latter are in some places numerous and have taken up considerable
portions of land formerly used as common, thus interfering with the
rights of the crofters. They appropriate land and possess and pasture
stock, but pay no rent, obey no control, and scarcely recognize any
authority. The dwellings of this class and of some of the poorer
crofters are wretched in the extreme. A single apartment, with walls of
stone and mud, a floor of clay, a thatched roof, no windows, no chimney,
one low door furnishing an entrance for the occupants and a means of
ventilation and of escape for the smoke which rolls up black and thick
from the peat fire, furniture of the rudest imaginable sort, the
inhabitants--the human beings, the cows, the pigs, the sheep, and the
poultry--all crowded together in the miserable and filthy hut, make up a
picture which the most romantic and poetic associations can hardly
render pleasing to one accustomed to the comforts and refinements of
modern civilization. Of course many of the crofters live in greater
comfort, and some of the cottages are by no means unattractive. But the
Royal Commissioners say that the crofter's habitation is usually "of a
character that would imply physical and moral degradation in the eyes of
those who do not know how much decency, courtesy, virtue, and even
refinement survive amidst the sordid surroundings of a Highland hovel."
An Englishman who, on seeing these "sordid surroundings," was disposed
to compare the social and moral condition of the people to "the
barbarism of Egypt," was told that if he would ask one of the crofters,
in Gaelic or English, "What is the chief end of man?" he would soon see
the difference.
With such a history, such traditions, grievances, conditions, and
hardships, it is not strange that the crofter should be ready to join an
agitation that promised a remedy. Some of his grievances and claims have
been so similar to those of the Irish tenant that the legislation which
followed the violent agitation in Ireland has led him to hope for
relief-measures similar to those enacted for the Irish tenantry. The
Irish Land Act of 1870 recognized the tenant's right to the permanent
possession of his holding and to his improvements, by providing that on
being turned out by his landlord he should have compensation for
disturbance and for his improvements. It did not, however, secure him
against the landlord's so increasing his rent as practically to
appropriate his improvements and even force him to leave his holding
without any compensation. The Land Act of 1881 secured his interests by
establishing a court which should fix a fair rent, by giving him a right
to compensation for disturbance and for his improvements, and by
allowing him to sell his interests for the best price he can get for
them. It also enabled him to borrow from the government, at a low rate
of interest, three-fourths of the money necessary to purchase his
landlord's interest in the holding. This legal recognition and guarantee
of the Irish tenant's interests have led the crofter to hope that his
claims, based on better grounds, may also be conceded.
The changes recently made in the land laws of England and Scotland, and
the activity of the advocates of further and more radical changes, have
increased this hope. Progressive English statesmen have long looked with
disfavor upon entails and settlements, and there have been a number of
enactments providing for cutting off entails and increasing the power of
limited owners. The last and most important of these, the Settled
Estates Act, passed in 1882, gives the tenant for life power to sell any
portion of the estate except the family mansion, and thus thoroughly
undermines the principle upon which primogeniture and entails are
founded. Much land which has hitherto been so tied up that the limited
owners were either unable or unwilling to develop it can now be sold and
improved. New measures have been proposed to increase still further the
power of limited owners and to make the sale and transfer of land easier
and less expensive. Many able statesmen are advocates of these measures.
Mr. Goschen in a recent speech at Edinburgh urged the need of a
land-register by which transfers of land might be made almost as cheaply
and easily as transfers of consols. By such an arrangement, it is held,
many farmers of small capital will be enabled to buy their farms, and
the land of the country will thus be dispersed among a much larger
number of owners. There has also been a very marked tendency to enlarge
the rights and the authority of the tenant farmer. The Agricultural
Holdings Act of 1883 gives the tenant a right to compensation for
temporary and, on certain conditions, for permanent improvements, and
permits him in most cases, where he cannot have compensation, to remove
fixtures or buildings which he has erected, contrary to the old doctrine
that whatever is fixed to the soil becomes the property of the landlord.
The landlord's power to distrain for rent is greatly reduced: formerly
he could distrain for six years' rent, now he can distrain only for the
rent of one year, and he is required to give the tenant twelve instead
of six months' notice to quit. The tenant is therefore more secure than
formerly in the possession of his farm and in spending money and labor
in making improvements that will render it more productive. Other
changes are proposed, which will give him still more rights, greater
freedom in the management of the farm, and additional encouragement to
adopt the best methods of farming and invest his labor and money in
improvements. Many of the land reformers advocate the adoption of
measures similar to those that have been enacted for Ireland. It has for
some time been one of the declared purposes of the Farmers' Alliance to
secure a system of judicial rents for the tenant farmers of England. An
important conference lately held at Aberdeen and participated in by
representatives of both the English and Scottish Farmers' Alliances
adopted an outline of a land bill for England and Scotland, providing
for the establishment of a land court, fixing fair rents, fuller
compensation for improvements, and the free sale of the tenant's
interests.
The wretched condition of the dwellings of the agricultural laborers in
many parts of the country has attracted much attention, and plans for
bettering their condition have frequently been urged. Lately the
interest in the subject has increased, prominent statesmen on both sides
having espoused the cause. In view of the political power which the
recent extension of the suffrage has given to the agricultural laborers,
there is a general expectation that a measure will shortly be enacted
requiring the owner or occupier of the farm to give each laborer a plot
of ground "of a size that he and his family can cultivate without
impairing his efficiency as a wage-earner," at a rent fixed by
arbitration, and providing for a loan of money by the state for the
erection of a proper dwelling. The provisions of the Irish Land Act and
its amendment relating to laborers' cottages and allotments suggest the
lines along which legislation for the improvement of laborers' dwellings
in England and Scotland is likely to proceed.
Then there is the scheme for nationalizing the land, the state paying
the present owners no compensation, or a very small amount, and assuming
the chief functions now exercised by the landlords. No statesman has yet
ventured to advocate this scheme, but it has called forth a great deal
of discussion on the platform and in the newspapers and reviews, and has
captivated most of those who are inclined to adopt socialistic theories
of property. Mr. George himself has preached his favorite doctrine to
the crofters, whose views of their own rights in the land have led them
to look upon the plan with more favor than the English tenants. Others,
too, who have plans to advocate for giving tenants and laborers greater
rights have taken special pains to have their views presented to the
crofters, since the claims of the latter against the landlords seem to
rest upon so much stronger grounds than those of the English tenant.
The agitations for the reform of the land laws in Ireland and England,
and the utterances of the advocates of the various plans for increasing
the rights and privileges of the tenant, have led the crofters to dwell
upon their grievances until they have become thoroughly aroused. They
have in many cases refused to pay rent, have resisted eviction and
driven away officers who attempted to serve writs, have offered violence
to the persons or property of some of those who have ventured to take
the crofts of evicted tenants, and in some instances have taken forcible
possession of lands which they thought ought to be added to their
crofts. The government found it necessary a short time ago to send
gunboats with marines and extra police to some of the islands and
districts to restore the authority of the law. The crofters and their
friends are thoroughly organized, and seem likely to insist upon their
claims with the persistency that is characteristic of their race. It is
now generally conceded that some remedy must be provided for their
grievances and hardships.
The remedy that has been most frequently suggested, the only one
recommended by the Emigration Commissioners in 1841 and by Sir John
McNeil in 1852, is emigration. The crofting system, it has often been
urged, belongs to a bygone age; it survives only because of its
remoteness from the centres of civilization and the ruggedness of the
country; the implements used by the crofters are of the most primitive
sort, while their agricultural methods are "slovenly and unskilful to
the last degree." It is impossible for these small farmers, with their
crude implements and methods, to compete with the large farmers, who
have better land and use the most improved implements and methods.
Besides, many of the crofters are, and their ancestors for many
generations have been, "truly laborers, living chiefly by the wages of
labor, and holding crofts and lots for which they pay rents, not from
the produce of the land, but from wages." If they cannot find employment
within convenient distance of their present homes, the best and kindest
thing for them is to help them to go where there is a good demand for
labor and better opportunities for earning a decent livelihood. To
encourage them to stay on their little crofts, where they are frequently
on the verge of want, is unkind and very bad policy. One who has seen
the wretched hovels in which some of these crofter families live, the
small patches of unproductive land on which they try to subsist, the
hardships which they sometimes suffer, and the lack of opportunities for
bettering their condition in their native Highlands or islands, and who
knows how much has been accomplished by the enterprise and energy of
Highlanders in other parts of the world, can hardly help wishing that
they might all be helped to emigrate to countries where their industry
and economy would more certainly be rewarded, and where they would have
a fairer prospect for success in the struggle for life and advancement.
Many of them would undoubtedly be far better off if they could emigrate
under favorable conditions. The descendants of many of those who were
forced to leave their homes by "cruel and heartless Highland lairds,"
and who suffered terrible hardships in getting to this country and
founding new homes, have now attained such wealth and influence as they
could not possibly have acquired among their ancestral hills. The Royal
Commissioners recommended that the state should aid those who may be
willing to emigrate from certain islands and districts where the
population is apparently too great for the means of subsistence.
The crofters are, however, strongly attached to their native hills and
glens, and they claim that such laws can and ought to be enacted as will
enable them to live in comfort where they are. The present, it is urged,
is a particularly favorable time to establish prosperous small farmers
in many parts of the Highlands where sheep-farming has proved a failure.
The inhabitants of the coasts and islands are largely a seafaring
people. There is quite as much Norse as Celtic blood in the veins of
many of them, and the Norseman's love of the sea leads them naturally to
fishing or navigation. The herring-fisheries, with liberal encouragement
on the part of the government, might be made far more profitable to the
fishermen and to the nation. Besides, the seafaring people of the
Highlands and islands "constitute a natural basis for the naval defence
of the country, a sort of defence which cannot be extemporized, and
which in possible emergencies can hardly be overrated." At the present
time they "contribute four thousand four hundred and thirty-one men to
the Royal Naval Reserve,--a number equivalent to the crews of seven
armored war-steamers of the first class." It is surely desirable to
foster a population which has been a "nursery of good citizens and good
workers for the whole empire," and of the best sailors and soldiers for
the British navy and army. Public policy demands that every legitimate
means be used to better the condition of the crofters and cottars, and
to encourage them to remain in and develop the industries of their own
country, instead of abandoning it to sheep and deer. Private interests
must be made subordinate to the public good. Parliament may therefore
interfere with the rights of landed property when the interests of the
people and of the nation demand it, as they do in this case.
It was on some such grounds that the Royal Commissioners recommended
that restrictions be placed upon the further extension of deer-forests,
that the fishing interests should be aided by the government, that the
proprietors should be required to restore to the crofters lands formerly
used as common pastures, and to give them, under certain restrictions,
the use of more land, enlarging their holdings, and that in certain
cases they should be compelled to grant leases at rents fixed by
arbitration, and to give compensation for improvements. The government
is already helping the fishermen by constructing a new harbor and by
improving means of communication and transportation, and proposes to
greatly lighten taxation in the near future.
The bill which the late government introduced into Parliament does not
undertake to provide for aid to those who may wish to emigrate, or for
the compulsory restoration of common pasture, or for the enlargement of
the holdings. It does, however, propose to lend money on favorable terms
for stocking and improving enlarged or new holdings. As a convention of
landlords which was held at Aberdeen last January, and which represented
a large amount of land, resolved to increase the size of crofters'
holdings as suitable opportunities offered and when the tenants could
profitably occupy and stock the same, the demand for more land seems
likely to be conceded in many cases without compulsory legislation. The
bill defines a crofter to be a tenant from year to year of a holding of
which the rent is less than fifty pounds a year, and which is situated
in a crofting-parish. Every such crofter is to have security of tenure
so long as he pays his rent and complies with certain other conditions;
his rent is to be fixed by an official valuer or by arbitration, if he
and his landlord cannot agree in regard to it; he is to have
compensation, on quitting his holding, for all his improvements which
are suitable for the holding; and his heirs may inherit his interests,
although he may not sell or assign them. Such propositions seem radical
and calculated to interfere greatly with proprietary rights and the
freedom of contract. They are, however, but little more than statements
of the customs that already exist on some of the best estates. Just as
the government by the Irish Land Law Act (1881) took up the Ulster
tenant-right customs, gave them the force of law, and extended them to
all Ireland, it is proposed by this bill to give the sanction of law to
those customary rights which the crofters claim to have inherited from
former generations, and which have long been conceded by some of the
landlords.
Such a measure of relief will not make all the crofters contented and
prosperous. It will, however, give them security against being turned
out of their homes and against excessively high rents, and will
encourage them to spend their labor and money in improving their
holdings. If some assistance could be given to those who may wish to
emigrate from overcrowded districts, and if the government would make
liberal advances of money to promote the fishing industry, the prospect
that the discontent and destitution would disappear would be much
better. The relief proposed will, however, be thankfully received by
many of the crofters and their friends.
DAVID BENNETT KING.
MY FRIEND GEORGE RANDALL.
Since his own days at the university George Randall had always had a
friend or two among the students who came after him. I remember how in
my Freshman year I used to see Tom Wayward going up the stairs in the
Academy of Music building to his office, and how I used to envy Billy
Wylde when I met him arm in arm with George on one of the campus malls.
It was occasionally whispered about that Randall's influence on these
young men was not of the very best, and that he used to have a
never-empty bottle of remarkably smooth whiskey in his closet, along
with old letter-files and brief-books; and it is undoubtedly true that
Perry Tomson and I used to consider George's friends as models in the
manner of smoking a pipe, or ordering whiskey-and-soda at Bertrand's to
give us an appetite for our mutton-chops or our _bifteck aux
pommes_, and in the delightful self-sufficiency with which in the
pleasant spring days they would cut recitations and loll on the grass
smoking cigarettes right under the nose, almost, of the professor. But
they are both married now, and settled down to respectable conventional
success; and Billy Wylde, as I happen to know, has repaid the money
which George lent him wherewith to finish his education in Germany. The
estimable matrons of Lincoln who made so much ado over George's ruining
these young men,--who had such bright intellects and might have been
expected to do something but for that dreadfully well read lawyer's
awful influence,--these women do not consider it worth their while now,
in the face of the facts as they have turned out, to remember their
predictions, but confine themselves to making their dismal prophecies
anew in regard to the three young fellows whom George has of late taken
up. But then I remember how they went on about Perry Tomson and me in
the early part of our Junior year, when we began to enjoy the favor of
George's friendship; and if their miserable croaking never does any
good, I fancy it will never work any very great harm: so one might as
well let them croak in peace. In fact, one would more easily dam the
waters of Niagara than stop them, and George, I know, doesn't care the
cork of an empty beer-bottle what they say of him.
I have never tried to analyze the influence for good George had over us,
or account for it in any way, nor do I care to. I have always considered
his friendship for me as one of the pleasantest and most profitable
experiences of my life in Lincoln. Perry and I were always more close
and loving friends, and cared for George with a silent but abiding sense
of gratitude in addition to the other sources of our affection for him,
after he showed us the boyish foolishness of our quarrel about Lucretia
Knowles. Of course I ought not to have grown angry at Perry's
good-natured cynicism; for how could he have imagined that I cared for
her? Though I sometimes think, even now, that Perry was indeed anxious
lest I should fall in love with her, and wanted to ridicule me out of
the notion, and I fear, in spite of his acquaintance, that he
disapproves of our engagement. I wonder if he will ever get over his
prejudice against women. The dear old fellow! if he would only consent
to know Lucretia better I am sure he would.
One night in the winter before we graduated, Perry and I went with
George to the Third House, which is a mock session of the legislature
that the political wags of the State take advantage of to display their
wit and quickness at repartee and ability to make artistic fools of
themselves. If it happens to be a year for the election of a senator, as
it was in this case, the different candidates are in turn made fun of
and held up to ridicule or approval; and the chief issues of the time
are handled without gloves in a way that is always amusing and often
worth while in showing the ridiculous nature of some of them. The Third
House is usually held on some evening during the first or second week of
the session, and is opened by the Speaker calling the house to order
with a thundering racket of the gavel--"made from the wood of trees
grown on the prairies of the State"--and announcing the squatter
governor. Since the State was a territory, this announcement, after due
formalities, has been followed by the statement that, as the squatter
governor is somewhat illiterate, his message will be read by his private
secretary. After this personage has read his score or more pages of
jokes, sarcastic allusions, and ridiculous recommendations, the
discussion of the message takes place, during which any one who thinks
of a bright remark may get up and fire it at the gallery; and many very
lame attempts pass for good wit, and much private spite goes for
harmless fooling.
George got us seats in the gallery next to old Billy Gait, the
bald-headed bachelor, who owns half a dozen houses which he rents for
fifty dollars a month each, and who lives on six hundred a year,
investing the surplus of his income every now and then in another house.
William, as usual, had a pretty girl at his elbow, and we heard him
telling her how he could never get interested in George Eliot's novels,
and how it beat him to know why he ever wrote such tedious books. The
young lady smiled over her fan at Randall, and said that she supposed
Mr. Eliot had a great deal of spare time on his hands, but of course he
had no business to employ it in writing tiresome novels.
George, who knew everybody, had a kindly greeting for all who were
within its reach, even for the tired-looking little school-teacher, who
had come out with her landlady's fifteen-year-old son as an escort and
in a little while had settled down to quiet enjoyment of the squatter
governor's message, approving with a quiet smile the grin that
occasionally spread over Perry's good-humored face. As for me, I was
made miserable from the start by seeing Lucretia Knowles in one of the
best seats on the floor, with a conceited fool of a
newspaper-correspondent at her side, whispering nonsense in her ear at
such a rate that she did nothing but laugh and turn her pretty head back
to speak with Mamie Jennings, her _fidus Achates_, and never once cast
her eyes toward the gallery. She has said since that she knew I was
there all the time, and that she didn't dare look at me, because I was
such a frightful picture of jealousy, with my fingers in my hair and my
elbow on the gallery railing, staring down on the floor as if I should
like to drop a bomb and annihilate the entire lot. It is all very well
to look back now and laugh and feel sorry for the curly-locked
journalist, who is writing letters from Mexico and trying to get over
the disappointment which the knowledge of our engagement gave him, but
it was very little fun for me at the time.
I turned away a dozen times, and swore inwardly that I wouldn't look
that way again, and after each resolve I would find my eyes glancing
from one person to another in Lu's vicinity, until finally they would
rest again on her. When I had declared for the thirteenth time that I
wouldn't contemplate her heartless flirting, I noticed George bow to
some one who had just come in at the gallery door. A young man from one
of the western counties was making a satirical speech in favor of the
woman's suffrage amendment, misquoting Tennyson's "Princess" and making
the gallery shake with laughter, at the time; but I noticed George's
face light up and his eyes sparkle with pleasure at the sight of the
new-comer. She was a beautiful lady, over thirty, I should say, with the
sweetest face, for a sad one, I had ever seen. Of course, in a certain
way I like Lucretia's style of beauty better; but Mrs. Herbert was
beautiful in a way, so far as the women I have ever seen are concerned,
peculiar to herself. She was rather slender, and had a calm, graceful
bearing that I somehow at once associated with purity and nobleness. She
was quite simply dressed, and had on a small widow's bonnet, with the
ribbons tied under her chin, while a charming little girl, whose hair
curled obstinately over her forehead, had hold of her hand.