In 1762 a book was published that outlined how individual freedom could be achieved in a political society; the book was called The Social Contract and it was written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In this book he outlines his two basic concepts: general will and natural rights. If one applies these ideas to Scotland in the twentieth century, it is clear that they are at work. Scottish Home Rule, or Scottish Devolution, has begun with the introduction of a Scottish Parliament with certain home powers.

Before one can begin with Rousseau, one must first understand the story, the history of Scotland and Scottish nationalism. The story begins in the seventeenth century with the death of Queen Elizabeth I. James VI, a Stuart and a Scot, son of Mary Queen of Scots, succeeded Queen Elizabeth and became King James I of England. He left his native Scotland and ruled in London. This united the crowns of England and Scotland but it resulted in alienating the Scots. James I’s reign was known as the Jacobean reign. After James I’s death, his son, Charles I was put on the throne. Charles’s “dictatorial style further alienated the Scots” (Cowan 15). In 1649 he was denounced by Oliver Cromwell as a tyrant and executed. In 1651, after Cromwell’s death and the death of republicanism in Great Britain, Charles II was placed on the throne; he fought between the two Christian religions until he died in 1685. James II was next placed on the throne but later was deposed according to the Scots, or abdicated according to the English. His daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange were placed upon the throne (Cowan 15-17). Throughout all this was a fight between the two Christian religions: Catholicism and Protestantism with Protestantism being the Presbyterian sect. The constant switch between the two resulted in a lot of conflict within Great Britain. Both Scotland and England possessed parliaments and both had varying view points. In 1690, Presbyterianism was made the official religion of Scotland by the Scottish Parliament (Cowan 17). After the ‘abdication’ of James II, the followers of the Stuart reign, the Jacobites staged many battles in protest and caused much civil unrest. The new monarch that was to be placed on the throne would not be of the Stuart clan; it would have to be of another royal bloodline. The problem that arose from this was who would be chosen? The Scots were strictly Presbyterian, but Presbyterianism was still considered ‘dangerously radical’ (Cowan 15) due to its lack of hierarchical structure and it gave equality to all before God. It gave too much power to the people (Cowan 15). If a new monarch were to be chosen, it could not be chosen by two opposing selectors, rather one with the same idea. To keep peace and refrain from anarchy that a Presbyterian monarch would create, the “Scottish parliament was... sacrificed for the greater good” (Cowan 17).

The Treaty of the Union of 1707, also known as the Act of the Union, effectively dissolved Scottish parliament and killed the nation of Scotland bringing it under absolute rule from London (Cowan 17). For approximately the next two hundred years, Scotland existed as North Britain ruled by Westminster in London. The Scottish, although still under English rule, continued their alliance with France and even went as far as to harbour fallen French such as Charles X (Christopher 97).

Until the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Scots seemed contented enough with their situation, even to the point where they fought against Napoleon at Waterloo (Cowan 65). William Pitt, the British prime minister throughout the French Revolution, praised the Highland Regiment for their brilliance in military situations. At the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the

London Times reported how the Scots Greys charged to the cry ‘Scotland Forever’ and tore into the ranks of the French with infantrymen from the Scottish regiments hanging onto their stirrups to give them greater momentum, the better to cut and swathe through the enemy. On the day, the Scots spilled more than enough blood to confirm their reputation and be feted as the heroes of the fields and heroes of the British nation (Cowan 65).

Up until World War One, Scotland was happy with its post as North Britain, but with the onslaught of war and the outbreak of revolution in Russia, left sided thinking on the political spectrum began to rekindle thoughts of devolution and independence. During the war, the Scottish again fought for Great Britain and the Triple Entente, but back at home there was growing discontent as the war that was supposed to be finished by Christmas 1914, continued on for four more years. In this time, many protests were held and Marxism began to take a foothold in the Scottish public mindset.

After World War One and after the Russian Revolution, Marxism had gained a firm grasp with perhaps the greatest of all the Marxist protests in Scotland taking place in George Square, Glasgow in January 1919. It had begun as a strike, a protest with many veterans of war taking to the streets on account of the lack of jobs, poor working conditions with long hours, and poor wages (Cowan 137). The strike began the twenty-seventh of January and was headed by the Clyde Workers Committee, the CWC (socialistworker.co.uk) or the Independent Labour Party, the ILP (Cowan 138). The leader of this was John Maclean, a schoolteacher, who was appointed by Lenin in 1920 (Cowan 137). Maclean believed that “[they could] make Glasgow a Petrograd, a revolutionary storm centre second to none” (Cowan 137). This was the time of the “‘Red Clydeside’, when the Clyde, like Russian in 1917 was ripe for a workers’ revolution” (Cowan 137). The whole event at Glasgow erupted and the red flag of revolution was raised. Troops, tanks, and machine guns were brought in; it stabilized the situation. The “affair was famously described to the Cabinet by the Scottish Secretary Robert Munro as ‘not a strike, it was a Bolshevik rising’” (Cowan 138). The drafting of the military in Glasgow clearly demonstrated how seriously the government took a Bolshevik rising in the city (Cowan 139). The major result of the “era of ‘Red Clydeside’... [was] a transition in political views with a radical shift to the Left” (Cowan 139). This was the beginning of the new Scotland.

During the Depression, Marxism waned and never regained its strength. With the onset of war, capitalism reasserted itself and the nation propelled itself into the World War Two. After the war, Scotland enjoyed the economic prosperity of the others like Britain funded by the United States. The elections of the Westminster Parliament saw eleven Conservative MPs go to London. This made most of Scotland happy as London seemed to keep with basic morals that the Scots praised, but the country was deeply divided by difference in Scottish political opinion.

In 1979, Scotland was given a chance by a referendum, to chose whether or not they wanted their own parliament with certain powers. The vote was split and the idea cast aside with no parliament instated. Following this, after the recession of 1980, Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, was elected into Westminster Parliament. She was extremely conservative and this upset the Scots greatly. Thatcher then introduced the Poll Tax into Scotland a year before it was introduce to the rest of Great Britain. Of course thinking this unfair and unjust, many refused to pay it. This heightened Scottish nationalism and the movement towards devolution.

In 1993 and again in 1997, Tony Blair and the Labour Party were elected by a landslide. All of the eleven Conservative seats in Scotland went to Labour. In 1997, another referendum was held for the choice of a Scottish Parliament. The votes were an unprecedented “YES” with a total of seventy four percent. Parliament was called and elections were held for the first time in almost three hundred years. In 1998, the Queen formally opened parliament on the Mound, the same place where Margaret Thatcher gave the Sermon on the Mound. Also in 1998, the National Museum of Scotland opened in which Scottish culture was defined and the past was rediscovered. In 1999, Scottish Parliament was instated although not in its official building. The official Scottish Parliament building is slated to open in 2001 at Holyrood. The Scottish Secretary of State under the Labour Party, Donald Dewar, was made ‘First Minister’ of Scotland, or the equivalent of a Prime Minister or a Premier. The post of First Minister allows for certain powers that can be related to a Prime Minister but also certain powers that can be related to a Premier. Dewar introduced reforms and laid the strong foundations for the impending nation of Scotland thus earning himself the highly honourable title of ‘Father of a Nation’. Unfortunately his term was short lived; on the eleventh of October, 2000, Donald Dewar died in an Edinburgh hospital of a brain haemorrhage. The same November to keep the keep the Labour Party in power, Henry McLeish was elected as the new party head and made the new First Minister.

Now with the story told, one can begin with the application of Rousseau’s ideas in Scotland the first being natural laws. Rousseau states that the most natural of all laws, of all societies, is the family. In the first book of The Social Contract, Rousseau states that a child will remain attached to their father for as long as they have need; after this necessity has ‘expired’ the bond will dissolve or become voluntarily (6). In Scotland, up until the late 1990’s, the father was the Westminster Parliament. From their place in London, Westminster governed all of the United Kingdom with representatives that live in London, from each region, eleven being from Scotland. Up until 1919 and Glasgow, political thinking had been strictly imposed by London, (unionist, conservative, right sided thinking) but with the strike, left sided thinking began to creep into public mindset. This was going to change everything.

With the infection of the new way of thinking, post World War Two was a very different world for the Scottish. No longer were they thinking about Marx and communism, rather they were moving on to reclaiming their past. How would they do this? Through devolution, or reinstating the Scottish government. This was the beginning of the breaking of the father-child bonds described by Rousseau. In 1979, a referendum was held concerning the recreation of the Scottish parliament. It was a premature opportunity to break free of the British family. The people were divided, but the majority said no. The Scots still had need for their father; the bond did not break. But in 1997 another referendum was held. The results were a “Yes; Yes” vote. Scotland began to break free of the Westminster form of politics, the absolute ideas of London, but did not as of yet separate. Now that the bonds between father and child have begun to dissolve, they have begun to take a step out on their own with their own government and their own leader.

Rousseau states that government is an intermediate body set up between sovereign and subjects for their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of laws and the maintenance of liberty both political and civil (Rousseau 58). This means that: there must be a form of hierarchy in political society (sovereign, government, people), government is a mediator between the separate wills of the sovereign and the subjects, and a government must maintain liberty which in turn means: no absolutism, no insurrections, and guaranteed rights and freedoms.

In the United Kingdom, London rules everything. Scotland is a long way away from London and in truth, London really does not have much clue what is going on in Scotland apart from what the MPs might bring, but it imposes the age old myth that the Scottish are backwards and inferior and need to be governed like the rest of the Britain. It, in a sense, is an absolute rule. A government would both serve London, the sovereign, and Scotland, the people. It would serve London as they would not be deposed by the Scottish and still have some say in affairs; it would serve Scotland as they would no longer be threatened by absolutism and they would have a voice in their own affairs. The guaranteed rights and freedoms must come from the people of Scotland and not from London. The leader that most exemplified Rousseau’s ideas of government was Donald Dewar.

Donald Dewar was a member of the Labour Party and the ‘Father of the Nation’ of Scotland. He was a long term champion of devolution along with John Smith. Dewar also helped author The White Pages, a document of devolution. Devolution is the movement of a centralized government to a regional government. Dewar, known in the House of Commons in London as Donald (BBC | ‘Father of Nation’ dies), advocated for a Scottish parliament for over thirty years. Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party, a Unionist, meaning keeping the country united under one parliament, was rather cool towards the idea of devolution. This showed a split in the party, but with the 1997 “Yes; Yes” vote, he along with the rest of the world welcomed Parliament. The people had spoken. In 1999, elections were held for the first parliament in almost three hundred years. Donald Dewar was made “First Minister” or the equivalent of a Scottish Prime Minister or a Premier, a post which contains certain power from both positions. In this position he laid down the essential foundations for the nation of Scotland, an independent Scotland.

Dewar, during his term, lowered unemployment by over fifty percent, gave social aid to education and healthcare, recognized and praised traditional industries such as whiskey, but also encouraged modern industry like electronics. He was the right balance, or moderator, between sovereign and the subjects, best of all he was respected by everyone and had no enemies. He was loved by the people and by the governments; he seemed perfect, but unfortunately he was mortal. On the eleventh of October, 2000, he was reported dead in an Edinburgh hospital of a brain haemorrhage. An entire country went into mourning. By November the new First Minister, Henry McLeish, had been selected.

A leader like Donald Dewar is elected by the people. But one must also remember that the Scottish Parliament was chosen by the people, both through elections for its members and through a referendum that reinstated it after three hundred years. This is another one of Rousseau’s concepts: the general will.

Rousseau’s idea of general will is evident with Scotland’s referenda and elections, the overall opinion of the people. There is a difference between the general will and the will of all; they are far from the same thing. The general will is the common interest, while the will of all concerns the private interests and is the sum of these particular interests. But if one takes away from the same wills the pluses and minuses will cancel one another and the general will remains as the sum of the difference (Rousseau 29). In simpler terms, although there might be slight differences within a certain idea, it is the idea that is important. In Scotland on the eleventh of September, 1997, the Scottish people went to the polls to vote for their own parliament with certain tax varying powers (freescotland.com).

The overall total was seventy-four percent for the creation of a parliament and sixty four percent for the parliament to have certain tax varying powers. Although thirty two different municipalities voted, the sum of these votes resulted in the common interest. In West Dumbartonshire, the highest For Parliament vote was recorded at eight-four point seven percent, while the lowest from Orkney with a fifty-three point four percent. The highest For Tax Varying Powers was the City of Glasgow with a vote of seventy-five percent, and the lowest vote was from Orkney with forty-seven point four percent. (To view complete data, see figure 1 (Scottish Parliament - Referendum 1997: Results).)

This vote was more than enough for an election call for the re-instated Scottish Parliament. In it there were elected a hundred and forty-three Members of Scottish Parliament. The election in April 1999, saw the Labour Party win the most seats, but it was not enough to gain government, so the Labour Party relied on the Liberal Democrats to form a coalition government. The Scottish National Party became the opposition.

Right now the Scottish Parliament has power of legislation in ‘domestic’ issues with London retaining control over defence, foreign affairs, and macro economic policy (Cowan 186). Scottish Home Rule is here and it is here to stay. This is a new chapter in Scottish history, but who knows where it will end. Taking into account the course of the general will, natural laws, and the product of these two, government, it is very easy to see that some day in the not to distant future, Scotland will be an independent country once again.

par Sām
Š2001

Figure One: Results

District	Turnout <%>	Parliament For	%	Parliament Against	%	Tax For	%	Tax Against	%
City of Aberdeen	53.0	65 035	71.8	25 580	28.2	54 320	60.3	35 709	39.7
Aberdeenshire	57.0	61 621	63.9	34 878	36.1	50 295	52.3	45 929	47.7
Angus	60.2	33 571	64.7	18 350	35.3	27 641	53.4	24 089	46.6
Argyle and Bute	65.0	30 452	67.3	14 796	32.7	25 746	57.0	19 429	43.0
East Ayrshire	64.8	49 131	81.1	11 426	18.9	42 559	70.5	17 824	29.5
North Ayrshire	63.4	51 304	76.3	15 931	23.7	43 990	65.7	22 991	34.3
South Ayrshire	66.7	40 161	66.9	19 909	33.1	33 679	56.2	26 217	43.8
Borders	64.8	33 855	62.8	20 060	37.2	27 284	50.7	26 497	49.3
Clackmannan	66.1	18 790	80.0	4 706	20.0	16 112	68.7	7 355	31.3
Dumfries and Galloway	63.4	44 619	60.7	28 863	39.3	35 737	48.8	37 499	51.2
East Dunbartonshire	62.7	40 917	69.8	17 725	30.2	34 576	59.1	23 914	40.9
West Dunbartonshire	63.7	39 051	84.7	7 058	15.3	34 408	74.7	11 628	25.3
City of Dundee	55.7	49 252	76.0	15 553	24.0	42 304	65.5	22 280	34.5
City of Edinburgh	60.1	155 900	71.9	60 832	28.1	133 843	62.0	82 188	38.0
Falkirk	63.7	55 642	80.0	13 953	20.0	48 064	69.2	21 403	30.8
Fife	60.7	125 668	76.1	39 517	23.9	108 021	64.7	58 987	35.3
City of Glasgow	51.6	204 269	83.6	40 106	16.4	182 589	75.0	60 842	25.0
Highland	60.3	72 551	72.6	27 431	27.4	31 359	62.1	37 525	37.9
Inverclyde	60.4	31 680	78.0	8 945	22.0	27 194	67.2	13 277	32.8
North Lanarkshire	60.8	123 063	82.6	26 010	17.4	107 288	72.2	41 372	27.8
South Lanarkshire	63.1	114 908	77.8	32 762	22.2	99 587	67.6	47 708	32.4
East Lothian	65.0	33 525	74.2	11 665	25.8	28 152	62.7	16 765	37.3
West Lothian	62.6	56 923	79.6	14 614	20.4	47 990	67.3	23 354	32.7
Midlothian	65.1	31 681	79.9	7 979	20.1	26 776	67.7	12 762	32.3
Moray	57.8	24 822	67.2	12 122	32.8	19 326	52.7	17 344	47.3
Orkney	53.4	4 749	57.3	3 541	42.7	3 917	47.4	4 344	52.6
Perthshire and Kinross	63.1	40 344	61.7	24 998	38.3	33 398	51.3	31 709	48.7
East Renfrewshire	68.2	28 253	61.7	17 573	38.3	25 580	51.6	22 153	48.4
Renfrewshire	62.8	68 711	79.0	18 213	21.0	55 075	63.6	31 537	36.4
Shetland Islands	51.5	5 430	62.4	3 275	37.6	4 478	51.6	4 198	48.4
Stirling	65.8	29 190	68.5	13 440	31.5	25 044	58.9	17 487	41.1
Western Isles	55.8	9 977	79.4	2 589	20.6	8 557	68.4	3 947	31.6
Total	60-70 <%>	1 775 045	74.3	614 400	24.7	1 512 889	63.5	870 263	36.5

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