To the Editor of the "Norti-Cuina Dany News"
Sm,—I was very much touched on reading an article entitled "Desolation of the Highlands" which gave a very depressing picture of life for the working man in Scotland today, and I shall be grateful if you will grant sufficient space in your valued Paper to reproduce the salient points Of this article for the edification of the goodly number of Scotsmen in this city who would doubtless be extremely interested in them if they have not already been brought to their attention.
The following facts have been presented by the London Scots Self-Government Committee (Labour), and on its behalf Mr. Thomas Burns has produced a devastating picture entitled: "Plan for Scotland" which, it is stated, "deserves very wide circulation." Readers wishing to obtain the actual figures behind the following statements are asked kindly to refer to the October issue of the "Magazine Digest," page 12, wherein the article in question appears.
Here is a very brief description of Mr. Burns's picture of a Scotsman's life today 1. When he first comes into the world his mother is 80 per cent. more likely to die in giving birth to him than' the Englishman's mathe!
As an infant he is 25 per cent ore likely to die t child of the same age.
3. As a growing and all hiid, through his life, he is practically Certain never to have enough of the Tight sort of food to eat.
4. As a schoolboy he will rarely be really fit and. well.
5. As an adolescent of 18 his phy-pique is so poor that even a government made to get recruits for its new rearmament drive is forced to reject him. (In 1936 2 out of 3 were rejected As a full-grown man, all his life he will be dogged by ill-health.
7. When he seeks work he will find it anything from 75 per cent. to 100 per cent, more difficult to obtain than his English contemporary 3. When he is lucky enough to find work, he has to pay out of his wages 23s times more than the. English Working man on Poor Relief for his unemployed fellows, 9. When he is out of work he is lucky if he is not forced from his Scotland. country and his home to work outsit
whether in work or the ordinary Scotsman will have (o live in a slum or semislum.
"So much," concludes the article, "for the life of the Scot in the street under the Scottish Office and the Scottish Department of Health."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.