The promoters of the Scottish National party are aware that Scotland's case has been retarded for nearly a generation by the repeated promises of the several political parties to advance a measure of Scottish self-government-promises which, pledged on countless occasions in terms the most binding and explicit, have been wantonly and contemptuously broken for partisan reasons. Through the circumstances of their association with their party caucuses, and by the preponderating majority of their English colleagues, it is now recognised that it is not practicable for Scottish members of parliament belonging to the existing political parties to pledge themselves to a measure of Scottish self-government with any hope of success. It is the recognition of this fact through long experience and hope deferred which has led the promoters of the new Scottish National party to dissociate themselves entirely from efforts to achieve Scottish autonomy through the medium of the already established party machines.

The Liberal and Labour parties have, indeed, disappointed Scottish nationalist expectations time and again. An extraordinary notion appears to prevail that the National party of Scotland is in some manner associated with the extreme left wing of Labour. As a matter of fact, if Labour has not proved absolutely hostile to the inception of the party, the Labour delegates to several of the unifying bodies have intimated their inability to join the National party, which, so far from having any Labourist or Liberal affiliations, stands completely alone and will permit no political association between its officials and other partisan institutions. Scottish Liberals have recently expressed themselves officially as fundamentally sharing "the considered views of the English Liberals," and Scottish Labourists adhere too strongly to the English caucus to take up an independent attitude on Scottish affairs, though it is noteworthy that on the inception of the National party a somewhat panicky delegation of the Scottish members approached Mr. Ramsay Macdonald with a request that the question of " Home Rule " might receive greater consideration from the Labour party than heretofore-a request which met with no definite or satisfactory response.

So far, officials have not been appointed, as the first conference of the party will not take place until September, but already a number of prominent Scottish Nationalists have identified themselves with the party and are acting on its provisional council.

These include Mr. R. B. Cunninghame Graham, the well-known litterateur and authority on Latin-America, Mr. Compton Mackenzie, the novelist, who is taking a prominent part in the formation of the party, Mr. R. E. Muirhead, Secretary of the Scottish Home Rule Association, who has been adopted as Nationalist candidate for West Renfrewshire, the Hon. R. Erskine of Marr, widely known as a Scottish publicist and Celtic enthusiast, Mr. C. M. Grieve, J.P., the leader of the "Scottish Literary Renaissance," and many others closely identified with and representative of Scottish public life and opinion.

The history of Scottish Nationalist endeavour in modern times may be said to commence with the formation of the Society of United Scotsmen in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Subsequently to the Union of the Parliaments in 1707, dissatisfaction with that measure was manifested by Jacobite activities which culminated in the risings of 1715 and 1745, which were due quite as much to dislike of an incorporating union and the withdrawal of ancient Scottish privileges as to the desire for Stuart restoration. The appearance of the United Scotsmen which inspired Robert Burns to the composition of " Scots Wha Hae," led to speedily subdued local disturbances in the west, and until 1860, when the Wallace Monument was erected near Stirling, national demonstration was spasmodic and infrequent. Later, and at various times, numerous bodies of patriotic tendency have arisen, notably the Scottish Patriotic Association, The Scottish Home Rule Association, and later The Scots National League (1919), and the Scottish National Movement (1926).

Before outlining the policy of the party it will be as well to indicate the nature of the causes which have led to the gradual rise and stimulation of a very widespread opinion in Scotland in favour of self-government. This has grown rapidly since the war, not only because of an enhanced national consciousness, animated, one believes, through the part Scotland played in that struggle and by the incorporation of large bodies of men in the national regiments, but also by the very obvious neglect of Scottish affairs both in parliament and through the maladministration of the Scottish Office. Further, the unwise and partial policy of removing government departments such as the Pensions Office from Scotland to London, the closing of Rosyth Dockyard, the tardy settlement of ex-service men on the land, the amalgamation of

several of the Scottish banks and the railways with similar English concerns, and the general starvation and disregard of Scottish business assuredly awakened deep-seated dissatisfaction throughout the country. But the very obvious decline in industry and agriculture which followed the war and the hitherto unexampled degree of unemployment, coupled with the desultory and temporary nature of housing schemes applied to Scotland, in a word the complete absence of any rational, considered or practical scheme of reconstruction, undoubtedly assisted the formation of an opinion actively critical of the existing parliamentary and departmental administration and dispensation. The Scottish press, which is almost entirely Conservative and Imperialist, and in no sense representative of popular views, has in the past deliberately underestimated national opinion, although recently it has repeatedly drawn attention to the neglect of Scottish affairs in the Imperial Parliament. But it is chiefly because of its policy of occlusion that the great and growing demand for Scottish selfgovernment is not fully comprehended in England.

Paramount among the considerations which urged the more patriotic among Scottish Nationalists to redouble their propagandist efforts was the apprehension that their race is menaced either by complete absorption or the most serious depletion. These fears are not only amply justified by present conditions, but the neglect of this phase of the question by each Scottish Office and Government of the day is difficult to comprehend, either from the nationalist or imperialist point of view. It is freely admitted on all sides that the Scottish race has deserved well of the Empire and the world at large, that in the spheres of thought and science, letters and commerce, it has given notable additions to the world's store of knowledge, tradition and wealth. In industry, civic outlook and steadfastness, as in clear-sightedness and practical ability, it is unsurpassed by any European people. Especially in the task of creating the British Commonwealth of Nations have its peculiar gifts of perseverance and fidelity been found of inestimable value. Yet, this notwithstanding, through the incomprehensible absence of any policy of racial conservation in this island—an art thoroughly appreciated in other European communities—a stock of proven value, not only to the British Commonwealth but to humanity, is being gradually dispersed by emigration rivalling anything ever experienced in the case of

Ireland, and equally numerous with that now obtaining in the case of England. Conditions are further exacerbated by an immigration of other peoples, British and foreign, which bids fair in no little time to reduce the veridical native elements in the population to a permanent and ever-lessening minority.

It is indeed the fear of racial extinction, the instinct for racepreservation, which principally inspires Scotsmen of more than provincial outlook to urge the necessity for self-government. With this point of view the English people are scarcely familiar, but a merely desultory consideration of the problem might suffice to convince reasonable Englishmen of all parties how rational and natural is this dread, especially if they applied the conditions which inspire it to their own case. It is beside the question to argue that the two peoples of Great Britain are cognate in blood and speech, and that it is only in the nature of things that the greater should finally absorb the less. Had the Scottish race been in the majority, one cannot conceive a people so patriotic, so grounded in native individuality as the English, permitting itself to abandon national and racial existence simply because of the plea that the ethnical distinctions betwixt it and its neighbour were so slender as scarcely to permit of consideration. In truth, the argument for similarity of race is by no means sound. If there be superficial resemblances between the racial elements of the two peoples, the proportions in which these are mingled in each case vary sufficiently to distinguish them absolutely, and the psychological diversities between them are so salient as to be proverbial. The distinctions in habits of thought, in mental attitude, between Englishmen and Scotsmen are in reality much deeper and more fundamental than superficial observers imagine, and a marked difference in environment, in legal and religious traditions of native evolution, and extraordinary vitality, render anything in the nature of complete incorporation unthinkable. If Scotland is to develop and at the same time to remain of value to the British Commonwealth she must come to an understanding with her great neighbour, and with the other British communities, on the lines of federal union and not on those of incorporation. The alternative for her is obliteration, to which, surely, no British man or woman, and certainly no true Scotsman, can give assent. That the effacement of Scotland, nationally, racially and industrially, is rapidly proceeding, is only too perceptible for the

peace of mind of those who have her true well-being at heart. Her population of nearly five millions is sending forth in emigration an annual stream which, in some years, has almost equalled that of England's loss by emigration. During the five years 1921-26,295,600 persons, or more than one-twentieth of her entire population, emigrated from Scotland. At the same rate, the country would be depleted of her native elements within a few decades. In 1923, 88,600 persons emigrated, and in 1926, 48,650. Basing the estimate on figures ascertained during the last fifty years, Scotland's agricultural population has decreased by 25 per cent., a decline unparalleled in Europe. In 1881, 240,266 persons were engaged in agriculture. In 1921 these had fallen to 191,870, and the agricultural decrease alone continues with alarming rapidity, being estimated by the recent Liberal Land Enquiry Committee at 63,000 for the past half-century. During the decade 1901-11, Scotland's total loss from emigration was 342,241, or one in ten of the population; or 54,689 more than that of Ireland during the same period. Since the beginning of the century nearly three-quarters of a million Scots have left the country. There are to-day seventeen counties in Scotland with a population less than fifty years ago, and eleven with a population less than registered a century ago. There is no question of overpopulation in Scotland, whatever may be the case in England, therefore it seems unwise and unnecessary that those efforts which are properly enough directed to the relief of English congestion by emigration should be similarly applied in Scotland, and in a manner which is depleting her shires of farm-workers and her cities of skilled artisans, with results notoriously damaging to her industry and general well-being, and foreshadowing the almost complete removal of the Scottish race from its native land.

No part of the British Islands is so greatly under the tyranny of sport as are the Scottish Highlands. A quite extraordinary proportion of the soil is at present utilised as shootings; yet it is notably capable of agricultural cultivation. It is a favourite argument of those inimical to Scottish autonomy that the expressed desire for land settlement is in reality nothing but a party cry. The absurdity of this view has repeatedly been stressed by the various commissions which have explored the question of Scottish deer-forests. Even the Scottish Land Court, a body of government officials of most unprejudiced character, has put it on record that :