FROM NORTH OF TWEED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18898, 26 June 1923, Page 8

FROM NORTH OF TWEED

A LETTER TO SCOTTISH EXILES. (Written for the Otago Daily TimeeJ Bt Robert S. Angus. EDINBURGH, April 26. Emigration is to he the main topic of interest, and it is a matter which naturally excites attention overseas. The public imagination lias been touched by the spectacle —described graphically and at length in all the daily papers —ol steamer-loads of emigrants stepping abua"d Canadian Pacific liners off the Lewis coast and going direct to Canada. But while our people are leaving the Hebrides by hundreds they are sailing from the Clyde at the rale of thousands a week, with only a few lines at the bottom of a column to record the fact. It is a subject on which sentiment is easy and mostly false. It should not be forgotten that the normal and necessary outward flow of the population was entirely' suspended during the live years of war, and that the leeway which has now to be made up is stimulated by the prevalent, kick of employment. The fallacies which attach themseUes to the problem are summed up in a memorial issued by a Committee of the Free Church, whoso members to the extent of 90 per cent, are to bo found in the Highlands and islands. The ministers refer to the time (1773) when the ship Hector was ‘‘loaded with unwilling emigrants from Loth Broom destined for Nova Scotia” as if that, wore an analogy. The emigrants of the present day are not unwilling. They are not going because their holdings are wanted for the extension of deer forests. They travel in comfort such as no money could have bought 160 years ago. They go with and to friends to lands that are waiting for them, and they have an equipment of education and knowledge of the world beyond the dreams of the emigrants of the eighteenth century. If the Free Church ministers want to probe the false sentiment underlying their manifesto let (hem send a deputation to Nova Scotia and offer the descendants of the unwilling emigrants there a small holding in the Lewis. The deputies would bo laughed to scorn. “HARDSHIPS.” The clerical talk of “hardships” which await the emigrants overseas suggests that the Free Church ministers are still living in the eighteenth century. As if a Lewis orofter did not know all that is to be known .about hardships 1 Their solution is for the Government to spend another, throe millions a year in settling men on the land at. home. If the money could be usefully devoted to the improvement of the soil and the climate, and to obliterate the spectacle of corn rotting in the fields, in November there might be some sense in the proposal. That is not to say that much may not bo done for the improvement of the lot of those who remain at homo. Better roads, harbours, and houses, and the development, of forestry and electrical power are all needed to make the Highlands attractive both to the industrialist and the holiday-maker, but it is as well to recognise that the Highlands produce more people than they' can maintain in comfort, and that if provision is not made for them within the Empire (which is crying out for them) they will either go to other lands or increase the congestion in our towns at home. THE SADNESS OF FAREWELL.

All that does not lessen tho sadness of tho farewells which have been said on tho beach at Locbboisdale, or fill tho blanks in the aching hearts now to bo found in so many Lewis crofts. If sympathy is justified it should be given not to those who have gone, but to those who remain behind. The special correspondents give moving accounts of the self-sacrifice of young fellow's who have set aside tho prospect of a career for themselves in order to keep a roof over the heads of their aged parents, thought they meet tho public eye less, the same scenes and incidents have been repeated in our large towns. Indeed the tragedies there are probably more real, for the emigrants are skilled artisans, who, unable to find work at home, are seeking it without the assurance of getting it, and without the guaranteed prospects of tho workers on the land. One can only take the consolation that though this process of migration may be painful for the individual it is in the end for the good both of the community of these islands and of the dominions. COAL FOR 1000 YEARS.

But if wo must contemplate the loss of surplus population in the North it is evident that the possibilities of the South are far from exhausted. Mr Thomas Arnot. a well-known mining- engineer, has been quoting figures to show that while the coal seams of Lanarkshire are nearly worked out, Fife and the Lothians have enough to meet all demands for the next thousand years, at the present rate of output of four million tons a year. Great seams of coal run under the Forth from both the South and the North sides, and, according- to the experts, only the surface has been scratched as yet. The prospect of the mineral centre changing from the West to the Fast of Scotland raises the question whether there ought not to be established a coal exchange in Edinburgh to supplement and ultimately supplant the one in Glasgow. JUTE DISPUTE. Thanks to the intervention of the Labour Ministry, the dispute in the Dundee jute trade has been settled. The lock-out has been terminated, and the workers have agreed that the difference in the factory of Messrs Cox Brothers —the origin of the trouble —should be referred to arbitration. But the Tayside city is now threatened with a strike of its bakers, a serious matter now that the custom of baking at homo has to so large an extent died out. CHURCH FIGURES. I shall not trouble my readers with the columns of Church statistics which have been compiled in view of the General Assemblies next month. It is sufficient to say that the Church of Scotland shows an increase of over 6000 in its membership and over £24,000, or 10 per cent, in the amount of its congregational giving. Similarly, the United Free Church has the largest income in its records, a little over a million and a-hnlf. The Finance Committee, however, are disquieted by the fact that most of the increase has been in respect of merely congregational funds, and that the income of the Church funds is almost stationary. However, even that is not a, bad record in a time of unprecedented industrial depression. PROHIBITION DEFEATED.

Hero wo have noted without surprise, and genex-ally . without regret, that Mr Edwin Scrynigeour, the member for Dundee, obtained only 14 votes in the House of Commons for his Prohibition Bill. In the course of his speech of an hour and aquarter, ho seems to have impressed his hearers by his personal sincerity if not by his common sense. With three or four exceptions, all his supporters were Scottish Labour members who sit for constituencies that only three years ago pointedly refused by plebiscite to have thoir facilities for drinking removed or even reduced. How, then, these members can reconcile thoir votes with the democratic principles they profess is difficult to understand. The same verdict is practically certain to be given when the second polls under the Scottish Temperance Act arc taken this year. ABERDEEN’S LORD RECTOR. As Lord Rector of Aberdeen University, Sir Robert Homo went north yesterday to deliver his address. An old Scottish student himself, not so many years removed from tho time when ho took part as a student in the rough-and-tumble associated with tho election and installation of a Lord Rector, he was not surprised or discomfited by the boisteronsnoss of his audience. He had prepared for them an admirable address, dealing with post-war conditions, showing how closely these resemble (he conditions that have followed all great wars, oven as far back as tho limes of tho Greeks and ,the Romans, to say nothing of tho Napoleonic struggle. Sir Robert is an optimist by nature, ami menacing as (ho outlook seems, he is not despondent about it. , The Lord Rector threw- himself with great heartiness into tho social functions connected with his installation, notably tho students’ dance at which he seemed almost the youngest man present. PRINCES STREET AGAIN, No; it is not tramways Ibis time. That matter is settled for the present generation at least, to tho general satisfaction. 'J.'ho City Architect has devised a scheme for widening the pavement on the south side of the street so as to extend it over (he sloping bank of the gardens, and to support it by means of a wall with a balustrade. His idea is to have a Cenotaph after tho London pattern as a prominent feature, ami to associate with it tho Wallace and Bruce Memorials which arc in contemplation. The cost of the scheme is estimated at £50,000, and financial reasons, as well as the jealousy of any interference with our great thoroughfare, "have made the Town Council defer the project, for further consideration. A FARMER-DOCTOR. Dr Shim Oihb. whoso name has long been familiar in tho South of Scotland as a medical man and os a scientific farmer.

has boon presented by his friends with an illuminated address on the occasion of his giving uw the farm of Boon, near Lauder, after 50 years’ tenancy. It has been a puzzle how he -/ managed to combine with fanning the functions of medical officer of health, county councillor, parish councillor, director of the Highland and Agricultural Society, of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture, of the East of Scotland Agricul lurid College, and many other institutions, and at the same time to give a lead to his fellow-farmers in the application of science to agriculture. The address was accompanied. by a cheque for £2OO, and by a batch of complimentary speeches. A WELL-KNOWN JOURNALIST. After some years of indifferent health, a hard-working journalist has passed away in the person of Mr Charles Thomson, chief proprietor of the Leith Observer and Leith Burghs Pilot. Mr Thomson was a native of Inverurie, and some 34 years ago went to Leith to represent, the Scotsman, whoso head office staff he afterwards joined. Knowing Leith well, he took the chance of acquiring an interest in one of the local papers, and under his energetic management the rival organ was absorbed Whether he achieved commercial success I do not know, but he certainly deserved it, for no one ever threw more enthusiasm into his work or was more esteemed by his colleagues and the public men of the district. LEAGUE FOOTBALL. Now that we have summer time and winter weather, the Association football season is drawing to a close. The League championship is assured for the Glasgow Hangers,, with a good margin, and with similar ease the Queen’s Park, by heading the Second Division tournament, has qualified for readmission to the First Division. This return of our only important amateur combination to the ranks of the leading chibs is warmly welcomed. The other team entitled to promotion is Clydebank.