HC Deb 11 November 1884 vol 293 cc1449-52
MR. SEXTON

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether Major Fraser, the landlord upon whose estate the movements of the Crofters took its rise, is a member of the Board of Commissioners of Supply at Inverness, and whether this Board is responsible for the despatch of the body of police which came into collision with the Crofters; whether the Crofters have hitherto abstained from violence, and that their demands are nothing more than "a fair rent, and the restoration of the sheep land of which they were deprived many years ago;" whether the Government have considered the expediency of creating a public tribunal to fix the rents to be paid by tenants in the exceptional condition of Crofters in the Highlands and Islands; and, whether the intimation of the Right honourable Gentleman that the Government are considering the Report of the Royal Commission, with a view to act upon it, may be interpreted to mean that the Government, at the opening of the ensuing Session, will ask the House to legislate on this subject?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

These Questions seem to invite me to express the opinion that there is some palliation or justification for the defiance of the law and the breach of the peace which have unhappily occurred at Skye. I can give no answer at all in that sense. I regard these proceedings as entirely unjustifiable and without extenuation. If there are grievances there are other means of redressing them; and the first duty of the Government in these matters is to take measures to support law and order and maintain the public peace. So far from "the Crofters having hitherto abstained from violence," that is entirely contrary to the information which I possess on the subject. With regard to the latter Question of the hon. Member, I have already stated that the Government will feel it to be their duty to take action at the earliest possible time, so far as they can, upon the Report of the Royal Commission. I have already given the reasons for not making any further statement at present on the subject.

MR. SEXTON

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman be good enough to answer the first part of the Question?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I do not know whether it is so or not. I do not know how that affects the question. There is no reason why the police should not act because one individual, whose house was burned down, was on the Police Committee.

MR. SEXTON

I put the Question as to whether the person who passed for the landlord had not used his position on the Board of Commissioners in order to provoke these disturbances by sending the police.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

If it is suggested that the action of the Police Committee was the action of Major Fraser, I have no reason to believe it was so. On the contrary, I have reason to believe it was not so, and that the action of the Police Committee was called for apart from the case of Major Fraser.

MR. MACFARLANE

May I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman if there has been, in the locality to which the military and police, it is said, are being sent, a single failure in the operation of the Civil Law? Has any civil process been stopped by violence which it is necessary to carry out by the employment of additional police?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

There has been an open and flagrant defiance of the law. Threats were used towards persons in that district that made it necessary. I think it proper that the Police Committee should have acted as they had in not allowing the people in the district to declare that there should be no police in the district, and that they should by force turn the police out of the district. I think they have acted quite properly in supporting the police.

MR. MACFARLANE

The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my Question. [Cries of "Order!" and Interruption.] If I am not entitled to put my Question, the Speaker will rule me out of Order. I will repeat the Question to the right hon. Gentleman, Is there a single instance of the failure of the operation of the Civil Law in the district to which the police are being sent?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

Yes, Sir. What I have told the hon. Member is that there have been all sorts of petty outrages. I have already said the Papers will be laid before the House. But, quite apart from that, it is not possible that a district can be allowed to say it will not allow the Local Authorities to place in that district whatever police they may think necessary. That is what has been done—the police were going there, and they were forcibly expelled.

DR. CAMERON

Is there any chance of these Papers being presented before Friday, when there is to be a debate on the subject?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I am afraid they cannot be presented before Friday.

Subsequently,

SIR HERBERT MAXWELL

asked the Home Secretary if he could state whether the very serious accounts in the Scottish papers of the state of affairs in the Island of Skye were substantially correct, and especially whether it was true that three hundred marines were on their way to the Island?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I suppose the hon. Member was not in the House; but I have already made a statement in answer to the Questions put to me upon that subject, and I do not think that, in so grave a matter, the hon. Member ought to ask me to say whether I entirely endorse, or entirely deny, the statements in the newspapers. It is far too grave a matter to be dealt with in that way. The official Report on the subject we are about to lay on the Table. I have also stated that Her Majesty's Government have decided to take energetic measures to support the police in Skye in the execution of their duty.