ABSTRACT
The readiness with which some of these arguments were accepted in England was itself an aspect of that English ignorance which fuelled some of the discon tent. It was only with difficulty that Englishmen were weaned away from the tendency to equate Britain with England. The very teaching of history, from school to university, perpetuated this fallacy. Otherwise excellent histories which purported to be about Social Conditions in Britain Between the Wars or about Public Opinion and the Making o f British Foreign Policy contained no reference to conditions or opinion in Scotland.1 It is only half-way through a volume on The British Experience, 1945-75 that its author stumbles across evidence of dis sent in what he calls ‘the Celtic fringes’. He himself, however, continues to talk about ‘England’ having been a world power and it is not surprising to see the Northern Ireland problem discussed in a section called ‘The English in Ireland’ and to read its final sentence ‘The British, convinced that their presence was at least preventing the killing from getting even worse, clung on, but the long and
mostly unhappy story of the English in Ireland was clearly nearing its end.’2 If that was how it appeared from London, it might not do so from Glasgow. Yet, as the title of another book demonstrates, Englishmen and Irish Troubles, exact ness is not to be looked for. Lloyd George, who features prominently as Prime Minister, was not English.
