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At the Polish Club in Glasgow, Scots and Poles socialize easily. Many of the customers in its restaurant are Scottish, eager to try Polish food before going there on holiday, says 16-year-old Mari-a, who moved to Scotland eight years ago and works in the club part-time as a waitress. She, by contrast, has no desire to return. Scotland’s welcome has been warm. Its government wants it to be warmer still. Scotland’s leaders have long maintained that they need immigrants more than the rest of Britain does, both to boost the country’s sparse population and to alleviate skills shortages. Between 1981 and 2003 Scotland’s population declined. Most of the population growth that Scotland has seen since then has been thanks to migrants, largely from outside Britain. Scots are having fewer children and ageing more rapidly than other Britons; on current trends the Scottish population will swell by just 4% by 2062 compared with 23% for Britain as a whole, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The only group expected to grow is the oldest one. If Scots vote for independence, a nationalist government promises to encourage immigration. It would offer incentives for migrants willing to move to far-flung spots. It would ease the nationwide requirement that immigrants must earn a particular salary to gain residency to reflect the lower cost of living there. Students would be able to stay after graduating and work for several years. Turning these aspirations into a workable immigration policy would be tricky. Though anxious to join the EU, Scotland’s government is less keen on the Schengen travel zone, which allows non-EU citizens to travel on a single visa. It wants to remain part of the Common Travel Area, like the Republic of Ireland, which imposes minimal border controls. Robert Wright, an economist at Strath-clyde University who has advised the government on demography, is unconvinced this pick-and-mix approach to EU membership would work. And this would be one of many strains on Scotland’s relationship with the rest of Britain. Different immigration policies in two countries that share a land border could result in stricter controls, including passport checks between them. Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s minister for external affairs and international development, denies they would be necessary. Scotland would have border management, he stresses, not border guards. But some English politicians may disagree. If the nationalists lose the independence vote, London could be minded to devolve further powers to Scotland, perhaps including over immigration. Mr Wright argues there is scope for more regional diversity. In Canada, immigration requirements are eased if people agree to live in less popular provinces. Scots are somewhat less resistant to immigration than other Britons. Some 58% want fewer migrants in Scotland. Fully 75% of English and Welsh people want fewer in their countries, says a report by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. And Scots are more sanguine. Just 21% identify immigration as one of the most important issues facing the country, lower than the British average of 33%, according to Ipsos MORI, a pollster. That equanimity stems in part from the fact that migrants in Scotland are not especially common. More than half of its "foreign" residents come from other parts of Britain. Attitudes to immigrants tend to be softest where newcomers are scarce, as in Scotland, or very numerous, as in London. They harden in between those extremes. In eastern England, for example, where eastern Europeans are increasingly numerous, 38% fume about immigration. If Scotland manages to entice more foreigners, it will enter this difficult middle territory. The warm Scottish welcome could cool.

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正确答案：C