The North Rises Again

Scots wha hae'd jubilantly with Highland flings late into the bleak November night. Outside the town hall of Hamilton, a Lowlands town of 47,341, the bagpipes skirled We Shall Overcome. Rallying the clans with a cry of "Put Scotland first!," a lawyer and mother of three, Mrs. Winifred Ewing, 38, had just done what everyone considered impossible. In a special by-election, she had won a seat long so safe for Labor that the party took it by a 16,576 majority the last time around. Reversing that margin to win by 1,799 votes, Mrs. Ewing became the first member of the Scottish National Party to go to Britain's Parliament since 1945. "Now it's home rule by 1970," she said, advocating independence for Scotland inside the Commonwealth and a seat in the United Nations betwixt Saudi Arabia and Senegal.

Mrs. Ewing may have to bide a wee longer before the 1707 Act of Union making England and Scotland one nation is dissolved. National Party members number an insignificant 60,000 of Scotland's 4,800,000 inhabitants, but they have doubled in strength each year since 1963. Their growing following is symptomatic of the stirrings within the realm that 19th century English Clergyman-Critic Sydney Smith dismissed contemptuously as "that garret of the earth, that knuckle-end of England, that land of Calvin, oat-cakes and sulphur." After dour decades of stagnation, the Scots are surging forward with a new spirit.

Reverse Drain. Spurring them onward is an economic resurgence that is freeing Scotland from past dependence on shipbuilding, coal and steel and catapulting it into the industries of tomorrow. Thanks to government pump priming and incentives for private investment, almost $1 billion in capital has flowed in since World War II, and Scotland has outpaced the rest of Britain in its industrial growth rate for three years. In Fife, for example, U.S. and British electronics manufacturers have built more than 100 new factories in a California-type complex along the Firth of Forth. Today Scotland turns out more electronic computers than any other country except the U.S.; Scots generate more electric power per capita with nuclear reactors than any other country.

The Scots are using their centuries-old cultural heritage and the undeniable attractions of their land as bait to at tract scientists and executives. They have thus managed to reverse the brain drain that traditionally drove Scotland's brightest sons to seek fortunes abroad.

A survey of Glasgow University graduates shows that only 20% intend to emigrate; five years ago, almost half planned to leave. "For the first time we are getting things right in Scotland," says Willie Ross, the former Ayrshire teacher who is Secretary of State for Scotland in Harold Wilson's Labor Cabinet. "Scotland is on the move at last."

Dire social ills, leftovers from Scotland's bleak years, will take more years to cure. Despite the impressive industrial growth, Scotland's unemployment is still roughly twice as high as in the rest of Britain. Glasgow's reeking slums, once termed "the vomit of industrial capitalism," still chill the soul, but with state aid they are being gradually replaced by "New Towns" such as prize-winning Cumbernauld on the windswept hills, where cars are banned from the center and homes look up at a huge, halfmile long concrete building that houses shops and apartments. Although Scottish Nationalists do not shout it aloud, the London government spends more in services for each Scot than it does for other Britons.

Northern Palms. This year, Scotland's rugged scenic beauties attracted 5,000,000 tourists who spent nearly $300 million. There is plenty in Scotland to attract holidaymakers and businessmen alike. Half an hour from Fife's new factories are yachting on the North Sea and golf at St. Andrews, Gleneagles and other legendary Scottish courses, where standing in line to tee off is unknown. A few miles farther are mountaineering in the Cairngorms, a handsome new ski center at Aviemore and free trout fishing in silvery Highland streams. Misty grey "smirr" may hang over Scotland's winter land scape, but there are palm trees far to the north at Ullapool, nurtured by the warming Gulf Stream.

Even the bluenose puritanism of Scotland's Calvinist "kirk" is thawing slowly. Scotswomen mindful of its strictures generally dress three years behind London, but the kilt is now joined by miniskirts and other mod fashions, which got their biggest boost when Glasgow-born Tailor John Stephen set up a shop in Carnaby Street. The Church of Scotland still keeps cinemas and pubs closed on the Sabbath, but Sunday drinkers no longer must sign the "bona fide book" at local hotels to certify that four hours' travel generated their thirst. The Scot still has his choice of more than 2,000 brands of Scotch whisky--and Scottish custom dictates that his drink must be larger by at least a good sip than the same money buys in the rest of Britain.

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