ISLE’S COMPLAINT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 99, 29 March 1937, Page 12

ISLE’S COMPLAINT

ORKNEY AND SHETLANDS. Scottish Nationalism, which aims to free Scotland from the English rule, is being taken in the rear by another movement. It has bee,n— 6et on foot to detach the Orkney and Shetland islands from Scotland, as, it is pointed out, these islands are mainly Scandinavian in population, and were for long connected with Norway, the Norse language being spoken in parts of Orkney until 1750, and in the Sliet lands even later. The ba.ck-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 00.000 crowns, for which they were pledged to Scotland in 1468, plus compound interest for 469 .years. This runs well over £100.000,000, which is an impossible figure for Denmark to find in order to redeem 826 scpiare miles of island. However, patriot historians point out that Scotland did not honour the agreement, since it provided lor tho Norse law and customs to remain in force in the Orkneys and Shetlands, whereas they have been abolished. Those with wider vision suggest that Britain might use these islands as a bridge between Britain and Scandinavia, for which nature seems to have fitted them. _ Their return to Norway would iacilitate closer relations between Britain and Oslo, relations to which many Brit ish statesmen, including the President of the Board of Trade, Mr Walter llunciman, attach great importance. It is hoped that Mr Eric Linklater, Orknevman poet, novelist and wouldbe ALP., may prove to be the Compton Mackenzie of the new movement.