SCOTTISH ROYAL COMMISSION SIR,—I find your recent articles and letters
on this subject perplexing. May I quote ? . . . even if,' wrote Mr. R. E. Muirhead in his letter in your issue of August 20, ' the whole 71 Scots MPs were returned as Scottish Nationalists.. .
' Why,' asks Mr. David Bond in your issue of August 27, ' if Scottish Nationalism is so powerful and popular a force .. . is there not a solid phalanx of Scottish Nationalist MPs at Westminster ? '
An ignorant reader might be forgiven for drawing the inference that even if the are not at present 71 Scottish Nationalist MPs there are perhaps a score; or a dozen; or one or two; or at least that recent electoral results have indicated a fair prospect of there being
one or two. What are the facts There are no Scottish Nationalist Members. There has only been one; he was elected at a bye- election near the end of the first Churchill government and lost his scat in the general election of 1945. At that general election, I believe, the Scottish Nationalists won 30,000 votes for eight candidates, losing six deposits. In the general election of 1950 they obtained 13,000 votes for eight candidates and lost all their deposits. In the last general election they saved only one deposit.
This seems to me a poor record for a move-
ment which, since Sir Compton Mackenzie tells us it returned him as Rector of 'Glas- gow University' in 1931, has had a reason- able time in which to work on public opinion. It may seem •to many people besides myself that a good—if not terribly romantic—way for Sir Compton Mackenzie's young Scottish patriots to begin to express their national aspirations would be to save a few more deposits.
As a Whitehall civil servant who mildly distrusts romantic gestures I enclose my card and sign myself.—Yours faithfully,
DEAD HAND
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