Welshing Scot

Scottish David Kirkwood, M. P. for Dumbarton Burghs on the ship-building Clyde, depends for Parliamentary repartee largely on two phrases: "Put that in your pipe and smoke it" (when he has made a killing shot); and "I don't give a damn" (when he has been worsted). Once he was suspended from the House for swearing at the Speaker. Last week the vaulted ceiling of the House rumbled with his rolling r's as he declared that millions of acres of land devoted to deer parks in Scotland (see map), most of it owned by titled gentry whom Member Kirkwood does not like, "might better be used for rearing human beings."

It was at this point that Virginia-born M. P. Lady Astor, ever ready to put in her tuppence worth, interrupted. She owns a deer park on the Isle of Jura, she said, which is all moss and peat and "fit for nothing but deer." Not even trout could be raised on it. Spunkily Lady Astor offered to build Mr. Kirkwood a cottage on her deer park on Jura and bet him he could not make a living off it. Machinist Kirkwood is no farmer, but he accepted--much too hastily, it turned out. The discussion was continued in the lobby.

"Before your time," he asserted, "there were 500 people supported on Jura."

Lady Astor was indignant: "Before my time! I'm not a daughter of Ramses II."

"Well, then, 100 years ago," he said.

Worried about the terms of the bargain, Farmer-to-be-Kirkwood began to hedge. "Are there to be six cows and a horse on it?"

"If you have a horse, you will have to import food for it, because you won't be able to grow any yourself."

Member Kirkwood began to welsh when he complained that farming on Jura would mean giving up Parliament. Replied Lady Astor: "Nothing is further from my mind than to be responsible for depriving Parliament of your services."

Later, after pondering Lady Astor's description of Jura, separated from the mainland by 25 miles of racing tides, on which not even agriculturally minded Lord Astor could raise sheep profitably, Davey welshed completely on his bet, asked: "What would I do with a farm? This is not a case of Davey Kirkwood or any other man, for that matter, going to farm on Lady Astor's island. I want the Government to do something big."

It was not the first time that Liberal M. P.s had complained that one-sixth of Scotland, or about 3,400,000 acres, was devoted to deer. Once, in 1913, when David Lloyd George was Chancellor of the Exchequer, there was a project afoot to force the deer-park-owning peers to sell the land to the Government, which would then settle farmers on it. The peers were more than willing. They flooded the Government with offers. The Duke of Sutherland, who then owned 19 deer forests comprising 396,175 acres, offered half his lands at $10 an acre. Catch is that Scottish deer forests are mostly in the Highlands. At least 2,000,000 acres of the lands are so high and rocky that they could never be farmed. They are not, however, wholly unproductive. As private parks they are heavily taxed, and when the hunting season is on thousands of sportsmen drop thousands of pounds into the coffers of thrifty Scottish tradesmen. To shoot Scottish deer (and grouse) huntsmen spend some $3,500,000 annually in Scotland.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.