1 NOVEMBER 1913, Page 30

[TO TRE EDITOR OF TEE " SPECTATOR: e l SIR,—Mr. Lloyd George

has trotted out the old fable as to Highland deer-forests displacing crofters and sheep. It is not new; it is not true. It was exploded forty years ago. The subjoined extracts may be of interest to your readers.— "A Highland forest was a place where formerly hundreds of people found a living by cultivating the soil—hundreds of the most robust and gallant people these islands had ever seen. Wen a deer-forest was made these people were turned out, every man of them, their houses were pulled down and their crofts burned. Tens of thousands of people were turned out of their homes in order to get sport."—Chancellor of the Exchequer at Swindon on October 22nd, 1913, as reported in Wiltshire Times of October 25th, 1013.

"It is the opinion of many that deer-forests have displaced crofters and sheep in the Scottish Highlands. This was denied by a Select Committee of the House of Commons, who reported on the Game Laws in 1872." — "Chambers' Cyclo- paedia " (1904), Article on Deer. forests.