McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1885-01-01
The Skye Crofters.

The Skye Cr0fter6.
Those who only know the Western
islands from "a Princess OF Thulc"
and "Madcap Violet will be surprised
to learn that there.is, mile for mile, more
genuine distress among the poor there
than can be found in Conemara or on
the bleak Kerry coast, writes CORE
spondent of The NeU York Times. The
huts are poorer, the food even more
scanty, and the law of evictiOns far
more merciless. The parallel with
Ireland is not an exact one, however,
for both the past and present condi-
tions of the two countries differ wide
ly. In Ireland, the poor tenants have
been ground under the heel OF land
lords, alien to them in race and relig-
ion, for centuries. In the highlands,
the oppressors are the heads of ancient
Scottish families, and it is only within
recent years, within the last century at
any rate, that they have turned in hos
tility upon their own clansmen. 1t is
true that the clan system, in the old
sense, come to an end soon after the
collapse of the last pretender uprising
in 1745. But the more admirable
phases of the old system, with fealty to
the chief from one side and protecting
loyalty from the other, lasted gen.
orally throughout the north until after
Waterloo, Long before this time
British law had transformed the High
land chief, who held suzerainty over
the lands of his clan in trust for the
whole tribe, into landlord in his own
right, but it was not until the age of
the steamboat, telegraph, and locomo-
tive that the chiefs began to take adj
vantage of this change. Within the
past forty years these landlords OF
newer generations have entirely lost
sight of the historic claims which the
native population of these islands have
in common with themselves. The duke
of Argyll, for example, writes over his
own signature in The Times that it is
ridiculous to charge him with mean
ness in evicting his clansmen crofters
from their ancient holdings and div
ing them off his islands when he can
add to the rent value of the islands by
so doing. 1t is purely matter of bu-
siness. he says, and he is to be no more
attacked for doing what he likes with
his own than is man in commercial
life. He does not see, his class do not
see, that when he thus coolly repudi-
ates all responsibilities in pay for his
position and possession, every word
he utters raises up score of angry
liberals eager to call into question his
right to either. These poor crofters
have, year by year, been forced off the
good land, and on to the barren lands
of the coast. As the more progressive
south learned improved methods of
agriculture the landlords have
made big farms by dispossess-
to English or lowland capitalists.
Even the common grazing ground,
which in the old days belonged to the
whole clan for pasturage, has been
swept away now by the landlords and
fenced in along with the farms. This
stealing of commons is not rare
thing in England. Many thousands of
acres which a century or two centuries
ago belonged to the whole village are
safely classified now with the inalien-
able property of the wealthy English
mobiles, and by no better right than
that of powerful greed. But in the
Highlands, where property in common
had been a legal fact within the men,
DRY of the fathers of men now living,
this is far greater hardship than in
England, where it has been hardly
more than tradition since the fall of
the monasteries. In this Island of
Skye, where at last the crofters have
been goaded even beyond their great
patience, between the years 1910 and
1888 there were issued DEGREES of evic-
ton to $500 heads of families, en-
brac;ag nearly or quite 10000 persons.
This Is twice the total inhabitants of
the island, so that it amounts to every
man, woman, and child having been
twice ordered to move within the past
forty-four years. In few cases
scarcely worth mentioning in proper
tion-was the excuse one of failure to
paw rent. The crofters are an indus
trious, thrifty class, and they now pay
rents equivalent to the highest farm
| rents in England for the miserable
privilege of living on the barren sea-
coast-rents even higher in proportion
than the great factors pay for the big
farms WHICH mOHOpollAe ZIG Soou 1duu
of the island. The great lords do not
want them to stay, no matter what
they pay. On the Island of TREE,
which is wholly the property of the
duke of Argyll, there were in 1856,
when he succeeded to the titles and
estates, about 5000 inhabitants.
There are now 200, and of these 400
are landIess in four townships alone.
The difference between the figures
represents the number who have been
improved off, driven to America or
Australia, or death, to enable his
grace to add ESQ or f40 a year to his
income of scores of thousands. Yet
he is a philanthropist, as his order
goes, and a reformer!
The crofters, who will not be i'm
proved off, and who cling to the idea
that the clans whose devotion made
these Campbells and Douglasses, and
Gordons mobiles, and gave them the
use of land which they have now seized
as their own have as much right to live
near the graves of their fathers as have