FROM NORTH OF TWEED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20289, 23 December 1927, Page 12

FROM NORTH OF TWEED.

A LETTER TO OVERSEAS SCOTS. Written for tho Otago Daily Times. By Robert S. Angus. EDINBURGH, November 10. As if to make up for the belated and fragmentary character of the summer we had, a week ago, on several days the temperature was higher than the July average. hi Glasgow it rose one day to 83 degrees in the sun. But just as suddenly and unexpectedly there has come an icy spell, and the Grampians are covered with snow to their base. On the Border Hills, too, heavy showers of snow and hail have been experienced, and it is a tragic sight to see the cut corn still lying in some of the fields, in such a condition that it will hardly pay the cost of carting it to the stackyard. On the whole, however, the harvest has not been quite so disastrous as at on e time seemed probable. The farmers have been able to save a good deal from the wreck, although at heavy cost. Root crops are fairly good, and sugar beet has done encouragingly well. But when all is said the few farmers who keep accounts will find them dismal reading at the end of the year. ANIMAL DISEASES. Writing of agricultural affairs leads me to refer to th e opening of the Animal Diseases Research Institute at Morcdun, Gilmerton,-near Edinburgh. The Duke of Buccleuch, who presided at the ceremony, did not exaggerate when he claimed the enterprise as the best thing that has ever been done for Scottish agriculture. It becomes more and more evident that Scottish farming must depend to an evergreater extent on stock breeding, and anything that can be done to improve the health of our flocks and herds must ti erefore b e of prime importance. Mr Falconer L. Wallace, president of the association, himself a noted breeder, warned his fellow-farmers that their hope lies in reduced expenditure rather than in higher prices, and that -the elimination of loss caused by the ill-health of animals is the most helpful line of advance. He claimed that the discoveries in the treatment and prevention of braxy disease in sheep has saved hundreds of thousands of pounds, and if such maladies as swine fever and foot-and-mouth disease could be similarly conquered the gain would be great. The work already done by the institute under difficult conditions has been valuable, and if the farmers _ have any sense of selfinterest they will see that Moredun does not lack for money. The general idea that the increase of motor traction has diminished the need for veterinary science is completely mistaken. THE MOTOR SHOW. It is not such a sudden transition as it. may seem to mention next the success of the Scottish motor show, which has been held this week in the new Kelvin Hal] at Glasgow. Th e building is probably the finest of the kind in this country, and exhibitors from the south have been compar. ing it with Olympia in London, greatly to the disadvantage of the latter. Personally, I have not been .to the show, nor have I read a line of the many pages which our newspapers are devoting to it I daily. But I gather it has been a great success from every point of view. A visit by the Prince of Wales on the opening flay—one item in a crowded programme—gave it a good send-off. and in respect both of the number of visitors and the sales effected the enterprise has satisfied all concerned. The Scottish show differs from the London one in having both pleasure and commercial cars under one roof and on this occasion it was able to present a number of novelties which were not seen in London. Scotland has to some extent lost such share as it had in motor manufacturing, but it still stands . to gain much from tho prosperity of the industry. GLENCOE NEW ROAD. A, fierce battle still rages over the Ministry of Transport’s scheme for the construction of a new road through Glencoe. It i s being hotly opposed on both financial and Eesthetic grounds, and, while Argyll County Council seems to be favourable, other Ipcal opinion is adverse. One correspdondent indignantly and pertmctly inquires why, if the Government has so much to spend on a little-wanted change, some of the money should not be diverted to an improvement of the communications with the Western Isles? It should not be beyond the wit of those responsible _ to devise a compromise.' which, while making the present road wider and better in its surface would avoid interference with the landscape. In these days of good motor engines and powerful brakes gradient is a secondary mattter. CHURCH UNION. Having taken the view throughout that the union, or rather the reunion, of the ■ Church of Scotland and the United Free Church had everything to recommend it on grounds of common sense and Christian fellowship, I have assumed that the negotiations, which have now lasted for about 20 years, would proceed slowly but surelv to a successful issue. It must be admitted that some of the documents nubfished this week are disquieting. There is a small and by no means influential minority in the United Free Church which is still bent on pushing to extremes theories as to the relations between church and State which have long ceased to have practical importance and in which the younger generation is not in the least interested. Negotiations have been in progress for some time in the hope that it would be possible to satisfy these scruples which are a survival of controversies that are as dead a s they deserve to be. The negotiations seqm either to have broken down or to be on the point of doing so. The leaders in both churches are as intent as ever on carrying their enterprise to fruition. But they are rightly anxious to secure the nearest possible approach to unanimity, and to avoid any danger of a repetition _ of the tragedy of 1900. Dr John White, on the one side, and Principal Martin, on the other, are statesmen as well as ecclesiastics, -and they do not even yet despair. If they fail it will be one the most discreditable incidents in the history of Scottish Presbyterianism. “ METAPHYSICAL DISTINCTIONS.” In this connection I like the story Dr Martin told the other day. He found hipiself in an hospital in France, lying next a wounded Scottish officer. An orderly came round to collect the particulars required to complete a lengthy document he held in his hand. Asked hi s religion, the wounded officer replied : “ Church of Scotland.” The orderly assured him that category was not recognised; the only divisions were Church of England, Roman Catholic, and Nonconformist. The officer i declined to accept any of these and left the orderly to make the best of it. Later D r Martin found that the officer, in fact, belonged to the United Free Church, and asked why he had not said so. “ Man ” ho replied, “the folks here havena the brains to understand our metaphysical distinctions ” The officer was Colonel J B. Wood, who died the other day ami whose indomitable gallantry at Loos was the main factor in preventing a serious disaster. ORGANISATION OF CHARITY. One of tho first results of tho recent formation of a Joint Committee represen tativc of the numerous charitable organisations in Edinburgh is the publication of a report containing advice to the benevolently minded. Its foremost item is an appeal not to give monetary assistance to those who seek it in the street or at house doors. In the great m jority of cases— ! so we are assured—the applicants tiro either totally undeserving or have slighter claims than those who shrink from such methods. Tho committee recommends the compilation of a “ Mutual Register of Assistance ” so that each of the societies j may know confidentially what is being done by the others. I doubt if there is | any city in the world which has a larger i number of eleemosynary activities or one in which tho merely plausible have a better time. | HELPING FOREIGN STUDENTS. A wise step has been taken in the formptioa of a Students’ International

Council in connection with Edinburgh University. No university in this country, probably none in the world, has a more cosmopolitan collection of undergraduates. In the course of an evening walk across the Meadows during the university term one meets representatives of almost every race under the sun. They arrive literally “ strangers in a strange land,” and anything that can be done to make them feel more at home is worthy of encouragement. Accordingly a council has been set up consisting of thirty Scots and two representatives of each of thirty-five foreign nations, among which, I may remark, England, Wales, and Ireland are included on the same basis as Nicaragua. The council will make it its business to help the new arrivals in finding lodgings and to promote social relations between foreigners and natives. It is humbling to read the declaration of a Swiss student that he had to visit half a dozen Edinburgh houses before he could find “ digs ” that were even moderately clean. GLASGOW’S SMOKE. Such an allegation would have been less surprising in regard to Glasgow, where, according to the local Medical Officer of Health every hour sees the fall of 100 tons of soot per square mile. Much of the smoke comes from factories, but, according to Dr MacPhec, the greater part is produced by the domestic hearth. One result is that the lungs of the inhabitants are scarcely distinguishable from those of coal miners. In his view electricity must be the source of both heat and light in the future. AN EMBARRASSING INVASION. Recently a shoal of whales, numbering about a hundred, entered Dornoch Firth in pursuit of a shoal of herring, and many of them were stranded as the tide receded. The incident threatened merely to create an unsavoury nuisance, but to the surprise of the scientific world A has been discovered that the animals, at first described as “ bottle-nosed whales,” were in fact False or Lesser Killer Whales, never before seen alive in British waters. Skeletons have been found in the Cambridgeshire Fens, dating from pre-historie times when that area was partly submerged; odd specimens have occasionally been seen, and so long ago as 1861 there was an almost similar incident in the Bay of Kiel, when about a hundred of those whales appeared. Their home is in Tas•raania, and how they have wandered so far north is a puzzle for the scientists. SCOTTISH UNIONISTS’ PRESIDENT. At their annual meeting this week the Scottish Unionists decided from the first time to appoint a woman as president, and as luck would have it their choice fell upon an Englishwoman by birth. She is Lady Findlay, wife of Sir John Findlay, of Aberlour, chief proprietor of the Scotsman newspaper. Lady Findlay, who was Miss Backhouse, of Darlington, is a first-rate speaker, and during the last few years in connection with various Public bodies has shown business quaalities of a high order. In the course of this week's conference she made a spirited defence of the extension of the franchise to “ flappers,” and the delegates endorsed her views by a large majority.