ABSTRACT
Geographical and Political Influences.—The geographical character of Scotland and her political history have had an important influence on her economic development. Roughly, the country is divided into three geographical areas: (a) an extensive mountainous region in the north-west; (b) a smaller hilly region in the extreme south; and (c), lying between these two areas, the Scottish midlands or the Lowland plain to which at all times the economic activity of the Scottish people has been mostly confined. The mountainous character of the country has added to its beauty, but Scotland has had to pay a stiff price for her romantic scenery. To this day, only a fourth of her soil is capable of cultivation. In addition, she has an ungenial climate which makes it difficult and in some parts impossible to grow the highest class of cereals, especially wheat. These circumstances alone are sufficient to explain the backwardness and poverty of Scotland prior to the industrial age. Political conditions were no less unfavourable. The War of Independence (1296–1328) was the beginning of a prolonged and deadly feud with England, during which Scotland suffered from the handicap that her most prosperous districts were within easy striking distance of the English frontier. Again and again, English armies ravaged the Lowlands and occupied and burnt the capital. In the short intervals of peace, the country was desolated by the scourge of civil war. The Scots, said a foreign observer, 1 ‘spend all their time in wars, and when there is no war, they fight with one another’. The Crown was weak. The Anglo-Norman families of Bruces and Stewarts who obtained the throne in the fourteenth century had none of the prestige that attached to the old Celtic line of kings. They had to buy support, and their lavish generosity raised up powerful houses like the Douglases, who were too strong for subjects. The monarchy struggled gallantly against these disruptive forces, but it was not until the Union with England placed in its hands the wealth and resources of Scotland’s ancient enemy that it was able to reduce even the Lowlands to peace and order. The Highlands were not subdued till the eighteenth century.
