Of two o'clock in the afternoon is SO THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE : insignificant as to render it scarcely About 1,400. worth while to open between 2 p.m. and the hour when twilight sets in. course, if you come to the question of introducing artificial light, you open up a very much larger question. I do not think my noble friend intended to raise that. LORD NEWTON: No. *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE : The other limit arises out of financial considerations. My noble friend talked airily about an extra expenditure of £200 per annum. I think the House is aware that the National Gallery does not enjoy a very extravagant subsidy from public funds, and we do have to consider rather carefully how we spend £200 or any other appreciable sum of money. But I do not see why some arrangement should not be made whereby the Gallery might be thrown open for a longer period of the year. The trustees are likely to hold their monthly meeting before long, and we shall then certainly consider what has been proposed by my noble friend, and, if necessary, approach the Treasury on the subject. Now one word in regard to the attitude of the Treasury. I do not think the Treasury has been quite so neutral in the matter as the noble Lord opposite seems to suppose. I have a very distinct recollection that when this matter was first broached and we applied to the Treasury for a slight increase in our staff in order to enable us to open the Gallery on Sundays, we encountered considerable difficulty; at last, as a solution, it was suggested to us that police constables might be employed for this purpose during a certain part of the year. We accepted that as the best arrangement obtainable, but it was made very apparent to us indeed that the question of the cost of opening on Sundays was a consideration which my Lords of the Treasury would not leave out of account. LORD JOICEY: Can the noble Lord give the House any idea of the number of visitors to the National Gallery on Sundays? LORD NEWTON: I do not wish to prolong this discussion, but I should like to explain that there is no question of asking the trustees of the National Gallery or any other gallery to instal the electric light. We are only asking them to do what is done in the case of other galleries in the same position, and therefore any additional cost which would be necessary would be merely paid for attendants. LORD DENMAN : Will the noble Lord say exactly what are the hours on which he would like these galleries opened on Sundays throughout the year? AFFAIRS IN THE ISLAND OF VATERSAY. THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN rose to call attention to the recently published correspondence between Lady Cathcart and the Secretary for Scotland and the Lord Advocate, and to the present condition of affairs in the Island of Vatersay. The noble Earl said-My Lords, I venture to hope that your Lordships have looked into the correspondence which has been laid on the Table, and I think those of our Lordships who have done so will be of opinion that it has repaid perusal. It affords an illustra tion of the condition of affairs which prevails at the present time in part of the western islands of Scotland, and of the manner and customs of the present Scottish Office and of the sense which they entertain of the responsibilities attaching to them in relation to the the tenant. Then finally, when the protection and defence of property. experiment came to be tried, it proved, The correspondence is somewhat long as Lady Cathcart anticipated, a failure. and voluminous, but I shall endeavour But what was the result? Lady Cathto tell your Lordships my story in the cart was left with this farm on her way of narrative as far as possible, though hands and to get out of her loss in the I shall, of necessity, I regret to say, be best way she could. Her ladyship has obliged to read certain passages from also endeavoured to work in harmony several documents. Let me, then, pro- with the present Secretary for Scotland, ceed to my story. and in the case which I am going to lay the correspondence that she did everybefore your Lordships you will see from thing in her power to accept a plan to which she was confessedly opposed acting on her own judgment and her the Secretary for Scotland refused to own experience; and it was only when agree to the most ordinary terms although the plan was his, he called for the tenant who was to lose his farmupon her to provide the compensation that she ceased to be able to meet him. Lady Cathcart is a lady who is possessed of very large property in Scotland. Her property is situated in several parts of that country. She has property on the east coast, but, to her misfortune, she also has property in the western islands which has caused her a great deal of anxiety and trouble. Lady Cathcart has discharged the duties of ownership in the very highest and most dignified form. There is no one, with the possible exception of the Lord Advocate, who would state or insinuate that her ladyship has in any way failed in her duties as an owner. She has poured out her money most lavishly, and in regard to the particular part of her property which is in question to-night she has done everything that the most munificent owner could possibly have done. In the Island of Barra she built a harbour, set up curing establishments, and endeavoured to promote the welfare of the place as a station for fishing, for, in her opinion, after a long experience both on the western and eastern coasts, she thought this likely to prove the most lucrative employment for the inhabitants. In this, and in many other ways, she has poured out money without end. She has also endeavoured to act in harmony with the Congested Districts Board, and in course of that action, though sometimes against her own judgment, she has laid out in crofts large portions of this island, not always with very lucrative results to herself or even with benefit to those for whom it was done. In the island of Barra her property consists of about 22,000 acres, and, whereas when she came into the property a large portion was in the hands of farmers, there is now only one farm in existence, and it is the farm of which we are speaking to-night, the farm of Vatersay. I need not say, in regard to a Highland property of this kind, that it is not a lucrative affair and that the arrears are very large. I will not trouble your Lordships with the details except this, that the man who at the present time is the leader of the raiders who have seized the island of Vatersay-a man named Duncan Campbell-had a share for ten years, from 1891 to 1901, of a grazing called Kentangaval, which he held at an annual rent, fixed by the Congested Districts Board, of £2, and when he left at the end of that period what do your Lordships suppose his arrears were? They amounted to £19 out of the £20. During those ten years he made a payment of one sovereign only, and this is the man who is now in quest Your Lordships will find an instance of new land, and who, in common with on the last two pages of this Return all the others, says he is prepared to pay the farm of Glendale. In that instance rent. They promise to pay rent, but it the Congested Districts Board asked is a mere figure of speech. Lady Cathcart to divide the farm into crofts. She replied that she knew it was not suited for the purpose. They insisted, however, and the result was that her ladyship gave way and removed Now let us go on to the story contained in these Papers. The first matter alluded to is the seizing of the farm of Bornish in South Uist by cottars in the year 1906. Your Lordships will find it on 66 Every prosecution shall be raised and proceeded in at the expense of the ProcuratorFiscal, and every such prosecution shall be commenced within one month after the offence has been committed." On 10th April, page 32, the Secretary for Scotland repeated his refusal. The letter from the Scottish Office states that pages 28 to 32 of Appendix I. I wish | And in Section 5 occur these wordsto lay stress on the fact that it is not crofters who seize the land but cottars; and perhaps I may, for the benefit of some of your Lordships, state in a few words what this cottar system is. The cottars are, for the most part, the children of crofters, and, with the connivance of their parents, they build upon the paternal croft houses in defiance of all rules and of all common sense, and when it proves "Mr. Sinclair has again given his best conimpossible to find subsistence for them-sideration to the arguments advanced in your selves and their families, because they, adheres to the view that the Trespass Act of letter, but I am to state that, as advised, he in turn, marry, they have to take them- 1865 does not apply, and certainly was never selves to some other occupation, and intended to apply, to such a case as this. The where it is not fishing it has taken the provision in Section 5 that prosecution shall turn, lately at all events, of seizing land. be commenced within one month after the On 21st February of that year these statute was never meant to apply to continuous cottars seized the farm of Bornish, and occupation of land.” Lady Cathcart's agents wrote to the Government expressing the hope that they would take immediate steps to preserve the public peace, and pointing out that the public authorities ought to prosecute the offenders under the Trespass Act, more especially as the ProcuratorFiscal was the only person who could put the Act in motion. On 22nd March, Mr. Sinclair, the Secretary for Scotland, replied-page 29-that after careful consideration he was not satisfied that the provisions of the Act could be properly set in motion in this case. He said "Questions of the assertion of a right to traverse or occupy heritable subjects fall to be tested in the Civil Courts by way of interdict, and it is only when a breach of that interdict oecurs that criminal proceedings follow." Let me observe, once and for all, that throughout the whole of these proceedings the cottars have never claimed any right to the possession of the land, and, indeed, in the petition which they are now presenting to the Courts in Edinburgh with regard to another matter they state positively that they do not lay any claim to the land, but that they have been obliged to seize it from necessity. Of course, against this refusal of the authorities to act Lady Cathcart's agents protested. The Trespass Act of 1865 provides that "Every person who lodges in any premises or occupies or encamps on any land, being private property, without the consent and permission of the owner or legal occupier. shall be guilty of an offence punishable as herein after provided.” offence is committed demonstrates that the In the first place, what does the Secretary for Scotland or anybody else know as to the intentions when that Act was passed? And what does it signify what the intentions were at that time? The Act speaks for itself, and it has to be interpreted by the Courts. The Act states positively that any person who occupies land without the consent of the owner is liable to punishment, and when Mr. Sinclair says that the provision in Section 5 that prosecution shall be commenced within one month after the offence is committed demonstrates that the statute was never meant to apply to continuous occupation of land, what in the world does he mean? It is surely an extraordinary land an offender is freed from the criminal doctrine that by continuously occupying law. "Continuous occupation of land" Secretary for Scotland for filibustering. seems to be a mere euphemism of the A filibusterer is only to be removed after a process involving several months delay and considerable expense to the owner. Lady Cathcart's agent then refused to put the criminal law in force wrote to say that as the Government she very reluctantly must apply for an interdict, and she did so apply. But on 9th May-and this is an important communication, omitted, I I do not know why, from the correspondence presented to Parliament-Mr. Sinclair wrote a letter in which he did his best, having refused to act himself, to deprecate any action on the part of Lady Having refused to act himself, he says: "For goodness sake, don't do anything; wait for my legislation." I venture to think that if Lady Cathcart were to wait for legislation she would wait some years. Lady Cathcart eventually obtained an interdict in the course of May. This interdict was obeyed by the cottars. That ends the first scene in the first act. Now let us come to Vatersay. Early in June, 1906, some cottars took cattle over in boats and landed them on the island of Vatersay. Lady Cathcart's agents again urged prompt action, with, needless to say, the same result. They received a reply that the remedy lay with the owner. Ultimately, however, at the instance of the Sheriff of Inverness, who was sent to the island on 7th July by the Secretary for Scotland, an arrangement was come to under which the cottars were to remove the cattle, and on this Lady Cathcart's agents undertook not to take any further action in the immediate future. Needless to say the removal of the cattle has never been carried out, and there they remain at this moment, with a great many other cattle besides. Emboldened by this, early in the year 1907 some cottars landed in Vatersay. They asserted no claim to the land but they seized upon a portion of the farm, began to erect houses, and, when challenged, said they had come to stay, and there would be more besides them. Of course it was useless to apply any more for the criminal law to be put in force, and so on 4th April, 1907, Lady Cathcart obtained an interdict against these men. The notices were served but no answers were sent, and so the interdict was confirmed, but on 17th May-Page 33 of the Papers-the Sheriff visited Vatersay and submitted a Report to Mr. Sinclair, to which I must for a moment allude. He arrived there on 17th May and saw the men of whom I spoke just now; he wrote down Duncan Campbell's ex parte statement, and then, in the course of his Report, he says he endeavoured to induce the men to go back; and he proceedspage 35 My efforts proved unavailing. It seemed to me that there were influences at work which effectually deal with.” were not fully disclosed and which I could not Now comes the most important point. The Sheriff adds “I was assured that Lady Cathcart in the end would not use the lash of the law. Their firm conviction, based on past experience, was that she would not be a party to imprisonGovernment would not allow them to suffer." ing them or evicting them; further, that the My Lords, that is the idea which unfortunately has got into the heads of these men. The Sheriff suggested that unless Lady Cathcart was permitted to go on with her interdict the only thing to do was for the Government to buy the island. Now comes an interlude which seems to me to be well worthy of your Lordships' notice. On 6th August this matter was alluded to in the House of Commons. Mr. Balfour said he had reason to believe that the Crofters Acts were not working with so much success as was supposed in parts of the western islands. The Lord Advocate challenged him to name a part, and the right hon. Gentleman replied 66 Are there no difficulties in Barra ?" And this is what the Lord Advocate proceeded to say "In the whole of the jurisdiction over which my rule as Lord Advocate extends there has been absolute peace except in one small portion the Island of Barra, owned by one proprietor who has been unfortunate in his relations with his tenants." I put stress on those words, because I shall have to refer to them later. The Lord Advocate ought properly, of course, to have said "her" tenants, because there was no other person except Lady Cathcart to whom this could possibly apply. What these tenants of Barra they were not tenants, they were cottars-longed for, said the Lord Advocate, was land with security of tenure, and more land where their plots were too small. As a matter of fact, they had no plots. The Lord Advocate proceeded These poor tenants of Barra stepped across to the island of Vatersay, and on the shore planted a few potatoes, hoping to return in the spring to reap what little crop there was. To the best of his recollection that was the terrible offence that was committed." The Lord Advocate added that he was asked to treat this as an offence against the criminal law, but it was a question of disputed civic possession-it was nothing of the kind- for, he said, these people claimed that they had rights on this barren shore. They never had any rights, and they have just pleaded in the Courts that they have none. When a private Member makes a statement and is met with a direct contradiction by an official, he naturally gives in, supposing that the official has some justification or some authority for what he has said. The most charitable assumption that one can make is that the Lord Advocate did not know what he was talking about, because at that very time he was speaking in the month of August-these people were on the ground. They had been there since the latter part of the previous February. They did not row away hoping to return in the spring to reap a crop of potatoes. They were there, they had built houses, they had cattle, and these matters had been reported at the Scottish Office during several months. Yet in the face of that the Lord Advocate made the statement I have referred to. The only charitable thing to supposeand it is very difficult to suppose itis that he did not know what he was talking about. The next thing that occurred was on 5th September, when the Secretary for Scotland wrote to Lady Cathcart strongly advising her, as the only means of settling this question, to divide up the island of Vatersay into crofts-that is to say, he advised her to break her lease with her tenant, and divide the land among the very people who had raided it. The letter appears on page 4. The UnderSecretary wrote "Mr. Sinclair instructs me to say that in his view the best course now open is for the proprietor to clear up the doubts which seem to exist as to the water resources of Vatersay. and, having done that, to arrange for its settle If his thoughts had only taken a little more practical turn, it would have been more to the purpose. He goes on to say he is well aware that she is genuinely and deeply concerned about the welfare of the people, and there is a lot more flattery of that sort; and then Mr. Sinclair adds that he will be most willing to co-operate with her in every possible way. Of course, Lady Cathcart knew quite well, from her own experience, that to take this course would be the most unfortunate thing possible, and her agents represented this to the Secretary for Scotland. Still, in her anxiety to co-operate with him she offered, very reluctantly and against her own judgment, either to sell the land to him or to give it to the Congested Districts Board for them to settle in such a manner as they should choose, provided, of course that they were to compensate her tenant. Mr. Sinclair replied that he could not accept the idea of purchase at all. He told her that this plan was her plan and not his, and was to be carried out by her; and, moreover, that the compensation to her tenant was to be paid by her and not by the Government who were insisting upon her ousting her tenant. Naturally there was another protest, and on 7th November-Page 12 -Mr. Sinclair definitely refused to do anything in the way of compensation. The Scottish Office wrote "In regard to the surrender of the lease, Mr. Sinclair cannot enter into any obligations either in the matter of negotiation or of comLady Cathcart "— pensation. The former must be conducted by that is to say, she was to have all the trouble |