The Star. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1913. TEE SUTHERLAND DEER FORESTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10925, 14 November 1913, Page 4

The Star. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1913. TEE SUTHERLAND DEER FORESTS.

There is something as dramatic as the action of the Fates of a Greek play in the Duke of Sutherland's efforts to divest himself of his vast ancestral estates, says the <- " Auckland Star." Personally ho cannot be held guilty for the sins of his predecessors, but it is hard not to conceive of his family as haunted by an ancestral Nemesis. The late Duke was one of the seventy magnates who owned half the land of the United Kingdom, and his own share amounted to one-sixteenth of tho whole; His London residence, Stafford House, was one of tho most magnificent private palaces in the world. That has now passed out of the hands of his family and become tho property of the people. His other great inheritance was his Scotch estates, and these he is now endeavouring to sell. If ever wrong and injustice could bring a curse upon vast possessions, they would do so in the case of the Sutherland estates. They are notorious for the blackest episodes in the history of private property in land—the eviction of the crofter tonants. There are many Highlanders still living who have seen 'their families, their friends and acquaintances, turned out of their homes, but there has been nothing done in the history of Scotland, since Gloncoe, so bad as tho evictions and devastation of 1815. The aged and sick and the little children were hurried out into the drenching rain, and cottages and byres wore set on fire. The crofters took refuge in the ditches, and covered their young and feeble with straw and the cuttings from hedgerows, - and many died of exposure. Afterwards those' who could go left their, native glens and settled in Canada. Some found refuge in caves by tho sea, and were sent to gaol as, vagrants and trespassers. A remnant made their way to.the seashore and settled on the high rocky ground, cultivating small patches of poor, thin soil, and ckirig out a living by fishing. If ever on better soil they sneoeeded in making their small plots do more than yield them a bare subsistence, the landlord racked them for rent. Naturally all who could leave the country fled to other lands, and it was in this way that the depopulation of rural Scotland began. *.. * .* * ■ * Ireland is generally pointed io as an example of the evils of landlordism, but since 1906 the case of Scotland has been much worse than that of Ireland. It was not until the census returns of 1911 were made public that people's eyes were open to the extent of the decrease in population. Within ten years the normal increase of population should havo been 10 per cent, but over Scotland as a whole the increase was only 4 per cent, and this increase was in the towns, the mining and factory was an actual decrease. By 1911 there were 10,802 fewer people in the Highlands than there had been in 1901, and the process of depletion is still going on. For the evil work begun by the evictions in the early years of the nineteenth century has been completed by the growth of huge estates maintained,. not for cultivation, but for game and sport. By the middle of last century the sheep and cattle farms of Scotland, chiefly owing to colonial competition, had ceased to pay, and many of the landlords were on the verge of ruin when their fortunes were again revived by the fact that deer hunting became a fashionable craze. The Prince Consort and other great noblemen set the fashion; and a large number of the snobocracy took to it eagerly to display their aristocratic tastes. The possession of shooting rights, and a shoot-ing-box, if not the lease of some deer forest, was an especial object of ambition to the plutocrat of the later Victorian and the Edwardian days. With the advent of the wealthy sportsman, rents went up, and more and more acres were given up to the grouse and the deer. The farmer had ousted the crofter, and in his turn he had to give place to the German or Hebrew baron of finance, or the American or English millionaire; and the outcome of all this is to be seen in the statistics that point to the steady decline in the rural population of Scotland for the last half century.

In 1903 the Deer Forest Commission found that over a million acres were being used as deer runs and sheep walks. The rental paid for these sporting lands is given in the "Sportsman's Guide" as £500,000 per annum. In twenty years the land under arable cultivation decreased by 232,633 acres, while in six Highland crofting counties—Argyle, Inverness, Ross, Cromarty, Caithness and Sutherland—there was an increase in the acreage of deer. forest from 1,709,892 up to 2,955,490 acres. It was then predicted that " unless drastis steps were taken the Highlands would soon be dotted with the shooting lodges of the rich, the crouching habitations of their flunkeys,, and a few pauper villages, where the old and infirm tottered feebly to their grave," It was to check this impending ruin that the Scotch Land Act was passed, in spite of the strenuous opposition of the Lords. The late Duke of Sutherland tried to stave off the evil day by agitating for Tariff Reform, but without avail. The present Duke at first offered 20,000 acres of deer forest at £2 an acre, and by a later offer 210,000 acres of deer forest at 22s 6d an acre, and 200,000 acres for sheep and cattle grazing at 25s an acre. Its value is a matter for question. A leading expert put it down at £1 an acre, taking the average; the Duke himself has declared that the deer forests are not worth cultivating. On the other hand, Mr Outhwaite, while travelling through Scotland, wrote: ' ( Of these wide stretches it is frequently asserted that they are useless apart from sport." That statement, he regards as true under existing conditions, but misleading. A large proportion of this very land onco supported a vigorous producing community. And

with modern science tho intelligent and industrious Scotch worker can immensely increase tho yield per aero. In 1895 the Royal Commission reported that of the land then used for sporting and grazing purposes in Scotland, 170,000 acres were eminently suited for small holdings. So far its cultivable qualities have not been properly developed. "When that is done tho depopulation and emigration will cease in every part of Scotland whero the forcible eviction of the original cultivators and to subsequent extension of deer forests and gnmo perserves has rendered so much of tho country practically uninhabitable for small holders.