NEW MOVEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 46, 24 February 1937, Page 7

NEW MOVEMENT.

Detach Orkhey and Shetland From Scotland. "BACK-TO-SCANDINAVIA" KIRKWALL, February 18. Scottish Nationalism, which aims to free Scotland from the English rule, is being taken in the rear by another movement. It has been set 011 foot to detach the Orkney and Shetland islands from Scotland, as, it is pointed out, these islands are inaiuly Scandinavian in population, and were for long connected with Norway, the Norse language being spoken in parts of Orkney until 1750; and in the Shetlands even later. The baek-to-Scandinavia movement has made considerable headway. Denmark, of which Norway was then a part, has a legal right to redeem the islands on repaying 60,000 crowns, for which they were pledged to Scotland in 1468, plus compound interest for 469 years. Breach of Agreement. This runs well oyer £100,000.000, which is an impossible figure for Denmark to find in order to redeem 826 square miles of island. However, patriot historians point out t> it Scotland did not honour the agreement, since it provided for the Norse law and customs to remain in force in the Orkneys and Shetland*, whereas they have been abolished. Those with wider vision suggest that Britain might use these islands as a bridge between Britain and Scandina\ia, for which nature seems to have titvd them. Their return to Norway would facilitate closer relations between Britain and Oslo, relations to which many British statesmen, including the President of the Board of Trade. Mr. Walter Kunt'iman. attach great im|>ortance. It is hoped that Eric Linklater, Orkneyman poet, novelist and would-be M.P., may prove to be th£ Compton Mackenzie of the ne# movement. 1