The following account was written in April, 1882, after a most
careful enquiry on the spot:--So much whitewash has been distributed
in our Northern newspapers of late by “Local Correspondents,” in the
interest of personal friends who are responsible for the Lochcarron
evictions--the worst and most indefensible that have ever been
attempted even in the Highlands--that we consider it a duty to state
the actual facts. We are really sorry for those more immediately
concerned, but our friendly feeling for them otherwise cannot be
allowed to come between us and our plain duty. A few days before
the famous “Battle of the Braes,” in the Isle of Skye, we received
information that summonses of ejectment were served on Mackenzie and
Maclean, Lochcarron. The writer at once communicated with Mr. Dugald
Stuart, the proprietor, intimating to him the statements received, and
asking him if they were accurate, and if Mr. Stuart had anything to say
in explanation of them. Mr. Stuart immediately replied, admitting the
accuracy of the statements generally, but maintaining that he had good
and valid reasons for carrying out the evictions, which he expressed
himself anxious to explain to us on the following day, while passing
through Inverness on his way South. Unfortunately, his letter reached
us too late, and we were unable to see him. The only reason which he
vouchsafed to give in his letter was to the following effect:--“Was
it at all likely that he, a Highlander, born and brought up in the
Highlands, the son of a Highlander, and married to a Highland lady,
would be guilty of evicting any of his tenants without good cause?” We
replied that, unfortunately, all these reasons could be urged by most
of those who had in the past depopulated the country, but expressing a
hope that, in his case, the facts stated by him would prove sufficient
to restrain him from carrying out his determination to evict parents
admittedly innocent of their sons’ proceedings, even if those
proceedings were unjustifiable. Early in April, 1882, we proceeded to
Lochcarron to make enquiry on the spot, and the writer on his return
from Skye a few days later reported as follows to the Highland Land Law
Reform Association:--
“Of all the cases of eviction which have hitherto come under my notice
I never heard of any so utterly unjustifiable as those now in course
of being carried out by Mr. D. Stuart in Lochcarron. The circumstances
which led up to these evictions are as follows:--In March, 1881, two
young men, George Mackenzie and Donald Maclean, masons, entered into
a contract with Mr. Stuart’s ground officer for the erection of a
sheep fank, and a dispute afterwards arose as to the payment for the
work. When the factor, Mr. Donald Macdonald, Tormore, was some time
afterwards collecting the rents in the district, the contractors
approached him and related their grievance against the ground officer,
who, while the men were in the room, came in and addressed them in
libellous and defamatory language, for which they have since obtained
substantial damages and expenses, in all amounting to £22 13s. 8d., in
the Sheriff Court of the County. I have a certified copy of the whole
proceedings in Court in my possession, and, without going into the
merits, what I have just stated is the result, and Mr. Stuart and his
ground officer became furious.
“The contractors are two single men who live with their parents,
the latter being crofters on Mr. Stuart’s property, and as the
real offenders--if such can be called men who have stood up for
and succeeded in establishing their rights and their characters in
Court--could not be got at, Mr. Stuart issued summonses of ejection
against their parents--parents who, in one of the cases at least,
strongly urged his son not to proceed against the ground officer,
pointing out to him that an eviction might possibly ensue, and that it
was better even to suffer in character and purse than run the risk of
eviction from his holding at the age of eighty. We have all heard of
the doctrine of visiting the sins of the parents upon the children, but
it has been left for Mr. Dugald Stuart of Lochcarron and his ground
officer, in the present generation--the highly-favoured nineteenth
century--to reverse all this, and to punish the unoffending parents,
for proceedings on the part of their children which the Sheriff of the
County and all unprejudiced people who know the facts consider fully
justifiable.
“Now, so far as I can discover, after careful enquiry among the men’s
neighbours and in the village of Lochcarron, nothing can be said
against either of them. Their characters are in every respect above
suspicion. The ground officer, whom I have seen, admits all this,
and makes no pretence that the eviction is for any other reason than
the conduct of the young men in prosecuting and succeeding against
himself in the Sheriff Court for defamation of character. Maclean
paid rent for his present holding for the last sixty years, and never
failed to pay it on the appointed day. His father, grandfather, and
great-grandfather occupied the same place, and so did their ancestors
before them. Indeed, his grandfather held one-half of the township,
now occupied by more than a hundred people. The old man is in his 81st
year, and bed-ridden--on his death-bed in fact--since the middle of
January last, he having then had a paralytic stroke from which it is
quite impossible he can ever recover. It was most pitiable to see the
aged and frail human wreck as I saw him that day, and to have heard him
talking of the cruelty and hard-heartedness of those who took advantage
of the existing law to push him out of the home which he has occupied
so long, while he is already on the brink of eternity. I quite agreed
with him, and I have no hesitation in saying that if Mr. Stuart and
his ground officer only called to see the miserable old man, as I did,
their hearts, however adamantine, would melt, and they would at once
declare to him that he would be allowed to end his days, and die in
peace, under the roof which for generations had sheltered himself and
his ancestors. The wife is over 70 years of age, and the frail old
couple have no one to succour them but the son who has been the cause,
by defending his own character, of their present misfortunes. Whatever
Mr. Stuart and his ground officer may do, or attempt to do, the old man
will not, and cannot be evicted until he is carried to the churchyard;
and it would be far more gracious on their part to relent and allow the
old man to die in peace.
“Mackenzie has paid rent for over 40 years, and his ancestors have done
so for several generations before him. He is nearly sixty years of age,
and is highly popular among his neighbours, all of whom are intensely
grieved at Mr. Stuart’s cruel and hard-hearted conduct towards him and
Maclean, and they still hope that he will not proceed to extremities.
“The whole case is a lamentable abuse of the existing law, and such as
will do more to secure its abolition, when the facts are fully known,
than all the other cases of eviction which have taken place in the
Highlands during the present generation. There is no pretence that
the case is anything else than a gross and cruel piece of retaliation
against the innocent parents for conduct on the part of their sons
which must have been very aggravating to this proprietor and his ground
officer, who appear to think themselves fully justified in perpetuating
such acts of grossest cruelty and injustice.”
This report was slightly noticed at the time in the local and
Glasgow newspapers, and attention was thus directed to Mr. Stuart’s
proceedings. His whole conduct appeared so cruelly tyrannical that
most people expected him to relent before the day of eviction arrived.
But not so; a sheriff officer and his assistants from Dingwall duly
arrived, and proceeded to turn Mackenzie’s furniture out of his house.
People congregated from all parts of the district, some of them coming
more than twenty miles. The sheriff officer sent for the Lochcarron
policemen to aid him, but, notwithstanding, the law which admitted
of such unmitigated cruelty and oppression was set at defiance;
the sheriff officers were deforced, and the furniture returned to
the house by the sympathising crowd. What was to be done next? The
Procurator-Fiscal for the county was Mr. Stuart’s law agent in carrying
out the evictions. How could he criminally prosecute for deforcement
in these circumstances? The Crown authorities found themselves in a
dilemma, and through the tyranny of the proprietor on the one hand,
and the interference of the Procurator-Fiscal in civil business which
has ended in public disturbance and deforcement of the Sheriff’s
officers, on the other, the Crown authorities found themselves helpless
to vindicate the law. This is a pity; for all right-thinking people
have almost as little sympathy for law breakers, even when that law is
unjust and cruel, as they have for those cruel landlords who, like Mr.
Stuart of Lochcarron, bring the law and his own order into disrepute by
the oppressive application of it against innocent people. The proper
remedy is to have the law abolished, not to break it; and to bring this
about such conduct as that of Mr. Stuart and his ground officer is more
potent than all the Land Leagues and Reform Associations in the United
Kingdom.[16]
[16] _Celtic Magazine_ for July, 1882.
Mr. William Mackenzie of the _Aberdeen Free Press_, who was on the
ground, writes, next morning, after the deforcement of the sheriff
officers:--
“During the encounter the local police constable drew his baton, but he
was peremptorily ordered to lay it down, and he did so. The officers
then gave up the contest and left the place about three in the morning.
Yesterday, before they left, and in course of the evening, they were
offered refreshments, but these they declined. The people are this
evening in possession as before.
“When every article was restored to its place, the song and the dance
were resumed, the native drink was freely quaffed--for ‘freedom an’
whisky gang thegither’--the steam was kept up throughout the greater
part of yesterday, and Mackenzie’s mantelpiece to-day is adorned with a
long tier of empty bottles, standing there as monuments of the eventful
night of the 29th-30th May, 1882.
A chuirm sgaoilte chualas an ceòl
Ard-shòlas an talla nan treun!
“While these things were going on in the quiet township of Slumbay,
the Fiery Cross appears to have been despatched over the neighbouring
parishes; and from Kintail, Lochalsh, Applecross, and even Gairloch,
the Highlanders began to gather yesterday with the view of helping the
Slumbay men, if occasion should arise. Few of these reached Slumbay,
but they were in small detachments in the neighbourhood ready at any
moment to come to the rescue on the appearance of any hostile force.
After all the trains had come and gone for the day, and as neither
policemen nor Sheriff’s officers had appeared on the scene, these
different groups retired to their respective places of abode. The
Slumbay men, too, resolved to suspend their festivities. A procession
was formed, and, being headed by the piper, they marched triumphantly
through Slumbay and Jeantown, and escorted some of the strangers on
their way to their homes, returning to Slumbay in course of the night.”
As a contrast to Mr. Stuart’s conduct we are glad to record the noble
action of Mr. C. J. Murray, M.P. for Hastings, who has, fortunately for
the oppressed tenants on the Lochcarron property, just purchased the
estate. He has made it a condition that Maclean and Mackenzie shall be
allowed to remain; and a further public scandal has thus been avoided.
This is a good beginning for the new proprietor, and we trust to
see his action as widely circulated and commended as the tyrannical
proceedings of his predecessor have been condemned.
It is also fair to state what we know on the very best authority,
namely, that the factor on the estate, Mr. Donald Macdonald, Tormore,
strongly urged upon Mr. Stuart not to evict these people, and that his
own wife also implored and begged of him not to carry out his cruel
and vindictive purpose. Where these agencies failed, it is gratifying
to find that Mr. Murray has succeeded; and all parties--landlords and
tenants--throughout the Highlands are to be congratulated on the result.