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By ALEXANDER MACKENZIE.
The following account was
written in April, 1882, after a most careful enquiry on the spot:—So
much whitewash has been distributed in our Northern newspapers of late
by "Local Correspondents," in the interest of personal friends who are
responsible for the Lochcarron evictions—the worst and most indefensible
that have ever been attempted even in the Highlands—that we consider it
a duty to state the actual facts. We are really sorry for those more
immediately concerned, but our friendly feeling for them otherwise
cannot be allowed to come between us and our plain duty. A few days
before the famous "Battle of the Braes," in the Isle of Skye, we
received information that summonses of ejectment were served on
Mackenzie and Maclean, Lochcarron. The writer at once communicated with
Mr. Dugald Stuart, the proprietor, intimating to him the statements
received, and asking him if they were accurate, and if Mr. Stuart had
anything to say in explanation of them. Mr. Stuart immediately replied,
admitting the accuracy of the statements generally, but maintaining that
he had good and valid reasons for carrying out the evictions, which he
expressed himself anxious to explain to us on the following day, while
passing through Inverness on his way South. Unfortunately, his letter
reached us too late, and we were unable to see him. The only reason
which he vouchsafed to give in his letter was to the following effect:-
"`Was it at all likely that he, a Highlander, born and brought up in the
Highlands, the son of a Highlander, and married to a Highland lady,
would be guilty of evicting any of his tenants without good cause?" We
replied that, unfortunately, all these reasons could be urged by most of
those who had in the past depopulated the country, but expressing a hope
that, in his case, the facts stated by him would prove sufficient to
restrain him from carrying out his determination to evict parents
admittedly innocent of their sons proceedings, even if those proceedings
were unjustifiable. Early in April, 1882, we proceeded to Lochcarron to
make enquiry on the spot, and the writer on his return from Skye a few
days later reported as follows to the Highland Land Law Reform
Association:-
"Of all the cases of
eviction which have hitherto come under my notice I never heard of any
so utterly unjustifiable as those now in course of being carried out by
Mr. D. Stuart in Lochcarron. The circumstances which led up to these
evictions are as follows:—In March, 1881, two young men, George
Mackenzie and Donald Maclean, masons, entered into a contract with Mr.
Stuart's ground officer for the erection of a sheep fank, and a dispute
afterwards arose as to the payment for the work. When the factor, Mr.
Donald Macdonald, Tormore, was some time afterwards collecting the rents
in the district, the contractors approached him and related their
grievance against the ground officer, who, while the men were in the
room, came in and addressed them in libellous and defamatory language,
for which they have since obtained substantial damages and expenses, in
all amounting to £22 13s. 8d., in the Sheriff Court of the County. I
have a certified copy of the whole proceedings in Court in my
possession, and, without going into the merits, what I have just stated
is the result, and Mr. Stuart and his ground officer became furious.
"The contractors are two
single men who live with their parents, the latter being crofters on Mr.
Stuart's property, and as the real offenders—if such can be called men
who have stood up for and succeeded in establishing their rights and
their characters in Court—could not be got at, Mr. Stuart issued
summonses of ejection against their parents—parents who, in one of the
cases at least, strongly urged his son not to proceed against the ground
officer, pointing out to him that an eviction might possibly ensue, and
that it was better even to suffer in character and purse than run the
risk of eviction from his holding at the age of eighty. We have all
heard of the doctrine of visiting the sins of the parents upon the
children, but it has been left for Mr. Dugald Stuart of Lochcarron and
his ground officer, in the present generation—the highly-favoured
nineteenth century—to reverse all this, and to punish the unoffending
parents, for proceedings on the part of their children which the Sheriff
of the County and all unprejudiced people who know the facts consider
fully justifiable.
"Now, so far as I can
discover, after careful enquiry among the men's neighbours and in the
village of Lochcarron, nothing can be said against either of them. Their
characters are in every respect above suspicion. The ground officer,
whom I have seen, admits all this, and makes no pretence that the
eviction is for any other reason than the conduct of the young men in
prosecuting and succeeding against himself in the Sheriff Court for
defamation of character. Maclean paid rent for his present holding for
the last sixty years, and never failed to pay it on the appointed day.
His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather occupied the same place,
and so did their ancestors before them. Indeed, his grandfather held
one-half of the township, now occupied by more than a hundred people.
The old man is in his 81st year, and bed-ridden—on his death-bed in
fact—since the middle of January last, he having then had a paralytic
stroke from which it is quite impossible he can ever recover. It was
most pitiable to see the aged and frail human wreck as I saw him that
day, and to have heard him talking of the cruelty and hard-heartedness
of those who took advantage of the existing law to push him out of the
home which he has occupied so long, while he is already on the brink of
eternity. I quite agreed with him, and I have no hesitation in saying
that if Mr. Stuart and his ground officer only called to see the
miserable old man, as I did, their hearts, however adamantine, would
melt, and they would at once declare to him that he would be allowed to
end his days, and die in peace, under the roof which for generations had
sheltered himself and his ancestors. The wife is over 70 years of age,
and the frail old couple have no one to succour them but the son who has
been the cause, by defending his own character, of their present
misfortunes. Whatever Mr. Stuart and his ground officer may do, or
attempt to do, the old man will not, and cannot be evicted until he is
carried to the churchyard ; and it would be far more gracious on their
part to relent and allow the old man to die in peace.
"Mackenzie has paid rent
for over 40 years, and his ancestors have done so for several
generations before him. He is nearly sixty years of age, and is highly
popular among his neighbours, all of whom are intensely grieved at Mr.
Stuart's cruel and hard-hearted conduct towards him and Maclean, and
they still hope that he will not proceed to extremities.
"The whole case is a
lamentable abuse of the existing law, and such as will do more to secure
its abolition, when the facts are fully known, than all the other cases
of eviction which have taken place in the Highlands during the present
generation. There is no pretence that the case is anything else than a
gross and cruel piece of retaliation against the innocent parents for
conduct on the part of their sons which must have been very aggravating
to this proprietor and his ground officer, who appear to think
themselves fully justified in perpetuating such acts of grossest cruelty
and injustice."
This report was slightly
noticed at the time in the local and Glasgow newspapers, and attention
was thus directed to Mr. Stuart's proceedings. His whole conduct
appeared so cruelly tyrannical that most people expected him to relent
before the day of eviction arrived. But not so; a sheriff officer and
his assistants from Dingwall duly arrived, and proceeded to turn
MMackenzie's furniture out of his house. People congregated from all
parts of the district, some of them coming more than twenty miles. The
sheriff officer sent for the Lochcarron policemen to aid him, but,
notwithstanding, the law which admitted of such unmitigated cruelty and
oppression was set at defiance; the sheriff officers were deforced, and
the furniture returned to the house by the sympathising crowd. What was
to be done next? The Procurator-Fiscal for the county was Mr. Stuart's
law agent in carrying out the evictions. How could he criminally
prosecute for deforcement in these circumstances? The Crown authorities
found themselves in a dilemma, and through the tyranny of the proprietor
on the one hand, and the interference of the Procurator-Fiscal in civil
business which has ended in public disturbance and deforcement of the
Sheriff's officers, on the other, the Crown authorities found themselves
helpless to vindicate the law. This is a pity; for all right-thinking
people have almost as little sympathy for law breakers, even when that
law is unjust and cruel, as they have for those cruel landlords who,
like Mr. Stuart of Lochcarron, bring the law and his own order into
disrepute by the oppressive application of it against innocent people.
The proper remedy is to have the law abolished, not to break it; and to
bring this about such conduct as that of Mr. Stuart and his ground
officer is more potent than all the Land Leagues and Reform Associations
in the United Kingdom.
Mr. William Mackenzie of
the Aberdeen Free Press, who was on the ground, writes, next morning,
after the deforcement of the sheriff officers:-
"During the encounter the
local police constable drew his baton, but he was peremptorily ordered
to lay it down, and he did so. The officers then gave up the contest and
left the place about three in the morning. Yesterday, before they left,
and in course of the evening, they were offered refreshments, but these
they declined. The people are this evening in possession as before.
"When every article was
restored to its place, the song and the dance were resumed, the native
drink was freely quaffed—for 'freedom an' whisky gang thegither'--the
steam was kept up throughout the greater part of yesterday, and
Mackenzie's mantelpiece to-day is adorned with a long tier of empty
bottles, standing there as monuments of the eventful night of the
29th-30th May, 1882.
A chuirm sgaoilte chualas
an ceol
Ard-sholas an talla nan treun!
"While these things were
going on in the quiet township of Slumbay, the Fiery Cross appears to
have been despatched over the neighbouring parishes ; and frmo Kintail,
Lochalsh, Applecross, and even Gairloch, the Highlanders began to gather
yesterday with the view of helping the Slumbay men, if occasion should
arise. Few of these reached Slumbay, but they were in small detachments
in the neighbourhood ready at any moment to come to the rescue on the
appearance of any hostile force. After all the trains had come and gone
for the day, and as neither policemen nor Sheriff's officers had
appeared on the scene, these different groups retired to their
respective places of abode. The Slumbay men, too, resolved to suspend
their festivities. A procession was formed, and, being beaded by the
piper, they marched triumphantly through Slumbay and Jeantown, and
escorted some of the strangers on their way to their homes, returning to
Slumbay in course of the night."
As a contrast to Mr.
Stuart's conduct we are glad to record the noble action of Mr. C. J.
Murray, M.P. for Hastings, who has, fortunately for the oppressed
tenants on the Lochcarron property, just purchased the estate. He has
made it a condition that Maclean and Makenzie shall be allowed to
remain; and a further public scandal has thus been avoided. This is a
good beginning for the new proprietor, and we trust to see his action as
widely circulated and commended as the tyrannical proceedings of his
predecessor have been condemned.
It is also fair to state
what we know on the very best authority, namely, that the factor on the
estate, Mr. Donald Macdonald, Tormore, strongly urged upon Mr. Stuart
not to evict these people, and that his own wife also implored and
begged of him not to carry out his cruel and vindictive purpose. Where
these agencies failed, it is gratifying to find that Mr. Murray has
succeeded; and all parties—landlords and tenants—throughout the
Highlands are to be congratulated on the result. |
