THE LAND SCHEME OF THE CROFTERS' COMMISSION.
ON the last day on which Parliament sat before the Whit- suntide recess, two things happened which are in striking contrast. The Government, by moving the adjournment of ' the House of Commons at the morning sitting, prevented the discussion which would otherwise have taken place in the evening on the condition of the Scotch crofter. At the same time Mr. Trevelyan introduced his Bill to enable the Irish peasant to purchase his farm at the risk of the nation. There may, of course, be excellent reasons for both steps. But it is. singular that the same class of persons,—for the Scotch crofter and the Irish peasant-farmer are essentially of the same type—distinguished chiefly by the part of the United. Kingdom they inhabit, should meet with such different con- sideration. The Times, with that cynical candour which some- times marks its utterances, points to a reason for the. distinction. In Ireland, when the Land Act was passed, we were within measurable distance of a social revolution ; the country was in a disturbed state, and Parliament was incon- venienced by an active band of Irish Members, who were not amenable to the party Whips. The Highland crofters are a comparatively small class, who have given as yet little trouble ; and the Scotch Members are tractable. It is probably inevitable that over-worked Governments should only attend to the most urgent demands ; but it will be a pity to emphasise the value of agitation both in and out of Parliament too strongly by postponing indefinitely the consideration of the Scotch crofters' condition, while the Irish tenant-farmer is being treated as the spoiled child of the nation. Sooner or later the proposals of the Crofters' Commission must give rise to considerable discussion. Although the state- ment of the Commissioners "that the average amount of material and moral welfare amongst the crofters and cottars is as great now as at any previous period, and the poorest class
were never so well protected against the extremities of human suffering," is already being urged as a reason why nothing should be done, it is hardly likely that the subject will be allowed to drop. It is clear enough, from the Commissioners' detailed examination of the case, that the advantages which the crofter of the present day enjoys as compared with his predecessor are in the main due to the general progress of the country. Education, means of communication with the outer world, and consequently a better market for labour, the administration of justice, sanitary regulation, medical aid, poor-law relief, and facilities for emigration, are boons which the crofter enjoys in common with the rest of the country, and which he has no reason for attributing specially to his landlord. On the other hand, the contraction of his arable holding and common pasture, and the restrictions often imposed upon his use of the natural products of sea and moor—seaweed, peat, and thatch— are inconveniences which are obviously due to the action of his landlord. The general conclusion of the Commissioners, to which we have referred, is not likely to be regarded as a sufficient reason for ignoring the crofters' grievances. The Commissioners have not themselves so regarded it. For they have prepared a very long legislative bill of fare ; and many of their recommendations are expressly designed to protect the crofter against gradual extinction through the spread of sheep- farm and deer-forest,—to give him, in fact, a firmer footing before the law in his dealings with his landlord.
The Commissioners propose, as we have said on a former occasion, to perpetuate the Highland village communities. They recommend that every inhabited place in the Highlands "containing three or more agricultural holdings possessing the use of common pasture-land, or which have within a certain period, say forty years, enjoyed such use," and every place con- taining three or more agricultural holdings known as a town- ship by the custom of the country and estate management, "should be registered in the Sheriff Court books as a crofters' township." A plan of the township is to be deposited in the office of the Sheriff-Clerk, showing its boundaries both external and internal. The township thus recorded is not to be reduced in area or dissolved without the con- sent of the occupiers, expressed by a resolution adopted by not less than two-thirds of their number. In every township the heads of families occupying holdings directly under the pro- prietor are annually to elect an officer, to be named the con- stable of the township, whose duty it would be to call meet- ings, to act as the representative of the township in matters of general concern, and to co-operate with the sanitary inspector of the parish in matters regarding the improvement of dwellings and public health. The township would thus have a status and means of corporate action recognised by the law. Upon the body thus legalised the Commissioners pro- pose that certain powers for the improvement of the joint holding should be conferred. The township should have power to call upon the proprietors to co-operate in the erection of a fence between the arable land and the adjacent hill-pasture, and the proprietor should have a similar power of initiative as against the township. The general principle on which the joint work should be executed would be that the proprietor should furnish the materials and the skilled labour, the township the unskilled labour. Similar powers would exist as to the erec- tion of fences between the lands of the township and other lands occupied by the proprietor and his tenant, and between the lands of one township and those of another,—in the latter case the expense being borne equally by the two townships. Thus each township would have the means of quietly enjoy- ing its own domain, and the watching to prevent the trespass of the cattle on the crops, to which we alluded on a former occasion, would be dispensed with. The Commissioners would confer somewhat similar powers on the township with reference to the making of roads,—a crying want in many parts. " Many populous places," say the Commissioners, " are still remote from roads maintained at the public expense, and are bur- dened by assessments of which they do not feel the proximate benefit. The chief intercourse of such places with the outer world is often by sea, a perilous and precarious highway for a great portion of the year." Cart-roads or bridle-paths into the nearest public road, to the sea-shore for the purposes of fishing and the carriage of seaweed, and to the peat-moss, should all, the Commissioners think, be placed within reach of a township on certain conditions ; and foot-bridges should in a similar way be constructed over rivers and streams,—in this instance on the motion of the School- Board, in order that children may not have to wade brooks in going to school. The Commissioners further recommend that in all cases townships should have the right of cutting peat, gathering seaweed, and taking grass and heather for thatching, on any convenient lands of the proprietor of the township, without special payment, the value of the right being taken into account, so far as proper, in estimating the rent. In this recommendation the Commissioners are only following what has been in the main the custom, great irritation having been produced in the exceptional cases in which a charge for such privileges has been made. Indeed, the whole scheme of the Commission up to this point is of a strictly conservative char- acter, and aims only at giving a legal sanction to what is in fact the agricultural system of the country, and enabling_ that system to be carried on under fair conditions.
When the Commissioners proceed to their proposals for the enlargement of existing townships, they no doubt come upon more debateable ground. They recommend that a township, by a resolution passed by two-thirds of the occupiers, may be allowed to record with the Sheriff-Clerk of the county a claim to an enlargement of its arable land and common pasture. If the proprietor does not come to an agreement with the town- ship within a year, the Sheriff-Substitute is to investigate the claim, and if he finds it to be well-founded, is to record the township as "an over-crowded township," and in this case the proprietor is to be held liable to grant an increase of arable or hill pasture upon certain conditions designed to protect the proprietor and his larger tenants, — subject to the limitation that no more land shall, without the voluntary assent of the proprietor, be assigned to a township than shall suffice to raise the average annual value of holdings in the township to a specified sum, say £15. Further, the claim of a township to enlargement of area is not to be allowed unless satisfactory proof be given to the Sheriff that the occupiers can use the additional area of amble land profitably, and can stock the additional area of hill pasture. The rent is to be fixed by valuation—one valuer being nominated by the pro- prietor, the other by the township, and an umpire or " overs- man," in case of difference, by the Sheriff.
These provisions for what may be called the normal expan- sion of a township are supplemented by a scheme for the transplantation of townships which, from local causes, cannot be enlarged by the acquisition of adjoining lands. In this- case, however, no compulsory powers as against proprietors are suggested. If, on the contrary, a proprietor wishes to give an asylum on his land to a township recorded in the Sheriff's books as an applicant for transplantation, Government advances, it is proposed, should be made to him for the purpose of erecting, buildings, at the rate of £100 for every £10 of annual value of each new holding, the money being repaid by instalments, with 3 per cent. interest.
It is important, however, to consider what will be the position of the individual occupier under the Commissioners' scheme. The township, it has been seen, will receive the pro- tection afforded by a legal status, and will enjoy many privi- leges. But it is obvious that if each occupier in the town- ship is liable to arbitrary eviction, the whole scheme may be rendered nugatory by an unscrupulous or theorising land- lord. The Commissioners are not prepared to recom- mend the Irish system. A lease has always had charms in the eyes of Scotch agriculturists, and it is by this means that they hope to secure the township occupiers in quiet possession. " Every occupier in a township," they recommend, " not in arrear of rent, and paying or more annual rent, should have the right to make application to the proprietor for an improving lease of his holding, and to record such application in the Sheriff Court books." If the proprietor and the applicant do not within six months come to terms, the Sheriff-Substitute is to decide upon the application, having power to reject it at the instance of the proprietor on the ground of the bad character or incapacity of the applicant. The lease when granted is to be for thirty years, and the rent is to be settled by valuers on each side with an umpire ap- pointed by the Sheriff. The tenant at starting is to have certain compensation for buildings erected at his expense, and, on the other hand, is to expend during the first seven years of the lease a sum equal to ten years' rental in improvements. At the end of the term either party may terminate the tenancy by giving one year's previous notice ; and in any case an inquiry and valuation are to take place, so that the relations of proprietor and occupier may be clearly ascer- tained, the occupier being entitled to compensation for im- provements after a specified scale, and the proprietor to com- pensation for deterioration of the holding in certain particulars.
The occupier, if he remains, is to be entitled to another improving lease, under the same circumstances as before. It would seem, however, that the landlord can dismiss him at the end of the first lease by the notice we have referred to,—an important defect as compared with the Irish farmer's fixity of tenure.
These are the main features of the Commissioners' land scheme. There are many details of importance to which space does not permit us to refer ; and there are proposals relating to the fishing industries of the Highlands, to the provision of better means of communication by road, by post, and by tele- graph, and to the adaptation of the Elementary Education Acts to the peculiar circumstances of the district, and to the more easy administration of justice,—which many will consider of more permanent value than the suggestions for the settlement of the crofters which we have sketched in outline. All proposals relating to the land are, however, at the present time fraught with exceptional interest ; and it is probably upon the first branch of the Commissioners' Report that discussion will mostly turn. Their recommendations have been termed socialistic. They do not, however, come under the same category as the proposals now made by the Govern- ment for converting the Irish tenant into a landowner. Effect may be given to the principal recommendations of the Commission without in any way pledging the national credit, or exposing the taxpayer to burden or risk. There may be excellent reasons why the nation should aid by its collective resources social movements such as that in question in Ireland. But the Commissioners' plan for protecting the crofters does not in its main features need the aid of such reasoning. It is merely designed to adjust the relations of two classes connected with the land, by bringing the law into harmony with the customs and traditions of the country. It is a scheme of precisely the same character, and applicable to the same classes as the scheme of the Irish Land Act of 1881. There is, however, this difference,—that while the Irish Act affected nearly the whole area of the country, the settlement of the crofters would apply only to small portions of the High- lands, leaving untouched the vast tracts already converted into sheep-farm and deer-forest, and would thus scarcely touch the landlords' pockets. It can hardly be gravely contended that protection to which the Irish peasant was deemed to be entitled shall be denied to the Highland crofter, merely because the -latter is a loyal and law-abiding subject, and does not threaten to reduce his country to a state of anarchy.
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