which was received with considerable interest and pleasure by those of all parties unable to agree to the full-blooded nationalism of the Nationalists, has affinities to the years-old programme of the Liberal Party, and it was natural, therefore, that at the Perth Conference of the Scottish Liberal Federation on October 15 a straightforward Home Rule resolution proposed by Sir Alex. MacEwen and supported later by Sir Archibald Sinclair should be approved by an overwhelming majority.

Although the Nationalists have always refused to co-operate with any of what they quite rightly dubbed the " London controlled " political parties, they intercepted Sir Herbert Samuel in Glasgow on his way to this Perth Conference, and their address (which was as moderate as many of their earlier statements have been extreme—but then Lord Dalziel, their new spokesman, knows something about statesmanship) received a very favourable reply from the Liberal leader. Only time can tell if this joint wooing of the Liberal Party is to have consequences, but unity of some kind between Home Rulers will be essential if they are to anticipate any measure of success, for they have not only to fight apathy but the powerful organization of the Conservative Party.

Home Rule is definitely not a part of Conservative policy— the Conservative Chairman, Lord Stonehaven, made that quite clear recently in Glasgow ; but there is, as Lord Dalziel pointed out to Sir Herbert Samuel, a considerable following of Conservatives behind that prominent and extremely popular Home Ruler, the Duke of Montrose.—I am, Sir, &c.,

Yovit CORRESPONDENT IN SCOTLAND.