INDUSTRIAL SCOTLAND IS 100 YEARS OUT-OF-DATE

OLD-FASHIONED PRODUCTS FIND NO DEMAND TO-DAY
Front Our Scottish Correspondent If you want to learn something about the industrial situation in Scotland at the present time you cannot do better than procure two publications—both entitled Scotland's Industrial Future—one a pamphlet by Dr. James A. Bowie, Principal of the Dundee School of Economics, and issued by the Saltire Society ; the other being the latest report of the Scottish Economic Committee.
Not only the town drained the countryside of its people, but there was that steady stream of emigration which went on until about 1931. During the years 1921-31 no fewer than 392,000 people left the country. Since 1861 both the birth and death rates in Scotland have been halved, and the population is dropping at a steady rate.
Out of Date Since 1921 there has been cont i n u o u s serious unemployment throughout Scotland, and Dr. Bowie reminds us that " this is fundamentally due to the fact that our large industries are still those nineteenth-century ones that grew great in the period of international trade, " Times have changed, export trade is severely restricted, the growing points of factory production are no longer the old industries, and Scotland has got no considerable share of the newer developments. The motor car, the aeroplane, the chemical industry, the plastic, the rubber, the radio, the cinema, the artificial silk industries have all been developed south of the Border, and Scotland in the main has been left behind. Moreover, the newer consumer industries, ministering to the domestic market and catering for the higher standard of living of those in full employment, have also tended to settle in the south."
Too Much Dependent on Export Trade
All these facts are brought out more thoroughly in the 145-page Report of the Economic Committee, in which each industry is dealt with. Special emphasis is laid on the fact that Scotland has always depended to a large extent on the export market, and that the difficulties of
this market have particularly affected the coal, textile and engineering trades since the war. It is also made clear that the post-war depression in the Industrial belt of the Lowlands, and the persistence of it, are largely due to (a) the contraction in international trade, (b) the effect of this on shipbuilding, and (c) the virtual cessation, over a period of years, of armament orders.
"We are likewise reminded that these heavy industries and their ancillary trades have become increasingly mechanised, so that even when working at full pressure they will not be able again to absorb the same amount of labour.
Dr. Bowie asks why there have been so few new industrial developments in Scotland since the war. He attributes this to various causes :
1. A definite lack of adaptability on the part of Scottish industrialists. He remarks that " Scotland has produced as good scientists as any country in the world, but she has always been modestly content with producing them, she does not employ them." And the industries which are now creating new employment are all the results of scientific research. " There are industries yet unborn that could change the face of Scotland, but we make no effort to catch them." So the scientific brains have to find work in the south.
2. There is that curious lack of a co-operative spirit in Scotsmen, which results in an inability for team-work in any shape or form. "Competition, secretiveness, laissez faire, individualism and the tortoise's instinct to hold fast to the ground lest it be thrown on its back are the most prominent characteristics " in Scottish business methods, writes the Principal of the Dundee School of Economics.
3. He also points out the absence of adequate facilities for mating capital with industry in this country, maintaining that " the machinery for putting money on the results of the 3.30 or for gambling on football results, is infinitely better developed than the mechanism for putting capital at the disposal of new inventions."
4. But even worse than this has been the long neglect of Scotland by the State; the Government having artificially and often unwittingly furthered the interests of England as against Scotland. The creation of the big trading estates round London is one example of this policy. All over England towns are offering inducements to firms building new factories in view of powers granted under the Special Areas (Amendment) Act, 1937, but according to Dr. Bowie no Scottish. town has yet sought these powers.
Large Scale Assistance Needed The Economic Committee has elaborate schemes for a planned development of Scottish industries, but they will come to nothing unless Government assistance is forthcoming on a large scale.
Meanwhile the unemployment in Scotland shows no signs of a permanent reduction, in spite of the placing of Government orders in shipbuilding and certain other heavy industries as the result of the Defence programme. It is the establishment of light industries all over Scotland and not only in that small area roughly situated between Edinburgh and Ayr, Stirling and Lanark, which is the only cure for our economic problems. The foreign markets may have been lost for ever; it is the ,home markets which must be found.
" Six Times Worse Than in England "
" One thing is certain," writes Dr. Bowie. "If Scotsmen do nothing, nothing will be done.
" Are we so selfish or so craven that we can sit idly by, like fools or gentlemen, and see 200,000 of our fellowScotsmen condemned to permanent idleness? And condemned to eke out their bleak outlawry under conditions six times worse than in England.
"Unless Scotland wakes up from her lethargy and slumber her future as an industrial nation is dark indeed."
True, a beginning has been made, and signs of a revival are the activities of such private organisations as the Scottish Development Council, the Economic Committee, the Saltire Society, the Travel Association, the business clubs, and, if one dare mention it—the Scottish National Party! All of them have the same end in view and aim at a policy of redemption for this country.
But until Scotland can organise her needs and act in unison there will be no progress. So long as the present system of granting unemployment benefit continues we are not compelled to face the facts and take action.
In the words of Dr. Bowie : "The State is engaged in sweeping the industrial mesa under the bed " with the result that the business community is lulled to sleep from the effects of the smoothness and efficiency with which skilled Government officials administer this " dope " to our unemployed men and women.
Our native vigour is being slowly undermined while vast sums of money are being spent on the relief of democracies in Central Europe, while at the same time the democracy of Scotland loafs around the street corners or stands in long queues outside the " buroo " (as we term the Labour Exchange in this country!) The Corporate Voice
What is needed to-day in Scotland is a corporate voice to make known the needs of her people, not merely a few isolated voices crying in the wilderness, like Dr. Bowie, but he feels this must wait unless "there sweeps over Scotland, like a forest fire, a new fervour of the spirit."
" Only when old men shall see visions and young men dream dreams of a new Scotland, united and standing four-square in a troubled world, not in order to withdraw or cultivate antagonisms, but to contribute to the appeasement among peoples her own distinctive genius for good neighbourliness. The time is not yet, but it is coming."
And such is also the opinion of the Scottish Economic Committee, although expressed in more guarded phraseology.