From the archives: Government and covenant, 4 August, 1950

Published on 04/08/2012 00:00

A FURTHER request to Mr Hector McNeil, Secretary of State for Scotland, to explain the government’s attitude on the Covenant issue was contained in a letter sent yesterday by Mr J M MacCormick, chairman of the National Covenant Committee.

He pointed out that it was most important to have the Government’s reply to their question, “If the Scottish people clearly show their desire for a Scottish Parliament are they, in your view, entitled to have their desire realised?” If no answer was given, he declared, it must be supposed that in the case of Scotland, unlike that of any other nation, the wishes of her people were, in this government’s view, irrelevant. The correspondence arose from a previous reply by Mr McNeil stating that in the view of his colleagues and himself the issues involved were complicated, and could not be dealt with by simple question and answer of the kind contained in the questionnaire or by a plebiscite.

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