The Land Question

1. The Land Question The Struggle for Land in Scotland before 1914

2. The Highlands and Islands c.1850 • Significant depopulation because of • the Highland Clearances. • The continued problems with the potato crop (the Highlands and Islands had also experienced the potato famine which hit Ireland in the mid-1840s). • Assisted emigration (landowners got rid of “surplus population” by financing their emigration abroad). • Economic problems, marked by a collapse in cattle prices, difficulties in commercial fishing and industrial recession. It is estimated that perhaps 1/3 of the entire population migrated permanently from the western mainland and the Hebrides between the early 1840s and the later 1850s.

3. The Situation c.1880 • Although there had been some improvement by 1880 (cattle prices had risen, cheap imported grain made food for animals and humans less expensive, rail and steamer transport expanded and many Highlanders used temporary migration and casual employment to supplement incomes from crofting), the “Land Question” remained – many crofters had little or no security of tenure, too many crofters were crowded onto the land, land could not be passed on to relatives, housing was often squalid and landlords retained awesome powers of eviction, particularly as many small tenants held land on a yearly basis only.

4. Crofters

5. The Crofters’ War - background • The early 1880s saw a deterioration in the Highlanders’ conditions. • Bad winter of 1882-3. • Potato crop partly destroyed. • Another collapse in cattle prices. • Bad storms destroyed hundreds of fishing boats. • Cheap Australian and New Zealand meat and wool flooded the market, causing local sheep prices to plunge. Many Highland sheep farms were converted to deer parks. • Irish Land Reform had been successfully won. • Key politicians (eg Gladstone) and public sympathy were increasingly pro-crofter.

6. The Battle of the Braes - 1882 • Crofters from 3 townships in Skye petitioned their landlord for the return of traditional grazing rights and, when turned down, refused to pay their rent. The landlord asked the courts to remove the tenants who were, technically, in arrears, but the sherriff was challenged by a crowd of 500 or so when he attempted to serve the court summonses. The sherriff returned some days later, with a force of 50 Glasgow policemen and the so-called “Battle of the Braes” took place between the police and dozens of local men and women.

8. A Change in Direction? • The Battle of the Braes saw a decisive change in direction for those seeking land reform • Proactive, not reactive. • More and better coordinated rent-strikes, as landowners found these difficult to challenge, and public sympathy often supported the protesters. • Other tactics, such as dyke-breaking, mutilation and killing of animals and occupation of farms, were used. • The Highland Land Law Reform Association was set up, and soon had hundreds of members and both local and district committees to conduct an effective political campaign across Scotland and in parliament. • The 1884 Parliamentary Reform Act gave more working class people the vote.

9. The Napier Commission Concern at the increasingly volatile situation in the Highlands meant that a Royal Commission was set up to “inquire into the condition of the Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands a and Islands of Scotland.” Its Report was published in 1884.

10. The Crofters’ Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 This Act emerged from the recommendations made by the Napier Commission • Security of tenure for crofters guaranteed as long as they continued to pay rent. • Fair rents to be fixed by a “land court”. • Crofters who gave up their croft or were removed had to be compensated for improvements they had made. • Crofts could not be sold but might be bequeathed to a relative. • Land courts could consider the compulsory enlargement of holdings.

11. Traditional Black House

12. BUT….. • The Act did nothing to help cottars (sub-tenants), semi-landless or landless labourers, who were deeply frustrated and became more involved in protests. • Increasing the size of holdings to be developed as crofts was almost impossible. • There was no way to develop completely new crofts. • A change of government led to an increasingly pro-landowner, anti-crofter Conservative government being in power.

13. The Lewis Land Raids The Park Deer Raid, Nov. 1887- starving and desperate crofters rioted against Lady Matheson, the Royal Scots were called in, but the raiders were acquitted on a technicality. In the Aignish Riot of 1888, rioters tried to seize land from a local farmer. Again, the Royal Scots were used and several of the rioters arrested and imprisoned for “mobbing and rioting.”

14. The Memorial to the Aignish Rioters

15. The Small Landholders (Scotland) Act, 1911 This Act seemed to offer further progress to tenants • Set up a national Land Court, in Edinburgh, with the right to judge disputes involving landlords and tenants. • At least one member of the court had to be a Gaelic speaker. • Gave the Secretary of State for Scotland the right to compulsorily purchase land to create new crofter landholdings. BUT- Landowners resisted fiercely, and, despite thousands of applications, little was achieved. All such issues were shelved at the outbreak of war in August 1914.

16. The Situation in 1914 By the time war broke out in 1914, there had been progress in achieving land reform and crofters had greater protection than many other groups under the law. Most politicians and the main political parties accepted that there was a need for further legislation, though there was disagreement as to the form such laws might take. However, land hunger was still widespread and many Highlanders joined the armed forces to escape land poverty and in expectation that a grateful nation would reward their service with the land to which they had long felt entitled.