Crofter. The term crofter is commonly used in Scotland to designate a small tenant of land who derives a substantial portion of his livelihood from cultivation or the raising of live-stock. By the Crofters’ Holdings Act of 1886, it is defined to mean the tenant of a holding who resides on his holding, the annual rent of which does not exceed £30 in money, and which is situated in a crofting parish.
Crofters may be broadly divided into two classes: (1) Those who occupy arable land in separate tenancy, and mountain pasture in joint tenancy; (2) those who occupy land in separate tenancy only. The first class may be denominated ‘township crofters,’ the second ‘independent crofters.’ The township crofters are by far the more numerous class, so much so that the joint tenancy of pasture is a characteristic feature of crofting life. They are scattered over the whole surface of the Western Highlands and Islands, and over the whole of Sutherland. They are found in Caithness, Orkney, Shetland, and in the interior of Ross-shire and Inverness-shire, but less frequently on the eastern seaboard. The township crofters hold directly from the landlord, pay money rents, have had a preponderant share in the construction and maintenance of the buildings on the holding, and have been the authors of the greater part of the simple improvements on the holding and the township. They have preserved some marks of a primitive community in common rights and common obligations, and in the election of township officers who, by the custom of the estate, exert some authority in regulating the relations of the occupiers among themselves, and the relations between the occupiers and the landlord. The crofting township of the Highlands is a partial survival of a system of land-tenure once common to the whole of Scotland and prevalent in other countries. It has in all times existed in direct relations with the chief or landlord, yet the greater number of extant township crofters are the descendants of sub-tenants to the tacksman of a former period, and were brought into immediate dependency from the proprietor in the 18th century. The township crofter has always been in the eyes of the law a tenant at will, whether holding under the landlord or the tacksman, except in the case of a specific covenant to the contrary, but it is probable that during the prevalence of the clan system the mutual interests and affections of chief, tacksman, and people, procured for the crofters the actual status of permanent tenure. While the crofters derive a material share of their livelihood and even of their food from the holding, their existence would be impossible without other sources of support. Among these fishing holds the first place and often affords the chief means of subsistence; but other local employments, domestic crafts, itinerant rural labour in the south, the earnings of a seafaring life, and remittances from relatives at home and abroad, all contribute to the crofters' maintenance.
The grievances from which the great mass of the township crofters have suffered may be enumerated as follows: The restricted area of holdings, and especially the reduction of common pasture land; high rents in exceptional cases; disturbance without due compensation; the molestation of deer and other game; the imposition of excessive local rates; the increasing burden of cottar dependents; want of harbours and defective means of transport to the centres of consumption. To these may now be added an unexampled depression in the value of agricultural produce, and a disastrous change in the methods previously used in the management of the fishing trade. The causes which have brought about such unhappy results are not far to seek. They exist in the covetous or mistaken policy of proprietors in the beginning of the present century, manifested by eviction and excessive consolidation of land; in the necessities of their successors; in the potato disease; in the too great subdivision of crofts; in the failure of the kelp manufacture; in the precipitate application of the Education Act in districts to which it was unsuited; in the apathy and improvidence which prevail among the crofters themselves; and, finally, in foreign competition in every department of industry. Such are the errors and neglects of the past; such the misfortunes of the present, which conspire to depress the crofting people. These hostile influences are intensified by the stormy climate, ungrateful soil, dangerous sea, and rugged irregular configuration of the Western Highlands. It remains to be proved in what degree such obstacles can be surmounted by legislative provisions conceived in the interests of a class who with serious defects of character possess attractive and estimable qualities.
The independent crofters, who may be recognised as a distinct order among the crofting population, are found in all the Highland counties. They appear in considerable numbers in Argyllshire, in Caithness, in Orkney, in Shetland, and in the eastern parts of Inverness-shire and Ross-shire. They are more rare in Sutherland, on the western seaboard, and in the Hebrides. These laborious tenants have been recruited from the working-classes in adjacent districts, and from the members of broken townships dispersed by the formation of sheep farms. Established, for the most part, on waste lands under improving leases or stringent estate regulations, favoured in the eastern districts by a drier climate and soil, surrounded by the examples of a superior husbandry, and encouraged by assistance from the landlord, they have attained a higher condition than the crofting communities, both in regard to dwellings and tillage. The alleged grievances of the independent crofters have reference mainly to high rents, insecurity of tenure, and confiscation of improvements. Against such abuses they are now protected by the Act of 1886, from which they will derive substantial benefit.
In recording the diversities of crofting tenure it is necessary to mention the exceptional examples of freehold crofts with common pasture in the united parishes of Harray and Birsay in Orkney. These minute estates exhibit a marked superiority over yearly tenancies elsewhere. Belonging to a vigorous race of cultivators whose families prosecuted their fortunes in the colonies and on the sea, the Orkney freeholds have not suffered from excessive subdivision, and illustrate the advantages attached to stability and possession. It would be rash, however, to affirm that the institution of similar tenures would succeed equally well among the Celtic inhabitants of the western coast.
The comparative condition of the crofting people in the present and the past has been the subject of angry controversy. It seems not improbable that their state is now, in some respects, inferior to what it was in the age immediately following the fall of the clan system in 1746, while in others it is certain that the contemporary crofter possesses immunities and advantages of which his forefathers never dreamed. In favour of the older time may be alleged a larger share of the land, with a corresponding abundance of the necessities of life in seasons of plenty, more unrestricted access to the use of fish and game, freedom from local taxation, the existence of a graduated social order more harmonious and more congenial to the greatest number, the enjoyment of recreations native to the race, and that spirit of contentment or resignation which is associated with ignorance and isolation. It may, on the other hand, be contended, on behalf of the present, that the crofter is exonerated from personal services of an oppressive nature, that he obtains relief in scarcity, remedies in sickness, public support in infirmity and old age, elementary instruction, access to external labour markets, facilities for emigration, and that he possesses those aspirations and opportunities which belong to an expanded horizon of intelligence. When to the humane innovations of modern civilisation are added reduced rents and enlarged holdings, the crofting people will have little to envy in the precarious advantages claimed for their ancestors a century ago.
Moved alike by the recent sufferings, former wrongs, and threatening agitation of the crofters, the government of Mr Gladstone in 1883 nominated a Royal Commission to inquire into their condition. The commission conducted its investigations in the course of that year, and submitted its report in the beginning of 1884. In May 1885 a remedial measure was introduced into the House of Commons which proved abortive, owing to the political incidents of the time; but the question was resumed in a more liberal spirit in 1886, when the Crofters' Holdings Act received the sanction of parliament and the crown. This statute embodies in substance the following provisions: The recognition of the 'crofting parish' as the area within which the act is applicable; security of tenure; fair rents; faculty to renounce tenancy; compensation for improvements; right to claim the enlargement of holdings; concession of testamentary powers in relation to the holding. And under this statute, three Commissioners were nominated to determine the areas within which the act shall be applicable, and to carry its provisions into effect.
In addition to these legislative enactments, the government has, in the appropriate administrative departments, initiated measures for the emigration of families from congested districts, the supply of fishing-boats and gear, the development of telegraphic communication, and the mitigation of the school-rate by increased grants.
The measures referred to, whether legislative or administrative, have been formed with an equitable consideration of the interests and rights of all parties concerned, and with a genuine desire to do good. The conditions by which they are surrounded are so complex, and the financial advances hitherto contemplated so restricted, that no immediate results of importance can be expected. A still graver impediment unhappily exists in the extreme poverty of the class whom it is desired to benefit.
Closely associated with the crofters by origin, avocations, and distresses, are the cottars. These people are occupiers of dwellings and small patches of ground, holding rarely from the landlord, more frequently from the farmer, the township, or the individual crofter, sometimes mere squatters, paying no rent and owning no allegiance. They exist by fishing, by casual employments on the land, and by public charity. Cottars are intermingled with their better-endowed kindred in all quarters of the crofting country, but they are most numerous and most miserable in the Long Island. Their claims are recognised by the Act of 1886, which grants them compensation for improvements in the case of arbitrary and voluntary removal.
The crofter and cottar population in the six counties to which the Act of 1886 applies were roughly computed by the Royal Commission of 1883 to comprise about 40,000 families, or 200,000 souls.
The Crofters Act of 1886 is applicable in crofting parishes only within the counties of Argyll, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness, and Orkney and Shetland. Crofters' tenancies are diffused in other counties, especially in Aberdeen-shire and Perthshire, but as they are subject to more favourable economic conditions, it was not considered necessary to admit them to the benefits of special legislation. Further legislation has been repeatedly proposed, but a government bill of 1894 was withdrawn.