LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE SOURCES OF SCOTTISH DISCONTENT.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " 8rEcTaroa."1
Sra,—As one deeply interested, but a silent representative on the recent occasion of the great Scottish gathering, I think it may be as well to enlighten your readers in England as to some of the many grievances of misrule under which the Scotch are now suffering. The meeting itself was most remarkable, con- taining Peers and Provosts, lairds and merchants, advocates and writers, merchants and manufacturers, of all creeds and shades of political feeling and religious ideas. The meeting was unanimous in what it did audibly express, and there were many subjects not referred to purposely, because the national feeling is already stirred to its depths ; too much so for quiet discus- sion, when men so varying in their ideas were present. I think that I may safely affirm that the wiser men were not in favour of a new Secretary of State for Scotland. What we really re- quire is a Scottish Minister (an Under-Secretary of State in either House of Parliament will do perfectly well, if he be but a man of weight), to report to the Prime Minister or to the Queen's Chief Secretary of State for the Home Department. Such a Minister should be accessible to all classes of the com- munity, and should have authority over and be superior to the Board of Supervision, the Board of Lunacy, Ire.
The present Board of Supervision issue yearly a Blue-book ; what else they really do, it would be difficult to describe. They send two travelling Inspectors about Scotland, to overhaul the books of the Parochial Inspectors (Anglice, overseers), finding great fault if any is uncrossed, or any i has not a dot to it. But if a Parochial Board write to the Board of Super- vision for advice, the general reply is something like this :- "That the Board of Supervision declines to give a legal opinion; and the Parochial Board must consult their own lawyer." This system generates a waste of the ratepayers' money in useless litigation, much the same may be said of the Board of Lunacy, and it must be remembered that every parish through- out the length and breadth of Scotland is in direct correspond- ence with both these Boards.
If the present Scotch Members really represented the people of Scotland, one of them would long ago have moved for a Parliamentary Return, giving the names and salaries of the chairmen, members, and secretaries of those two Boards, stating the number of hours which each attended on each day that he really did attend. Then the Scotch feel also that while they contribute largely to the Imperial revenue, they are refused the outlay of necessary funds for national purposes, the reply from London being a direct negative from "my Lingens."
The Scotch Lord of the Treasury has no power over, nor is he listened to by the Permanent Secretary of the Treasury.
There is no doubt whatever that the Scottish public at large are suffering, and likely to suffer, from the best men joining the London Bar, the prizes for the Scottish Bar being too few and too meagre, and having been for some years gradually cur- tailed by the Treasury. The Superior Judges are ill paid. The Sheriffs Substitute are a set mostly of young, briefless advo- cates, paid as much as they are worth. But it would be far cheaper to institute resident County-Court Sheriffs, with a good salary, to which advocates of experience could be appointed, than the present system of a well-paid Sheriff for each county, who does very little, and his two substitutes, who often do too much, because they know so little of the world, and have had none of the wholesome chaff at the Bar in the Superior Courts.
Then there is the question of Inland Revenue. How very many persons escape taxation, because the Excise officers are so badly paid ; and being, on the whole, a very upright set of men, they are not encouraged for zeal in their duties ; and they are miserably underpaid, "my Lingens " of the Treasury always refusing any increment to their salaries.
There is deep-felt grievance about the small amount allotted by the Local Government Board of England at Whitehall to the Scotch counties, with regard to the quarter of a million road grant given by Mr. Gladstone (when Chancellor of the Ex- chequer), to the relief of the county-road ratepayers in Great Britain.
There can be no doubt that the county lunatic asylums are being more and more peopled and enlarged, because of the very bad and highly poisonous "f nail-oil whisky" now sold by the small grocers, most detrimental to the brains and the coats of
the stomachs of the consumers. Mr. Biggar, the Irish M.P., has, not without reason, complained of the deleterious effects of this bad (not malt) whisky, so largely imported from Scotland into Ireland. The Scotch would prefer all their whisky to be kept in bond for two years, under Inland-Revenue seals, before it is retailed. The retail price, of course, must be raised, to compensate for interest on locked-up capital. But the saving in the lunacy and criminal rates to the pockets of the rate- payers would be immense, as it is computed that in the course of twenty-four months the fusil oil vanishes, and its deleterious powers vanish likewise.
Then, again, there is the iniquitous and persecuting system of two or three irresponsible clerks at Whitehall, who are always sending threatening letters to poor Scotch lairds, for Crown dues, Crown Teinds, &c., which, from the bad manner in which these accounts at Whitehall are kept, they have neglected to look into for some forty or fifty years, either there or at the Crown Rents' Office in Edinburgh. But the persecuting inter- ference comes from the Office of her Majesty's Woods and Forests, in Whitehall Place, who claim all exemption from Treasury supervision.
One more grievance, and t have done ; the mode in which all Liberal Scotch Peers are prevented by the Act of Union from sitting in the House of Commons,—and, by the union of English (as well as Scotch) Tory Peers, are hindered from being elected Representative Peers. The real remedy for this latter grievance is mentioned in Sir Erskine May's "Con- stitutional History." That able author suggests the calling up to the House of Peers of the very few remaining Scotch Peers, as well as the Irish Peers up to 1707, the date of the Scottish
Previous page
