ABSTRACT
The Simon Commission of 1928, solely British in composition, had been set up to report on whether or to what extent it was desirable to establish the principle of 'responsible government'. It had rejected Dominion Status, but S. T. Irwin, with a new Labour government in London, steered his own course. Words were being used on all sides which were grand but opaque in their precise meanings: self-government, popular government, commonwealth, empire, Dominion Status. Looking to the future, what might be the balance between a central government and provincial governments? Would the princely states have 'self-government'? The 1707 Act of Union, of course, had preserved certain administrative, educational, legal and ecclesiastical distinctiveness in Scotland. Scotland had been a state. A Scottish Secretary had come to have a particular place in British government.
