THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNMy Lords, I rise to call attention to the manner in which the Dogs Acts are administered in the Outer Hebrides with reference to the granting of certificates of exemption from licence duty. I have ventured more than once to call your Lordships' attention to matters connected with the state of things in the Hebrides, and if some of your Lordships think that the matter to which I am now directing your attention is one of not much importance, I can assure you that to those persons who own or occupy land and who own cattle the manner in which these Acts are administered is of very great importance indeed. It is also of special importance to the Government, because the Government have as one of their favourite schemes the division of farms in these islands into small holdings, in connection with each of which there is a large common outrun, and it will be quite evident that if there is an undue number of dogs wandering about it is on these holdings and in connection with the stock on these holdings that the damage and destruction are most likely to fall.
In the first place, will your Lordships allow me to tell you, very briefly, what the law with regard to the exemption of dogs from licence duty is? It was established by the Act of 1878, and under Section 22 of that Act farmers and shepherds or persons following the occupation of shepherd were allowed to have exemption for a dog provided that it was kept and used solely for tending sheep and cattle. That was an Excise Act. A form of certificate was to be prepared by the Excise; the Excise authorities were entrusted with the administration of the law and seeing that it was carried into effect. Perhaps I may say, further, that the principle of the Act was this, that the number of dogs which were allowed to be kept free from duty bore a relation to the number of sheep or cattle that there were upon the holding. In the year 1906 there was this modification introduced into the Act, that in England before a dog could be exempted from duty the previous consent of a petty-sessional Court must have been obtained, and in Scotland the previous consent of a sheriff. Your Lordships will see that the duty of the Board of Customs and Excise to carry out the Act and to see that it was properly attended to was in no way interfered with.
252 How have these Acts been administered in England, in Scotland, and in the Hebrides? Those of your Lordships who are magistrates know quite well that at almost every meeting of the Bench there is brought up a list of claims for dog exemption which have been previously examined by the police. The Bench ask the superintendent of police whether he has satisfied himself that they are all bona fide and genuine applications, and any to which he may happen to take exception are at once refused, leaving it to the person who claims the exemption, if he chooses, to come to the Bench and renew his claim. In Scotland the course is, generally speaking, the same. The list of applications is given to the sheriff clerk, and he sends the list to the police and also to the Excise authorities. I believe that in most cases in the counties on the mainland the police, at all events—I do not know so much about the Excise authorities—inquire into this matter and see that the conditions of the law are strictly observed.
Now we come to the Hebrides. How have these Acts been administered in the Hebrides? From the commencement of the Act, from the year 1878, so far as I have been able to ascertain, the Excise have never moved hand or foot in the matter. They have never given the slightest attention to it. They have never raised an objection, and they appear to have regarded this matter as one in which it was' better not to interfere. What about the police? They likewise have not interfered up to the present time. It is quite true that the present Chief Constable of Inverness-shire last year instructed his constables to inquire into all these matters, but in the present year they have taken no action, giving as their reason that they understood that some private landowners had taken the matter up. I do not think it is a good excuse for a public authority not doing their duty to say they understand that other people are doing it. What has been the result? For years every single application has been granted because there has been no opposition. The Acts which govern this matter state that the application itself is to be regarded as prima facie evidence in favour of the application provided there is no opposition. There has been no opposition, and therefore these applications have been granted in scores and hundreds.
253 That brings me to the present year. In the present year a different course was taken. The Act states that any person may offer opposition to an application for exemption from duty, and certain private persons, notably among them the Congested Districts Board—for it had not at that time been merged into the Board of Agriculture for Scotland—have taken action. The Board was advised by its own officers to undertake to oppose some of these applications. They were not the first to move. I believe a private gentleman in the person of Sir Arthur Orde initiated the matter. Following him the Congested Districts Board took it up and invited several private proprietors to intervene. With all due respect to these private proprietors I venture to think that they showed considerable simplicity, and I am especially surprised at the conduct of the Congested Districts Board in the matter. I should have thought that a Public Department might have known that the proper way to proceed was by calling on the Excise and the police to do their duty, and I should have thought further that they might at all events have had sufficient worldly wisdom to have known that when private persons undertake to enforce a public Act, however public-spirited their motives may be, they are always attacked and regarded as having some private object of their own in view. However, these bodies objected, and they took some hundreds of objections—1,400 or 1,500 in all.
The matter then came before the sheriff, who issued a somewhat remarkable decision. It is this, in substance—that every person who owned more than one sheep or more than one cattle beast was entitled to keep a dog without the payment of licence duty; and, further, that it was not to matter whether he bad any land or not upon which to keep these cattle or whether he paid rent or not to anybody. That surely is a somewhat extraordinary decision at first sight. But the sheriff did not stop there. He proceeded to give costs against all the objectors. I have never heard of costs being given in such a matter in England, but the sheriff in Scotland is empowered to give costs in cases where he thinks it reasonable to do so. What his reasons were in this case we do not know, but what we do know is that he decreed costs in no fewer than 1,354 cases, and when the agent for the applicants presented his bill he had drawn up an account which 254 amounted to£5 10s. in each ease, the total bill coming to between£7,000 and£8,000. What makes the thing more absurd is that the sheriff clerk, who is an official of the Court and also auditor of the accounts, had inserted a little bill of his own amounting to 2s. 6d. in each case, and which came to£170. There are limits to everything in this world, even to the patience of the Scottish Board of Agriculture, and the Board and all the private owners naturally kicked and refused to pay, and they were quite right. Therefore this matter is hung up at present. I do not know that we are likely to hear of any very early decision—probably we shall hear of a decision at about the same time as we hear that arrangements have been made with the doctors in this country.
It is, therefore, actually the law in the Hebrides that every person who has more than one sheep or inure than one beast is entitled, whether he has land or not, to keep a dog without a licence. It is not the law in Scotland; it is not the law in Inverness-shire, of which the Hebrides form part; but it is the law in the sheriff-substitute district in which the Hebrides are situated. In the county of Inverness there are no fewer than six of these sheriff-substitute districts, and therefore if this ease were to arise in any one of the other districts it might, and very probably would, be decided in quite a different way. This is a case in which there is no appeal whatever from the decision of the sheriff-substitute. His Majesty's Government are always fond of preventing appeals. There is no appeal in this case, and this is actually the law in the Hebrides though not in any other part of Scotland. I am not learned in the law and the sheriff is, and what his reasons may have been I do not know. But this I do know, that the decision is clearly opposed to the spirit of the Act of 1878, which stated that the exemptions were to bear a certain proportion to the stock which was upon the holding in question.
I am sure, after what I have said, your Lordships will not be in the least surprised to hear that there has been great lamb-worrying. This decision was given in March, and at the end of May fifty lambs had been worried and destroyed by crofters' dogs. Curiously enough, the place where this occurred was in the island of Harris and the inhabitants of the village there had been among the most strenuous applicants for the exemption of dogs from duty. 255 I find myself in rather a difficulty because we have no longer in this House any member of the Government who has official experience of or responsibility for what, goes on in Scotland, and I do not know whether what I am saying will ever reach the ears of the Secretary for Scotland. If the Secretary for Scotland had been here, as he was last year, we should have endeavoured to explain it to him in his presence, but now what sort of satisfaction are we likely to get? And pray, my Lords, what are we to do? Because that is the practical question. Is it possible that in these islands this law should be allowed to continue to prevail? I can suggest at once one thing which ought to be done. It is this. The Excise should be called upon to do their duty. Why don't they? They never have done it, but that is no reason why they should not be called upon to do it and why they should not do it. We all know that in these islands it is unpopular to enforce any law, but that is no excuse why the Excise should not do their duty.
I am empowered to speak on behalf of my noble friend Lord Lovat, who understands more about Inverness than I do and probably more than any other member of this House. Lord Lovat holds most strongly that there ought to be an inquiry into the conduct of the Excise, and that they ought to be called upon to do their duty. If that cannot be done, and if there are no means of altering this law, then I think the Government ought to take the matter up and bring in a Bill which will put matters in a more satisfactory state. I think I have said enough to show your Lordships that at the present time these laws which govern the exemption of dogs from duty are being administered in the Hebrides in a way which is the very reverse of satisfactory.
§ LORD WILLINGDONMy Lords, the noble Earl who has just spoken is quite correct in one of the observations lie made—namely, that I have not any very intimate knowledge with regard to Scotland—but I hope I shall be able to show him that neither the Scottish Office nor the officials who have to deal with this particular matter are to blame, but rather the parties concerned. The noble Earl has given your Lordships a pretty full account of the law as it exists at this moment. Originally, as he has suggested, under Section 22 of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1878, the Commissioners of Inland Revenue were 256 responsible for the giving of these exemptions in respect of people who owned dogs for stock purposes. Under Section 5 of the 1906 Act this responsibility was delegated to the sheriff, under the supreme control of the Excise authorities.
§ LORD WILLINGDONThe noble Earl's Motion has arisen out of the various claims for exemption to which he has referred, and although in the main he was perfectly accurate in his statement there are one or two points to which I should like to claim exception. It is quite true that the Congested Districts Board and various owners, thinking that there were too many dogs in this particular part of the Outer Hebrides, decided to oppose applications for exemption. There were 1,750 applications in all; of these 1,596 were opposed, and the sheriff, after hearing both parties, decided to uphold the objections in 142 cases and to repel them in 1,454. It is perfectly true, as the noble Earl said, that the agent for these various applicants claimed a very large sum for expenses and compensation. The noble Earl expressed some surprise as to how he could do this and asked under what law it was done.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNI can assure the noble Lord I did not mean to do that. The sheriff, I know, has power to give expenses where he thinks it reasonable to do so. I did not question that. What I said was that I should very much like to know his reasons.
§ LORD WILLINGDONI beg the noble Earl's pardon. It is the fact that the sheriff can give expenses when he considers it reasonable to do so. In this case it is perfectly true that a very large sum has been claimed; but the whole matter is now under negotiation, and I think it would be obviously very unwise for me to say anything further with regard to the negotiations while they are pending. But if the noble Earl thinks there has been much delay in the matter there is an obvious remedy. One or other of the parties concerned can object to going on with the negotiations and can refer the whole matter to the auditor of accounts, who will refer to the sheriff and deal with the question of compensation at once. The noble Earl has rather suggested, I think, that the Excise officers and the police do not do their duty with regard to this matter.
§ LORD WILLINGDONUnder the Dogs Act of 1906 there is no liability upon the police to deal with this question at all; but the fact that over 1,700 applications were made for exemption by the individuals concerned rather goes to show that either the police or the Excise, or both, must have done a good deal in the way of seeing that licences were produced and getting these individuals to claim exemption. There is only one other matter to which I think I need refer, and that is the question of the policy of the sheriff in deciding that an individual can have ogle dog free from licence duty if he is the owner of one sheep or one bullock.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNTo put it correctly, the decision was that he must own more than one sheep or more than one bullock.
§ LORD WILLINGDONThat is so. In this case the sheriff has followed absolutely the Customs and Inland Revenue Act of 1878 and the practice of the Commissioners at that time. He has taken up their line of action in this particular district and has followed on their lines. Therefore I hardly think that much need be said with regard to that matter. As regards the general question, the noble Earl has suggested that the law should be altered. I am bound to say I should have thought that he would realise as much as anybody else that it would be difficult in the present session at all events to deal with this matter.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNI quite agree with the noble Lord's last remark. It would be very difficult in the present session to go into this extremely interesting question of the exemption of dogs from licence duty. At the same time, I do not see that the noble Lord has attempted in any way to justify the state of things which at present exists. There is a great deal which the Scottish Office can very well look after in the Hebrides. A great deal is going on in those islands to which I may have to call your Lordships' attention on a future occasion. The state of social life there at the present time is a perfect disgrace to civilisation in a variety of ways. I do not to-day move my Motion for Papers.