Between You and Me

by Sir Harry Lauder

I hae ma doots o' that. There's some wull go back, and gladly—them that had gude posts before the fichtin' came. But I'm wondering about the clerks that sat, stooped on their high stools, and balanced books. Wull a man be content to write doon, o'er and o'er again, "To one pair shoes, eighteen and sixpence, to five yards cotton print——" Oh, ye ken the sort o' thing I mean. Wull he do that, who's been out there, facin' death, clear eyed, hearing the whistle o' shell o'er his head, seeing his friends dee before his een?

I hault nothing against the man who's a clerk or a man in a linen draper's shop. It's usefu', honest work they do. But it's no the sort of work I'm thinking laddies like those who've fought the Hun and won the war for Britain and humanity wull be keen tae be doing in the future.

The toon, as it is, lives frae hand to mooth on the work the country does. Man canna live, after a', on ledgers and accounts. Much o' the work that's done i' the city's just the outgrowth o' what the country produces. And the trouble wi' Britain is that sae many o' her sons ha' flocked tae the cities and the toons that the country's deserted. Villages stand empty. Farms are abandoned—or bought by rich men who make park lands and lawns o' the fields where the potato and the mangel wurzel, the corn and the barley, grew yesteryear.

America and Australia feed us the day. Aye—for the U-boats are driven frae the depths o' the sea. But who's kennin' they'll no come back anither day? Shouldna we be ready, truly ready, in Britain, against the coming of anither day o' wrath? Had we been able to support ourselves, had we nae had to divert sae much o' our energy to beating the U-boats, to keep the food supply frae ower the seas coming freely, we'd ha' saved the lives o' thousands upon thousands o' our braw lads.

Ah, me, I may be wrang! But in ma een the toon's a parasite. I'm no sayin' it's no it's uses. A toon may be a braw and bonnie place enow— for them that like it. But gie me the country.

Do ye ken a man that'll e'er be able tae love his hame sae well if it were a city he was born in, and reared in? In a city folk move sae oft! The hame of a man's faithers may be unknown tae him; belike it's been torn doon, lang before his own bairns are weaned.

In the country hame has a different meaning. Country folk make a real hame o' a hoose. And they grow to know all the country round aboot. It's an event when an auld tree is struck by lightning and withered. When a hoose burns doon it's a sair calamity, and all the neighbors turn to to help. Ah, and there's anither thing! There's neighborliness in the country that's lacking in the city.

And 'tis not because country folk are a better, or a different breed. We're all alike enow at bottom. It's just that there's more room, more time, more o' maist o' the good things that make life hamely and comfortable, i' the country than i' the city. Air, and sunshine, and space to run and lepp and play for the children. Broad fields—not hot, paved streets, full o' rushin' motor cars wi' death under their wheels for the wee bairns.

But I come back, always, in ma thochts, to the way we should be looking to being able to support oorselves in the future. I tak' shame to it that my country should always be dependent upon colonies and foreign lands for food. It is no needfu', and it is no richt. Meat! I'll no sing o' the roast beef o' old England when it comes frae Chicago and the Argentine. And ha' we no fields enow for our cattle to graze in, and canna we raise corn to feed them witha'?

I've a bit farm o' my ain. I didna buy it for masel. It was to hae been for ma son, John. But John lies sleepin' wi' many another braw laddie, oot there in France. And I've ma farm, wi' its thousands o' acres o' fertile fields. I've no the time to be doing so much work upon it masel' as I'd like. But the wife and I ne'er let it wander far frae our thochts. It's a bonnie place. And I'm proving there that farmin' can be made to pay its way in Britain—aye, even in Scotland, the day.