CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPART MENT, 1895–6 (THIRD VOTE ON ACCOUNT.) (Hansard, 3 July 1895)

§ DR. CLARK

asked the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Government intended to take any legislative action 130 to relieve trustees of the difficulties in which they were now placed in regard to the reduction of crofters' rents in the north of Scotland. He regretted that the Secretary for Scotland was not a Member of that House; he had nothing to say against the Gentleman who held that office, but it was a most unsatisfactory arrangement. The present condition of things in regard to the crofters' rents in the North of Scotland was becoming an intolerable one. By the Scotch law the Secretary for Scotland had a right to bring troops or policemen from other parts of Scotland to maintain and enforce the law. It was admitted by everybody that these unfortunate leaseholders were being compelled to pay impossible rents, and public feeling amongst the landlords was so strong that they would not allow the evictions and orders of the Court to be carried out, Before the present Parliament came to a close something ought to be done to relieve these trustees from the position in which they were placed, and to alter the present intolerable state of things. He hoped, therefore, that the First Lord of the Treasury would be able to state what the intentions of the Government were in regard to this matter.

§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY

said, that the hon. Gentleman had exercised his undoubted right in asking a question in connection with one of the Votes; but it was impossible for him to give a detailed account of the steps which his noble Friend the Secretary for Scotland would take in connection with the difficulties in Sutherlandshire to which the hon. Gentleman had referred. As he understood, those difficulties arose out of the fact that the trustees in certain estates in which there were leaseholders did not feel enabled to reduce the rents to what the hon. Gentleman regarded as a fair amount, and that in consequence of the incapacity of the trustees there was great difficulty in enforcing payment of rent. He could not believe there was any legal difficulty in a trustee making such reductions of rent as the owner in fee would make if he was the manager of the estate. According to his views, the duty of a trustee, and certainly the duty of the trustees the hon. Gentleman referred to, was to exercise the power of 131 reducing the rents if they ought to be reduced. The system of leasing was absolutely universal over the whole of South Scotland. Would the hon. Gentlemen tell him that a trustee of an estate in the South of Scotland would not feel himself justified, while facing the hard times which agriculture had gone through during the last three years, in making reductions of rents which all the neighbouring proprietors would make. No trustee who understood his duty would, in his opinion, hesitate for a moment to make reductions, should they be required, by expediency and justice, therefore he was reluctant to believe without much further inquiry that these trustees in the North of Scotland laboured under the incapacity which the hon. Gentleman said they did. However, he only interjected these observations in the general policy to be pursued. With regard to that policy the Secretary for Scotland would be responsible, and he had hardly yet had time to make himself acquainted with the state of affairs.