HOME RULE FOR SCOTLAND

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23258, 20 July 1945, Page 2

HOME RULE FOR SCOTLAND

Nationalist Movement ENGLISH PEOPLE SURPRISED Mild-mannered Dr Robert Mclntyre, who sits in the House of Commons as Scotland’s first Home Rule M.P., has at last made clear to many Englishmen the strength and vehemence of the Scottish Nationalist movement. The revelation ha, surprised a great many people hitherto ignorant o. the extent to which sections of the. Scottish people are suffering tinder a sense of injustice and frustration. Dr Mclntyre was sent to Westminster by the Clyde constituency of Motherwell to demand self-govern-ment for Scotland. He will lose no opportunity, he promised supporters, to introduce a bill to set up a Scottish Parliament in- Edinburgh. Still in his early thirties and emotionally ebullient, he promises to give Westminster a lively time before he is finished with it. He has thrown aside the socialism of his youth to embrace the fierce, challenging nationalism which manifested itself on his first day in the House by a stubborn refusal to abide by the ancient Parliamentary rule requiring new members to ’C introduced bv sponsors. The Scottish National Party's grrvances against “British Government in London” appeal - trivial and provincial to most Englishmen. They usually evoke the frigidness that -drives ardent separatists like Mclntyre to frenzied outbursts of Scottish oratory. “Why does Mr Churchill refuse to reveal Scottish casualties?” he demanded recently. “Must Scotland always fight England's wars?” He has a fine contempt for the ability of English legislators to legislate for Scotland's economic needs. Scots, he declares, “cannot expect anything but rebuffs from a British Government. They nust be treed from the domination of England.” London, he maintains, has always neglected Scotland. It has denied Scotland the light industries which should be complementary to her heavy industries on the Clyde. It placed a disproportionate numoer of war factories in England and promoted an export policy which in future mst restrict Scottish agriculture. His candidature was greatly helned by the Government’s decision during the Motherwell by-e’.ctlon to relegate Prestwick’s great airport to a secondary position and its refusal to entertain a Scottish project for a road bridge over the Forth. Dr. Mclntyre, as secretary of the Scottish National Party, has little difficulty in marshalling his grievances ill a brilliant, blindir r light though he refrains from over-colour-ing his ease with the aggressive vituperation used by some of his extermist colleague He does not. like his party's chairman. Mr Dougins Young, cal! Mr Churchill “Mr Kirkbrae.” or truculently describe b 1, as does Young, a"the agent of the London Imperialist boss-class, and the English would-be Herrenvolk.” Young refused to be conscripted into the Army for which dereliction of due'' he served two terms of ‘'martyrdom” in prison, not because he was against the war, but because he rejected on political grounds the right of Englishmen to conscript Scotsmen. His hostility is echoed in its extravagance by the party organ, “The Scots Independent,” which in its April issue asked: “Are the Scots content to see Scots laddies flung away in years of this colonial war under the loveless mindless control of Ihe British militarists in London?” This is Scottish discontent. in its extremist 1 rm Al its mildest it has attracted the support of such Scottish literary figures as Compton Mackenzie, and such political groups ns the Liberal Party, which has had a Scottish home rule plank for fifty years or more. The Labour Candida -> at. Motherwell whom Dr Mclntyre defeated by 617 votes in a poll of 22 000. violently at,tacked the Nationalist policy ns “narrow, disruptive and bigoted " Dr Mclntyre retorted' “The Labom - Partv humbugs and betrays Hr people.” Little love was lost between them Bill (lie average Englishiu - ■ wl, cherishes 1 joke at Feothit d eypon- -- is more often tempted to di.-imis., Scot, tlsh home rulers airily “Why.” he a t:.-' slyly, “should the Scut want ti ion .--’u-ot!;<nd i-iiiii th>- niread', -1 I tie Ktii|lire/