§ MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSH (Inverness-shire)asked the Lord Advocate, Whether a crofter who may for the season allow a cottar or relative the privilege of planting a few potatoes on a patch of the croft thereby incurs the penalty against sub-division and sublet, under Clause 1, Section 4, of the Crofters Act of 1886; whether he is aware that crofters on the estate of South Uist have been warned against granting the privilege; and, in particular, whether Angus Morrison, crofter in Kilphedder, of South Uist, was warned by the ground officer on the estate, on the 3rd of February, 1888, that if he permitted his brother, John Morrison, with 10 of a family, to plant a single potato, he (Angus) would be removed from the croft?
§ THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD) (Edinburgh and St. Andrew's Universities)Without knowing the facts, and exact facts, of any case, it is impossible to expect an opinion on the legal question in the first paragraph, which is stated entirely hypothetically. Crofters have been warned against subletting crofts or parts of crofts in South Uist; and the general body of the crofters there have themselves expressed their dissatisfaction at the common pasture being overrun by stock belonging to cottars to whom parts of crofts have been illegally sub-let, to the injury of the township, and threatened the withholding of rant unless steps are taken by the proprietor against these unau- 1444 thorized sub-tenants. Angus Morrison, who is referred to in the last paragraph, allowed his brother, John Morrison, to build a house on his croft, and to house a family of 10 in it; and this brother now has planted six barrels of potatoes, and feeds three cattle and four sheep on the township pasture. The ground officer had no authority to make any such threat as is referred to in the last paragraph, and did not do so.