FROM NORTH OF TWEED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19762, 13 April 1926, Page 7

FROM NORTH OF TWEED

A LETTER TO OVERSEAS SCOTS. Written for the Otago Daily Times. By Robert S. Angus. x EDINBURGH, February 18. Last week's Parliamentary debate on Scottish housing is still reverberating in municipal and industrial circles, but it is difficult to say whether the echoes mean that we shall have a builders’ strike as a preliminary to real progress. One thing is certain. The Scottish Secretary is determined to go on with the Government scheme for 2000 houses. It is for nothing that his family motto is non penna sed usus.” Lord Weir, whom the trade unionists regard as their enemy, is a man of equal determination, and he has sunk too much money in his scheme for providing factory-made houses to retire from the field without a stiff contest. He has challenged his critics to quote a single word he has ever said against trade unions exercising their legitimate functions, and he has the testimony of Mr Rosslyn Mitchell, the Socialist member for Paisley, that the wages and other conditions in his works give no room for complaint. It is evident that the Government can expert only the most half-hearted support from the municipalities. Bailie Morten,, who is a cement merchant as well as convener of the Glasgow Corporation’s Building Committee, has called the world to observe that that body has had nothing to with the Weir houses scheme, the superfluous plea being made as an argument that the building operatives have no occasion to strike. * MR ROSSLYN MITCHELL. Judging from the newspapers, Mr Rosslyn Mitchell must have had a great Parliamentary success with the speech in which he dehounced the hostility of his fellow-Socialists to the Weir scheme, and an M.P. whom I met this week tells me that the accounts are in no wav exaggerated. A man speaking in opposition to his own party has his difficulties as well as.his advantages, and I gather that the •feeling against the member for Paisley is bitter. The party machinery has been set in motion to iritimidate him, but, unless I am mistaken, nothing serious will happen to him. The Labour members are well aware that they will be foolish to champion the interests of the building uniors against those of the rest of the community and I suspect they are more anxious to get out of an indefensible position than to make the class privileges of a trade their battle ground. I should not be surprised 'if an effort is made to get into touch with Lord Weir and arrange terms with him. MR JOHN ROBERTSON, M.P. Though his friends knew that he was ill, they were greatly surprised to hear that Mr John Robertson, the Socialist member for the Bothwell division ot Lanarkshire, had died. 1 believe he was found to be suffering from an internal malady for which the surgeons could do nothing. John was more of a success in Lanarkshire than at Westminster. He enjoyed leading his Lanarkshire miners more than a place in the ranks of the House of Commons, and though he was for a time of the Socialist whips he gave up his post. He was a man of much greater width of reading and interest than the average trade union leader, and he had one queer hobby—criminology. He will be longest remembered for the work he did during the war in organising the “Thick Black” Fund, which he raised for the purpose of sending to the Lanarkshire miners in the army the bogev-rcil tobacco to which they were accustomed, and which they greatly preferred to the ration smokes. The idea appealed to the Scottish imagination, and whenever Mr Robertson found that his funds were running short a letter in the newspapers brought him by return of post as much as he needed. It was an excellent bit of work and well deserved the M.B.E. which, Mr Robertson was awarded. hour of bis sons served in the army. I see that one of the obituaries refers to various strikes he led as his greatest successes. From what I knew of Mr Robertson he would rather have applied that word to the much lower number of strikes he prevented. CARNEGIE TRUST. During last year the Carnegie Trust for the Scottish Universities spent £31,000 more than its income of **36,000, but as it has a capital of about £5,000,000 and has spent to the extent of nearly half a million during its quarter of a century’s existence there is no cause for anxiety. The trustees warn the universities that they are prepared to play the fairy godmotner but not to be a milch cow—or, in less picturesque language, that their assistance is for capital and exception expenditure, and not for normal outgoings During the quinquennial now current Edinburgh and Glasgow are receiving over £73,000 each ; Aberdeen £46,000, and Ut. Andrews £38,000, most of the money being devoted to building purposes. In paying the fees of students the expenditure has been a-lmcst £60,000 annually during the last six years, and the number of beneficiaries has averaged 4684. So far, the repayment of fees by students who have prospered has been disappointing, having been only some £16,000 during the 25 years. It is evident from the speech of Lord Sands, the chairman, that the trustees are not quite happy about this part of their work. They siisneot that their assistance is being claimed in many cases where it is not really needed, and, though they dislike inquisitorial methods, these may become, methods, these may be necessary if adequate assistance is to be available for genuinely necessitous cases. I may be a bit of a philistine, but by impression is that the trustees would do better to stiffen the educational rather than the financial test. Some people think that a good many of those who are. being put through our Universities are hardly worth the money that is being spent on them. FAMOUS PULPITS. The congregation of St. Giles Cathedral has chosen a young minister in the person of the Rev. Charles L. Warr, of Greenock, who is a son of Hie manse, and its example has been followed by another of our famous churches, St. Cuthbelts, for which the Rev. J. M. Norman MacLeod has been nominated. As a grandson of the famous Dr Norman MacLeod of the Barony, Mr MacLeod is a member of our greatest clerical family. It has supplied no fewer than six moderators to the Church of Scotland, and, if the ministerial tradition is maintained, may supply as many more. Mr MacLeod, who is only about 30 years of age, has been a leader in the Toe H. movement in Glasgow. His father, Sir John M. MacLeod, one of the few members of the family who have not gone into the church is Glasgow’s leading chartered accountant and was formerly a member of parliament for one of its divisions. SILK INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT. Another step has been taken towards the development of the silk industry in Scotland. The company concerned obtained an option on the Argyll Motor Works (long disused) at Alexandria and now Dumbarton County Council has agreed to sell a portion of land fronting the Leven and give a water supply from that river. I am told that, after elaborate analysis, the water there has been found Ly far the most suitable for the dyeing and finishing processes which are to be carried on, and though they are entirely different from anything hitherto done in this country, the turkey red dyeing industry which has been long established in the Vale of Leven should 'furnish workers with a certain amount of technical skill. I believe the Alexandria works will deal mainly with the silk which is to be woven in Dunfermline. On the other hand, I hear that a hitch has arisen in the scheme for a new method of preparing flax, —an industry which it was hoped would be suitable for the naval base at. Rosyth, The troubles are financial and it is hoped that they will be overcome.

PICTURE GALLERY FOR PERTH. Mr Hay Robertson, a well-known citizen of Perth, has left a legacy of £SOOO towards the establishment of an art gallery in that city, to be founded preferably in connection with the Sandeman Library which, as a residuary legatee, will benefit to a further extent of about £3OOO along with the loced infirmary. To that library Mr Robertson has left the portrait of himself painted by Sir Fiddes Watt, R.S.A., presented by his fellow-citizens, and about 50 pictures are to be lent to the same institution, to become its property if the proposed art gallery is not bnilt within the next 15 years. It is pleasant that Mr Robertson remembered the friends among whom he spent -his social hours. The King Janies VI golf club and the New Whist Club receive £IOO each. ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS.

Aberdeen University this week filled its two new chairs. Bacteriology has gone to Dr John Crickshank, now a reader in the same subject at Glasgow, who except daring the time he was giving the army in France the benefit of his expert knowledge, has spent the whole of his time in research, especially into the causation of mental diseases. Forestry has been placed in thj hands of Dr Albert W. Borthwick, who is chief research and educational officer to the Forestry Commission. He is a St. Andrews graduate, and spent four years in Munich studying German methods of tre» growing. He too, has much experience of teaching, mostly in Edinburgh, and he holds the highest awards of the arboricultural societies. A gift of £SOOO to the Royal Samaritan Hospital for Women in Glasgow, has made possible the establishment of a lectureship in Gyneecology in the university there—a development much needed in view cf the high rate of infantile mortality in that citv.

OTEVE.VSON MEMORIAL HOUSE. As a result of the recent successful bazaar, which raised more than the £3OOO required, the Robert Louis Stevenson Club of Edinburgh has been enabled to proceed with the equipment of the house in which Stevenson was born as a memorial house, filled with relics of the novelist. It is hoped to have the work complete in the course of a few months, so that 8 Howard Place will be a favourite resort for the American tourists who visit us in the early summer. The only pity is that the rival Stevenson organisations in Edinbnrtrh do not sink their petty differences. “R.L.S.” would have .made great fun of them.