§ MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSH (Inverness-shire)asked the Lord Advocate, Whether fair rents payable by crofters are, by Clause 6, Section 2, of the Act of 1886, declared to run as from the first term of Whit Sunday or Martinmas next succeeding the decision of the Crofters' Commissioners; whether the decision of the Commissioners as regards the estate of South Uist occurred on the 10th of October, 1887; whether, so early as the term of Martinmas, 1887, arrears on the estate of South Uist could under the Act be dealt with or demanded; whether he is aware that in the case of Dugald Walker, crofter, Kilphedder, of South Uist, whose rent was reduced from £5 to £3, and arrears amounting to £52 5s. 3d. cancelled, except as to £6 payable in half-yearly payments of £1, Walker was asked for the first half-yearly instalment within two months of the Commissioners' decree?
§ THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD) (Edinburgh and St. Andrew's Universities)The words of Sudsection 2, Clause 6, are that the rent fixed by the Commission shall be deemed to be the rent payable by the crofter as from the first term of Whit Sunday or Martinmas next succeeding the decision. 1443 The decision of the Commission on the South Uist rents was dated October 10, 1887. The Commission hold that they are entitled to order payment of the first instalment of arrears found due by them at the next ensuing term. Dugald Walker was asked for the first instalment of arrears found due—namely, £1—at Martinmas, 1887, which was within two months of the decision; but the proprietor did not, as she was entitled to do, require that the stipulated rent as for the previous term should be paid, but intimated that he need only for that term pay the same rent as would in future be paid under the decision of the Commission, and accordingly only £1 10s., instead of £2 10s., of rent was charged.