Sitting of 17 November 1911

Preamble
The House met at Twelve of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Pier and Harbour Provisional Order (No. 4) Bill (changed from "Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill"),
Consideration, as amended, deferred till Monday next.

ARMY (TERRITORIAL FORCE, FINANCES).
Address for "Return showing the financial position of Territorial Force County Associations on the 31st day of March, 1911."—[Colonel Williams.]

FOREIGN PARLIAMENTS (INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS).
Address for "Return showing the methods adopted (through official committees or otherwise) by Parliaments in European countries and the United States for dealing with International Questions."—[Mr. Whitehouse.]
Address for "Return showing the methods adopted (through official committees or otherwise) by the Parliament of Japan for dealing with International Questions."—[Mr. Whitehouse.]

AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS (IRELAND).
Copy presented of the Agricultural Statistics of Ireland, with detailed Report for 1910 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION FOR IRELAND.
Copy presented of Report of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland on the Trade in Imports and Exports at Irish Ports during the year ended 31st December, 1910 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
MARITIME CONVENTIONS BILL [Lords].
Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed.

SMALL LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) [PENSIONS].
Resolution reported, "That it is expedient to authorise the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of a retiring annuity to any chairman of the Land Court in pursuance of any Act of the present Session to encourage the formation of Small Agricultural Holdings in Scotland."
Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
Sir G. YOUNGER: May I ask whether it is in order here to ask about the constitution of this Court, and for the names of those who are to get this pension, because hitherto we have been refused them. In the Debate the other night on the Insurance Bill the Lord Advocate was put in exactly the same position as on this Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said the names would be given before the Bill passed the Report stage. If it is in order, therefore, I should certainly ask that the names might be given at this stage, because I think this is an exactly parallel case.
The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Ure): I am not prepared to give the names at this stage. I think it would be entirely premature. The Bill might not become law, and it would be rather invidious to give the names of gentlemen who might never hold office.
Sir G. YOUNGER: This is exactly the same position as regards the Insurance Bill. Nobody knows whether that Bill will become law or not, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer has promised the names shall be given before the Report stage.
Mr. BOOTH: I wish to correct the hon. Gentleman. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's promise was that they would be given before the Insurance Bill left the House.
Mr. BARNES: I am not going to put the House to the trouble of a Division, but I want it to be understood I am not assenting to this Resolution. I protest against it. This is to make provision for

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the pension of one man out of five. I do not know why he should be pensioned rather than the others. I can only assume it is going to be a fat job for some lawyer, probably a lawyer well known already, and I protest against public money being voted long before it is wanted.
Question, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution," put, and agreed to.

SMALL LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
As amended in Standing Committee [6th November.] Further considered.
SMALL LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) BILL.

  CLAUSE 7.—(Powers to Facilitate the Constitution of New Holdings.)
  (1) It shall be lawful for the landlord of any land and any other person to agree that in respect of such land such person may apply to the Land Court to be registered as a new holder under this Act, and such person may thereupon apply accordingly, and subject to the provisions of this Act may be so registered.
  (2) It shall be the duty of the Commissioner for Small Holdings to report from time to time to the Board after due inquiry what demand for small holdings exists in any district, and after consultation (where practicable) with the landlord or landlords what land (if any) is available to meet that demand, without causing undue displacement of farm servants presently employed on or about such land, under what conditions such land is cultivated, and what employment it affords.
  (3) Where the Commissioner for Small Holdings is satisfied that there is a demand for small holdings and that suitable land exists it shall be his duty to negotiate with the landlords of such land with a view to the adjustment of a scheme for the registration by agreement of any one or more new holders in respect of such land.
  (4) Failing agreement, such land may, otherwise than by agreement, be made available for the registration of new holders in the manner and subject to the conditions hereinafter described.
  (5) In proceeding under this Section the Board shall take steps to ascertain what land is falling or is about to fall out of lease where the present tenant is not an offerer, and shall preferably select such
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  land (if otherwise suitable) for the constitution of new holdings otherwise than by agreement.
  (6) Where a new holder is registered under this Section by agreement, the rent agreed between the landlord and the new holder shall not, if the same shall have been agreed upon for a specified period, be altered by the Land Court during such period, and shall not in any case be altered by the Land Court for a period of seven years from the term at which it first becomes payable.
  (7) Where, with a view to, or as incidental to, the registration of a new holder or holders in respect of any land, whether by agreement or otherwise, the Board are of opinion, upon consideration of a report by the Commissioner for Small Holdings, that assistance should be provided for the purpose of dividing, fencing, or otherwise preparing or adapting the land, making occupation roads, or executing other works, such as works for the provision of drainage or water supply, or erecting or adapting a dwelling-house or dwelling-houses or other buildings, or for any similar purpose, the Board may provide such assistance by way of loan or (except as regards dwelling-houses or other buildings) by way of gift, and subject to such conditions as they may prescribe. Conditions so prescribed and the provisions for their enforcement or for the case of their violation shall be as effectual as if they were contained in this Act.
  (8) Where the Board are of opinion that damage or injury will be done to any tenant in respect that the land forms part or the whole of his tenancy, they shall pay compensation as may be agreed.
  (9) Where the Commissioner for Small Holdings reports that the landlord refuses to negotiate, or where, after submitting to the landlord a scheme for the constitution of one or more new holdings on the land, he reports that no agreement can be reached, it shall be lawful for the Board, after due notice and after hearing any party who desires to be heard, to intimate to the landlord and to other parties concerned that it is in the public interest that one or more new holdings should be constituted on the land in accordance with the said scheme, and that they propose to apply to the Land Court to make an order or orders for the constitution of one or more new holdings on the land in accordance with such scheme, to be occupied by new holders, at a fair rent and upon such terms and conditions

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  not inconsistent with the Landholders Acts as the Land Court consider just; and thereafter to apply accordingly.
  (10) Before making such an order the Land Court shall give all parties having a right or interest in the land an opportunity of being heard.
  (11) The Land Court shall thereafter determine, with due regard to the provisions of the Landholders Acts, and by order or orders declare—

  (a) In respect of what land, if any, specified in the scheme, one or more holdings for new holders may respectively be constituted, and up to what date the power to constitute them otherwise than by agreement may be exercised;

  (b) What is the fair rent for each new holding;

  (c) What land, if any, specified in the scheme is to be excluded therefrom; and

  (d) Whatever else may be necessary for the purpose of making the scheme effective and of adjusting the rights of all parties interested in or affected by the proceedings:

  Provided that where the Land Court are of opinion that damage or injury will be done to the letting value of the land to be occupied by a new holder or new holders, or of any farm of which such land forms part, or to any tenant in respect that the land forms part or the whole of his tenancy, or to any landlord in respect of an obligation to take over sheep stock at a valuation or in respect of any depreciation in the value of the estate of which the land forms part in consequence of and directly attributable to the constitution of the new holding or holdings as proposed, they shall require the Board, in the event of the scheme being proceeded with, to pay compensation to such amount as the Land Court determine after giving parties an opportunity, if they so desire, of leading evidence in the matter.
  (12) In or after making such an order the Land Court (without prejudice to their other powers) may do, provide, or decide anything incidental to or consequential on such an order as if it were an order under Section 12 of the Act of 1886, and may, if they think fit, provide for the incorporation with the order, subject to the necessary adaptations, of any provisions of the Lands Clauses Acts which appear to them requisite for carrying the order into effect.
  (13) Upon such an order providing for the constitution of one or more new holdings on any land being issued the Board may proceed to make it effective by entering on the land, carrying out works, and otherwise as may be required (due compensation to such amount as may be agreed or as, in case of dispute, may be determined by the Land Court, being made for surface damage), and may negotiate with one or more duly qualified applicants with a view to their registration as new holders in respect of the land.
  (14) A new holder shall not be duly qualified for registration otherwise than by agreement who does not satisfy the Board as to his ability to fulfil the obligations incumbent on him.
  (15) The Board shall give reasonable consideration to objections stated by a landlord to any applicant for a new holding, and ceteris paribus shall give a preference to applicants preferred by the landlord.
  (16) Except by agreement a new holder shall not be registered—

  (a) in respect of any land being or forming part of a farm not exceeding one hundred and fifty acres occupied by a person who has no interest in any other farm unless there be no other land available in the neighbourhood of any existing village or township, in which case this limitation shall not apply: Provided that if any farm of less than one hundred and fifty acres be required, the whole of such farm shall be taken for the constitution of new holdings if the landlord so desires; or

  (b) in respect of any land being or forming part of a farm occupied subject to a lease which was in force at Whitsunday nineteen hundred and six, so long as the lease remains in force.

  (17) All parties being possessed of lands or any right or interest therein who under the Lands Clauses Acts have power on behalf of themselves or of others to convey and dispose of such lands, or of such rights therein for the purposes mentioned in those Acts, shall have the like power to enter into any agreement or give any con sent for the purposes of this Section.
  (18) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Congested Districts (Scot land) Act, 1897, the expression "land lord" in this Section includes the Board in respect of any land purchased under that Act and transferred to the Board under the provisions of this Act.
  (19) Any member of the Land Court, or the Board, or any person authorised in writing by the Land Court or by the Board, may for the purposes of the Landholders Acts enter upon and inspect any lands or buildings at all reasonable hours on any lawful day.
  Mr. MORTON: I beg to move, in Subsection (2), to leave out the words "without causing undue displacement of farm servants presently employed on or about such land."
  You cannot carry out this Bill without displacing farm servants. Our object is to give them land. I should like to know whether the Lord Advocate cannot agree to this Amendment, which, I believe, would improve the Bill.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I beg to second the Amendment in order to give the Lord Advocate a chance of replying.
  Mr. URE: I cannot accept the Amendment, which was the subject matter of very full discussion in Committee. It seems to me the word "undue" entirely meets the point of the hon. Member.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Mr. MORTON: I beg to move, in Subsection (2), at the end to insert the words, "Deer forests, grouse moors, and large sheep farms situated in the Highland crofting counties, as defined in the Act of 1886, with or without farms attached, and whether under lease or otherwise, are hereby declared to be suitable lands for the cultivation of new holdings or for the enlargement of existing holdings, or additional grazing, or formation of new grazings in connection with existing holdings."
  I think it ought to be definitely understood what land comes within the purview of the Act, and I hope, therefore, the Lord Advocate will allow these words to be incorporated in the Bill.
  Mr. BARNES: I beg to second the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: My objection to inserting these words is that they would unduly limit the choice of the new Land Court, the President of the Board of Agriculture, and the Commissioner of Small Holdings, who have, under the Bill as it stands, a perfectly free hand; we do not desire to alter that.
  Mr. MORTON: Will they be able to deal with all the lands I refer to in the Amendment?
  Mr. URE: Yes.
  Sir F. BANBURY: This is a very interesting Amendment. I am not quite certain that I understand what its effect would be on such lands as are devoted to deer forests, grouse moors, and large sheep farms. I suppose the object of the Amendment is to do away with these things. I do not believe it will be for the advantage of Scotland, or for any part of it, to take that course. On the contrary, I believe it would do great harm to the United Kingdom if anything is done which causes deer forests and grouse moors to disappear. The hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes), is obsessed with the idea that these places are very deleterious to the working classes. I do not think that they are. On the contrary, I think they are very good, as they give employment to a large number of men who would not otherwise be employed. I should like to remind the hon. Member for Sutherland that, as mover of this Amendment, he has the right to speak again, and I would invite him to give me some information as to his object in making this proposal.
  Mr. MORTON: I am quite aware that I have the right to speak again, but in view of the answer of the Lord Advocate, that this point is already provided for in the Bill, I do not desire to further press my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Mr. MORTON: I beg to move, in Subsection (5), after the word "is" ["to ascertain what land is"], to insert the word "suitable."
  I think this word would be an improvement to the Clause, and I hope the Lord Advocate will agree to its insertion.
  Mr. BARNES: I beg to second the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: The word is quite unnecessary there.
  Question, "That the word 'suitable' be there inserted," put, and negatived.
  Captain GILMOUR: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (5), to insert the words "and shall not for the purpose of such constitution make other land available unless they are of opinion that

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  there by more beneficial use may be made of such land and more labour employed thereon."
  The object of this Amendment is quite plain. Under this Clause the Commissioner for Small Holdings is instructed, in making his survey of the land, to take into consideration the question of the undue displacement, of farm servants. Unlike the hon. Member for Sutherland, I am very strongly of opinion that it is essential, if a small holdings scheme in Scotland is to be in any sense successful, that it should be acceptable, and if it is not acceptable to the agricultural community as a whole, I do not think it can be successful. It is also essential that due regard should be paid, in taking land for small holdings, that it should employ more people than are actually being employed at the present time, and that some reason should be shown why one set of individuals should be displaced in order that they may be replaced by another set. It may be argued that, in giving this instruction to the Commissioner, there are sufficient safeguards with respect to this question, but I think we should go further than that, and that, in the words of my Amendment, it should be taken into consideration by the Court. This, I submit, is a very necessary Amendment, and if the spirit of it is going to be accepted by those who will be entrusted with the administration of this measure, there cannot be any sound ground for objecting to it. I think it will not in any way lessen the just powers this body should have, while at the same time it will act as a direct instruction from this House that, in our view, these factors must be taken into consideration in settling any question of this kind.
  Mr. HARRY HOPE: I beg to second the Amendment. We, on this side of the House, support the creation of more small holdings. We recognise that they are needed, and can do an immense amount of good. But what we say is, let them come without breaking down a system which has previously been successful. Scottish agriculture has obtained a measure of success which perhaps is greater than that obtained by agriculture in any other country. Is it not possible for us to get all the small holdings that are wanted and that will serve our requirements without injury to the largest industry in this country? Insecurity of tenure is one of the worst things you can create in connection with holdings. The foundation stone of this Bill, according to
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  hon. Members opposite, is the provision of security of tenure, but the very absence of such a provision as that which is embodied in my hon. Friend's Amendment must result in the creation of a feeling of insecurity that ill operate most harshly upon the whole agricultural industry in Scotland. We know that confidence is at the root of all success. If any tenant, no matter how well he is cultivating his land, no matter how intensively he is farming and in spite of the fact that he is carrying on his work in the best possible manner, if he knows that in future, although he has a lease of a farm entered into prior to 1906, at any time a slice can be cut away from it, how is that man going to develop his business? What incentive will he have to cultivate the land in the same high manner he has done in the past, and what confidence will landowners have in investing their money in permanent improvements as they have so lavishly done in the past?
  We are not running counter to the intentions of the Government in moving this Amendment, for Sub-section (2) of this Clause gives an instruction to the Commissioner whose duty it is to find whether small holdings are wanted and to recommend their creation. We only ask that, practically speaking, the same instruction shall be repeated for the Board. It is important, if this thing is going to be a success, that it should work smoothly and with as little friction as possible. We do not want a large and influential part of the agricultural community to be up in arms against the procedure to be carried out under this Bill. We want small holdings, and to take the people along with us in getting them created, and we want them created with the minimum amount of disturbance which, unless provided against, will be a menace against and do harm to the prosperous industry of agriculture in Scotland. I earnestly ask the Lord Advocate to give this Amendment more than a merely formal consideration. We are asking nothing contrary to his own intentions, because in Committee it was stated that there will be no chance of the Board taking land that is being highly cultivated and which is providing the best possible amount of labour, that the Commissioners will be sensible men, and they are pretty sure to avoid such land, knowing that they would have to pay very heavy compensation, and therefore they would take less highly developed land. If that is the intention let us have it in the bond, and let it be an instruction to the Board that in

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  carrying out this Bill such land is the land that should be avoided from being taken; and I am confident that with the men who have got these small holdings less friction will be created and the Bill will work far smoother than if no such instruction is given.
  Mr. URE: I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Buteshire (Mr. Harry Hope) that I have given more than formal consideration to this Amendment, but I really cannot share his view and that of the Mover of the Amendment with regard to its high importance. Indeed, the House will have gathered from the speeches both hon. Members have made, that they themselves do not attach very high importance to this Amendment, because they both frankly admit that an intelligent Board of Agriculture and a Small Holdings Commissioner who understood his business, would never dream of assigning new land to small holdings unless they honestly believe it would be more beneficially occupied. You are asking the Commissioner to form an opinion when it is impossible for him to form an opinion. How can he tell that the land would be more beneficially occupied? It will depend entirely upon the way in which the man may cultivate the land. The land may be suitable, but the man may not be a first-class husbandman. By this Amendment you are placing on the Board of Agriculture, and upon the Small Holdings Commissioner a duty it is quite impossible to discharge. The hon. Members also say that he must not only form an opinion that the land will be more beneficially occupied but also an opinion that more labour will be employed on the land It does not always follow that the land will be more beneficially occupied if more labour is bestowed upon it. There again it depends upon the skill and knowledge with which the labour is applied. The hon. Members desire to link both together, and to say that the Board must be of opinion—not merely cherishing a belief or expectation—that there would be more beneficial occupation and also that more labour would be bestowed on the land. I believe it would be a very unwise condition to impose upon them, for the data on which that opinion could be formed could not possibly be within their knowledge.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: I think we have had an absolutely typical speech upon the land. We have had on
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  this side a speech from a practical farmer one of the best farmers in Scotland, who is respected by all agriculturalists. He has voiced the opinions of the best agriculturists in Scotland at the present moment. It is simply by refusing Amendments of this sort that the Liberal party are gradually losing the whole support of agriculturists of over £50 in value for small holdings in Scotland, that is to say, the very farmers who make Scotch agriculture what it is at the present moment. The Amendment says that the Board shall not for the purpose of such constitution make other land available unless they are of opinion that thereby more beneficial use may be made of such land and more labour employed thereon. What is the whole contention of hon. Members opposite? It is that small holdings are wanted, not to improve agriculture, but to put more people on the land. Here they are refusing to put in an Amendment which would safeguard the number of people employed. I cannot see what excuse you have for this Bill at all if it is not intended to put more people on the land, and to keep them there, and generally develop the agriculture. Apparently the idea is—if you do not accept this Amendment—that you may put fewer people on the land with less benefit to that land. I should like the Lord Advocate to come and make the same speech in front of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture, and see what the result will be. He says the reason why he does not want to accept it is because land on good, well-cultivated estates might be turned over to men who are not good husbandmen. What on earth are you going to put on the land? Men who know nothing about it? Are you going to spoil the best land in Scotland by putting absolutely ignorant men, for political purposes, on the land? In a very few years those who are not good husbandmen will probably learn, but they will probably spoil the land in doing it, and the landlord will have to ask for compensation for the rubbish which has been put on it and to go to the expense of putting it in proper fettle again when it has been thrown back on his hands. Then the right hon. Gentleman said more labour is not wanted. Surely the whole idea of it is to have more labour, and what is also wanted otherwise is confidence. By not accepting an Amendment of this sort you are having no confidence in the whole farming world. Probably the Board of Agriculture will have the best intentions in the world, but you ought to

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  put it in black and white, so that the landlords and farmers of Scotland may have some idea that if they look after their land well, employ the maximum of labour, and do their best, they will have a certain amount of security, and it surely is not very much to ask that the basis on which that should be performed is good agriculture and the employment of a lot of labour.
  Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: I agree with the Lord Advocate that this Amendment presents certain difficulties. On the other hand, it does excite considerable interest among the agriculturists and occupiers, and no doubt the owners also, in Scotland. What I think is aimed at, although it might not be covered entirely by the wording of the Clause, is that the small holders should be created upon a basis which is economically sound. That I think is a fair proposition. Whether it is done or not will depend very much upon the character of the new land authority and upon the instructions it may receive. There is the absence of responsible management for one class, at any rate, of the small holdings to be created under the Bill, and the State is really more interested in that matter now than owners are, because they are protected against loss by the Clause for compensation. The occupiers of the larger holdings may have some cause of anxiety but the State has no cause, because if small holdings are created by what was formerly, at any rate, the policy of the Government, which must lead to inevitable loss, the burden will fall upon the State, and it ought therefore to take precautions for responsible management so as to avoid loss, or it ought to secure that the Courts shall create new holdings upon an economical basis, and I do not believe that small or any other holdings will in the long run be a success unless created on a sound economic basis. The wording of the Clause is a little strong, because in many cases it would certainly be advisable to have small holdings even if they only gave the same economic success and provided the same labour as the existing holdings. I can quite conceive that it might be desirable to create holdings, even though they did not give more labour or were not an economic success, but that ought to be the lowest level. They ought to be an economic success, and why I am disposed rather to favourably consider some provision of this kind, is that those in charge of the former Bill at any rate—and the
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  doctrine has never been repudiated yet—always accepted the principle that these new small holdings would have to be formed at a loss which would be made good by the State, because I do not believe it is sound policy for the State to have to make good such a loss, and, therefore, I have always considered it a false basis for the erection of small holdings to regard it as an inevitable contingency that loss must accompany their formation. I do not think that loss is necessary, and though it may be done without, I think small holdings should be made economically sound. But that being adopted which has never yet been repudiated, I think there is justification for securing that the new small holdings should be formed on a sound economic basis.
  Mr. CATHCART WASON: There is a point of view I should like to urge on the hon. Member opposite in regard to this, proposal, that it is a matter of argument for the Commissioners under the Bill to define what is and what is not labour, because the great probability is that if a considerable farm, well cultivated, on which a large amount of labour is employed, is turned into small holdings, more labour will not be employed than formerly. But at the same time the State, for reasons of its own, is exceedingly anxious that, instead of having a community entirely dependent upon the wages which they earn from farmers on the estate, there should be a greater number of small holders put on the land in the crofting districts who do not employ labour. It is perfectly arguable that, if the Amendment is accepted, the men and women who work on the small holdings would not be fairly classed as labour, and would not be receiving any wages. That is why I strongly object to this proposal.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I do not quite follow the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cathcart Wason). Surely the labour of a crofter is just as much labour as the labour of a farm servant. I cannot see any difference. The object of this Bill is to do good to the people of Scotland. It is to put more people on the land. It is, if possible, to improve agriculture and to make the land as useful as possible. The spirit of this Amendment is exactly the same. What we want to do is to improve, and not to let things go down. If the Government resists this Amendment it lays itself open to the charge that it may countenance the deterioration

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  of land or the diminution of labour, which is what no Member, be he Tory, Conservative, Unionist, Irishman or Labourist, wants. The whole object of the Bill is to make for good. The Amendment is framed in that spirit, and I urge the Government to accept it.
  Mr. PETO: I should not have intervened in a Debate which primarily concerns a Scottish question if it were not that this Amendment introduces a principle of wide application, certainly of application to every part of Great Britain, dealing with the question of the institution of small holdings. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment is perfectly well advised in laying down two general principles in that Amendment, and those general principles ought to be incorporated in the Bill. The purpose of the Amendment is a double one—that in the opinion of the Commissioner the land would thereby be made more beneficial use of, and also that more labour should be employed on it. I am entirely in agreement with the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Major Anstruther-Gray) that there is no question whatever as to what is the definition of labour. It does not define it as to whether it is labour in receipt of a weekly wage or labour which depends on the profit of the small holding for its remuneration. The Lord Advocate said the Government could not accept this Amendment because it asked the Commissioners of small holdings to give an opinion upon two questions, and that that would be only a matter of opinion, though, of course, in any case, they would be governed by the rules laid down in this Amendment. A great deal more than that might be said on the subject. We do deliberately, in the Amendment, ask the Commissioners of small holdings to exercise their discretion, and not to do certain things if in their opinion they will not produce certain results, and I think it is a very good thing that it should be laid down in black and white in this Bill. The Lord Advocate said it might turn out that, although they thought it was going to be made more beneficial use of, a good husbandman would not come upon a particular small holding, and it might result in having a crop of tares and thistles instead of good oats, or barley, or turnips. That, I regret to say, is very often the result in connection with small holdings. Surely if this Amendment were adopted a few such experiences would provide an absolute guide
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  line for the Board in the setting up of small holdings. They would have to profit by past experience in forming their opinions for the future. Undoubtedly the having of more people on the land, both in Scotland and England, would be a very good thing, but we have to remember that there is an enormous emigration from Scotland at the present time, and it is largely to Canada. You may, therefore, be going on a false line in this matter if you do not lay down some such provision as is indicated in the Amendment. If you are putting people on small holdings where there is no primâ facie evidence that the land will be better cultivated, or that more labour will be employed on the land, you may keep people starving in working small holdings at home, when on big farms in the Colonies they might make very good money. I think it is very important that we should lay down the principle of the Amendment, because in the intense anxiety to work the Bill land may be taken from existing cultivators whose methods of cultivation are suitable to the district, and who are paying their labourers regular weekly wages until they are able to seek better employment elsewhere. At the same time the farmers are able to make good use of the money they have invested in the farms. As a humble agricultural Member I heartily support this Amendment.
  Sir JOHN DEWAR: I am against this Amendment because, like very many more, it will make it more difficult to get land for small holdings. According to the wording of the Amendment the Commissioners are not to "make other land available unless they are of opinion that thereby more beneficial use may be made of such land and more labour employed thereon." I know many farms of 500 acres, and if it was proposed to break up one of these farms into ten small holdings of fifty acres, it would be very difficult to prove that more labour would be employed on the ten holdings, or that the land would be put to more beneficial use in the economic sense. But does anybody mean to tell me that there would not be an enormous social advantage in having ten married men on the land cultivating their own small holdings instead of having ten unmarried men living in a bothy, and giving their labour on the 500 acre farm? It would be almost impossible to prove that more labourers would be employed on the small holdings, or that the land would be put to more beneficial use, but I say that in the

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  interest of the social condition of the people it is desirable that the small holdings should be created.
  Mr. J. E. GORDON: I had the honour of representing a Scottish constituency for ten years, and I must say that if my hon. Friend (Captain Gilmour) goes to a Division, I shall have very much pleasure in supporting the Amendment. I wish to express my deep regret at the attitude of the Government in this matter. Broadly speaking, whether as an English or a Scottish Member, I would say that this Bill is looked upon as distinctly a bold step, in order to provide a larger field of livelihood in connection with the agricultural industry, and also to increase the population engaged on the land. If the people of the country hear that this Department in Edinburgh is to have a sort of balancing problem to deal with—namely, whether they should put eight instead of ten, or ten instead of eight small holders on the land, I think they will consider that the Bill is hardly worthy the attention of the House. I remember the House in the early seventies, and in those days Bills when introduced were generally prefaced by a Preamble. Personally, I am not aware why the Preamble system has been dropped out of Bills in recent times, but, speaking as an ordinary layman, I regret that the measures which now come before Parliament have not a Preamble. The Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend would in the old days have been a Preamble laying down that those entrusted with the administration of the measure were not to disturb the social or economic conditions in the district in relation to farming unless they had not a problematical idea, but absolute certainty that the change would be productive of advantage in the district.
  The whole question of the application of capital to the cultivation of the land is a very serious one at the present moment. I do not hold an acre of land in Scotland, and I do not mean to do so under present conditions. I know a case where a landowner about thirty years ago left to his daughters an estate of the value of, I think, £50,000, on which there was for many years a mortgage of £25,000. That estate was afterwards sold for £20,000. I know a farm in the same county that was sold about eighteen months ago. A friend of mine who bought it spent six years' income on improvements. The House is asking the Commissioners to undertake
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  very difficult and dangerous duties under this Bill, and if it is going to upset the economic conditions which now apply to land, and the strong sentiment which prevails with respect to the application of capital in that industry in Scotland, it may do more harm to the country than good. I regret that the Lord Advocate looked at the work which is to be done by the Commissioners as involving a matter of balancing. I should like this Bill to bring undoubted advantages to the country without requiring the exercise of balancing power by anyone from Parliament House.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: I regret the Lord Advocate has not received this Amendment in a more sympathetic spirit. A similar Amendment was considered when the Bill was before the Grand Committee, and I did hope that by this time the right hon. and learned Gentleman would have seen his way to modify the opinion he then gave, particularly after the strong expressions of opinion which we have had on this subject. I myself have received many anxious communications stating that we should press this demand in the interest of the agriculturists of Scotland. I admit that there is some force in the criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness (Sir J. Dewar) in respect of the beneficial use of land, and I should be inclined to suggest that the difficulty might be got over by substituting for the word "more" the word "equally," both as regards the beneficial use and the labour employed. That would dispose of his criticism, which in some respects was tolerably well founded. I daresay my hon. Friend (Captain Gilmour) would be willing to accept that alteration of his Amendment. This Amendment will satisfy the farmers of Scotland, who, after all, ought to be considered in this matter with anxious care. We have maintained a system of agriculture in Scotland through very adverse times to the great satisfaction of everybody concerned. We have in Scotland the best system of agriculture that exists in the civilised world, and the tenants are entitled to the best consideration and to claim that their interests ought not to be unduly interfered with in any changes that may be made.
  This is only a more or less tentative proposal, and it will have the indirect effect—where you have possibly to alter the conditions of a holding by, say, turning good pasture land into arable land, or where you get possibly a crop of thistles instead

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  of, as the Lord Advocate said, a crop of oats, or barley, or turnips—of stirring up the occupiers to make more beneficial use of the holding than otherwise they would have. That would be a direct advantage gained, which is not to be lost sight of. There are tenants of that kind in Scotland, as well as in other places. If the Lord Advocate thinks that the tenants of Scotland are not anxious to have this Amendment passed he makes a great mistake. If this Bill is to pass it is desirable that it should pass with the least possible friction and the fewest possible objectors, so that everyone concerned may do his best to see that its provisions are carried into effect and made as beneficial as possible. Let him not think it wise or prudent to go on refusing Amendments in this House that are perfectly reasonable and are not intended in any way to interfere with the working of this system. There is plenty of room within the words of the Amendment for the construction of all the small holdings that people are likely to want. There are many districts in which they are not wanted at all, and in which this Bill would prove to be absolutely a dead letter. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that himself. I believe it will be so in the county in which I am chiefly interested, and also in many others. This Amendment will not do otherwise than give a very reasonable instruction to those responsible for the creation of these small holdings.
  1.0 P.M.
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I regret very much that the Government will not accept this Amendment. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leith Burghs (Mr. Munro-Ferguson), that unless small holdings in Scotland or anywhere else are founded on a sound economical basis, instead of doing good they will do a great deal of mischief. The Lord Advocate, as I understood, opposed this Amendment on the ground that it was impossible for the Commission to form an opinion as to whether a more beneficial use may be made of the land or more labour would be employed upon it. I fall in entirely with the suggestion of the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger), that the word "equal" should be substituted for the word "more"; but if it is impossible for this Board to form an opinion as to whether what they are going to do will result in a more beneficial use being made of the land,
  692
  or more labour being employed upon it, then I confess it seems to me they will be quite incapable of discharging what should be their very first duty. The idea of creating small holdings, when we are told that they cannot possibly say whether a better or as good use is going to be made of the land, or whether as much labour is going to be employed, seems to me to be out of the question. That is the answer which I make to the observations of the hon. Baronet, the Member for Inverness-shire (Sir J. Dewar). No doubt it would be an advantage to have six or seven families cultivating the land instead of having the work done by unmarried men, provided always you are going to get more out of the land, or as much out of the land. We are not here representing the landlord view. No one will dispute that we are here putting forward the views of the tenant farmers of Scotland, and I think that the challenge made is well founded, that you will not find practically any difference of opinion among the tenant farmers of Scotland, or a very large pre-ponderence of the tenant farmers that what they want is to get security in their farms, and they believe that without some such provision as this there security would be absolutely interfered with. I hope it will be quite understood that so far as we put forward this Amendment, we are not doing so in the least for the purpose of preventing the formation of small holdings, but for the purpose of securing as far as possible that small holdings shall have the best chance, by putting before the Commission the consideration of applying their minds to the economical question, and seeing whether the small holdings which they are going to create will be on a sound economic basis. For these reasons I would ask the Government to reconsider their views upon the matter, and if possible—I do not say that the words may not be capable of being improved—that the idea of the Amendment should find expression in the Bill, and be an Instruction to the Commissioners in the carrying out of their duties.
  Mr. BARNES: Hon. Members have lost sight of the fact that this is a limiting Amendment. It is going to limit the discretion of the Commissioners, who are to work this Act. There is nothing in the Act to prevent the Commissioners acting exactly in the manner adumbrated in the Amendment. The Commissioners are

  693
  charged to have regard to land falling or about to fall out of use, and to prefer such land. That is going some way in the direction of the Amendment. But the Amendment goes further, and says that the Commissioners shall not constitute any land a new holding unless a more beneficial or as now suggested, an equally beneficial use shall be made of it, and more labour employed.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: "Or" more labour. The words are "equally beneficial or more labour employed."
  Mr. BARNES: What we are discussing is the Amendment which says that a more beneficial use is to be made of the land, and that more labour is to be employed. The hon. Member for Inverness-shire referred to the question of the beneficial use of the land. From what I can gather, the general feeling seems to be that the beneficial use is the economical use in the sense of money. That is what I gather from the cheers following the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leith Burghs. I do not take that view. I rather take the view put forward by the hon. Member for Inverness-shire, that the beneficial use of land is a wider term. The hon. Member who sits behind me moved an Amendment to-day including deer forests and sheep runs and the land used for that purpose as coming within the Bill, and he was told that it was not necessary because that sort of land was already in the Bill. That is to say, the Commissioners have a discretion to use that sort of land if they thought proper. It may be for anything I know that a larger rent is obtained for the land than can be obtained for small holdings. I think it is very likely that that is so. Therefore, in that mere sense of money, in the sense of a larger rent being obtained for the landlords, and that rent yielding its quota to carry on local work in the district, I suppose we would say that that is the best use that can be made of the land, but it should be observed that at all events much of the land now used for that purpose has been used at one time for labour, for the purpose of maintaining that social life, or something like it, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Inverness-shire, and I take it that if under the operation of this Bill, or any other Bill, we could convert these sheep-runs and deer-forests into small holdings—I do not say it is possible—if it were possible—I am merely giving this as an illustration—
  694
  to convert that land from being a sheep-run or a deer-forest into small holdings, and if less rent were obtained for the land, I take it that we should still be making a more beneficial use of it, because although less rent might be obtained and less money for administration by local bodies, yet the larger number of people who would be living on the land, bringing their families there, would be the introduction of a form of social life in Scotland which has been almost banished from that country; the whole consideration, so far, having been, I believe, to get the highest rent for the land. It is for that reason I shall vote against this Amendment, which adds to the difficulties of the Commissioners in bringing land under the operation of the Bill.
  Mr. JAMES MASON: I think it is quite obvious that the Amendment now before the House contemplates the agricultural value only of the land, and not the rent which can be obtained. I think the words "beneficial use" must certainly be judged from the point of view, rather, of the yield of the land. The whole of this question seems to me to be one affecting the position between the large farmer and the small farmer, and not the position between the landlord and the farmer. If this Amendment is refused with the idea that these small holdings are to be set up, apart from the question of whether they are going to give a better and more beneficial result as a whole, or whether they are going to employ as much labour, it is obvious you are faced with an uneconomic position, and in the end the holdings will be thrown up. In order to set up a system of small holdings you necessarily have to affect the position of large holdings detrimentally. In order to set up these holdings it is admitted you have to do something which is disadvantageous to big holdings. If the small holdings which are set up are found not to be economic, and have to be given up, you will have inflicted a great amount of injury upon big agriculture without gaining anything for the benefit of small agriculture. Before taking such a step it is quite obvious that it is necessary to take precautions that that should not occur. It may easily happen in Scotland, if these small holdings are not economic, that in time they will be thrown on your hands in the same way as we have seen a great number of cases in which allotments have been thrown up, because the people did

  695
  not want them. That has happened to me within the last few weeks. I have been requested by a neighbouring village to take the allotments off their hands without any notice or compensation, because they do not want to keep them any longer. The condition in which they have been returned to me has been such that I have been obliged to give them to a neighbouring farmer for two or three years, without rent, in order to get the land clean. If that happens with small holdings, and if they are returned in the inferior condition in which they are at the present time, then you will find that you will have to throw them back eventually into the larger holdings, with the result that the total beneficial yield of the land, as a whole, will be deteriorated.
  Mr. MUNRO: The speeches which have been made on the other side of the House seem to suggest that unless this Amendment is accepted, the beneficial use of the land and the employment of more labour will be considerations excluded from the contemplation and deliberations of the Land Court. There can be no greater delusion than that, for anybody who has studied this Bill will see that it provides that all material elements shall be considered by the Land Court. The land must be suitable land before it is taken by the Land Court, and all the parties having any interest or right to the land must be heard. Therefore, it is impossible to imagine that all the considerations dealt with in this Amendment, and all other relevant considerations, will not be before the Land Court in dealing with this matter. What we do deprecate is that the Land Court should be absolutely disabled from dealing with the land at all, unless it is able to make up its mind on the two considerations dealt with in this Amendment in a rather speculative manner. The real objection to the Amendment—I am speaking for myself—is that it is impossible of application if looked at by any member of the Land Court. What is the meaning of this Debate? It illustrates the difficulty. What is the meaning of the words "beneficial use"? Various suggestions have been made from various quarters of the House. How is the Land Court to deal with words capable of such diverse interpretation? Beneficial to whom? To the landlord, to the tenant, to the community? Is it sporting, is it agricultural use? The various suggestions which have been made
  696
  on the point illustrate how difficult it will be for the Land Court to deal with these questions. Take the other criterion suggested, the employment of more labour. You would require a Land Court composed of men who are not only judges, but prophets, to apply that criterion. No Court, looking to the future, could possibly make up its mind as to whether or no, say, in the following year, labour would be greater than at the time the application was made. If for no other reason, the very unspecific character of the criteria which it is sought to apply is a good reason for rejecting the Amendment.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I followed with a considerable amount of interest the speech of the hon. Baronet the Member for Inverness-shire (Sir J. Dewar), but I am not quite sure that I could follow his argument. He is apparently against the Amendment because he is of opinion that social advantage will be gained if ten married men are put on a piece of land instead of ten unmarried men; we have too much emigration going on at the present moment, to Canada and other places, and if you put more married men upon the land you will have more emigration, because there is not more than a certain amount of land to accommodate them. The hon. Gentleman went on to say that the object of the Bill was to create small holdings, and that it was absolutely necessary that small holdings should be created. I take great interest in the proceedings of the hon. Baronet, and I happen to have a speech which he made a short time ago in Inverness-shire, and I do not see that he said anything in it about small holdings. On the contrary, it says that the present system is the best system in the world. If that be so, why does the hon. Baronet refuse this Amendment?
  Sir J. DEWAR: It means the present system of landlord and tenant as against the nationalisation of the land.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I will read the speech of the hon. Gentleman:—
  "He believed in the present system they had got in Scotland …. The system of Scotland, in having a good landlord and a well-managed estate, was economically the soundest system of all, because they had on the one hand the owner, willing to risk his capital in purchasing land and lit it for the tenant, and on the other they had the tenant, willing to risk his capital and give his life, energy, and genius in getting the most out of the land."
  I own a very small portion of land, and have only a few tenants. I hope my tenants will not take the most they can out of the land; that is not my idea of

  697
  good farming. The hon. Baronet said "he believed a partnership of this kind best suited the genius of the British people." That is the partnership the hon. Baronet is desirous of breaking. As my hon. Friend here says, if there is vacant land let us take that and experiment with small holdings, but do not turn out those men whom the hon. Baronet has been flattering and put in people who may, in the words of the Lord Advocate, not be suitable.
  Sir J. DEWAR: All those observations of mine apply to the small holder under this Bill.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I believe I understand the English language, and as I read it as an Englishman, it does not bear the interpretation the hon. Baronet has put upon it. It may have been spoken in Scotland, and it may have had a different meaning there. The Amendment only proposes that preference should be given to vacant land. I doubt whether these small holdings are going to be so advantageous as is supposed. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Mr. James Mason) told the House his experience, which showed that that is not always the case. My experience is the same. In my part of the world the dry season has knocked out all the small holders, and there is little demand for small holdings. Why should you dispossess people who may have the advantage of getting land which is unoccupied, and on which you can start small holdings? The hon. Member for Leith Burghs (Mr. Munro-Ferguson) said that any loss would have to be made up by the State. I am part of the State, and it is out of my pocket that some of that loss will have to be made up, and therefore, I am not at all anxious to run amuck with small holdings, when I believe that unless they are carefully managed I will have to put my hand in my pocket, and I have done that quite enough with the present Government. I have pleasure in supporting the Amendment.
  Captain GILMOUR: I would be very ready to accept the suggestion of the hon. Member for Ayr Burghs, that the word "equally" should be substituted for the word "more," and "or" for "and" in the latter part of the Amendment. If the Lord Advocate cannot accept the Amendment in that form, he is refusing to accept one of the most reasonable Amendments which has ever been placed before him with regard to this Bill. It is simply
  698
  carrying out the continuance of that Instruction which is proposed by Sub-section (2) of this Clause. The Lord Advocate has told us that the reason why we need not concern ourselves about that is that you have got a Commissioner in whom we are supposed to have every confidence, and that we are to have an intelligent Board of Agriculture, but it has been one of the complaints which we make that we know nothing either about the Commissioner or about this heaven-born Board of Agriculture. Hon. Members opposite, when they made the point about the necessity of ignoring the financial side and rather laying stress upon the necessity of placing a larger number of families upon the land, ignored the fact that in a very large part of Scotland at present there is sufficient housing accommodation for married families, and that in a great part of Scotland, particularly in the south-east, the "bothy" system does not exist to the same extent as in other parts of Scotland. If they do not make it part of the Instructions through the Board of Agriculture, then in my opinion in the larger part of Scotland, they will be displacing, not only the people on the land, and the single labourers, but also the heads of families, and will be doing a great injustice to already existing families, and in defiance of that object, to which hon. Members on the other side professed themselves to be so attached. I think we have the right to ask that this question should be considered, and in view of the refusal which has been given, and of the explicitly expressed views of agriculturists throughout the whole of Scotland, I must press this Motion to a Division.
  Sir HILDRED CARLILE: Are we to have no acknowledgment from any Member of the Government of the important concession made a moment ago to the Government in this Amendment? Is the Government indifferent as to whether the land is used more beneficially or equally beneficially? Is the Amendment to be negatived by the brutal force of additional numbers? I think it is a matter for regret that the hon. Member for Blackfriars (Mr. Barnes) should have brought in a financial element in connection with the Amendment. There is no suggestion of that kind in the Amendment, and it was not stated by speakers on this side that purely monetary considerations influenced them in any sense. It merely gave the hon. Member for Blackfriars an opportunity of dragging in the deer forests, which were,

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  under the circumstances, somewhat conspicuous by their absence from the speeches of hon. Members on the other side. We all know that if the land in Scotland which is now used for deer forests could be used for farming purposes or small holdings, that no people would be more anxious to see that change take place than those to whom the deer forests at present belong. At the present time it is far too late to suggest that the owners of land are not sympathetic towards the subject of small holdings. People who own land are only too anxious to have small holdings on it. Many, like the hon. Member for Windsor, have not been encouraged in their experience. I believe I have only one small holding on a little property within twenty mites of this. My experience has been very disastrous. From time to time the tenant has been changed, and, so far as I can remember, the rent has rarely been
  paid. The hon. Member for Wick Burghs (Mr. Munro) seemed to think that it was utterly superfluous for hon. Members on this side to suppose that it was necessary to put anything in the Bill for the guidance of the Land Courts. It is an extraordinary suggestion to make, that we should give no suggestions for the guidance of those who are to carry out the work of the Court. Therefore it seems to me an extraordinary suggestion that my hon. Friends have gone beyond what was to be expected of them in laying down ruling principles for the guidance of the Land Court. The necessity for these suggestions is perefectly evident to anyone who has any experience of land and its interests. I shall have pleasure in supporting my hon. Friend in the Division.
  Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."
  The House divided: Ayes, 33; Noes, 118.

  Division No. 390.]

  AYES.

  [1.25 p.m.

  Anstruther-Gray, Major William

  Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

  Rothschild, Lionel de

  Ashley, Wilfrid W.

  Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Balcarres, Lord

  Grant, J. A.

  Stewart, Gershom

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)

  Talbot, Lord Edmund

  Bigland, Alfred

  Henderson, Major H. (Abingdon)

  Tullibardine, Marquess of

  Bridgeman, William Clive

  Hunt, Rowland

  Valentia, Viscount

  Burn, Colonel C. R.

  Mackinder, Halford J.

  Wood, John (Stalybridge)

  Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

  M'Mordie, Robert James

  Yate, Colonel C. E.

  Cassel, Felix

  Malcolm, Ian

  Younger, Sir George

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Courthope, George Loyd

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Captain

  Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. S.

  Peto, Basil Edward

  Gilmour and Mr. Harry Hope.

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

  Gill, Alfred Henry

  Martin, Joseph

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Gladstone, W. G. C.

  Mason, David M. (Coventry)

  Adamson, William

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Menzies, Sir Walter

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Goldstone, Frank

  Millar, James Duncan

  Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)

  Greig, Colonel J. W.

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Barnes, George N.

  Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

  Mooney, John J.

  Benn, W. W. (Tower Hamlets, S. Geo.)

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

  Morgan, George Hay

  Booth, Frederick Handel

  Hackett, John

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Brady, Patrick Joseph

  Hancock, J. G.

  Munro, Robert

  Brunner, John F. L.

  Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

  Murray, Capt. Hon. Arthur C.

  Bryce, John Annan

  Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.)

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

  Nolan, Joseph

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Hayward, Evan

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Cameron, Robert

  Hodge, John

  O'Donnell, Thomas

  Chapple, Dr. William Allen

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  O'Grady, James

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Hudson, Walter

  O'Sullivan, Timothy

  Clough, William

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth

  Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Pointer, Joseph

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts, Stepney)

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Cotton, William Francis

  Kelly, Edward

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Cowan, William Henry

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  Radford, George Heynes

  Crumley, Patrick

  King, J. (Somerset, North)

  Raphael, Sir Herbert H.

  Cullinan, John

  Lansbury, George

  Reddy, Michael

  Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)

  Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th)

  Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

  Dawes, James Arthur

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

  Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

  Dewar, Sir J. A.

  Lundon, Thomas

  Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

  Dillon, John

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

  Doris, William

  Maclean, Donald

  Roche, John (Galway, E.)

  Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

  Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

  Rowlands, James

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  M'Micking, Major Gilbert

  Scanlan, Thomas

  Falconer James

  Marshall, Arthur Harold

  Sheehy, David

  Simon, Sir John Allsebrook

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)

  Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim)

  Watt, Henry A.

  Young, William (Perth, East)

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Webb, H.

  Sutton, John E.

  White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

  Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

  Whitehouse, John Howard

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.Gulland and Mr. Dudley Ward.

  Verney, Sir H.

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Wadsworth, John

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause," put, and agreed to.

  Mr. AINSWORTH: I beg to move, in Sub-section (7), after the word "otherwise" ["by agreement or otherwise"], to insert the words "or as incidental to any existing holding or holdings as defined by Section 2, Sub-section (2).
  I hope the Lord Advocate will see his way to extend the powers given by this Sub-section, so that the Board of Agriculture will be able to assist, not only where new holdings are being created, but also where there are existing holdings. It is well known to all who are acquainted with the Highlands, especially in the western counties, that there are a number of parishes in which it has been found impossible to provide for the requirements of the Public Health Act from local funds. Many of the parishes have poor and scattered populations, and the circumstances are such that in many cases, I am sorry to say, that with what, the local authorities have spent they have not then even been able to supply what was required for the well-being of the inhabitants. All we ask is that some means should be found, and some authority be given power, to assist the districts where the local authority is without funds to do what may be necessary to carry out the requirements of the Public Health Act.
  Mr. CATHCART WASON: I beg to second the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: The objects that my hon. Friend has in view are certainly very desirable, but they lie entirely out of the scope of this measure. I should be very unwilling that any part of our £200,000 should be devoted to purposes other than those strictly germane to the matter in hand. Apart from that, I think my hon. Friend will see that what his Amendment proposes will not have the effect desired. It is very vague and general. He may rest assured, however, that the Government: will not lose sight of the needs of these unfortunate districts in Scotland in regard to the Public Health Act.
  Mr. AINSWORTH: I sincerely hope that the Government will subsequently find themselves able to do something in this matter. I beg to withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I beg to move, in Sub-section (8), after the word "opinion" ["the Board are of opinion"], to insert the words "in the case of the adjustment of a scheme for the registration by agreement of any one or more new holders in respect of any land."
  We have understood that Sub-section (7) was dealing really with cases where an agreement had been come to, and we thought it desirable that that should be expressed here rather than that the Clause should stand without qualification. If the Lord Advocate is unable to accept the first of my two Amendments, I hope he will consider the second one.
  Mr. URE: I am willing to accept the Amendment proposed, but Sub-section (8) is merely designed to give the Board of Agriculture power to draw a cheque for the compensation which has been agreed in the event of the scheme being adjusted. It is intended to apply in a case where the land has been taken compulsorily, and in the case where the land has been taken by agreement and the scheme adjusted by agreement. The Right hon. Gentleman will see that in both cases it is quite possible that the Board of Agriculture as tenant may come to an agreement with regard to compensation; that is to say, an agreement between the Board of Agriculture and the tenant is not at all contingent upon the Land Court agreeing or not agreeing to the scheme. Accordingly, this Clause is necessary in order to make it quite certain that the Board of Agriculture will feel they have statutory authority to draw a cheque, even although the aid of the Land Court has not been invoked for the purpose of adjusting the scheme.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I beg to move, in Sub-section (8), after the word "agreed" ["compensation as may be agreed"], to insert the words "between the Board and such tenant."
  In view of the explanation of the Lord Advocate, I should like to be allowed to move this Amendment in the form in which I have just altered it.
  Mr. URE: I accept the Amendment in that form.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: I beg to move, in Sub-section (11), to leave out the words "the Land Court are of opinion that" ["where the Land Court are of opinion that damage or injury"].
  This Amendment will read along with the Amendments that follow a few lines further down. It seems to me an absurd thing to say at the beginning of this Subsection "where the Land Court are of opinion that damage has been done." It is an absurd way of expressing it. Whatever be the opinion of the Land Court, the damage has been done or has not been done. By the constitution of these new rules the Board of Agriculture shall take compensation as determined after the parties have been heard. I do not know that that is a very important point, but it does seem to us to be rather clumsy drafting. This Amendment has no connection with the Appeal Amendment further on. It stands on its own feet altogether. Probably the Lord Advocate will agree that the way I suggest is the better way of expressing the thing.
  Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to Second the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: On the whole I prefer the phrasing of the Bill. The sequence of events is as follows: In the first place, the Land Court says what compensation is due. Having pronounced their opinion, the Board of Agriculture are required to pay the compensation the Land Court has stated to be due. Then the Board of Agriculture considers whether or not the scheme shall proceed, having regard to the amount of compensation which the Land Court has found due. It appears to me that the phrasing of the Bill is therefore better expressed than that suggested by the hon. Baronet.
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: The proposal is an extraordinary one. You are taking land which the proprietor has put to another use, perhaps of a larger holding, and depriving him of all rights of that land, and really it seems to me all right except that of a rent collector. Further, the land may be damaged by being taken from the rest of the land which he maintains in his hands; and it is only after this land has been taken by the Board of Agriculture, subject to the approval of
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  the Land Court, and if the Land Court thinks that he has suffered any damage that he has any claim at all. The landlord may have suffered ever so much damage, but if the Land Court are of opinion that he has not, he is not to be allowed to put forward his claim at all. I suppose that is really what this proviso says?
  It is only where the Land Court thinks damage is done that he is to have any claim at all. No matter how much the landlord or the tenant interested is damaged, if the Land Court thinks it is not damaged he shall not be allowed to put forward his claim. I submit that is a most extraordinary proposal. The Government comes in and off its own bat deprives the landlord of the management of his land, which they want to take for public purposes; yet it is only when the Government think that any damage has been done to his interests that he is to be allowed to put forward a claim. I submit that is depriving the landlord of the rights in his land, and is carrying this matter further than any other Statute ever carried it. In the case of land valuation under the Budget we know what was thought of the proposal that the valuation should be fixed and that no one else was to have anything to say to it. It is proposed in this proviso that whatever damage is done to the landlord or the tenant whose occupancy is taken, neither of them are to have any claim to a copper of compensation unless those taking the land think they ought to have it. That is a most unreasonable proposition.
  Mr. URE: Perhaps, with the leave of the House, I may say one word in reply to the right hon. Gentleman. Of course, if the view he took were accurate it would not be a reasonable proposal, but my right hon. Friend may rest assured that is not so. It is rather curious that my right hon. Friend brings this forward now for the first time. We all understand perfectly well that the Land Court will be made the judges in the event of the landlord putting in any claim for compensation. But I would refer my right hon. Friend to Subsection (10), which provides that before making an order the Land Court gives all parties with any right or interest in the land an opportunity of being heard. If the landlord suffers any damage he puts in a claim, and the Court will, of course, consider it.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: There is a great deal too much in this Bill

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  of "Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed." All we are asking is that there should be equal fairness and justice both to the tenant and the landlord as there is in connection with every other kind of property. It is not a question of whether the Land Court are of opinion whether damage has been done; it is a question really of whether damage has been done or not. If damage is done you have to go to a final Court, which is a combination of the Land Court and the Board, and surely it is quite wrong that the matter should be prejudged by the Land Court. The landlord or the tenant should be allowed to put in a claim for compensation to the party that should give him compensation and the matter should be properly heard and disposed of.
  Amendment made: In Sub-section (11), after the word "landlord" ["or to any landlord in respect of"], insert the word "either."—[Mr. Ure.]
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I beg to move, Sub-section (11), to leave out the words "and directly attributable to."
  I quite understand the words "in consequence of," but the other words are never put into any Statute where compensation is given. Surely if damage is done in consequence of the new holding, whether it is directly or indirectly attributable, it must be in consequence of the creation of the new holding, and for that reason I suggest that the retention of the words "and directly attributable to" would only lead to confusion.
  Mr. URE: I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that these words were agreed upon by the Member for West Edinburgh and myself. I have carefully considered the words, and I think they make the meaning perfectly clear. Damage "directly attributable to" is not merely what the lawyers call consequential damage.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: I remember the discussion upstairs and I quite recollect what occurred. The right hon. Gentleman wanted to exclude "moral and material damage." What we do not see is how these words strengthen the case or alter it in any way. Damage consequent upon the creation of a holding is the same as directly attributable to the creation of this holding.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment made: In Sub-section (11), after the word "opportunity" ["after giving parties an opportunity"], insert the words "of being heard and."—[Mr. Scott Dickson.]
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (11), to insert the following proviso,
  Provided always that it shall be competent for any person aggrieved by the determination of the Land Court, if the amount in dispute exceeds £400, to require the Land Court to state and sign the case upon which the question arose, setting forth the evidence, together with the determination thereon, and to transmit such case for the decision of the judges of the Court of Session named for the purposes of hearing appeals under the Valuation of Lands (Scotland) Acts, subject to such regulations as may be prescribed by Act of Sederunt.
  This proviso would give the right of appeal on the question of compensation. I may say to the hon. Members of the House who are not skilled in the phraseology of the Lands Valuation Acts that the machinery here is taken from those Acts, if not verbatim, at any rate in substance. The effect of this proposal would be that when the Land Court decides that no damage has been done, or after having heard the evidence, they have assessed the amount of the damage, that there should be an appeal from their judgment to the Land Valuation Court, which consists of the three judges of the Court of Session. The House will note that there is not an absolute right of appeal, but that the appeal is only to be allowed where the amount in dispute is £400. I can understand the Lord Advocate saying that this proviso might place a premium upon a man putting forward an extravagant claim which he has no chance of sustaining, but a process of that kind would be fairly checked by the Court having power over the costs. Where there is a bonâ fide claim for an amount exceeding £400 we desire to provide that, it should not be settled once and for all by the Land Court. We quite appreciate what the Lord Advocate has done in the previous part of the Bill, where the House will remember the chairman of the Land Court is to be a lawyer of the rank of a judge of the Court of Session. This proposal is not making any reflection upon the fairness of the chairman of the Land Court. Where you are dealing with a considerable amount

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  there might be a much larger claim than £400. We submit it is not fair that the right to get that vindicated should be determined finally and for all by what is really a Government Department, even though it has the title of a Land Court. The only member of a Land Court who would be a lawyer would be the chairman. The Court has to consist under the Act of not more than five persons, and I presume the other four members would be persons skilled in agricultural matters.
  2.0 P.M.
  Let me remind the House that in the Valuation Court you have a large body of gentlemen acquainted locally with the circumstances of the district, and there is an appeal from them to a Court of Appeal consisting of three judges. Where a claim is bonâ fide, and a man thinks he is entitled to a larger sum than £400, why should the final judgment be left to the Land Court? Obviously, the bias of the Court would be in the direction of minimising the amount of the damages. Two questions will be submitted to the Land Court. The first is whether any damage has been done at all, and the second, if so, what is the amount? That is a matter which should not be finally decided by that Court without any appeal from their judgment. I am aware that the objection to the view that this Court should not be allowed to be final is that the appeal would be costly. We have endeavoured to meet that by taking the least costly form of appeal—namely, an appeal to the Valuation Court, and in this way the expense woud be reduced to a minimum. We also recognise that in the case of small claims they should not be subjected to the cost of an appeal. We have fixed the limit at £400 in order to make it quite certain that frivolous appeals would not be made. You have in the first place this Court created by Statute for the purpose of endeavouring to allow as large a number of small holdings as possible to be created. In the administration of the Act claims may arise for damage between landlord and tenant, and these claims should not be settled in a way merely to suit the views of the Land Court, having in view the advantages of creating small holdings. The person damaged should be able to have an appeal where his claim is a large and substantial one, and that appeal should be one of the ordinary constituted courts of the country—namely, the Land Valuation Court. We
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  think this is a fair and reasonable proposal, and accordingly we think it only right that the appeal should be recognised, and this proviso should be added. When the House dealt with the question of the taxation of land values there was no appeal provided for as the Act was originally introduced. The argument was such that the Government felt it impossible to resist, and, after full argument, they conceded an appeal to the High Court in England or the Court of Session in Scotland. I do not know of any argument which applies to that case which does not apply with equal force to this. We do not want an appeal where the amount is not sufficient to justify going to the expense of it. We want an appeal where the amount in question is sufficient to warrant it, and we suggest £400 would be a reasonable figure.
  Mr. URE: I understand and realise thoroughly the importance which the right hon. Gentleman and those who sit on the other side of the House attach to this proposal, and, as I am about to oppose it, and as I do not share their views with regard to its importance, I think it right to place it to the best of my ability in its proper perspective. When land is taken these are the questions which are submitted to the Land Court: Is there a diminution in its rental value? Is there a diminution in the value of the farm? Is there a diminution in the selling value of the estate? Has the tenant suffered any injury in consequence of the land being taken? These questions I agree may in some cases involve considerable sums of money, and for their decision the Bill provides a Land Court consisting of five persons, the chairman being a trained lawyer of standing and experience with the status of a Judge of Court of Session. The other four gentlemen of the Court will naturally be men skilled in agriculture and valuation. When questions such as these come to be decided, the procedure prescribed by the Bill is this: In the first place, the matter will come before, it may be two members of the Land Court who will have power to hear evidence as well as arguments, to visit the ground, and to take in the assistance of a valuer or an assessor if they deem that necessary. After they have given their decision there is power given to both parties to appeal to the Land Court sitting in its ordinary quorum—that is to say, either with five members or with a minimum of three, and, if there are only three, then the Court must consist of two

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  members who were not the original members who decided the question. That is the procedure which is prescribed under the Bill. In the event of any important question of law arising in the course of the proceedings, an appeal is given to the Court of Session upon that question of law.
  The right hon. Gentleman says we are entrusting the decision of these questions to a Government Department. There I join issue with him. The Land Court is no more a Government Department than are the gentlemen of the Court of Session, and in no case can they be described as partisans. They are not placed in the position of officers, such as assessors, who are Government officials. We have deliberately made it a Land Court separate from the Board of Agriculture, realising that they will have to perform judicial as well as administrative functions in questions of delicacy and difficulty. My objection, therefore, to the right hon. Gentleman's proposal is that it involves an appeal from a Court to a Court of not higher authority, but to a Court, I should say, not even of equal authority, but of inferior authority, upon the questions in hand. There is a fundamental objection to giving an appeal unless the final authority is of greater experience than the Court of first instance. Are the judges of the Valuation Court, for whom I entertain the highest respect, a Court of higher authority upon the particular topic which it is proposed to submit to their judgment? I think not. I am not saying for a single moment they are not accustomed to considering these facts, nor do I say they are placed at a disadvantage as compared with the Court of the first instance, because they have not the opportunity of observing the demeanour of witnesses, because, I freely allow, questions of credibility rarely, if ever, arise in questions relating to the amount of value. It is not like an investigation into a disputed question of fact. I have practised in the Valuation Court for many long years, and I have never really seen any serious controversy upon a question of fact. The facts are there, and the dispute always lay with regard to the inference to be drawn from facts which were admitted on both sides. I do not think anyone would be safe to argue the valuation judges were an inferior authority to the Court of first instance, because the Court of first instance had the power of deciding questions of credibility, and were in a better position
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  to judge than the Court of Appeal, because they had the opportunity of seeing and hearing the witnesses. Nor do I place too great weight, though some weight must undoubtedly be placed, upon the fact that the Court of first instance is enjoined, or, at all events, has the power to go and visit the place. But the valuation judges in my judgment, although not disabled, have no special skill or experience in the particular duties which we are asked to impose upon them. They are accustomed to settle questions of the yearly value of land, and they usually proceed on a long array of figures, but they have never had to consider questions of fact. They are practically confined in their investigations to questions of yearly value. They usually consider questions of law and the inferences that may be drawn from facts.
  But the Court we propose to set up will be a Court specially qualified to deal with such questions as are raised in this Subsection. It will be a Court specially qualified to judge tine diminution of the letting value of the land or the mischief done to the farm in consequence of a portion of it being taken away. It will also be able to judge as to the diminution of the market value of the estate under the altered circumstances. These are questions entirely outside the range and special knowledge and experience of the judges of the Valuation Courts. I do not deny that the members of that Court are well qualified to decide any question submitted to them. But my point is that they have not the special experience to decide these particular questions, whereas the Land Court proposed to be constituted under this Bill will be a Court possessing such experience. Do not let the House forget that we are not here dealing with exceptional matters. Ever since 1845 questions involving large sums of compensation for land taken have been confided with quite satisfactory results to the judgment of a single arbitrator, and in the long run, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the judgment of the umpire as between two arbitrators has sufficed to decide the question without there being any power of appeal or right of review. Of course a skilled arbitrator may fall into error, he may make some gross mistake; but there is provision made under our ordinary procedure for rectifying such mistakes. In other words, under the ordinary practice there is a right of re-hearing if either of the parties are dissatisfied. I consider that to be a great safeguard, and

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  I would point out that under this Bill if you have one or two members of the Land Court decide the question in the first instance, there is a right of review by the whole Court, in order that any error that may have been committed may be put right. The Land Court has power under this Bill to frame rules for their own procedure, and undoubtedly it would be possible, where a question has been considered in the first instance by only one or two members of the Court to have a re-hearing before the full Court, so as to avoid any chance of error being committed.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to introduce an Amendment to make provision for that?
  Mr. URE: Certainly. If there is the slightest doubt about it it shall be done. I am glad to note that my right hon. Friend opposite made no suggestion of partiality or bias on the part of the newly-constituted Land Court, but he did suggest that there might be a tendency to award valuations with too niggardly a hand on the one side, or with too lavish a hand on the other. We all know that a body constituted as this Land Court will be will be a body of trained lawyers, and the tendency might be to give damages with a somewhat niggardly hand; but I would point out that as a rule Courts of Appeal do not disturb verdicts upon damages given by arbitrators, and therefore people would not be well advised to trouble their heads with appeals. My main objection to this proposal is that it suggests an appeal to a Court of less authority from a Court of greater authority in regard to the questions to be submitted to it. My second objection is that it will lead to expense. The House will say the expense, whatever it may be, will not fall on the shoulders of some small man, but it will fall on the shoulders of some landed proprietor. I am not saying that he can bear it more easily. My main objection is the delay which will be involved. I foresee a great opportunity for hanging up a scheme and keeping the thing dangling for weeks or months before any progress is made. I am not saying that people will deliberately cause delay, but here is the opportunity for anybody who desires to obstruct to cause great delay in the settlement of a scheme. For these reasons, first, because the Land Court is a Court of higher authority; secondly, on account of expense, although I do not lay
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  too much stress on that; and thirdly, on the ground of delay, I must offer a very strong opposition to the proposal made by the right hon. Gentleman.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: I deeply regret that the Lord Advocate does not see his way to accept this Amendment. From the point of view of those who ask for an appeal, it is a very reasonable form of appeal which is asked for. We exempt all the smaller cases from the review of any higher Court. The great majority of cases will be small, and the amounts involved will not be large; but we regard it as vital that there should be an appeal to the Valuation Court, or any other Court the right hon. Gentleman prefers, which is an impartial tribunal, from the decision of the Land Court upon these questions which may involve in certain cases—they may be rare—a very large amount of money. The right hon. Gentleman laid great stress not on the expense of the appeals, but on the delay which might arise. He has delivered a long dissertation on the manner in which the valuation judges perform their duties now, and the difference between that class of work and the kind of work we are proposing to place on their shoulders. There is one thing he cannot say. He cannot say that the valuation judges ever allow any delay to arise in taking cases on appeal. They are most prompt, for the best of all reasons, that the Valuation Roll cannot be kept too long in a condition lacking completion, and they therefore take these cases very promptly.
  Mr. URE: They are usually taken in the month of February, while the Roll is out a long time before. There is a great deal of delay.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: Of course, they must be taken after the Roll is made up. In the short distance of time between the provisional Roll and the completed Roll, there is no time to do anything more than to have meetings of the Local Valuation Court to decide these questions. The right hon. Gentleman will agree with me that if the Roll is made up in November and the appeals are heard in February, there is not much delay. I do not think there is very much in the Lord Advocate's argument as to the duties of the judges under this scheme. I cannot understand why he should have given us a long dissertation on the position of the Land Valuation Judges, unless it was that he knew he was refusing a fair Amendment,

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  and that the best way was to ride off on another matter altogether. We hold a very strong view on this question. The right hon. Gentleman will admit, in his inmost heart, that we are not unreasonable in the manner in which we put this forward.
  Mr. URE: I admit that.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: If we are to have an appeal at all, it is a reasonable proposal. I think the right hon. Gentleman is undertaking a grave responsibility in so determinedly opposing the Amendment, because it may make, I do not say that it will make a difference to the passage of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman has suggested to the House that the Land Court would be a better tribunal for the purpose of settling these questions than the valuation judges. He has kept his own counsel about the Land Court. We have not the ghost of an idea how the Land Court is to be constituted. I cannot for the life of me understand why, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer thought it his duty to promise that before the Insurance Bill left this House he would state the names of the Insurance Commissioners, it is not the duty of the Lord Advocate, before this Bill leaves this House to-day, as I understand it is to do, to state the names of the members of the Land Court. Then we should know the names of these infallible people who cannot go wrong; then we should know whether the trained lawyer, who is to be at the head of the Court, is to be a person from whose judgments there have been no appeal, or whether, if he has not been infallible in one thing, he is likely to be infallible in another. I should not be a bit surprised to find, when we know who he is, that appeals have often been made from his decisions, and that the appeals have been sustained.
  We are asking for an impartial tribunal. The Land Court cannot be an impartial tribunal, although it may, with the best endeavours in the world, try to be so. It certainly will not be impartial, because it will be its business to do what it can to secure that as many small holdings as possible—I hope on economic principles—shall be established in Scotland. If they cannot go on establishing small holdings and creating, encouraging and satisfying a demand for them, they will cease to have any justification for their existence. It is their business to make the show run. Although they may think they are impartial, they will spend as little of the
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  £200,000 as possible in paying compensation, in order to be able to equip small holdings; that is a sufficient argument against the Lord Advocate's reasoned speech that we should not have an appeal from them. It does not matter to us that the Board of Agriculture is to be the first authority and that there is to be an appeal from them to the Land Court. That is not an appeal from one impartial Court to another; it is an appeal from one body to another, both of which are encouraged to do the same business.
  There is no analogy between the appeal from the local valuation committee to the Valuation Court, and the appeal, in this case, from the Board of Agriculture to the Land Court. One is a local body, with great local knowledge, having the fullest information at their disposal. Very often appeals taken from these bodies are not successful. The only case I know of in my own county in which an appeal was taken from the decision of the local body was a case in which our decision was upheld, as it often is, because the judges say that the local body knows the facts, and unless there is a very good cause shown they will not interfere. I say to the Lord Advocate in plain language I tremble very much for the fate of his Bill if he is going to refuse an Amendment of this kind, and it will be a very justifiable thing to introduce it in another place, and I do not think the Government would have any right to complain if it were. I should like it to be clearly understood that, so far as the finances of the Bill are concerned, they depend very little upon the granting of the Amendment, or some Amendment of the same kind, to give to the claims which may arise a decision of an impartial tribunal, and not leave people dependent upon the decision of the two tribunals which, however impartial, are very much interested in the question they are deciding. As to the rehearing, that no doubt would be a slight protection, but it is again appealing from one body to another body, each being interested in the same way, each endeavouring to be impartial, though neither probably is; and though that would be better than the existing proposal, it would not be a satisfactory solution of the difficulty. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to treat this Amendment before we part from it a little more considerately than he has done already. I know there are some hon. Members on his own side who think this is a reasonable and fair Amendment, though they may not be articulate. I only mention

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  that to strengthen my plea that it is a fair and reasonable Amendment and one that ought to be considered. It will very largely improve the Bill, and will help to make it work smoothly.
  Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: I laid considerable stress upon the point of an independent standard of valuation being maintained under this Bill when we were before the Committee upstairs. I still adhere to that opinion. It is not merely a question of protecting large sums of money; it is a question of having an independent standard of valuation. I am not prepared to accept the doctrine that the Court of Session is less competent or even less reliable than the new Court set up for a special purpose. We know what the Court of Session is. We know the men who are on it, and all those who go before it are certain of an independent valuation, and I think the element of independence in the valuation in a matter of this kind is everything if there is to be confidence in the administration of the Act. The Court of Session is certainly independent, and it is not incompetent, and we do not yet know what this new body is going to be. When the Irish Land Act was passed the names of the Commissioners were given, and in this case also it might have removed a good many difficulties if we had known the persons of whom this new body was to consist. I certainly cannot accept the proposition that the Court of Session is not a higher authority than any which it is proposed to set up under this Bill. As an outside layman I take the valuation judges of the Court of Session as a far higher and more independent authority than anything set up under the Bill. It is all very well to say that the left-hand of this machinery does not know what the right hand doeth, but to my mind the partitions are thin. I agree that, as under the Finance Act, so under this it ought to be possible to obtain an independent standard of valuation.
  When the Finance Act was being discussed in this House I was asked by one of the high officials of the Inland Revenue whether I wished to have appeals under the Act. It was when the proposals to have appeals were being discussed. I said certainly not. They had all the objections which may reasonably be advanced—delay, cost, and so forth. I admit all that quite freely, but I said "if there are to be no appeals there must be an independent
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  valuation either through valuers mutually appointed or through official valuers independently appointed." My friend could not see that, and I said, "You must have appeals," and appeals were carried in every detail because he would not admit the independent valuation. I deny here that you have independent valuation, and it ought to be got, and this proposal will have my support. The delay should not be very considerable because the majority of the cases, or at least a great proportion, will be below £400. Certainly there ought to be a sufficiency of appeals to enable an independent standard of valuation to be set up and to reduce to a minimum any delay and cost which might be involved through the appeal. If a better figure can be suggested, I will take it; but meanwhile I would support the proposal as it stands. Owing to the peculiarities of the Bill, to which I have alluded, this independent valuation is certainly necessary. This is a reasonable demand, and it will be unreasonable to refuse facilities for setting up an independent standard of valuation, because I do not regard Land Courts as independent in the sense which I think desirable in order to secure this standard.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: When the Lord Advocate got up just now and stated that he realised the importance which the Opposition attached to this, I realised, at the same moment that he realised, that he had a rather bad case, and, although he made a very good case out of it, I do not think for a moment that on the ground of impartiality the ordinary law would bear looking into. He refused the right of appeal to the people of Scotland, a right which they have hitherto had. We still believe we have a right of appeal in most matters, and only the other day the right of criminal appeal was given because it was supposed that even criminals sometimes were right. On this occasion both tenants and landlords are being treated worse than criminals. The other argument which he advanced was little short of an insult to the judges of the Court of Session, because he gave out that they were too ignorant, as constituted at present, to deal with questions as to the bearing of land to small holdings. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman did not say so in these words. He said that if they were not personally cognisant with the industry themselves, they were incapable of coming to a fair and impartial finding.
  Mr. URE: I never said that or anything approaching it, and I never thought it.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: What he said amounted to that. Practically what he said was that these people were not experts in the Court of Session, and as the other judge to be appointed would be an expert he would be able to come to a far better opinion on these matters. He might just as well say that a judge who tries divorce cases ought first to have been a co-respondent himself. What we want are people who do not know very much about land, but who can take an impartial view on the evidence before them, not such a view as would be taken by one who has certain political ideas in regard to the occupation of the land. I would rather go before a judge who knew nothing at all about land. I would go so far as to say that. The right hon. Gentleman said that when land is being taken the questions these gentlemen are to consider are whether there will be a diminution in value, and whether the tenant will suffer. The Bill provides a Court constituted of persons skilled in agriculture, who are to have the power of hearing evidence, and the right hon. Gentleman says they will be very much fairer when questions come before the Land Court, because they themselves have been out and found out on the spot all about the land. Three of them will go out to collect evidence, and so on, and they will take the land, while the other two will remain at home. If the other two do not go out, what better knowledge will they have as compared with judges of the Court of Session? The people who go out are to take the land, and yet there is to fee no appeal from them to another Court. They practically say, "I kick you with my right foot here, and I can kick you with my left foot when you come before the Land Court." The right hon. Gentleman went on to tell us that the Court which will decide these matters consists practically of the same gentlemen who go out and take the land. They are to be judge and jury in their own case. They go out and take the land, and then they adjudicate upon the transaction. The right hon. Gentleman said the power was not to be entrusted to a Government Department. He evidently admits that a Government Department must be unfair.
  Mr. URE: No.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Then why did the right hon. Gentleman explain
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  that the power was not to be entrusted to a Government Department?
  Mr. URE: The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Scott Dickson) who moved the Amendment said it was.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: And the Lord Advocate hotly denied the imputation. On the contrary, he said the members of the Court were not to be partisans at all. I suppose he meant that a Government Department were partisans, and that was the whole point of his argument. Is he prepared to get up and state that the chairman of the Board has never taken any interest in the question of small holdings, and that he is not a partisan? I do not think the right hon. Gentleman is likely to say that. Then the right hon. Gentleman said his main objection to the Amendment was that it involved an appeal from the Land Court to another Court which, in this instance, was not a higher Court. I do not know whether he meant that the status of the Land Court would be equal to that of the Court of Session. I think the reason was that he had already in view a gentleman who knew all about it, and that this gentleman was to have all the dignity of a judge of the Court of Session, including pension. That gentleman is to be put in as chairman of the Land Court. That is really why I said the reason of the right hon. Gentleman's objection to an appeal to a higher Court was that the judges of the Court of Session were more ignorant of the matters to be dealt with than the gentleman he is proposing to appoint. As the hon. Member for the Leith Burghs pointed out, the whole point is that we do think we ought to have the right of appeal in cases where we consider we have been wronged. I do not care whether the appeal is taken by the landlord or the tenant. In small cases it would be hardly worth while appealing, because the amount involved would not leave much margin to meet the costs, but when it comes to a matter of £400 value, say in the case of a sheep farmer, either side might be wrong, and we do feel that in a case of that kind we should have an appeal to an impartial Court instead of to the gentlemen who are to be appointed under this Bill.
  Mr. MUNRO: Whatever the intention of this Amendment—and I do not quarrel with the good intention of the right hon. Gentleman who proposed it—I am perfectly satisfied that the result would be

  719
  to smother the Bill at its birth. The Amendment is open to a number of objections. In the first place, I submit it is quite unnecessary. Of course, that argument postulates that the members of the Court shall be men of competence and integrity. That is not a large assumption, I hope. It postulates that the chairman of the Land Court shall be a gentleman who is worthy of his office, and who shall have the status of a judge of the Court of Session. It further postulates that the other members of the Land Court shall be chosen because of their practical skill and experience in the matters committed to their care. If all that is so, I submit that it would be little short of grotesque to have the decisions of a tribunal so constituted referred to an Appeal Court which would have no particular experience in the matters which the Land Court is empowered to deal with. Should a question of law arise, it is provided by Clause 25 of the Bill that, on the request of any party, the Land Court may state a special case for the opinion of either Division of the Court of Session.
  I go further, and say it is an unusual proposal. The Land Court is called upon to perform a function in this matter not differing very much from that performed by an arbitrator. We must remember that the Land Court's aid is only invoked if the parties are unable to come to voluntary agreement. And it is unheard of, certainly in Scotland, that we should have a right of appeal on the facts from a decision of an arbitrator. More than that, when you remember that this Act is merely a development and extension of the principle underlying the Crofters Act, and that that Act has worked without hardship or inequity for twenty-five years without any such right of appeal being conferred, then I submit that this is not only an unnecessary, but it is also an unusual proposal. It was news for me to hear from the hon. Member for West Perthshire (Marquess of Tullibardine) that there is a right of criminal appeal from the verdict of a jury in Scotland. There is no such right of appeal, and the right of appeal proposed here would differentiate the case from the ordinary law and practice in Scotland. Not only is the proposal unnecessary and unusual, but it is highly inexpedient. Consider for a moment the tribunal to which the right hon. Gentleman proposes to remit this question; the Lands Valuation Appeal Court, of which
  720
  those of us who are lawyers know a little. That Court as at present constituted suffers from three disabilities to deal with this question. It seldom meets; it has no power to deal with expenses, or to award them to a successful litigant against an unsuccessful opponent; and it is not as at present constituted a Court of review of facts. These three qualities of the Court as at present constituted, unfit it for the task which the Amendment proposes to delegate to it. According to my recollection, while I do not make any suggestion of delay, the Valuation Court meets once a year in Scotland. Is it proposed to hang up transactions such as are dealt with in this Amendment between landlords and tenants, small holders, sellers and buyers, for a year until the Valuation Court meets to determine the question remitted to it? Surely anything more inappropriate and more calculated to wreck the chances of this Bill being a success in Scotland cannot be conceived.
  Not only so, but I submit it would be a great injustice if a person who appeals to the Valuation Court in the way suggested by the Amendment were deprived of the ordinary right which he enjoys as a litigant, as a rule, to get his costs against his opponent if he succeeds in his suit. According to the uniform practice of the Lands Valuation Appeal Court in Scotland—and the right hon. Gentleman will bear me out in this—an award of costs is unknown. I submit that the decision of a Court so disabled would not be fair and proper in a matter of this kind. Further, there is no appeal to the Lands Valuation Court, as at present constituted, on the facts of the case. The only case presented and dealt with is whether the right principle in law has been properly applied to the facts, but the facts are treated as a special verdict of a jury, and the Court, as at present constituted, does not review those. The right hon. Gentleman wants the facts reviewed, as I understand his Amendment. Accordingly, what it comes to is this: to fit the Valuation Court for the discharge of the duties which the right hon. Gentleman proposes to delegate to it, you would require to remodel its constitution and powers. I suppose the reply to that would be that that can be done under the Act of Sederunt, referred to in the last words of the Amendment—an Act passed by the judges for regulating the procedure of their own Court. I doubt very much whether they have the will or the power to go outside the present practice and confer such powers on the Appeal Court,

  721
  or whether they have power to give an appeal on the facts which it does not enjoy, and which the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment postulates. I submit that it really comes to this: that in so far as the right hon. Gentleman deals with a question of law, his Amendment is superfluous, because that is already provided for; and that in so far as it suggests there should be an appeal on facts, his Amendment is mischievous.
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: To my mind, not to give an appeal such as is suggested here is to introduce in legislation of this sort a novelty of a very bad kind. It is said that delay would be caused. That need not happen, because if the additional duties were put on the Courts they could meet more frequently to dispose of the cases brought before them, and by the greater frequency of their meetings any difficulty of that kind would be got over. With regard to costs, if it were thought necessary to give the Court the right to award costs, that could very easily be done. It is suggested that at present the Valuation Appeal Court does not deal with matters of fact, but that is out of the question. The commonest thing in the world they deal with is the valuation put upon the subject, and whether it is too hight or too low. That is only the kind of thing you have here. By refusing this appeal I am strongly of opinion that the facilities for arriving at a settlement of
  the case will not be advanced, and yon will be depriving those interested in the matter of what I venture to suggest should be given to them.
  Sir J. DEWAR: I looked with great favour on this Amendment when I saw it first on the Paper, but looking more fully into the matter, I found that in the Highlands of Scotland, and among the crofting farmers, it would practically stop the operation of the Bill at all. Four hundred pounds may be a considerable sum when you are dealing with a single small holding, but when you are dealing with a great sheep farm of 20,000 acres, £400 is nothing at all. In those cases, all over the Highlands, you would not be able to proceed until the case is taken to the Court of Session. Not one of the farms taken over by the Congested Districts Board for Scotland could have been dealt with until it went to the Court of Session, and possibly to the House of Lords. There is no-appeal in this Bill against the fixing of the rent, which is a much more serious matter to the landlord than fixing the valuation of damage, because the rent is an annual, and the damage is a capital sum. In view of the obstruction to small holdings, I am sorry to say that I must vote against the Amendment.
  Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."
  The House divided: Ayes, 50; Noes, 150.

  Division No. 391.]

  AYES.

  [3.5 p.m.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Falle, Bertram Godfray

  Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C.

  Anstruther-Gray, Major William

  Fleming, Valentine

  O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid).

  Ashley, Wilfrid W.

  Gardner, Ernest

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

  Balcarres, Lord

  Gilmour, Captain John

  Perkins, Walter Frank

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Goldsmith, Frank

  Pollock, Ernest Murray

  Barnston, Harry

  Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

  Rothschild, Lionel de

  Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

  Grant, James Augustus

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Bigland, Alfred

  Gretton, John

  Stewart, Gershom

  Bridgeman, William Clive

  Haddock, George Bahr

  Tullibardine Marquess of

  Burn, Colonel C. R.

  Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)

  Valentia, Viscount

  Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

  Hope, Harry (Bute)

  Ward, A. S. (Herts, Watford)

  Cassel, Felix

  Horne, William E. (Surrey, Guildford)

  Wood, John (Stalybridge)

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

  Hunt, Rowland

  Yate, Col. C. E.

  Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.

  Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)

  Younger, Sir George

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Mackinder, Halford J.

  Courthope, George Loyd

  M'Mordie, Robert James

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Pike Pease and Mr. Eyres Monsell.

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

  Malcolm, Ian

  Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. S.

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

  Brady, Patrick Joseph

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Bryce, John Annan

  Cotton, William Francis

  Adamson, William

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Cowan, W. H.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Byles, Sir William Pollard

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)

  Cameron, Robert

  Crooks, William

  Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Crumley, Patrick

  Barnes, George N.

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Cullinan, J.

  Beck, Arthur Cecil

  Clough, William

  Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)

  Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George)

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Davies, David (Montgomery Co.)

  Boland, John Pius

  Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

  Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

  Booth, Frederick Handel

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardiganshire)

  Dawes, James Arthur

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  Radford, George Heynes

  Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

  King, Joseph (Somerset, North)

  Raphael, Sir Herbert Henry

  Dewar, Sir J. A.

  Lansbury, George

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Dillon, John

  Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rl'nd, Cockerm'th)

  Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

  Doris, William

  Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Lundon, Thomas

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

  Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Macdonold, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Roche, Augustine (Louth)

  Falconer, James

  Maclean, Donald

  Roche, John (Galway, E.)

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

  Rose, Sir Charles Day

  George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd

  M'Curdy,. Charles Albert

  Rowlands, James

  Gill, Alfred Henry

  M'Micking, Major Gilbert

  Scanlan, Thomas

  Glanville, Harold James

  Marshall, Arthur Harold

  Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Martin, Joseph

  Sheehy, David

  Goldstone, Frank

  Meagher, Michael

  Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

  Greig, Colonel James William

  Menzies, Sir Walter

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

  Miliar, James Duncan

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

  Hackett, John

  Mooney, John J.

  Sutton, John E.

  Hancock, John George

  Morgan, George Hay

  Thomas, James Henry (Derby)

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

  Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

  Munro, Robert

  Verney, Sir Harry

  Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

  Murray, Capt. Hon. Arthur C.

  Wadsworth, John

  Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Nolan, Joseph

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Henry, Sir Charles

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Watt, Henry A.

  Higham, John Sharp

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Webb, H.

  Hinds, John

  O'Doherty, Philip

  White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

  Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

  O'Donnell, Thomas

  Whitehouse, John Howard

  Hodge, John

  O'Grady, James

  Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  O'Sullivan, Timothy

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Hudson, Walter

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  Philips, John (Longford, S.)

  Wood, Rt. Hon. McKinnon (Glas.)

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

  Pointer, Joseph

  Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Pollard, Sir George H.

  Young, William (Perth, East)

  Jones, W. S. Glyn- (stepney)

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Jowett, Frederick William

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.Gulland and Mr. Dudley Ward.

  Kelly, Edward

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Mr. MORTON: I beg to move, in Subsection (15), to leave out the words "and ceteris paribus shall give a preference to applicants preferred by the landlord."
  This Clause is very objectionable to people in the northern counties, nor can I see why this little bit of Latin has been introduced into the Clause. If it was thought necessary to use some other language they might have introduced Gaelic words. I have not been able to find out that this Clause is of any use whatever. Taking the very best possible view of it that you can, it will cause mischief. What we say is, that we should leave the matter to the Land Court. Do not leave it to the landlord to say whom he would prefer, because the result would be that if the landlord found a man was an active politician, or active in some other way not agreeable to him, he would always find means to obtain some one else, and keeping that person out of the land for his lifetime. The Clause may cause a great deal of mischief and a great deal of bad feeling in the various districts where land may be required, while it will be of no use whatever in other directions. I hope the Lord Advocate will see that these words are useless, mischievous, and dangerous for the proper working of the Bill.
  Mr. BARNES: I beg to second the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: We think it very desirable that these words should remain in the Clause, as they will conduce to the easy working of the measure. Other things being equal, it seems right that the landlord's choice should be respected by the Land Court, and it would be respected by any intelligent Land Court. This provision is in order to make quite certain where there is no special objection to the man that the landlord's choice should be taken.
  Mr. BARNES: I am rather sorry to hear the reply of the Lord Advocate. Here we are dealing with a condition of affairs where the land has been improved, and public money has been spent for the purpose of setting the holding up, and I fail to see why the landlord should have this right given to him. I believe this provision will prevent independent minded men from availing of the Act altogether. I think we ought to avoid that if possible and leave the man who is to be the tenant as free as possible. If my hon. Friend likes to put this to a Division I shall certainly vote for it.
  Amendment negatived.
  Mr. MORTON: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (15), to insert the words—
  "In determining the registration of new holders who are not qualified for such registration under agreement the Agricultural Commissioners shall give preference to ploughmen, farm servants, cottars, fishermen, and others who have been engaged in working a croft or whose ancestors were crofters; and all persons who have been engaged in labour on the soil shall be entitled to have their claims considered."
  Some of the persons mentioned, especially cottars, do not come under the Bill because they might not be able to prove themselves to be farmers. It is our wish, at any rate, that all those people should have the opportunity of getting possession of land and working it for the benefit of themselves and their families. The opinion of the late Mr. Weir, who understood the crofters as well as anybody, was that these cottars were not included in the Bill unless specially mentioned. It is with a view to having those people put definitely in the Bill that I move.
  Mr. WATT: I beg to second the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: My hon. Friend's apprehensions are entirely baseless. There is no definition of farmer in the Bill. If the man has got the capacity and skill sufficient he is eligible.
  Mr. MORTON: Do I understand that all those classes are in the Bill already?
  Mr. URE: They are all eligible if they are capable of conducting farming.
  Amendment negatived.
  Amendments made: In Sub-section (16), paragraph (a), after the words "no" ["no interest"], insert the word "personal."—[Marquess of Tullibardine.]
  Leave out the words,
  "unless there be no other land available in the neighbourhood of any existing village or township, in which case this limitation shall not apply: Provided that if any farm of less than one hundred and fifty acres be required, the whole of such farm shall be taken for the constitution of new holdings if the landlord so desires; or"
  and insert instead thereof the words:
  "Provided that nothing herein contained shall operate to prevent the registration
  726
  otherwise than by agreement of two or more new holders in respect of the whole of such farm, where no other land is available in the neighbourhood of any existing village or township."—[Mr. Ure.]
  Sir SAMUEL SCOTT: I beg to move, in Sub-section (16), paragraph (b), to leave out the word "six," and to insert instead thereof the word "eleven."
  The object of this Amendment is to provide that the Bill shall come into operation as on Whit-Sunday, 1911, instead of as on Whit-Sunday, 1906. The Bill practically revolutionises the whole of the land system in Scotland, and it is only fair to those who may have let their farms between 1906 and 1911 that they should have some opportunity of considering the matter. It is quite unfair. I think that the Bill should be antedated in such a manner as this.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: I beg to second the Amendment. We discussed this question on the Committee, and the Lord Advocate then said that the matter was of no particular consequence, because everybody knew that the Bill was introduced in 1906, that it had been hanging over the farmers ever since, and that therefore there was no reason whatever why the date should be changed. I pointed out then, and I point out again, that there is every reason in the world why it should be changed. No tenant that I know of has paid the slightest attention to the fact that there was a Bill on the stocks, or thought that his lease would be in any way interfered with under the Bill. I know that I and many other landlords, who have had leases of farms falling in during the last five years, have expended on those farms large sums of money which we should certainly not have done had we thought that they would be partitioned and broken up for the purpose of small holdings. I have spent thousands of pounds which I should have certainly saved, because the expenditure will be practically useless if the farms are taken for small holdings. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman in using that argument apparently did not appreciate the facts of the case. He has often told us that he does not know anything in connection with land. There was no doubt about that when he made that speech. If he had been a landlord he would have known what the proposal meant, as I know to my cost. The number of farms falling in every year does not vary very much, and whether you make 1906 leases or 1911

  727
  leases immune from interference during currency, it makes very little difference in the amount of land available at either date. The average is just about the same. It is perfectly reasonable to ask that this date should be altered; therefore I second the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: I hope the House will not think that I view this question in the light way suggested by the hon. Baronet. I quite appreciate the importance of the arguments on the other side. What I pointed out was that since the Bill was before the House on the first occasion we have inserted a Clause enjoining the Board of Agriculture, when taking land for small holdings, to take preferably land which is falling out of lease. It was pointed out that for the greater part of the small holdings, the chances were that land falling out would be taken, but there might be cases where it would be a great limitation on the Board of Agriculture if they were not able to take land forming part of a farm the lease of which commenced after 1906. It was quite well known that this Bill was on the stocks, and that it would be reintroduced.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: It difference to the tenant.
  Mr. URE: That may be. That is neither here nor there.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: But it has made this difference, that no landlord could have renewed a lease in the last five years unless he had made expenditure which will be practically useless if the land is taken for small holdings.
  Mr. URE: The hon. Baronet speaks as if those particular farms were to be taken, up instantly for small holdings.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: They may be.
  Mr. URE: There is the disadvantage which the hon. Baronet has pointed out, but there is an immense disadvantage on the other side, because it might, in some instances—I do not say that it would—seriously hamper the work of the Land Court. Having regard to the new Clause requiring that land falling out of lease should preferably be taken, I do not think, injustice will be done to anybody if the date stands.
  Question put, "That the word 'six' stand part of the Bill."
  The House divided: Ayes, 144; Noes, 52.

  Division No. 392.]

  AYES.

  [3.30 p.m.

  Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

  Dillon, John

  Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Lundon, Thomas

  Adamson, William

  Doris, William

  Lynch, Arthur Alfred

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

  Alden, Percy

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)

  Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

  M'Curdy, Charles Albert

  Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Marshall, Arthur Harold

  Barnes, George N.

  Falconer, James

  Martin, Joseph

  Beck, Arthur Cecil

  Gill, Alfred Henry

  Meagher, Michael

  Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George)

  Glanville, Harold James

  Menzies, Sir Walter

  Boland, John Pius

  Goldstone, Frank

  Millar, James Duncan

  Booth, Frederick Handel

  Greig, Colonel James William

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Brady, Patrick Joseph

  Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

  Montagu, Hon. E. S.

  Bryce, John Annan

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

  Mooney, John J.

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Hackett, John

  Morgan, George Hay

  Byles, Sir William Pollard

  Hancock, John George

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Cameron, Robert

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Munro, Robert

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds.)

  Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Han. R. C.

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

  Murray, Capt. Hon. Arthur C.

  Clough, William

  Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Nolan, Joseph

  Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

  Henry, Sir Charles

  Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Hinds, John

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Cotton, William Francis

  Hodge, John

  O'Doherty, Philip

  Cowan, William Henry

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  O'Grady, James

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Hudson, Walter

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Crooks, William

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Crumley, Patrick

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Pointer, Joseph

  Cullinan, John

  Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts, Stepney)

  Pollard, Sir George H.

  Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)

  Kelly, Edward

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Davies, David (Montgomery Co.)

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

  Kilbride, Denis

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)

  King, Joseph (Somerset, North)

  Raphael, Sir Herbert H.

  Dawes, James Arthur

  Lansbury, George

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

  Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld., Cockerm'th)

  Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

  Dewar, Sir J. A.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Richardsam, Thomas (Whitehaven)

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

  Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

  Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

  Whitehouse, John Howard

  Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

  Sutton, John E.

  Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

  Roche, Augustine (Louth)

  Thomas, James Henry (Derby)

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Roche, John (Galway, E.)

  Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Rose, Sir Charles Day

  Verney, Sir H.

  Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)

  Rowlands, James

  Wadsworth, John

  Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

  Scanlan, Thomas

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  Young, William (Perth, East)

  Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Sheehy, David

  Watt, Henry A.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.Gulland and Mr. Dudley Ward.

  Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

  Webb, H.

  NOES.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Fleming, Valentine

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Anstruther-Gray, Major William

  Gardner, Ernest

  O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)

  Ashley, Wilfrid W.

  Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

  Balcarres, Lord

  Gilmour, Captain John

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Goldsmith, Frank

  Perkins, Walter Frank

  Barnston, Harry

  Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

  Pollock, Ernest Murray

  Bigland, Alfred

  Grant, James Augustus

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Bridgeman, William Clive

  Gretton, John

  Rothschild, Lionel de

  Burn, Colonel C. R.

  Haddock, George Bahr

  Stewart, Gershom

  Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

  Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)

  Tullibardine, Marquess of

  Cassel, Felix

  Hills, John Waller

  Valentia, Viscount

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

  Hope, Harry (Bute)

  Ward, A. S. (Herts, Watford)

  Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.

  Horne, Wm. E. (Surrey, Guildford)

  Wood, John (Stalybridge)

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Hunt, Rowland

  Yate, Col. C. E.

  Courthope, George Loyd

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

  Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. S.

  Mackinder, Halford J.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir S, Scott and Sir G. Younger.

  Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

  M'Mordie, Robert James

  Falle, Bertram Godfray

  Malcolm, Ian

  Question, "That the word proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause," put, and agreed to.

  CLAUSE 16.—(Amendment of Law as to Enlargement of Holdings.)
  (1) The provisions of the Act of 1886, relative to the enlargement of holdings, are hereby extended to an application for enlargement of a holding by a single land holder or two or more landholders, and shall apply in the case of an application by a single landholder as nearly as may be in the same manner and to the same effect as in the case of an application by two or more landholders:
  Provided that all applications for enlargement under Section 11 of the Act of 1886 shall be made to the Board, and Subsections 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, and 18 of the Section of this Act relative to the constitution of new holdings shall, with the necessary modifications, apply as fully for the purpose of applications for enlargement as for the purpose of the constitution of new holdings; and the expressions "application" and "applicants," where occurring in Section 12 or Section 21 of the Act of 1886, shall be construed as meaning an application from the Board under Sub-section 9 aforesaid and the persons referred to in such application.
  (2) Section 13 of the Act of 1886 with the exception of Sub-section (3) (e) there of shall cease to have effect, provided that land shall not be deemed available land for the enlargement of a holding unless it
  730
  is land in respect of which a person would be admissible to registration as a new holder under this Act, and, if arable land, unless it lies contiguous or near to land already in the occupancy of the landholder making the application; and provided further that a holding shall not be enlarged so that the present rent or acreage thereof shall exceed the present rent or acreage competent for a new holding under this Act.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: I beg to move, in Sub-section (2), after "(3)" ["with the exception of Sub-section (3) (e)"], to insert the words "(c) and."
  Let me explain what it is I want. In the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act, Clause 13, Sub-section (3), paragraph (c) reads:—
  "If the land forms part of an existing farm or other holding unless the rent or annual letting value of such farm or holding shall exceed £100."
  The reason I move the Amendment is to point out to the House that in all probability if you leave in a Clause of this sort you will reduce the whole of the North of Scotland to the state of the Island of Lewis at this time. If you put in this Clause there would still be a great many big sheep farms outside it, and you would still be keeping a few farms of fairly decent size which would be rate-paying properties in the district. I have no

  731
  intention at all to safeguard the big farms. None of the small crofters pay rates at all; and if the course of action suggested be pursued you will very shortly reduce the whole district to a non-rate paying district altogether; or leave the rates to be paid by one individual—I do not mean a landowner or a farmer—but perhaps the shopkeeper. Possibly there may be a good objection to the amount of £100, and people hoping to get this Clause have probably put in their farms at £100. But you can make it £80; I will not stick to £100. That will get rid of those people who have been trying to dodge the Clause. That will still safeguard farms of a certain size, and leave a great many farms over and above to cut at. This is a question of rates more than anything else.
  Captain GILMOUR: I beg to second the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: I am sorry I cannot accept the Amendment at this stage, and for the best of all possible reasons, that I have had no opportunity of considering what the effect of it would be. The House should know that we deliberately kept out of our Bill Clause 13 of the Crofters Act, with one exception, to which I called the attention of the House. After that decision come to by the Committee, we could not do anything now. But I need hardly say, though we could not agree to the insertion of this Clause, I will carefully consider the matter. It might have a serious effect. On the other hand, it may be very reasonable. I undertake, on behalf of the Government, to consider the question.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: I think what the Lord Advocate said is quite reasonable. I have not considered fully the whole of the Amendment, but possibly later it may be found that something can be done. Meantime I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

  CLAUSE 19.—(Declaration of Law as to Resumption of Holdings.)
  Without prejudice to the generality of the power to authorise resumption by the landlord for some reasonable purpose having relation to the good of the holding or of the estate, conferred by Section two of the Act of 1886, the feuing of land for the general development of the estate, or the occupation of a holding, being his only
  732
  landed estate, by a landlord for the purpose of personally residing thereon, shall respectively be deemed a reasonable purpose as aforesaid.
  Mr. ANNAN BRYCE: I beg to move to-leave out the Clause.
  My reason for doing so is that under this Clause there is a very considerable extension in theory of the powers of Section (2) of the Crofters Act. That Section says:—
  "Notwithstanding the provisions contained in the preceding Section the Crofters Commission, on the application of the landlord and upon being satisfied that he desires to resume the holding or part thereof for some reasonable purpose … including the using, letting, or feuing the lands proposed to be resumed for the building of dwellings or for small allotments for fishermen … or for churches or for other places of religious worship or for schools …"
  Under Section 2 of the Crofters Act the power of feuing is by implication restricted to certain definite cases, the construction of churches, schools, etc. I think it is dangerous to give an extension of the powers of resumption. It may be under conceivable circumstances exceedingly profitable to create feus. Take the case of the Island of Tiree, where it is proposed to make a golf course. Owing to the number of crofters in the island, and if this Clause is passed as it stands, we might have the owner of the island, or the buyer of it, feuing out the whole of this land to persons who want to go there and play golf. The operation of the Clause would depend, of course, very largely upon the way it is administered, and I sympathise very much with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Scott Dickson) and the hon. Baronet (Sir George Younger) in their complaint about not knowing the names of the Commissioners. We are all extremely anxious to know the names. If we knew the names of those who were going to administer the Act our cause of fear might be removed. We must remember that we have to contemplate the possibility of the party opposite coming into office at some future time or other, and we must remember that as vacancies occur, as they will occur, amongst those administering the Act, it may be the party opposite who do-not take the same view on these matters as we on this side of the House do, will have the filling up of these vacancies, and therefore the administration of the Act might undergo a change, and it is

  733
  extremely desirable, therefore, that these words should be omitted. I am told that it was at the instance of my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland that the words "or the occupation of a holding being his only landed estate by a landlord" were put in, in order to cover the case of certain very small proprietors in his constituency. I think these must be very singular cases, because I do not know any case on the mainland of Scotland where the croft actually belongs to an extremely small proprietor who has no other place. If things are as the hon. Member says, I should be very willing to move some Amendment such as "without prejudice to the feuing of land for the general development of the estate," and then Section 2 of the Crofters Act of 1882 would be secure.
  Mr. BARNES: I second the Amendment. It seems to me to be very reasonable. I see no reason why Clause 19 should be in the Bill. I understand the Clause gives the right to a man to convert a tenancy into a feu if he wants to do so for the purpose of developing the estate or living in the place. That would be all very well if the holding was near or in the vicinity of a town. If a man wants to live upon a small holding surely there is plenty of room in country districts where he may set up his home. It seems to me that small holdings are equally valuable to the community as the development of estates.
  Mr. URE: It is not a very wide extension that is given under this Clause, but it is a very useful extension of the powers conferred by Section 2 of the Crofters Act of 1886. Let the House clearly keep in view that by that Section which nobody proposes to repeal or modify, there is the power of resumption, whereby if the landlord desires to erect a dwelling he has power to do so. This Clause only gives slightly enlarged powers where he is going to lay out a croft for a number of dwellings. We are all anxious that the most beneficial uses should be made of the land, and it seems very desirable, therefore, that where a landlord seeks to develop his estate in that way he should have an opportunity of doing so. The other portion of the Clause relates to where an owner proposes to occupy the land himself. We all know from experience there are cases where a man may have a desire to come back in his declining years and live upon his farm. It would be very hard if he were not entitled to do so. The power of resumption will prevent any injustice
  734
  being done, or any less beneficial use being made of the land, in consequence of small holdings.
  Mr. BRYCE: I would like to bring before the notice of the Lord Advocate, having regard to what he has said, a case where even resumption for the sake of residence does not seem to work altogether fair. I am informed of a case, not very long ago, in which a part of an estate in the West of Scotland was sold, and the owner afterwards applied to the Land Court for the resumption of the crofter's holding to build himself a residence. The resumption was granted, the residence was built, but the owner never occupied it himself. That is a kind of thing that is likely to occur more frequently than before. I think it is very desirable that the Lord Advocate should give way on this point, making provision at the same time to meet the views of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. If he will not do so, I will not put the House to the trouble of a Division, and shall ask leave to withdraw.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment made: Leave out the words "for the general development of the estate."—[Major Anstruther-Gray.]
  Mr. A. C. MORTON: I beg to move, to add at the end of the Clause the words, "provided it shall be obligatory on the part of the landlord or the Board of Agriculture to find land of equivalent value in the neighbourhood, or as near as may be available, for the displaced tenant."
  Mr. WILLIAM YOUNG: I beg to second the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: Let the House remember that this can only take place by leave of the landlord and the man who is displaced receives compensation in respect of displacement. I think it would be unwise to make the change suggested in this Amendment.
  Mr. MORTON: I understand that this cannot be done without the consent of the landlord, and after all parties have been heard. Under these circumstances I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Mr. MACKINDER: I beg to move, to omit the words:
  "20. The words 'being a member of the family, that is to say, his wife or any person who, failing nearer heirs, would succeed to him in case of intestacy'

  735
  occurring in Section sixteen of the Act of 1886 are hereby repealed, and the said Section," and to insert instead thereof the words "Section sixteen of the Act of 1886."
  The Crofters Act limited the right of bequest in the case of crofts so that the crofter could only bequeath his holding to members of his own family. The object of this proposal is to repeal that limitation. We think it is undesirable that that limitation should be repealed because it would be possible for the holder to bequeath his property to a money lender or the nominee of a money lender. It is true that in Section 16 of the Crofters Act the landlord has a right of refusal to the incoming tenants, but I am informed that that refusal is not exercised, and the reasons for refusal have to be given. It is obvious that you might have a very undesirable tenant either in debt or in such a financial position as likely to be in debt, and it would be difficult for a landlord in all cases to give reasons. We think that while there is a case for giving the right of bequeathing to members of the family that there is no necessity for this right in the case of those who lie beyond the family. On the other hand, the extension of this right is liable to very great abuse. Under the Agricultural Holdings Act you already have this right, but there is a difference between the Agricultural Holdings Act and the Crofters Act. In the first case you are dealing with a lease, and the right to bequeath the remainder of the lease, but here you are dealing with the right to bequeath a holding.
  Captain GILMOUR: I beg leave to second the Amendment.
  4.0 P.M.
  Mr. URE: I am very much disposed to accept this Amendment, and I think we were probably a little too anxious in placing the crofter in the same position as the small tenant. This Amendment is advisable on the ground the hon. Member has stated, and I accept the Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. URE: I beg to move to leave out the words "the landlord shall be entitled, with the consent of the Land Court, forthwith to let the holding," and to insert instead thereof the words "failure of a statutory successor shall be deemed to have taken place."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Captain GILMOUR: I beg to move to add at the end of the Clause as amended the words,
  "and, in respect of any damage sustained by the landlord by reason of the holding being unoccupied during such period of six months, the Board shall pay to the landlord such compensation as shall be determined in manner provided in Sub-section (11) of Section (7) of this Act."
  I understand the object of this Amendment is met by what the Lord Advocate has just said. My object is to find out if in the event of such a case as that which is under question whether full compensation will be paid to the landlord for any loss he may sustain in the interval pending the settlement of this question.
  Mr. URE: I fear the hon. Member is under a misapprehension. I intended to propose the Amendment that compensation should be paid during the six months the landlord was trying to find a legatee. We could not recognise the right to pay this compensation.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: I beg to second the Amendment. I think it is very hard to lay down that the landlord shall not receive compensation under these circumstances. I cannot see why it should be limited. In ordinary circumstances the landlord would get rid of the place at once. You are preventing him from doing so. During the six months the holding may be absolutely ruined, and the man who comes in may find it all thistles and things of that kind. The right hon. Gentleman may have forgotten that, not knowing anything about agriculture, but let me tell him it is a fact.
  Mr. URE: There is nothing to preclude either the landlord or the person in possession from cultivating the holding during that time. We are really under this Clause conferring an advantage on the landlord, because, if unfortunately he cannot find the legatee, he will at the end of six months be entitled to proceed to appropriate the property and deal with it.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: It would be different if the landlord were able to select the man, but you are probably putting in a bad farmer whom the landlord does not want. That man dies, and his legatee cannot be found. Meanwhile the land goes out of cultivation. The farm has run out, and becomes a mass of weeds. Eventually it has to be let to a

  737
  new tenant, and there must obviously be a drop in rent, because no one in his senses would pay the same rent for a farm that had run out. The landlord, therefore, would have to pay, although it was not his fault.
  Question, "That those words be there added," put, and negatived.

  CLAUSE 23.—(Arrears of Rent to be Set Off against Compensation for Improvements.)
  If a landholder either renounces or is removed from his holding while owing any arrears of rent to the landlord the landlord shall be entitled to set off such arrears of rent, and also the rent of the outgoing crop, against any sum found to be due to the landholder or to the Board for improvements made on the holding.
  Amendments made: Leave out the words "while owing any arrears of rent to the landlord."
  Leave out the words "such arrears of rent and also the rent of the outgoing crop," and insert instead thereof the words "all rent due or to become due."

  CLAUSE 24.—(Amendment of Law as to Regulation of Common Grazings, etc.)
  (1) The Land Court may prescribe such regulations as to the exercise of pasture or grazing rights held or to be held in common under the Landholders Acts as they think expedient.
  (2) The Land Court shall cause any proceeding under the immediately preceding Sub-section to be intimated to any person or persons, whether landholders or not, using or claiming to use the pasture or grazing to which the proceeding relates, and shall hear such person or persons on his or their application, and make such inquiry as they may deem necessary, and may make applicable to such person or persons any regulations prescribed under such proceeding: Provided that such regulations may contain provision for the removal by any person prescribed in the regulations of any stock placed on the common pasture or grazing in contravention of the regulations.
  (3) Any person committing a breach of any regulations prescribed under this Section or an infringement of any scheme drawn up by the Crofters Commission or the Land Court, as the case may be, under the powers conferred by Section twelve of the Act of 1886, shall be liable on conviction before the sheriff under the Summary
  738
  Jurisdiction Acts to a penalty not exceeding forty shillings, and in the case of a continuing offence to a further penalty not exceeding five shillings for each day during which such offence shall have been continued after written warning from the committee or from the Land Court, and any such penalty shall be recoverable by imprisonment in terms of the Summary Jurisdiction Acts.
  (4) The Land Court may suspend or remove members of a committee under the Act of 1891 as amended, if satisfied that they are not properly carrying out the regulations respecting a common pasture or grazing, and may appoint or provide for the appointment of other persons (whether landholders or not) in their place. Where those interested in a common pasture or grazing decline to act on such a committee, the Land Court may appoint any per son or persons in the neighbourhood, whether landholders or not, with the powers and duties of such a committee. Where the Land Court, are satisfied that in lieu of such a committee a grazings constable should be appointed or elected for any township or group of townships or persons interested, they may make provision accordingly, and any regulations making such provision shall be deemed to be regulations prescribed under this Section, and the grazings constable may enforce such regulations, and shall be paid by assessment upon those using the pasture or grazing in manner provided by the Land Court, but not in excess of sixpence in the pound of rent.
  The words "not being less than three or more than five," occurring in Section two of the Act of 1891, are hereby repealed.
  (5) The Land Court may, on the application of the landlord, or landlords, or any landholder, and for such period and on such conditions as they consider equitable, apportion a common grazing into separate parts for the exclusive use of the several townships or persons interested, either as arable ground or as pasture, if satisfied that such apportionment is for the good of the estate or estates, and of the holdings or tenancies concerned.
  (6) The Land Court may, on the application of the landlord, or landlords, or any landholder, apportion lands held run-rig among the holders thereof in such manner as appears to them in the circumstances of each case to be just and expedient.
  Mr. ANNAN BRYCE: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the word "or" ["such regulations as to the exercise of pasture or grazing"], and after the word "grazing" to insert the words "or other."
  This Amendment is to provide for the case of turbary or seaweed rights and so on, which exist in various parts of Scotland. It may be pointed out there is a provision giving power to the Commissioners to regulate such rights, but that only applies to rights which are at present in possession of the crofter, whereas this Clause deals with future as well as with existing rights. I hope the Lord Advocate will accept this Amendment.
  Mr. URE: I accept it.
  Question, "That the word proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.
  Mr. MORTON: I beg to move, in Subsection (4), after the word "satisfied" ["Land Court are satisfied"], to insert the words "after hearing all parties interested." My Constituents are anxious to make sure that everyone concerned shall have an opportunity to be heard, and I therefore hope the Lord Advocate will accept these words.
  Mr. WATT: I beg to second the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: I am afraid this implies a larger burden on the Land Court. It would be an exceedingly difficult task in a case where there is a great number of crofts, and would involve much expense. I think hon. Members might trust the Land Court.
  Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and negatived.

  CLAUSE 25.—(Jurisdiction of Land Court.)
  (1) The Land Court shall be a body corporate with a common seal. Judicial notice shall be taken by all courts of justice of the corporate seal of the Land Court, and any order or other instrument purporting to be signed with it shall be received as evidence without further proof. All orders and determinations of the Land Court shall be in writing.
  (2) For the purposes of the Landholders Acts the Land Court shall have full power and jurisdiction to hear and determine all matters, whether of law or fact, and no
  740
  other Court shall review the orders or determinations of the Land Court: Provided that the Land Court may if they think fit, and shall on the request of any party unless they consider that such request is frivolous or vexatious, state a special case on any question of law arising in any proceedings pending before them, for the opinion of either division of the Court of Session, who are hereby authorised finally to determine the same.
  (3) The Land Court may without prejudice to any provision contained in Section seven of this Act ascertain the facts in any case by hearing parties and examining witnesses, or by means of affidavits, or by such other mode of inquiry as they may deem appropriate, and may require the production of all books, papers, plans, and documents relating to the case, and without prejudice to the provisions of Section twenty-four of the Act of 1886, they may summon and examine on oath such witnesses as they think fit to call or allow to appear before them. They may, when sitting in open Court, report in writing to the Lord Ordinary on the Bills any person who has been guilty of contempt of court; and the Lord Ordinary may punish such person as if the contempt had been committed in his own Court.
  (4) The Land Court may determine the amount of the expenses in any proceedings before the Court and the proportion to be borne by the different parties.
  (5) Three members of the Land Court shall be a quorum: Provided that it shall be lawful for the Land Court to delegate such of their powers as they think expedient to any one member or to any two members of the Court, with or without the assistance of one or more land valuers, assessors, or other skilled persons, and from time to time to revoke, alter, or modify any such delegation of powers; but any order or determination arrived at under such delegation shall be subject to review upon appeal by three or more members of the Court (including where such court of review consists of three members not more than one member who was a party to such order or determination) sitting together.
  (6) An order of the Land Court may be presented to the sheriff, and the sheriff, if satisfied that the order has been duly recorded, shall pronounce decree in conformity with such order on which execution and diligence shall proceed.
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I beg to move, in Sub-section (2), to leave out the words "whether of law or fact," and to insert instead thereof the words "committed to their determination by this Act."
  Mr. URE: I think there is less ambiguity in the expression used in the Bill.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: I beg to move, in Sub-section (2), after the word "Court" ["determination of the Land Court"], to insert the words "subject always to the provisions of Section (7) of this Act."
  Mr. URE: I have no objection to that.

  CLAUSE 26.—(Supplementary Provisions and Restrictions.)
  (1) For the purposes of the Landholders Acts a holding shall be deemed to include any right in pasture or grazing land held or to be held by the tenant or landholder whether alone or in common with others, and the site of any dwelling-house erected or to be erected on the holding or held or to be held therewith, and of any offices or other conveniences connected with such dwelling-house.
  (2) A person shall not be held an existing yearly tenant or a qualified leaseholder or be admissible to registration as a new holder under this Act in respect of land belonging to more than one landlord or in respect of more than one holding unless such land or holdings, in the case of an existing yearly tenant or a qualified leaseholder, have been worked as one holding.
  (3) A person shall not be held an existing yearly tenant or a qualified leaseholder under this Act in respect of—

  (a) Any land the present rent of which within the meaning of this Act exceeds fifty pounds in money, unless such land (exclusive of any common pasture, or grazing land, held or to be held therewith) does not exceed fifty acres (but without prejudice to the power of the Land Court, in determining from time to time a fair rent, to fix a rent exceeding fifty pounds); or

  (b) Any land being garden ground only, appurtenant to a house; or

  742

  (c) Any land within the Parliamentary, police, or municipal boundary of any burgh or police burgh, except a burgh or police burgh containing any existing crofters within any such boundary; or

  (d) Any land being a market garden within the meaning of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1908; or

  (e) Any land being or forming part of any glebe, or any small holding under the Small Holdings Act, 1892, or any allotment under the Allotments (Scotland) Act, 1892, or the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1894; or

  (f) Any land that is not a holding within the meaning of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1908; or

  (g) Any land being woodland, or being or forming part of the home farm of any estate, or of any policy or park, or of any pleasure ground or other land used for the amenity or convenience of any residence or farm-steading; or being permanent grass park held for the purposes of a business or calling not primarily agricultural or pastoral, including that of butcher, cattle-dealer, and the like; or

  (h) Any land bonâ fide held and used for purposes of public recreation; or

  (i) Any land acquired whether compulsorily or by agreement for any undertaking of a public nature, under the authority of any Act of Parliament or any order having the force of an Act of Parliament.

  (4) A person shall not be admissible to registration as a new holder under this Act in respect of any land referred to in paragraphs (a), (b), (c), (d), or (e), or, except by agreement, in respect of any land referred to in paragraphs (f), (g), (h), or (i) of the immediately preceding Sub-section.
  (5) Nothing in this Act shall operate to prevent the registration of a new holder or the enlargement of a holding (whether by agreement or otherwise in either case) in respect of land comprised in a deer forest or otherwise kept or preserved mainly or exclusively for sporting purposes, but subject always to the provisions of Section seven of this Act.
  (6) Notwithstanding anything contained in Sub-section one of this Section, the holding of any existing yearly tenant or

  743
  qualified leaseholder within the meaning of this Act shall not for the purposes of the Landholders Acts be deemed to include any lands or heritages at the commencement of this Act forming part of such holding and occupied by a sub-tenant of such existing yearly tenant or qualified leaseholder, whether paying rent or not.
  (7) A person shall not be held an existing yearly tenant or a qualified leaseholder under this Act in respect of a holding referred to in Section thirty-three of the Act of 1886, but nothing in that Section shall operate to prevent the registration of a new holder by agreement in respect of a holding referred to therein, or the application of the Landholders Acts to such new holder and his statutory successors in respect of the holding. For the word "nor" where last occurring in that Section the word "or" is hereby substituted.
  (8) The provisions of Section two of this Act shall extend to and include joint tenants being existing crofters, existing yearly tenants, or qualified leaseholders; but not more than one person shall be registered as a new holder in respect of any holding, and (without prejudice to the continuance of a joint tenancy through statutory successors) where at any time after the commencement of this Act a holding is held by a single landholder, or a holding which has been held in joint tenancy ceases to be so held, it shall not be competent for more than one person to be a landholder in respect of such holding.
  (9) Except so far as may be inconsistent with any express provision of this Act the tenancy of a landholder under the Landholders Acts shall, in the case of every existing crofter, be deemed to be in all respects a continuance of his tenancy as a crofter under the Crofters Acts, and all contracts and other deeds and documents shall be read and construed accordingly.
  (10) The provisions of this Section shall have effect notwithstanding anything contained in Section two of this Act.
  (11) Notwithstanding anything contained in Section two of this Act a person shall not in terms of that Section be subject to the provisions of this Act regarding statutory small tenants who in terms of this Section would be disqualified from being an existing yearly tenant or a qualified leaseholder.
  Amendments made: In Sub-section (2), leave out the words "be held an existing yearly tenant or a qualified leaseholder or,"
  Leave out the words "unless such land or holdings in the case of an existing yearly tenant or a qualified leaseholder," and insert instead thereof the words "and shall not be held an existing yearly tenant or a qualified leaseholder in respect thereof unless such land or holdings."—[Mr. Ure.]
  Mr. ANNAN BRYCE: I beg to move, in Sub-section (3), after the words "under this Act in respect of," to insert the words "or in the case of a new holder, can, in the opinion of the Land Court, be properly worked as one holding."
  Amendment not seconded.
  Amendment made: In Sub-section (3), paragraph (a), leave out the word "land" ["common pasture or grazing land"].—[Mr. Ure.]
  Mr. YOUNG: I beg to move, in the same paragraph, to leave out the word "fifty" ["does not exceed fifty acres"], and to insert instead thereof the word "hundred."
  Mr. URE: I am afraid I cannot accept that Amendment.
  Mr. URE: I beg to move, in Sub-section (3), to leave out paragraph (c).
  Sir G. YOUNGER: On a point of Order. It is a well-known rule of this House that no hon. Member is permitted on the Report stage of a Bill to move any Amendment which involves a new charge on somebody who has not been charged at a previous stage of the Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman succeeds in deleting paragraph (c) he will place a new charge on a very large number of people. In the case of any existing small holding inside the Parliamentary or borough boundary there will immediately arise the right to registration of separate small holders, and very large demands for compensation when the land is resumed for fueing purposes. There may be in the case of the area between Rosyth and Dunfermline, where thousands of acres came in last year, groups of small holdings, formed in the burgh within the municipal boundary, involving a totally different system of rating; and the ratepayers will be required to pay for the education and sanitary and medical inspection of these new holders, so that really quite a very large rate will be charged upon those in the

  745
  burgh paying on the composite value, while the new holder will only pay on the basis of his new holding. The one involves an immediate new charge on the landlord, and the other involves a prospective new charge on the ratepayers in the burgh. I submit that the right hon. Gentleman cannot move the Amendment without recommitting the Bill.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I should like to hear what the Lord Advocate has to say first.
  Mr. URE: I do not think the Amendment I propose would effect any change in the rating. The Amendment is to make land within a Parliamentary burgh boundary available for small holdings. Suppose that some land inside a Parliamentary burgh boundary was taken and a small holder or a small farmer settled down there, his land would be rated, and he would not be rated upon structures or improvements made upon his land for agricultural purposes if he were a man who held his land under a lease of under twenty-one years. I am going to accept an Amendment proposed by the hon. Member for the Central Division of Glasgow (Mr. Scott Dickson) later on, which puts the rating of the small holder under this Bill on exactly the same footing as the rating of a farmer in Scotland who holds under a lease of twenty-one years or under. I am accepting that for the purpose of making no change whatsoever in the rating system that at present exists. I do not see how the embracing of land within a Parliamentary burgh boundary would alter the system of rating.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: I did not raise that point at all. Recently thousands of acres of land at Rosyth were taken into Dunfermline. A lot of that land can be taken compulsorily. I have no doubt that that will be done. Does the Lord Advocate suggest that if 200 or 300 small holders are put on that land that the effect of doing so will not be to place an extra charge upon the remaining ratepayers in Dunfermline? I say unquestionably it must do so.
  Mr. CLYDE: Take this case of small holdings which are at present existing within the boundaries of boroughs and for which the landowners, not landholder, is entitled to take pieces in for fencing. He has, however, to compensate the holder of the small holding. At present that holder has only a limited right. He may have a five or ten years' lease. Under
  746
  this Bill he will have a permanent right and there will be a much larger burden on the landowner to compensate him, because he will be a permanent holder entitled to get renewal for all time, and accordingly he will get compensation, not as though he were the holder for five or ten years, but the holder with a perpetual right to renew, which will largely add to the amount of compensation which the landowner will have to pay.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I think the Amendment as proposed will not of itself increase the rates. On the contrary, it will rather diminish them. The contention of the hon. Gentleman was that the effect of it would be that it would increase the rates upon other people. The objection is rather too remote. The Amendments as it stands by itself as now proposed, will not of itself alter the rating or increase the charge of rating. What the ultimate effect of it may be upon other people I do not think I can properly consider. An Act of Parliament very often has very different results from what one expects.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: Will you rule on the other point, about the landlord becoming responsible immediately for heavy compensation in respect of land which is at present exempted? That is an absolute charge on an existing person.
  Mr. SPEAKER: That is not rates, nor is it a tax. It is a liability. We impose many liabilities in the Report stage.
  Mr. URE: My proposal is that land inside the Parliamentary boundaries of boroughs should be available for small holdings. I own frankly that my opinion has wavered upon this subject. In the Bill, as originally introduced, the exception was clear; then in Committee we qualified it to this extent to limit it to the case where there were crofters inside the Parliamentary boundaries. Subsequent inquiries have shown, however, that there are, within the Parliamentary boundary of some small boroughs, large tracts of land which are quite suitable for small holdings, amounting to some hundreds. Having regard to the fact that no Land Court having to face the payment of compensation would ever dream of taking land inside a Parliamentary borough, with the large sum of compensation that would obviously have to be paid, you will quite see that the striking of this paragraph out of the Bill would enable people in the neighbourhood of small

  747
  burghs to have small holdings on lands which are eminently suitable for that object, and in all respects the best adapted land in the country for the purpose.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: I am afraid I do not at all agree with the Lord Advocate with regard to this particular Amendment. I thought the right hon. Gentleman agreed entirely with us on this occasion. The fact is that in the towns you are going to put small holders who will not pay rates, and when they get into the towns the dwellings which have been put up may be used as lodgings. They will be able to get the use of the lighting, paving, and the sanitary arrangements of the whole town without paying a single halfpenny, and that itself must be a burden on the other ratepayers. That is what the argument of my hon. Friend amounted to. I know that there is a great deal of opposition to this in the towns. In some ways I do not regret that the Clause has been altered. A country gentleman said to me not long ago, "I do hope the towns will get a taste of this Bill. They will hate it as much as we do when they get people who do not pay rates."
  Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: I think the Noble Lord opposite will find his consolation in the fact that if half of the evils he foretells should occur within the burgh boundaries, the town councils will know how to protect themselves. I am glad the Lord Advocate has accepted this proposal.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: I do not intend to oppose the proposal of the Lord Advocate, because I can see that there may be circumstances in which there should be an opportunity for creating small holdings within burgh boundaries, especially as there is a tendency at present to extend burgh boundaries. At the same time it is a very serious question. I do not want to accuse the right hon. Gentleman of any Machiavellian intention in proposing the Amendment, but I would remind the Committee that he has been prominently going about telling the people of Scotland that the existing rating system of Scotland will not survive the passing of this Bill. I do not accuse him of supporting this Bill with the intention of advancing his views in regard to rating, but it is a very serious matter to create an injustice for the purpose of compelling the passing of legislation in the direction which he desires with respect to a subject on which, if he will pardon me for saying it, he has an obsession. We
  748
  are giving the opportunity for the creation of a large number of small holdings in such a district as that between Rosyth and Dunfermline and of placing a very large number of people there. The Government are going to advance a large sum for equipment and building on which these people will not pay, and you will in that way cause an acute feeling of injustice and unfairness to arise. It is a serious matter, and one not sufficiently dealt with by the Amendment of my hon. Friend which the right hon. Gentleman says he is willing to accept. It is not anything like a cure, and we ought really to understand what we are actually doing in this respect.
  Mr. MUNRO: The speech of the hon. Baronet who has just sat down is rather that of one who is willing to wound but yet afraid to strike. I understand that while he spoke against the Amendment, he is going to vote in favour of it. It has been suggested that this Amendment is not desired in the boroughs of Scotland. That must be a matter of opinion to a large extent, but I am personally aware that it is desired in a number of small boroughs in the north of Scotland, particularly in a number of boroughs that I have the honour to represent in this House, and that for the very obvious reason that within those boroughs is a large amount of agricultural land entirely suitable for the purposes to which land is put under this Bill. In the town of Wick I am informed that there are 500 acres available for the purposes of this Bill, in Tain there are 300 acres, and in Kirkwall 200 acres. There is no logical reason why land within borough boundaries should be excluded from the operation of this Bill. Under this Amendment the Land Court is merely empowered to consider the suitability of such land. Of course, if the land is not suitable or is too dear it will not be utilised. Under the Crofters Act, which is to be read with this Act, there is no exclusion similar to that which is imposed by Clause (c) as it at present stands, and as the working of the Crofters Act has caused no injustice there is no reason why there should be this exclusion under this Bill. Leaseholders found themselves excluded from the operation of the Crofters Act because they were leaseholders, but under this Act leaseholders are not excluded as such, but it is proposed to have them excluded for the wholly adventitious reason that they are within the borough boundary limits. That is an absurd restriction, and the Lord Advocate has only conformed to the

  749
  wishes of the inhabitants of these boroughs by this Amendment. Some of the land most suitable for this purpose is to be found within the boroughs, for the simple reason that it is in close proximity to the market. This has always been regarded as one of the best reasons for supporting this Amendment, and I do not think that it has ever been answered. For the reasons given, I submit that there is no reason against, and that every reason of logic and good sense is in favour of the Amendment, and I will therefore support it.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Are the communications which the hon. Member received from ratepayers who are going to have their rates increased or from the small holders who are not going to have their rates increased?
  Mr. MUNRO: The communications to which I referred were from highly responsible persons whom I asked for the information.
  Mr. MORTON: This concerns a number of my Constituents who were accidentally left out of the benefits of the Bill because they happened to be just inside the municipal boundary, a boundary which has been extended, when there is no real reason why there should be any difference. The Crofters Act made no difference between those in and out of boroughs, and all I desire now is to thank the Lord Advocate for agreeing to do justice to these people, who have as good a right as any others to come under the Land Act.
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: As the Bill originally stood, Sub-section (c) relating to land within the borough was discussed in Committee, and the form which was adopted was a sort of compromise. We are now going a long way further back than the original Bill, and making a great change in respect to small holdings.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. MORTON: I beg to move, in Subsection (3), paragraph (d), after the word "glebe" ["forming part of any glebe or any small holding"], to insert the words "except where such glebe lands are let to small holders."
  We have some cases in Sutherland itself, and I daresay in other counties where portions of the glebe are let out to small landowners as yearly tenants, or who, perhaps, in many cases have no fixity of
  750
  tenure. I have been requested to ask the House to let them be included in the Bill just as are people outside the glebe. I cannot understand why there should be any difference between glebe lands and the lands of other owners. I remember reading once that the celebrated Bishop of Oxford said that he found no difference between potatoes grown in consecrated ground and potatoes grown in unconsecrated ground. Whether glebes are consecrated or not does not matter. In my opinion there ought to be no difference in dealing with the land, whether that land be glebe land or land belonging to other landlords.
  Mr. WATT: I beg to second the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: I do not see my way to put the glebe lands in any different category from the land under the Small Holdings Act, or the Allotments Act of 1892, or the Local Government Act (Scotland), 1894. It seems to me that there is no substantial difference between these various categories.
  Mr. MORTON: I am sorry the Lord Advocate does not see his way to do justice to a number of tenants in the county of Sutherland. I do not wish to divide the House at this time of the day, and in the circumstances I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Further Amendments made: Leave out Sub-section (10).
  In Sub-section (11) leave out the words "notwithstanding anything contained in Section (2) of this Act."
  Leave out the words "in terms of that Section" ["shall not in terms of that Section be subject"].—[Mr. Ure.]

  CLAUSE 31.
  (1) In this Act—
  The expression "Act of 1886" means the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886:
  The expression "Act of 1887" means the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1887:
  The expression "Act of 1891" means the Crofters Common Grazings Regulation Act, 1891:
  The expression "Act of 1908" means the Crofters Common Grazings Regulation Act, 1908:
  The expression "Crofters Acts" means the Act of 1886, the Act of 1887, the Act of 1891, and the Act of 1908:
  The expression "statutory successor" means any person who in terms of the Landholders Acts as the case may be has succeeded or may succeed to a holding whether as heir-at-law or legatee of his immediate predecessor being a crofter or landholder in occupation of the holding:
  The expression "termination of the lease" means the expiration of the lease through the running out of the stipulated term of endurance or through the parties, or either of them, exercising their right to take advantage of a break stipulated for in the lease.
  (2) In the Crofters Acts, the Agricultural Rates, Congested Districts, and Burgh Land Tax Relief (Scotland) Act, 1896, and the Congested Districts (Scotland) Act, 1897, the expression "holding" shall be substituted for the expression "croft," and the expression "crofting parish" shall be construed as meaning a parish to which the Crofters Acts applied at the commencement of this Act.
  (3) In the Act of 1886 (except in the case of references to the passing or the title thereof and except in Section thirty-two thereof) the expression "this Act" or "the Act" shall be construed as meaning the Landholders Acts.
  (4) In Section two of the Act of 1887 the expression "principal Act" where first occurring shall be construed as meaning the Landholders Acts, and the expression "the Crofters Holdings Act, 1886," shall be construed as meaning the Act of 1886 or this Act, as the case may be.
  (5) If not inconsistent with the context, references in any Act of Parliament to a crofter shall be construed as references to a landholder within the meaning of this Act.
  Amendment made: In Sub-section (1), at the end insert the words "or through any agreement between the parties being made, or other circumstances arising whereby the lease is terminated."—[Mr. Ure.]
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (4) to insert,
  (5) Notwithstanding anything contained in this or any other Act the expression "lessee," in Section four of The
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  Lands Valuation (Scotland) Amendment Act, 1895, shall include a landholder in the same way and to the same effect as if a landholder was a lessee holding under a lease or agreement the stipulated duration of which is twenty-one years or under from the date of entry under the same.
  Mr. URE: I propose to accept this Amendment. Hon. Members will probably be aware that under the existing practice the crofter is not rated upon his improvements. It is now an open question and exceedingly doubtful. The effect of it will be to make quite clear that crofters in the proper sense of the word shall enjoy the security of tenure, and be placed in exactly the same position as the tenant farmer occupies under lease of less than twenty-one years' duration and be liberated from obligations upon improvements which they have effected on their holdings for agricultural purposes.
  Mr. DUNDAS WHITE: I think this is a very important Amendment, because it brings in at a very late stage of the Bill an Amendment of the rating system, a matter which, I think, deserves very careful consideration. I agree with what has been said as to there being some doubt as to the absolute certainty of the practice which now exists as to the crofter being rated on improvements which he has effected. At the same time, that practice has continued for something like thirty years, and has never been seriously challenged. I doubt whether it could be effectively challenged. There is a question whether the crofter is under the 1895 Valuation Act or not, and that question is to be decided against him. There has been some talk of agricultural improvements. What are agricultural improvements? If by agricultural improvements we mean that sort of improvements which are covered by the term "cultivation" in Clause 10, I should certainly support the Amendment. If, on the other hand, it is not meant to cover that form of cultivation, a very serious difficulty arises. We understand that under this measure intensive cultivation may be developed by small holders. Assume that a crofter in the neighbourhood of a town, in order to cultivate fruit and vegetables, puts up a glass-house. At present he is not rated on that. Is that an agricultural improvement? In ordinary language it would be called a horticultural, and not an agricultural, improvement. It was to avoid that very difficulty that in

  753
  Clause 10 the word "cultivation" was used, and it was expressly provided that "the expression 'cultivate' in this Section shall include the use of a holding for horticulture or for any purpose of husbandry, inclusive of the keeping or breeding of livestock, poultry, or bees, and the growth of fruit, vegetables, and the like." The crofter at present is not rated on these things, and following the analogy of existing practice, which has never been challenged, I hold that he should not be rated on them, after the passing of this Bill. I hope, therefore, the right hon. and learned Member will be willing to agree to an Amendment which I shall subsequently move, "and the expression 'agricultural purposes' in that Section shall include the purposes of cultivation specified in Section ten of this Act." Incidentally I may refer to a point raised by the hon. Baronet opposite. This certainly seems to me a rating change. It seems to bring under the provisions of the 1895 Act people who are not there already. That is a further reason why I am sorry it was not brought forward at an earlier stage. Whether the House accepts this Amendment or not should turn on the question of what is meant by agricultural purposes, and whether "agricultural purposes" is to have the same meaning as the purposes of cultivation referred to in Clause 10.
  Mr. MORTON: I think we ought to be told by the Lord Advocate whether this Amendment, if carried, will in any way affect existing assessments. If so, it will be very unfair that it should be sprung upon us at the last moment without our being able to consult our constituents. The object may be to increase the assessments of everybody and to get them into trouble as far as possible. If this Amendment becomes law, what will be the exact position of existing crofters and future landholders?
  Mr. UREmade an observation which was inaudible in the Press Gallery.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. DUNDAS WHITE: I beg to move, after the words last added, to insert the words "and the expression 'agricultural purposes' in that Section shall include the purposes of cultivation specified in Section ten of this Act." I have already given the reasons for this Amendment.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: I beg to second the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: This Amendment, if effective, would certainly alter the Valuation Law and the rating. Accordingly, it is impossible for me to accept it.
  Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and negatived.

  CLAUSE 32.—(Provisions as to Statutory Small Tenants.)
  With respect to statutory small tenants the following provisions shall have effect:—

  (1) A statutory small tenant means and includes a tenant from year to year, or leaseholder, not otherwise disqualified in terms of this Act, in regard to whom Section two of this Act provides that he shall not be held an existing yearly tenant or a qualified leaseholder, and the successors of such tenant or leaseholder in the holding, whether his heirs, legatees, assignees (if assignation be permitted by the lease) or not:

  (2) Except so far as expressly applied by this Act, the Landholders Acts shall not apply to statutory small tenants:

  (3) A holding which is or has been held by a statutory small tenant shall not be merged in or amalgamated with any other holding as defined in the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1908, except with the sanction of the Board:

  (4) Except in any case where the landlord satisfies the Land Court that there is reasonable ground of objection to a statutory small tenant (hereinafter in this Section referred to as the tenant) and the Land Court find accordingly, the tenant for the time being shall, notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, be entitled on any determination of the tenancy to a renewal thereof on the terms and conditions hereinafter specified:

  (5) Except so far as varied by this Section, the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Acts, 1908 and 1910, shall apply in the case of the tenancy of a statutory small tenant in the same manner as if the tenancy were a lease, and for the purposes of those Acts and otherwise the tenancy, as renewed from time to time, shall be deemed to be a lease current for the period of renewal:

  755

  (6) Subject to the provisions of the last-mentioned Acts and of this Section, the landlord and the tenant may agree upon the terms and conditions of the renewed tenancy:

  (7) Failing agreement, the landlord and the tenant may apply to the Land Court to fix an equitable rent or to fix the period for which the tenancy is to be renewed, and the Land Court may thereafter determine the rent to be paid by the tenant or the period of renewal, or both, as the case may be:

  (8) In determining the rent the Land Court shall, so far as practicable, act on their own knowledge and experience, taking into consideration all the circumstances of the case, holding, and district, including the rent at which the holding has been let, the proposed conditions of the renewed tenancy, the improvements made by the landlord and tenant respectively, and the then condition and value of such improvements; and shall fix as the rent to be paid by the tenant the rent which, in their opinion, would be an equitable rent for the holding between the landlord and the tenant as a willing lessor and a willing lessee: Provided that they shall allow no rent in respect of any improvements made by or at the expense of the tenant or any predecessor in title for which he or his predecessor, as the case may be, has not received payment or fair consideration from the landlord or his predecessor:

  (9) Subject as aforesaid, the terms and conditions of the renewed tenancy shall (except so far as agreed to be varied) be those of the determining tenancy, in the same way and to the same effect, as nearly as may be, as if the tenancy had been continued for the full period of renewal under tacit relocation, and the tenant shall be entitled, if he so desires, to a renewal on those terms and conditions:

  (10) The Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Acts, 1908 and 1910, as applied by this Section, shall be varied as follows (that is to say):—

  In the Second Schedule to the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1908, the Land Court shall be substituted for the Board, and
  756
  where in terms of that schedule a person is nominated as arbiter by the Land Court his remuneration shall be paid by the Land Court:
  (11) In the event of the landlord at any time failing to provide or maintain the buildings and permanent improvements suitable to the holding, in so far as the tenant is not required by common law or by express agreement in writing to do so, it shall be lawful for the tenant to apply to the Land Court to so find and declare, and if the Land Court after hearing parties (if they desire to be heard) shall so find and declare, the tenant shall as from the date specified in the finding become a landholder, and the definition of landholder in this Act shall include such tenant and his successors in the holding, being his heirs or legatees:
  (12) It shall be lawful for the Board to provide model forms of agreements for optional use by landlords and tenants under this Section, provided that nothing herein contained shall make the use of any such form compulsory:
  (13) In the event of any dispute arising as to whether a person is a statutory small tenant within the meaning of this Act, it shall be competent for the Land Court to determine such question summarily:
  (14) Section two (as amended by this Act), Sub-section four of Section six, and Section twenty of the Act of 1886, Section two of the Act of 1887 down to the word "summarily," and Sub-section nineteen of Section seven, Sub-section four of Section eight, Section twelve, Section twenty-five, and Sub-section one of Section twenty-six of this Act shall, with the substitution of "statutory small tenant" for "landholder," and "equitable rent" for "fair rent," and with any other necessary modifications, apply for the purposes of this Section as they apply for the purposes of the Landholders Acts.
  Mr. ANNAN BRYCE: I beg to move, to leave out this Clause, Some of us are unwilling to accept the compromise that has destroyed the essential features of this Bill, and as it was when it was introduced by the Secretary for Scotland on three different occasions. That Bill of the Secretary for Scotland was passed twice

  757
  through the House of Commons by very large majorities, and it was twice rejected by the House of Lords. At two elections—at three it may be said—the Government obtained its commanding majority in Scotland from the fact that the Scottish Members were elected upon the principles of that Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] Yes, because before 1906 the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had before that sketched the principles of a Bill of this kind. Sir Henry Campbell-Banner-man's principles were adopted by the Secretary for Scotland in drafting his Bill.
  The simplicity of the principle of that Bill has been destroyed by the acceptance of this compromise. Clause 32 embodies a number of provisions which are totally inconsistent with the main principles of the Bill. The main principles of the Bill are that small tenants should be rendered independent of the dictation of the landlord, and that they should be able to get at fair rents the holdings which they have been occupying. Under the provisions of this Clause none of those objects can be obtained. In fact, all the grievances that Scotland has been complaining of for so many years in regard to these small holdings are crystallised by the terms of this Clause. The Lord Advocate will tell us that this is not so, and that the position of the statutory small tenant as created by this Clause is exactly all that could be wished by him. He has been saying that in Scotland. But he said that equally about the Clauses of the Act of the Secretary for Scotland passed on two different occasions in this House. It cannot be that both are true. One or the other must be. Either the former Bill was not satisfactory, or the present Bill, as now amended, is not satisfactory. We have never had in all the speeches that the Lord Advocate has made an explanation of the inconsistency of his position in regard to the two sets of provisions. The first thing that I object to in this Clause is that the small tenant is not able to get security of tenure if his landlord can prove a reasonable ground of objection. The Crofters Act has no such provision. Why should it be introduced here? It puts the man under the thumb of his landlord.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: The crofters made the improvement; this man made none.
  Mr. A. BRYCE: What we want in Scotland is to free the small tenant from the domination of the landlord. Under this
  758
  Clause that is not possible. I have never been quite able to understand what the conditions are which are embodied in this Sub-section (7): "failing agreement." Does that mean failing agreement with regard to general conditions, or failing agreement with regard to rent, because if it only means failing agreement with regard to rent then the tenant has no possibility of escaping from the conditions which previously existed; they are stereotyped to the end of the chapter.
  On the other hand, the Lord Advocate says the obligation for fair rent provided by this Clause is exactly the same for all practical purposes as the fair-rent Clause in the Crofters Act. If that is the same thing—I refer to the principle of fixing the rent according to the Small Landholders Act, in which Act we should not have all the considerations provided for by the long operations of Section 8—the principle of competition is noticed by that Clause. It is quite true it is not in as bad a form as that of the compromise originally agreed to by the Lord Advocate, because at that time it was much more general. It is now definite as between landlord and tenant, as between a willing lessor and a willing lessee. We got the Lord Advocate to modify that, and we are very much obliged to him for it, but unless these words which note the principle of perpetual rent are omitted, and unless we return to the wording by which a fair rent is fixed, we shall not get rid of the difficulty. Again, the question of the constitution of the Court comes in as a matter of importance. So long as the Land Court is composed of people who will administer this Bill on the principle which the crofters' Commissioners have administered the Crofters Acts, it is all very well, but if in the course of time, when the persons appointed on the recommendation of my right hon. Friend disappear, and when a Government from the Opposition comes into power, we may have a set of persons appointed who are not at all in sympathy with the Crofters Act, and we may have a number of men more insistent on the landlord side than upon the tenant's side. The whole thing is a question as to how the Act is to be administered. If it is going to be administered with a view to carrying out the principles of the Crofters Act, then the Lord Advocate is all right in saying this is a most admirable Bill. On the other hand, if it is going to be administered in a spirit inconsistent with the Crofters Act, then the agitation will continue in Scotland. At the present

  759
  moment the Scotch people have been so long put off that they are sullenly acquiescing in the acceptance of this measure. But it is not with a good will, and unless the Act is administered in a way consonant with the administration of the Crofters Act we shall have new agitation against this compromise, and it will be found that no real settlement has been arrived at.
  5.0 P.M.
  Mr. BARNES: I beg leave to second this Amendment if only for the purpose of giving the Lord Advocate an opportunity of justifying this proposal. The hon. Baronet opposite interjected an observation when it was said that certain men would not come under this Act under the same conditions as the crofters. He said that this was because they had not carried out any improvements or something of that kind.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: The small tenant is a man who has had the greater part of his improvements made by the landlord.
  Mr. BARNES: This Section lays down certain conditions, failure to comply with which determines that the man shall not be regarded as a crofter in the sense of the 1886 Act. I think those conditions are rather hard. It would be as easy for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle as for a man, even if he had made these improvements, to satisfy the requirements of this Section. It seems to me that this proposal puts the tenant at the mercy of the landlord. Sub-section (4) of this Clause, seems to destroy entirely the security which we had been led to believe was to form a part of this Bill. It gives the landlord the right to say whether or not there shall be a new condition set up in a new lease at the termination of the one running. In this way it puts the tenant at the mercy of the landlord, and practically defeats the object of this Bill. Sub-section (7), as it is framed here, denies to the tenant any right of appeal for a renewal of his tenancy on fair conditions unless he gets the assent of the landlord, and obviously that is unfair.
  Mr. URE: Both the hon. Gentlemen who have moved and seconded this Amendment know very well that it is practically impossible for me to accept this Amendment. The Bill in its present form divides small tenants into two categories, those who have made their own improvements and those who have not and whose landlords
  760
  have made them. Those who have made their own improvements are placed under the crofter tenancy, and those who have not are placed under a separate category. The difference between the two is appropriate to the different circumstances. The difference is not one which touches essentials. The small tenant whose landlord has made the improvements has conferred upon him security of tenure and the right to have a fair rent fixed. He may, when his present tenancy comes to an end, demand as a matter of statutory right the renewal of that tenancy, subject to this condition only, that if objection is taken to him upon personal grounds by the landlord, a neutral and independent and impartial tribunal shall decide whether or no he is a suitable man to have his tenancy extended. There is one other distinction, and one only, between the two categories. The small tenant who has not made his own improvements but whose landlord has is not entitled, if he himself makes improvements upon the farm without the landlord's consent, to claim compensation for them at the end of the tenancy. He is placed in exactly the same position as that which the small tenant is placed by virtue of the Small Holdings Act, 1908, which was passed when a Liberal Government was in office. That Act had two defects, and two only. First, it did not give the small tenant security of tenure; and, secondly, it did not give the right to have a fair rent fixed. Both these defects have been remedied in the present Bill, and, so far as I can see, the position of the statutory small tenant is as good, if not better, in every respect as the position of the crofter. I therefore submit it would be fatal to this Bill, dangerous to agriculture in Scotland, and grossly unjust to these statutory small tenants if this Clause were rejected.
  Mr. A. BRYCE: The Lord Advocate has attempted to justify the Clause by saying the position of the new small tenant will be equally as good as that of the crofter; but he has not attempted to meet the points which have been raised. He has not told us whether the words in Sub-section (7), "Failing agreement," refer to other conditions or to the rent only.
  Mr. URE: Obviously only to the rent.
  Mr. A. BRYCE: Then it means the man has got security of tenure on the conditions which have been previously existing, and he can never get out of those conditions, however obnoxious they may be to

  761
  him. That is a thing which no small tenant understands at this moment. It is the universal belief that all the conditions of tenancy can be revised by the landlord, but, as the Lord Advocate has now told us, it is only the question of rent that can be revised.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: And the period.
  Mr. A. BRYCE: Yes. Besides that there is the question of the reasonable ground of objection. The existence of this reasonable ground of objection in itself shows the security of tenure which is claimed does not exist. I would like to ask, with reference to what the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division (Mr. Barnes) said, what proportion of the qualified persons who would come in as statutory small tenants would get in on the crofter condition? I fancy that 90 per cent. of these people have gone on to land on which there is already a house, and they are not likely to be fools enough to take land for a short time if a house has to be put upon it, and subject themselves to all the disagreeable results that will follow. If the Government proposal is an ideal solution, why was it not applied five or six years ago? Evidently it is of no use dividing the House, as hon. Members have been hypnotised by the Lord Advocate; but I warn the right hon. Gentleman that he has by no means got to the end of his trouble on this matter.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendments made: In Sub-section (1), paragraph (1), leave out the word "whether" ["whether his heirs"], and insert the word "being."
  After the word "legatees," insert the words "if the bequest is permissible in law, or."
  Mr. COWAN: I beg to move, in Subsection (1), paragraph (7), after the word "fix" ["to fix an equitable rent"], to insert the words "a fair and."
  The Lord Advocate has just told us that there is no dissatisfaction with this Clause on the part of anyone who understands it. I venture to say, with all respect, there is one expression which no one will understand, and that is the subject of my Amendment. There has been a good deal of speculation and suspicion in Scotland as to the meaning of the word "equitable." I understand that the Government agreed to insert that word in order to please our
  762
  Friends on the other side, but I am driven to the conclusion that there is some deep meaning attached to the word and that when the Bill becomes law we shall discover that the statutory small tenant has not the same security for the fixing of a fair rent as the small landholder. I believe that will cause very much dissatisfaction. I do not ask him to take out the word "equitable," I only ask that the word "fair" should be inserted alongside it, so that the Clause will read, "failing agreement, the landlord and the tenant may apply to the Land Court to fix a fair and equitable rent."
  Mr. W. YOUNG: I beg to second the Amendment. If the Opposition think there is no difference between the meaning of the word "equitable" and the word "fair" they should have no objection to the insertion of the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: I can give abundant assurances to my hon. Friends that there is no occult meaning about the two words in question, but their insertion has contributed greatly to the smooth passage of this measure.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: What the hon. Members mean to say is that the words "equitable" and "fair" are exactly the same. When the hon. Member uses the word "fair," I suppose he would mean "beautiful" and "nice." There is another meaning which is "equal" and "impartial."
  Mr. W. YOUNG: I understand the meaning equally with the Noble Lord.
  Mr. A. BRYCE: If the Noble Lord attaches the same meaning to the words "equitable" and "fair," why did he object to the insertion of the word "fair," which is the word used in the Crofters Act. That word has had a recognised meaning for twenty-five years, whereas the word "equitable" is unknown. We shall have to see what meaning the wit of lawyers can attach to it. What meaning the Noble Lord attaches to it is not of much importance, because it is the lawyers and not he who will have to interpret it.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: I am quite content to leave it to the lawyers.
  Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and negatived.
  Mr. DUNDAS WHITE: I beg to move, in Sub-section (8), to leave out the word "a" ["between the landlord and the tenant as a willing lessor."]
  The object of the Amendment is to make it clear that an ordinary non-competitive rent is intended. That will be made clear if we leave out the word "a," so that the Sub-section will read, "would be an equitable rent for the holding between the landlord and the tenant as willing lessor and willing lessee."
  Mr. W. YOUNG: I beg to second the Amendment.
  Mr. URE: I prefer the words of the Bill. This is one of those cases in which the indefinite article is better than an indefinite idea.
  Amendment negatived.
  Mr. BRYCE: I beg to move, to leave out Sub-section (11), and to insert instead thereof,
  (11) Where the landlord, refuses to execute, or refuses his consent to the tenants executing, any building or permanent improvements required for the cultivation and reasonable equipment of the holding, and in respect of which, under the Agricultural Holdings Acts, the tenant is not entitled to compensation unless the landlord consents, the tenant may appeal to the Land Court to declare that upon executing the improvements to the satisfaction of the Land Court the tenant shall, as from the date specified in the finding become a landholder, and the definition of landholder in this Act shall include such tenant and his successors in the holding, being his heirs or legatees.
  This is to get rid of the indefiniteness of the wording of the Clause. No one could say from the wording of the Clause when the remedy would come into operation. It is always difficult to prove from a negation. We want something which will produce a definite term at which the landlord must do what is wanted.
  Amendment not seconded.

  CLAUSE 33.—(Register of Small Holdings.)
  (1) It shall be the duty of the Board to compile and from time to time to revise a register of small holdings (whether held by landholders or statutory small tenants or not) throughout Scotland, in such form and containing such particulars as may be approved by the Secretary for Scotland.
  (2) For the purposes of this Section the expression "small holding" means any holding within the meaning of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1908, which either does not exceed fifty acres, or if exceeding fifty acres, is of an annual value as entered in the valuation roll not exceeding fifty pounds.
  (3) Where a landlord and a tenant agree or the Land Court decide that the tenant is a landholder or a statutory small tenant, as the case may be, within the meaning of this Act, it shall be the duty of such landlord and tenant and of the Land Court to communicate such agreement or decision to the Board for the purposes of the small holdings register: Provided that a person shall not be held a landholder or a statutory small tenant by reason only that he is entered as such on the small holdings register.
  (4) A small holding which is or has been entered on the register shall not be amalgamated with or merged in any other holding within the meaning of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1908, except with the sanction of the Board.
  Amendment made: Leave out Subsection (4).—[Mr. Ure.]

  CLAUSE 35.—(Act to Apply Crown Land).
  This Act shall apply to all Crown land.
  Amendment made: Leave out the words "all Crown land," and insert instead thereof the words,
  "Lands vested in His Majesty in right of the Crown, and under the management of the Commissioners of Woods to such extent as the Commissioners of Woods may agree, but shall not apply to lands which are held by or on behalf of the Admiralty, War Office, or any other Government Department or which under statutory powers have been acquired, or subjected to servitudes or restrictions for the purposes of the Naval or Military Forces of the Crown."—[Mr. Ure.]

  CLAUSE 38.—(Repeal.)
  The Acts specified in the Schedule to this Act are hereby repealed to the extent mentioned in the third column of that Schedule, and so much of any Act as is inconsistent with this Act is also hereby repealed.
  Amendment made: At the end of the Clause add the words,
  "Provided that such repeal so far as relating to lighthouses shall not operate so as to preclude the Board from maintaining

  765
  or from defraying the expense of maintaining any lighthouse at the passing of this Act maintained by or at the expense of the Congested Districts (Scotland) Commissioners, unless and until the expense of such

  SCHEDULE.—(Enactments Repealed.)

  Session and Chapter.

  Short Title.

  Extent of Repeal.

  49 & 50 Vict. c. 29

  Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886.

  In Section two, the words "for fishermen" and "connected with the fishing industry."

  In Section three, the words "shall forfeit his tenancy and." Section four.

  In Sub-section three of Section six, the words "at the next payment of rent."

  In Section eleven, the words "five or more," the words "to the Crofters' Commission," and the word "crofting" wherever that word occurs.

  In Section twelve, the word "crofting."

  Sub-section (1), Sub-section (2), paragraphs (a), (b), (c), and (d) of Sub-section (3), and Sub-sections (4) and (5) of Section thirteen.

  In Section fourteen, the words "for the purposes of a deer forest, or of a grouse moor, or for other sporting purposes."

  Section seventeen.

  Section nineteen, from the beginning thereof to the word "aforesaid," and from "who" to "Act."

  Section twenty-two.

  Section twenty-three.

  Section twenty-four, from "and it" to end of Section.

  Section twenty-eight.

  In Section thirty-two, the words "in all or any of the counties to which this Act applies and."

  In Section thirty-four, from "'crofter' means" to "in money at the commencement of this Act"; and from "'holding' means" to "appurtenant to a house."

  50 & 51 Vict. c. 24

  Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1887.

  In Section two, the words from "within" to "after the passing of this Act," and from "and they" to "case."

  51 & 52 Vict. c. 63

  Crofters' Commission (Delegation of Powers) Act, 1888.

  The whole Act.

  54 & 55 Vict. c. 41

  Crofters' Common Grazings Regulation Act, 1891.

  In Section two, the words "in any township or townships situated in a crofting parish or parishes within the meaning of the principal Act"; and the words "of the township."

  59 & 60 Vict. c. 37

  Agricultural Rates, Congested Districts and Burgh Land Tax Relief (Scotland) Act, 1896.

  In Sub-section two of Section four, the words "for the improvement of congested districts in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland."

  60 & 61 Vict. c. 53

  Congested Districts (Scotland) Act, 1897.

  Section one.

  Section two.

  Sub-sections (1) and (2) of Section three.

  In Sub-section (d) of Section four, the words "from congested districts to other districts in Scotland."

  Amendments made: Column 3, at the end, add the words "Section eight."
  maintenance is by arrangement with the Board (which the Board are hereby empowered to enter into on such terms as may be agreed) undertaken by some other authority."—[Mr. Ure.]
  After the words last inserted, add the words "In sub-section (1) (f), of Section four, the word 'lighthouses.'"
  Ordered, "That the Bill be recommitted to Committee of the Whole House in respect of Clause 3."
  Rill considered in Committee.
  [Mr. DONALD MACLEAN in the Chair.]

  CLAUSE 3.—(Constitution of Scottish Land Court.)
  (1) It shall be lawful for His Majesty, on the recommendation of the Secretary for Scotland, at any time after the commencement of this Act, and from time to time as vacancies occur, to appoint not more than five persons, to be designated the Scottish Land Court (in this Act referred to as the Land Court) and to appoint one of such persons to be Chairman of the Court.
  (2) One of the said persons (in this Act referred to as the legal member) shall be a person who at the date of his appointment shall be an advocate of the Scottish bar of not less than ten years' standing.
  (3) One of the said persons shall be a person who can speak the Gaelic language.
  (4) It shall be lawful for the Secretary for Scotland to remove any member of the Land Court for inability or misbehaviour. Every order of removal shall state the reasons for which it is made, and no such order shall come into operation until it has lain before both Houses of Parliament for not less than thirty days, nor if either House passes a resolution objecting to it.
  (5) If and when the legal member is temporarily unable to attend, or his office is vacant, the Secretary for Scotland may appoint to act temporarily in his place any person having the qualification required for holding the office of legal member and the person so appointed shall during such inability or vacancy have the same powers and perform the same duties as if he were the legal member.
  (6) The Secretary for Scotland shall from time to time appoint a fit person to act as principal clerk to the Land Court.
  (7) The Land Court may appoint or employ such assessors, surveyors, law agents, valuers, clerks, messengers, and other persons required for the due performance of their duties, as the Treasury, on the recommendation of the Secretary for Scotland, may sanction.
  (8) Any Crofters Commissioner or officer of the Crofters Commission in office at the commencement of this Act, who may not be appointed a member or an officer of the
  768
  Land Court, shall receive such compensation as the Treasury may determine.
  (9) There shall be paid to the Chairman of the Land Court a salary not exceeding two thousand pounds a year, and to each of the other members a salary not exceeding twelve hundred pounds a year, and such salaries shall be charged on and paid out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, or the growing produce thereof.
  (10) There shall be paid to each of the other persons appointed or employed under this section such salary or remuneration as the Treasury may sanction; and all such salaries and remuneration and the expenses of the Land Court incurred in the execution of their duties, to such amount as may be sanctioned by the Treasury, shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament.
  (11) The Land Court shall submit such estimates and keep such accounts of their receipts and expenditure, and their accounts shall be audited in accordance with such regulations, as the Treasury may direct.
  (12) It shall be lawful for the Land Court from time to time to make rules for conducting the business of the Court.
  Mr. URE: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (9), to add the words,
  "The chairman shall have the same right to a retiring annuity proportionate to his salary, subject to the like conditions and incidents as if he had been appointed a judge of the Court of Session, and every such annuity shall be charged and paid as aforesaid."
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I would make a final appeal to the Lord Advocate to let us know the name of the gentleman who is to be appointed chairman of the Court. Reference has already been made to the precedent with regard to the Insurance Bill. In that case the Chancellor of the Exchequer said he is prepared to give the English names at once. This Bill has now reached the stage of being nearly passed, and this is the last chance we shall have of asking whether we can get the name while the Bill is still before the House.
  Mr. URE: I really cannot see what relation there is between the creation of the Land Court and the particular individual who is to be appointed chairman of the Court for this reason: The Bill does not guarantee that the chairman may not be

  769
  changed from time to time. The House must not suppose that we should alter the salary or the pension rights because of the particular individual who holds the position. The proposal is to give the chairman of the Court the position and status of a judge of the Court of Session. That position would not be given unless it can be accompanied by a pension just as a judge of the Court of Session enjoys a pension. Our desire is to secure the best man we can get for the office, and to make it an office which shall be coveted. His position will stand above that of a sheriff, and, as the House is aware, a sheriff enjoys pension rights. We are all agreed that the chairman of the Land Court will be appointed to discharge very important duties, and that he will have large powers conferred upon him. We ought to do what we can to secure the best man.
  Sir HENRY DALZIEL: In this matter I am very much in agreement with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Central Division of Glasgow (Mr. Scott Dickson). It has been customary in cases of this kind for the names of the persons to be appointed to be given to the House before the House loses hold of a Bill. Mention has been made of the Insurance Bill, but there are many others which could be cited. It is inconceivable that at this moment the Scottish Office do not know the gentleman they are going to make chairman of the Land Court. It is unthinkable that the Scottish Office, which neglects matters very much we all agree, even on this side of the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]. Well, there are two Gentlemen who do not agree. I do not wish to be tempted to give illustrations. I would say that any person in the position of Secretary for Scotland may be expected to know the name, and I say he has neglected his duty if he has not made up his mind as to the gentleman he is going to appoint. I think this is a matter in which the Scottish Office might have taken the House into their confidence. I think at this moment even we ought to be told who the gentleman is who would be appointed chairman of this Court. Already rumour mentions several people. Some of them I would give a pension to and others I would not. It is, therefore, a matter of consideration before the House makes up its mind when it is going to give £1,500 a year to a gentleman after fifteen years' service, that it should know to whom it is to be given.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: I am very glad we have at last got an articulate voice on the other side backing up the demands which we have made on this side of the House. But we want not merely the name of the chairman, but those of the other four members. Considering the enormous power which they will wield under this Bill we should also have been told who is the clever and dignified person who is to preside over the Court, and not only clever and dignified, but also, as we are told, absolutely infallible in his own Court—a marvellous combination.
  Colonel GREIG: Under Clause 3 of this Act it is provided that His Majesty may, on the recommendation of the Secretary for Scotland, after the commencement of this Act and from time to time, appoint not more than five persons, and so on. If the Act does not pass there will not be that power and even if the names were agreed on by the advisers of His Majesty, His Majesty has not yet had an opportunity of seeing them, and they should not be given to the House until he has had that opportunity.
  Mr. WATT: In order to give the Scottish Office a wider choice, I beg to move an Amendment to substitute for the words "an advocate of the Scottish Bar," the words "a member of the legal profession in Scotland." The Scottish Bar gives the Scottish Office a very limited choice.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: On a point of Order—
  The DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN (Mr. Maclean): I do not think this is in order.
  Mr. WATT: Clause 3 has been committed to the whole House.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: We are simply dealing with the Amendment on page 6 of the Orders of the Day.
  Mr. WATT: May I join in the protest against not giving these names. It is quite customary when Votes such as these are instituted by Acts of Parliament to give the names in this House. As my hon. Friend (Sir H. Dalziel) has said, rumours are going about as to the gentlemen who are to get these appointments. May I ask is Sheriff Kennedy to get the chairmanship, because it is quite freely said that he is, and if he is not, who is? I should also like to know the names of the bucolic members of the Court. There are also rumours about them, but I do not want to specify the names.
  Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: I am not very clear that the value of the chairman of the Land Court is necessarily increased by giving him this salary and a pension, but as we are voting considerable additional sums of money for this purpose, I think we ought to know what we are voting for. Unless we have the name of this gentleman we are voting in ignorance. I shall therefore vote against it.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: If it goes to a Division I shall certainly vote against it also, for two reasons. First, I do not think that the Committee has been treated properly in regard to this matter, and, in the second place, I do not consider, in view of the enormous demand we have for various purposes in Scotland, that we are entitled to vote this amount of money without a better assurance that it will be well spent than we have had up to the present time. Two thousand pounds a year, and, I think, about fifteen hundred a year pension, I should vote against, because I think that at a time when there are such demands for purposes of greater urgency in Scotland the people would, quite rightly, say that this money might have been better spent. That will be the opinion of the electors of Scotland when the matter is put before them. As a protest against this vast sum being spent while people are starving throughout Scotland, I shall vote against the proposal.
  Mr. MORTON: I think at the least the Government might have waited until they had found out what work there is to do before raising this question of a pension. I think we are entitled to have the name
  of the chairman by this time, and even the names of the two bucolic gentlemen who have been mentioned. I do not know why the names should not be given. Everything will depend for the working of this Act on the gentlemen who are engaged, and they should be gentlemen who know something about the matter. Unless we can get some satisfactory statement from the Lord Advocate or somebody else, I shall join my colleagues in voting against the proposal.
  Mr. LANSBURY: I am only a paltry English Member, but, as I have a vote on the matter, I shall join in the protest against giving a pension to a gentleman after only fifteen years' service, especially as there is nothing contributory about it. I am sure that the hon. Baronet the Member for Hammersmith (Sir W. Bull) will support us in the Lobby, because he believes in thrift. This gentleman who is to receive a pension is not even going to pay into the pension fund; and someone behind me suggests that he may be a failure all the time. That is just it. A gentleman is pitchforked into a position, which he may be wholly unfit to fill by reason of his incompetence, and at the end of fifteen years you give him £1,500 a year by Act of Parliament, while in this House you have to squeeze out anything for the poor. It is perfectly disgraceful on a Friday to be considering the giving of a pension of £1,500 in this way.
  Question put. "That those words be there inserted."
  The Committee divided: Ayes. 87; Noes, 58.

  Division No. 393.]

  AYES.

  [5.40 p.m.

  Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)

  Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

  Kilbride, Denis

  Acland, Francis Dyke

  Dewar, Sir J. A.

  Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld., Cockerm'th)

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Dillon, John

  Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

  Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

  Doris, W.

  Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

  Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

  Falconer, J.

  M'Micking, Major Gilbert

  Benn, W. W. (T. H'mts., St. George)

  Greig, Colonel James William

  Meagher, Michael

  Brady, Patrick Joseph

  Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

  Menzies, Sir Walter

  Brunner, J. F. L.

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

  Millar, James Duncan

  Bryce, John Annan

  Hackett, John

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds.)

  Morgan, George Hay

  Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

  Munro, Robert

  Byles, Sir William Pollard

  Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Nolan, Joseph

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Henry, Sir Charles S.

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Hinds, John

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Cowan, William Henry

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Hunter, W. (Govan)

  Pollard, Sir George H.

  Crumley, Patrick

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Cullinan, John

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Davies, David (Montgomery Co.)

  Kelly, Edward

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  Reddy, Michael

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  Young, William (Perth, East)

  Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Yoxall, Sir James Henry

  Roche, John (Galway, E.)

  Webb, H.

  Sheehy, David

  White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.Gulland and Mr. Dudley Ward.

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim)

  Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

  Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

  Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)

  NOES.

  Adamson, William

  Goldstone, Frank

  Perkins, Walter Frank

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

  Painter, Joseph

  Amery, L. C. M. S.

  Henderson, Major H. (Abingdon)

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Anstruther-Gray, Major William

  Hodge, John

  Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Hope, Harry (Bute)

  Ronaldshay, Earl of

  Balcarres, Lord

  Horne, Wm. E. (Surrey, Guildford)

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Barnes, George N.

  Hunt, Rowland

  Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

  Barnston, H.

  Lansbury, George

  Talbot, Lord Edmund

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)

  Thomas, James Henry (Derby)

  Bull, Sir William James

  Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey)

  Tullibardine, Marquess of

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee

  Valentia, Viscount

  Clyde, James Avon

  Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)

  Ward, Arnold S. (Herts, Watford)

  Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

  Mackinder, Halford J.

  Wood, John (Stalybridge)

  Courthope, G. Loyd

  Malcolm, Ian

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Yate, Colonel C. E.

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C.

  Younger, Sir George

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  O'Grady, James

  Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)

  O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)

  Gardner, Ernest

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir H. Dalziel and Mr. Watt.

  Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Glanville, Harold James

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Mr. URE: I beg to move "That the Bill be now read the third time."
  Mr. BONAR LAW(rising amid general cheers to speak for the first time as Leader of the Unionist party): I intend to occupy the time of the House for only a few minutes. It is to deal merely with one part of the Bill, and that part seems so unimportant to the Government that the Minister for Agriculture, who is immediately concerned, has not been present at all during the Debates in connection with this Bill. The subject to which I wish to refer is the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, and the best way to administer it. I am not sorry that on the first occasion on which I have to speak in my new position it should be on a subject which does not offer any temptation for strong language. It is a subject which cannot possibly arouse any excitement. Nevertheless, as so often happens in our Debates, it is really in my opinion far more important for the well-being of the country than many subjects which excite the keenest party passion. The whole question is as to the best method of administering the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act in this island of Great Britain. It is not that there is any conflict of interest between England and
  774
  Scotland. The interests of England and Scotland in this matter are absolutely identical. That is shown most clearly by the fact that at a most representative gathering of those who know most and care most about agriculture in Scotland precisely the same view was taken as that which has been taken by men of the same position in every part of England. It has also been suggested that we object to this arrangement because we think that the administration of the Scottish Board will be ineffective. I should be the last man to make that suggestion. I do not think it for a moment. That is not our case. Our case is not that the Scottish administration will be bad, but that it will be different, and that what is needed in this island is absolute uniformity in the administration of the Act. In making that claim I think we have every justification from what has happened in the past. Hon. Members now hardly realise what a terrible curse these diseases have been to the agriculturist in the past. We have not suffered from them to the same extent recently, but everyone knows that that is only because there has been instant and absolute precautions of every kind taken to prevent the disease wherever it apabsolute precautions of every kind taken why all efforts to stamp it out before were ineffective was simply because there was no uniform system throughout the country, and that therefore there was no possibility of dealing in the same spirit and with equal rapidity with every part of the Kingdom as soon as the disease appeared.

  775
  I should like to put how, in my view, it will injure Scotland, and also England if this proposal of the Government be carried out. We had on this question, as we have on other questions which are much more important, the advantage of being an island, and the Government really by their proposal are throwing away a large part of that advantage. Let the House consider what that advantage is? A very important part of the business of stock raising in this country is the selling of stock to foreign countries. It is especially important in regard to pedigree stock in Scotland, inasmuch as we have almost a monopoly. Why? The Board of Agriculture at first was not popular—was, I think, very unpopular It has become popular in what is the easiest way, perhaps, for either men of bodies to become popular—that is by being successful. It has secured the confidence of this country; more than that, it has secured the confidence of other countries. That is the reason why there is absolute freedom now in exporting our stock to these other countries. I put it to the House, and to hon. Members who do not agree with us: Is there not at least a danger that if it is known that there are two systems of administration of these Acts that the same confidence will not continue? Is there no danger that there will not be the same freedom in our exporting trade? If so, undoubtedly Scotland will suffer in proportion, just as England will suffer by the change.
  There is another disadvantage which is more purely Scottish. At present, if the disease breaks out in any part of Scotland it is treated in precisely the same way in which it is treated in England. A cordon is drawn around the infected area, and all other parts of the country are free. Suppose it happens—and it might happen quite irrespective of administration in Scotland—that there was an outbreak of this disease in many parts of Scotland at the same time? Is it not certain that there would immediately be an outcry on the part of agriculturists in England—an outcry so strong that the President of the Board of Agriculture, even if he thought it unnecessary, might have to yield to it—to draw the cordon not around the infected areas, but at the border itself? If that occurred, does anyone think that, although it would be bad for for England, it would not be far worse for Scotland?
  There is only one other aspect of this question to which I would like to call the
  776
  attention of the House. When I was first a candidate for Parliament for one of the Divisions of Glasgow, this was a subject that gave me a great deal of trouble. Glasgow is the largest Scottish port, and is very much interested in being allowed to receive Canadian cattle free. And there was—and I am sure still is—a division of interests even amongst the agriculturists. Some wanted them, and some wanted them kept out. In Glasgow in my time—I fancy my right hon. Friend behind me will say there has been no change—the hecklers were very much on the spot. They tried to get from me a promise to vote against this embargo on foreign cattle. I got out of it in a way that is familiar, I am sure, to all parts of the House, by promising to give the matter my careful consideration. The Prime Minister, I think, was not equally successful. That back-door was not open to him. He had to give a definite pledge when he was faced with the same difficulty.
  It is not merely that there is a division of interest on this question in Scotland, and perhaps in England, but in Canada also there is a very strong feeling about it. The Canadian people and the Canadian Government dislike this embargo very much. I am speaking from memory, but I am sure my memory would not betray me on a matter of such importance. I think at the last Conference, or if not the last the previous one, Sir Wilfrid Laurier pressed this matter upon the Government, and even went so far as to suggest that this embargo was in reality Protection in disguise. Well, suppose that embargo were removed. Those who would suffer most, apart from the spread of the disease, which might arise from it, would be the people who raise store cattle in Ireland. Inevitably I shall be in strong conflict with Nationalist Members who sit below the Gangway, but on this matter I am not in conflict with them. It always has been a part of our policy, and it always will be my desire to help, in every possible way, in developing the resources of Ireland, and there is nothing which I should like more than to enable us to make Ireland feel she has an economic interest in having the closest possible connection with Great Britain. For that reason I, for one, would give Preference to store cattle from Ireland in Great Britain, even over Canada, but I should do it openly and honestly, and not under any disguise. When I examined this question I did come to the conclusion that

  777
  we were justified, apart altogether from Protection, in excluding these Canadian cattle, and I will tell the House why.
  No matter how careful the Canadian Government may be in its administration, the fact that they have, an immense frontier which borders upon another country makes it at least possible, and I think probable, that disease from the United States might come into the United Kingdom through Canada. For that reason I think we are justified even under present conditions in continuing the embargo, but I put this point very strongly. Will not our position be enormously weakened if we make this new arrangement? The Canadian Government may come to us and say, and I think they will very likely say: "You have two systems of administration in your island. You allow cattle to pass from Scotland to England; there is no one administrative body for both. Why do you do it? Because you have confidence in the Scotch Administration. Let us prove our administration is equally good, and how can you refuse to give us the same privilege you give to Scotland?" I say, in my opinion, these are considerations which ought to have the utmost weight with the Government in dealing with this question.
  Let me say now in conclusion, that I have no desire—none whatever—for the centralisation of government. I think that is the weakness on the part of Gentlemen who sit upon the benches opposite more than of myself and my Friends. We do not like it; we desire the largest possible measure of local self-government so long as it is sensible. We desire that we should make the utmost possible use of local knowledge, local interest, and local experience. That is our desire. But everyone must admit that there are some subjects which can only be dealt with by close administration coming from a central Government, and if there are any such subjects surely the stamping out of disease is one of those subjects, and should be dealt with by a central body. I do not deny for a moment that there may be advantages, and perhaps considerable advantages, in a separate Board of Agriculture for Scotland, but in my judgment these advantages are not equal to what they are going to cost. In my opinion the best result would be obtained by a Board of Agriculture for Great Britain with a strong local body, combining all the knowledge and experience available, constituted in Scotland. That is my case. But if
  778
  for any reason, political or otherwise, the Government feel bound to create this separate Board, and if in order to satisfy Scotch Members, and if, curious as it seems, they want another representative of Scotland to sit on the Front Bench—I should have thought there were enough Scotch Members there for all Parliamentary needs—I should have no objection to having a Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture. I do not object to that, but I do say that this is a far too serious matter to be subdivided. Even if you have this separate Board of Agriculture for Scotland, at any rate you ought to have one Board dealing solely and with complete responsibility with these diseases throughout the whole island, one Board on which Scotland would be adequately represented, but that Board should be under the control of the President of the Board of Agriculture in this country. That is my view. I am not going to say anything in regard to what has been the subject of discussion on the general aspects of the Bill. I will only say that my colleagues from Scotland who sit on these benches do not intend to vote against the Third Reading of this Bill. I take their view, and I agree with them, but I am bound to add that the points I have now raised seem to be of so much greater importance than the Government imagine, that if they were the issue I should feel bound to vote against the Bill. I do not think it is necessary to take that course, but I hope we shall have some other opportunity of reconsidering this question, and I urge upon the Government that they should at least carefully consider whether the course I have put forward is the right one. I should much like to hear what the new President of the Board of Agriculture himself has to say in justification of the change.
  Mr. URE: I count myself exceedingly fortunate; in the unavoidable absence of the Prime Minister, on his behalf and on behalf of my colleagues on this bench and my hon. Friends behind me, to have the opportunity of tendering a very hearty welcome to the right hon. Gentleman upon taking up the highly responsible position he now occupies, and I beg to offer him our hearty congratulations. I do so with all the more hearty goodwill because I have the honour and privilege of enjoying the right hon. Gentleman's friendship, and further, because the place, not of his birth, but of his education and upbringing, is the same happy quarter of Scotland in which

  779
  I was educated. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that this is not a question of international politics, and not a question to be carried to extremes, but a question of efficient administration. It is from that point of view, and that point of view alone, that I have to regard this question. I do not profess to have any technical knowledge about dealing with cattle, but I think I understand most of the problems in regard to the administration of agriculture in Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman has undoubtedly exaggerated the advantages of what has been called uniformity. He has said, and quite truly, that he does not challenge, nor do any hon. or right hon. Gentlemen on his side of the House challenge, the efficiency of the administration of agricultural affairs by a Scottish Board of Agriculture. He is willing, as I understand those who sit on his side of the House are willing, to postulate a thoroughly efficient Board, a Board as efficient as the English Board, and that is quite sufficient for my argument. If there is anything which requires prompt and rapid action, it is an outbreak of cattle disease, and I should myself have thought a Scotch Board of Agriculture thoroughly equipped as our Board will be, was in a better position to deal promptly and rapidly with an outbreak of disease than would be a Board situated at a distance. It is very difficult to see how any mischief would result to England in consequence of setting up a Scotch Board to administer our own agricultural affairs.
  I have asked for information as to what kind of mischief our countrymen across the border fear if a Scotch Board of Agriculture is set up armed with power to deal with the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Acts. A great many attempts have been made to demonstrate England would suffer, but they have hopelessly come to grief. The right hon. Gentleman has offered two instances, one of which is new and the other of which is not. He referred to the exportation of cattle to foreign parts. I cannot for the life of me see how the confidence of importers of cattle in foreign countries would be undermined if they knew there was an efficient Scotch Board dealing with Scotch affairs and an efficient English Board dealing with English affairs, because between two such Boards there could be no difference of administration. There must be uniformity if both are efficient in administration. Therefore, I think, so far as regards the
  780
  exportation of cattle to foreign countries is concerned, the right hon. Gentleman's case fails. He figured another case, the case of an outbreak of disease in one or more counties in Scotland. He said: What would the Scotch Board do? The Scotch Board would instantly draw a cordon round the particular district affected by the disease. Would an English Board act otherwise? If the Scotch Board did draw a cordon round the affected county, would not that be an appropriate method to take, and is it anything to the purpose to say there might be some nervousness on the part of Englishmen, who would straightway in a moment of panic insist on their Board of Agriculture in London drawing a line across the border between the two countries. Why? The Scottish Board would have acted with perfect efficiency and promptitude and would have acted exactly as they themselves would have acted.
  I cannot really see what disaster, danger, mischief, or evils hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite can really think will result if we have a Board of Agriculture in Scotland armed with these powers. I really would like to ask the House to consider whether it is worth our while to set up a separate Board of Agriculture for Scotland and at the same moment to withdraw from it the power of dealing with just one of the most important things it could possibly be called upon to handle. Does the House not realise, if we are really to have promptitude of action—and promptitude is everything in this matter—we are infinitely better with our own Board armed with full powers than we should be if having set up our Board we deprive it of this power and render it necessary, if the emergency arose, for it to refer the matter to a Board in England, which by no possibility could act with the same rapid power as could a Scotch Board. I submit to the House, therefore, that this is a really tremendously exaggerated evil suggested by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and that none of the mischief which they prognosticate is likely to actually happen if Scotland has, as I hope it will have, a Board of Agriculture which will be an example to the world.
  Mr. CHAPLIN: Having represented an agricultural constituency for many years, I ask the leave of the House to express to my right hon. Friend thanks for the speech he has made this afternoon. I can assure him that nothing he could have said could have given more universal

  781
  satisfaction to the agricultural community throughout England than the observations he has made to-night. The Lord Advocate has asked over and over again for reasons against this Bill. He has suggested that if the Scotch Board is to have the same power as the English Board, and to frame a cordon around suspected districts, that will be amply sufficient in itself, and the English Board need not trouble itself. But he must remember that the interests the English Board have to safeguard are immeasurably greater than those which will be entrusted to the Scottish Board, and the English Board will have to be satisfied of the absolute and perfect efficiency of the manner in which the work is carried out in Scotland. I would like to point out this difference. The Board of Agriculture in England has a perfectly trained and experienced staff who, in the case of an outbreak, can be depended on to act with promptitude and knowledge, as they know exactly how to deal with it. But in Scotland you will have to form your staff, and how can it be proved to the perfect satisfaction of the English Board that they are acting with the same promptness and forming a cordon in the same way as in England? It is so long since I represented the English Board of Agriculture that I speak merely from memory. But so far as I understand the position with regard to pleuropneumonia, animals cannot be admitted into this country; in fact, they are prevented by Statute from leaving the wharf at which they arrive. But in the case of foot-and-mouth disease it is different. Animals from foot-and-disease countries, if there is no pleuropneumonia, are admitted by orders. The power of issuing these orders will be transferred to the Board in Scotland to be used at their discretion, and a case might conceivably arise under which the animals would be permitted by one of these orders to come into Scotland from some other country, whereas, in the opinion of the English Board, they ought not to be so allowed. I remember a very serious case where through a mistake on the part of the Board of Agriculture, owing to pressure being put on the Treasury, the orders were issued permitting the entry of animals. They were allowed to come from a country which turned out, in spite of all that they had learned from the authorities in that country, to be infected with foot-and-mouth disease. The next thing that happened was that two cargoes appeared at the mouth of the Thames, reeking with
  782
  foot-and-mouth disease. What happened in one case might conceivably happen in another. The English Board of Agriculture have learned experience from that misfortune, but if I am right in supposing that under this Bill the power of making orders for the entrance of animals into Scotland would rest with the Scottish Board and not the English Board, I have given a reason why there might naturally and properly be a serious anxiety on the part of the Board of Agriculture in England. Something more than this joint control is necessary. Absolute uniformity of action is vital and essential if we are to keep out these diseases and all the frightful mischiefs they would inflict upon the community in this country, not only the agricultural community, but the whole community, once we allowed this country to be again infected with this disease, which has caused such intolerable mischief and loss in the past, and which would do an infinity of mischief in the future.
  Mr. CATHCART WASON: I am entirely at one with the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, especially in reference to the importation of cattle from Canada. I have always been strongly opposed to that, solely for the good of the small people of this country, and especially the small holders, who would be rendered liable to the greatest possible chance of ruin. I disagree with him in assuming that there is unanimous opinion in Canada in favour of removing these restrictions. I believe the Canadians are learning more wisdom and that it is far better to keep their cattle than to send starving beasts over here as they did.
  We are, however, dealing with a condition of things which may never arise. If the Government attach so much importance to the proposal to establish a Scottish Board of Agriculture, why should they not say so openly, and why should they not put it in the Bill? Under the Bill as it stands there is nothing but power given to the Secretary for Scotland to do as he pleases, at any time he likes. He need never do it at all. It is left entirely to his discretion to bring this Board into being. That is not a power we ought to give to any individual. If the thing is good, let the Government bring down their measure in straightforward fashion and say they are going to do it. We had little or practically no discussion upon this point in Committee. There was an important discussion on a Clause which gave the Secretary

  783
  for Scotland power to break up the Congested Districts Board and all the good it has done, by a mere wave of the hand. The Lord Advocate very kindly consented to withdraw that power from the Secretary for Scotland. This was only meant to be a Bill for the formation of Small Holdings and for putting people on the land. I have never heard a single voice from Scotland in favour of setting up a separate Board of Agriculture. There may be a few persons who want jobs. The curse, of our country is that we have too many people who want jobs, and the object of the Bill, as I understood, was to create an independent class of people occupying a portion of the soil to which they are entitled at a fair and equitable rent. I do not share the fear that anything very serious would happen if we have a Scottish Board of Agriculture, but I think they have ground for fearing that something might happen. There might be a diversion of opinion as to administration, and if there was very great evil might arise. I am exceedingly glad that it is not intended to divide upon this question. I assure the Lord Advocate that this is not a Bill for the setting up of a separate Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland, but for the promotion of small holdings.
  Another point which specially appeals to me is that under the Bill as it stands, as far as we recognise it and know it, we have something like £200,000 for the development of small holdings. How much of that is going to be taken out of the Department of Agriculture? There is no information whatever on these points. We should very much like to know, before a penny of the money is taken away from the development of small holdings, whether any of the money, which is little enough for the purpose, is to go to set up a Department of Agriculture and pay another series of high-priced officials. So far as I know, the Department is managed admirably. I never heard in my experience a single case justifying complaint against the administration of the Board. I had some serious cases of disease in my own district. I only had to complain here to the President of the Board of Agriculture and competent men were at once sent down to inquire and report into the whole thing. I trust sincerely if ever this question comes up before us again the Government will consider the remarks I have made in connection with it.
  Mr. MACKINDER: I think the Lord Advocate is misunderstanding our position in two respects. In the first place, I think he underrates the dangers which we think will inevitably occur by this division of Boards. In the second place, it seems to me that he has not done justice to that portion of the speech of the Leader of this side of the House, in which he dealt with the quite possible action of a subordinate Board in Scotland capable of taking prompt measures and acting in accordance with a general line settled for the whole country. I do not think the Lord Advocate has any justification in asking for a separate Board in Scotland on the ground that it would be able to take more prompt action than a Board in England, because that is not the point we have ever denied. We admit that a Board in Edinburgh would probably be able to take more prompt action. It would be able to take just as prompt action if it were subordinate to the general Board, with the same President, for both countries, and if that Board in Edinburgh were carrying out the same general policy. The general policy has nothing to do with promptitude. Promptitude is a matter of administration, general policy is a matter of policy. They are two totally distinct things. The subordinate body in Edinburgh is responsible for promptitude, and the general body in London is responsible for the general policy. I see no answer in what the right hon. Gentleman has put forward to the point which was put forward by the Leader of this side of the House.
  There is a matter which has not been referred to, and which, I think, will indicate why we attach so much importance to this unity of area within which you are to treat these diseases of animals. I wish to refer to the boundaries Memorandum of Lord Selborne, which preceded the creation of the Union of South Africa. One of the chief reasons which Lord Selborne gave for the unification of South Africa is contained in this sentence, which I quote from the Blue-book:—
  "Scab, rinderpest, East African coast fever, locust, are each in their degree a constant menace to the farmer. The plagues of nature know no artificial boundaries between Colonies: the farmers, however, in their warfare against these plagues are heavily handicapped by the multiplicity of authorities. If one South African authority, exercising undisputed powers from the Cape to the Zambesi, were to carry out one consistent policy in support of the fanners, it is probable that within a few years, not only would dread pests like the East African coast fever have disappeared, but scab might become rare among South African sheep, and the scourge of locust might have passed into the record of a bad dream."

  785
  That is a striking passage, and gives one of the chief reasons for the unification of South Africa which was subsequently accomplished. What we claim is that you could have some authority of a subordinate kind in Edinburgh, as under present conditions, while maintaining your central board in London. You could have a systematic and united policy for the whole country. It has not been without interest that I have noticed that hon. Members below the Gangway wish to know who are to be the Members of the Board of Agriculture. I venture to say that not a little of that anxiety was for the purpose of indexing to those Gentlemen the policy they would follow in regard to the introduction of cattle from Canada. I represent a constituency which has a great deal of interest in this matter. My reply has always been, "If you can give veterinary reasons for excluding Canadian cattle I will support them, but if you can give no veterinary reasons, I think a Free Trade Government is bound to allow Canadian cattle to be brought into this country [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I think these "Hear, hears" are fairly indicative of the policy hon. Members would pursue in this matter, and of the pressure that will be brought to bear on the Board of Agriculture in Scotland. We believe that a different policy in Scotland from that followed in England is a danger you will have to look to.
  Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: May I ask how that danger could arise?
  Mr. MACKINDER: If you have one policy in England and another policy in Scotland, you will have constant pressure brought to bear on the Board of Agriculture for the protection of the pedigree exports, and you will have constant pressure on the Board of Agriculture in England on the appearance of the slightest disease in Scotland to exclude wholly from this country Scottish cattle. The case put by the Leader of the Opposition was a case in point. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman appreciates what the position in this matter is. It is a question of nervousness in foreign countries following upon the nervousness of exporters in this country, following upon the pressure on the Board of Agriculture. South Africa sees the importance of this question, and I venture to say that the Lord Advocate has given no answer whatever to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bootle, because the matter of promptitude is one which does not go to the root of our position at all.
  Mr. MUNRO-FERGUSON: I am afraid the hon. Gentleman opposite does not appreciate that, this is a matter to be dealt with by Act of Parliament. It is not a matter which rests with the Board of Agriculture at all, either in this country or the other. It rests with this House, with an Act of Parliament which the hon. Member will have to see repealed before the danger which he fears can possibly arise. My clear conviction is that adequate protection can be given against cattle disease, either through a British Board in London or through a properly equipped Scotch Board in Scotland. I doubt whether in point of fact there will be a penny to choose between them, but I do think it absolutely essential, if there is to be adequate protection from disease, that the Scotch Board should be properly equipped, and the cost attending a properly equipped Board would be about £60,000 a year. In Ireland it is very much higher. I am putting it at a minimum. I do not think you can do it under £60,000 a year. We have never had the slightest, assurance on the part of the Government that £60,000 would be available.
  Another point of importance is that there should be an Advisory Council. That has been refused. More important than all is that the Department should be represented in this House so that Scotch Members and English Members, if they liked, could call the policy of the Department to account. That provision also has been refused. The cause of alarm in the future does not arise at all from the fact that there is to be a Scotch Board instead of a sub-Department of the British Board to consult Scotch agricultural interests. But the danger is that you are setting up a temporary Board, and in the interregnum obviously contemplated by the Bill when there is a gradual severance from the British Board without setting up a reliable Board in Scotland, a great danger might be run, not only by Scotch breeders but by other agricultural interests in the country. That is the real danger. I was glad to note that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Bonar Law) did not bar the possibility of giving support to a Scotch Board. The only objection he made was the cost of the new posts. There would be no such cost. The Vice-President of the Irish Board sits in this House. There is no reason whatever why the chairman of the Scotch Board should not sit in this House. The allocation of work under the Scotch Board could readily be

  787
  made so that the chairman might sit here, and sit here he should if the Scotch Board is to be really effective. That is one of the weak parts of the Bill which have not yet been remedied. It would not cost a penny more money, and it would bring efficiency to the Board. That is what is really needed to meet the complaints from the other side.
  Mr. HARRY HOPE: There is one point in connection with the administration of the Diseases of Animals Act which has not yet been touched on, and that is the large movement of stock from Scotland to England and from England to Scotland. We have a very large movement indeed of store sheep from Scotland into England, and a large movement of store cattle, principally from Cumberland and Westmoreland into Scotland. Besides that we have a continuous movement of fat stock from Scotland into the large North of England markets, principally Newcastle and Wakefield. What the Scotch farmers are afraid of, and I think the Lord Advocate has never taken this point into consideration, is that if the movement of stock is to be administered by different authorities as he proposes, the English administration may suddenly cut off the movement of store stock from Scotland down into England, just at the time that there are store stock sales being held which would do irreparable damage to the Scotch stockholders. The English administration being naturally cut off from Scotland, being independent of the Scottish public, and not being responsible to Scottish public opinion, might very naturally allow regulations to be made by the county local authorities which would interfere most seriously with the movement of stock just at the time when the stock is ready to be allowed into the English markets. Let us consider how all that might affect the small holders—that body which you are so anxious to create. If there is any fear that the small holders' stock might not, after passing into the hands of the dealers, get into the southern markets, where it naturally should go, what sort of a price are those small holders going to get from the dealers when these men go round to buy the cattle? Would not the argument be used by the dealers that prices are down so much, because there is a fear—mind you, only a fear—that the Scottish stock is going to be shut out of Northumberland, or whatever part of England it may be, because the administration of this Diseases
  788
  Act will be by different authorities which are out of touch and irresponsible to the people. Therefore, the Scotch farmers see that there is a real practical danger being brought to their doors, and it is because of that the stockholders of Scotland are so largely against separation from Scotland in this respect.
  Mr. J. M. HENDERSON: I wish to ask a question in regard to the agricultural colleges. The Bill provides that the Board shall "promote, aid and develop instruction in agriculture." I want to know whether there is any intention to interfere with the present agricultural colleges established in Scotland, which both in the south of Scotland and in the north are doing a very great deal of good. I should like to have some assurance or declaration from the Government that these colleges will not be abandoned or interfered with in the very useful work which they are at present doing.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: May I ask what the salaries of these gentlemen are going to be? I think that should be considered.
  The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND (Mr. Hunter): I am not in a position to give the Noble Lord an answer to that question, but as regards the preceding question of my hon. Friend, I do not think he is justified in entertaining any apprehension in regard to the agricultural colleges in Scotland. So far as the provisions of this Bill are concerned, I do not think they are affected in the least.
  Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 24th October, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
  Adjourned accordingly, at Twenty minutes before Seven o'clock, till Monday next, 20th November.

PETITIONS PRESENTED DURING THE WEEK.
The following Petitions were presented during the week and ordered to lie upon the Table:—
MONDAY.
Nath, Bhola—Petition of Bhola Nath, for redress of grievances.

TUESDAY.
Haslam, Arthur Richard Hastings—Petition of A. R. H. Haslam, for redress of grievances.
Shops Bill—Petitions for alteration from Arderseir, Inverness (two), and Stratherrick.

WEDNESDAY.
Shops Bill—Petition from Kiltarlity, for alteration.
  Civil Servants (Medical Examination).
  Civil Servants (Medical Examination).
  Supply (Scottish Votes).
  Supply (Scottish Votes).
  Income Tax (Depreciation of Buildings and Machinery).
  Income Tax (Depreciation of Buildings and Machinery).
NATIONAL INSURANCE BILL.
  APPROVED SOCIETIES.
  APPROVED SOCIETIES.
  DISTRESS COMMITTEES (METROPOLIS).
  DISTRESS COMMITTEES (METROPOLIS).
  ABBEY SANATORIUM (BELFAST).
  ABBEY SANATORIUM (BELFAST).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Reinstatement of Evicted Tenant (Ruskey, County Donegal).
  Reinstatement of Evicted Tenant (Ruskey, County Donegal).
  Labourers' Cottages (Belfast Rural District).
  Labourers' Cottages (Belfast Rural District).
  Conviction of Fred Hayton.
  Conviction of Fred Hayton.
  Neutral Vessels Captured by Belligerents.
  Neutral Vessels Captured by Belligerents.
  Casual Wards (Metropolis).
  Casual Wards (Metropolis).
  Emigration (British Subjects).
  Emigration (British Subjects).
  Closing of Railway Stations.
  Closing of Railway Stations.
  Late Fee Stamps (Kingstown and Holyhead).
  Late Fee Stamps (Kingstown and Holyhead).
  Steamship Subsidies (Postal Services).
  Steamship Subsidies (Postal Services).
  Delivery of Stamps (Boy Messengers).
  Delivery of Stamps (Boy Messengers).
  Glasgow High School (Colours).
  Glasgow High School (Colours).