Robert Burns and Independence.
By Dr. Duncan Pickard
Scots! Vha hae wi' Wallace bled
Those who are trying
to persuade us to vote for Scottish ‘Independence’ are keen to imply that
Robert Burns would have supported their cause.
It cannot have been simple coincidence that January 25th was
chosen for the speech and press conference to declare the supposed benefits to
the people of Scotland of a vote for 'Independence'. My reading of Burns has
led me to conclude that he would not have been in favour of the 'Independence'
we are asked to choose. Burns'
enthusiasm for freedom, liberty, independence and the end of tyranny was on behalf
of individual people, not the county of Scotland. The tyrants whom Burns wanted to be rid of
were the landowners, who were the rulers of Scotland -not the English. The poem "Scots! Vha hae wi' Wallace
bled" had nothing to do with rousing the Scots of the late eighteenth century
to fight for independence for their country. It was a call for his compatriots
to fight for their freedom from the tyrannical oppression by Scottish
landowners.
He tried to make the
people aware of their Birthright in Land, and wanted the fundamental features
of the English Constitution, laid down in 1688, to be established in
Scotland. He by no means wished to
revive old national feuds. Burns was a
close friend of William Ogilvie, Professor of Humanity at the University of
Aberdeen who wrote his Essay on the Right of Property in Land in 1781. Such
were the powers of the landlord, that the essay had to be published anonymously. At that time, it was a criminal offence to be
found with a copy of ''The Rights of Man" by Thomas Paine. In 1793 Thomas
Muir was deported for supporting calls for the extension of the right to vote
and Burns only narrowly escaped conviction. It is worth noting that, in 1793,
Burns gave a copy of "De Lolme on the British Constitution" to the
Subscription Library of Dumfries, with a plea '"that they take it as a
creed of British Liberty, until they found a better." Burns' poem
"The Twa Dogs", which was inspired by his friendship with Ogilvie,
avoided overt disclosure of his
agreement with the sentiments expressed
in the Essay and refers to Ogilvie as Caesar and himself as Luath, to
protect both their identities. Ogilvie's Essay was suppressed for many years
and few were aware of its existence
until it was brought to public attention in 1891 by DC MacDonald.
Ogilvie's Essay is a
well-reasoned discourse on the
fundamental birthright which everyone
has to a share in the earth's natural resources
which were present before
human beings appeared on its
surface. He traced the "oppression, misery,
injustice and poverty of the majority" to the unjust acquisition of
the 'Right of Property in Land' by a minority of the population. The ability of those who owned the land "to produce Land Laws, preserved their power to claim the rent resulting from
the labour of others". Ogilvie's introduction to his Essay states "With respect to
property in land, that system which now prevails is derived from an age not
deserving to be extolled for its
legislative wisdom and is in need of reformation and improvement" A statement that is as true in 2012 as it was in l78L
The reformation and
improvement which Ogilvie proposed was the Single Tax, whereby the annual
rental value of all land would be collected by the government to pay for its
necessary functions. He regarded it as inherently unjust to levy taxes on
landless working people whilst leaving those who owned land to keep its
unearned rental revenue.
Ogilvie was quite
clear that individual people cannot enjoy genuine freedom and independence by
their acquisition of political freedom.
They also have to be granted economic freedom and that cannot occur when
their earnings, obtained as a result of their own labour, are taxed by the
state which leaves the unearned rental value of land with those who have the
unjust right to claim ownership of it.
Those who seek to use
Robert Burns in their quest for 'Independence' for Scotland would be well
advised to study the Words of the poet in detail and understand what he meant
by freedom and independence. Although
everyone has heard of Robert Burns, not many are aware of his desire to improve
the condition of poor, oppressed people
everywhere. He agreed with Ogilvie that any improvement could only come through
land and tax reform. William Ogilvie should be a name familiar to all who have
ambitions for economic prosperity and social justice. The simplistic belief that
the separation of Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom will result in
economic prosperity for all will only lead to disillusion and disappointment
without land and tax reform. The aims of any government should be to maximise
the people's standard of living whilst minimising their cost
of living and minimising the cost
of doing business. These aims are not compatible
with a tax system which favours the ownership of landed property and
discourages employment and enterprise:-
The Law did jail the
man or woman,
Who stole the goose
from the common,
But left the greater
robber loose,
Who stole the common
from the goose .
Let the Law be gone,
natural Justice return
So that all who work
can keep all they earn.
