SCOTLAND OVERLOOKED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 November 1941, Page 2

SCOTLAND OVERLOOKED

PART IN WAR NOT MADE KNOWN. ■ COMPLAINT OF IGNORANCE OVERSEAS. A strong protest against: “The almost total exclusion (from the warnews) of Scotland and the part she is playing in this awful war” is made by a correspondent who writes to the “Weekly Scotsman,” of Edinburgh, from Kansas City, U.S.A. “When I discovered the fact several months ago,” the correspondent observes, “I was very much astonished, but on discussing the war situation with a live-wire business man, only eight weeks ago, when he remarked on learning that I was from Scotland, ‘But Scotland isn’t in this war,’ my Scottish blood sure got to boiling point. ‘Well,” he continued, ‘you never see it mentioned in the papers, or hear of it on the radio.’ “As that was the truth —and still is —I admitted he was not to blame and "oon put him right. “Being an instructor in the surgical dressings department of the Kansas City 'chapter of the Red Cross, I come in contact with women of all nationalities and have found that only those with relatives or friends in Scotland really know she is in this war! “But it is not at all surprising as it is here in America as in Australia, ‘England this and that.’ . .. . We hear and read about the English Fleet; Mr Churchill, England’s Prime Minister; the King and Queen of England. When a Scot wins distinction and honours he is called British, but when an Englishman excells in anything, no matter in what line, the papers and radio proclaim him English! “Now we Scots (I lived, my first forty-two years in Edinburgh) have no desire to take from the English one iota of glory for any honours honestly won by them. All we want is for them to ‘give honour to whom honour is due.’ “This cause for amazement seems very general. A few weeks ago I met a young University student who showed great interest in Scotland and plied me with innumerable questions about it But what surprised her most was that people in that country speak the English language and that it is taught in all the schools.”