are excerpts
aged lecture on Burns
imes delivered by Bert
16 Horizons Study Centre
p on January 17.
a see my name you may
hy I should come and
to you on Robert
you notice it is an
- and knowing some-
‘characteristics, if
‘a thing, you know
Of -the irresponsibil-
“Irish and their love
wence and love of
‘So, although being
background, I have
ed for many years
S, not only to his life
ferse, but because I see
is that there is some-
f great importance for
sive and labor move-

the labor movement
urns evenings on the
of his birth in order
mage to this man who
illustrate this evening,
of the general radical
ssive movement...
fore I begin to describe
the characteristics of
his contribution to
‘literature, I want to
u some idea of the his-
background, the scene
Burns was born.

e all familiar with the
this area north of the
We know. something
s:character and the
ristics of the ancient
race. We know about
ds, their clans and
t pre-feudal tradi-
lowlands, where the

influence of England began to
be felt very strongly. Particul-
arly after the battle of Flodden
in 1513, when the Scottish army
was defeated, the English in-
fluence entered Scotland and
Scotland faced a crisis which
led to a peculiar dichotomy in
in the national character of
Scotland.

We have the highlands,
Gaelic, anciently aligned with
France. We have the lowlands
where more and more as the
years pass there is an effort
made both on the part of the
English in the south and by cer-
tain elements in Scottish society
to end the Scottish ways.

This was the period when
that element of anglifying the
community became more and
more dominant. One of the great
influences in establishing this
superiority of the English lan-
guage among many in the low-
lands was the fact that when
John Knox led the reformation
in Scotland, he prepared the
way for the Scottish people to
accept the James I version, as
the bible they would read.

He also introduced into Scot-
tish life a particularly repellent
type of religious intoxication,
of religious enthusiasm that
caused the adherents to eschew
the ordinary pleasures of the
flesh, the pleasures of this world
and to concentrate their total
attention upon their destiny in
the life beyond this world.

This, of course, ran very
much contrary to all the ten-
dencies of the Scottish people
who are a lively, enthusiastic,
natural, sensual, people. They

BURNS AMD
HIS TAME

were of peasant stock. They

had created a _ wealth, of
folk-lore, a wealth of me-
lody, of stories, marked by

those characteristics of peasant
origin with a strong taste for the
bawdy, a very easy association
with the facts of life. Of course,
this approach to life was very
repellent to the religious-mind-
ed Scottish Presbyterians of the
period.

So you have these two types
of Scots developing. On the one
hand, you have the religious,
the frugal, the thrifty, the indus-
trious with all those character-
istics we fondly believe are
typical of the Scottish people.
On the other hand you have the
masses of the people, incapable
of conquoring their adherence
to ale, other strong drinks, with
their love of the ordinary pleas-
ures of life.

Also you find a remarkable
difference in intellectual ap-
proach. A large section of the
Scotish people with their roots
in the past, today, are associat-
ed with the labor movement, as-
sociated with the radical move-
ment, associated with great her-
etical and free-thinking tradi-
tions. ~

The remarkable thing is that
here you have two totally dis-
similar groups, dissimilar except
in the fact that they are both
human beings and this man Rob-
ert Burns is hailed by both of
them as their native bard, the
most revered figure in their lit-
erature. And they reach into
Burns and select those texts
which they feel are most ac-
ceptable in confirming the par-

ticular feeling which they have
about life. This is the Scotland
into which Burns was born.

You iemember what happen-
ed in the eighteenth century. In
1715 the Scots rose in defense
of the Old Pretender. That ef-
fort was defeated. In 1745-6,
they rose under the Young Pre-
tender and in this struggle in-
fallible artillery settled the
question and the clans from the
highlands standing out on the
plains were mowed down by the
English cannon. The clan sys-
tem was destroyed as an effec-
tive system in the highlands. In
the lowlands, we come to the
time only 13 years after the bat-
tle of Culloden Moor, on Janu-
ary 25, 1759, when there was
born into the very humble home
of a Scottish peasant family,
Robert Burns, who was destin-
ed to become the most illus-
trious figure Scotland has pro-
duced.

You wouldn't have thought
from the home in which Burns
was born that he would achieve
this eminence. I want to give
you a picture of how Burns de-
scribed this home. He said “he
was born in the most humble of
circumstances.” His father had a
farm and the land was the ston-
jest and as sour as any in Ayr-
shire. He had a large family.
Robert was the oldest son and
his father was able to give young
Burns only the most elementary
of schooling.

Burns was extremely interest-
ed in his studies. He was avid
about acquiring a knowledge of
the use of both the language of
the lowlands and also of Eng-
lish. He was compelled as he en-

tered his teens to give up for--

mal studies and take his place
in an effort to wrest a living
from the soil of this melancholy
farm in the lowlands.

Burns at a very early age be-
came strongly addicted to poe-
try, particularly that of Allan
Ramsay and Robert Ferguson.
He had their volumes in his
pocket as he walked behind the

plow. It was his desire to,

give to the Scottish people in the
language of the lowlands some
understanding and appreciation
of the great antecedents and the
present condition of Scotland.
In his political sympathies
very early he associated himself
with the Jacobite tradition not
because he loved the Stuarts but
he loved the Hanoverians much
less. He wrote some early poetry
where he expressed these Jaco-

bite sentiments. He became
known among his neighbors as
a young man — well, he was
known among them for a variety
of reasons — but among them
was as the young man tinkering
with verse, producing poems.
Some of them suggested, this
was on to 1786, that he should
publish a book of these poems.

We haven't heard anything
like this in Scotland, they said.
There’s something about your
poetry that we like. There’s one
remarkable thing about your
poetry—that people who ordina-
rily are not attracted by poetry,
who think poetry is pretty dul!
and repellent, like your verse.
There’s something about the sen-
timent of your verse, something
about the humor in your verse,
the cunning way that you phrase
things in the lowlands’ speech,
a catchiness. We think other peo-
ple in Scotland will like to read
your poetry. Why don’t you print
it in a book and make it avail-
able to the Scottish people be-
cause we think you are the great
national poet that Scotland is
looking for.

So Burns said, all right, I'll
look through them. He thought
he’d do it because he remem-
bered he wrote certain poems
that the kirk might not approve
of, so he set those to one side.

He took the poems that might
pass muster, theologically, and
he went to Kilmarnock and spoke
to John Wilson, a printer there.
He said will you print me a book
of poems. This is the most fam-
ous volume of Scottish poetry—
612 copies was considered en-
ough to slake the poetic thirst
of Scotland at three shillings
apiece . .

I haven't told you all about
Burns . . . he was not a model
person, he was a person of
strong and ardent nature. He
was raised in a society where
drinking was very common,
where illegitimacy was a very
common thing. This is the part
of Burns that people dwell on.
But this is not the essential part
of Burns. What lives today is
the legacy of Burns, his poetry,
his songs, this great expression
of his worth, his independence
of mind.

I think Burns is best express-
ed by two lines he wrote when
he looked at life and the glitter
of life and he called attention
to a strutting lord who passed
him by, saying:

The man of independent mind.

He looks and laughs at a’ that.

Language part of national struggle

language crisis in Que-
eC ‘according to a declaration
i the National Committee of
te Communist Party of Que-
€¢ Which is being sent to the
€gislative Committee in Que-
an integral part of the
of the French-Canadian
for its self-determination,
Sovereignty of Quebec
and including separation,
Majority of the Quebec
sire it. The Communist
‘Quebec has many times
itself for the sovereign-
Quebec, for the right of
ench-Canadian nation to
rol of. its own state, of
momy, of its culture and
b, and to decide without
tion whether or not it
. be associated with
eaking Canada in one
and if so, in what way.”
latement continues:

“The domination by the
Anglo-Canadian and American
bourgeoisie of the French-
Canadian nation exerts itself in
all fields: political, economic,
linguistic and cultural. In this
declaration we are concerned
with the matter of language
where this domination has
caused especially painful re-
sults, most recently for exam-
ple, in Saint Leonard.

“Our party supports every ef-
fort to encourage the strength-
ening and flowering of the
French language in Quebec, to
remove. every fetter imposed by
Anglo-Canadian and American
domination as well as by the
confessional system of educa-
tion.

“Precisely as the result of the
Anglo-Canadian domination root-
ed in the British conquest we
declare ourselves against the
preservation of all privilege im-

posed in favor of the English
language, for example: the use
of English as the language of
work.

“We are equally opposed to
all forms of discrimination and
of coercion, such as the policy
of unilingualism. The struggle
for the survival and flowering of
the national language of French-
Canadians should not be con-
ducted by denying to the Eng-
lish-speaking minority, what-
ever its ethnic origin, the free
use of its language and the
right to education in the lan-
guage of choice. We consider
as anti-democratic any effort to
deprive parents of the right to
have their children educated in
the language of their choice. It
is clear that the solution of the
problem of the language of work
in Quebec will be the national-
ization of all key industries of
Quebec now in fact controlled

by American and Anglo-Can-
adian monopoly-capitalists. But
meanwhile, we believe that the
workers and other democratic
forces should demand that the
government of Quebec under-
take measures it has refused
until now, such as:

“That the French language be
recognized as the principal and
general language in Quebec,
and that the policy of bilingual-
ism be rejected;

“That every collective agree-
ment, every directive and in-
formation bulletin, every train-
ing program, etc. in commercial
and industrial establishments be
in French, and where necessary,
also in English;

“That every child have the
opportunity and be obliged to
learn French adequately as a re-
quirement for all diplomas
granted by the Department of
Education; .

| __ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 24, 1969—Page 9

“That where 10 percent of
the parents in a school area re-
quest a school or classes where
the principal language of edu-
cation be English, that this right
be granted and financially sup-
ported by the Government of
Quebec.

“It is in this way that the
Communist Party of Quebec be-
lieves it necessary to pursue a
policy fundamentally and con-
sistently democratic, having as
its purpose the defense of the
rights to self-determination of
the French-Canadian nation in
all areas, while at the same time
defending the democratic rights,
including the choice of language,
of those Quebec people who are
not French-Canadian.

“Such a policy will streng-
then the unity of the working-
class which is indispensable for
the democratic solution of this
problem,”

Léa am . tvs ier

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