* The above article, from the pen of the Rev. Duncan Cameron, Kilsyth, appeared in the “Glasgow Weekly Herald” (26th June), and is reprinted here by permission.—Editor.
THERE is a growing uneasiness among Scottish people that things are not quite well with their race. Those of them who live in the industrial area see with their own eyes how the numbers of alien people are steadily increasing, while they know that every week some of the ablest and most ambitious of their young folk are leaving their village or town. The columns of our great daily and evening newspapers reflect the increasing concern, and even the General Assemblies of the Scottish Churches are beginning to take action, and are asking for interviews with the Government with regard to the preservation of the Scottish race in their native land.
Is there real cause for any alarm? The object of this article is to show that there is, and that there is urgent reason why action should be taken at as early a date as possible.
The total population of Scotland is about 4,800,000, and of this number about 700,000 are of Irish Roman Catholic descent. We have, besides, in our country many Orangemen, but we accept them as we would accept Scotsmen returning from America or Australia. They are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. They intermarry with the native-born Scot, and are speedily assimilated with the race from which they sprang. It is not so with the emigrants from the Irish Free State. Their faith and their traditions and ideals separate them from the Scottish people. Their religious leaders insist upon having separate schools for their children; they build clubs and institutes intended for their people alone; their men who reach the position of foreman or manager engage only workmen of their own race and faith; the people themselves tend to live in communities apart from the Scottish folk, and, though they talk English with the accent of Motherwell or Glasgow, they are at heart Irish and not Scottish.
Some one may find comfort in the fact that, after all, the Scots are still seven to one Irishman in Scotland. There would be some consolation in this if it were true that the increase of the Scottish is keeping pace with the increase of the Irish population. But unfortunately, this is far from being the case. In 1890 there were 338,643 Irish Roman Catholics in Scotland. To-day there are about 700,000. This means that in thirty-five years the Irish Roman Catholic population in Scotland has at least doubled. In 1890 there were 3,686,000 Scotsmen in Scotland, and in 1926 the number had increased to only 4,100,000. Had the Scottish rate of increase been equal to that of the Irish, we should have about 7,300,000 Scots in Scotland to-day. As a matter of fact, while the alien Irish population in Scotland doubled its numbers in 35 years, the Scots have increased their number since 1891 by only one-ninth.
There is, of course, a reason for this grievous state of affairs. Irish parents are taught by their priests to have as large families as possible. It does not matter whether the mother is able to bear the strain or not. It is of no importance that the wages of the father should be sufficient to feed and clothe the children. Local Authorities will feed and clothe them or, if need be, charity will support them. “Let us have babies,” says the priest; “babies will achieve our great ambition of making Scotland a Catholic country.”
But it is not their higher birth-rate that accounts mainly for the rapid increase of the Irish Roman Catholic population in Scotland. The chief explanation is the emigration of the Scots. From 1921 to 1926, between 250,000 and 300,000 young Scots left Scotland. Had they remained at home, they would have been fathers and mothers of fine vigorous Scottish children. But now they have made their homes in the Dominions and in America, and their children are growing up far away from the cradle of their race. Thus it comes that, although the Irish in Scotland are only one-seventh of the entire population, one-fifth of the children born in Scotland in 1925 were of Irish Roman Catholic extraction. Coming to Glasgow we find that, in 1914, 7391 children were born of Irish R.C. parents, or 25 per cent. of the total number of children born in the city; in 1924, 7231 children were born of Irish R.C. parents, or $28\frac{1}{2}$ per cent. of the total births—always the same steady persistent increase of Irish child life and the same steady decline in the numbers of Scottish children. In the twenty-three years from 1901 to 1924, the marriages of Irish Roman Catholic couples had increased by 40 per cent., and during the same period the marriages of Scottish couples had decreased by 1 per cent. Little wonder that the total population of Scotland since 1923—when the decrease was 3356—has been steadily going down. In Glasgow alone, between 1919 and 1923, the decrease of the Scottish school children has been 10,000.
Meanwhile, as the records of the Roman Catholic Directory show, the Irish section of the population rapidly increases. Our young people emigrate; the young people of the alien race are taught to remain at home. The priest preaches to them that they should not emigrate. Scotland will be theirs if they do not emigrate. Let the Scots emigrate. Scotland is a big prize. It is worth waiting for. In history it has a great name and a big place, in the Empire it plays a mighty part, and in the United Kingdom it is a lever to win a yet greater prize—England.
The army of occupation in Scotland is multiplying every year, and receives reinforcements by every steamer that comes across St George’s Channel. Last year, about 9000 Irish people came from the Free State to settle in Scotland. The Free State will never support a large population. No other country wishes the redundant population of Southern Ireland. The United States, more far-seeing and less quixotic than we, has almost barred the door against them. This year 28,367 Irish people are allowed to settle in America. Next year only 8000 are to be allowed to make their homes in the United States. On the other hand, the number of people from England and Scotland allowed a settlement in America is being increased from 34,000 in 1926 to 83,000 in 1927.
Many of our Scottish folk have already gone to the United States. Times are bad in Scotland, and the outlook is very dark. America is opening her doors wide to welcome our sons and daughters. None will be more acceptable than they. Positions will be thrown into their hands and they will prosper. Many will make fortunes, and not a few will achieve fame. But what of the land where their ancestors lived and struggled and suffered. Unless we bestir ourselves, it will pass inevitably and with increasing rapidity into the possession of a race that other countries reject—a race that is not worthy to tread upon the paths trodden by generations of men and women who made the country great and gave it a high place among the peoples of the earth.
Can anything be done to save the Scottish race? This question can only be answered by discovering reasons for the departure of our population from Scotland. There is no doubt that the employers of labour are to a very large extent responsible for the tragic position of our country. They foolishly sacrificed their nationality and their faith for the sake of wealth earned by cheap labour. It was a ruinous and short-sighted policy. Irishmen provide nearly one-half of the criminals of Scotland, and the upkeep of our jails is a burden on the community, just as the maintenance of a large police force is. The clearing of our slums has involved—and will involve—the country in heavy expenditure. The denizens of our slums are largely Irish. Irishmen, too, monopolise our charities and fill our hospitals, and yet the contribution of the Roman Catholic Church—embracing one-fourth of the population of Glasgow—to Hospital “Sunday” Fund was in 1925 only £416, while that of the United Free Church was £5000. Irish dominate our great trades unions, and are the prime movers in all our industrial disputes. They are ignorant and excitable, and an admirable fuel for the fire of the wild effusions of any revolutionary fanatic.
If the Scottish working classes become a minority in the industrial area, and the Irish working classes gain municipal, parochial, and county predominance, then the middle classes and the captains of industry will be at the mercy of an Irish proletariat who will not hesitate to lay intolerable burdens upon them through the rating of local authorities.
We require a more robust spirit of patriotism among our people. The Scottish race is worth preserving. It is one of the strongest and most capable in the world. Poor beyond words is the spirit of that Scot who does not wish to carry on with strong hands the glorious traditions of the people from whom he has sprung.
You ask—What can we do? We can say to the United Kingdom—we can say to the Empire—“Whatever else may happen, Scottish men should not be driven out of their native land, and these three things we ask and shall insist upon:—(1) Emigration from outside the United Kingdom—and this means from the Irish Free State—must be regulated. (2) Scottish jobs must go in the first place to Scottish men. (3) Alien people who have not acquired a settlement in Scotland—and this means a continuous residence of three years in one parish—and who seek public relief shall be transported to the place of their domicile.”
If Scottish lads died in the Great War by tens of thousands for the sake of their country, why should not their brothers and sons live in Scotland to keep the sacred land—for to us surely it is sacred—for their own kith and kin?