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Preface
THE Crofter Question, as it
is now termed, is one on which an angry and embittered controversy has
raged intermittently for more than a century. A recent agitation has given
it prominence, and, for the first time, brought it within the sphere of
practical politics. A Bill for its settlement has been presented to the
House of Commons, and it remains for a new and reformed Parliament to
decide whether the work which a ministerial crisis postponed shall be
resumed.
The question at one time
was one between political economists and writers whose "sentiment" was
considered more forcible than their logic. For many years economic
conditions conspired to demonstrate that the "economists" were right and
the "sentimentalists" wrong; but the operation of Free Trade has been of
late to diminish the advantage of the former. The imports from abroad have
successively reduced the price of wool and the price of meat. This,
combined with other causes, has produced — to use the language of the
Royal Commissioners — "something like an economic crisis."
While the arguments derived
from results are thus weakened, the arguments on the other side have been
proportionately strengthened. To this turn of fortune the popular party
have united the force which springs from the re-action in the public mind
against centralization, and from the condition of the poorer classes in
the great cities, which is represented as a grave social danger and
disgrace. Legislation based on mistaken philanthropy, and legislation
divorced from philanthropy, are equally dangerous. If the history of the
past with reference to the occupiers of the soil has exposed the
Legislature to the reproach arising from the latter, only the most careful
enquiry and the most scrupulous attention to facts will save us, in the
revulsion of feeling, from the opposite error. The writer of these pages
aims only at a faithful representation of the facts. If he succeeds in
that humble endeavour he will have the satisfaction of believing that he
has done something to aid in a right settlement of a most difficult and
complicated question.
Contents
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