from the more general question of the adoption of a system of Devolution for the United Kingdom, a suggestion which re- ceived much parliamentary support in the years 1918-20.
Apart from the extensions of Edinburgh and Glasgow, the most important municipal event is the amalgamation, in 1920, of Motherwell (about 42,860 inhabitants) with Wishaw (about 27,484 inhabitants) to form a single municipality known as Motherwell and Wishaw.
Legislation. In addition to the emergency war legislation which affected Scotland equally with England the decade 1911-20 was marked by a series of important legislative enactments, intimately affecting the political and social life of the country. A vast change was made in the parliamentary electorate by the Representation of the People Act of 1918, which increased the number of voters (counties, burghs and universities) from 800,448 at the general election of Dec. 1910, to 2,211,178 at the general election held in Dec. 1918. The Fourth Reform Act (1918) not only made a wide extension of the franchise; it also, by its redistribution of the constituencies, severed the last link with the old tradition of Scottish parliamentary representation as it existed before the union. The shire ceased to be the unit of county representation, and the old Scottish system of separate burghal representation was abandoned. The burgesses had sat in the Scottish Par- liament, as a separate estate, from a much earlier period than the commissioners of shires, and the royal burghs, which they repre- sented, had special trading privileges which distinguished their inter- ests from those of the counties in which they were situated. The principle, adopted in 1707, of grouping together small burghs, some- times geographically distant, as separate constituencies, was retained in 1832, 1868 and 1885; e.g. the inland burgh of Elgin voted with the distant seaport of Peterhead, instead of forming part of the con- stituency of Morayshire. In 1918 the burgh of Perth, which had enjoyed separate representation, and eight groups or districts of burghs were merged in county constituencies; six districts of burghs still exist, but the constituent members of each group are in close geographical proximity. The last vestiges of the privileges of royal burghs, in which the distinctively Scottish system of distribution originated, had been removed as long ago as 1846.
The other important Acts of the period may be described as social legislation, dealing with housing and provision for medical attendance, land questions, temperance and education. An Act of 1909 had extended to Scotland the Housing of Working Classes Acts, 1900-3, with certain modifications, and had given powers to local authorities, with the consent of the Scottish Local Government Board, for the compulsory acquirement of land ; for the borrowing of money from the Public Works Loan Commissioners to provide working-class dwelling-houses; and for the execution of town-plan- ning schemes. The shortage of houses which became a serious social danger after the war, not only led to various emergency Acts limit- ing rents and mortgage interest and severely restricting the powers of landlords to terminate existing tenancies, but was also one of the causes of the creation of a Scottish Board of Health by an Act of 1919. The powers and duties of the Local Government Board for Scotland, and the Scottish Insurance Commissioners and also some powers of the Privy Council conferred by a large variety of recent Acts, were transferred to the Board of Health, which was entrusted with the execution of all measures conducive to the health of the people. A Housing (Scotland) Act of the same year (9 & 10 Geo. V., C. 60) gave to the new Board of Health the supervision of the schemes of local authorities for the provision of working-class dwell- ings, and empowered it, in the event of the failure of local authorities to prepare schemes, to make a public inquiry in any such locality and to arrange for the preparation of a scheme. The Act made pro- vision for financial assistance (under the supervision of the Board of 'Health) to local authorities, public utility societies, and housing trusts, for the building of houses, largely increased the powers of local authorities as regards compulsory purchase, and made it com- pulsory for them to prepare town-planning schemes. Other mea- sures affecting public health which were passed during the decade were the Highlands and Islands (Medical Service) Grant Act of 1913, which created an annual grant of 42,000 for the improvement of medical services and nursing in the Highlands and Islands; and the Midwives (Scotland) Act of 1915! which provided for the train- ing and certification of midwives. The powers granted to the Privy Council under these two Acts are among those transferred to the Board of Health. The first Annual Report of the Board of Health (for the year 1919) showed that 212 housing schemes had been sub- mitted by local authorities, providing for the erection of 112,573 houses, the total pop. represented by the authorities being 4,169,501. The report brought out the interesting point that, even in localities which are near stone quarries, the cost of building in stone exceeded, by a considerable sum, the cost of building in brick.
A very important measure dealing with land was passed in 1911. By the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act, the Scottish Land Court and the Board of Agriculture for Scotland were constituted, and the provisions of the earlier Crofters Acts were extended to other small landholders, and were amended in various respects. A dignified
status was given to the Land Court by a provision that its chairman should enjoy the same rank and tenure of office as a judge of the Court of Session. The powers of the Board of Agriculture and Fish- eries, under previous statutes, were distributed between the Board of Agriculture and the Board of Fisheries, and an Agricultural (Scot- land) Fund was created for the establishment, enlargement and im- provement of small holdings. Disputes between landlords and the Board of Agriculture are settled in the Land Court, which also deter- mines the amount payable to landowners as compensation for per- manent improvements, fixes rents in certain cases and prescribes regulations for pasture, grazing and common rights. The decisions of the Land Court are not subject to review by other courts, though the Court of Session may be consulted by the Land Court on ques- tions of law. The first Report of the Land Court, for the nine months ending Dec. 31 1912, showed that 2,434 applications for small hold- ings had been received, and that 256 had been decided, the total rents, in these cases, being reduced from 2,226 i6s. to 1,568 2s. and arrears of rent amounting to 1,721 145. being reduced to 771 193. In 1919, "fair rents" were fixed for 170 holdings, the average reduction of rent being 10%, and 275 holdings were re-valued, at the expiry of seven years from the fixing of a " fa'ir rent "; the original rents of these holdings amounted to 2,823, the first "fair rents" to 1,927, and the rents fixed in 1919 to 2,058, representing an in- crease of over 6J % on the previous decisions an indication of the improvement in the value of land. Further provision for the acqui- sition of land for the purposes of small holdings was made by the Land Settlement (Scotland) Act of 1019 (9 & 10 Geo. V., C. 97), which also amended the Small Landowners Act of 1911. Fresh powers were given to the Board of Agriculture by the removal of restrictions as to total area to be acquired and as to methods of pur- chasing or taking land on lease or feu, and by widening the range of its activities. A large series of statutes for crofts and small holdings is now in operation, and the Land Court in its 1919 Report drew attention to the urgent necessity for their codification in order to remove ambiguities, inconsistencies, and difficulties of interpreta- tion. Less important measures dealing with land were the Feudal Casualties Act of 1914, for providing for the redemption of dupli- cands and grassums (entry fees) and other sums payable by feu- holders to their superiors at intervals of more than a year; the Entail (Scotland) Act of 1914 restricting the possibilities of future entails of land or property ; and the Duplicands of Feuduties (Scot- land) Act of 1920, passed to reverse the effect of a decision of the House of Lords in 1919 that a" duplicand" payment of a feuduty means, unless otherwise defined in a deed, the payment of double the regular feuduty in addition to the ordinary annual payment. The Act defines a duplicand, in accordance with what has been the traditional usage, as "one year's feuduty only over and above the feuduty for the year." The prevalence of the system of feus in Scot- land rendered the legal decision a matter of considerable importance. Liquor Licensing. The Temperance Act (Scotland) 1913 pro- vided that, on the Act's coming into force in June 1920, local author- ities should, on the receipt of signed requisitions from electors in their areas, take a poll on three alternative resolutions dealing with the number of licenses in an area. The resolutions were (i) that there should be no change in the system of licensing, (2) that the licensing court should grant not more than 75% of the licenses pre- viously in force and (3) that no license should be granted within the area, except, in special circumstances, to bona fide hotel and restaurant keepers, who might be allowed to sell drink in retail to residents in hotels or to persons taking meals at restaurants. The areas were defined as burghs of a pop. not exceeding 25,000 ; separate wards in larger burghs; and parishes in the counties. The voters were defined as electors to town councils in burghs and electors to parish councils in the counties. Each voter could vote for only one resolution, but, where a no-license resolution was not carried, the votes given for no-license were to be added to the votes given for limitation of licenses. A no-license resolution was to require 55 % of the recorded votes in a poll of not less than 35 % of the electors, in order to be carried; a limitation resolution required a bare majority vote in a poll of the same size. Polls were held in Nov. and Dec. 1920, in 580 out of 1,221 polling areas; of the remainder, about 300 were areas in which no license existed, and in the rest no requisitions were submitted for a poll. The polls took place in all the towns and in the more thickly populated rural districts. Five hundred and nine areas voted for no change, 35 for limitation of licenses, and 40 for no license. The total numbers of votes were: 708,727 (60%) for no change; 19,400 (1-6%) for limitation; and 453.728 (38-4%) for no license. In Glasgow, four wards (Camphill, Cathcart, Pollok- shields and Whiteinch) voted for no license, and nine wards for limitation; in Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen no change was carried in every ward. There were in Nov. 1020, 9,371 licensed prem- ises in Scotland, of which 1,471 were hotels or inns, 4,847 were public-houses and 3,053 were grocers' shops. The reduction made in May 1921, in accordance with the result of the polls, involved the extinction of about 450 licenses, a majority being in urban areas, where middle-class residential districts voted for the abolition or reduction of licenses. Glasgow contributed 99 to the total number of withdrawals of licenses, jbut these were chiefly in the residential dis- tricts already named or in other residential districts like Govanhill, Kelvinside, Park and Pollokshaws, in which there was an unusually
