FROM NORTH OF TWEED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20834, 28 September 1929, Page 25

FROM NORTH OF TWEED

LETTER TO OVERSEAS SCOTS. Written for the Otago Daily Times. By Robert S. Angus. EDINBURGH, August 22. Holiday-makers like myself have not had the best of luck lately, but the good spells of weather have been almost glorious enough to make up for the bad. The other day 1 drove from Edinburgh to East Lothian under cond.tions which vyere absolutely ideal—brilliant sunshine trom an unclouded sky pouring down on one of the most picturesque and fertile tracts in the British Isles, sparkling on the waters of the Forth and lighting up [ the fields, now gradually turning from green to gold, with the Fife hills bounding the land'cape on the north and the Lammermuir and Moorfoot hills to the south.. Industry as well as agriculture added an air of prosperity, if not of beauty, to the scene. I was particularly delighted to see one of the new colliery villages, a contrast to its .predecessors and a rebuke to those responsible for them. Every group of cottages had it < garden, and in the middle were the buildings, the playing fields, and the tennis courts of the Miners’ Welfare Institute. It is true that the latter were deserted—the day being Sunday—while the young fellows were loafing about the road-ends when they would have been much better employed exercising their limbs and occupying their minds. In that connection I note the decision of Glasgow Corporation to permit boating on one of the municipal lakes. The proposal was opposed by the same arguments that were advanced against Sunday band performances and opening of picture galleries, but the op-’ ponenta did not seek to show that the public morality has been depreciated by these changes. SUNDAY OBSERVANCE. Speaking of Sunday observance induces me to mention the impression made on the mi ? d of a friend who has lived out of Scotland for nearly a-quarter of a century and has been a rare visitant since. He, happened to be in St. Andrew square on Sunday morning shortly after 11 o clock, an hour at which in the old days the place would have been deserted, except by an occasional tourist who felt under no obligation to attend church. The square contained at least a score of motor buses which were filled almost as quickly as they drew iip at their starting point. Their destinations included places as far away as Carlisle and Newcastle, and short of these points the choice for the wouldbe excursionist was almost unlimited. ’ A similar, spectacle could have been witnessed at several other points in the city. ROAD OR RAIL. The change which so much struck my mend obtruded itself upon me at practically every point in my recent tour. On Speyside, Deeside, and Tayside it was the same—the motor buses, crowded and the railways deserted. Even the hold of the latter on the long-distance traffic, once supposed to he secure, is threatened, m Dundee one could see crowded vehicles marked "Aberdeen to Glasgow a distance of about 150 miles. Judging from my own experience over shorter’ journeys, I should not care*to make so long a trip in a charabanc. But that is evidently not the view of the travelling public. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the railway companies have now acquired a large holding in the Scottish Motor Traction Company, the principal organisation providing road transport for passengers, so that they will get back on the swings part of what they have been losing on the roundabouts, and no doubt an arrangement will be made to divide the traffic so as to eliminate wasteful competition. All the same', "if I were a sharenCider in railways, I should sell out and invest in motor buses. RIGHT OF ACCESS. As my ’readers know, I have always been a little sceptical as to the. necessity for the Access to Mountains Bill. An' experience 1 had last week has considerably shaken my confidence. Desiring to show my wife a beauty spot which had been a haunt of mine in boyhood, I visited a rorfarshire loch lying between a crescent of grassy hills and a wood. My first shock was when I found that a spot of placid beauty had been disfigured by the erection of a wooden shanty which would have disgraced a clearing in the backwoods. From it emerged a haughty dame, wearing horn-rimmed spectacles with a monocle dangling at her waist. She informed me, quite courteously, but with an emphasis which was clearly meant to be minatory, that I was on private property. She seemed a little taken aback when I reminded her of the existence of a right-of-way, and told her that I had been in the habit more than 40 years ago of haunting the ground from which she ‘de* sired to exclude me. I added that I proposed to walk along the loch side, and her warning that I should probably meet the keeper had no_ terrors for me. The right-of-way to which I have alluded used to be a well-marked path, with the ditches bridged, Now it is overgrown, the planks across the ditches have beea removed, and there is every sign that unless local opinion asserts itself the right-of-way will disappear and be forgotten. The irony of the situation is that Lord Camperclown, the former proprietor, was an intimate friend of my own, whose many invitations to nsh on the loch I was never able to accept,. and that the distant kinsman who unexpectedly inherited the estate from him claims to have the blood of Jolin Hampden in his veins and to be a ? u . Pities. I would fain believe etui that incidents of the kind are rare; otherwise it is not surpirsing that the demand for legislation on the subject is so insistent.

SABBATARIAN PREJUDICE. If the champions of the old-fashioned isunday had more sense of humour—or, what may be the same thing, a better sense of proportion—they would save themselves from blunders which discredit their _ cause. A notable illustration of j ", ls the protest made by a committee °| Church against the presence of the Duke and Duchess of York .at an ambulance demonstration in Forfar on the Sunday before last. Their attendance is described as “an ill-service to the public. The public of Forfar, to judge by the number in which they attended, did that view. Surely," if ever there was a work of mercy, it is training in _ the speedy succour of those who are injured in the course of industrial work, ine competitors in this case were mostly railway employees for whom Sunday is the only possible day for a conjoint display. The Free Church protest has been received with mingled hilarity and indignation, and the local ministers who tooli part in the proceedings are naturally intoo arrogant self-righteousness of their brethren. SCOTTISH SECRETARY'S DILIGENCB. While his Under-secretary has been touring the Western Highlands and islands. _Mr Adamson has been visiting the fishing harbours on the East Coast to see which of them can be usefully improved in order not merely to give the fishermen a better chance, but to provide work for tho unemployed- his usunl caution. Mr Adamson has declined to the impressions he lias formed. The difficulty is that witu the large vessels now necessary in fishing most of the smaller harbours are so out-of-date that complete reconstruction is needed, and that as most of the craft are driven by steam or petrol, they can easily reach the arger ports where railway facilities are better, Thus the outlook for the smaller places seems almost hopeless, and any attempt to restore their prosperity could hardly be justified on commercial principles. “BONNIE DUNDEE.” In my last letter I said something about the fine new roadway which Dundee has made for itself. Since then I have had further occasion to see the many improvements in the city. These go some way to justify its annexation.of the title Bonnie Dundee,’ originally meant for the soldier of that name. It is true that the older part of the town needs to bo demolished and rebuilt. The present generation is paying the penalty for overrapid industrial development about the middle of last century and the consequent importation of inhabitants whoso descendants include an undue proportion of undesirables. But signs are to be found on every hand that the leaders of the present-day have learned from the blunders of the past. I doubt if they are altogether happy over an anonymous donors gift of £6OOO for the erection of single-apartment houses; These are too numerous already and any addition to them merely tends to perpetuate what u rtill a deplorably low standard oi