FROM NORTH OF TWEED

Otago Witness, Issue 3595, 6 February 1923, Page 8

FROM NORTH OF TWEED

. A LETTER TO SCOTTISH EXILES. Br Robert S. Angus. EDINBURGH, December 14. Scottish pride in its shipbuilding prestige has received a heavy blow by the failure to obtain a contract for at least one of the two capital ships which have been ordered for the British Navy. Hitherto the Clyde has claimed with some reason that it could build high-class ships as cheaply and ts rapidly as any place in the world. On this occasion her rivals on the Tyne and the Mersey have undercut by a substantial amount. On the Glasgow Exchange they are firmly convinced that the English builders will make a loss on the transaction. However that may be, the loss of muchneeded employment in the Clyde Valley is a disappointment. The two ships will bring a good deal of work all the same. Beardmore wdll make some qf the armourplating and the guns : Weir, of Cathcart, is the only firm for pumps; and there is a whole host of accessories in which the . Clyde specialises. Even Edinburgh, which one does not usually associate with marble, engineering, will benefit, for the firm of Brown in this city-has a virtual monopoly by reason of the excellence of its steering , gear. Otherwise there is a visible improve- | ment in the shipbuilding trade, but that will not obliterate the regrets at a loss which affects both pride and pocket. CLYDE SHIPPING. j The report of the Clyde Lighthouse trus- j tees, which is a good barometer of the trade in the river, .shows that the revenue for the I year reached 85 per ce«t. of the 1914 volume, as compared with 67 per cent, last year, rue outlook is so encouraging that the trustees have decided to make a 25 per cent, cut in their dues, and at the same time to build a new vessel and to improve the Cumbrae lighthouse and fog-horn. There are indications that, as of old, the business men of the west retain their confidence in the future. FORESTRY DEVELOPMENT. No Scotsman need apologise for frequent references to forestry. Upon its development depends not merely the future of tlji= country in its rural areas, but the industrial prosperity of the nation as a whole. Sir ••ohn Stirling-Maxwell, lecturing to the Edinburgh students the other day, pointed out that the virgin forests of the United Stales are being rapidly exhausted by fire, and the demands of trade, and that that country will inevitably beat Great Britain in competition for the rich stores of Canada. The supplies of Russia are not likely to be available for a good many years. It is, therefore, essential that a larger proportion of our home needs should be furnished at home. We have the ground, and we have the skill. All that is needed is determination on the part of the Government to supply, as private individuals cannot do, the capital and the organising power. It is satisfactory that in the schemes to alleviate unemployment an increase of the forestry programme is included. EDINBURGH'S BEST PREACHER. To the great regret of all Edinburgh, the Rev. Dr Sclater, her most famous preacher, ! has been forced by ill-health to give up bis work —temporarily, it is hoped, for he is still a young man. Two breakdowns and the threat of a third have left him no alternative but to take a long rest. When he was appointed to the New North United Free church in succession to Dr ICetman (now of New York) on his transfer to Free •St. George’s he was given a task of extraordinary difficulty. But lie proved more than equal to it. The large congregation actually increased, and the Sunday evening services which he conducted for the univer lity students were more crowded than even

in the days of.. Dr Kelman and Henry Drummond. Dr Sclater was a favourite preacher to the Scottish troops on the Western front, and not long ago he made a highly successful preaching tour in Canada, A PROFESSOR BLACKIE STORY. The death of the Rev. Andrew L. Seggie, of Toronto, makes it permissible to repeat a Professor Blackie story, which hitherto has been told without the names. In his Greek class (where he taught many things besides Greek) a student, called upon to read a passage, held the book in his left hand. “ Hold the book in your right hand,” demanded the professor. The student blushed and paused. The order was angrily repeated. “ Sir, I hae nae right hand,” was the reply of the student, as he held up an arm which ended at the elbow. 4 1here was a storm of hissing from the class. The professor darted from the platform and, with tears in his eyes, embraced the student and expressed his apologies. Then he turned to his class, by this time silent, and in a broken voice .said: “ And let me say to you all that I am rejoiced to be shown that I am teaching a class of gentlemen.’' There was a remarkable seauel. Many years afterwards a famous Scottish preacher, Dr. Lorimer, to illustrate a point in his sermon, told the story in a New York pulpit. Mr Seggie, who happened to be on holiday, was a member of the congregation, and at the close of the service made himself known to the'preacher. who thereupon summoned the worshippers back to their places to hear the incident narrated by one of the parties to it. Mr Seggie was a characteristic Scot, whose speech to the last retained the accent of his native Berwickshire MONIFIETH COMMUNION CUPS I few weeks ago I mentioned that Lord Rosebery had presented to the parish church of Monifieth one of its two seventeenth century communion cups, which had been foolishly exchanged about a hundred years ago. The other has been recovered through the kindness of the Rev. Dr Jackson, formerly rector of Exeter College, Oxford. It was presented to his wife as a wedding present some 45 years ago, a striking illustration of the carelessness with which church property was formerly regarded. The Monifieth people are delighted at their luck in regaining both these venerable objects. WALTER SCOTT’S LODGE. Lodge St. David, Edinburgh, which is now within 15 years of being two centuries old, lias this week held a successful bazaar in aid of its fund to provide a lodge room of its own. Sir Walter Scott became an initiate of the lodge in 1801, and in recog nition of that fact each of the stalls boro the name of one of his novels. The Earl of Elgin, of “Greek marbles” fame, was also a member, and it was appropriate that the bazaar should be opened by his greatgrandson, the present Earl, now Grand Master Mason of Scotland. In this connection I may mention that Mr Silas B. Wright of the Grand Lodge of Florida, has been conducting an inquiry into rho antiquity of the lodges of the World. He awards the palm to Scotland, and places the seniors in the following order: —Mother Kilwinning. St. Mary’s (Edinburgh), and Y el rose St. John —all instituted before ItoB; No. 1 Aberdeen, instituted before 1670; Canongate Kilwinning (Edinburgh), instituted 16V7 ; and No. 3 Scone and Perth. But all these lodges have traditional history going further back. In the Aberdeen records, for instance, there is a reference on June 27th. 1483. to the Masonwyns of the lodge,” and entries are to lie found also in the two following years. THE ABERDONIAN AND THE JEW. Stories at the joint and several expense of the Scot and the Jew are innumerable, but one which is new to me was told the other evenin K at the annual dinner of the Scottish accountants who practise in London —no small or unimportant body. A young Jew was asked by bis father what business he intended to take up and how

much money he required. The reply was : “Father. I want, no money for business. Only give me my fare to Aberdeen. I am rroing there to complete my education.” Sir William Beveridge, head of the London School of Economics —not a Scot, but a Fifer, as lie explains—is of the opinion that these stories about the carefulness of me Scot are manufactured by the Society of Scottish Accountants in order to impress the world with the belief that Scots may safely be entrusted with money. These stories, therefore, represent an important and valuable Scottish industry. SCOTTISH literature: Professor W. A. Craigie, of Oxford University, is one of the most valiant champions of Scottish literature and of the claims of the Scots doric to survive in our daily speech. Speaking to the members of the Scottish Clans Association in London, he admitted that he had been connected not so much with the kailyard school as with the kirkyard school, since his work had been to disinter and bring to public notice authors who were supposed to have been long dead and decently buried. These writers, though often long-winded and tedious, have a sense of proportion, a sense of' humour, and a native vigour and picturesqueness surpassed by none of their present-day successors. OUR MEN AT WESTMINSTER. As was feared, some of the members sent from the west to the House of Commons have lost little time in bringing themselves and to some extent their country into ridicule. Mr Tom Johnston, the member for West Stirlingshire and editor of “Forward, * the Glasgow Socialist organ, has done something worse, by making what might have been regarded as a reflection on Mr Asquith, and then refusing to withdraw it, though his leader, Mr Ramsay Macdonald, appealed to him to do so. A Parliamentary friend tells me that the accent of Mr David Kirkwood is a joy to his English colleagues, who feel as if they were listening to someone trying to exaggerate Sir Harry Lauder. Air Wheatley, Mr James Stewart, Mr Shinwell, and young Air George Buchanan, with their municipal experience, give promise _of doing well. The Scots Guards, as they call themselves, ar<T certainly not “blate,” and they distinguished themselves this week by keeping the House sitting all night, ostensibly to protest against the inadequacy of the Government proposals on unemployment, but mainly, it is suspected, to gain some notoriety and practice in the art of Parliamentary obstruction. Their behaviour has given a stimulus at Westminster to the idea of Home Rule for Scotland, but added a new terror to the idea on this side of the Tweed.