PROPERTY RIGHTS IN SCOTLAND

New Zealand Tablet, 10 February 1916, Page 51

PROPERTY RIGHTS IN SCOTLAND

Notwithstanding the levelling down process which is taking place in the United Kingdom owing to the war, there is evidence still that property is a sacred thing, and that the individual has little chance when placed opposite to it on the scales. We are moved to make these remarks by a case reported as follows in an Inverness paper, a copy of which has been sent to us by a correspondent : What was described by Mr. Sinclair Fraser, solicitor, as ‘a miserable case’ engaged the attention of Sheriff J. P. Grant at Inverness on November 11. Mackintosh of Mackintosh was the prosecutor in a case under the Day Trespass Act against Donald Watt, a wood carter." The offence, to which the accused pleaded guilty, took place on September 11 in Petty Wood, above Balmachree Farm. Mr. P. D. Mactavish, solicitor, who conducted the prosecution, pointed out that the offence was a serious one in so far that the accused was lawfully in the wood at the time, being employed at a sawmill, and had consequently more opportunities of poaching than those otherwise situated. He asked the Court to inflict a severe penalty.

Mr. Sinclair Fraser said he considered this case a miserable one. All that Watt had done was to set a trap by which he managed to catch a rabbit as a small delicacy for an invalid child. Sheriff Grant said he could not regard the circumstances as constituting a lenient case, and he must order the accused to pay a fine of £l, with £1 Is as modified expenses. From the letters of indignant correspondents in the local papers, we learn that one of Watt’s sons had been killed at the front, and that two other sons are ‘somewhere’ in France or Flanders fighting for their King and country. Apart altogether from the severity of the punishment inflicted, the case illustrates how we in New Zealand are at the very opposite of things to those in the United Kingdom. A man is fined in Scotland for killing'a rabbit, whilst in New Zealand a farmer, who does not exercise sufficient diligence in killing the rabbits on his land, is also fined.