Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886

The Crofters ' Holdings ( Scotland) Act 1886 is still valid today Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which for the first time the legal definition of Crofters and a Crofting Parish ( parish of Croftern ) stipulated and granted the Croftern the security of their lease. The era of the Highland Clearances ended. In many ways, the law of the Irish Land Acts of 1870 and 1881 was leaning against.

Prehistory

As the expulsions of the Highland Clearances showed the crofters had until 1886 no official rights to their land; so they could at any time be evacuated from their villages. In 1874 there were riots in the crofting population because they wanted inherited in their eyes rights to enforce "their" leased land.

The causes of the riots are far back in the history of the clan system, which had established itself in the Middle Ages, however, led to different perceptions by the different development of the upper class and the rural population:

The cultural force of dùthchas what pervasive in Gaeldom and was central to the social cohesion of the clan Because it articulated the expectations of the masses did the ruling family had the responsibility to act as Their protectors and guarantee secure possession of land in return for allegiance, military sevice, tribute and rental. It was a powerful and enduring amounted Which lived on long after the military rational of clanship Itself had disappeared and tribal chiefs had shed Their ancient responsibilitities and become commercial landlords. The cultural influence of dùthchas [ ancestral law by tradition ] was everywhere in Gaelic space available. This was the central force for the cohesion of the clan, because they expressed the expectations of the masses that the leading family had the responsibility to act as their protectors and for loyalty, military assistance, charges and lease guaranteed the ownership of land in return. There was a strong and enduring conviction that even then stopped after the military reasons for the clan system had disappeared and the tribal leaders had long since passed the old responsibility and had become commercial landlords.

Through the Home Rule movement in Ireland, whose ideas were brought by fishermen in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, the first riots were triggered. The Crofter began to fight back with lease strikes and " occupation" of grazing land by their own livestock. This pasture was in the eyes of the community pasture Crofter their community, but it was claimed by the landlord for large sheep farms and hunting grounds. It was partly to bloody clashes and use of the military.

At the political level, the call led by a statutory provision in 1883 establishing the Highland Land Law Reform Association in London, as well as establishing the Crofters Party, which was represented in 1885 by five members in Parliament. Its motto was: Is Treasa Tuath na Tighearna ( Scottish Gaelic: The rural population is stronger than the Lords).

Since the government feared a spread of the Irish Home Rule movement in Scotland, a committee was formed under the leadership of Lord Napier, in 1883 through interviews in the Highland crofters of the situation investigated and presented its report in 1884. Then, a first draft law was developed by William Ewart Gladstone, who did not come by the Parliament in May 1885. Following the resignation of Gladstone in June 1885 and its renewed government takeover on 1 February 1886, was re-submitted and entered into force on 25 June 1886.

The law

The Crofters ' Holdings ( Scotland) Act 1886 recognized for the first time in the history of Scotland to the rights of crofters in their country and their tenancy and gave the traditional institution of crofting townships ( a village consisting of Croftern ), legal status.

Specifically, the law regulated the following:

• It granted the security of the lease for the crofters, as long as he paid the rent and worked the land.
• The operation can be passed on within the family.
• For full resettlement compensation must for all the improvements that has carried out the Crofter be paid (for example, construction, drainage and fencing ).
• The amount of the lease must be reasonable.
• The lease can be verified by the independent Crofting Commission and redefined.
• The interior of the Crofting Commission.

According to the Act, the Crofters Commission, a regulatory body set up that could be invoked in disputes between the landlords and the Croftern. One of the first tasks of the Commission, it was necessary to define the Parishes were among the crofting parishes and thus fell under the new law. She named eight counties of Scotland as counties whose Parishes came in for questions: Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, Cromartyshire, Sutherland, Ross -shire, Inverness- shire and Argyll. Within these counties counted as Crofting Parish, a community in which were 80 years Crofter without leases which paid less than 30 pounds a year in rent and who possessed a common grazing rights.

Additional tasks of the Crofters Commission to establish a reasonable rent and every seven years to check their height belonged. The Crofter could let check the height of their lease by the Commission; often it was halved and outstanding residue excessive lease had not paid.

In addition, the Commission had the power to extend the law and to introduce further legislation. You could acquire land for crofting and pass it on to the crofters, partly to enlarge very small Crofts or return it to landless Croftern.

Reactions and consequences

The reactions to the law were different. In the eyes of the law Crofter was not broad enough because it did not give them opportunities to expand their too small Crofts. In addition, no provision for the Cottars (sub tenant of the Crofter without land ) was present. However, the security of land tenure and was greeted by the work of the Commission, they realized that their rights were represented. Although the Commission was able to acquire free land and pass it on to the crofters, but free land was scarce and the available funds of the Commission low. However, the law did not attack the main problem: the return of land. It offered no solutions for the cases where Crofter and Landlord are each entitled to the same piece of land levied.

In contrast, The Scotsman described the law as a great infringement on the rights of private property (large assault on the rights of private land ownership ) and the landlords called it ... communism looming in the future ( ominous sign-off of communism for the future ).

The riots were not finished by the law, because for Arthur Balfour meant the law, that it gave him the moral authority to suppress any unrest by the use of troops to restore law and order. So a few weeks later it came back to the use of armed forces to Tiree and Skye.

The Highland Land Law Reform Association and the Crofters Party fell out in the following years to the question of the acquisition of the land as property and how far one should follow the Home Rule movement in Ireland, and then lost political power.

This idea was taken up again in 1976 with the Crofters Act, which allowed the Croftern, to 15 times the lease price to acquire their land and thus to become the owner - occupier ( sole owner and sole inhabitants ). The Land Reform Act 2003 even goes so far that it confers the crofting communities the right, under certain conditions, even against the will of the landowner to acquire the land and farming as community property on their own and manage. The Crofting Reform ( Scotland) Act 2010, the crofters and owner - occupier assimilated by law and the rules that must be managed Croft, more precisely defined in order Crofts, whose tenants live permanently outside, be free for the next generation.

In historical retrospect, it is criticized by Hunter that an obsolete state was defined by the law that binds the Crofter on leases; In contrast to Ireland, whose tenants may have after the Home Rule Act to acquire their land. It promotes agricultural inefficiency and political and social considerations could be disregarded. According to Wightman, however, the Crofters ' Holdings ( Scotland) Act 1886 has played a pioneering role in land reform in Scotland, which was, however, confined to the Highlands. The question of land ownership is still not conclusively determined, since two-thirds of Scotland with a population of approximately five million owned by approximately 1,252 large landowners is ( figures from 2000).