Part 3

With increasing frequency there is a paragraph in the Scottish papers—more particularly the local papers, not the “national” organs—telling how a debate on the question of Home Rule for Scotland has been held here or there, and, almost invariably, the paragraph ends with the statement that, on a vote being taken, there was a large majority in favour of it. That is to say a majority of that small minority who attend meetings. No one who is in the habit of going up and down the country and coming into varied contact with the public can fail to observe that more and more are inclined to the movement with a sympathy which has greatly intensified within the past few years. These are they, in my opinion, who “feel in their bones” the larger issues of which I have been speaking, but have not yet developed more than a political reaction to them. Observers of very different shades of political opinion agree that the time is ripening for a new political nationalism, as part and parcel of a general national awakening. There is little agreement, however, as to how this widespread latent feeling may be crystallized, in the best interests of Scotland and the wider interests inevitably involved. Partial views, and partial solutions, abound; but none of these proffered precipitants are powerful enough to act on more than a small proportion of the flux of opinion that is obviously awaiting effective re-direction. What is it that intervenes in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, to prevent the sympathetic Scotsman from giving any practical effect to his feelings on such a matter?

Scotland is unique among European nations in its failure to develop a nationalist sentiment strong enough to be a vital factor in its affairs—a failure inconsistent alike with our traditional love of country and reputation for practicality. The reason probably lies in the fact that no comprehensive-enough agency has emerged; and the commonsense of our people has rejected one-sided expedients incapable of addressing the organic complexity of our national life. For it must be recognized that the absence of Scottish nationalism is, paradoxically enough, a form of Scottish self-determination. If that self-determination, which, in the opinion of many of us, has reduced Scottish arts and affairs to a lamentable pass, is to be induced to take a different form and express itself in a diametrically opposite direction to that which it has taken for the past two hundred and twenty years, the persuading programme must embody considerations of superior power to those which have so long ensured the opposite process. Scottish opinion is anachronism-proof in matters of this kind. The tendency inherent in the Union, to assimilate Scotland to England, and ultimately to provincialize the former—the stage which has been so unexpectedly but unmistakably arrested at the eleventh hour—has, as a matter of fact, not yet been effectively countered by the emergence of any principle demanding a reversed tendency. That is why, despite the persistence in Scotland of an entirely different psychology, the desire to retain and develop distinctive traditions in arts and affairs, and the fairly general recognition that the political, economic and social consequences of the Union have never been by any means wholly favourable to Scottish interests and have latterly, in many ways, become decreasingly so to a very alarming degree, there has nevertheless been at most little more than a passive resistance to complete assimilation masked by an external acquiescence. This is because Home Rule has been conceived for the most part, even by its advocates, merely as a measure of devolution—a continuance of substantially the same thing as prevails at Westminster; not something fundamentally different and answering to the unexpressed needs of the Scottish spirit. It is this passive resistance which accounts, for example, for the comparative paucity and poverty of distinctively Scottish literature since the Union. Only that fringe of the Scottish genius amenable to Anglicization has continued to find expression; the rest has, practically, “held its tongue,” and, to a large extent, its powers of expression have atrophied. A similar phenomenon manifests itself in our schools. Many teachers tell me that the children’s abilities to express themselves, and, behind that, to think, are largely suppressed by official insistence upon the use of “correct English.” They actually think, and could express themselves a great deal more readily and effectively, in dialect. This tenacity of Scots in the life of our people is extraordinary. Observe the way even “educated people” lapse into it on convenient occasions, or when they are genuinely moved. To ban it from our schools is, therefore, a psychological outrage. A distinctive speech cannot be so retained in the intimate social life, in the thinking of a people without an accompanying subterranean continuance of all manner of distinctive mental states and potentialities. The inhibition of these is all the worse when, as in Scotland to-day, they are denied their natural pabulum—when, for example, as so often happens, an appeal to Scottish sentiment is applauded by those who, owing to the way in which our educational system has been organized, have little or no knowledge of our separate history and culture, and have been taught to take it for granted that Scotland’s future is wholly identified with England’s, and that economic and social expediency are best served by discarding the shibboleths of “a distinction without a difference.” It is upon these camouflaged or hidden forces, however—many of them unconscious—that the ultimate direction, if it has any, of “Scotland—a Nation,” must depend. Only so can Scotland, as such, re-enter the mainstream of European arts and affairs. This reservoir of “difference” has not yet been tapped by any of our Scottish nationalist movements; few, indeed, have realized its existence or made it their objective. That is why they have been so ineffective. But latterly there has been a significant change. Its promise lies in the fact that it is not limited to Scotland, but, as Dr J. M. Bulloch has said, is a world-movement, naturally becoming specially well-defined in Scotland, to “set up a resistance to the efforts, many of them due to mechanisms and not a few to political theories, to make us all of one mind.” It is manifesting itself in many diverse ways—not yet co-ordinated into a comprehensive reversal of the general tendency it is arresting.

The recent Scottish breaks-away from English domination in regard to such widely-separated interests as the lifeboat service and the protection of birds are straws which show the way the wind is blowing. Cultural forces have manifested themselves and demonstrated the timeliness, if not the necessity, of specifically Scottish developments in relation to the European situation as a whole. Religious forces are now manifesting themselves. The “Irish invasion” may be the “point of departure.” Happily it is already clear that we have here far more, and far other, than (as Dr G. F. Barbour puts it) “the ominous beginnings of a form of controversy from which Scotland has long been free—that regarding religious education.” Art and religion—if these two are being nationalistically stirred, we have the conditions we have hitherto lacked for the re-creation of a dynamic Scottish nationalism. These are factors of incalculably greater power than those which have already produced the meagre and ineffective phenomena of Scottish nationalism since the Union—and factors leading right back into that “reservoir of indifference” of which I have spoken. It is not surprising to find, with the emergence of significant developments in these two great fields of consciousness, a simultaneous leap in the membership of the political nationalist societies. That membership has more than trebled itself within two years. And the measure of autonomy which is being contended for has increased proportionately. So long as Scottish Home Rule was regarded as, more or less, an end in itself, it was incapable of attracting a sufficient measure of active support to demonstrate the falsity of calling it—as most of the papers persist in calling it—“the absurd demand of a handful of fanatics.”

There is a time-factor in all these things. The discoveries which have recently revolutionized physical science are due to a strain of “heresy” in mathematics, long ridiculed and sterile, but now come to its own as the medium of stupendous discoveries the heretics themselves never anticipated in their wildest dreams. The position in regard to Scottish Nationalism to-day is not dissimilar. A form of Scottish Home Rule would probably ultimately have been granted, if for no other reason than the congestion of business at Westminster—a matter of mere administrative convenience; and the present attempt to destroy the last vestiges of Scottish control of Scottish affairs by the wholesale transference of Departments to London is probably due to the realization that this goal, which was almost within grasp, is unaccountably receding. It would have made for greater efficiency, and, temporarily, for economy—but it would not have been utilizable for the deeper purposes I have indicated. On the contrary it would have represented the last step in the assimilation of Scotland to England. Scottish Home Rule Societies in the past have sought little more; and have encountered, in Scotland, the overwhelming objection to a “glorified County Council.” The deep intuitions of the people were right. The time had not come. All the bills hitherto promoted to give Scotland this or that measure of self-government have been inadequate means to the ends in reserve. Has the time come now? Unlike any of its predecessors the latest Draft Bill is “nation-size” and in significant alignment, if only in the steepening of its demands, with those profounder stirrings of the national consciousness to which “mere politics” are comparatively irrelevant, although in the last analysis they may be dependent upon them, as the big things in life often are upon the little.

The Bill as an end in itself would still be of little consequence perhaps; but as a means to steadily emerging ends which cannot yet be clearly defined, but which it is obviously anticipating and likely to facilitate, it is on a different plane. And its promoters cannot realize too clearly that, as Charles Maurras has said, “The man of action is but a workman whose art consists in taking advantage of the lucky chances. All politics come back to this art of lying in wait for the _combinazione_, the happy chance. A moment always comes when the problem of success is a question of insight, and reduces itself to a search for what our Ancients called _junctura rerum_, the place where the bony structure bends, though it is rigid elsewhere, the place where the spring of the action will play.” Success may be unexpectedly near, and stupendous in its sequelæ.

V

In the meantime the extirpation of “a Scottish accent” in the Scottish schools continues almost unabated, although, as Lady Margaret Sackville says, and as the cultural poverty of post-Union Scotland amply attests, “language imposed mechanically upon a people without understanding of their peculiar ways of thought can only be stultifying; and it is an impertinence to substitute a pert, half-baked, and complacent education for the very ancient culture which the Vernacular represents. Let education rather work hand in hand with this culture and humbly learn from it to its own great gain.” But the general attitude to England, and Scotland’s relation to it, is far deeper, and for the most part other than mere “protective mimicry.” Apart from the claim to which I have referred there is a widespread reluctance to think about the matter—to discuss it in any way. No probable, perhaps no possible, development of Scots Nationalism could lead to a complete disjunction of the two countries; or preclude their remaining parts of the British Empire. Opponents of Scottish Home Rule, of course, generally argue that such a measure would be a piece of retrogressive parochialism at variance with the part we are called upon to play as citizens of a great Empire. Especially is this argument being used against the newer forms which that demand is taking. The reason for this is that they represent that growth or rebirth of national sentiment in Scotland in recent years, which has brought with it the increasing realization that any measure of devolution which does not carry with it full financial autonomy is not worth having. Besides, the powers granted to the Irish Free State render it impossible, as derogatory to its historical status as a nation, that Scotland should accept any less. The latest Draft Bill meets these considerations, and is thus a far more advanced measure than any of its eleven predecessors. A typical comment runs as follows: “The Old ‘Home Rulers,’ while they aimed at autonomy for the management of the strictly domestic business of Scotland, jealously safeguarded Scotland’s position in the United Kingdom and the Empire. Nothing was more repugnant to them than the idea that the country should cease to have its full representation in the Imperial Parliament. In the new Bill that ceases, and Scotland in nearly everything but a joint interest in the armed forces becomes detached and isolated; and provision appears to be made for the severance at some future time of even this link.... It is a reversal of the whole process of constitutional progress which governs British history.” This is the generally accepted view. But—apart from the fact that Great Britain occupies an altogether disproportionately important place in the Empire which the growth of the other elements must drastically correct in time—it is, nevertheless, completely at variance with the history and present prospects of our constitutional evolution. So far from being a reversal of the process of constitutional progress which governs British history, it is a fresh and salutary manifestation of it, and constitutional experts are increasingly realizing and proclaiming that it is only by a general extension and speeding-up of this process that the Empire can be maintained and prevented from sharing the fate of all the other great centralized Empires of the past. “Empire,” as a matter of fact, is now a misnomer; the term ought rather to be the “British Association of Free Peoples.” Upon the development of the utmost freedom of each and the inter-relations with each other of the various elements in this great diversity-in-unity the future of the “Empire” depends.

This point of view is admirably expressed by Viscount Dunedin, who says: “The secret of the tie that unites the Empire—the rock on which it is built—is the autonomy of local law. And not merely local law, but autonomy of local law making—in other words—legislation.” And he pointed out that the Privy Council had been more solicitous of the principle of legislative autonomy than the Dominions themselves. The Scottish Home Rule demand is, therefore, strictly in accord with the very life-spirit of the Empire, and it is the attempt to assimilate Scottish law and legislation to English and to secure uniformity, instead of permitting the free development of inherent diversity in accordance with distinctive national genius that is anti-Imperial.

The opponents of the new Draft Bill cannot have it both ways. The same type of people have objected to all the previous bills on the ground that these would only result in transforming Scotland into a “glorified County Council.” It is the realization of the truth of this that has prompted the greater demand embodied in the present Bill. Without the power of the purse a Scottish Parliament would, indeed, have been a mere glorified County Council, and such a measure would have completed, instead of reversing, the shameful provincialization of our country.

The Empire not only stands in no danger from Scotland coming into line with the other component parts of it, but it will give Scotland for the first time an effective say and share in Imperial affairs. Scotland has contributed far too much to the upbuilding of the Empire to want to withdraw from it. It is, indeed, the very opposite motive that is at work. It is the recognition of how grossly anomalous it is that Scotland, which has contributed so preponderantly to Imperial development, should be relegated to so inferior and ineffective a place in it, and have no voice in determining and disposing its future. Scotland has been placed at an intolerable disadvantage in this connection compared with almost every other part of the Empire, and the newer developments of autonomy in the Dominions are relegating Scotland to a more and more subordinate rôle, entirely out of keeping with its due as one of the great founder nations of the Empire. The new Bill is designed to rectify matters and accord to Scotland its due place in the economy of the Empire. Under it, Scotland will re-acquire a real part in relation to Imperial and world-affairs. At present it has no effective part in either. The constitution of the House of Commons is such that the Scottish vote is subject to the perpetual veto of the English majority, although English political psychology is profoundly different from Scottish and the economic conditions and requirements of Scotland profoundly different from those of England. Scotland, to-day, has no effective representation anywhere—on the Imperial Conference, on the League of Nations, on Inter-Parliamentary Delegations and on any of the other great international bodies which are playing rôles of cumulative importance in world-affairs: but, given a distinctive place again, there is every reason to hope that this old historical nation, which once occupied so notable a place in Europe, and which has been one of the main sources of our Imperial power, may again play a part proportionate to its past and in keeping with its particular genius.

What is commonly forgotten, too, in matters of this kind, is that Scotland itself is part of the Empire. A concern with Scottish domestic welfare is just as much an Imperial consideration as preoccupation with the affairs of any other part of the Empire. The welfare of the Empire depends upon the welfare of each of its component parts. Scotsmen may help the Empire best by keeping the heart of it—the source of much that is best in it—sound at home. Surely it cannot be contended that Imperial policy demands the dereliction of Scotland? Will it not serve the Empire best in the future, as it has done in the past, if Scotland can once again become the home of a vigorous and multiplying people from which the Colonies overseas can continue to draw robust settlers? The idea that Scottish Home Rule is at variance with Imperial tendencies and requirements is, in fact, an erroneous and short-sighted one, while the contrary opinion is supported by the recollection of the great part Scotland has played in Imperial affairs in the past—and cannot, assuredly, continue to play if its population is to be decimated, its industries ruined, and its countryside depopulated and thrown out of cultivation. Yet the latter is the effect of the neglect of Scottish affairs which is the settled—and natural—policy of the overwhelmingly English House of Commons. It represents a greater menace to the Empire than any Separatist movement can ever become because it strikes at the very heart of Imperial strength. The present policy of encouraging emigration in regard to Scotland is nothing more or less than a killing by our overseas dominions of the goose which has hitherto laid many of the best clutches of their golden eggs.

Let me add here that Scotland is not only the most neglected country in Europe to-day, but the most highly taxed. A vehicular and passenger bridge across the Forth is refused to Scotland by Englishmen, but Scots must contribute towards the £7,000,000 or £8,000,000 granted for a bridge across the Thames. Scotland’s housing is a disgrace to Western civilization, although Scots builders are such efficient workmen that they are welcomed in England and overseas. Scotland has the highest death-rate, the highest sickness-rate, and the highest infant mortality rate in the British Isles, although naturally it is no less healthy than England, Ireland or Wales. Scotland contains 2,000,000 acres of land which are certified as suitable for cultivation and small holdings, although during the last ten years her agricultural population decreased by 15,000. There are fewer small holdings in Scotland now than in 1911, when the Small Landholders Act was passed by the London Parliament. Like facts can be adduced in regard to every other aspect of Scottish affairs. They are the inevitable counterparts of her cultural declinature. Verily “Without the Vision the people perish.”

VI

Several reviewers of the Rt. Hon. H. A. L. Fisher’s biography of the late Viscount Bryce have expressed their surprise that Bryce had not at least some measure of practical success with his first legislative love, the Bill to give free access to Scottish mountains and moors. As one of them well remarked, “Forty years ago there was no more popular measure. The mention of it on a public platform never failed to jog a lackadaisical audience into enthusiasm. How thankful many a Liberal orator felt that he could wind up by declaring his ‘whole-hearted concurrence in principle and in part with that measure sponsored by the Member for South Aberdeen, which would give the people of Scotland freedom to enjoy their health-giving heritage.’ It was a measure easy to advocate and difficult to oppose, even in the days before the motor car had driven the pedestrian from the by-ways as well as the highways. But to this day not one practical step in its realization has been taken; there is still no legal access to Scottish mountains and moors.”

It is, indeed, one of the most curious of all puzzles in political psychology. Of the reality of the need for it, and of the abundance of public support, there is no question. Why, then, is nothing done? Whoever can answer that question can explain the whole position of Scotland to-day. It is not enough that a measure should be clamantly called for by the needs of the Scottish situation; it is not enough that the mere mention of it should be sufficient to jog the most apathetic body of Scottish electors into enthusiasm; it is not enough that it should have the support of the overwhelming majority of the Scottish M.P.s of all parties. All these three considerations can be fulfilled, and have been fulfilled, in respect to Scottish Home Rule and other questions, and yet not only is nothing at all done, but the proposed solution never even emerges into what is known as “the sphere of practical politics.” Why is this?