§ (Mr. Anderson, Mr. Mackintosh, Mr. Wallace, Mr. Provand.)
§ [BILL 100.] SECOND READING.
§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ MR. ANDERSON (Elgin and Nairn), in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, it was a Bill to extend the provisions of the Crofters Act, passed the Session before last, beyond the counties to which that Act applied, and to extend the benefits of the Act to all 1021 crofters in other parts of Scotland. There was also a provision in the Bill to the effect that crofters might apply to the Crofters Commission, although they were not crofters in crofting parishes within the meaning of the Act. Then, he had also a provision to extend the Act to all crofters holding under leases. These were the short provisions of the Bill, and he could not imagine that there would be any objection to the taking of the second reading, which he would now move.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Anderson.)
§ THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD) (Edinburgh and St. Andrew's Universities)said, that this was a Bill which none of them had yet seen, and he therefore thought it would be quite out of the question that they should be asked to consider it, or that the second reading should be taken without their having had an opportunity of seeing its terms. The Bill was not even yet printed. No doubt, the hon. Member took a great interest in the crofters of the Highlands, and would be glad to press on his Bill; but he (Mr. J. H. A. Macdonald) should have imagined, if the Bill was to be proposed, and the House asked to accept the second reading, that that could only be done by the hon. Member stating to the House what were really the contents of the Bill. [Mr. ANDERSON: So I have done.] It must be a very short Bill, indeed, if the statement which the hon. Member had made was a sufficient statement to the House of its contents. He could hardly credit that the speech of the hon. Member really did give a complete statement of the contents of the Bill; but this observation one might make with some force—that if the Bill was so extremely short, as the hon. Member, in his speech, indicated, it seemed to form a very bad excuse for not having had it printed at such a time as would have enabled hon. Members to see it before the second reading was moved. He suspected, however, from all he had heard, that the Bill was not the only Bill which would be presented on the subject of the crofters; and if what one read in the papers was true, a distinguished Member of that House, who sat on the Front Opposition Bench, was taking a 1022 very great interest in the matter. Now, he (Mr. J. H. A. Macdonald) would point out to the House that at that moment the Crofters' Act, which was passed last year, was in active operation. The Crofters Commission was sitting, and had done a certain amount of its work. It was at present busily engaged in considering eases in the Island of Skye, and in some of these cases, if he mistook not, decisions had already been given. In some other cases decisions had yet to be given, and other cases had still to be heard. He thought it would be inopportune and improper that the House should entertain the second reading of a Bill the terms of which it did not know. In point of fact, they had no certification that they would be at all in the form or according to the statement of the hon. Member. However, nothing could be more certain than this—that the hon. Member was in no way tied up to the contents of the Bill by what he had stated. The hon. Member, he thought, did not even speak from a manuscript of the Bill. In fact, the course the hon. Member proposed was so unusual that he did not think the House would for a moment listen to it. If a Bill was of sufficient importance to be introduced, the House should have an opportunity of considering it on the second reading.
It being a quarter of an hour before Six of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned till To-morrow.