CHAPTER VI.

SCOTLAND AND IRELAND.

I. SCOTLAND.

THE history of Scotland during this eventful year was even more interwoven than usual with that of Great Britain in general. The war and the land and suffragist agitation affected the whole country alike, though no general scheme of agrarian reform for Scotland was yet put forth by semi-official Liberalism. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, stimulated the controversy by his attacks on the Duke of Sutherland and others (p. 14), and drew from Mr. Munro Ferguson, M.P., the notable declaration (at Inverness, Jan. 3) that if the 250,000l. spent on reclamation by the third Duke of Sutherland had been devoted to afforestation, the land would now be worth millions. The Chancellor also managed to placate the "single taxers" (p. 13), who were strong north of the Tweed. As in England, it was complained that the creation of small holdings did not proceed with sufficient rapidity, and a Bill promoted by unofficial Liberals and designed to improve the machinery of the Act of 1911, which passed its second reading in the Commons on March 13 and got through a Standing Committee, was eventually dropped for want of time. The debate on the Government of Scotland Bill (May 15, p. 104) was notable for the marked difference of opinion among its supporters regarding women's suffrage. The serious deficiency of housing accommodation for the workmen employed by the Government at Rosyth excited severe comment in both Houses and was a factor in the introduction of the first Housing Bill (p. 209). Two minor legal reforms affecting land should perhaps be mentioned: the Entails (Scotland) Act and the Feudal Casualties (Scotland) Act, making highly technical, but important, changes in the Scottish law of real property.

The movement for reunion of the two great Presbyterian Churches made further progress. Early in May the Union Committee of the Established Church issued a draft constitution as a basis for discussion. It consisted of nine articles, and it specifically defined the creed of the Church of Scotland, and declared that that Church adhered to the principles of the Protestant Reformation and of the Westminster Confession of Faith, but reserved the right to modify the expression of the Confession and to interpret the constitution of the Church, subject always to agreement with the Word of God and the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. It claimed continuity with the historical Church of Scotland recognised in the Act of Union, and it explicitly declared that the Presbyterian form of Church government was the only form for that Church.

It recognised that the nation as a body should render homage to God and promote His Kingdom; but it expressly claimed liberty for the Church in things spiritual. A minority Report, signed by sixteen members out of 100, proposed to define the doctrine of the Church finally and more precisely, and to insist on the principle of Establishment. In the General Assembly, however (May 26), only about half a dozen members opposed the acceptance of the Report of the majority. The United Free Church Assembly, on the other hand, authorised its Committee to continue conference with the Church of Scotland; and an amendment, in effect postulating Disestablishment as a necessary preliminary to the union of the two Churches, was supported by only fifty or sixty members in an assemblage numbering about a thousand. On both sides, therefore, the extremists were diminishing, and the old cries were losing their force.

In February a Report of the Departmental Committee on Sea Fisheries (Cd. 7221) recommended the abolition or modification of the existing Fishery Board, and the development of the fisheries by various means, including the organisation of a Statistical and Intelligence Department, the employment of a chemist to study fish curing and of representatives in foreign markets, instruction in the habits of fishes and the action of fishing gear, and in motor-boat engineering, with a nautical course for boys in elementary schools. It did not favour State loans for fishermen.

The war, as in England, considerably affected the east coast, partly through the apprehension of naval and air raids and the excitement caused by allegations of espionage and aid rendered by alien residents to the enemy (pp. 231, 239), and, more substantially, by the interference with coasting traffic, with the export of coal, with the fisheries, and, most of all, with the trade in cured herrings, through the total closing of the German market and the difficulties of access to those of the other countries of Northern Europe. The embarrassment of the traders was partly relieved by the Courts (Emergency Powers) Act (p. 196). On the moors shooting was all but suspended; and tourists were few. As in England, labour disputes were hastily composed; the coal-owners abandoned their demand for a reduction of 1s. daily in the miners' wages, and the threat of a general stoppage of work was withdrawn. A pending strike of marine engineers was given up, as were also a host of minor conflicts. "Business as

usual" was the popular motto, as in England; and recruiting was active. No figures of its progress were available, but the controversy as to the propriety of a continuance of football-of which there were said to be about 10,000 professional playersarose much earlier than in England, and, under the advice of the War Office, the abandonment of matches was much more extensive (p. 247).

Trade and industry were variously affected by the war.

On

the Clyde a decline in the shipbuilding output was inevitable after the enormous production of 1913, but many orders were in hand, and though there was some slackening of work, there was no unemployment during the seven months of peace. On the outbreak of the war, three yards, those of Messrs. John Brown & Co., William Beardmore & Co., and the Fairfield Engineering & Shipbuilding Company, were entirely devoted to naval work, and several other firms were largely engaged in this likewise. Statistics of it were, of course, unattainable, but employment was abundant; and the output of mercantile shipping for the year was 307 vessels, aggregating 460,258 tons against 370, aggregating 756,975 tons in 1913. The most notable vessels were the geared turbine twinscrew Cunarder Transylvania, 14,300 tons, built by Scott's Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Greenock; the Anchor liner Tuscania, of similar size and engine construction, built by Alex. Stephen & Son, Linthouse; and the P. and O. liner Kaisar-iHind, 11,430 tons, built by Laird & Co., Greenock. As soon as the war began to look more hopeful for the Allies, new orders came, the execution of which would only be delayed by want of men. The east coast yards produced about the same tonnage as in 1913.

Of other trades a brief mention must suffice. The export of coal decreased by about 15 per cent., chiefly through the closing of the German, Austrian and Russian markets by the war. The iron and steel trade, on the other hand, was stimulated through the removal of German competition. The mineral oil trade was greatly upset by loss of markets abroad and diminished consumption by reduction of lighting and interruption of fishing, which was largely carried on by motor boats. The jute trade declined from a height previously unattained to an unusually low level, owing to the war and to restrictions on the export of yarns. The linen trade also fell off greatly. The tweed trade found compensation for the loss of the German and Austrian markets in the demand for khaki cloth for the troops.

II. IRELAND.

The first few weeks of the year saw the decay of the Dublin strike, and the conclusion of the inquiries which were its outcome into the conduct of the police and the conditions of housing in the poorest quarters of the Irish capital. The strike itself practically collapsed on January 19, with the return to work of many dockers and the reopening of the works of the Dublin Tramways Company, which had remained closed for nearly five months. The Commission of Inquiry into the conduct of the police held its first sitting on January 5. As it consisted only of two King's Counsel, its composition was regarded as unsatisfactory by trade unionists alike in Ireland and in Great Britain; and there was an angry scene on January 8, when Mr. Handel Booth, M.P. (Ponte

fract), who had seen the riot in August, 1913, and was permitted to cross-examine the witnesses, withdrew altogether, after a dispute with the counsel for the police. But the evidence showed that the riots had been organised, and the Commission reported to that effect, exonerating the police force generally, while admitting that some few constables had been guilty of assault and unjustifiable violence. The subject was debated on the Address (p. 30), but the Labour party declined to risk defeating the Government.

The Report of the Housing Inquiry Committee (A.R., 1913, p. 268) proved to be a very severe condemnation of the condition of the Dublin slums and of the conduct of the Corporation, some of whose members owned tenement property. Existing legislation, it declared, was neglected or abused. It condemned both the actual tenement system and the condition of the small houses, and held that every working-class family should be provided with a self-contained dwelling admitting of the separation of the sexes. It estimated that at least 14,000 new houses or dwellings were required, and it recommended, inter alia, State aid for rebuilding.

Such questions had, of course, to be left to be dealt with by a Home Rule Parliament; and this, when the year closed, was practically assured at the termination of the war, though the position of the Ulster Unionist constituencies and the precise extent of the Home Rule area were still undetermined.

The conflict has been so fully described in previous chapters that only a summary of it is needed here. Though the Nationalists ignored Mr. O'Brien's challenge at Cork (p. 6), the tendency to compromise manifested in such suggestions as those of Mr. F. S. Oliver, Sir Horace Plunkett, and many other individual publicists (p. 18), was further emphasised by the King's Speech and the debate on the Address, and found practical expression in the promise of an Amending Bill (March 9). But the Unionist apprehensions aroused through the postponement of any statement of its details, and the expectation that force would ultimately be used to overcome the resistance of Ulster, combined with the misunderstanding of the military measures contemplated by the Government to set up a grave, though temporary, danger. The debate on the second reading of the Home Rule Bill, however, further exhibited the tendency to compromise and the acceptance by the Unionists of some form of Home Rule as inevitable. The fanatics among the Ulster Unionists, too, were warned against expecting aid from Germany (p. 75), a warning, however, afterwards discredited by the conduct of the war by the German Government. The effect of the allegations as to the plot against Ulster, which were renewed in April, was considerably weakened by the gun-running from the Fanny (p. 84), which was followed by further negotiations, or approaches to negotiations, between the Unionist leaders and the Ministry with a view to the

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partial or total exclusion of Ulster from the operation of the Bill, Agitation, meanwhile, was continued by the Unionists-perhaps mainly as an element in driving the bargain-and roused a counter-agitation among the Liberal rank and file. Meanwhile

the Irish Volunteer force had been growing, and the capture of the control of it by the Nationalist leaders converted it into a new and unexpected obstacle to the projected resistance of the Ulster Volunteers to the realisation of the Home Rule scheme. The Amending Bill (June 23, p. 135) provided for the optional and temporary exclusion of such Ulster counties as might desire to avail themselves of its provisions; but this measure was transformed by the House of Lords so as permanently to exclude the whole of Ulster from the operation of the Home Rule Bill-a solution which admittedly satisfied nobody, and which would certainly have been rejected by the House of Commons. Hence the Conference (p. 158) ascribed, rightly or wrongly, to the intervention of the King; but, after greatly narrowing (it was believed) the margin of difference, it reached a deadlock.

Just at this time Sir Horace Plunkett, well known for his promotion of co-operation in Ireland, and hitherto ranking as a moderate Unionist, published a pamphlet entitled "The Better Way; an Appeal to Ulster not to Desert Ireland," in which he declared that Home Rule was inevitable and even desirable, that it would not mean "Rome Rule," and that the exclusion of Ulster was bad in principle and might probably injure the industry and commerce of the province. Let Ulstermen, he urged, give Home Rule a chance. He restated his scheme for the inclusion of Ulster subject to an option of future withdrawal, and suggested a conference of Irishmen on the Home Rule Bill, and a scheme for combining the two sets of Volunteers in a Territorial Force.

Under other conditions, this plea from so high an authority might have proved very powerful; but its appearance was immediately followed by the failure of the Conference, and the situation was made much worse two days later by the Nationalist gun-running (July 26) and the affray in Dublin between the crowd and the police and troops (p. 162).

The situation was saved, however, by the European crisis. Doubtless the German Government counted on civil strife to paralyse British efforts at resistance to its schemes. But directly war became probable the Amending Bill was postponed; the Opposition leaders assured the Government of their support (p. 249); Mr. Redmond promised that the Nationalist Volunteers would cooperate with those of Ulster in defending Ireland, and assured the Government that it had the Nationalists' full confidence; and the contending political parties, with few exceptions, promptly rallied to the defence of the Kingdom and the Empire. The Nationalist and Unionist leaders alike used all their influence to persuade their