§ MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSHI beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the Secretary for Scotland has been informed that such distress prevails among the cottar class in South Uist as to render it necessary to appeal to the public; whether he has received memorials from the people of South Uist and Barra, craving that roads be formed to townships where none exist; and 507 whether some means could be devised to relieve the distress by useful employment, such as road making?
§ *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Sir C. J. PEARSON,) Edinburgh and St. Andrews UniversitiesThe Secretary for Scotland has made inquiry, but has obtained no information to show that exceptional distress prevails among the cottars of South Uist. The answer to the second paragraph of the hon. Member's question is in the affirmative. With regard to the last part of the question, the duty of making new roads, where new roads are necessary, belongs to the Local Authorities rather than to the Imperial Government, but Her Majesty's Government are now considering whether, in certain special districts of Scotland, the deficiency in means of communication is so great that it cannot be adequately supplied unless assistance be afforded from Imperial funds to Local Authorities in order to help them to discharge this duty. The Government are not yet in a position to come to a final decision on the subject; and, in the particular case of South Uist, I am quite unable at present to say whether the tonstruction of the roads referred to in the memorials mentioned by the hon. Member is of such urgent necessity as to require exceptional treatment. In any case, the hon. Member may be assured that the Secretary for Scotland is fully alive to the necessity of carefully watching the condition of districts like South Uist, though he trusts that nothing is likely to occur to render the intervention of the Government necessary for the purpose of coping with distress.