First Published: The
Vanguard, September 1920
Transcription\HTML Markup: Scottish Republican Socialist
Movement Archive in 2002 and David Walters
in 2003
Copyleft: John MacLean Internet Archive
(www.marx.org)1999, 2003. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute
this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
The poor old Glasgow Herald has seemingly got a nasty knock. Our comrade, R. Erskine of Mar… at a Sinn Fein demonstration in Trafalgar Square, London, to protest against the virtual imprisonment of Archbishop Mannix, stated that the Scottish Gael is preparing to overthrow “the English government” and to proclaim independence of Scotland. The G.H. stresses the fact that the Lothians were captured and peopled by Saxons, and that Scotland is well represented in the cabinet by Balfour, Bonar Law, Horne and Geddes. Readers will note that the first article from Comrade Erskine, in our hands before the testy spasm from “Auld Granny” amused the “middle class”, lays stress on the Lothian conquest by the Saxons; and readers do not require to be reminded of the great services rendered to Scotland by all the Scotsmen who ever went to the London Parliament! The final angry outburst of the G.H. reads thus: “We are discussing serious schemes for removing the local administration of Scotland from Westminster to Edinburgh, and we do not want to have their consideration interrupted by absurd caricatures of their meaning.” Someone might send for Graham Moffat: “Granny’s “ leaders will make him his fortune!
By the time this appears we expect to have in being a Scottish Communist Council of Action. Our vast audiences are catching up the idea already all right; and ideas win in the long run against ridicule and force. Put that in your pipe, “Granny”…. At the Highland Land League annual conference resolutions were passed in favour of public ownership of the land, economic rent to be paid to the government, of Scottish independence, and of support to the Highland raiders. There was general approval of communism under the control of the industrial workers, the fishermen, and the crofters and other land workers. J.MacLean was asked to second the independence resolution. Comrade MacRae, Highland Labour Party, spoke well for communism. The surprise of the evening was the fine fighting speech of Miss Cameron. A real Gaelic revival as well as a lowland revival must result.