THEN AND NOW

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 121, 18 November 1929, Page 7

THEN AND NOW

CHANGING SCOTLAND A FAST-GROWING FEAR WHAT OF THE FUTURE ? If anj- man says that Scotland stands where it did a few years ago he knows not whereof he affirms. Village, town, and city are all alike changed. Even the natural features of the country have felt the tooth of time, and hills once nobly crowned with forests are bare as a stone floor, or pathetically set out with tree stumps ■YVntf, s a col"''espondent in the Melbourne Age ). The war demanded timber, and, always more timber, and not only the flowers o£ t' • forest, but the forests themselves as "a wede awa\" This is true at least of many districts. One goes back to his • native village to tind its Sunday silence broken by the bell of the ice-cream vendor and the roar of crowded bus and chars-a-banc. Staid churchgoers, a lessened company, have significantly to look bpth ways lest the bunday excursionists run them down, yuiet; clachans are • startled by the songs ot noisy trippers, and even the Hens dusting themselves by the wayside have to scuttle for dear life, which things are an allegory. Italians with a practical monopoly of the ice-cream trade, Poles in the coalmines, and Irishmen in the Glasgow shipyards are but outward and visible symbols of the new Scotland. The strongest group numerically and otherwise is composed of Irishmen, who flocked to Scotland during the war and took the jobs of the Scots who had gone to the front. The stream still flows, to Scotland's western shores. Tipperary is not so far away as the popular Bong suggests. It is in Glasgow and the nearer suburbs. SCOTCHMEN ARE EMIGRATING. The influx has created grave problems in church nrid State. Scotsmen are emigrating in large numbers, principally to Canada and the United States, and as they go out by the front door the Irish come in by the back door. An active, well-equipped Scottish tradesman, finding it difficult to get steady work at £4 a ■\yeek in his own country, goes to the States), and has no trouble in making £12 to £15 a week. If he is a plumber or a carpenter or a mason he runs over to Scotland occasionally, not to stay, but to gratify his passionate patriotism, then he is off again, not to gratify his love of money, but to live in a land where he and his family find a fuller life and more alluring prospects. But what about the Scotland which sends away her best, and sets in their place men who are unfamiliar with the history and traditions of the country? Another' aspect of the situation is that the steady influx of the Irish has accentuated the unemployment problem which emigration was expected to relieve. Parish council statistics show an excessively large proportion of Irish Roman Catholics chargeable to the rates, and natives of Scotland chafe at being saddled with the support of those whom they regard as aliens. In this connection arises an astonishing coincidence, if that indeed is the proper name for it. The United States recently limited the quota admissible from the Irish Free State, while it increased the quota1 acceptabl 3 from Scotland. Quite obviously, unregulated immigration is endangering not; only the Scottish religion, but even the Scottish nationality. Public bodies* are. feeling the strain, and it is now proposed that the British Government should ease the situation by passing immigration laws siniilar to those in operation in the Dominion. It would not be at all agreeable to Australia if thousands of her native-born emigrated every year, and their places were taken by people from a foreign country. THE HOUSING PROBLEM. Another of the changes which Scotland is undergoing is in connection with the housing of the people, and here the facts are emphatically more heartening. It is~ quite a mistake to suppose that the scarcity of houses, especially in cities, was chiefly due to the war. As far back as 1902 housing commissioru were at work inquiring into the housing of the poorer classes; Many small houses were condemned, closed, and demolished. Where were the tenants to go? In 1912 a Royal Commission was appointed to consider the question. The report showed that in 1911 thousands of one-room houses were occupied by families, and overcrowding was universal, the term overcrowding meaning more" than three persons per room. To prevent this Scotland would have had to displace 284,000 of her population. In other words, 121,000 new houses were required, and if a higher standard of comfort waß adopted the number would be 236,000. Glasgow alone required 57,000 new houses, and Glasgow contains about one-fourth of the entire population of Scotland. Taking Glasgow's normal increase of population at 15,000 a year, the new houses required would be 3191 per annum. The Housing Act of 1919 put the Glasgow Council and other councils in a position to build with the help of Government subsidies*. Another Act, passed in 1924, granted an increased subsidy, and wherever one goes he is pointed with pride to the new suburbs made up of "scheme houses." The poorest tenants, are receiving consideration by being provided with houses which can be let at a rent of 13s a week. In this* way slums are being cleared away, but in the process some curious results ars_. brought about. To *)ift the ideals of tfie people a bathroom is provided, but the new tenants sometimes use it as a place where they keep their coals, or even their fowls. Apart from such misapplications there can be no doubt that the_ effects of better housing will be physically and morally uplifting. A school inspector told an Australian visitor that 40,000 families, in Glasgow lived each in a one-roomed house. The informant added that he knew ot one case in which two families .tenanted one room. They quarrelled. Why? One of the families wished .to take in boarders. The oneroomed family home is now happily passing away. ■ . . THE WEEKLY DOLE. One cannot write about Scotland without referring to the dole —the weekly payment made to the unemployed. The amount is 17s to the head of the family, with 7s for the wife and 2s for each child. On the one hand it is said that this allowance ia too generous, that it leads people to prefer poverty in idleness to a better income with work; that it demoralises young men, some of whom have never done one day's work in their life, and that the system leads to fraud, lying, and degradation. On the other hand, what else can be done for honest people who sincerely want to work? Making all allowances, the most charitable estimate of the whole situation compels the conclusion that the traditional ■ self-reliance and independence of Scotsmen is very far from being what it was. There is a sag in the fibre of the race. One hopes that better days will come, but fears it will riot be soon. Scotland is not alone in this matter, but some of the factors in the situation make her position more difficult. The "land of the mountains and the flood" has changed, but not for the better. She has still leal hearts and brave men and women of vision, but their numbers are few. What the future is to be no mortal can tell.