SECOND READING. (Hansard, 7 May 1890)

§ (5.24.) THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON,) Bute

It is most extraordinary that the hon. Member should propose the Second Reading of a Bill of this importance without one single word of explanation. The nature of the Bill may be gathered from the fact that there have been proposals, from time to time, to extend the Crofters' Act to this county and to that county; but now hon. Gentlemen propose that the Act should not merely be extended in its terms to certain specified parts of Scotland, but that it should, as a whole, be remodelled, and then be made the statute law of the whole of Scotland. One result of that would be that a Land Court would be established in Scotland, and would have the determination of every question that might arise between landlord and tenant over every acre in Scotland at present administered by the Crofters' Commission. I ask hon. Members, as practical men, whether such a proposal would not constitute one of the greatest changes which could be proposed affecting the 411 Land Laws of any country? The next question is—Is it decent that the House should be asked at twenty-five minutes past five on a Wednesday to read such a Bill a second time, when, as I believe, not one in ten has the slightest idea of its contents? One curious result of the Bill, which hon. Gentlemen opposite ought to consider, is this. If fixity of tenure is given, as the Bill proposes, for the whole of Scotland, the result would be that no man would have a chance of getting a farm in Scotland except the descendants and successors in title of the present occupants. One of the standing grievances at present of agriculturists is, that people get hold of farms who are not agriculturists, and that they raise the rents by their competition. Now, that class would be stereotyped by the proposal of the Bill. Anyone who is cognisant of the various conditions of agriculture in Scotland must conceive that a plan, which I must assume in the meantime to be well adapted to the crofting parts of Scotland, could never be expected to work well in the agricultural parts of Roxburghshire or the plains of the Lothians. I ask any hon. Gentleman who may follow me in the Debate, how he would propose to work out a system which would apply to the hungry peasants on the stormy shores of the Lews, and also to the persons paying high rents, the leaders of agricultural improvements in the wealthy plains of Mid Lothian and Haddingtonshire? Have hon. Members considered how the Land Court is going to work, whether the country generally is prepared to submit the affairs of landlord and tenant to the investigation and scrutiny of lawyers and their associates? Have hon. Members the consent and mandate of their own constituents to a proposal of this kind? I have read the Bill from beginning to end, and cannot discover that even the intelligent hand of the Crofter Members has been directed to the improvement of the system under the existing Act, of which they have been the persistent critics; and when I turn to the names of the Lowland Members on the back of the Bill, I am still more at a loss to understand whether they share the evil opinion of hon. Members below the Gangway on the working of the Crofters' Act.