Читать книгу The Green Hills Far Away - James William Barke - Страница 6

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It had been borne in on me for years that, outside of Scotland and the Clan and Scottish societies of the Empire and America, Scotland was no more than a name. Even the late Ramsay MacDonald who liked to think of himself as being Scottish was seldom taken at face value: the world knew of him as the English Prime Minister. Sir James Matthew Barrie’s rare visits to his native land were seldom recorded outside the Scottish press—which was perhaps as it should have been.

It is rather curious and surprising on the superficial face of it. Scotland which has done so much for the British Empire has not achieved anything like the world fame of Ireland.

All the world knows the Irish. Even Bernard Shaw who was only Irish by the accident of birth (and who indeed is English of the English) is universally known as the most brilliant and witty of all the brilliant and witty Irish. But the Scots have not been able to retain one of her greatest sons, Walter Scott: he stands a landmark in English literature. And though Auld Lang Syne reverberates round the world we have only been able to retain Robert Burns because he wrote in the most foreign of all foreign languages—Braid Scots.

The truth is—the Scots have lost their nationhood. Maybe the first stage was when Calum of the Big Head married an English queen and Anglicised the Gaelic court. Or maybe it was when the Anglo-Norman adventurer Robert de Brus defeated the Scotland of William Wallace and, after double-crossing his Southern friends, routed them at Bannockburn and planted the Scottish Crown firmly on his own head. The fact is that 1314 led to the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when Jamie the Saxth of Scotland became James the First of Britain and went south of the Border, never to return. A further decisive step that led to Scotland’s loss of her nationhood was the Union of Parliaments in 1707, against the overwhelming desire of the people. The Scots made their last physical stand in 1745 on Culloden Moor and drained their blood on the heather.

After that came Butcher Cumberland and General Wade. Scotland was brought firmly to heel and ruthlessly subjugated to the rule of the dominant partner. The industrial revolution completed her death and transfiguration from nationhood to the province of North Britain: a combination of grouse moor and shipbuilding yard with a few lengths of tweed, a gallon or so of whisky and a ricketty ‘Scotch’ comedian or comic singer thrown in.

The Anglicisation of Scotland proceeded apace with the growth of industrialisation. Very soon appeared a type of Scot, the finished product of this Anglicisation. He knew nothing of nationhood and he strove to obliterate his nationality. The more ambitious of them went south of the Border or over the seas. The type is characterised by such figures as Ramsay MacDonald, J. M. Barrie, Andrew Carnegie, Hector MacDonald, R. L. Stevenson, Frederick Lamond ...

It was the common people of Scotland—ploughmen, farmers, fishermen, coal miners and the like—who did not completely lose their sense of nationality. Indeed, considering the terrific forces of coercion and propaganda brought to bear against Scotland, it is surprising that the sense of nationhood has not been completely wiped out.

The English press barons control her public prints: her houses of entertainment are saturated with the culture of Hollywood. A culture so potent and vigorous that Elstree cannot modify it. Her educational system is thoroughly Anglicised. The broadcasting apparatus is designated as ‘regional.’ (Over this regional apparatus a piobaireachd is broadcast about once a year!)

Hardly anything of native Scottish culture survives. Writers, musicians, poets, painters and scientists who would be true to their deepest inspiration and faithful to their most valid experiences have to fight a grim battle of misunderstanding and neglect.

There is not a genuine native Scottish artist who has not to depend for his livelihood and success on the favour of English critics. Gone indeed are the days of English bards and ‘Scotch’ reviewers.

Now English critics are kind and generous and their intentions are almost always honourable. They are, often as not, extravagant in their acclaim of ‘regional’ Scottish culture. They are not to be blamed for the fact that they are English. And since the brand of home critics are but their pale (and often puny) echo it is not to be wondered that the Scots artists are glad of the attention the English critics so generously bestow on them.

But the fact remains that the English critics are, to the native Scots artist, English critics. He often wearies for his artistic birthright—the praise and censure—above all the understanding—of the native Scottish critic.

For there is something about the Scot—his combined racial characteristics—that differentiates him from his English brother and sister.

True there are not so many Scots now in Scotland. The denationalisation of the Scot has gone both deep and broad. But if the Scot is to survive as an integrated being, if he is to add something to the storehouse of world culture and human learning—if Scotland is to add her shape and line to the patchwork quilt of human brotherhood (and my case is that the quilt of that ultimate human brotherhood will be all the poorer without her distinctive contribution), then Scotland will have to regain her nationhood and base her institutions in harmony with her deepest historic and racial characteristics and go forward to her enrichment (and the greater glory of mankind) on that basis.

The cultural products of Fleet Street and Hollywood and regional broadcasting are turning sour in our stomachs. As a staple diet it is deficient of essential national vitamins; and without the vitamins of national integrity and self respect we are doomed to spiritual dyspepsia, mental malnutrition and physical decay.

The signs of these grave disorders are indeed heavily upon us.