DEER AND MEN.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIC, Issue 13438, 9 November 1907, Page 6

DEER AND MEN.

. AS A NEW ZEALANDER. SEES SUTHERLANDSHIRE. [T.D.B.] When the writer left home it was with the express intention of seeing with the limited time of his disposal, as much as possible of London, and of a particular county in the north of Scotland, whose climate, people and physical features closely resemble those of his own native County of Mackenzie. This is the County of Sutherland, with a population of some 24,000, a road mileage of 675 mike, and a rateable annual value of £94,000. It is also here that the object lesson of the curse of .big game reserves to a country is particularly well laid bare. It is from here and the neighbouring sister Counties of Ross, Inverness, and Argyle, that so many men made their way into the back country of Otago and. Canterbury thirty and forty years ago, being attracted to the gorges as steel is attracted to a magfl net. So one will not be surprised at seeing in the north the prototypes of the Rosses, Bains, Grants, Macßaes, MacDonalds, and all the other well known Mackenzie families of twenty years back. You will begin to see them at Kingussie and then at Inverness-, certainly at Dingwall, and then right on the whole length of, the Highland railway, and again in the Strath mouths of the" northern coasts. The same classes one would see on a mailday at Burke's Pass and the Tekapo, say twenty years ago—not over tall, but with breadth of shoulder, squared yet sort of half hunched, spreading beards and eyes questioning the listener while his thoughts were trying to be read. Yes, you still find numbers in their Celtic purity in spite of the Lowland invasion of last century, when the straths were cleared of people and turned into sheep runs. But this will strike the traveller at once, that the men under middle age from Inveroe:o city, Easter Ross and eastern Sutherland have not the Highland accent as we have •heard it in New Zealand, but rather something approaching the Edinburgh speech and the only explanation can be that those people of that age on the eastern coastal strip have not had Gaelic as then- mbther tongue. This does not apply, however, to the fisher folk of Sutherlandshire, whose speech is almost exclusively Gaelic, and it may be said here as comfort to those who love the dear old Gaelic tongue and wish to hear it live for ever, that there is no fear of its extinction so long as herrings swim in the sea. Great changes have come over the fishing industry of late years, and it is steam that has revolutionised it. The introduction of steam "drifters and the -consequent big outlay in plant and curing establishments has centralked the business and killed the father, son, and a boat- affair of some years ago. The consequence is that tne fisher class is as nomadic as our shearer class, following along, not sheep stations, but fishing stations from Lewis to the coasts of Caithness and Aberdeenshire, right down to Yarmouth in England. And they cling to their Gaelic through it all, and* that in spite of many of them being in the Naval reserve, which by the way pays them a retaining fee of £6 per annum and 21s 7d per week during their month's annual training. In fact a trip along the northern and western coasts, of Scotland comes as a Gaelic surprke to one, as it is in general use among tue people of those coasts, and hearing the working conversation on Macßrayne's steamboats and the aside conversation of the telegraph operators at Lochalsh will show ou2 how matters in speech starxi 1 . The race k still an extraordinarily virile one, as the old county names of Sutherland' and MacKay are still by far the most numerous. A living instance of this is seen in a troop of Lovat's scouts (militia) from Western Sutherland.; out of twentyone men eighteen are MacKay, and the troop sergeant is said to have expressed himself to the effect that- he will never be satisfied until the whole troop is M><--Kay. But there iti a distinct note of s;i.lness over the whole county, and ir effects a Colonial with a somewhat dash of Highland sentiment, far more than it does a Sutherland-bied man. Summed up in as few words as possib' ? it i< this—Men are the most unprofitable aiv< I: in Sutherlandshire at the present ur.me't. but deer give extraordinary big returns to the landlords. And the cause is not f.v. to seek. There are such vast priva;e fortunes at Home here, chiefly, almost exclusively, in the hands of English manufacturers and millionaire Americtas that the" holders of them can, and ..re prepared to, give exorbitant rentals for the shooting and fishing rights over Sutherland's moors arid streams. The effect on the county is that as the sheep farm leases fall in, they are swallowed up in the. ever, ever spreading deer forests. Yet this is the viper that New Zealand is 'wanning into life in her bosom and never stops to think of the antidote that will yet be required, what it will mean and what it will cost. So the lot of the

Sutherland sheep farmer is anything but a secure one. The writer was told of .how the Sutherlandshire sheep farmers some while back privately memorialised the Duke on the matter, pointing out among other things that the ever-increasing numbers of deer coming down from the higher moors were - encroaching on- the drained sheep country, and the reply given was that they had .their remedy"; at the end! of the leases. The sheep men fear the deer forests on the one hand, and the ceaseless agitation for bigger "outruns" from the crofters. Yefc, if it were notfor public opinion (and public opinion has subtle power even in a country with a, House of Lords), there -would be few sheep in Sutherland and. certainlv no crofters. But stay. A certain number of crofters would be necessary, too, to keep up the supply of gillies and tourist hotel attendants. To the landlord class the crofter must be a positive nuisance. His rentals are so small that they are almost unquotable, and perhaps do "not pay for the extra clerical work involved, certainly do not compensate for the worry caused by his ceaseless agitating. Then he has a vote and is ready always to throw himself heart and soul into tie cause of every Liberal candidate who chooses to stand' for the county. The Scottish landlord class is very poor, in some cases desperately so, and too many are only the residential representatives of moneylender. Such being the case it is only natural, that such a patriotic and self-denying; matter as land settlement, should be fought against- for the more convenient and highly remunerative policy of deer forests. Yet Sutherlandshire is p'astered with, good' intentions, with efforts towards fostering Home industries, the building j>i technical schools for crofters' sons, and in a hundred and one ways and side issues the. welfare of the county is considered, yet in the one thing needful—a wise land ad- - ministration wi'lh the drawing back of the wave of advancing deer country—no progress is made. It is like trying to keep a house in repair by never-ending painting in showy colours, while the foundations and walls are showing gaping sigr.s of decay. After great pressure and much commission-appointing and evidence taking, a piece of expensive land settlement will' be undertaken. Then it is found that th cost of scraping away the moss and lichen from the centuries-old land system and enlaying with a piece of modernism has been more than the piece enlaid is worth, anl there are not wanting the scores of scornful fingers- pointing " 1 toict you so." The great clearances in the Strath of Kildonan and Strathn'aver took place between the years of 1812 a nd 1820. The excuse was that the country was too poor to cany such a teeming population, and the evils of consanguinity were said to ,be at work. They had either the choice of Canada or to be dumped down along a narrow coastal fringe—yet not en the alluvial arable lands, but on a' line Avhere arable land is lest in peaty moorland, neither farmland nor moorland. But it was expected that a race of mountaineers would quickly become herring fishers. Great numbers choose Canada, and more particularly in later years, Australia and New Zealand. If this turned out to be in the interests of Imperialism, at the time it was much to the profit of Sutherland's landlord. If it was philanthropy, it was highly profitable philanthropy as the land let as ■ sheep farms gave a far greater income than as the homes of a happy, simple-living peasantry, supplying recruits to one of the finest infantry regiments in the British Army. Of the unnecessary cruelties inflicted' upon, and the hardships suffered by, these simple people it may not now be politic to speak. Suffice it to say that they were not allowed to take "away a single article with the exception of their few sticks of furniture. In some cases they were not allowed to reap their crops or to take away their roof timbers, the latter veiy valuable in •a poorly-timbered eountiy —but their homes Were burned to make room for big rented sheep farms. And now the sheep farms have had their day, and are giving *piace to the deer forests. The sheep farms employed a certain amount of labour, a shepherd to about every four or five hundred sheep, besides drainers, smearers, dyke builders and what not, but the deer forests spell almost' complete depopulation. In 1817 the population of Strathnaver was estimated at 2000. Today the peimanent population will not be more than 150. Sixty years ago the shooting and fishing rights over -the whole of Strath of Kildonan did not exceed £l5O per annum; to-day they bring in between six and seven thousand' pounds. This is all brought about by a class whose chiefest sin is that they are prepared to pay any sum for their sport. If you tell an old white-headed' Highlander, who remembers when some at least of the. straths in the north were peopled, that it would be impossible with the higher standard of living in these days for the straths to carry the former population, and that such a living was only an existence, quick as a shot will come. " Where did the men of the 42nd, 78th, 79th and 93rd Highlanders come

from; weren't they among the finest built in the Army?" Yes, there can be no dotibt about' it—a &h and meal diet threw up bigger men, a better type of man and womanhood than 'do cigarettesucking and high coloured, artificially prepared modern foods. To-day the people appear to be out of touch with the land, and the younger ones appear only to stay on it till strong enough in the wing to fly away to Canada or the city centres. In the spring months of .the year it is a featuie of railway travelling to see at a! the Scottish country stations small crowds of friends seeing parties of young men and women off for Canada. " 1 suppose you'll be one for Canada yet." "Yes, I'm off next April." " But you're too young." " Oh, no, I'm sixteen, and l there is a brother out ahead 1 waiting for me." And this is practically the universal cry of the country. "Off to Canada." All round' the coasts of Sutherlandshire, the tamely quiet easterly side, the wider north, and the wildest Vest, and also at the otrath mouths are strewed in belts the crofter settlements, just at the line where arable ground is lost in the peat. The majority of the houses are clean and neat, with that appearance of making the best of matters, and presenting a braver chow than, one is afraid, our people would show similarly circumstanced (how would we like to'make a living on' a croft of from two or seven acres of cropped-out land, suppleniiented by work on the roads or such like at 3s per d'ay?) But what labours these huge dykes of round boulders represent. To look at the poor little cropped out .crofts, one would) Reckon that three parts boulders had to be shifted and stacked' to win one part of light soil. Oh, the crofts of Sutherland, what patient passive heroism you represent, onlv guessed at in the sad seamed faces of the men, and well might one ask why in God's name men and women stopped! in such peaces to struggle for just an existence when Canada was open. It is only when the traveller Avins their confidence that he will be told that a young and growing family or aged parents kept them in the straggle. There is little or none of ready money among the crofter class. What little there is is represented 1 by work on the roads, or from fishing.away in the centres, or the sale of a few lambs or a cattle beast. Anything under twenty acres in area or £3O rental' is classed ;:.e a croft. It was the passing of the Crofters Act about twenty years ago that secured to the crofters security of tenure in the -form of perpetual lease, and they are now absolutely independent of the landlord and" cannot be evicted' so long as they are not too greatly in arrears with the rent. Previous to the passing of that Act and the setting up ■of the Crofters' Commission, the small holder Aras completely at the mercy of the landlord and Iris agents, who ; in too many cases were not fitted by nature to wield such power. The small man had no right of renewal of his lease, and' no compensation for improvements, and the resultwas a striking- illustration of the evils, arising from insecurity of tenure, as the tenant had no encouragement to improve his holding and build better, more sanitary dwellings. All that is altered now, and a section of the crofters seeing the benefits arising from past efforts, are taking on too much of the professionalism of agitation, to the neglect of their holdings and the consequent ill odour of their cause. The chances of their alienating the sympathies of the great middle party by preaching land nationalism of the confiscatory kind, are somewhat more than good, and it will only make , their campaign ridiculovu; when they expect 'the State to buy, improve, and stock the holdings to place the people on them. Tlk majoiity of them, however, are directing their efforts towards extending the blessings of fixity of .tenure fromi the £3O to that of £SO. At present all'--farms above the croft are let for a term of nineteen years, with a chance of surrender or readjustment of rent at the end of the firs, severf years. On three subjects the people of the* north are unanimous. These are that times are bad, that motor cars increase the cost of road maintenance mously, and that there will never be ar improvement in land matters so long as the House of Lords is constituted as at present. These are the impressions, one gathers while moving in the country. Ir any great national movement, towards putting the people abek on the depopulated land 1 , the greatest difficulty will' be from the people themselves. So long as Canada beckons with such alluring inducements to the Mother Country for more of her sons, the more adventurous wil make for that country, while others again will be attracted by seeing life in their own cities. The difficulties of, bringing land in the north into cultivation and the small returns at the outset are against the venture being attractive *o the younger people. And indeed' too many oi the people themselves have fake ideal? regarding thir own -country, are studying more and more how to make" it attractive to the golfer and the holiday maker, hoAT to exploit it for show purposes, than ar the homes of soil cultivators. At the present time in Sutherlandshire, under present conditions, it is thought of more advantage to a township to have widelj known golf links., with a Pictish.fort or a Clan battlefield close by, than a hundred well farmed crofts leading up a strath. Too much of the noblest in Scottish history and too many of her historically sacred spots are being turned into illus trated Christmas numbers. In the meantime, the theme or subject of the " Flowers of the Forest" is still goiiig on, but instead of Avar reaping its harvest from the flower of the • country's manhood, Canada is.