Page:EB1922 - Volume 32.djvu/399

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
SCOTLAND
381

garded as mistaken even by many of his closest followers, who were inclining to believe that in forfeiting the vital factor of personal leadership the loss was greater than could be compen- sated for by any amount of intensification of expert knowledge. There was a growing tendency too to concentrate study and standardization on the inanimate side of industry, on machines, tools and equipment, on materials and their treatment, on handling methods and appliances, on labour-saving devices, rather than on speeding up and regulating the motions of the worker. The same distinction was seen in the attitude of Brit- ish labour leaders to Scientific Management. Among the more intellectual leaders the accumulation of more and more of the technical knowledge of an industry in the hands of the manage- ment and the more detailed regulation and instruction of the manual worker which results were recognized as inevitable. They were seen to be merely a continuation of the process of re- placing hand labour and hand skill by machinery. Such men accepted the need for the application of science to industry as far as the inanimate factors were concerned, and concentrated their antagonism against the treatment of the worker as mere impersonal mechanism.

By the end of the World War some 100-200 American under- takings, largely engineering concerns, had adopted Scientific Management in one or another of its forms, as a complete system. In Great Britain the number of such firms was perhaps one-tenth of those in America, and the positions in France and Germany were perhaps less advanced still. The influence of the movement, however, cannot be estimated by any such figures. For every concern that had adopted the system in its entirety there were 10 or 20 that had adopted portions of it, or had modified their previous methods of management under the influence of ideas first given prominence by the Scientific Management school. The conception of " the one best way," the belief that every act, every relation and every implement of industry is worthy of close and systematic study, has provided an inspiration and a stimulus to management methods in all industries and in every country, the effect of which can hardly be less than that of the introduction into industry of machinery a hundred years ago. (C. G. R.)


SCOTLAND (see 24.412*). The history of Scotland from 1910 to 1921 resolves itself largely into the effect of the World War (1914-9) and of the conclusion of peace upon industry and commerce. In the history of actual military operations, Scotland played, naturally, a small part, although for the first time in the history of Great Britain as a sea-power, the main activities of the fleet took place in Scottish waters. Zeppelins attacked Edinburgh and the E. coast on April 2 1916. On May 2, in the course of a raid which was upon an unusually large scale, but had very slight results, a Zeppelin (20) missed Edinburgh and sailed as far N. as Aberdeenshire, where it dropped bombs which fell harmlessly on fields. Another fruitless expedition to the S.E. of Scotland took place on Aug. 9 1916; the raiders got into thick weather and their bombs were dropped in rural areas. On May 15 1918, St. Kilda was bombarded by a German submarine and damage was done to the church and some other buildings. The surrender of the German fleet is the only other operation definitely associated with Scotland. German naval emissaries arrived in the Firth of Forth on Nov. 15 1918, and the surrender began on Nov. 21. It was in Scapa Flow that the crews of 70 German warships scuttled their ships on June 21 1919.

The part played by Scotland in supplying man-power and in providing munitions of war was worthy of the national tradition. The Scottish recruiting record in the period preceding the intro- duction of compulsory service will compare with that of any other portion of the United Kingdom, and Scottish industries, like those of England and Wales, were directed to the production of war material. The Clyde, naturally, took a large part in naval construction and repairs, and all over Scotland, munition fac- tories came into existence. In the naval warfare, the E. coast of Scotland was of great strategic importance.

Apart from the war and its effects, the ten years witnessed few important internal events or movements. Trade and com-

merce were frequently interrupted by strikes, but the only se- rious riots took place in Glasgow on Jan. 31 1919, when consid- erable damage was done to buildings. Political interests, before the war, pursued their traditional course, and in the general election of Dec. 1910, Scotland returned 58 Liberal, n Unionist, and 3 Labour or Socialist members. By the date of the Armistice, party politics had undergone a complete transformation, and, at the general election of Dec. 1918, Scotland, which by the Reform Act of 1918 received two additional members, returned 58 sup- porters of the Coalition, 7 Independent Liberals, 7 Labour rep- resentatives and 2 Independents. A feature of the period has been the large number of state visits paid by King George and Queen Mary. An Accession Court was held at Holyrood in June 1910, and, a year later, the King dedicated the new chapel of the Thistle in St. Giles's cathedral, Edinburgh. Royal visits to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Perth and Stirling took place in July 1914. During the war, the King paid some private visits to centres of munition industries, and the programme of state visits was resumed in July 1920, when the King and Queen held a Court at Holyrood, and in their yachts visited the Clyde dur- ing the regatta known as the " Clyde Fortnight."

In church affairs, the most important events have been the issue in 1910 of the final Report of the Royal Co'mmission ap- pointed under the Churches (Scotland) Act of 1905, allocating the property of the old Free Church between the United Free Church and the Free Church, and the series of negotiations for union between the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church, which became a matter of practical politics after the discussions in the Assemblies of 1912 and had advanced so far by 1919 that, on Dec. 17, the commission of the Assembly of the Church of Scotland agreed to approach the Government with a viey to carrying a bill through Parliament.

The recent growth of a keener appreciation of the value of historical records and monuments is illustrated by the enact- ment in 1913 of the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act, by the work done by the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments, originally appointed in 1908, and by the gift of four great historical buildings to the nation. In 1918, Lord Glenconner presented Dryburgh Abbey to the nation, and in the same year the Duke of Buccleuch followed his example by the gift of Melrose Abbey. In 1919, the Duke of Roxburghe made an arrangement with the Commissioners of Public Works and Buildings by which Kelso Abbey became a national monu- ment and is maintained by the State, and in 1920 Col. Hall Dempster placed Restenneth Priory (Forfarshire) in the charge of the Commissioners of Works for national guardianship and for the benefit of the nation. On the other hand, by an outrage attributed to suffragettes, Scotland lost on Feb. 26 1914 the church of Whitekirk (Haddingtonshire), one of the few beau- tiful pre-Reformation churches surviving.

Two important centenary celebrations took place in the period the quin-centenary of the foundation of the university of St. Andrews, held in 1911, when Lord Rosebery was installed as Lord Rector and made a famous oration, and the sex-cen- tenary of the victory of Bannockburn (June 24 1314), which was celebrated by a procession and a banquet at Stirling on June 27 1914, when Sir George Douglas delivered the address. The town council of Aberdeen commemorated the quin-centenary of the battle of Harlaw, fought in 1411, and the town council of Arbroath, in Sept. 1920, held a patriotic and religious service to celebrate the sex-centenary of a famous assertion of the independence of Scotland in a letter addressed to the Pope by a Parliament which met in the abbey at Arbroath in 1320.

More practical evidence of renewed interest in Scottish history was given by the success of the Scottish Historical Exhibition at Glasgow, opened by the Duke of Connaught in May 1911, the proceeds of which formed the main endowment of a Chair of Scottish History and Literature founded in the university of Glasgow in 1913.

The demand for some form of Scottish Home Rule has been insistently pressed by its advocates since 1910 but there has been no evidence of any wide-spread feeling on the topic, apart

These figures indicate the volume and page number of the previous article.