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HIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
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SECRET
C.P.(49) 251
12TH DECEMBER, 1949
CABINET
COPY NO. 31
SCOTTISH AFFAIRS
Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Scotland
I think it right to let my colleagues know that the protagonists of Parliamentary devolution are at present very active in Scotland; but for the moment my view is that no further action by the Government is called for.
2.
There have, of course, been nationalist parties of various kinds in Scotland for a long time; so far none of them has achieved a large membership or any great influence. Within the last few years a new body, calling itself "Scottish Convention" has come into being. It represents itself as all- party in character, although only the Liberal and Communist Parties are officially represented. Its object is to bring about a measure of Scottish Home Rule. Since 1947 it has convened a "National Assembly", to which has been submitted a scheme of Parliamentary Home Rule based on the Northern Ireland model but going, in certain respects, beyond it. This year the Assembly adopted a "covenant" - which it is claimed 500,000 people have already signed pledging support for the policy of the Convention. The promoters no doubt intend to submit the covenant in due course with as many signatures as they can collect, and they will seek to time this so as to cause the maximum embarrassment before the General Election.
3.
The Labour Party in Scotland has, on several occasions in the past, pledged itself on the question of a separate Parliament for Scottish domestic affairs; and, at the last General Election, by adopting the official model election address issued by the Scottish Council of the Labour Party, a number of the present Members did so specifically. More recently there have been demands at the Annual Conference of the Scottish Labour Party, and from other quarters, for an enquiry into the possibilities of Parliamentary and administrative devolution to Scotland and into the financial and economic relationships between Scotland and the rest of Great Britain. At the Scottish Labour Party Conferences, 1945-47, resolutions in favour of such an enquiry were carried; but in 1948 the Conference decided that a fair trial should be given to the policy set out in the Government's White Paper on Scottish Affairs (Command 7308). At the Conference of this year the 1948 decision was endorsed and a further resolution in favour of an enquiry was overwhelmingly defeated because the Party were determined not to allow this issue to confuse the real conflict at the General Election.
4.
On the main question of Scottish Home Rule, I have, since I became Secretary of State, taken and expressed strongly the view that the present time is not opportune for its con- siderPage1055 of 197 indeed those who arPagec055gf1097it are doing Britain a dis-service abroad at a time when Britain's
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