FROM NORTH OF TWEED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20706, 2 May 1929, Page 17

FROM NORTH OF TWEED

A LETTER TO OVERSEAS SCOTS.

By Robert S. Angus.

EDINBURGH, March 7. I agree with the writer who said the other day that recent experience has probably made many people think that the joys of the “ old-fashioned winter ” are much over-rated. Weeks of frozen water pipes and snow blocked roads give a zest to what now appears to be a firm promise of approaching spring. With it seems to be coming also a promise of returning prosperity, or at least some alleviation of the depression which has hung over us so long. In all parts of the coal mining area pits that have been closed for months, or even years, are being reopened, and the steel trade has received an appreciable impetus from the activity in the shipbuilding yards. These are far more important factors than the rise in the price of petrol, although that may be unwelcome. The politicians are watching the industrial signs with great interest, for a marked revival of trade will be a much-needed asset for the Government when the general election comes about the end of May. Meanwhile the North Lanark election is being fought with some spirit. Lord Scone has been laid aside by an attack of the prevalent influenza, but even if he had been an active figure it is doubtful if he could have saved the seat for the Unionists, who were highly surprised. when Sir Alexander Sprot won it four years ago. Miss Jenny Lee, the Socialist candidate, graduate of Edinburgh University, and daughter of a Fifeshire miner, is, I am told, a young woman of high gifts, both Of mind and person, and when she goes to Westminster will cause some stir there. NEW YEAR HONOURS.. In the New Year list of honours—delayed by the King’s illness—l was delighted to find the names of a number of my own friends. Mr F. C. Thomson, the Scottish Whip of the Government, becomes a baronet, a well-deserved distinction for a modest and charming fellow; Mr Lewis Shedden, for over 30 years the chief organiser of the Unionist Party in the west, is to be knighted; Lady Findlay, wife of Sir John Findlay, of Aherlour, is 'to bpeome a Dame of the British Empire in recognition of her work as chairman of the Scottish Unionist Association last year and her services to many benevolent activities; Sir William M'Cormick, formerly of the Carnegie Trust, and Sir William M'Lintock, the well-known London Scottish accountant, are to be raised to higher rarik in the orders of knighthood to which they already belong; Mr R. T. Boothby, insurance leader and golfer (and father of Mr Robert Boothby, M.P., is also to be knighted. Mr Alexander Park Lyle, the Greenock ship owner, is to receive a baronetcy for his support of the Scottish National War Memorial, and Mr Robert Stewart, chairman of the. Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society, is to be knighted, as are also Mr D. P. Henderson, a prominent figure in the public life of Caithness, and Colonel T. I l '. Purves, a Berwickshire man, who is chief engineer to the post office. EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRINCIPAL. I hear that the gentleman whom the curators of Edinburgh University have approached to become principal in succGfision to Sir Alfred Ewing ia not Sir George Macdonald, ns I had guessed, but Principal Irvine, of St. Andrews. During the years he had been head of the oldest and smallest of our universities Dr Irvine has secured remarkable progress, and if ho can be induced to transfer his magnetic personality and his energies to the capital, the* gain to the cause of education will be great. Hesitation on his part is not surmisin': for the principal of St. Andrews occupies, though on a smaller stage, a much nuve promincut ( position than does the head of the University in'Edinburgh, DU NORMAN MACLEAN. The most interesting personal item of this week has been the announcement of the approaching marriage of the Rev. Dr Norman Mac Lean, minister of St. Cuthbert’s, chaplain to the King, and exmoderator of the General Assembly, to the Hon. lona Macdonald, only daughter of Lord Macdonald of the Isles. Dr Mac Lean, who is not only one of our most eloquent preaches "in English. and Gaelic but a graceful writer as those who remember this sketch “Our Village,' 1 written in the early days of the war can testify, suffered a heavy bereavement by the death of his wife a few years ago. Like himself his, bride is a native of the Hebrides. THE BISHOP OF EDINBURGH. y the death of Dr Walpole, who has ceen Bishop of Edinburgh for nearly 20 years the Episcopal Church in Scotland has suffered a severe blow. He came to the see in circumstances of some difficulty, for he was appointed in the teeth of a feeling, which has grown stronger since, that the Episcopal Church leaders should not he so generally imported from the south, thereby going some way to Justify the common name for it as the “English” Church. But Dr Walpole soon showed that on personal grounds his selection was justified. He avoided the mistake which his predecessor, Dr Dowden, made on his arrival of signing himself “ J. Edinburgh,” a proceeding which was denounced (and noon abandoned) as implying territorial pretensions on the part of the leader of u comparatively small religious body, which as the Archbishop of Canterbury, himself of Presbyterian origin, once pointed out is Nonconformist on this side of the Tweed, Dr Walpole won the hearts not merely of his own members but of the community at large by his personal kindliness and his readiness to take part in interdenominationli activities of all sorts. Mr Hugh Walpole, the novelist, is his son. HONORARY DEGREES. For its forthcoming graduation ceremony Aberdeen University • has selected an exceptionally interesting batch of honorary graduates. They include the Marchioness of Aberdeen, Major Walter Elliot, the Scottish Under-Secretary, Mr Roger Fry, the well-known artist and critic, Sir Robert Horne, Mr William S. Littlejohn, headmaster of the Scots College, Melbourne, Lord Mackay, and Sir Fabian Ware. Among the D.D.’s are Professor A. R. Gordon, of Montreal, and Professor Theodore Robinson, of Cardiff. DR LAURA SANDEMAN. Aberdeen has seldom had a citizen so generally and sincerely mourned as Dr Laura Sandeman, who not only conducted a large medical practice in the Torry district but was “guide, philosopher, and friend ” to many a poor family there. Only a few months ago she was the Unionist candidate for the parliamentary representation of" North Aberdeen, and I suspect that she did not grieve much at missing a victory which would have taken her away from the work and the people she loved. As a daughter of the late Colonel Frank Stewart Sandeman of Stanley, she was inevitably a stout Tory in politics. But that was a comparatively small aspect of a many-sided character in which zeal for the welfare of the community and especially of her own sex was dominant. Her heavy work during the influenza epidemic made her all the less able to stand the strain when she herself was attacked by it. TRADE WITH RUSSIA. At a meeting of the herring fishing trade in Aberdeen this week it was wisely decided to appoint two representatives—Mr George Hall, an exporter, and Mr James H. Mitchell, a

curer—to lie members of the commercial delegation which is about to visit Russia. That country was formerly the most important market for the pickled herring produced on the north-east coast, and the closing of that outlet has led to such incidents as occurred a few weeks ago when millions of herrings had to be thrown back into the sea. Though the public hears less about it, the fishing communities are suffering almost as much as the mining areas, and a reopening of business with Russia would be a great help. As I recently indicated the leaders of the trade have not done all that they might in devising alternative methods of disposing of their products; they have plenty of energy, but it runs too much along well-worn grooves, and the same is true of the fishermen themselves. SCOTTISH “ PEASANTRY.” I am amused to note that Sheriff Jameson has got himself into trouble through using, in the course of his jeremiads on national decadence, the phrase “ Scottish peasantry.” Mr Thomas Innes of Learney, a Heeside laird, who is also an authority on genealogy and a member of the Scottish College of Heralds, points out that “ a peasantry usually represents either a native race subjected to a superimposed nobility of alien origin or else a ‘ caste ’ division between noble and non-noble. That is a feature which is completely absent from Scots history and which fortunately does not yet exist, in spite of the attempts of various politicians of all creeds to suggest that it does.” Mr Innes argues that through our Scots social system the blood relationship between the leading houses and the masses has been continually renewed by fresh infiltration of cadets, so that the economic and biological advantages inseparable from a hereditary aristocracy have not been restricted to a select caste but have been made available to the bulk of the nation. Serfdom, he says, * disappeared, if it ever existed, in Scotland earlier than in any other country, and the whole nation has been imbued from top to bottom with the dominant instincts and mental calibre which in other countries are confined to the aristocracy alone. I cannot help feeling that this is a rather idealistic view of the facts, but it no doubt has a measure of, truth especially in those districts, whether Highland or Lowland, where the clan tradition survives. But it would be difficult to maintain, say, in presence of a Glasgow working class audience with its heterogeneous origins to which not merely Ireland and England but most of the European countries have contributed.