THREE years before he became Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, as Churchill’s Foreign Secretary, visited Glasgow and spoke before the local Unionist Association of plans for more effective Scottish control of Scottish affairs.
The appointment of a Minister of State for Scotland, a deputy to the country’s Secretary of State, had received a warm welcome, Eden said.
“I have heard some striking testimonies to the value of this new office and to the work Lord Home is doing among you.
“At least we may claim to have cured one ill, an ill which might be described as ‘schizophrenia Scottica’, the split personality of a succession of Secretaries of State honourably torn between their simultaneous duties to speak for Scotland in Cabinet and to Scots in Scotland.”
He said the government was keen to reverse the process of centralisation, the aim being to “check and repulse the overweening power of the State, to place greater reliance upon personal effort, municipal wisdom, and the fertile variety of our national genius, Scottish, English and Welsh.”
The government was anxious to grant local authorities in all three places a much wider measure of responsibility and independent action.
Eden also praised the actions of the Chancellor, Rab Butler, in restoring confidence in the pound and curbing the drain on reserves.
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