Scottish Rumblings

Scotland's armed resistance to her union with England ended in 1746, when the kilted army of Bonnie Prince Charlie was crushed at the Battle of Culloden. But Scottish nationalist yearnings never quite died away, and in the past five years the ancient Gaelic quest for independence has become a political force to reckon with. Founded in 1934, the once minuscule Scottish Nationalist Party gained 31% of the vote and eleven seats in Parliament at the 1974 elections, largely on the basis of a platform calling for more autonomy for Scotland and, eventually, full independence.

The size of the S.N.P. vote forced Prime Minister Harold Wilson's Labor Party to take note of these discontented rumblings from the north. Thus last week, Wilson, in the annual speech from the throne delivered by Queen Elizabeth, announced that his government planned to introduce legislation "devolving" some of the functions now carried out by Parliament to new regional assemblies in Scotland and Wales.

In theory, that promise should have been an occasion for rejoicing by the Scottish Nationalists. Instead, they were outraged. In a subsequent debate on the speech, Scottish M.P. Winifred Ewing dramatically walked out of the House of Commons, and Party Leader Donald Stewart accused Wilson of "a cynical betrayal of a clear electoral commitment to the people of Scotland." What irritated the S.N.P. was a kicker to Wilson's promise: the Prime Minister indicated that he hoped to have a lengthy national debate on the subject before presenting firm proposals to Commons sometime after next November.

Losing the Oil. Although other party leaders agreed with Wilson that such a debate made good political sense, the S.N.P. felt that Wilson was dragging his feet on the controversial issue. S.N.P. Whip Douglas Henderson warned that his party would seek the "right opportunity" to defeat the government in a vote of noconfidence, thereby forcing new elections. Although Labor has a paper-thin margin of one in the 635-member House, it is unlikely that the angry Scots can rally all the non-Labor M.P.s to bring the government down. In any case, it would not help much because they are even cooler to the Scots' cause than are many Laborites.

Many Englishmen are particularly worried about devolution for Scotland -Wales is less of a problem -since a semiautonomous sub-government in Edinburgh would eventually lay claim to most of the North Sea oil revenues that are counted upon to bail Britain out of the economic doldrums. On the other hand, if the legislation fails, Labor is in deep trouble: its command of Parliament depends on the vote of 41 Scottish M.P.s. According to one recent poll, 30% of Labor voters in Scotland will switch to another party -most of them to the Scottish Nationalists -if self-government is voted down.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.