THE SCOT IN ENGLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 19 June 1929, Page 7

THE SCOT IN ENGLAND

(Lyttelton Times.) The observation of the Archbishop of Canterbury that the English State and the English Church were botli passing again under the rule of Scotsmen has bean proved true by the accession of Air Ramsay MacDonald to the office of Prime Minister, so that the Scottish conquest of England >s visibly complete. Actually it has been complete for many years, so that it is not now even a subject of comment, and as Englishmen are very happy us subjects there is no reason why there should ever be revolt Of course there is a natural explanation of the apparent anomaly of a small nation bringing a great one under subjeettion, and it is just because the explanation is a natural one that the subject race takes ft for granted anu rests easily under the yoke. The position is very much the same as the relation between Auckland and Dunedin. We are still familiar with the story of the Aucklander who escorted a Dunedin visitor over the northern city, repeatedly expressing his pride in the fact that he was a citizen of so beautiful and prosper-, ous a city. “Would’nt you feel proud he asked if this glorious place were all yours?” And the southern Scot replied quietly: “Indeed we do; it is.” Just so the English and the Scots are equally happy in the occupation and possession of England. And both are fulfilling a well recognised natural law, that the virile races of the colder climates must march towards the sun, and as they march they possess. A,t this very moment sturdy sons of Canada are conquering the United States by peaceful penetration. But the Scottish conquest of England is the outsanding example, partly because it is the most complete of all and partly because it was accomplished before the English woke up to the fact that it had been accomplishedA shrewd Scot once suggested that it was the thought of Flodden that lulled the English to sleep, but that is a very small modicum of the truth. Actually it was the native modesty of the Scot that deceived the English. The Scot is an inveterate joker. All those hundreds of thousands of jokes about the thrift]ness of the northerners, their artlessness and simplicity their poverty, their drinking habits and the rest are invention of themselves. Aberdeen exports them by the thousands—indeed, it has lately raised a magnificent endowment for its hospitals by the deliberate sale of libels on its own citizens—and Aberdonians enjoy the jokes a hundred times by hearing them repeated with gusto by the English to whom they were sold. How could an Englishman imagine for a moment that there was any danger in the presence in their country of these raw-boned, simple, harmless peasants? It was not as if the Scot attempted to disguise himself. He clung to his accent and advertised himself to the world wherever he might be. He remained a Scot in the midst of a world of foreigners. His heart., be declared, was for ever ill the highlands. Never for an instant did he abate one jot of bis nationality or his patriotism. Mountain might divide him from his home, and the waste of seas, but liis home was still the lone shieling ,and though he might have to seek his bread abroad it was as a wayfarer and not as a sojourner. How could a man who pro-fc-laiimed himself so emphatically a guest be thought to have covetous designs of the land of his host? Thus was created the great delusion that the sole ambition of the Scot was to earn sufficient to take himself back to Scotland, alive or dead. And it explained, or seemed to explain, everything, even the fact that the only currency he was ever known to spend freely was Time.

A great statesman once said that ''very visitor to England was welcome because invariably bo brought a gift of some kind; and when it was objected that this was not true of the Scot be replied that, after all, the Scot always brought a friend. What the statesman did not realise was that in uttering this profound truth be was explaining how easily the conquest of his country bad been achieved because in allowing himself to be made the butt of an easy joke the Scot was disruling the English, and the friend that he always brought helped in the task of effective occupation.

Well, the delusion is shattered, but too late to give the Englishman a chance to recover his lost possessions. The early Scottish invader did not know the brand of tobacco he smoked because lie was too polite to ask but the time came when he did not need to ask, and the joke is now on tlm Englishman. For all tha-t we shal 1 be disappointed if either Mir MacDonald or the Archbishop sheds the national mantle of humility. They W, D advertise their nationality by their accent to the end of tlio chapter, thev will conceal genmous hearts behind a mask of niggardliness, and their last recorded words will be the pious wisli that they may be spared to end tbeil- - in their Highland homes.