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The quest for freedom
is different in kind from the pursuit of social and economic advantage
and every so often Nationalists have tried to devise some alternative
means of dealing with this nobler issue.
Sometimes the
suggestion is that we should somehow by-pass the election process with
its ambiguities and rival interpretations of. its results. Let us
instead have a test of public opinion on the single issue of Scottish
independence— a plebiscite, an opinion poll, a referendum if you will.
They’ve all been tried
and all have proved fruitless because those with the power to enforce
the result have never, had any wish to do so. Our pioneers committed
us to fighting elections, not because they were so stupid that they
didn’t appreciate the difficulties, but because without confrontation
at the polls the point of decision will never be reached.
The ultimate target —a
majority of parliamentary seats won giving us our mandate to claim
independence — was remote to say the least, but everyone realised that
long before that happened Labour would have stolen our purpose and
claimed it as their .own. They did it with devolution. Just listen to
the drivel about a lifetime of working for devolution now emanating
from those who obstructed anything of the sort for as long as
possible.
Meanwhile as our
painful years of progress passed, other tests of public opinion were
rejected. The Scottish Covenant attracted two million signatures and
was dismissed as irrelevant. If the Scots wish Home Rule they will
show their wishes in proper democratic fashion, through the ballot
box. So we were told. What could be plainer than that?
As time passed however
others saw that a referendum might take from them the burden of
decisions which might cost support in the country or might split their
party, and so the referendum, after great furious protests, became an
acceptable part of the parliamentary system after all. So it’s a
fairly recent device; and as applied to Scotland its merit is that our
devolution referendum makes it more difficult for future British
Governments to rat on the deal, though, if need be, rat they will.
So the current devolved
situation must prompt regret that nothing was done half a century ago
when the Convenant campaign could have brought us could have brought
us to the present position so much earlier. But there has always been
the real difficulty facing us which we have never readily
acknowledged.
We yearn for
independence, but who else does? No other party does, which should be
a discouraging thought for the well-intentioned who dream of
all-party, non-party, multi-party coalitions and alliances to carry us
to self-government.
Our problem is that the
Scots are not yearning for independence, not really. They might quite
like it, or so they say, at least while the question is being put to
them, but that is an emotion rather less intense than is needed to
move our cause forward. We have not persuaded our people, as our
leader has reminded us, to join us fully in our purposes. That is true
but please remember that it is all up to us because no one else has
the slightest intention of trying.
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