SCOTS AND ENGLAND

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 21

SCOTS AND ENGLAND

LIGHT ON AN INVASION

A COUNTER-ATTACK

"According to recent Census figures, there were 101,872 Scots resident in Greater London out of a population of round about 8,000,000 or over. Without going closely into actual percentages, this figure is well under 2 per cent, of the population of Greater London. The assumption seems to be held that the road to London is for one-way south traffic only, and that there is little reciprocity. The figures of English residents in Edinburgh at the last Census show a total of 26,252, being a total of 6 per cent. ,of the entire population of Edinburgh (this being 439,010 in 1931,. This figure shows that the proportion of English in Edinburgh is well over double the number of Scots in London in proportion to English," writes Sir James Leishman in "The Scotsman." • "Sir James Leishman calls attention in a letter published in our correspondence columns to an interesting feature of the migration of population within Great Britain. We are all, of course, familiar with Dr. Johnson's gibe that the noblest prospect which a Scotsman ever sees "is the high road

that leads him to England," says "The Scotsman." "His gibe has stuck,'and histqry has corroborated, or seems to have corroborated, its underlying truth, for since Johnson's day many a Scot has taken the road to England, and looking back after a career, marked at least by material success, may well have expressed himself in Johnson's phrase, but without the mordant meaning which Johnson imparted to it. j THE OTHER WAY. . "Now, however, Sir James Leishman. writes to point out that there is a road which leads from England' into Scotland, and that many Englishmen have found the prospect not unpleasing. "That is a view which has received little currency; but it deserves some consideration, for it leads to the surprising conclusion that there is a much greater permeation of English and Welsh in Scotland than of Scots in England and Wales. Sir James Leishman, taking the figures for London and Edinburgh alone, points out that whereas less than 2 per cent, of the population of London at the last Census were of Scottish birth, 6 per cent, of the population of Edinburgh were of English birth1. "The figures for the whole of each country are even more striking. These figures show that 3.48 per cent, of the population enumerated in Scotland were of English or Welsh birth, while less than 1 per cent, of the population enumerated in England and Wales were of Scottish birth. That is to say, the permeation of. English and Welsh in Scotland is nearly, four

times as great as the permeation of Scots in England and Wales, having jregard to the total population in each country. TWO FOR ONE. "In case these hgures should create a wrong impression, it seems desirable to say that there are roughly two Scots in England and Wales for every Englishman or Welshman in Scotland. But if Scots are more prominent in England than Englishmen are in Scotland, it should not be so, for, as has been already shown, they are a much smaller element in the total population. "At no time since 1871, and probsented as much as 1 per cent, of the population. On the other ; hand, the percentage of English and Welsh in Scotland has never fallen below 2 per ably at no time before that, have the Scots in England and Wales reprecent. since 1861, and it has been over 3 per cent, for the whole of the present century. ' ' "Another interesting point is that whereas there has been a steady.increase in the English and Welsh immigration into Scotland since 1861—with the exception of the last Census in 1931—there has been an equally steady decrease in the Irish immigration. "Those of Irish birth enumerated in Scotland have fallen from 6.18 per cent, of the Scottish'population in 1861 to 2.57 per cent, in 1931—the latter figure contrasting with 3.48 per cent, of English or Welsh birth. These figures are' a useful corrective of the loose statements often made regarding Irish, immigration." .