Grey River Argus and Blacball news FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1922. SCOTLAND AND SELFGOVERNMENT.

Grey River Argus, 20 January 1922, Page 4

Grey River Argus and Blacball news

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1922. SCOTLAND AND SELFGOVERNMENT.

Delivered every mining In G. act t- -a. Hokitika, Dobson, Waii vcnd, Tayiv. ,il c, Nga.icre Bbtckbail, Nelson Creek. Brunner. To Kingh? horonianu, Pocrua, Inchbonnie. Patara, Ruru, ICu.naU. Kotuku, Me.ma. Aratika, Bunanga. DunolJie, Cobden, Baxters, Kokin, Ahaura, ikaniatiia, Stulwater, Waiuta, Reefton, Ross, Kuatapua, Mananin. Hari Han, Wailio Gorge, Weht-ka. Rewanui, Otira, Inangabua Junction, Westport. Wairnangaroa, Denniston, Granity, Millerton. Ngakawau. Hcctor a Seddonville, Cape Foulwind. and Karamea,

Now that some measure of self-gov-ernment has been wrung by Ireland from British capitalism, signs arc not wanting that the next demand for a similar measure of freedom will come from Scotland. In congratulating Ireland the other day upon such measure of liberty as she has attained, the Scottish Home Rule Association demanded a similar measure for Scotland, and it must be confessed that if the people beyond the Tweed had control of their own affairs their country would speedily be relieved of many a handicap intensified industrialism has imposed. There the capitalist exploitation of the British industrial revolution has turned the lowlands into one vast series of mines, factories, and shipyards, wherein hundreds of thousands toil for a mere subsistence. “Than Scotland,” says Mr Ramsay Macdonald, the British Labour leader, “no country has had a meaner aristocracy or a sturdier common people. Partly its education, partly the frugality which nature imposed upon it for so many generations, laid up a store of independence in the characters of many of its people, and Burns awoke this into activity.” And down through the Radical weavers and their Chartist sons and the Alexander Macdonalds of a later generation, the heritage was passed, to be embodied and intensified again in such tribunes of the workers as Keir Hardie, Bob Smillie, and McLean. Indeed, England latterly has drawn many of her greatest politicians from Scotland, master-minds , like Gladstone, whose descent was Scottish; Campbell-Bannerman, and others by the dozen. It is often said the Scottish people are quite satisfied to remain within the Legislative Union with England, but that holds good mainly of

’ the aristocratic and capitalistic element. The history of the aristocracy in Scotland is not much better than in Ireland. Histories of Scotland have been written mostly to serve political ends, wrapping in mystery the clearances of crofters from whole counties such as those of the Sutherland estates in the second decade of last century, or the sufferings of the workers in the mining industry, whilst the greed and seizures of the so-called nobility have been glossed over as virtues. As Thomas Johnston, of the “Forward” says, there are no histories of the thefts of the clan lands and the monastic lands, that dispossessed the ancient owners of Scotland. Through generation after generation a few families of taxgatherers have sucked the nation’s lifeblood, sent the common people to war, and evicted and expropriated the masses that they might live in idleness and luxury. The peasantry of Ireland have largely won back their lands, but the Scots farmers, perhaps the ablest in the world, have never had a lead or a chance to demonstrate on their native soil the great prowess their industry has shown in foreign lands. In the six crofting counties of Scotland alone between 1883 and 1908 deer forest land increased by 1,248,598 acres, while in the non-crofting counties lands exclusively devoted to sport in 1908 aggregated 563,688 acres. The rural-popula-tion has been steadily decreasing in a way that bespeaks the strangulation of a race. But the time for a turn of the tide must have now arrived. The first

step towards an economic regeneration may well be the empowering the people to legislate for reform of the land and social laws; to cut adrift from the domination of such aristocratic institutions as the House of Lords, which guards the vested interests of aristocrats. As showing what needs to bo done, it need be merely related that of the aristocratic monopolists the Primrose family (Lord Roseberry’s) own 21,248 acres; the Campbells of Blythes- , wood, nearly two million square yards of the Glasgow common lands, which they got at half-a-farthing per yard; the Dundases 73,745 acres; the Atholls 194,640 acres, and their relatives as much more; the Duffs 296,028 acres; the Scotts of Buccleugh, 492,131 acres; the Sutherlands 1,358,545 acres (stretching right across Scotland, and “cleared” of farmers); the Gordons 612,888 acres; the Campbells of Argyle 682,439 acres; the Campbells of Breadalbane, 458,421 acres; the Kerrs, 94,106 acres; the Galloway Stewarts, 79,184 acres; the Bute Stewarts 93,176 acres; the Kcnncdys, 81,884 acres; the Hays, 59,853 acres; the Grahams, 136,393 acres; the Frasers, 267,767 acres; the Ramsays 138,021 acres; the Hamiltons 219,643 acres; the Homes, 134,671 acres; the Wemyss family 64,097 acres; and about a dozen other aristocratic families vary in their holdings from 30 to 50 thousand acres. Most of these lands were never bought, but grabbed. On the land question alone there is great work for a, Scottish Legislature, and with the example of Ireland’s Land revolution in the last half century before them, it is more than probable the masses in Scotland will insist upon the right to control their own affairs with growing determination until they achieve their national emancipation.