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Page 52
THE SCOTTISH CROFTERS.
It is hard to dispel the halo which poetry and romance have thrown about
the Scottish Highlander and see him simply as he appears in every-day
life. And indeed, all fiction aside, there is in his history and
character much that is most admirable and noble. On many a terrible
battle-field his courage has been unsurpassed. His brave and tireless
struggle for existence where both climate and soil are unfriendly is
equally worthy of respect. Then, too, his sterling honesty and
independence in speech and action and his high moral and religious
qualities combine to make him a valuable citizen.
Such considerations account in part for the interest which has been
excited in England by the claims of the Scottish crofters. There are,
however, other reasons why so much attention has of late been given to
their complaints. Their poverty and hardships have long been known in
England. The reports made by the Emigration Commissioners in 1841 and by
Sir John McNeil a few years later contain accounts of miserably small
and unproductive holdings, of wretched hovels for dwellings, of lack of
enterprise and interest in making improvements, of curtailment of
pasture, of high rents and insecurity of tenure, very similar to those
found on the pages of the report of the late Royal Commission. While in
this interval the condition of the crofters has but slightly, if at all,
improved, there has been a very considerable improvement in the
condition of the middle and lower classes of the people in other parts
of Scotland and in England. The masses of the people have better houses,
better food and clothing, while with the development of the school
system and the newspaper press general intelligence has greatly
increased. The accounts of the poverty and wretchedness of the crofters
now reach the public much more quickly and make a much deeper impression
on all classes than they did forty years ago. While these small farmers
are not numerous,--there are probably not more than four thousand
families in need of relief,--many of their kinsmen elsewhere have
acquired wealth and influence and have been able to plead their cause
with good effect. In this country "The Scottish Land League" has issued
in "The Cry of the Crofter" an eloquent plea for help to carry on the
agitation to a successful issue.
Another reason for the increased attention that has lately been given to
these claims is found in the rapidly-growing tendency to concede to the
landlord fewer and fewer and to the tenant more and more rights in the
land. The recent extension of the suffrage, giving votes to nearly two
millions of agricultural and other laborers, leads politicians to go as
far as possible in favoring new legislation in the interest of tenants
and laborers. The crofters' case has therefore come to be of special
interest as a part of the general land question which has of late
received so much attention from the English press and Parliament, and
which is pretty certain to be prominent for several years to come.
Those who are familiar only with the relations existing between landlord
and tenant in this country are naturally surprised to find the crofter
demanding that his landlord shall (1) give him the use of more land,
(2) reduce his rent, (3) pay him on leaving his holding for all his
improvements, and (4) not accept in his stead another tenant, even
though the latter may be anxious to take the holding at a higher figure
or turn him out for any other reason. In addition to all this, the
crofters demand that the government shall advance them money to enable
them to build suitable houses and improve and stock their farms. An
American tenant who should make such demands would be considered insane.
No such view of the crofters' claims, however, is taken in England and
Scotland.
What, then, are the grounds upon which these extensive claims are based?
Why should the crofter claim a right to have his holding enlarged and to
have the land at a lower rent than some one else may be willing to pay?
The reasons are to be found partly in his history, traditions, and
circumstances, and partly in the present tendency of the legislation and
discussions relating to the ownership and occupation of land.
Under the old clan system, to which the crofter is accustomed to trace
his claims, the land was owned by the chief and clansmen in common, and
allotments and reallotments were made from time to time to individual
clansmen, each of whom had a right to some portion of the land, while
the commons were very extensive. Rent or service was paid to the chief,
who had more or less control over the clan lands and often possessed an
estate in severalty, with many personal dependants. In many cases the
power of the chief was great and tyrannical, and many of the clansmen
were in a somewhat servile condition; but the more influential clansmen
seem sometimes to have retained permanent possession of their
allotments. Long ago sub-letting became common, and hard services were
often exacted of the sub-tenants, whose lot was frequently a most
unhappy one. The modern cottar, as well as the squatter, had his
representative in the dependant of the chief, or clansman, or in the
outlaw or vagrant member of another clan who came to build his rude
cabin wherever he could find a sheltered and unoccupied spot. No doubt
many of the sub-tenants, even where they held originally by base and
uncertain services and at the will of their superior, came in time, like
the English copyholder, to have a generally-recognized right to the
permanent possession of their holdings, while custom tended to fix the
character and quantity of their services. The population was not
numerous, and it was probably not difficult for every man to secure a
plot of land of some sort.
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