From the archives: Scotland and migration, 30 August, 1938

IN THEIR manifesto on Scotland and Empire development, the Scottish National Party have entered a protest against an increase of “assisted” emigration.

Scotland, they say, needs her men, and emigration ought not to be artificially encouraged. If they were in power, in Scotland under a system of Home Rule they would artificially make work for the population. The figures of Scotland’s loss of population are not open to dispute unless the accuracy of the Census is impugned. In the halcyon ‘nineties the loss was only 1.3 per cent of Scotland’s population. But for the war the figure would presumably have been higher than the 5 per cent, recorded between 1911 and 1921, so that the 8 per cent recorded for 1921 to 1931 possibly exaggerates the steepness of the rise since 1911, but the fact remains that between 1921 and 1931 Scotland lost 8 per cent, of her population by emigration, while England lost only one-half per cent.

• archive.scotsman.com