Ireland, Radicalism, and the Scottish Highlands, c.1870-1912 9781474471282

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IRELAND, RADICALISM AND THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS, c. 1870–1912

SCOTTISH HISTORICAL REVIEW MONOGRAPHS SERIES No. 15

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Scottish Historical Review Monographs are major works of scholarly research covering all aspects of Scottish history. They are selected and sponsored by the Scottish Historical Review Trust Editorial Board. The trustees of the SHR Trust are: Professor C. A. Whatley (chairman), Dr A. Mackillop (secretary), Professor E. W. McFarland, Dr Emma MacLeod, Dr Alison Rosie, Dr Murray Simpson and Mr Alex Woolf. CURRENT AND FORTHCOMING VOLUMES 1 Helen M. Dingwall 2 Ewen A. Cameron 3 Richard Anthony 4 R. Andrew McDonald 5 John R. McIntosh 6 Graeme Morton 7 Catriona M. M. Macdonald 8 James L. MacLeod

9 John Finlay 10 William Kenefick 11 J. J. Smyth 12 Roland Tanner 13 Ginny Gardner 14 Allan W. MacColl

15 Andrew G. Newby

Physicians, Surgeons and Apothecaries: Medicine in Seventeenth-Century Edinburgh Land for the People? The British Government and the Scottish Highlands, c. 1880–1923 Herds and Hinds: Farm Labour in Lowland Scotland, 1900–1939 The Kingdom of the Isles: Scotland’s Western Seaboard, c. 1100–1336 Church and Theology in Enlightenment Scotland: The Evangelical Party, 1740–1800 Unionist-Nationalism: Governing Urban Scotland, 1830–1860 The Radical Thread: Political Change in Scotland. Paisley Politics, 1885–1924 The Second Disruption: The Free Church in Victorian Scotland and the Origins of the Free Presbyterian Church Men of Law in Pre-Reformation Scotland ‘Rebellious and Contrary’: The Glasgow Dockers, c. 1853–1932 Labour in Glasgow, 1896–1936, Socialism, Suffrage, Sectarianism The Late Medieval Scottish Parliament: Politics and the Three Estates, 1424–1488 ‘Shaken Together in the Bag of Affliction’: Scottish Exiles in the Netherlands, 1660–1690 Land, Faith and the Crofting Community: Christianity and Social Criticism in the Highlands of Scotland, 1843–1893 Ireland, Radicalism, and the Scottish Highlands, c. 1870–1912

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IRELAND, RADICALISM AND THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS, c. 1870–1912

ANDREW G. NEWBY

EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS

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© Andrew G. Newby, 2007 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh Typeset in 10 on 12pt ITC New Baskerville by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester, and printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn, Norfolk A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 2375 4 (hardback) The right of Andrew G. Newby to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1 Scotland, Ireland and the Land Question 2 ‘A Sort of Fenian Conclave in the Country’: The Development of a Highland Land Question 3 ‘Blessed are Those who Expect Little, for They Shall not be Disappointed’: Alleged and Actual Irish Involvement in the Development of the ‘Crofters’ War’, 1877–1880 4 ‘An Obscure Hall in East Nile Street’: Urban Radicalism and the ‘Crofters’ War’, 1881–1882 5 ‘The Active Propaganda of Socialist Agitation’: Strands of Land and Social Reform in Ireland and the Highlands 6 ‘A Scotch Parnellite Party’: Land, Home Rule and the Third Reform Act 7 ‘Two Tribes which Sprang from the Same Stock’: Celtic Solidarity and Political Realignment in the Highlands, 1886–1895 8 ‘The Highlands have Reaped what Michael Davitt has Sown’: Legislation and Agitation to the Great War 9 Conclusion Bibliography Index

vi viii 1 9

28 48 85 117

138 170 189 197 217

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Acknowledgements The doctoral thesis on which much of this book is based was supervised by Ewen A. Cameron, who has continued to encourage and inspire in equal measure since its completion. Not least for reading versions of this manuscript, I gratefully acknowledge the contribution of a good friend and, more recently, colleague. Likewise, I wish to thank Annie Tindley for scrutinising draft chapters, always being ready to debate the virtues of the house of Sutherland, Victorian avicide, or delinquent snowballers in Alness, and for being extremely generous in sharing information gleaned from her own research. The examiners of my Ph.D. thesis, W. Hamish Fraser and Owen Dudley Edwards, have provided continued support and suggestions for amending the work for publication. Colleagues in the School of History and Classics at the University of Edinburgh have been exceptionally supportive, particularly Michael Lynch, Tom Devine, Alex Murdoch, Jim McMillan, Douglas Cairns, Alan Day, Bob Morris, Alvin Jackson, Jill Stephenson, Stana Nenadic, and Pertti Ahonen. Sarah Williams also assisted hugely in helping me to balance teaching, administration and research loads. I am grateful to all other friends and colleagues who have contributed in various ways to the development of this work, especially Pirkko Hautamäki, Gavan Titley, Lars-Folke Landgrén, Andrew MacKillop – who provided a very interesting reference from the Seafield Muniments – Carla King, Fintan Lane, Brendon Deacy, Elaine McFarland, Allan MacColl, Graeme Morton, Matthew Cragoe, and Paul Readman. Thanks also to Roda Morrison, who has been an extremely patient editor, Lyn Flight, and everyone at Edinburgh University Press and the Board of Trustees of the Scottish Historical Review. Laurence Gouriévidis, who first introduced me to Highland history, will always have my deepest gratitude and respect. I thank the Board of Trinity College Library, Dublin, for permission to quote from the Davitt Papers, and the staff of the many other libraries and repositories in which I have undertaken research for this book: National Library of Scotland; National Archives of Scotland; National Library of Ireland; British Library (and BL Newspaper Library, Colindale); Scottish Catholic Archive; university libraries of Edinburgh, Helsinki, Aberdeen, Guelph and St. Andrews; John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Working Class Movement Library, Salford; New York Public Library; and the Mitchell Library, Glasgow. Acknowledgements for financial support are due to the Gaelic Society of Inverness, the Maclehose-Dickinson Prize Committee, the

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Acknowledgements

vii

Catherine MacKichan Trust, Jeremiah Dalziel Prize Committee, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (University of Edinburgh), the Finnish Centre for International Mobility (CIMO), and the University of Helsinki Chancellor’s Research Fund. In spite of all the assistance I have received from the above, any errors of fact or interpretation remain mine alone. My wife Elisa always tolerates my artistic self-pity, while also undertaking her own (scientific) research and our wee boys, Ossian and Rónán, put the parallel universe of academia into perspective. To paraphrase Angus Sutherland, they have ensured that Tove Jansson and Henry George are kept in close proximity on our bookshelves, and led me to ponder the status of moomins as peasant proprietors. Luonto luodut yhdistääpi tällä tavalla lintu lentäväinen rakas rientäväinen kohta löytää kumppaninsa koivun oksalla ELISALLE

Jaakko Juteini (1781–1855)

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Abbreviations CDB

Congested Districts Board

FCS

Federation of Celtic Societies

HGB

Home Government Branch of the Irish National League, Glasgow

HLL

Highland Land League

HLLRA

Highland Land Law Reform Association

INL

Irish National League

LHS

Liverpool Highland Society

LTRA

Land Tenure Reform Association

NAS

National Archives of Scotland

NC

Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of the Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Napier Commission)

NLLGB

National Land League of Great Britain

NLS

National Library of Scotland

NUDL

National Union of Dock Labourers

SHR

Scottish Historical Review

SHRA

Scottish Home Rule Association

SLP

Scottish Labour Party

SLRL

Scottish Land Restoration League

TCD

Trinity College Dublin

UCTLV

United Committee for the Taxation of Land Values

UIL

United Irish League

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chapter one

Scotland, Ireland and the Land Question The teachings of the Land League seem to have penetrated to every district of Skye . . . Ireland was certainly the origin of the Skye agitation. The return of fishermen from Kinsale immediately preceded the first note of discontent in Braes, near Portree; an Irish emissary, Mr. McHugh, followed and his presence was succeeded by an outbreak of lawlessness in Glendale; publications of socialistic tendency were, and still are, circulated among the population through agencies which bear to have been printed in Dublin; cartoons, showing mitred ecclesiastics crushing a snake marked ‘landlordism,’ were distributed . . .1 Malcolm MacNeill, a civil servant with considerable experience of the Scottish Highlands, was dispatched in 1886 by the Scottish Secretary, Arthur Balfour, to gather information on the mood of the crofters, and the reasons behind the ongoing land agitation. The subsequent report demonstrated the long-standing suspicion that a crofting community generally considered loyal, even docile, could only have been roused by external agitators, either ‘Irish’ or ‘socialistic’.2 Such involvement came to be taken for granted by contemporaries, but its precise nature was never truly resolved. The perception that the ‘Crofters’ War’ was an assertion of a shared Celtic consciousness may have had some truth during the 1880s, chiefly because of the dominance of Irish home rule on the political agenda.3 In political terms, however, it was a short-lived and fractious conjunction, a temporary expedient nurtured by radicals aiming at a much more inclusive agitation throughout Britain and Ireland. By 1882, when Edward McHugh was despatched to Skye by the National Land League of Great Britain (NLLGB), three distinctive solutions to the Highland land question were discernable within the broader reform 1

2

3

National Archives of Scotland (NAS), AF67/401, Confidential Reports to the Secretary of Scotland on the Condition of the Western Highlands and Islands (Edinburgh, 1886), 3. H. J. Hanham, ‘The problem of Highland discontent, 1880–1885’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., xix (1969), 32; Parliamentary Papers (PP), 1884, XXXII–XXXVI, The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of the Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (NC Ev.), 9473. V. Durkacz, Decline of the Celtic Languages (Edinburgh, 1983), 203; K. O. Morgan, Rebirth of a Nation – A History of Modern Wales (Oxford, 1981), 38; J. P. D. Dunbabin, Rural Discontent in Nineteenth Century Britain (New York, 1974), 212; J. Graham Jones, ‘Michael Davitt, David Lloyd George and T. E. Ellis, The Welsh experience, 1886’, Welsh History Review, xviii (1996–7), 450–82.

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movement. Perhaps the least radical of the proposals was an extension to the crofting districts of the so-called ‘3 Fs’: a fair rent, to be decided by an impartial tribunal; fixity of tenure, subject to payment of this fair rent; and freedom for the tenant to sell his interest in his holding. Originally associated with the Irish Tenant League of the 1850s, the ‘3 Fs’ had been conceded to Ireland by Gladstone’s government in 1881.4 As a result, it was strongly associated with the Land League agitation and seems to have had an inspirational affect on the crofters in that it proved that some measure of land reform was a possibility. Radicals among the Irish nationalists, notably Michael Davitt, had rejected this method of ‘dual ownership’ – the tenants owning their improvements on their landlord’s land – as an inadequate solution to Irish agrarian discontent at an early stage of the land war, and pushed for more fundamental reforms.5 Dual ownership also had some support among those with an interest in maintaining the social status quo. J. A. Froude, the English historian, effectively advocated benevolent landlordism, along with controlled emigration from areas which could not support their population, but admitted in 1876 that ‘it is possible that a similar law [to the 1870 Irish Land Act] may become necessary in England and Scotland’ as a means of preventing a more radical reform programme.6 In language that would be reflected in later years by land reform advocates such as J. S. Blackie, and various advocates of the Scottish aristocracy, Froude noted that: It used to be said before the American War that masters who were kind to their slaves were the worst enemies that the slaves had. They were made the apology for a detestable institution. I have heard the same objection made to good husbands by advanced advocates of the rights of women.7 Alexander Mackenzie’s publication of a series of articles on the clearances, published in book form in 1883, was perhaps the most obvious manifestation of the concerted attempt by reformers to force the crofters into questioning their relationship with the landed classes, and even though Mackenzie was on the opposite end of the reform spectrum from A. R. Wallace and G. B. Clark, these land nationalisers still used data from Mackenzie’s articles to inform their own influential work.8 Angus 4

5 6

7 8

J. H. Whyte, The Tenant League and Irish Politics in the eighteen-fifties (Dundalk, 1972), 8; P. Bull, Land, Politics and Nationalism – A Study of the Irish Land Question (Dublin, 1996), 38; T. W. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution 1846–1882 (Oxford, 1981), 39. Freeman’s Journal, 17 Nov. 1879; Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 347. J. A. Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, 3rd ser. (London, 1877), 288. See also A. Jackson, Col. Edward Saunderson: Land and Loyalty in Victorian Ireland (Oxford, 1995), 181–2. Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, 276. A. Mackenzie, A History of the Highland Clearances (Inverness, 1883); A. R. Wallace, Land Nationalisation (London, 1882), 56–61; G. B. Clark, A Plea for the Nationalisation of the Land (London, 1882), 9–11.

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Sutherland, in particular, maintained a bitter attack on the Duke of Sutherland and his family throughout the 1880s and 1890s. This stood in contrast to the advice of some newspapers and politicians, who urged good terms between landlord and tenant, possibly strengthened by limited legislative solutions such as security of tenure on the basis of paying a fair rent. Indeed, over time it seemed that the crofters themselves were just as likely as the Irish smallholders to be content with a system of dual ownership. Much of the thinking of the Irish Land League’s ‘left wing’ in Britain was not directed merely at ensuring protection from ‘predatory’ landlords, but at producing, at minimum, a system of peasant proprietary. By this system, first demanded in an Irish context by James Fintan Lalor and John Mitchel in the aftermath of the great famine, the state would buy out the landlords, and finance mortgages, which would be offered to the tenants on easy terms.9 Meetings in Mayo as early as 1876–7 demanded the ‘3 Fs’ as an immediate aim, but with the ultimate goal being peasant proprietary.10 John Devoy reiterated the call at a meeting in New York in 1878.11 Soon afterwards, at a meeting in Brooklyn, Davitt himself called for ‘an agitation for a settlement of the land question on the basis of security against eviction (except non-payment of a just rent) and the gradual growth of a peasant proprietary, holding the title from the state’.12 By 1882, however, Davitt considered that Parnell’s scheme of ‘occupying proprietary’ would be unworkable, and claimed that any system which depended upon the tenants making any advances ‘must be a failure, for the simple reason that they, as a rule, have no money’.13 If peasant proprietary could be portrayed as a solution to rural discontent, it was hardly likely to form the basis for a root-andbranch social reform programme, and as Davitt warned in 1884, the scheme would ‘not destroy, it will only extend the absolute ownership of land’.14 As the economist Joseph Kay had noted as early as 1850, not only had creation of a contented owner-occupier class led to more conservative and more productive tenantries elsewhere in Europe, it avoided interference with the theoretical rights of landlords by supporting free trade in land.15 Likewise, James Daly, editor of the Connaught Telegraph and an active participant in the Land War, informed the Bessborough Commission in 1880 that owner-occupation ‘would make the peasant more conservative than the Conservatives’.16 It has been noted by Allan MacColl that some 9 10 11 12 13

14 15

16

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 40; Bull, Land, Politics and Nationalism, 33. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 191. Irish World, 21 Sep. 1878. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 237; Irish World, 26 Oct. 1878. D. B. Cashman, The life of Michael Davitt, founder of the National Land League, to which is added The Secret History of the Land League, by Michael Davitt (London, 1882), 241–2. M. Davitt, ‘The Irish social problem’, To-day, Apr. 1884. A. Offer, Property and Politics, 1870–1914: Landownership, Law, Ideology and Urban Development in England (Cambridge, 1981), 148–9. M. J. Winstanley, Ireland and the Land Question, 1800–1922 (London, 1984), 39.

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Free Church ministers in the Highlands were already advocating peasant proprietary as an alternative to emigration in the 1850s, and in time it would be adopted by the Conservatives to address the land question in both Ireland and the Scottish Highlands.17 The third train of thought, which itself contained a great deal of internal tension, was a complete abolition of landlords via ‘land nationalisation’ or ‘land restoration’. These terms were often, in the early days of the general land agitation in Victorian Britain and Ireland, used interchangeably, but Henry George’s popularity seemed to push radical solutions further into the realms of popular politics. The perception of direct Irish intervention in the Highlands stems from the fact that the radicals of the Glasgow Land League, and later the ‘Home Government’ branch of the Irish National League (INL), began to promote land nationalisation/restoration in Scotland. The problem with this was that it underestimated, if not totally ignored, the fact that the Irish Nationalist leadership – under Parnell – were deeply suspicious of such radical notions. Therefore, the focus of Michael Davitt on Scotland after the ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ should be seen in the context of ‘loyal opposition’ to Parnell. Davitt reminisced about an old Mayo man who, upon hearing a speech advocating a root-and-branch destruction of landlordism, asked ‘Arrah, to who would we pay the rint, thin, sir?’. This, although merely anecdotal evidence, cannot suggest a deep devotion to the principle of land ownership among Irish smallholders. Davitt sardonically remarked that ‘manifestly education in this instance had progressed a little too rapidly’.18 With Ireland comparatively settled, as the land courts established by the 1881 Act began their work, the rumblings of a rural land agitation in the Scottish Highlands (and, to a lesser extent, north-east Scotland), along with a stronger urban base for Scottish radicalism, seemed to hold out the promise of a more radical reform movement than looked possible in Ireland at the time. As Vogel has noted, it is this urban agitation which set the Victorian land agitation apart from earlier movements: We find, then, as a distinct feature of land reform in its nineteenthcentury setting that it no longer confines itself to agricultural land and to the problems of a rural economy. Henry George could find a mass following among the urban working classes because he was able to demonstrate a direct, causal connection between the private ownership of urban sites and the misery of slum dwellers in the modern city.19 The historiography of Davitt’s career, dominated by the work of T. W. Moody, has emphasised the Land War period, and, therefore, associated 17 18

19

A. W. MacColl, Land, Faith and the Crofting Community (Edinburgh, 2006), 20–57. M. Davitt, The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland: or, the Story of the Land League Revolution (London & New York, 1904), 164. U. Vogel, ‘The land-question: a liberal theory of communal property’, History Workshop Journal, xxvii (1989), 108.

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him strongly with rural agitation.20 The Highlands and Islands, therefore, as a rural parallel to the west of Ireland, have taken precedence over Davitt’s interest in the urban lowlands when seeking to explain his activity in Scotland. This is in spite of the fact that he only visited the Highlands on three occasions: in 1882 he spoke in Inverness Music Hall, and in 1887 he had a tour of Caithness, Sutherlandshire, Ross-shire and Skye, before returning later in the year to address an audience in Oban.21 The Irish interest in the Highlands before 1886, though, was maintained by a knot of urban radicals, led by John Ferguson, but with a close interest maintained by Davitt, centred on the Glasgow Land League and its successor bodies.22 These people wanted to prevent a ‘paltry settlement of the land question’, as had happened in Ireland, from occurring in Scotland. It was likely that direct Irish nationalist involvement would hinder, rather than stimulate, a land agitation in the Highlands, and the Irish involved showed an awareness of this. Men such as the Inverness publisher, Alexander MacKenzie, civil engineer and Rogart native John Mackay, and his friend, Professor J. S. Blackie, certainly advocated land tenure reform, but stressed that it must be of ‘native’ origin, and favoured dual ownership.23 Davitt himself, speaking in 1882 after McHugh had spent three months on Skye promoting land nationalisation, went to great lengths to stress that the agitation was being run by ‘Scotchmen’. Those interested in curtailing the radical agitation, notably newspapers such as the Liberal Scotsman or Inverness Courier, or the Tory Northern Chronicle, were – at least in Scotland – the most consistent promoters of the Irish origins of the ‘socialist’ agitators, hoping that an association with the agrarian unrest in Ireland would dampen pubic sympathy with the Highlands. The attitude of the agitators themselves in the American press complicates the historiography, with Davitt, Ferguson, Murdoch, and McHugh all playing up the Irish/Celtic aspects of the Highland agitation for fund-raising purposes. As will be seen, however, it was general policy of the Irish radicals to play down any direct Irish intervention in Scotland, and to emphasise the ‘home-grown’ nature of the agitation. The crofters themselves were aware of the symbolic importance placed on their agitation by the lowland and Irish radicals, and the ‘Crofters’ War’ raised their own political awareness and sense of participation in a wider 20

21 22

23

This imbalance is now being redressed. See C. King, Michael Davitt (Dublin, 1999); C. King (ed.), Michael Davitt: Collected Writings, 8 vols (London, 2001); L. A. McNeil, ‘Land, Labor and Liberation: Michael Davitt and the Irish Question in the Age of British Democratic Reform, 1878–1906’, Ph.D. thesis (Boston College, 2002); L. Marley, ‘Ideological and Political Junctions: The Later Political Thought and Activism of Michael Davitt, 1882–1906’, Ph.D. thesis (National University of Ireland, Galway, 2005). See below, 147–53. E. W. McFarland, John Ferguson 1836–1906: Irish Issues in Scottish Politics (East Linton, 2003); J. E. Handley, The Irish in Modern Scotland (Cork, 1947), 269–70. John Mackay lived in Shrewsbury in the late 1870s, before moving to Hereford, and was therefore often known simply as ‘Hereford’.

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British political process, especially after the extension of the franchise in 1884–5. Land nationalisation, however, did not capture the imagination of the crofters themselves in the way that it fascinated their urban advocates. The eventual realisation of this apathy by the radicals, added to the increased possibilities in the cities, led to a gradual disengagement from the Highlands. This is especially notable after 1893 when Ferguson’s election to Glasgow City Council on a land restoration platform stood in stark contrast to a moribund and divided Highland Land League. Even after 1886, however, much of the ardour disappeared from the radical activity in the Highlands. Ironically, therefore, the huge enthusiasm which was engendered for Irish home rule in the Highlands came from men who, in the run up to 1886, had become increasingly disenchanted with Parnellism. Irish home rule was always of the utmost importance to these people, but a failure to acknowledge the lines of cleavage within the Irish nationalist movement distorted the impression of the Irish interest in the Highlands among contemporaries, and, therefore, in the subsequent historiography. In fact, hostile elements of the press were well aware of the tension between Parnell and Davitt, and reported it in mocking terms. Yet, in presenting the Irish interest in the Highlands the same columns described a united community. Neither in Ireland, nor in Irish communities in Scotland, was the Irish nationalist body politic as monolithic as this implied. In seeking to elucidate the relationship between Ireland and the Scottish Highlands during the land agitation period, therefore, it is possible to find both comparative aspects, as well as direct Irish involvement, either in terms of personnel or in the transmission of ideas. * Many aspects of the shared past of Scotland and Ireland make them suitable as historical comparators, something highlighted in the pioneering work of Cullen and Smout in the 1970s, who remarked that ‘even on the most superficial examination it was clear that both countries have been profoundly affected by a similar geography, a Celtic heritage, and by a history of close political and economic links with England’.24 Alongside issues surrounding the hegemony of the English language in Irish and Scottish Gaeldom, it is perhaps the land question which has most commonly been employed to illustrate parallels between the two societies.25 Hobsbawm’s 24

25

L. M. Cullen and T. C. Smout (eds), Comparative Aspects of Scottish and Irish Economic and Social History, 1600–1900 (Edinburgh, 1977), preface. C. Ó Gráda, Black ’47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy and Memory (Princeton, 1999), 112; T. M. Devine, ‘Why the Highlands did not starve: Ireland and Highland Scotland during the potato famine’, in S. J. Connolly, R. A. Houston, and R. J. Morris (eds), Conflict, Identity and Economic Development, Ireland and Scotland, 1600–1939 (Preston, 1995), 77–88.

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analysis reflects the way in which Ireland has come to be used as a shorthand way of describing economic conditions in rural Scotland since the eighteenth century: Though all parts of eighteenth century Scotland were poor, not all were economically progressing. The Highlands, and to a lesser extent the agrarian peninsula of Galloway in the extreme south-west, were moving into a state of permanent social and economic crisis, similar to that of Ireland, even to the parallel catastrophes of famine and mass emigration.26 Land, therefore, has been identified as one of the areas which had the potential to unite Scotland and Ireland, in spite of their very different attitudes towards the union with England.27 The comparisons are tempting, but need to be set in a context of certain contrasts between the two regions: landlord–tenant relations in Scotland were complicated by the enduring presence of hereditary clan chiefs as landlords throughout the nineteenth century, and by a much smaller degree of religious sectarianism between landlords and tenants.28 There were also greater possibilities for the Highlanders to migrate to urban areas within Scotland, than for the Irish within Ireland, although the west of Scotland was also an outlet for Irish migrants. Reaction to the evictions in the Highlands has often been seen as muted, especially in comparison to the various agrarian agitations which took place in nineteenth-century Ireland. Protest did exist, however, and by the middle of the century the early clearances had already become the subject of fierce anti-landlord propaganda.29 Nevertheless, it has been argued that ‘prior to the 1880s . . . the land agitation was made up of a series of apolitical and largely unconnected incidents. During the 1880s, both features would be dramatically altered’.30 The contrast which was presented by contemporaries between the reactions of the Irish and Highland peasantry to their circumstances, though 26 27

28

29

30

E. J. Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire (Harmondsworth, 1985 edn), 301–3. C. J. Dewey, ‘Celtic agrarian legislation and the Celtic revival: historicist implications of Gladstone’s Irish and Scottish Land Acts 1870–1886’, Past and Present, lxiv (1974), 42–3. L. Young, ‘Spaces for famine: a comparative geographical analysis of famine in Ireland and the Highlands in the 1840s’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New ser., xxi (1996), 669; A. G. Newby, ‘ “Scotia Major and Scotia Minor”: Ireland and the birth of the Scottish land agitation, 1878–82’, Irish Economic and Social History, xxxi (2004), 24; E. A. Cameron, ‘Communication or separation? Reactions to Irish land agitation in the Highlands of Scotland, c. 1870–1910’, English Historical Review, cxx (2005), 634; Dunbabin, Rural Discontent, 181. C. W. J. Withers, ‘Rural protest in the Highlands of Scotland and in Ireland, 1850–1930’, in S. J. Connolly, R. A. Houston and R. J. Morris (eds), Conflict, Identity and Economic Development, Ireland and Scotland, 1600–1939 (Preston, 1995), 179; E. J. Richards, ‘How tame were the Highlanders during the clearances?’, Scottish Studies, xvii (1973), 35–50. E. A. Cameron, ‘Land agitation and reform in the Highlands and Islands’, in M. Lynch (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford, 2001), 374.

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not unimportant in relation to how the crofters were perceived, should be qualified by the realisation that the levels of rural protest in Ireland were exceptional in a British context, and bound up with nationalism in a way not seen elsewhere in these islands.31 Rural unrest in England during the nineteenth century also spawned occasional regional violence.32 Like Scotland, this has been portrayed as a temporary reaction to specific local circumstances rather than as part of a long-term agitation, but it drew on a tradition which stretched back to the Diggers and the Levellers of the seventeenth century, and this in turn fed into the broader social movement associated with Chartism in the 1830s and 1840s.33 Recent commentators have called for the Highlands to be included in a ‘consistently integrated British history’ and for the crofters to be seen in the context of ‘the emergence of ideologically explicit class organizations’.34 If the crofters’ own perception of their role was ambiguous in this respect, the involvement of Ferguson, Davitt, and McHugh, and even John Murdoch, should be seen in the light of reform movements throughout Britain and Europe. Their commitment to improving the socio-economic position of the crofters was absolutely sincere, but their sympathies were far broader than has often been implied by a historiography which has focused on their work in politicising rural communities on the periphery of Britain and Ireland.

31

32 33

34

Cameron, ‘Communication or separation?’, 639; T. M. Devine, Clanship to Crofters’ War (Manchester, 1994), 210. Withers, ‘Rural protest’, 173, n. 7. Vogel, ‘The land-question’, 107; A. Howkins, ‘From diggers to Dongas: the land in English radicalism, 1649–2000’, History Workshop Journal, liv (2002), 9; F. E. Huggett, The Land Question and European Society (London, 1975), 65, 73–4; J. Burchardt, Paradise Lost: Rural Idyll and Social Change Since 1800 (London, 2002), 35–45; Dunbabin, Rural Discontent, 27–61; J. Bronstein, Land Reform and Working Class Experience in Britain and the United States, 1800–1862 (Stanford, 1999), 4. T. Brotherstone, A. Clarke, and K. Whelan, ‘Rethinking the trajectory of modern British history: An Ireland–Scotland approach’, in T. Brotherstone, A. Clarke and K. Whelan (eds), These Fissured Isles: Ireland, Scotland and British History, 1798–1848 (Edinburgh, 2005), 38.

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chapter two

‘A Sort of Fenian Conclave in the Country’: The Development of a Highland Land Question The ‘Crofters’ War’ ultimately had its genesis in the post-Culloden reorganisation of Highland estates, the creation of crofting and the large-scale clearance of people for sheep, most notoriously in Sutherlandshire.1 Largescale social engineering, often leading to migration either abroad or to urban areas such as Glasgow or Dundee, continued throughout the nineteenth century.2 Thus, even prior to the famine, the Glencalvie evictions in Easter Ross had brought landlord–tenant relations in the Highlands back to public notice, and prompted some discussion of land reform.3 Significant Irish emigration to Scotland had commenced in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and work by McCaffrey and Mitchell has indicated that these immigrants played a much more significant role in the political life of Scotland, particularly in the Chartist and Reform movements, than had been previously recognised.4 Certainly, this immigration allowed Irish political issues to assume a great importance in communities outwith Ireland itself, and the politicisation of the Irish in Britain was to be a major factor in the crofters’ cause becoming a national issue in the 1880s. The famines which ravaged both the Highlands and Ireland in the 1840s led to new waves of migration to the central lowlands, and these migrants helped to shape both Scottish and Irish politics in the second half of the century. Recent research has demonstrated not only that the number of Highlanders arriving in the urban districts was considerably less than the numbers of Irish, but also that those migrants assimilated much more readily.5 1

2 3 4

5

E. Richards, History of the Highland Clearances, Volume 1: Agrarian Transformation and the Evictions, 1746–1886 (London, 1982), 3–40; 161–80. Devine, Clanship to Crofters’ War, 54–62. MacColl, Land, Faith and the Crofting Community, 23–5. M. J. Mitchell, The Irish in the West of Scotland, 1797–1848 (Edinburgh, 1998), 64, 69–74, 144–210; J. McCaffrey, ‘Irish immigrants and radical movements in the west of Scotland in the early nineteenth century’, Innes Review, xxxix (1988). E. A. Cameron, ‘Embracing the past: the Highlands in ninteenth century Scotland’, in D. Broun, R. J. Finlay and M. Lynch (eds), Image and Identity: The Making and Re-making of Scotland Through the Ages (Edinburgh, 1998), 202; W. Sloan, ‘Religious affiliation and the immigrant experience: Catholic Irish and Protestant Highlanders in Glasgow, 1830–1850’, in T. M. Devine (ed.), Irish Immigrants and Scottish Society in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Edinburgh, 1991), 67–90.

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The extent of migration from the crofting districts can be overstated, and much of this migration was seasonal, but contemporary impressions and fears were of a considerable influx.6 McCaffrey has emphasised the difference between pre- and post-famine Irish migration, explaining that ‘the Irish already here had been hopefully searching for work and a better life. Those coming after 1846 were fleeing famine and fever’.7 A combination of squalid living conditions and their availability as cheap labour reinforced prejudices against the ‘Celtic race’, both Highlander and Irish, among all shades of political opinion.8 Though there was only very limited interaction between the two communities at this stage, a ‘community of the mind’ developed in the construction by outsiders of a racial image of helpless Gaels. A bitter folk memory developed in both sets of migrants, with the famine being bound up in Highland memory as part of the general clearance narrative. Along with appeals to a common Celtic tradition of landholding, the shared suffering of the 1840s would be put to great propaganda use by the crofters’ advocates in the 1880s. The Tory Fifeshire Journal took up the racial theme in stark terms: Ethnologically the Celtic race is an inferior one, and attempt to disguise it as we may, there is naturally and rationally no getting rid of the great cosmical fact that it is destined to give way – slowly and painfully it may be – but still most certainly – before the higher capabilities of the Anglo-Saxon. In the meantime, and apparently and part of the natural law which had already pushed the Celt from Continental Europe westward, emigration to America is the only available remedy for the miseries of the race, whether squatting listlessly in filth and rags in Ireland, or dreaming in idleness and poverty in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.9 While the Whig Scotsman often matched this kind of rhetoric, it also expressed impatience at the apparent unwillingness of Highlanders to leave their native parishes: There is this broad difference between the case of the Irish and the Highlanders – that the former are a nation, counting by the millions, who can hardly, so to speak, escape from themselves; while the latter 6

7 8 9

C. W. J. Withers, Urban Highlanders: Highland-Lowland Migration and Urban Gaelic Culture, 1700–1900 (East Linton, 1998), 68–75; T. M. Devine, ‘Highland migration to lowland Scotland, 1760–1860’, SHR, lxii (1983), 137–49; T. M. Devine, The Great Highland Famine (Edinburgh, 1988), 197; E. J. T. Collins, ‘Migrant labour in British agriculture in the nineteenth century’, Economic History Review, New Ser., xxix (1976), 47–8; W. Sloan, ‘Employment opportunities and migrant group assimilation: the Highlanders and Irish in Glasgow, 1840–1860’, in T. M. Devine and A. J. G. Cummings, (eds), Industry, Business and Society in Scotland since 1700 (Edinburgh, 1994), 184–97. J. F. McCaffrey, Scotland in the Nineteenth Century (Basingstoke, 1998), 39. T. Johnston, A History of the Working Classes in Scotland (Glasgow, 1929), 335. Fifeshire Journal, 11 Sep. 1851, quoted in K. Fenyö, Contempt, Sympathy and Romance (East Linton, 2000), 85–6.

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are but a segment of the nation, counting only by thousands, and have to deal with no insurmountable obstacle to merging in the larger and more prosperous mass. On one side of the Firth of Clyde, you find the county of Ayr, teeming with industry and plenty, and on the other, the county of Argyle, rotting in idleness and famine.10 Editorials tackling the presence of Celts in the cities, therefore, focused their ire on the Irish. If the Highlanders were being encouraged to leave their crofts behind and better themselves elsewhere, the Irish were a different matter, generally portrayed as unimprovable.11 The apparent inability of the Highland crofters and Irish smallholders to make a consistent living from the land stimulated discussion on the subject from a rural, ‘Celtic periphery’ perspective.12 The immediate and glaringly obvious manifestation of the land problem in the wake of the famine, however, was an acceleration of migration to urban districts, with the attendant overcrowding and social dislocation. With the North Channel not proving as ‘insurmountable’ as the Scotsman had suggested, the Irish took most of the blame for starting a process of general ‘degradation’ among urban communities.13 Importantly, therefore, many of those who had migrated from this periphery had now experienced both the urban and the rural sides of the land question. Edward McHugh, for example, described how his own family was forced to move from rural Co. Tyrone to the urban environment of Greenock: . . . his family had been driven out of the land in their native country of Ireland. They were forced to emigrate to Scotland, and struggle along, and it was this that made him a student of economic questions, and first set him to inquire the why and wherefore of many things.14 By the late 1860s, there was apparently enough discontentment for the Westminster Review, to imply that the towns could be fruitful ground for a Gaelic social agitation to take root: The Gaels, rooted from the dawn of history on the slopes of the northern mountains, have been thinned out and thrown away like young turnips too thickly planted. Noble gentlemen and noble ladies have shown a flintiness of heart and a meanness of detail in carrying out their clearings upon which it is revolting to dwell; and, after all, are the evils of over-population cured? Does not the disease still spring up under the very torture of the knife? Are not the crofts slowly and silently taken at every opportunity out of the hands of the peasantry? Where a Highlander has to leave his hut there is now no resting place 10 11 12 13 14

Scotsman, 26 Jul. 1851. See also Scotsman, 5 Nov. 1851. Scotsman, 25 Aug. 1855. Scotsman, 8 Oct. 1851; Fenyö, Contempt, Sympathy and Romance, 86. Scotsman, 13 Sep. 1848. Auckland Star, 14 Oct. 1912.

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for him save the cellars and attics of the closes of Glasgow, or some other large centre of employment, and it has been noticed that the poor Gael is even more liable than the Irishman to sink under the debasement in which he is then immersed.15 While both sets of Gaels may have started to mingle in the cities, however, the Fenian scare which was gripping Britain meant that any comparison between Scots and Irish, either on land or constitutional matters, was improbable.16 Most links between the revolutionary Irish group and Scotland were, at this stage, an urban phenomenon, but the proximity of the north-east of Ireland to Argyll meant that shockwaves from the panic managed to radiate out to the crofting districts. The fear of Scots fishermen interacting with their Irish counterparts and imbibing revolutionary notions had a long tradition, and was something which would surface repeatedly in the official quest for an explanation of the ‘Crofters’ Wars’ of the 1880s. In 1799, with the United Irishmen rebellion still fresh in people’s minds, Sir James Grant of Grant had written to Henry Dundas with the claim that ‘there has I am told been endeavours lately to disseminate improper principles’, among the South Uist fishermen, ‘to which their vicinity to Ireland may make them liable’.17 With the Mull of Kintyre only twelve miles from Ireland, allegations of arms-running through Campeltown in 1866 had a ring of truth, but this geographical proximity, which centuries earlier had promoted a common Gaelic culture, was now, for many, a source of fear rather than kinship.18 * Far from being limited to the ‘Celtic periphery’, land reform was an issue which, throughout the nineteenth century, was able to unite working-class and middle-class radicals.19 Reformers, like Paine, Ogilvie, and Spence all demanded land reform in their radical programmes, and the Anti-Corn Law League had linked ‘free trade in land’ to their calls for free trade in corn.20 The reform, corn law and land issues all fed into a Chartist movement which flourished briefly in Scotland during the 1830s and 1840s.21 15 16

17

18 19 20

21

Quoted in Wallace, Land Nationalisation, 71–2. E. J. McFarland, ‘ “A reality and yet impalpable”: The Fenian panic in mid-Victorian Scotland’, SHR, lxxvi (1998), 199–223. NAS, Seafield Muniments, GD 248/1529. Lord Lieutenant’s County (Inverness) Letter Book, 1798–1801. Grant to Dundas, 13 May 1799. Richards, History of the Highland Clearances, Volume 1, 487. W. H. Fraser, Scottish Popular Politics: From Radicalism to Labour (Edinburgh, 2000), 94. Fraser, Scottish Popular Politics, 95; T. M. Pärssinen, ‘Thomas Spence and the origins of English land nationalization’, Journal of the History of Ideas, xxxix (1973), 135. Howkins, ‘Diggers to Dongas’, 9; A. Wilson, The Chartist Movement in Scotland (Manchester, 1970); Fraser, Scottish Popular Politics, 48–70; M. Chase, ‘The People’s Farm’: English Radical Agrarianism, 1775–1840 (Oxford, 1988), 121–45.

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Among other radical proposals, the Chartist convention of 1851 suggested that ‘the land is the inalienable inheritance of all mankind; monopoly is therefore repugnant to the laws of God and nature. The nationalisation of the land is the only true basis of a national prosperity.’22 Although Feargus O’Connor’s ‘Land Plan’ was not universally supported even within Chartism, an examination of the speeches and writings of the radicals involved in the Highland land agitation of the 1880s, chiefly concerned with land nationalisation or the ‘single tax’ theories of Henry George, consistently demonstrated the debt owed to this Chartist philosophy.23 In the face of a continued reluctance by government to interfere with the hereditary rights of land, stalwart radicals such as John Bright and Richard Cobden continued to call for the extension of free trade principles to land, particularly via the abolition of the laws of primogeniture and entail, an issue which was taken up by the radical wing of the Liberal Party.24 As part of this wider process, but also as a result of local grievances relating to the operation of the game laws and the law of hypothec – which gave landlords security against rent arrears based on the sequestration or sale of the tenants’ stock or crops – land reform also rose up the political agenda in Scotland.25 An agitation for reform of the game laws developed in the northeast, led by William McCombie of Tillyfour and his namesake cousin, editor of the Aberdeen Free Press, which gave tenant farmers a voice in the area.26 The resistance to reform of hypothec by English M.P.s also allowed this aspect of land politics to develop into an ongoing cause for Scottish reformers.27 In Glasgow, John Ferguson, the Antrim-born Protestant who would be a major figure in nationalist, labour, and municipal politics until his untimely death in 1906, was one of several organisers of a ‘Democratic Party’, an informal radical talking shop, in the mid-1860s.28 As a young man in Belfast, Ferguson attended evening classes under the auspices of Queen’s College, and as a result became personally acquainted with T. E. Cliffe Leslie, the college’s Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy.29 Cliffe Leslie’s interest in the land question, and especially his historical and comparative 22

23

24

25

26 27 28 29

Quoted in J. Saville, ‘Henry George and the British labor movement’, Science and Society, xxiv (1960), 323. M. Chase, ‘ “Wholesome object lessons”: The Chartist land plan in retrospect’, English Historical Review, cxviii (2003), 59–60. Scotsman, 5 Dec. 1860; D. Martin, ‘The agricultural interest and its critics, 1840–1914’, in J. R. Wordie (ed.), Agriculture and Politics in England, 1815–1939 (Basingstoke, 2000), 133; F. M. L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1963), 283–4. McCaffrey, Scotland in the Nineteenth Century, 67–8; R. H. Campbell, Owners and Occupiers (Aberdeen, 1991), 112–13; J. Caird, ‘The opening address of James Caird, Esq., CB, FRS, President of the Statistical Society, delivered on Tuesday 15th November, 1881’, Journal of the Statistical Society of London, xliv (1881), 637. Fraser, Scottish Popular Politics, 95–6; Scotsman, 27 Mar. 1869. Scotsman, 26 Jun. 1867. McFarland, John Ferguson, 30. McFarland, John Ferguson, 12–13.

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approach to the subject, would have, along with Cobden, J. S. Mill and others, a profound and enduring influence on Ferguson, and by extension on the radical reform movement in Glasgow.30 In spite of demonstrating ‘a certain tension and ambivalence . . . towards Ireland and her people’, Mill’s attitudes towards the Irish Land Question developed after the great famine into the radical England and Ireland, published in 1868.31 Mill’s position as a social theorist ensured that he was ‘in the vanguard of those espousing progressive policies’, and Ferguson was certainly one of his devotees.32 Ernest Jones, the Chartist veteran, could still attract large crowds to lecture on land nationalisation, and the Chartist influence would be an enduring one.33 Thus, interest in the Irish land question grew in Scotland not only because of the link through Ferguson, but also because it was a major plank of the general British radical agenda. Although Mill envisaged Irish social development occurring within a British context, revised land laws were to be the basis for this change.34 Along with John Murdoch, Ferguson provided the organisational and ideological glue which, at least initially, bound most of the other reformers with an interest in the Highlands.35 * In a recent survey of the culture and society of the two nations, McIlvanney and Ryan demanded a more rigorous critique of notions surrounding ‘ “Romantic” Celtic camaraderie’ in Irish–Scottish studies.36 There seems to have been nothing inevitable about Irish involvement in the ‘Crofters’ War’ of the 1880s, and only fleeting references in the decades immediately prior to its outbreak hint that there was anything other than mutual apathy, or 30

31

32

33

34

35

36

E. Eldon Barry, Nationalization in British Politics: The Historical Background (Stanford, 1965), 47–77; Burchardt, Paradise Lost, 78–9; W. H. Fraser, ‘Trade unions, reform and the election of 1868 in Scotland’, SHR, l (1971), 144. B. L. Kinzer, ‘J. S. Mill and Irish land: A reassessment’, Historical Journal, xxvii (1984), 114. See also E. D. Steele, ‘J. S. Mill and the Irish Question: reform, and the integrity of the Empire, 1865–1870’, Historical Journal, xiii (1970), 434; L. Zastoupil, ‘Moral government: John Stuart Mill on Ireland’, Historical Journal, xxvi (1983), 707–17; McFarland, John Ferguson, 28–31. R. B. Ekelund Jr. and R. D. Tollison, ‘The new political economy of J. S. Mill: the means to social justice’, Canadian Journal of Economics, ix (1976), 214. Scotsman, 3 Sep. 1868; M. Taylor, Ernest Jones and the Romance of Politics, 1819–1869 (Oxford, 2003), 222–3. McFarland, John Ferguson, 31; B. Price, ‘Mr. Mill on land’, Blackwood’s Magazine, July 1871, 30–45. For Murdoch, see Cameron, ‘Communication or separation?’, 633, 636–7; J. Hunter, ‘The Gaelic connection, the Highlands, Ireland and nationalism, 1873–1922’, SHR, liv (1975), 179; J. D. Young, The Very Bastards of Creation: Scottish International Radicalism, a Biographical Study, 1707–1995 (Glasgow, 1996), 156–7; J. Hunter (ed.), For the People’s Cause: From the Writings of John Murdoch (Edinburgh, 1986), 5. L. McIlvanney and R. Ryan (eds), Ireland and Scotland: Culture and Society, 1700–2000 (Dublin, 2005), 14.

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antipathy, between Scotland and Ireland. Images of the Irish in the Scottish popular press reflected common Victorian stereotypes, and Curtis noted that ‘those most active in simianizing Paddy were frequently of Scottish . . . extraction. The Lowlands in general and Edinburgh in particular proved a fertile breeding ground for various shades of Hibernophobia.’37 Confessional differences were also important, and the equation of Irish political activity with Catholicism would persist throughout the nineteenth century, something which often required combating by radicals. Irish impressions of the Scots were scarcely any more flattering – an image of hard-drinking, capitalist Presbyterians, imbued with an ethos of ‘Improvement’ and thoroughly implicated in the British/Imperial system. The image of Scotland as ‘North Britain’ for much of the nineteenth century not only presents a clear contrast with the almost perpetual nationalist agitation which was taking place in Ireland, it demonstrates the potential for antagonism between the two nations.38 Before ‘Celtic solidarity’ became a part of some radicals’ agendas in the 1870s, a great deal of the contemporary platform rhetoric spoke casually of the ‘three nations’ of the British Isles, implying that Wales had become a mere appendage of England.39 And yet, Scotland’s position as a distinct nation which was, like England, contented within the British framework, made it a much greater object of derision and disdain than Wales among Irish nationalists. A Scottish Home Ruler recalled in 1891 that: Daniel O’Connell, to propitiate an ignorant Irish mob, had made the following remark: ‘The Scotch boast of having never been subdued by the English, and of having owed all their prosperity to the maintenance of their independence. I will tell you the reason why they were never conquered – their country was not worth conquering.’40 In seeking to solve the ‘Irish Question’ in 1868, Goldwin Smith, former Regius Professor of History at Oxford University, looked to Scotland as a role model.41 The implication made by Smith, that Scotland had surrendered its national identity to England, was angrily refuted by correspondents to the Scotsman, which had attempted to reflect Liberal opinion in Edinburgh since its foundation in 1817: Mr Goldwin Smith affects to detail the relative conditions of Scotland and England prior to, at, and subsequent to the Treaty of Union. Certain facts are, however, either very grandly or very stupidly ignored, 37 38

39

40 41

L. P. Curtis, Apes and Angels: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature (Newton Abbot, 1971), 96–8. McCaffrey, Scotland in the Nineteenth Century, 55–82; C. Kidd, ‘Race, Empire and the limits of nineteenth century Scottish nationhood’, Historical Journal, xlvi (2003), 873–92. See, however, M. Cragoe, ‘The anatomy of an eviction campaign: The General Election of 1868 in Wales and its aftermath’, Rural History, ix (1998), 177–93. ‘Home rule for Scotland’, The Scots Magazine, vii (Jun.–Nov. 1891), 36–7. G. Smith, The Irish Question (London, 1868), 20–3.

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and to these I would now call attention . . . Mr Goldwin Smith has innocently and inadvertently fallen into the very English failing of grandly ignoring what, it appears, he by no means thoroughly understands. Scotch nationality is separate from that of England, is quite as ancient, and to this hour as well defined in every national peculiarity as that of the sister country. Scotchmen are, however, peaceable and welldisposed subjects of the British Crown, and uniformly regard their union with England as an unmixed benefit.42 John Mitchel, editor of the United Irishman, had used Scotland as a byword for everything Ireland should seek to avoid with respect to national self-determination. In 1861, he wrote that ‘so long as this hatred and horror [towards England] should last – so long as our island refuses to become, like Scotland, a contented province of her enemy, Ireland is not finally subdued’.43 This notion persisted, with the following quotation appearing in the Dublin-based Freeman’s Journal, on the eve of the Land War: For many years after the union with Scotland, insults directed against all Scotchmen, on account of their poverty or personal defects, formed the favourite condiment of popular oratory and literature in England, while any individual outrage by a Scotchman was made a matter of reproach to the Northern nation as a whole. As the Union became consolidated the practice died out, and Irishmen succeeded to the place in English pillory once filled by the Caledonians.44 There was little suggestion in Ireland during in the 1870s that ‘North Britain’ might come to be considered a partner in the land and national questions. Neither was the identification of Scotland as a vital cog in the Imperial wheel borne of passive observation of British politics. The presence of Scottish landowners in parts of Ireland fuelled a mutual antipathy between sections of Irish and Scottish society, and the post-famine encroachment of sheep-farming, in particular, was identified with Scots.45 In 1856 Lord George Hill gave over huge swathes of his estate in Donegal to Scottish sheep-farmers, causing a great deal of local aggravation.46 Scots farmers and their sheep were specifically blamed for outbreaks of rinderpest disease in 1865, and were ‘particular targets of agrarian outrage’ in Mayo in 1870.47 Whereas Highlanders, often restrained by ties of kinship, poured their opprobrium on a wide range of targets after the early nineteenth-century clearances, the tenants of 1860s Donegal almost universally 42 43 44 45

46 47

Scotsman, 2 Jan. 1868. J. Mitchel, The Final Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps) (Dublin, 1861), 325. Daily Telegraph, 15 Apr. 1878; Freeman’s Journal, 16 Apr. 1878. Advertisements offering ‘reasonable encouragement’ for Scots farmers to settle in Ireland appeared regularly in Scotsman, e.g., 19 Feb. 1851. L. Dolan, Land War and Eviction in Derryveagh, 1840–1865 (Dundalk, c. 1980), 38. Scotsman, 7 Sep. 1865; D. E. Jordan Jr., Land and Popular Politics in Ireland (Cambridge, 1994), 187.

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identified ‘Scotch adventurers’ as being behind the local evictions. A Donegal correspondent to Glasgow’s only contemporary Irish newspaper strongly condemned the ‘perfidious schemes’ of the incomers: We of this country are now becoming quite familiar with the workings of a secret committee possessing great power and influence. It was manifest at Gweedore in the shape of malicious injuries for Scotch sheep, levied on behalf of certain animals of the same nationality, until that part of the country has become depopulated by thousands of the original inhabitants.48 The most notorious case of eviction in Donegal at this time took place on John George Adair’s estate at Glenveagh. Even Adair, born and raised in Queen’s County and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, was identified as a Scot because of his Wigtownshire ancestry, and his choice of Scots as land agents further alienated him from his tenants.49 Vaughan has argued of Donegal that: The problems of sheep-farming were exacerbated by the character of the shepherds, mainly Scotsmen, some of whom combined strict ideas on the rights of property with loose notions of how to protect them. Of the group of Scotsmen who came within knowledge of the police during the events in Derryveagh, the best that can be said of their moral character was that their faults had the dubious simplicity of simplicity: perjury, theft, murder, adultery were at one time or another imputed to them.50 It was the murder of James Murray, a native of Perthshire, after a dispute over shooting rights and sheep trespass, which lay at the heart of the unrest. Unable to identify an individual culprit, Adair evicted 244 people, leading the Freeman’s Journal to describe the ejectments as ‘the largest . . . that have occurred in Donegal, or indeed any other part of Ireland’.51 In spite of these removals, antagonism towards Adair’s Scottish agents remained, leading to the death of Adam Grierson, described by the local police as ‘a Scotchman of a very low class . . . drunken and reckless’, in 1863.52 Links with Scottish landlordism were also highlighted during the debate on Derryveagh in Parliament, which saw both sides evoke the Sutherland clearances as a precursor to the events in Donegal: 48 49 50

51

52

Glasgow Free Press, 4 May 1861. Dolan, Land War and Eviction in Derryveagh, 26–31. W. E. Vaughan, Sin, Sheep and Scotsmen: John George Adair and the Derryveagh Evictions, 1861 (Belfast, 1983), 20–1. Freeman’s Journal, 13 Apr. 1861; Vaughan, Sin, Sheep and Scotsmen, 11; Scotsman, 26 Nov. 1860, 21 Jan. 1861, 14 Apr. 1863, 10 Feb. 1872; Tyrone Constitution, 25 Jan. 1861; Glasgow Free Press, 16 Feb., 13 Apr., 20 Apr., 4 May, 25 May 1861. Vaughan, Sin, Sheep and Scotsmen, 46–47; Scotsman, 14 Apr. 1863; The Times, 11 Apr. 1863. Grierson was apparently from Buittle, Kirkcudbrightshire.

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[Lord Naas] continued with his defence of Adair’s actions that there was nothing new in this procedure, because similar events had overtaken the people of Sutherland in Scotland, and these evictions had not caused even a ripple of condemnation. He neglected to mention all the pertinent facts as Mr Monsell was quick to point out. The Sutherland evictions in no way paralleled the treatment meted out to the Derryveagh people. The Sutherland people had been humanely treated and their removal to Canada conducted with care and even liberality. Besides, even if it was an acceptable corollary, it should not be cited as justification for such proceedings.53 Myth and rumour quickly overtook the case, but Derryveagh demonstrated that Scots in Ireland were as implicated in landlordism as the English. Conversely, the attacks on the shepherds as reported in the Scottish press would tend to heighten the perception of Ireland as an inherently violent place.54 As the agitation, which culminated in the 1870 Land Act, grew in volume reform was viewed more in a European or Imperial context than a ‘British’ one.55 Various models were considered worthy of consideration and described in detail by the government, in newspapers and in pamphlets, and the higher productivity of peasant proprietors in continental Europe led to a renewed interest in this mode of tenure.56 Scotland only occasionally attracted the attention of the reformers, although George Campbell of Edenwood was a notable influence on Gladstone.57 As Bull noted however, this perhaps owed more to his time in India than to his knowledge of land tenure in Scotland.58 Sir James Caird was one the few people to advocate Scotland as an example for Ireland, but his comparison of Ireland and high farming in the Lothians 53

54 55

56

57

58

Dolan, Land War and Eviction in Derryveagh, 127. William Monsell was M.P. for Limerick County from 1847 until 1874. Vaughan, Sin, Sheep and Scotsmen, 40–1. P. Gray, ‘Famine and land in Ireland and India, 1845–1880: James Caird and the political economy of hunger’, Historical Journal, 49 (2006), 193–215. C. J. Dewey, ‘The rehabilitation of the peasant proprietor in nineteenth century thought’, History of Political Economy, vi (1974), 21; PP (1870), Reports from Her Majesty’s Representatives Respecting the Tenure of Land in the Several Countries of Europe (2 vols), LXVII; T. Cliffe Leslie, Land Systems and Industrial Economy of Ireland, England and Continent Countries (London, 1870). For a syndicated series of articles by John Mitchel on the various land tenure systems of Europe, see Irish Catholic Banner, 22 Feb. 1868, 29 Feb. 1868, 7 Mar. 1868; Archbishop Manning, Ireland: A Letter to Earl Grey (London, 1868), 37. E. D. Steele, Irish Land and British Politics: Tenant Right and Nationality, 1865–1870 (Cambridge, 1974), 104. Bull, Land, Politics and Nationalism, 50; R. D. Collison Black, Economic Thought and the Irish Question (Cambridge, 1960), 53–6; E. D. Steele, ‘Ireland and the Empire in the 1860s: Imperial precedents for Gladstone’s first Irish Land Act’, Historical Journal, xi (1968), 64. Campbell’s ideas were mocked sporadically by the Scotsman. Scotsman, 25 Aug. 1869; Scotsman, 31 Aug. 1869. See also Irish World, 24 Jul. 1875.

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and advocacy of longer leases, compensation for improvements, and free trade in land failed to attract adherents.59 At this stage, however, Caird neatly summarised the prevailing view of Scots, that no Irish-style legislation could benefit their country. On the contrary, if hypothec and the game laws were to be revised, Scottish agriculture could present a model for Ireland and prevent a potentially disastrous spread of small, uneconomical farms.60 Although the 1870 Irish Land Act gave additional security to many Irish tenants, it was generally seen as a ‘profound disappointment to the farming classes’.61 Objections to the extension of the Act’s provisions to Scotland were often based on the assumption that Scottish customs, and ‘national character’, made such state intervention unnecessary.62 In addition to the confident declarations of the Scotsman that the Irish land question could in no way be transplanted onto Scotland, the Fenian scare which had gripped Britain quelled any potential agitation.63 Neither did the 1870 Act prevent a continuing debate on land in Ireland. John Stuart Mill and the Land Tenure Reform Association (LTRA), founded in 1871, renewed the discussion on land nationalisation, arguing that ‘the appropriation of land by private individuals has gone far enough’.64 More radically, the LTRA’s Explanatory Statement, in addition to the usual calls for the abolition of primogeniture, entail and ‘all legal and fiscal impediments to the transfer of land’, called on the state to buy up crown lands for redistribution, and for a capital gains tax on rising land values.65 This attack on the ‘unearned increment’ of landlords later formed the philosophical basis for more thoroughgoing campaigns by land nationalisers and land restorers. Irish political organisation in Scotland, however, developed rapidly in the 1870s. The Home Government Association, soon after its establishment by Isaac Butt in Dublin in 1870, spread to Britain, with several branches being formed, including Glasgow.66 Ferguson, already a leading figure within the Glasgow Irish community, arranged for Butt to speak in the city in 1871, and from that meeting the home rule agitation in Britain accelerated.67 59

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J. Caird, The Irish Land Question (London, 1869), 20–2; W. McCombie, The Irish land question practically considered. A letter to the Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone (Aberdeen, 1969), 9; Gray, ‘Famine and Land in Ireland and India’, 198. Scotsman, 18 Aug., 23 Aug. 1869. A. Jackson, Home Rule: An Irish History, 1800–2000 (London, 2003), 26. Scotsman, 14 Dec. 1872; P. Maclagan, Land Culture and Land Tenure in Ireland: The Results of Observation during a Recent Tour in Ireland (1869). Scotsman, 13 Dec. 1870; McFarland, ‘A reality and yet impalpable’, 199–223. Fraser, Scottish Popular Politics, 95–6; Burchardt, Paradise Lost, 78–9. Dewey, ‘Rehabilitation of the peasant proprietor’, 33–4. McFarland, John Ferguson, 44; L. J. McCaffrey, ‘Irish Federalism in the 1870s: A study in conservative nationalism’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, lii (1962), 10. Glasgow Herald, 15 Nov. 1871; Scotsman, 15 Nov. 1871; A. G. Newby, The Life and Times of Edward McHugh (1853–1915): Land Reformer, Trade Unionist and Labour Activist (New York, 2004), 8–9; McFarland, John Ferguson, 62–3; J. J. Smyth, ‘Labour and Socialism in Glasgow, 1880–1914: The Electoral Challenge Prior to Democracy’, Ph.D. thesis (University of

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Frequent meetings were held by the various branches in the city, but more importance was placed on the public demonstrations and mass meetings, including visits from ‘national heroes’ such as Butt, Joseph Biggar, Charles Stewart Parnell, Michael Davitt and John Redmond.68 The development of the Home Government Association in Glasgow was, at least at an organisational level, intertwined with that of the local Republican Club. In addition to any impetus given to reformers by the passage of the Irish Land Act, 1870 had seen the formation of the Third Republic in France, and the Paris Commune had inspired renewed interest in Republicanism throughout Britain.69 In the aftermath of the Commune, the Belgian economist Emile de Laveleye contrasted the situation of the peasantry in Ireland with that in Belgium: the distribution of a number of small properties among the peasantry forms a kind of rampart and safeguard for the holders of large estates; and peasant property may, without exaggeration, be called the lightning conductor that averts from society dangers which might otherwise lead to violent catastrophes. The concentration of land in large estates among a small number of families is a sort of provocation of levelling legislative measures.70 Although de Laveleye was referring to Irish estates, Scotland could also furnish reformers with examples of concentrated landownership, and he was to be quoted frequently over the next two decades. For the Glasgow radicals, even at this early stage, the Highlands were part of a much wider land question, the responses to which were still being debated. The importance of the Glasgow Republican Club has been downplayed, owing to its small membership, lack of funds, and failure to attract the ‘proletarian left’ to its ranks.71 Its brief and unremarkable existence, however, had profound implications for the nature of Irish radicalism in the city. With John Ferguson and G. B. Clark at the helm, it seems that some of the Republican Club’s membership transferred to the Irish Home Government Association, and subsequently the Land League, in Glasgow. Even though its aims may have been limited, land reform fell well within its interests.

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Edinburgh, 1987), 151; Handley, Irish in Modern Scotland, 270; T. Gallagher, Glasgow: The Uneasy Peace (Manchester, 1987), 63; I. C. G. Hutchison, ‘Politics and Society in MidVictorian Glasgow, 1846–1886’, Ph.D. thesis (University of Edinburgh, 1974), 488–91; I. S. Wood, ‘Irish nationalism and radical politics in Scotland, 1880–1906, Journal of the Scottish Labour History Society, ix (1975), 23. Glasgow Herald, 18 Aug. 1873; Hutchison, ‘Politics and society’, 491–5; I. C. G. Hutchison, ‘Glasgow working class politics’, in R. A. Cage (ed.), The Working Class in Glasgow, 1750–1914 (London, 1987), 131. F. A. D’Arcy, ‘Charles Bradlaugh and the English republican movement, 1868–1878’, Historical Journal, xxv (1982), 369. E. de Laveleye, ‘The land system of Belgium and Holland’, in J. W. Probyn (ed.), Systems of Land Tenure in Various Countries (London, 1871), 444, 484. Quoted in I. C. G. Hutchison, ‘Politics and Society’, 514.

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Conditions for social reform movements were certainly ripening in 1870’s Glasgow, which had been reported by a number of contemporaries.72 Therefore, young radicals, such as Edward McHugh, Richard McGhee, James Shaw Maxwell, and J. Bruce Glasier were already within its sphere of influence and were being given a forum for their views.73 The close association of the (British) Republican and Home Government bodies in Glasgow was underlined in the Scotsman’s editorial columns, which stressed John Ferguson’s anti-monarchical views, and equated the radicals quite explicitly with the Fenians.74 This focus on the links between radical Scots and Irishmen in Glasgow would be a feature of the Scotsman’s writing in the subsequent decade, and highlights the vital importance of the intermingling of different interest groups in an urban context. In the political and social melting pot of Glasgow, as well as in Liverpool and other British cities, there existed several outlets for Highland radicalism. Issues such as equality for women, the status of Gaelic, and the proliferation of deer forests ensured that lively debate was seen in various contexts.75 Orr has noted that, as a result of a disintegration of the social cohesion of the Scottish countryside, ‘a tentative but dynamic relationship began to develop in Scotland between the urban working class and the remaining peasant communities in the Celtic periphery’.76 Urban Gaelic societies had been developing since mid-century, particularly in Glasgow, and this ‘notion of a migrant Gaelic cultural consciousness’ aided in the ‘politicisation of crofter unrest’.77 Men who would become central to the crofting agitation in the 1880s, such as brothers Henry and John Whyte, and Glasgow University student Angus Sutherland, joined John Murdoch and others in the newly formed An Comunn Gaidhealach Glaschu.78 The advent of John Murdoch’s campaigning Highlander newspaper ensured that the land became a central plank in a wide ranging programme of reform he envisaged for the Highlands and beyond.79 MacPhail highlighted the impact which the 1872 Education Act may have had on newspaper readership in the Highlands, and Sheila Kidd has argued that the 72

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74 75 76 77 78

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J. Mavor, My Windows on the Street of the World , 2 vols (New York, 1923), i, 56; J. Bruce Glasier, William Morris and the Early Days of the Socialist Movement (London, 1921), 25–34. M. Ó Catháin, ‘Michael Davitt and Scotland’, Saothar, xxv (2000), 22. A. G. Newby, ‘ “Shoulder to Shoulder?” Scottish and Irish Land Reformers in the Highlands of Scotland’, Ph.D. thesis (University of Edinburgh, 2001), 63–4. Scotsman, 19 Mar., 12 May, 13 May 1873. Oban Times, 15 Feb., 15 Mar., 3 May 1873. W. Orr, Deer Forests, Landlords and Crofters (Edinburgh, 1982), 59. Withers, Urban Highlanders, 47. Oban Times, 15 Mar. 1873, 10 Apr. 1875; Newby, ‘ “Shoulder to Shoulder” ’, 20–3. For John Whyte, Highland News, 2 Aug. 1913. For Henry Whyte, Highland News, 1 Jan. 1914. J. Noble, Bibliography of Inverness Newspapers and Periodicals. Edited, with notes, by John Whyte (Stirling, 1902), 17, for a portrait of John Whyte. For Sutherland’s early life and career, and a portrait, Highland News, 22 Jun. 1889. Highlander, 7 Jun. 1873; Scotsman, 10 Jul. 1873; Highlander, 15 Nov. 1873.

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development of a popular press in Scotland was ‘one of the single most important factors’ in ‘increasing the confidence of the pro-crofter voice’, and Murdoch was the first radical in the Highlands to realise the potential of the press.80 The growth of newspaper readership was so pronounced in the Highlands that Revd Donald MacKinnon, Church of Scotland minister in the Skye parish of Strath, announced to the Napier Commission in 1883 that ‘I don’t suppose, in my recollection, that there were four newspapers coming to the parish [in the 1850s/1860s]. There are a score or more now.’81 The role the press was able to play in Irish agitation, be it over land or nationalism, was indicated in 1885 by Edward Sullivan, Gladstone’s Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He stated that: the greatest difficulty in governing Ireland as a contented portion of the Kingdom follows from the tolerance of an unbridled and seditious press, which in the hands of wild and scheming knaves, corrupts and undermines the feelings of the country.82 Although the Highlands would never see newspapers being banned or censored in the same way as emergency legislation sometimes permitted in Ireland, many men interested in instigating a Highland land movement came to see the value of the press. From the outset Murdoch was determined that his journal would stimulate Highlanders into affirmative action to better their position.83 He was equally convinced that the problems besetting the Highlands were intrinsically linked to the inequitable distribution of land in the region.84 It is also clear that radical Gaels who lived outwith the Highlands looked to the newspapers for guidance in their nascent social reform agitation.85 Having developed an interest in Lalor and the Young Ireland movement during his stint as an exciseman in Dublin in the 1850s, Murdoch also hoped to present an alternative to the standard portrayal of Ireland.86 This provided a contrast to most of the British press, and it imputed a 80

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83 84 85 86

S. M. Kidd, ‘The Prose Writings of Rev. Alexander MacGregor, 1806–1881’, Ph.D. thesis (University of Edinburgh, 1998), 31; I. M. M. MacPhail, The Crofters’ War (Stornoway, 1989), 10. NC Ev., 4746–4748, 4832. On Skye, for example, a news room was opened in 1878 under the auspices of the ‘Portree News Club’. Subscriptions which had been taken out to use the telegraphic link with the Press Association, were described as ‘encouragingly large’. Oban Times, 23 Feb. 1878. Quoted in M.-L. Legg, Newspapers and Nationalism: The Irish Provincial Press, 1850–1892 (Dublin, 1999), 133. Highlander, 16 May 1873. Highlander, 12 Jul. 1873. Highlander, 7 Jun. 1873. Highlander, 16 May 1873; Hunter, ‘Gaelic Connection’, 182. For Lalor, see D. N. Buckley, James Fintan Lalor (Cork, 1990); Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 55, 82; Bull, Land Politics and Nationalism, 29–33.

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relationship between the Irish and Scottish Celts which was not often recognised in Ireland. Indeed, a great deal of bitterness was felt in Ireland at the perceived preferential treatment from London to the Scottish fisheries to the detriment of its Irish counterpart.87 This issue, in particular, was used as a demonstration of the different positions of Ireland and Scotland within the Union.88 Given its later support for the crofters, and the emphasis which was placed in the 1880s on Irish involvement in Scottish land and labour politics, the New York-based Irish World also made frequent references to Scottish attitudes towards Ireland.89 Columns by ‘Transatlantic’ not only highlighted a Scottish prejudice against Irish Catholicism, but also the resistance of ‘native’ Scottish Catholics towards the assimilation of their Irish co-religionists.90 Although the activities of Ferguson and the Glasgow home rulers were praised, any possibility of a joint Irish–Scottish agitation over the land question was not yet on the agenda.91 Chase has recently identified a ‘rehabilitation’ in the reputation of the Chartist Land Plan in the 1870s, associated with the ‘Revolt of the Field’ in England and the efforts of Joseph Cowen, M.P., editor of the radical Liberal Newcastle Daily Chronicle.92 This publicity, and the revised statistics relating to landownership in England and Wales, published in the ‘New Domesday Book’ in 1872, meant that both the Irish World and the Highlander seemed to concentrate more on the activities of the English labourers, and called for the workers of the four nations to unite in a common fight against both rural and urban landlordism.93 A wider debate on land coincided with the advent of the Highlander.94 The Scotsman ridiculed Arthur Arnold, another advocate of free trade in land, for his advocacy of peasant proprietary, claming that ‘he regards the diffusion of landed property as the true mode of propagating Christianity and maintaining loyalty to the throne’.95 Although far from a radical organ at this stage, the Oban Times followed Murdoch in stressing the importance of the land question to the Highlands and Hebrides: 87 88 89

90 91 92

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Irish World, 26 Feb. 1875. Freeman’s Journal, 2 Sep. 1872. A. N. Mulligan, ‘A forgotten “Greater Ireland”: The transatlantic development of Irish nationalism’, Scottish Geographical Journal, 118 (2002), 224–6. Irish World, 1 May, 21 Aug. 1875, 15 Jan. 1876. Irish World, 19 Jun., 1 Jul., 8 Jul. 1875. Chase, ‘Wholesome Object Lessons’, 66; J. P. D. Dunbabin, ‘The “Revolt of the Field”: the agricultural labourers’ movement in the 1870s’, Past and Present, xxvi (1963), 68–108. H. J. Perkin, ‘Land reform and class conflict in Victorian Britain’, in J. Butt and I. F. Clark (eds), The Victorians and Social Protest: A Symposium (Newton Abbot, 1973), 185; Irish World, 30 Jan. 1875. See also Irish World, 12 Jun. 1875. C. Gordon, Land Tenure and Compensation for Unexhausted Improvements in Land (Peterborough, 1873); J. Macdonell, The Land Question (London, 1873); A. H. Beesly, ‘Deer forests and culpable luxury’, Fortnightly Review, 19 (1873); Scotsman, 29 Nov. 1873. Scotsman, 3 Sep. 1874; A. Arnold, ‘Sailing free: a reply to “Rocks Ahead” ’, Contemporary Review, xxiv (1874), 633–4.

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The land question, long promised, long deferred, cannot fail to bring an early and portentous parliamentary debate. Before it, all other parliamentary questions sink into insignificance, entailing as it does the consideration of our existence as a nation . . .The ‘Scotsman’ has been recently debating the land question, and discovers nothing in it . . . How a land should be owned to retain about it the largest rural population is the gist of the reform wanted, and amid a multitude of obtuse but noisy agitators it becomes a duty to keep this point before the public and our legislators.96 The Oban Times particularly stressed the moderating potential of owner occupation, claiming that ‘out of the growing complication connected with the ownership of the soil and the increase of wages, few prospects appear more hopeful to the country and pleasing to the patriot than the probable growth of a peasant proprietary’.97 Thomas Johnston, writing in the 1920s, complained that, miners aside, ‘for the succeeding few years [after 1875] political agitation seems to have been dormant in Scotland’.98 Johnston failed to recognise, however, that a vibrant agitation was developing in the cities which would only come to fruition in the 1880s. The Greenock Advertiser called on ‘Highlanders from home’ to support their kin: What can the poor people do? Nothing. What can their countrymen do? A mighty deal, if only they would exert themselves. If Highland societies are worthy of the name they bear – if they are in earnest for the preservation of their race in their own Highland homes – if ‘shoulder to shoulder’ is not a sham but a reality – then let them take political action at once.99 In spite of its general interest in the land issue, the Oban Times rejected any attempt to bring about political reform in the Highlands at this stage, and referred to a potential politicisation of Celtic societies as an error ‘of the gravest kind’.100 Although not yet a national concern, it is clear that the apparatus for an agitation was coming into place in Glasgow. Issues surrounding landlords and land tenure were making an impression in the newspapers and among pamphleteers, and in a Highland context the publication of Skene’s Celtic Scotland between 1876 and 1880 partly helped to rehabilitate the customs of the Highland peasants.101 What was required in order to develop the reform agitation was an incident on which radicals 96 97 98 99 100 101

Oban Times, 8 Feb. 1873. Oban Times, 22 Feb. 1873. Johnston, History of the Working Classes in Scotland, 262–3. Highlander, 27 Feb. 1875; Greenock Advertiser, 23 Feb. 1875. Oban Times, 15 Dec. 1875. W. F. Skene, Celtic Scotland: A History of Ancient Alban, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1876–80); MacColl, Land, Faith and the Crofting Community, 77.

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could focus attention, something which gave a practical example of how inequitable land laws could affect Highland society. * It was, in MacPhail’s words, ‘on the west coast of Lewis, far away from Celtic societies, newspapers and journals and their influence, that the first resistance by crofters to the domination of their landlords and factors was taken in the post-clearance period’.102 Although the Bernera Riots were an essentially local skirmish between the crofters and their estate managers, there was a critical mass of supportive voices in other parts of Scotland to publicise the case and help to create a cause.103 The Scotsman hinted at a darker conspiracy: Various accounts – good, bad and indifferent, have appeared of the circumstances connected with the march of the Bernera men upon Stornoway. Chiefly with the view of reflecting on the administration of the affairs of the 22,000 inhabitants of Lewis by the lord of the land and his chamberlain, exaggerated statements have been published to the effect that it was intended to remove the people altogether from their holdings in the island of Bernera, whereas it appears it was merely meant to remove them from the possession of some grazings on the mainland and give them others in exchange. What, therefore, roused the indignation of the worthy people seems a small matter, and scarcely justifies their warlike display; but it is suspected that they were stimulated by a sort of Fenian conclave in the country, who are ever hostile to the ‘powers that be’.104 John Murdoch not only ridiculed the reference to Fenianism, but attempted to place the troubles in the Hebrides within the context of a British workers’ agitation: The Bernera rising is not to be allowed to subside so long as there are minion pens to write up the powers that be. One scribe tries now to cast the blame of the whole affair on the ignorance of the people, and refers to some Fenian influence to which they yielded . . . The offending funchionaries [sic] may take to themselves the consolation that the Bernera men may have caused a new light to shine upon the sombre moors of Lews: and they may put the march from Loch Roag to Stornoway, and the movements of the rural labourers of England together, and consider whether they may not one of these days find them between two fires which will be too hot for them to endure.105 102

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MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 12–13; Cameron, ‘Communication or separation?’, 639; Withers, ‘Rural protest’, 177–9. Highlander, 25 Apr. 1874. Scotsman, 4 May 1874. Highlander, 9 May 1874.

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Allusions to Ireland during the trial of the Bernera crofters are few and vague, and no serious attempt was made to link the disturbances to Irish agitators, other than to note landlord oppression of the type alleged would generally have resulted in assassination in Ireland.106 The case appeared in the Irish press, although it was presented as a minor incident in comparison to Ireland’s sufferings at the hands of landlordism. The Irish World mocked James Matheson, the proprietor of Lewis, and his chamberlain, Donald Munro: DONALD (of many offices) may have served an apprenticeship on some Irish estate, and, having admired the facility of eviction there, he is probably convinced that a similar machinery would be of advantage in his native Caledonia. If this extirpation of 56 families be such a horrible thing in the Hebrides, what misery must have been caused by the extirpation of a million in Ireland?107 Bernera allowed some urban Gaels to highlight what they presented as the latest manifestation of predatory landlordism in the crofting community. ‘A Manxman’ sounded a clarion call through the pages of the Highlander, comparing the cases of the Highlands with Ireland, and noting that: The Irish were more formidable than the Highlanders, and so they were treated with more respect and greater consideration; and if the Highlanders had been at one with the Irish, instead of yelping at them along with the English, there might have been a law in force to-day in the Highlands something equivalent to that which has given to the Irish tenant farmers a legal title to property worth seventy or eighty millions sterling, which a few years ago was being appropriated by ‘felonious landlords,’ to their own private purposes.108 When, a few months after Bernera, more removals were threatened in Rossshire, several Highland newspapers observed that the events on Lewis had created a new determination to resist evictions.109 The Northern Ensign described how: the system of eviction is still pursued, and will supply land reformers with another peg on which to hang their moral. It is clear that many landlords are entirely oblivious to the great constitutional fact that in a free country a man cannot do what he likes with his own. This Munro 106

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Highlander, 25 Jul. 1874; Report of the trial of the so-called Bernera rioters, at Stornoway, on the 17th and 18th July 1874, with address to the jury by the agent for the defence, and charge by the sheriff (Edinburgh, 1986), 29–31, 33; Oban Times, 19 Sep. 1874; Cameron, ‘Communication or Separation?’, 639. Irish World, 17 Oct. 1874. Highlander, 2 Jan. 1875. Highlander, 27 Mar. 1875.

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is a representative man. He has counterparts in many other districts . . . the Swordale cases furnish an opportunity for another emphatic protest against the existing system of land management.110 In the years before the Irish Land War, therefore, any connections between Ireland and land discontent in Scotland were extremely tenuous, although the development of a social reform movement throughout Britain and Ireland ensured that land was a prominent issue. A combination of improved press coverage, mainly – though not exclusively – thanks to John Murdoch, and an active agitation hosted by – though not confined to – the Glasgow Irish, allowed the impression to develop that an Irish-style land question was developing in the Highlands. It is at this stage that some Highlanders in Glasgow began to forge links with the Irish Home Government Federation, discovering a common interest in landlordism. As has been seen, however, this organisation was much broader in both its interests and sympathies than would be inferred from its name, and its membership had been strongly influenced by Mill and other political economists during the mid- to late-1860s. The cooperation between this Irish-led body in Glasgow and the resident Highlanders, along with the prominence which the Irish land question was given in the British press after 1879, would allow future incidents in the crofting districts to be publicised and appropriated by a wider movement.

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Quoted in Oban Times, 19 Jun. 1875.

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chapter three

‘Blessed are Those who Expect Little, for They Shall not be Disappointed’: Alleged and Actual Irish Involvement in the Development of the ‘Crofters’ War’, 1877–1880 The growing politicisation of urban Gaels began to create some disquiet in the Highlands. Having initially welcomed the debate on peasant proprietary, the Oban Times retreated somewhat, and in 1877 ran an editorial expressing concern at the apparent desire to establish a ‘tenant right’ movement in the Highlands. It questioned the motives of the Glasgow-based agitators, and also denied that any such movement could bring about benefits to the crofters, arguing that ‘union without any object is simply nonsense; and none of the speakers at these social gatherings dropped the least hint as to what the union they were so eloquent about was intended to accomplish’.1 If the ‘union’ was aimed against Highland landlords, the paper wondered why it was being discussed in Glasgow rather than the crofting regions: [It] might be of some use to Highlanders who are still in the Highlands, but would be of no use to those who push their fortunes in Glasgow, to whom the Highlands can only be a memory, or, at the most, a place to visit at some holiday time . . . no union among Highlanders would have any affect in bettering their condition permanently, unless each individual in that union were to look after his own interests by the exercise of honest industry, along with prudence and foresight . . . Stressing the importance of the individual, and the good fortune of the Highlanders in having the opportunity of migrating to the ‘second city of the empire’, the piece concluded by hoping that urban Gaels would cease from giving ‘worthless’ advice to the Highlanders at home. Although the Highlander had been attempting to open a land question in the Highlands for some years, 1877 and early 1878 saw a proliferation in articles relating to the crofters and their situation. Absent was the type of propaganda seen in the pages of the Weekly Freeman or United Ireland, but the Celtic Magazine contained land-related correspondence from the duke of 1

Oban Times, 30 Jun. 1877.

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Argyll, William Gladstone, and Charles Fraser Mackintosh.2 It was the Scotsman’s appointment of a ‘Special Commissioner’ which, ironically, began to link the general land question to the Highlands in an explicit manner. In presenting an ‘impartial’ inquiry, the Scotsman blamed the existence of poverty, starvation, and depopulation in the Highlands almost entirely on the crofting system.3 This attitude was condemned by some, but John Murdoch took the opportunity to fan the flames of debate:4 [Murdoch] thought, on the whole, they were indebted to the Scotsman – whether he had done it willingly or not – for helping them to raise the question of the crofter into a prominent position before the world. The prosperity which this country had enjoyed for a number of years had tended to keep people of energy from paying that attention to the condition of the crofters of the Highlands to which they were entitled. Now, however, that people were beginning to feel the effects of the trade depression in the towns, they began to look at the land question, which they should have been looking at the whole time . . . In proportion as the farms were enlarged the produce was decreased. In support of this he pointed to what had occurred in Ireland and to the result of the subdivision of the land in France. If the crofter were asked whether he should prefer to be a labourer or to have a croft, as at present, the lecturer believed he would prefer sticking to his croft, as at present, and he held that the crofter was right in doing so.5 The Scotsman’s investigation also aroused the interest of journalists in Dublin, and it is clear that there was no general perception of the Scottish land question as analogous to Ireland: Much attention has lately been aroused throughout Scotland concerning the grievances of the ‘crofter’ population. The Scottish crofter would appear to be synonymous with the Irish cottier – the holder of a cabin and a patch of land. It was asserted that in many of the large estates these poor people were gradually being cleared off the land, not as in Ireland, to make way for the sheep and the bullock, but in order to turn the land into game preserves. Much indignation of course has been evoked by this announcement, and, determined to ascertain the exact state of affairs, the Scotsman has sent down a Special Commissioner to the districts where the ejected crofters are now located and to those where they still exist on their threatened holdings. The researches of this gentlemen would seem to establish two facts 2

3 4 5

Celtic Magazine, Nov. 1877; L. P. Curtis Jr., ‘ “The Land for the People”: post famine images of eviction’, in V. Kreilkamp (ed.), Éire/Land (Chestnut Hill, 2003), 88. Scotsman, 8 Dec. 1877. Scotsman, 6 Nov. 1877. Scotsman, 25 Dec. 1877.

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– first, that in no single case has there been any revelation of distress among the crofter population approaching remotely that brought to light by the Freeman representative as existent on the Galtee estate, and secondly that their removal from their holdings was in many instances affected with the object of inducing them to acquire larger ones.6 In the wake of Lord Leitrim’s murder in April 1878, the Freeman’s Journal wrote bitterly of the sharp difference in public opinion between the smallholders of Ireland and the Scottish crofters, and questioned the British press perception that the 1870 Land Act had been a panacea for Ireland’s ills.7 * After Parnell had visited Glasgow in 1877, the Home Government Association in the city reformed itself into ‘Parnellite’ branches, reflecting the growing feeling among Irish nationalists that it was the youthful Parnell, rather than the ageing Butt, who would be the future of the movement. Although Butt had made some attempt to win the Fenians over to parliamentary agitation, the ‘New Departure’ of spring 1879 explicitly linked the land issue with Irish parliamentary nationalism and American Fenianism.8 The ‘New Departure’ gave fresh impetus to Irish political movement in Glasgow, but the leadership – under Ferguson – remained stable.9 Michael Davitt had been arrested in May 1870 for ‘treason felony’ – specifically for gun-running in support of a Fenian uprising in Ireland – and spent the next seven and a half years in prison.10 Through the Amnesty Associations, however, which campaigned for the release of Fenian prisoners, he developed into an important figure within Irish nationalism, and John Ferguson would become one of his closest friends.11 On his release in December 1877, Davitt set about organising Ireland and made little direct impact on the development of the land question in the Highlands and Islands. However, men with whom he was associated, such as Ferguson and McHugh, as well as John Murdoch, continued attempts to organise Scotland.12 The fusion of land and home rule issues ensured that Irish politics in Glasgow also appealed to a generation of radical Scots, many from the Highlands or of Highland descent, who had a strong folk memory of eviction. Angus Sutherland went so far as to claim that ‘every Highlander 6 7 8

9

10 11 12

Freeman’s Journal, 4 Feb. 1878. Freeman’s Journal, 13 Apr. 1878. Jackson, Home Rule, 36–7; O. McGee, The IRB: The Irish Republican Brotherhood from the Land League to Sinn Féin (Dublin, 2005), 60. Glasgow Herald, 18 Apr. 29 May, 18 Aug. 1877; J. McCaffrey, ‘The Irish vote in Glasgow in the later nineteenth century: a preliminary survey’, Innes Review, xxi (1970), 31. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 145–85. McFarland, John Ferguson, 87–8. Newby, Life and Times of Edward McHugh, 11.

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was a born agitator because he had suffered directly or indirectly from the clearances’.13 The rehabilitation of the duke of Sutherland’s reputation since the clearances meant that he was often held up as models of benevolent, improving landlordism, even by parts of the Irish press and reformers such as J. S. Blackie.14 Angus Sutherland, therefore, needed to remind onlookers at every opportunity of the events which took place in Sutherlandshire at the start of the century, and link them directly to the current proprietor. Free from the fear of landlord coercion, increasing numbers of urban Highlanders began to speak out against landlordism, and societies of Highlanders which had hitherto been concerned with Gaelic culture or literature were becoming ever more politicised.15 Links with the agitation in Ireland were strong, and John Ferguson, in particular, made frequent sallies across the Irish Sea from Scotland to meetings of the Land League leaders in Dublin.16 For Sutherland and his allies, however, the land question was not simply an Irish or Highland problem, nor even a rural problem, but an issue which affected society at large. Indeed, the demand made by the Glasgow League for nationalisation of the land, and the strongly independent line the branch often took from the leadership, put them increasingly at odds with Dublin as time progressed.17 Propitiously for the Irish, and nascent Highland, land agitation, 1879 also saw the publication of book which would have more influence on the land issue than any other contemporary work. Henry George finished writing Progress and Poverty in March 1879, but it was not published in the U.S.A. until August of the same year.18 George had been born in Philadelphia in 1839, and having attended school to the age of fourteen he managed to secure a number of jobs in the printing trade. After moving to California he was offered the chance to edit the journal of the state’s Democratic Party, and here his social views began to crystallise.19 During a stint as state inspector of gas meters in California he wrote Progress and Poverty – the book which made him a figure of world-wide fame.20 The theories contained in Progress and Poverty were not, in many respects, new to the radicals of Glasgow, particularly in relation to the injustice of the landlords’ ‘unearned increment’, and John Ferguson claimed that his own work was known to the American.21 Both Ferguson and George shared a great deal in respect to their 13 14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21

Highlander, 10 Nov. 1880; Oban Times, 13 Nov. 1880. Scotsman, 24 Aug. 1874; Freeman’s Journal, 13 Sep. 1872; Northern Chronicle, 3 Jan., 2 May 1883. Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 36–43. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 290; Cashman, The life of Michael Davitt, 213; F. Sheehy Skeffington, Michael Davitt: Revolutionary, Agitator and Labour Leader (London 1908), 91. Newby, Life and Times of Edward McHugh, 10. Single Tax, Nov. 1900. E. P. Lawrence, Henry George in the British Isles (Michigan, 1957), 3–5; C. A. Barker, Henry George (New York, 1955), 161–70, 222–9. Barker, Henry George, 230–56. McFarland, John Ferguson, 112.

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influences, and one commentator has argued that George’s ‘criticisms of private property in land were so congenial to one prominent tradition in 19th century English thought that it difficult to separate his influence’ from that of Ricardo or Mill.22 When it appeared in Britain and Ireland, George’s work captured the radical mood perfectly and gave fresh impetus to what might be described as the left-wing of the land reform movement. Progress and Poverty argued that the state should tax away all economic rent (the income from the use of the bare land, but not from improvements), and abolish all other taxes, hence the later label of ‘the single tax’ for George’s philosophy.23 George thought that the solution to the conundrum implied by the book’s title – why the greatest poverty on earth was often found cheek-by-jowl with the greatest wealth – lay in the value of land. The genesis of the problem, according to George, lay in land speculation, and has been summed up thus: He . . . stated that the source of all wealth was land, and that the inequalities in wealth which ‘progress’ fostered were due to a monopoly of the land by the few. Such a condition was more than unfortunate, it was unjust, for the land belonged to the people by natural right. The people should reassert their title, snatched from them some time in the past by the robber ancestors of the present landlords, not by dividing up the land physically, but by imposing a tax equivalent to the total value of the land. Moreover, landlords were to receive no compensation for the virtual expropriation of their property, for, declared George, you do not reimburse a thief when the police recover the swag.24 In taxing land to its full extent, George believed, all other taxes would become unnecessary and the economy would be stimulated. Taxes on capital served only to depress the economy, whereas a taxation of land values could not make the commodity any less attractive because of its very essence – land was necessary for all humans to make a living, either in cities or in the countryside. This theory of land nationalisation did not equate to socialism, and Georgites believed that Marxist theories such as the cooperative commonwealth or the abolition of the wages system would be unnecessary if land values were fully taxed.25 Thus, although land nationalisers such as G. B. Clark and A. R. Wallace were associated with George at this stage – Edward McHugh, for example, used Clark’s Plea for the Nationalisation of the Land during his ‘missionary’ 22

23 24 25

G. J. Stigler, ‘Alfred Marshall’s lectures on progress and poverty’, Journal of Law and Economics, xii (1969), 181. E. P. Lawrence, ‘Henry George’s British mission’, American Quarterly, iii (1951), 233. Lawrence, ‘Henry George’s British mission’, 232. W. M. Dick, Labor and Socialism in America: The Gompers Era (Port Washington, 1972), 27; T. G. Shearman, ‘The single tax: what and why?’, American Journal of Sociology, iv (1899), 742–57; Land Values, Jul. 1906.

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work on Skye in 1882 – they eventually came to see Georgite theory as ‘confiscatory and unjust’.26 As early as 1881, when Karl Marx dismissed George as ‘utterly backward’, there were some tensions between the reformers.27 In the early part of the 1880s, however, these differences were buried underneath a common desire to put land and social reform – of whatever kind – on the political agenda.28 H. M. Hyndman, a close ally of Marx, gave a retrospective justification for the continuing accommodation of Progress and Poverty by socialists during the 1880s: I saw the really extraordinary gaps in the work and its egregious blunderings in economics, but I also recognised to an extent that which Marx either could not or would not admit, the seductiveness for the sympathetic, half-educated mob of its brilliant high-class journalese. I understood, as I thought, that it would induce people to think about economic problems who never could have been brought to read economic books pure and simple; and although I saw then as clearly as I do now that taxation of land values can be no solution whatever of the social question, I felt that agitation against any form of private property was better than stereotyped apathy which prevailed all around us . . .29 This ‘uneasy alliance’ faced a wide ranging opposition in the Highlands, as elsewhere.30 Lack of reliable circulation figures make it impossible to state just how influential the Oban Times newspaper was at this time, but if taken as a yardstick of moderate liberal opinion, it is clear that the reformers had a great deal of work to do in order to spread an agitation in the Highlands. It is equally clear, through writing in the Oban Times, and the attack made on John Murdoch over his links with Irish agitators, that any links with Ireland had to be deliberately downplayed. Association with Ireland, synonymous by 1879 with agrarian outrage and disorder, would be more likely at this stage to stall a reform movement than develop one. Crofters not only received conservative messages from politicians, some ministers and most newspapers at this early stage, but splits among reformers, which would remain for the duration of the Highland agitation, also appeared. Some of this was exaggerated by obvious personality clashes, such as between John Murdoch and Alexander MacKenzie, but there was also a group who genuinely believed that crofters only required a minimum degree of reform, based initially around the demand for security of tenure, and that they could benefit nothing from getting their case bound up with the Irish agitation. 26 27

28 29 30

Perkin, ‘Land reform and class conflict’, 189. Newby, Life and Times of Edward McHugh, 20–1; H. George and H. M. Hyndman, ‘Socialism and rent-appropriation: a dialogue’, Nineteenth Century, xvii (1885), 369–80. Dunbabin, Rural Discontent, 271. H. M. Hyndman, The Record of an Adventurous Life (London, 1911), 281. E. P. Lawrence, ‘Uneasy alliance: the reception of Henry George by British socialists in the eighties’, The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, ii (1951), 69.

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Unlike the Irish Land War, which reached a new pitch of organisation with the ‘Monster Meetings’ of 1879, the Highland land agitation developed gradually, and cautiously, with much of the effort coming from city-based Highlanders. The delicacy with which these reformers had to move, both in attempting to organise crofters, and to introduce ideas which, in the eyes of much of British public opinion, had reduced Ireland to a state of lawlessness, can be seen through the pages of the Highland press. There was a notable difference in the Oban Times’s editorial opinion from that adopted by John Murdoch in the Highlander. Some editions carried small reports of agrarian unrest in Ireland, but as regard the Highlands, the Oban Times was of the opinion that ‘the crofter is better circumstanced than his ancestor of a still earlier time’.31 A more severe editorial followed a couple of weeks later, which stated that it was time for the crofters to accept that landlord–tenant relations had become irrevocably commercial, and that ‘everyone must agree with the Scotsman when it says that improvements should be carried out before a year of destitution like 1846 carries starvation into the Highlands’.32 Neither the Highlander nor the Oban Times gave space to the Irishtown meeting, at which John Ferguson played a major part, although the Highlander ran a piece taken from the Freeman’s Journal about how the Irish farmers were ‘up and stirring’, and advocating co-operation with English tenant farmers.33 Murdoch also borrowed an article from the Irishman, which noted the interaction of Gaelic-speaking Scottish fishermen with their Irish counterparts off Howth in Co. Dublin, but most of the coverage given to the land question at this stage focused on the European peasant proprietaries, or scripture inspired attacks on landlordism.34 The general trade depression was highlighted frequently in the Highlander – it was claimed that the situation in the towns was far worse than that in the rural areas – and, indeed, one of the few mentions of ‘land nationalisation’ at this time was taken from the pages of the Glasgow Miner.35 It is also possible to identify a constant theme of organisation in the pages of the Highlander, either through its oblique praise of the Irish Land League, its praise for the establishment of the Farmers’ Alliance, or, latterly, strong calls for the Federation of Celtic Societies (FCS) to broaden its role from merely cultural matters.36 From its inception in 1878, the FCS had expressed a desire to ‘ameliorate the condition of the people’, as well as to increase political organisation among the various Celtic societies in Britain. Initially, however, there was a marked reluctance to ‘go to extremes on the land issue’, and it 31 32 33 34 35 36

Oban Times, 18 Jan. 1879. Oban Times, 1 Feb. 1879. Highlander, 25 Apr. 1879; Connaught Telegraph, 21 Apr. 1879; Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 151. Highlander, 1 Aug., 12 Sep. 1879. Highlander, 25 Jan., 11 Jul., 19 Aug., 7 Nov. 1879. Highlander, 8 Feb., 21 Feb., 9 May, 28 Nov. 1879.

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was debated whether it should be a predominantly cultural body, rather than a political one.37 While his early appearances at meetings of Highland societies in Glasgow are peculiar only for his apparent silence, it is notable that Angus Sutherland was often in the company of John Murdoch.38 As secretary of the Glasgow Sutherlandshire Association, and a delegate to the FCS, Angus Sutherland gained in confidence in expressing publicly his views on land reform and politics.39 Along with several other radical Highlanders, such as Revd James Cruickshank, Henry Whyte (‘Fionn’), John Whyte, and John Gunn Mackay, Sutherland gradually and carefully set about introducing a more political angle to the agendas of the various Highland societies in the city.40 This vigorous activity began well in advance of the Irish Land War. Most of Angus Sutherland’s early pronouncements on the land issue were based on legal questions, especially relating to the legal justification, or lack of one, for evictions from crofts.41 Such an approach, placing the onus of guilt at once on the landlords, might be seen as a very prudent way to begin an agitation which could come to be associated with the excesses of Ireland.42 One of the legal issues central to the land question was whether it was constitutional to confiscate land from landlords and, if that was to be done, whether they should receive any compensation.43 Sutherland recoiled at this idea. Like George, he denied that there was any justification for absolute ownership of land by an individual, and he used historical reasoning to state that, as the land was concentrated into the hands of a few by illegal confiscations in the first place, after Cromwell and Culloden, there was no legal problem in returning it.44 Although the very foundation of the FCS had shown that some Highlanders were prepared to start a loose political movement, progress was not rapid enough for the more radical among them. The constitution of the Federation meant that radical speeches could be made, such as that by Sutherland on the Leckmelm evictions, but had no real influence on official FCS policy.45 Although the Federation had shown some degree of organisation and vigour over the issue of a Gaelic census, complaints 37

38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45

Celtic Magazine, Nov. 1878, Jan. 1879, Jan. 1881; MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 88; J. Mackenzie, ‘The Highland Community in Glasgow in the Nineteenth Century’, Ph.D. thesis (University of Stirling, 1987), 335–7. Highlander, 19 Jan., 23 Feb. 1878; Oban Times, 19 Jan. 1878. Highlander, 8 Feb., 21 Feb. 1879. Highlander, 9 Mar. 1878; Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 41. For Cruickshank, Single Tax, Apr., May 1898. Oban Times, 6 Nov. 1881. Oban Times, 13 Nov. 1880. Newby, ‘Shoulder to shoulder’, 60. Highlander, 12 Jan. 1880. Highlander, 21 Nov. 1879.

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relating to inactivity over the land question were increasing in volume, mainly from John Murdoch and other radicals.46 Alongside Glasgow, Liverpool provided some of the most radical Highland writing of the late 1870s. After a steady migration during the eighteenth century, the post-1850 period had witnessed a larger influx of Highlanders into the city, though they remained greatly outnumbered by Irish migrants.47 In terms of radicalism and advocacy of co-operation with the Irish, the leaders of the Liverpool Highland Society (LHS) in the late 1870s were just as advanced as their Glasgow counterparts.48 The radicalism of the LHS was due to the influence of four men: Councillor Ronald MacDougall, J. Mackenzie Macleod (‘Lochbroom’), John Lamont, and Alexander MacDonald and despite the anonymity of the Oban Times’ Liverpool correspondent, the views expounded in his columns are in total accordance with what can be discerned of the opinions of these four men.49 It is likely that there was dissent from less radical Liverpool Highlanders, but no record of their opinions remain other than the controversy over land nationalisation which arose in 1884. * Although the Liverpool and Glasgow radicals were gradually developing an agitation with subtle reference to Ireland, and with the close co-operation of Irishmen, the formation of the Farmers’ Alliance in 1879 suggested that any Scottish involvement in a land agitation could take place within a ‘British’ framework, and that any future involvement with Ireland was by no means inevitable.50 The Alliance had been founded as ‘an association which should represent the tenant farmer’s interests from a tenant farmer’s standpoint’, and unlike the agitation in Ireland was committed to reform through exclusively parliamentary means.51 With the recruitment of William McCombie – the first tenant farmer to sit in the House of Commons after his election to West Aberdeenshire in 1868 – support for this organisation took off in the north east.52 In spite of advertisements for the Alliance appearing in the Highland press, and correspondence on the parlous state 46

47

48 49

50 51 52

E. A. Cameron, The Life and times of Charles Fraser Mackintosh, Crofter MP (Aberdeen, 2000), 72. Withers, Urban Highlanders, 165; J. Denvir, The Irish in Britain, From the Earliest Times to the Fall and Death of Parnell (London, 1892), 434; L. W. Brady, T. P. O’Connor and the Liverpool Irish (London, 1983), 77. Celtic Magazine, Nov. 1878; Hanham, ‘Problem of Highland Discontent’, 40. In the absence of any other evidence, indeed, it is possible to suggest that the ‘Liverpool correspondent’ could have been more than one of this group, or indeed all of them, or some kind of ‘committee’ opinion. Scotsman, 3 Jul. 1879. Dunbabin, Rural Discontent, 17. I. Carter, Farm Life in Northeast Scotland, 1840–1914: The Poor Man’s Country (Edinburgh, 1979 edn), 166.

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of the Lewis crofters, the larger-scale tenant farmers of Aberdeenshire and the surrounding counties began to shift the focus of the Scottish land question.53 At a meeting to promote the Farmer’s Alliance, held in Edinburgh and attended by several M.P.s and the ubiquitous Professor Blackie, it was argued that those present: Could not do better, then, than to give to this Alliance, which was doing a noble work in England, their support, so that by combined action the resistance to their just demands, which heretofore had baffled their utmost efforts, would speedily cease to operate against them . . . The objects which this Alliance had set itself to accomplish were of so much importance to farmers, and were so reasonable in themselves, that it was not easy to see how anyone could take exception to them.54 Interestingly, it seems that the Scotsman felt that the development of the Farmers’ Alliance could see the creation of a moderate, indigenous land reform movement, one which would be naturally attracted to moderate liberalism rather than the new radicalism, and would act as a bulwark against English toryism: The action of the Farmers’ Alliance, if it be wisely managed, will soon sift the questions which are raised, and bring them into the field of practical politics. This is, indeed, the great benefit to be expected from the movement. It will stimulate political discussion, it will show what is practicable and what is not, and it will help the farmers to understand that they must think and act for themselves.55 If the Scotsman felt that the constitutional methods of the Farmers’ Alliance were acceptable, John Murdoch’s tour of the U.S.A. and Canada in 1879–80 allowed it to proclaim that the baneful influence of the Fenians could soon be visited on Scotland.56 Although he travelled extensively and took the opportunity to visit Highlanders and Highland communities in North America – noting, for example, the way in which landlords had been bought out on Prince Edward Island in the 1860s – it was Murdoch’s association with Irish nationalists which aroused the most interest (or, more usually, opprobrium) among contemporaries.57 The relationship between Murdoch and the Irish Nationalists, including Parnell, Davitt, and Dillon, was highlighted by those most interested in derailing any possible chance 53 54 55 56

57

Oban Times, 8 Nov. 29 Nov. 1879. Scotsman, 13 Nov. 1879. Scotsman, 14 Nov. 1879. J. D. Wood, ‘Transatlantic land reform: America and the crofters’ revolt, 1878–1888’, SHR, lxiii (1984), 83–92. Cameron, ‘Communication or separation?’, 636; Hunter, People’s Cause, 168–85. For Prince Edward Island, see Highlander, 28 May, 1880; Steele, ‘Imperial precedents for Gladstone’s first Irish Land Act’, 81–3.

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of Irish radicalism crossing into Scotland. Those with an interest in developing an agitation in Scotland continued to understate such links.58 It has been noted that Parnell, among others, was irritated by Murdoch’s platform posturing, but many important Irish-Americans, particularly Dr William Carroll, of Clan na Gael, and Patrick Ford, editor of the Irish World, believed that the Highlander could have a role to play in developing a wider agitation.59 Part of the public fear in Britain grew from rumours that American Fenians were seeking to infiltrate the Highlands and create a ‘fifth column’ in Scotland, in order to create chaos and distract London from events in Ireland. Some nationalists also hoped that the participation of Presbyterian crofters in a land reform movement could show the way forward for their co-religionists in Ulster.60 The idea had a long life, and W. B. Yeats later portrayed Michael Davitt’s activities among the crofters as an attempt to recreate a Gaelic nation, claiming that Davitt ‘told me that if the split in the Irish Party had not come he would have carried the land league into the Highlands, and rescued for Ireland as much of Scotland as was still Gaelic in blood and language’.61 Although with hindsight this idea seems faintly ridiculous, there is no doubt that it exercised the minds of contemporaries. Occasionally the idea resurfaced, and Irish motives for nurturing a land agitation in Scotland could be tailored to suit the needs of the moment. John Ferguson, appealing in 1887 for funds for the ‘Highland campaign’ reminded readers of the New York Irish World that: When the Crofter Commission of Lord Napier was held some years ago, bitter mention was made of the ‘secret agents of the Glasgow Land League’, how they stirred up the ‘pious, law abiding Highland people’ to demand reductions of rent, and how one dangerous Irish Fenian, ‘Ed. McHugh, had gone from cottage to cottage teaching the communism of Henry George and the Irish World.’ This was quite true, Ed. McHugh spent months amongst those simple people . . . McHugh from time to time reported to me that with half a dozen to help him he could create a division in the North of Scotland that would at once weaken England’s hold on Ireland and elevate the social condition of the Highland people . . .62 McHugh was neither a Fenian nor a communist, and although Ferguson’s writing here is infused with irony, this kind of rhetoric has muddied the historiographical waters in relation to Irish intervention in Scotland. Writing in the aftermath of the failure of Gladstone’s first home rule scheme, and at the start of A. J. Balfour’s crackdown on the ‘Plan of Campaign’ in Ireland, Ferguson naturally attempted to appeal to the nationalist instincts 58 59

60 61 62

Hunter, People’s Cause, 33. W. O’Brien and D. Ryan (eds), Devoy’s Postbag , 2 vols (Dublin, 1953), i, 125; Hunter, ‘Gaelic connection’, 179. Newby, ‘Shoulder to shoulder’, 24–5. W. B. Yeats, Autobiographies (London, 1987 edn), 357. Glasgow Observer, 14 May, 1887.

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of Irish America, for fundraising purposes. The Times-sponsored ‘Parnellism and Crime’ trials of 1888 also recalled Ferguson’s plan to ‘carry the land war into Africa’, which some of the commission took too literally, not realising that Africa was a metaphor for the Scottish Highlands.63 Carroll was instrumental in securing a loan of up to U.S.$3,000 for Murdoch in order to keep the Highlander afloat, which resulted in Murdoch becoming entangled in the internecine squabbles of the American Fenians. His name became associated with the arch-Fenian Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, thus making him an easy target for the Scotsman throughout the subsequent Highland land agitation.64 Murdoch claimed that he had been unaware of the provenance of the loan, but the true extent of any connection with such an extremist as O’Donovan Rossa is in many respects irrelevant.65 Contemporary opinion in Scotland, like the rest of Britain, barely used shades of grey in differentiating between factions within the broad Irish nationalist movement. In speaking on platforms with the Irish leaders, he had already allied himself with men who, in the eyes of the vast majority of British people, were responsible for murder and mayhem on a grand scale in the Irish countryside, and obstructing the business of the Imperial parliament. This, in turn, meant attacks from within the ranks of Highland land reformers. Alexander MacKenzie was as vociferous as anyone: Perhaps it may be as well to say that, in any connection Mr. Murdoch had in the past, or may have in the future, with the Parnell–Dillon agitation in America, the editor of The Highlander represents no-one but himself. His own best friends, and indeed all rational Highlanders, entirely disapproved of his Parnell–Dillon crusade in America last year, and we have the very best evidence that the part he took with the Irish agitators was very much regretted and repudiated by all Highlanders and Scotchmen alike in the States as well as in Canada.66 In spite of several attempts over the years to clear any mud which had stuck over the affair, Murdoch was continually associated with O’Donovan Rossa by opponents, demonstrating that in 1880 it was still not possible for the radical Highlanders to bring their links with Irish agitators into the open.67 This situation was emphasised by the continuing antagonism towards Ireland which filled the columns of Highland newspapers. The Oban Times proclaimed that: The Irish view of the matter is not likely to find many supporters on this side of the channel, where shooting the landlord is not looked upon as 63

64 65 66 67

Special Commission Act 1888. Report of Proceedings before the Commissioners appointed by the Act. Reprinted from The Times (London, 1890), iii, 293; McFarland, John Ferguson, 210–11; Irish World, 13 Aug. 1881. Scotsman, 26 Aug. 1881, 6 Dec. 1882. Hunter, People’s Cause, 170–1. Invernessian, 30 Oct. 1880; Celtic Magazine, Oct. 1881, Apr. 1882. Northern Chronicle, 2 Aug. 1882; NC Ev., 44496–44498.

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the best mode to ending agricultural distress . . . there is a class of politician who would have us believe that there is a great land question to settle before agriculture can again be in a prosperous condition. This is simply nonsense . . . at present [in Scotland] rents are too high, but the tenants are to blame as much as the landlord.68 This was the start of a series of strongly worded editorials which warned crofters against both becoming involved with Irish-style agrarian agitation and even against relying on anything other than hard work to pull the crofting community up from its troubled position.69 It also added that ‘it is only the ignorant and unthinking who can be led astray by the specious and hollow sophistry of Mr. Parnell and his colleagues’. The statement about Parnell was reinforced the very next week, when it was remarked that ‘the people of the Highlands have too much common sense ever to listen to the teachings of Mr. Parnell and other Irish agitators, who go for the abolition of landlords as the only solution to the land question’.70 By way of a farewell to the 1870s, after giving a summary of the state of the agitation in Ireland, the Oban Times reminded readers that ‘blessed are those who expect little, for they shall not be disappointed’.71 Two of the Oban Times’s bogeymen, Davitt and Parnell, had spoken in Glasgow earlier in the month, diverging even at this early stage in their attitudes to Scotland. In a lecture entitled ‘Ireland versus Landlordism’, Davitt bracketed the pit-owning nobility of the central coalfields with rapacious Highland lairds.72 They would have read that the intentions of [the Land League’s] organisers were to confine themselves to the organisation of Ireland alone, but they also intended to carry on this open war against landlordism into Scotland, England and America . . . The time might come when the tenant farmers and people in Scotland might question the Dukes of Sutherland and Buccleuch and other landlords whether their titles to such large tracts of ground rested on any better foundation than confiscation . . . knowing the strength they could put against the power arrayed against them – a power backed up by the British Empire, whose motto was now ‘Imperium et libertas’ – they needed the assistance of the people in Scotland and America, and their motto would be ‘Patria et libertas’.73 By contrast, Parnell’s lecture a couple of weeks later showed little sign of diverging from his standard speeches of the time, with no reference to the 68 69 70 71 72 73

Oban Times, 27 Sep. 1879. Oban Times, 1 Nov., 29 Nov. 1879. Oban Times, 6 Dec. 1879. Oban Times, 20 Dec., 27 Dec. 1879. Scotsman, 2 Dec. 1879. Scotsman, 2 Dec. 1879.

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Highlands or Scotland other than to couple the Scotsman with The Times as untrustworthy newspapers.74 Although the Scotsman may have felt that highlighting Parnell’s reception in Glasgow was a means of demonstrating the potential for Irish mayhem to be transmitted to Scotland, it was at a grassroots level that co-operation was beginning to flourish. By the end of 1879, with the headlines dominated by the Land League and its impact on Ireland, the Glasgow-based radicals were presented with an opportunity to accelerate their activities in Scotland. The Highlands were starting to become the subject of national attention, with news of a potential land agitation beginning in the Reay country in Sutherlandshire, and a controversy on the Leckmelm estate in Ross-shire.75 In late 1879, tenants of A. C. Pirie had been forced to become employees on his newly rationalised estate. The actions of a local minister, John MacMillan, in publicising Pirie’s plans, and the fact that John Murdoch kept the subject in the public eye through his Highlander newspaper, have led many to consider this episode at Leckmelm as one of the opening salvoes of a Highland Land War, or ‘Crofters’ War’.76 It was T. P. O’Connor, then the M.P. for Galway, who was to raise the question of Leckmelm in the House of Commons, for which he was thanked by John Murdoch in the Highlander. That an Irishman should have to raise the issue, however, left Murdoch wondering whether ‘our Highland MPs [are] too intent on the extermination of grouse to remain at their post to protest against the extermination of their own flesh and blood at Leckmelm?’.77 This was the era of ‘obstructionism’ in the House of Commons, and the interest taken in particular by Joseph Biggar in parliament over the crofter question in the next couple of years might be seen as a cynical way of wasting government time. That would be an uncharitable view, however, as there was usually clear relevance for Ireland and the Irish smallholders in the questions asked regarding the Highlands.78 Even without any direct Irish involvement at Leckmelm, the high profile of the Land War in Ireland made comparisons unavoidable, and MacMillan articulated an increasingly popular theme in contrasting the placid reputation of the Highlanders with the turbulent Irish : Again, Mr. Pirie calls the threatened evictions ‘so-called evictions,’ thus denying the reality of what has attracted public attention so widely . . . we see what these unrighteous laws are doing in other parts of our 74 75

76 77 78

Scotsman, 19 Dec. 1879. Scotsman, 21 Nov. 1879; Highlander, 21 Nov., 28 Nov., 5 Dec., 19 Dec. 1879; Oban Times, 20 Dec. 1879; C. W. J. Withers, Gaelic Scotland: The Transformation of a Culture Region (London, 1988), 372; J. Hunter, The Making of the Crofting Community (Edinburgh, 1976), 141; MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 20–1. Hunter, People’s Cause, 22–35. Highlander, 1 Sep. 1880. Highlander, 1 Sep. 1880; Hansard, 3rd ser., cclxvii, col. 1565 (27 Apr. 1882); 3rd ser., cclxxiv, col. 1919 (23 Nov. 1882).

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dominions, and it is a pity, as Dr. Begg said some months ago, that our Highlanders could not in some way or another become Irishmen for six months.79 In quoting the remarks of James Begg at the Free Church Assembly of 1880, however, Macmillan’s remarks were lent a wistful quality, as though the very thought of Highlanders following the ‘Irish example’ was, no matter how desirable in the short term, an impossible dream.80 In Ireland at this time, Thomas Nulty, bishop of Meath, had entered the land debate with a strongly argued letter to his diocesan clery and laity, setting out the principle that the land of every country was ‘the common property of the people of that country, because its real owner, the creator who made it, has transferred it as a voluntary gift to them’.81 Macmillan, however, in demanding a ‘generous and good proprietor’, was not suggesting anything beyond dual ownership for the Highlands, and reflected a conservative strain of land reform which recalled the days of the clan and mutual obligation between chief and clansmen: Mr Pirie shows he has little faith in the crofting system, and manifests his ignorance of Scotland though a Scotchman, by comparing it with Ireland on this point. There are various causes why destitution is so prevalent in Ireland, which has not been the case in Scotland since the first failure of potato crops. I am bound to say, that there is not in the three kingdoms a class of peasantry so comfortable as the peasantry of Scotland or the Highlands, provided they have a generous and good proprietor, who does not grind them with rack rent.82 Macmillan kept up the campaign in the newspapers, writing a few weeks later that: In brooding over this question, one feels his blood rise when he thinks what things have been allowed, in our Highlands and our British Isles. The truth is the Highlander is the most submissive to the laws under the sky of heaven, when he would for one day break the iron heel of his oppressor as he does. Our Irish cousins are using a way of their own to rid their part of the earth from oppressors. Who can blame them?83 Alexander Mackenzie sounded a note of caution, writing that although an agitation was urgently needed on the land question, ‘we shall never advocate such extreme measures as have been adopted on the other side of the channel’.84 Warnings began to appear in the press, however, suggesting that 79 80 81

82 83 84

Scotsman, 9 Aug. 1880. Scotsman, 25 May 1880. T. Nulty, The Land Agitation in Ireland: letter to the clergy and laity of the diocese of Meath (Manchester, 1881). This was originally circulated in April 1880. Scotsman, 16 Aug. 1880. Scotsman, 1 Sep. 1880. Invernessian, 27 Nov. 1880.

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without an immediate agitation, a situation like that in Ireland could arise.85 For their part, the Irish Land Leaguers of Glasgow passed resolutions condemning Pirie and the Leckmelm evictions, calling for an end to rackrenting and tendering ‘heartfelt sympathies’ to the evicted tenants.86 In his increasingly vociferous contributions to various Highland Associations, Angus Sutherland could be seen both criticising the Highlanders for their previously docile attitudes to landlordism, and also stressing the justice and inevitability of reform. Although Sutherland was ostensibly concentrating on economics, his speeches read as unashamed clarion calls to all generations of Highlanders to join the nascent reform movement.87 Sutherland was by this time a well-known figure in Glasgow Highland circles, and he was invited by John Murdoch to produce a series of articles for the Highlander. Although the Highlander was printed in Inverness it had a wide, if thinly spread, circulation in Scotland and abroad.88 The series, under the banner of ‘Our Land Laws’, appeared in the paper from December 1880 to March 1881, and reflected the Cobdenite ‘free trade in land’ agenda which had informed much of the land reform debate among the Glasgow radicals, condemning the laws of entail and primogeniture, and highlighting successful peasant proprietaries in Europe.89 The rallying tone adopted by Sutherland in his speeches continued in his writing. Referring to the agitation in Ireland, he told readers that: We have wrongs nearer to home and less disposition on the part of public men to redress them, and on the part of private persons to understand them. At all events, of one thing we may rest assured – that the time has come when it is necessary to face the Land Question boldly and fearlessly.90 At the conclusion of his articles, he questioned the wisdom on the part of the landlords in keeping the subject of land reform taboo. Any attempt to delay could only end in a more violent revolution than the one under consideration.91 Referring to the ‘Reign of Terror’, but also harking back to de Laveleye’s warnings of 1871, Sutherland asked: Is there no other way of solving the question except the French way? Has history been made and written, and have wise men interpreted it in vain? Have moralists and political economists written and taught to no purpose? And will dumb millions be dumb forever? Let us hope not. Their regeneration is in their own hands. Thought must precede wise speech and wise action.92 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

North British Daily Mail, 2 Nov. 1880. North British Daily Mail, 22 Nov. 1880; Inverness Courier, 23 Nov., 25 Nov. 1881. Highlander, 10 Nov. 1880; Oban Times, 13 Nov. 1880. Hunter, People’s Cause, 147–64. Highlander, 16 Feb. 1881. Highlander, 22 Dec. 1880. Highlander, 23 Feb. 1881. Highlander, 23 Feb. 1881.

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Sutherland also argued that if the land laws of Great Britain and Ireland were fair and just, then Ireland, given its lack of an industrial base and almost total dependence on those laws, ‘ought to be the most contented and best governed country in the world’.93 As it clearly was not, the land laws were to blame. The same rationale led Henry George to make Ireland a laboratory for the theories he expounded in Progress and Poverty, and the publication of The Irish Land Question in 1882, and George’s own stint in Ireland as a journalist for the Irish World later in the same year, during which time he was imprisoned for being a ‘suspicious stranger’.94 In parallel with the ostensibly dispassionate economic arguments which were being presented, signs began to appear that John Murdoch was more willing to ally the causes of Ireland and the Highlands in the minds of his readers: The Scotsman may gnash his teeth at Irish agitation . . . but he cannot altogether cork up the mind of Scotland in a whig bottle . . . If things go on as they are doing, the Scotsman and the small fry who follow him, will be left high and dry and the rocks of old prejudices, while the two peoples of Old and New Scotia are pulling together in the cause of humanity.95 As a counter to this, the Oban Times claimed that any talk of Ireland and the Highlands being oppressed by ‘The Saxon’ was simply nonsense.96 The position of the Oban Times did not change appreciably between 1879 and 1880, and for most of this time it conformed to the image of the antiIrish Land League organs condemned by John Murdoch. It told of dissension within the Land League, of growing opposition to Parnell, and of the anarchic state of Ireland.97 Although the paper could not be called ‘anticrofter’ – it was just as indignant towards the Scotsman’s attitude to the Highlands as John Murdoch, for example – it was certainly anti-Irish.98 Although it had backed a measure of peasant proprietary in the 1870s, the Oban Times reverted in the face of the Irish situation to calls for accommodation between lairds and their tenants. It also called for the development of the Highland economy through hard work, running a series of over sixty articles on various options open to the crofters for improvement, noting everything from communications and land, to willow-basket making, walking sticks, eels, and ‘sobriety’.99 During 1880–81, the Oban Times carried many articles in favour of coercive action against the Irish, and the editorial 93 94

95 96 97 98 99

Highlander, 26 Jan. 1881. H. George, The Irish Land Question: what it involves and how alone it can be settled (London, 1882); Barker, Henry George, 368–72. Highlander, 6 Oct. 1880. Oban Times, 16 Oct. 1880. Oban Times, 7 Feb., 14 Feb., 29 May, 19 Jun., 28 Aug., 2 Oct., 11 Dec. 1880. Oban Times, 21 Feb. 1880. Oban Times, 15 May 1880–9 Jul. 1881, passim.

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line was that the government was not doing enough to prevent agrarian outrages in Ireland.100 Home rule remained a vital question among the Irish, but the land issue, in its broadest sense, became the most prominent concern among the radicals of Glasgow. This would often force the Irish radicals of the city, increasingly involved in a burgeoning labour agitation throughout the 1880s, into direct conflict with ‘pure’ nationalists, the latter group calling into question the loyalties of men such as McHugh, McGhee, and Ferguson. In November 1880, arrangements for the establishment of a branch of the Land League in Glasgow were proposed. C. P. O’Sullivan, of Cork, claimed that ‘English and Scottish people needed to be educated on the land question. [He] had no doubt that the Land League principles would spread to the Scotch and English people themselves after a time.’101 He would have noticed the call from ‘Fionn’ for the formation of a ‘Scottish Land League’, in addition to the Irish body.102 ‘Fionn’, in turn, would have read the ‘Local News’ section of the Highlander a couple of weeks beforehand, where a piece described how: A tenant, asking for a 20% reduction in rent, received the following answer from the proprietor that ‘you must go to Ireland for that’. Meaning, of course, that in this country a landlord can ‘do what he wants with his own’, but in Ireland not quite. Perhaps a branch of the Land League would do some good in the neighbourhood.103 For now, there would be no ‘Scottish Land League’, but the Glasgow branch of the Irish Land League acted as a surrogate. Although this branch of the Land League was founded by Irishmen, with Ferguson as president, Michael Clarke as vice-president, and McHugh as secretary, and evolved from the Home Rule Confederation, Scotsmen played a vital role in the organisation almost from the start. James Shaw Maxwell and John Bruce Glasier, friends who were to be important figures in the British Labour movement, joined at the end of 1880.104 Glasier’s recollections of these heady times, when the some of the Scots radicals were inducted into the spirit of the ‘New Departure’ are encapsulated in a poetic account from 1900: It was an enchanting experience . . . There is nothing save love comparable to the joy of revolutionary ardour, and happily they are not infrequently mutually convertible emotions. We went through the 100 101 102

103 104

Oban Times, 20 Nov. 1880. North British Daily Mail, 2 Nov. 1880. Oban Times, 30 Oct. 1880; A. G. Newby, ‘The Oban Times and the early land agitation in the Highlands, 1877–1881’, Scottish Local History, liv (2002), 13–21. Highlander, 13 Oct. 1880. Glasgow Herald, 7 Jan. 1929; W. Whiteley (ed.), J. Bruce Glasier – A Memorial (Manchester, 1920).

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country fairly revelling in sedition! We drank the health of the Irish Republic on the topmost battlement of Sligo Cathedral. We renounced the British government on the highways, and shrieked treason from jaunting cars across the fields to the startled peasantry. We jeered a constabulary at their barrack doors, and on one occasion were chased by a carload of them half-way from Drumihair [sic] into the town of Carrickon-Shannon. We attended secret conventions of moonlighters among the hills, and we visited suspects in Kilmainham Gaol . . . Altogether my sensations during that excursion were of an almost ideally perfect revolutionary delight.105 Almost by definition, argued Glasier, the Scots, particularly Highland Scots, who attended Sunday Society events and, by extension, the Sunday evening meetings of the Irish Land League, were more radical than many fellow members: For while the Sabbatarian ban, then still stringent in Scotland, kept away the more timid of the intellectual élite, it ensured, on the other hand, that the audiences which attended the Sunday Society lectures were for the greater part composed of men and women whose minds had been aroused from orthodox sloth and were prepared to take unconventional paths.106 Although the Socialists would eventually diverge from the Georgite ‘single taxers’, the inspirational impact of Progress and Poverty was acknowledged at an early stage.107 Shaw Maxwell and Glasier were among those who, in the words of Sydney Webb, ‘developed into complete Socialists’.108 With important politicians, such as Charles Bradlaugh and Joseph Cowen, speaking out in favour of the aims of the Irish Land League, and column inches in many of the Scottish newspapers being taken up with news – and usually editorial condemnation – relating to the ‘Sister Island’, it was unsurprising that some crofters in the Scottish Highlands should begin to ponder their own situation.109 The winter of 1880–81 also saw an increased amount of activity in Glasgow on the issue of home rule. One protest ended with several men being detained by the Glasgow police – unlawfully, it was thought by home rule supporters – and Edward McHugh called on Parnell to do everything in his power to have these grievances redressed and aired in Parliament.110 While there were issues such as this which united the Irish of Glasgow this was far 105

106 107

108 109 110

The Clarion, 17 Mar. 1900. Quoted in F. Lane, The Origins of Modern Irish Socialism (Cork, 1997), 33. Glasier, William Morris, 25. P. W. Fox and H. Scott Gordon, ‘The early Fabians: economist and reformers’, Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, xvii (1951), 308. S. Webb, Socialism in England (Baltimore, 1889), 21. North British Daily Mail, 5 Oct., 26 Oct., 28 Oct. 1880; Highlander, 16 Feb. 1881. North British Daily Mail, 2 Nov. 1880.

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from a monolithic body. McHugh and his colleagues worked hard in agitating for the Land League in Lanarkshire, and some topics, such as opposition to the state trials, were uncontroversial.111 Yet, many Irishmen in the city seem to have found the leaders of the Land League too dictatorial in style, and too broad in their sympathies. Strife and splits were never far away. In December 1880, Michael Clarke called for boycotting to be extended to Scotland, refusing to ‘patronise the business of any Irishman who refuses to support the Irish land movement’.112 McHugh, with John Ferguson, argued against this measure, hoping to persuade people of the justice of land reform by force of argument, but his counter-proposal was rejected by a majority of the executive.113 Later in the same week a letter from ‘No Boycotter’, accused the executive of the Glasgow Land League of intimidating ‘their more peacefully disposed brethren’.114 This kind of disquiet would increase in volume throughout the 1880s. Therefore, the Irish agitation dominated the news in 1880, and remained intimately associated with bloodshed and chaos. As was demonstrated by MacMillan’s stand over Leckmelm, however, a small number of people were starting to highlight the passivity of the crofters in contrast to the Irish tenant farmers quite openly. This, it was hoped, might give a push to the crofting community into taking a stand against instances of oppressive landlordism, though any action would by definition be limited in comparison with the Irish Land War, which was a nationwide movement, tightly organised by a central body, and bound up inextricably with nationalism. Therefore, the Glasgow Land League, at this stage, was an amalgam of interests. While the ‘rank and file’ was overwhelmingly Irish, a significant number of Scots, particularly Scots with Highland links, had started to influence the Glasgow branch at an executive level. The Highlanders Angus Sutherland, Henry Whyte, and John Gunn Mackay kept events in the crofting districts to the fore, but the popular image of Ireland in Britain prevented any direct intervention at this stage, in spite of sympathetic resolutions passed over Leckmelm. The urban context also ensured that the Glasgow branch diverged from the interests of the Land League in Ireland, and for members like Glasier and Shaw Maxwell, their Land League membership was only one of several radical hats which they wore. The influence of Ireland on the crofting community at this stage, therefore, was very much an ‘inspirational’ one, with some crofters beginning to assess their situation in relation to events in Ireland. Leckmelm, however, had laid the foundations for an attempt to introduce radical land reform into the Highlands, and the Glasgow radicals, becoming ever more convinced of the potential of Progress and Poverty, were by 1881 poised to intervene when the next opportunity presented itself. 111 112 113 114

North British Daily Mail, 4 Nov., 24 Nov., 22 Dec. 1880. North British Daily Mail, 6 Dec. 1880. North British Daily Mail, 13 Dec., 14 Dec. 1880. North British Daily Mail, 18 Dec. 1880.

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chapter four

‘An Obscure Hall in East Nile Street’: Urban Radicalism and the ‘Crofters’ War’, 1881–1882 The passage of a new Irish Land Act in 1881 indicated that agitation could be successful, and suggested that, as long as crofters remained silent in relation to their troubles, they could expect no redress. The subsequent scaling down of the Irish land agitation drove Davitt and Ferguson to conclude that Scotland and England would be more receptive than Ireland to their radicalism. The same year also saw the Highlander lose its long battle against creditors, and although it struggled on as a monthly publication, it reverted to more cultural than political content.1 In spite of a fund being established in Dublin by the Gaelic Union, to ‘aid the recovery’ of the Highlander, it folded at the end of 1881.2 The Oban Times also renewed its interest in land reform – often treading a fine line between support for the crofters and condemnation for the Irish.3 Disgust with the antics of the Irish Parliamentary Party was regularly displayed, and the editor clearly believed he was speaking for the majority of his readers when, in February 1881, he stated that ‘of the ultimate fate of the leaders of the Land League, few in this country have any interest’.4 As the Highlander reached the end of the road, Inverness witnessed the birth of a Tory alternative to the town’s Liberal press, and the Northern Chronicle would have plenty to say about any Highland identification with the Irish.5 Its view on the Land Act, for example, was that ‘Irish anarchy [was] to be rewarded by a slice of stolen cake’.6 A year after its launch, its main promoter, Charles Innes, was praised by fellow Conservatives in Scotland as a bulwark against the spread of radicalism in the region.7 Not only was the lack of Tory organisation seen as creating a vacuum in which radical ideas could flourish, the Tories believed benevolent landlordism was the only way of preserving the crofting community. The Liberal Party also 1

2 3 4 5 6 7

Hunter, People’s Cause, 35; M. MacLean and C. Carrell (eds), As an Fhearran – From The Land: Clearance, Conflict and Crofting (Stornoway, 1986), 22. Highlander, Jul. 1881. Oban Times, 1 Jan., 8 Jan. 1881. Oban Times, 26 Feb. 1881. Northern Chronicle, 5 Jan., 2 Feb. 1881. Northern Chronicle, 20 Jul. 1881. Fifeshire Journal, 3 Aug. 1882.

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believed that its organisation needed to ‘be extended further into the Highlands’, perhaps indicating a more general perception that there was a political vacuum to be filled.8 Angus Sutherland certainly recognised an opportunity to fill the vacuum. Even before the Glasgow Irish influence on the Highland land agitation became common knowledge, a land reform programme based on the ‘universal truths’ of political economy was being put forward, albeit employing historical and localised examples by way of illustrating broader points. In claiming inspiration from the same economists as Ferguson, George, Davitt, and McHugh, Sutherland argued from a very early stage among the Highland community in Glasgow that nationalisation of land was a viable alternative to the ‘3 Fs’. Thus, while Ferguson and McHugh, along with J. Bruce Glasier and James Shaw Maxwell – all followers of Henry George – attempted to persuade Irishmen of the merits of the scheme, Sutherland was speaking on the subject to Glasgow members of the FCS.9 When Ferguson and McHugh began addressing Highlanders directly on land reform, Sutherland had ensured that many Gaels in the city had already been exposed to similar doctrines. * Alleged ‘seditious speeches’ led to the revocation of Davitt’s ticket-of-leave in early February 1881 and, therefore, to his renewed imprisonment, provoking shock and indignation among the Irish nationalists, but ‘satisfaction that ranged from blatant rejoicing to sober appreciation’ from the Unionist and Whig press.10 A meeting of Land League leaders in February 1881 saw John Ferguson express fears for the future of the movement, with coercion inevitable if the lawlessness in Ireland persisted. One way of countering this problem was to cultivate the support of the English and Scottish people on the Irish question, and Ferguson, with his practical experience in this matter, deserves as much credit as Davitt for persuading Parnell to advocate – albeit temporarily – a ‘junction’ between Irish nationalism and the British democracy.11 Indeed, one of the notable results of this meeting was the establishment of the NLLGB.12 The NLLGB, while affiliated, was a quite distinct body from the Irish National Land League, which would be suppressed in October 1881 and voluntarily wound up in October 1882.13 The British body was inaugurated on 25 March, 1881 with similar objects to the 8

9 10 11

12 13

NLS, Acc 11765/35, Scottish Liberal Association Leaflet Book, 1885–1891, Report of the First AGM of the Scottish Liberal Association, 5 Jan. 1882. Oban Times, 13 Nov. 1880; Highlander, 10 Nov. 1880. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 466. Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 449; Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 461; A. L. Morton and G. Tate, The British Labour Movement, 1770–1920 (London, 1956), 157. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 481. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 497, 545.

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Irish League, but with the special responsibility of disseminating ideas about the Irish land question throughout the working classes of England, Scotland, and Wales.14 With men such as Davitt, McHugh, and Ferguson, as well as H. M. Hyndman and others from the Democratic Federation, involved in its running, it is not surprising that the NLLGB took on a much more radical, even Socialist, bent than the Irish body.15 The new league grew quickly throughout England and Scotland, and it was the Glasgow Irish who played the most prominent role in the north, with Edward McHugh being appointed the paid organiser for the whole of Scotland. Although some have dismissed the importance of the ‘junction’ between Irish and British working classes, Scotland, and the Highlands in particular, was to see a partial success for the policy.16 Events in Ireland at the beginning of 1881 were, naturally, closely followed by the leaders of the Glasgow Land League. Parallel with Irish concerns, the development of an agitation in the Highlands was ongoing. By March, McHugh had arranged a series of monster meetings ‘from the Tweed to Inverness’, featuring ‘a number of fiery orators’.17 Parnell never did make the trip to the Highlands, as was hoped, but with ‘Tay Pay’ O’Connor and Tim Healy in Dundee speaking against coercion, and growing discontent in the Highlands – including alleged incendiarism on the Isle of Skye – there was plenty to keep McHugh and his colleagues occupied.18 Sporadic violence was seen on the Kilmuir estate of Captain William Fraser, where some tenants in the township of Valtos were demanding reductions in rent.19 With the Skye tenants adopting tactics similar to those of the Irish, it seemed possible that the foundations had been laid for a closer connection to develop. The St. Patrick’s Day demonstration in Glasgow was used to reiterate the links between the land question and the decline of British trade, and correspondence flourished in the Glasgow papers about the merits or otherwise of the crofters following the example of the Irish smallholders.20 * 14 15

16 17 18 19

20

Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 449. For the aims of the Democratic Federation, which, in including ‘legislative independence for Ireland’, and ‘nationalisation of the land’, were compatible with many of the Glasgow radicals at this stage, see Lane, Modern Irish Socialism, 59, n. 27. P. Bew, Land and the National Question in Ireland, 1858–1882 (New Jersey, 1979), 154. Glasgow Herald, 1 Mar. 1881. Glasgow Herald, 2 Mar., 4 Mar. 1881; North British Daily Mail, 15 Apr. 1881. For details of Valtos, see Highlander, 4 May 1881; Oban Times, 1 Jan. 1881; Irish World, 15 Oct. 1881; MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 30–4; Hunter, Crofting Community, 133–4; Withers, Gaelic Scotland, 372. Norman Stewart, later nicknamed ‘Parnell’, had refused to pay the rent increase since 1877, again predating the outbreak of the Irish Land War. Glasgow Herald, 16 Mar., 18 Mar., 23 Mar., 25 Mar. 1881; North British Daily Mail, 18 Mar. 1881.

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Gladstone’s conciliatory gesture to Irish Nationalists, a new Land Bill based on the ‘3 Fs’, was introduced on 7 April, 1881.21 Land courts would be established for determining fair rents; the tenant would be granted fixity of tenure, so long as the rent was paid; and the right to sell the land was fully granted, in a clarification of the 1870 Act. Although Parnell and his party criticised the Bill as totally inadequate, it seemed to many in Scotland that the result of three years of often violent Land League agitation was that the Irish were having their demands met, providing a further nudge to the land reform debate.22 April saw an explosion of correspondence in the pages of the Glasgow newspapers, some of it encouraging for the land leaguers – Scots discussing the merits of starting a land agitation – and some of it irritating, with attacks from compatriots who were aggravated by the dominance of Ferguson’s left-wing clique.23 Even without promptings from Glasgow, the high profile of the new Land Act in the press was a stimulus to crofters in the Highlands and Hebrides. As Hunter has noted: Irish unrest and its legislative consequences did not go unnoticed in the Highlands. The government’s publishers received an order for a copy of the Irish Land Act from a remote part of Lewis; and at least one group of Skye crofters, on ‘hearing of good news from Ireland’, expressed an inclination to ‘turn rebels ourselves in order to obtain the same benefits.’24 This does appear to have been the case, but it must also be noted that the Land Act was used by those who wished to prevent land reform along the lines of George or Wallace. Even the former Liberal M.P. Henry Fawcett, to Wallace’s chagrin, wrote that the Irish Act demonstrated ‘that it is possible to confer these advantages on cultivators without bringing into operation all the evils which, we believe, would result from nationalisation’.25 It is clear that Ferguson and Davitt, in particular, hoped that Scotland would be willing to go further with reform than had Ireland in 1881, but in the meantime the embryonic combination of radicals in Glasgow did not concern itself too much with specifics. Thus, in April, when Parnell and T. P. O’Connor arrived to address the Land League in the city, the opportunity was taken to highlight some of the shared grievances of Ireland and the 21

22 23 24 25

A. Warren, ‘Gladstone, land and social reconstruction in Ireland 1881–1887’, Parliamentary History, ii (1983), 153; A. Warren, ‘Forster, the Liberals and new directions in Irish policy 1880–1882’, Parliamentary History, vi (1987), 95; Jackson, Home Rule, 43–5; Bull, Land, Politics and Nationalism, 58–9. King, Michael Davitt, 32. Glasgow Herald, 7–13 Apr. 1881; McFarland, John Ferguson, 130. Hunter, Crofting Community, 132–3. H. Fawcett, State Socialism and the Nationalisation of the Land (London, 1883), 9; A. R. Wallace, ‘The “Why” and the “How” of land nationalisation’, MacMillan’s Magazine, Oct. 1883, 491.

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Highlands.26 Parnell’s main aim in the speech he delivered was to persuade people that they were not ‘the league of assassins and midnight marauders they were represented to be’. Nevertheless, Parnell did not show any real appreciation of a nascent Highland land movement, nor did he seem to accept the possibility of Scotland joining such an agitation in the near future: They had always had the practical sympathy and help of Irishmen living in England and Scotland to support them in the struggle, but they had only recently met with a desire on the part of Englishmen and Scotchmen thoroughly to study this question. It was exceedingly difficult for Englishmen and Scotchmen to understand a question which was outside their own country, and it always seemed to be more difficult for them to do justice to Ireland than to any other nation in the earth. It was reported, however, that the meeting saw ‘some incidental reference to the Duke of Argyll’, which ‘led to a most extraordinary scene of hissing and booing’, which as it was aimed at a prominent Highland laird who opposed the 1881 Act, could have come from both Highlanders and Irishmen.27 Henry Whyte moved to condemn the threatened evictions in Valtos, and with the main meeting in Glasgow City Hall ‘filled to suffocation’ there were also overflow meetings held in adjacent areas.28 ‘Tay Pay’, having addressed the overflow, reported back to the main meeting. Where Parnell again stuck to a prepared speech aimed at a non-specific English–Scottish audience, O’Connor was more spontaneous, noting that as ‘most of the movers of the resolutions at the other meetings being Highlanders . . . [he] accepted it as proof of the strong, ardent and vigorous union of the Celtic race’. He further recognised in the presence of the Highlanders that night a happy augury for the future. The system of feudalism was toppling, and before many years it would be lying in the dust. Some rats had discovered that the ship was sinking, and had left it . . . Although McHugh and the rest of the Glasgow Executive always argued that the Scottish land agitation was a native movement, the links between the Highlanders and the Glasgow Irish were now in the public domain. The week after Parnell’s speech, the Glasgow Land League passed a resolution of sympathy with the crofters.29 In May, the prominent Highlander H. C. Gillies spoke to the Glasgow Land League on ‘The land for the people’, and 26

27

28 29

Scotsman, 19 Apr. 1881; Freeman’s Journal, 19 Apr. 1881; Highlander, 27 Apr. 1881; North British Daily Mail, 19 Apr. 1881; Glasgow Evening News, 19 Apr. 1881. K. M. Mulhern, ‘The intellectual duke: George Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, 1823–1900’, Ph.D. thesis (University of Edinburgh, 2006), 143–6. D. W. Crowley, ‘The “crofters’ party”, 1885–1892’, SHR, xxxv (1956), 112. Glasgow Herald, 25 Apr. 1881; North British Daily Mail, 25 Apr. 1881; Scotsman, 25 Apr. 1881.

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the Scottish Fenian organiser John Torley described ‘The history of landlordism’.30 The following month the branch resolved to affiliate with the Executive of the NLLGB, which it was thought would better allow the executive to follow their radical agenda.31 Following the rent affrays in Valtos, the question of Irish involvement with the recurrent crofting disturbances began to disquiet newspapers such as the Scotsman, which described the presence of Highlanders at Land League meetings in Glasgow: They were received with open arms, a welcome that affected [the Highlanders] so much that they shortly joined the organisation. The connection between the Irish and Highland agitators has been of the most intimate nature, and the officers of the league, delighted at the acquisition of the Highland contingent, are doing their best to make the views of the malcontents on the Skye question bulk largely before the public.32 The Glasgow Land League would exert greater influence still on the Highland land question in the spring of 1882, but throughout the summer of 1881 it maintained an interest in affairs in Skye. Soon after the Scotsman reported links between the Glasgow Irish and Highland radicals, it claimed that the Land League members were ‘in regular correspondence with some of the Kilmuir tenantry’.33 As the Valtos agitation cooled down and order was apparently restored, the following months saw increasing unrest in Ireland, and subsequent government coercion was used as a warning to any crofters wishing to carry out a concerted rent strike, or any other Land League tactic. And yet, the alliance of Irish and Scottish radicals, with backing from the likes of Joseph Cowen, ensured that land reform was kept on the agenda.34 A year before Edward McHugh was despatched by the NLLGB to Skye in order to investigate and lecture on the land laws, it was Angus Sutherland who was being mooted as the most likely man to fulfil the role.35 It is interesting to speculate how different the subsequent perceptions of Irish interference in the Highlands might have been if Sutherland, a native Highlander, had visited Skye in 1881 rather than McHugh, the Ulsterman, 30 31 32

33

34 35

Glasgow Herald, 9 May, 30 May 1881. Glasgow Herald, 13 Jun. 1881; North British Daily Mail, 13 Jun. 1881. Highland Archive, Kilmuir Estate Papers, (HA, KEP) D123/30; Scotsman, 21 May 1881. For a lukewarm denial of the Scotsman’s accusations, see Henry George’s column, Irish World, 20 May 1882. George here claimed that ‘The modicum of truth in this is that the Irish Land League in Glasgow and other towns have done a good deal to rouse feelings in regard to the Highland evictions, and that the example of Ireland had undoubtedly stirred the Highland tenants . . .’ Scotsman, 23 May, 2 Jun., 18 Jun. 1881; HA, KEP D123/2 (e), Fraser to MacDonald, 2 May 1882. Oban Times, 3 Dec. 1881; See also Cowen’s letter to McHugh, Glasgow Herald, 11 Jul. 1881. Highlander, 16 Jul. 1881.

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who by unfortunate coincidence happened to be on the island in May 1882, at the time when the Phoenix Park murders had thrust Irish political violence back to the forefront of the public consciousness. As it was, no emissary of the Land League visited Skye in 1881, but the situation on the island was, subsequently, very closely monitored. Sutherland also helped to keep the Highland issue alive within the Irish Land League branches in the city. The FCS, however, was the main forum for Sutherland’s speeches on Valtos.36 He also used his position as Secretary of the Federation to establish the Skye Vigilance Committee, a political sub-committee of the FCS, set aside specifically to assist in the defence of tenants who struck from paying rent.37 The Vigilance Committee, gave ‘Fionn’ a good pretext for reporting the radicalism present in the city, including the possible establishment of a Scottish Land Law Reform Association.38 The Oban Times’s editorial opinion in relation to Ireland remained conservative.39 Under the heading of ‘Skye – an example to the Irish’, a didactic message was presented to readers: ‘The Valtos tenants, who were refusing to pay their rents and whose case began to excite interest in outsiders, have now come to terms with their factor and landlord.’40 Unlike Sutherland and ‘Fionn’, who urged a strong, but lawful, agitation, other correspondents at this time exhorted the crofters to come to terms with their landlords, with ‘Notes from Edinburgh’ expressing the hope that ‘we have heard the last of this outcry against the Skye proprietor and his evicted tenants, and that Highlanders from home will stop identifying themselves with Irish insubordinates’.41 A Land League executive meeting in Dublin, which also featured delegates from the Democratic Federation, including G. B. Clark and William Saunders, was reported in July 1881 to have voted £57 to assist the Skye crofters. The money, proposed by J. J. Louden and seconded by Revd Harry Rylett, neither of whose interests were limited to Irish agrarian matters, was reported in Scotland, although no clear understanding seems to have been reached on what the financial support was for, or how it might be passed on to the crofters.42 Adding to the general atmosphere of suspicion of Irish intervention in Skye, the unlikely suggestion was also made in some quarters that an ‘Irish priest’ was said to be in Valtos. The Highlander captured something of the hysteria which must have prevailed when it reported ‘a letter in several papers recently charging some Irish priest called Fr. O’Kelly 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

Oban Times, 14 May 1881; Highlander, 11 May 1881. Irish World, 10 Jun. 1882. Oban Times, 2 Jul., 9 Jul., 16 Jul. 1881. Oban Times, 3 Dec. 1881. Oban Times, 30 Apr. 1881. Oban Times, 25 Jun. 1881. Oban Times, 16 Jul. 1881; Scotsman, 10 Sep. 1881; Forward!, 16 Jul. 1910; M. S. Wilkins, ‘The non-socialist origins of England’s first important socialist organization’, International Review of Social History, iv (1959), 203.

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of availing himself with recent landlord/tenant agitation in Valtos to convert Skyemen to Roman Catholicism’.43 By August, however, the fuss seems to have died down, and the Oban Times remarked that ‘we have not been able to trace the mythical Irish priest, who was so ready to convert the Valtosonians’.44 No reports back up the existence of peripatetic Irish ‘priests’, and although a sum of money may well have been donated to the crofters from Dublin, there are few clues as to who received it or to what use it was put, although John Murdoch later suggested that it provided the Skye Vigilance Committee’s ‘nest egg’.45 Some years later, Ferguson praised the Irish World’s role in the agitation, and explained that Patrick Egan gave £200 from the funds of the Central Land League. Ferguson was given total freedom with this money, however, and said that it was repaid from Glasgow within ‘a year or so’.46 If this clandestine activity fuelled newspaper rumours, the same month had seen quite overt meetings taking place in Glasgow. John Gunn Mackay lectured to the Land League on ‘The Irish and Scotch Celts – their common history and objectives’.47 Speaking at a meeting in Hamilton, John Ferguson also used some of his Highland contacts to furnish his audience with details of predatory landlordism in both Ireland and the Highlands.48 Therefore, as delegates assembled under the presidency of Justin McCarthy for the first annual meeting of the NLLGB in Newcastle, McHugh would have been able to report with pride and optimism about the progress which he and his allies were making in Scotland. They were not only promoting the Irish cause in Glasgow and the cities, but breaking down some of the traditional hostility which had existed between the host community and the emigrants.49 While the Valtos affair was settled reasonably quickly, it retained a symbolic importance.50 Michael Davitt wrote some months later that: About eighteen months ago the crofters of Valtos . . . rebelled, against an increase of rent . . . No attention was paid to these hardy islanders or to their revolt against the increased rent-tax until the matter was brought under the attention of John Ferguson, of Glasgow, by resident Highlanders in that city. The Land League was immediately communicated with, and assistance promised to those of the crofters who might be evicted for holding out against the payment of the exorbitant rent.51 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

Highlander, Sep. 1881. Oban Times, 27 Aug. 1881. Irish World, 10 Jun. 1882. Glasgow Observer, 14 May 1887. Highlander, Aug. 1881. Irish World, 17 Sep. 1881. North British Daily Mail, 30 Aug. 1881. Hanham, ‘Problem of Highland discontent’, 52. Irish World, 2 Dec. 1882.

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This supports the idea that, although the Land League responded promptly in publicising and, possibly, advising the crofters, the rent-strike itself was a spontaneous reaction which owed more to the general inspiration of the Irish Land War than to direct Irish intervention. These tactics could have been transmitted through returning migrants from the urban lowlands, fishermen in Ireland or, quite simply, from newspaper reports on the Irish Land War, but the implication of the Scotsman that the Land League was directly responsible was, at this stage, an exaggeration. The radical wing of the Glasgow Land League veered further from mainstream Irish nationalism in late 1881. The branch had come out firmly in favour of a measure of land nationalisation, far in advance of most leading members of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Emboldened by the support of radical Scots, they hoped that a successful agitation in favour of land nationalisation in Scotland would help turn Irish public opinion away from support for the 1881 Land Act. The establishment of the Land Nationalisation Society in March 1881, along with Wallace’s Land Nationalisation, stepped up the attack on peasant proprietary, let alone dual ownership, as a solution to the Irish land problem. Wallace argued that free trade in land was ‘comparatively useless’, dismissing Kay, Arnold, and others, as ‘illogical and unsound’ in their sure assertions that merely giving a peasant ownership of a small piece of land would lead to general prosperity.52 Publicity also came from a clerical source, with Thomas Nulty, bishop of Meath, summarising a radical view of the Act in his pamphlet Back to the Land: I confess I am not very sanguine in my expectations of this Bill – at any rate, when it shall have passed the Lords. The hereditary legislators will, I fear, never surrender the monopoly in the land which they have usurped for centuries past; at least till it has become quite plain to them that they have lost the power of holding it any longer. It is, however, now quite manifest to all the world – except, perhaps, to themselves – that they hold that power no longer. We, however, can afford calmly to wait. While we are, therefore, prepared to receive with gratitude any settlement of the question which will substantially secure to us our just rights, we will never be satisfied with less. Nothing short of a full and comprehensive measure of justice will ever satisfy the tenant farmers of Ireland, or put an end to the Land League agitation.53 The autumn of 1881 saw the radicals begin to refine their theories, suggesting that a form of land nationalisation had been their original, and only, intention.54 John Ferguson’s The Land for the People was published at this time, and like Nulty he hoped to prevent a general acceptance of an Act 52 53 54

Wallace, Land Nationalisation, 184–6. T. Nulty, Back to the Land (reprinted, Melbourne, 1939), dedication. Irish World, 10 Sep. 1881.

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which, in its ambition of reining in the excesses of landlordism, would actually perpetuate the prevailing system.55 The Land for the People demonstrated the links between Ferguson and the political economists of earlier in the century, particularly Cobden, Mill, de Laveleye, and Cliffe Leslie, Ferguson’s old mentor.56 The land question in the Highlands makes frequent appearances, but always within a ‘four nations’ context, the implication being that any remedy for the Irish land question would benefit the workers and traders of the rest of the islands.57 The foreword stressed that land was ‘a question for the Town as much as the Country, and upon its speedy and scientific settlement depends the future’.58 At Irishtown in 1879, John Ferguson had told the crowd that ‘land provided by God for the people. Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and France didn’t have paupers – and they didn’t have landlords . . .’59 His definition of ‘owner occupier’ was now very different from Parnell’s, however, and hinted at a more Georgite remedy of state intervention and distribution of land among millions of peasant proprietors, although compensation for ‘dispossessed landlords’ was not yet ruled out.60 Unlike Wallace, Ferguson’s was an unashamedly ‘free trade’ manifesto, though both advocated state intervention in the allocation of land. Considerable debate would ensue between nationalisers and Georgites over the next few years, but in the meantime both saw the propaganda value of promoting a general land and social agitation, with details remaining to be thrashed out. With the presence of Highland radicals in Ferguson’s immediate circle, he was clearly aware of the developing possibilities for an agitation in the region, but this merely serves to underline the role played by the Highlands in a much wider battle for the future direction of the Irish land agitation. Parnell and, therefore, the majority of nationalists, may have been prepared to bide their time over the outcome of Gladstone’s latest palliative, but for Ferguson, Davitt and their allies, developing a more radical agitation in Scotland was part of the realpolitik of Irish nationalism in the 1880s. It has been noted that: The Land Act of 1881 had threatened the national movement and its leader. Parnell, as an ambitious, conservative but thorough-going patriot, was prepared to see the government tame agrarian radicalism provided that this did not subvert either the wider national cause or his own leadership. Imprisonment underlined his national standing and his patriotic sacrifice. It also simultaneously distanced him from the 55 56

57 58 59

60

McFarland, John Ferguson, 116. J. Ferguson, The Land for the People: An Appeal to All who Work by Brain or Hand (Glasgow, 1881?). Ferguson, Land for the People, 5, 7. Ferguson, Land for the People, 1. Connaught Telegraph, 26 Apr. 1879; G. Moran, ‘James Daly and the rise and fall of the Land League in the west of Ireland, 1879–82’, Irish Historical Studies, xxix (1994), 189–207. Ferguson, Land for the People, 27.

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bloody collapse of the League, while confirming his own importance as a leader with some influence over the hawks of the land movement; as a leader . . . controlling ‘the throttle-valve of crime’.61 The Glasgow radicals stepped up their opposition to the Land Act at a series of large meetings, during which Ferguson sought to promote his philosophy of the inextricable link between the urban and rural land issues. He claimed that in 1879 no one believed that a measure of peasant proprietary could be gained from the Government, but only two years later ‘everyone’ was for it, including Gladstone and the press. Ferguson, like Nulty, saw this as a platform for further reforms, not for complacency. He challenged the belief that the Irishtown programme had demanded only an extension of the rights of tenant farmers, claiming that that not only ‘peasants’, but also ‘the child of the dock labourer of Glasgow, Liverpool and Dublin’ should have a ‘heritage in the state, instead of, or as well as, the privileged classes’.62 Ferguson explained further why owner-occupation was inconsistent with ‘the land for the people’ doctrine: If I admit the right of any man to be the absolute owner of an acre, I admit his right to owner of a hundred miles, like Sutherland, and then the right follows to evict a village, a province or even a nation. If I admit this, I admit the right of ‘The Wolf of the Galtees’ to clear the mountainside of its once happy people, and of the Duke of Sutherland to turn hundreds of Highland farms into deer forests.63 The Irish World, which was a firm ally of the left wing Davitt/Ferguson axis, gave great prominence not only to Ferguson’s speeches at this time, but also stressed the presence of Scots among the radical movement in Glasgow. This is consistent with the attempt by the Glasgow Land Leaguers to display the universality of their message.64 The radical group also seemed to realise at an early stage that Scotland was perhaps more likely than Ireland to accept advanced land policies. On the subject of land nationalisation, ignoring the apparent Irish reluctance to go beyond the ‘3 Fs’, Ferguson claimed that the idea was: Not difficult to deal with in an audience of Irishmen who still have a proclivity after the old Celtic custom – nor difficult with Highlanders and Scotchmen – if I am right in calling them Scotch at all – for ‘Erse’ would be a better name; for their country is Scotia minor and Ireland Scotia major. Even from the old feudal times we find ‘the land for the people’ comes down – it is no new doctrine . . .65 61 62 63 64

65

Jackson, Home Rule, 44. Irish World, 10 Sep. 1881; McFarland, John Ferguson, 120. Irish World, 17 Sep. 1881. Irish World, 10 Sep., 17 Sep., 24 Sep. 1881. Later, Davitt spoke somewhat snidely about the ‘Parliamentary interpretation of the word “people” as meaning five hundred thousand tenant farmers.’ Irish World, 9 Dec. 1882. Irish World, 10 Sep. 1881.

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Events in Ireland kept the Irish Land League in the public eye. In October, Parnell and other Irish leaders had been arrested for ‘treasonable practices’, a move which allowed him to proclaim a ‘No Rent Manifesto’ in protest. In turn, Gladstone threatened to outlaw the Land League altogether, and these wider incidents would naturally have their impact on the Irish political scene in Britain as ‘nationalist’ and ‘socialist’ factions of the NLLGB jockeyed for position. In the wake of the mass imprisonments of the nationalist leaders, the Glasgow radicals reconstituted themselves as the ‘Michael Davitt Branch’ of the NLLGB, a reflection of the esteem in which Davitt was held by this group, and an acknowledgement of the fact that Davitt remained, isolated from the other Land League leaders, in Portland prison. Glasier read the constitution and rules to the first meeting of the branch on 13 November, but a further split soon occurred over the ‘No Rent Manifesto’.66 As Ferguson had seen at first hand the manifesto lead to the suppression of the League in Ireland, he feared that embracing the tactic in Scotland and England would have similar consequences for the NLLGB, and he tried to persuade his colleagues in Glasgow not to endorse it. The Glasgow Observer recalled the events of November 1881 in a retrospective piece some years later: Although the members had a great respect for Mr. Ferguson, still they declined to accept his advice on the subject, and after a discussion lasting three Sundays, Mr. Shaw Maxwell and other prominent Radicals supporting the resolution approving the No-Rent Manifesto, the resolution was carried, only one other member voting against it. The result of this action was that the branch was cut off by the Executive, but after six months was again affiliated. In a short time the two branches became again merged into one with the title ‘Home Government Branch’.67 The executive divided on the issue, with Shaw Maxwell and Glasier supporting the manifesto and Ferguson and McHugh – on grounds of expediency rather than morality – arguing against.68 The Glasgow members eventually approved the manifesto, as well as demanding the right of Irish people to form an independent republic, and the abolition of private property in land. As Ferguson had feared, this extremism led to the expulsion of the ‘Michael Davitt Branch’ from the NLLGB.69 * 66

67 68 69

Glasgow Herald, 14 Nov. 1881; S. Warwick-Haller, William O’Brien and the Irish Land War (Dublin, 1990), 59; Freeman’s Journal, 19 Oct. 1881; United Ireland, 5 Nov. 1881. Glasgow Observer, 8 Oct. 1887. Glasgow Observer, 2 Oct. 1886. J. R. Frame, ‘America and the Scottish Left: The Impact of American Ideas on the Scottish Labour Movement from the American Civil War to the end of World War One’, Ph.D. thesis (University of Aberdeen, 1998), 82–4.

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Valtos had grabbed the headlines, but events elsewhere in Scotland also attracted the attention of land reformers and the wider public during 1881.70 Rumours abounded, in both the Highland and Irish press, of the formation of a ‘Land League’ in Orkney, but it was the north-east mainland of Scotland which saw the most sustained agitation.71 Fearing that 1881 would be the latest in a series of bad harvests over the previous decade, tenants’ leaders on some Aberdeenshire estates appealed for rent relief to the local landowners.72 In some instances, the rejection of these petitions led to rent strikes being called, and The Times made an explicit link to Valtos, noting that ‘a delegation of Irishmen resident in Scotland . . . is about to be appointed to confer with a committee of Scotch farmers on the organisation of the land movement just inaugurated in the Highlands’.73 The notion that the Irish Land Act had been a stimulus for a renewed agitation in Aberdeenshire was supported by further demands and increased combination between tenants in the area, but any concrete link to external ‘wirepullers’ was strongly denied by the leaders.74 At the start of December, a ‘monster meeting’ was held in Aberdeen, hosting tenants from Banffshire, Kincardineshire, and Aberdeenshire, and highlighting the strong links which were developing between this and the English farmers’ agitation.75 It was agreed at this meeting to form a distinct Scottish branch of the Farmers’ Alliance, and this was subsequently inaugurated in Aberdeen, with a view to gaining the support of tenant farmers throughout Scotland, and improving their representation in Parliament.76 The north-east agitation met with opposition phrased in a similar way to that which met the Highland land reformers – that the only way out of the tenants’ economic malaise was through hard work and good relations with the landlords. One anonymous commentator wrote that because ‘the Irish Land Act is thoughtlessly appealed to as a pattern, it certainly will, if faithfully copied, reproduce in Scotland a great deal of the social condition of Ireland, and instead of promoting the progress of agriculture, will tend to check it and reduce it to the Irish level’.77 Similarly, ‘Aliquis’ could not comprehend why the Scots should want to replace their own system of landholding – portrayed as flexible and successful under the guidance of innovative and motivated landlords – with the over-regulated and ossifying principles of fixity of tenure, fair rent, and free 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

Irish World, 15 Oct. 1881. Oban Times, 3 Sep. 1881; Irish World, 17 Sep. 1881. The Times, 19 Sep. 1881; Carter, Farm Life in Northeast Scotland, 167–9. Aberdeen Daily Free Press, 13 Sep. 1881. Bon Accord, 12 Aug. 1881; Scotsman, 19 Oct., 24 Nov. 1881. Dunbabin, Rural Discontent, 174; Scotsman, 2 Dec. 1881. Scotsman, 17 Dec. 1881. Anon., The Aberdeenshire Land Agitation: Thoughts on the Questions Agitated at Farmers’ Meetings in Aberdeen (Edinburgh and London, 1881), 32; F. J. Fisher, ‘The Farmers’ alliance: an agricultural protest movement of the 1880s’, Agricultural History Review, xxvi (1978), 16, 20.

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sale.78 In conclusion, he asked whether the ephemeral economic questions raised by occasional bad harvests were: so pressing, so vital, so material as to justify the attempts so persistently and deliberately made to sever the bond of union which, until recently, has subsisted between landlord and tenant in Scotland? Have the attempts made to deal with land tenure in Ireland, on the bases now recommended by the agitators on Scottish platforms, been so successful, that our Scotch farmers are prepared to adopt the principles which have tended to such deplorable results in Ireland?79 Ireland, therefore, had a double application for those seeking to dampen down agitation in Scotland: it demonstrated the chaotic socio-political consequences of a mobilised peasantry, and it also held out the threat of economic inefficiency caused by knee-jerk legislative reactions to land problems. Although rhetoric used by the leaders of the north-east and Skye agitations in 1881 contained occasional similarities, there was no serious bid to unite. Later attempts were made by some of the Glasgow radicals to infiltrate the Farmers’ Alliance, but these were half-hearted and acknowledged both the overwhelming support for a purely parliamentary solution within the Alliance, and different local circumstances and problems with respect to landholding in the Highlands. Aberdeen itself would present opportunities for the Georgite reformers in the coming years, as the dominant urban centre for a vast area of countryside, but the preponderance of Scottish Gaels in Glasgow radical circles ensured that their attention remained firmly focused on the Highlands and Islands. * A huge increase in correspondence on the land question in the press, and the publication of pamphlets on the subject, ensured that it retained a high profile, with Lord Rosebery calling it the most ‘important and crying of all’ contemporary political issues.80 The Northern Chronicle continued to remind readers that outside agitators were behind the interest in the Highland land question, claiming that ‘we have in our midst, it seems, a secret society whose special business it is to ferret out and expose all cases of eviction in the Highlands, real and imaginary’.81 At the end of 1881 three townships to the south of Portree ‘struck against paying any rent until some hill pasture that was taken from them seventeen years ago is given to them . . . the whole affair has caused quite an excitement in the parish’.82 78

79 80 81 82

‘Aliquis’, Landlords, Land Laws, and Land Leagues in Scotland, being a humble contribution to contemporary politics (Edinburgh, 1881), 3–5. ‘Aliquis’, Landlords, Land Laws, and Land Leagues in Scotland, 49. Northern Chronicle, 18 Jan., 8 Feb. 1882. Northern Chronicle, 8 Feb. 1882. Oban Times, 17 Dec. 1881.

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With the tenants of these townships – collectively known as the ‘Braes’ district – copying the Irish ‘No Rent’ tactic to assert ancient tenurial rights, rather than protest against exorbitant rents, it was decided that, finally, the time was ripe for the Glasgow Land Leaguers to send an envoy to the island. Although Skye had quietened down since the incidents at Valtos, the trouble in Braes at the end of 1881 reminded the authorities that the lessons from earlier in the year had not been forgotten. Lord MacDonald’s factor had urgently contacted the Procurator Fiscal to report the intimidation of two old ladies, who had said that they were going to pay their rents. The widows were ‘in a state of very great terror and alarm’, and the factor thought that this was: Not to be wondered at when their house was surrounded by a yelling crowd who threatened them and actually tore up from its roots . . . an old tree which had for years stood in front of their dwellings. No worse could have happened I think with impunity in one of the kingdoms of West Africa or Ireland.83 The unrest was not concentrated solely on Braes, and a bill was claimed to have been found posted throughout Glendale saying that ‘any one of the tenants at Skiniden who will pay the rent, not only that his house and property will be destroyed, but his life will be taken away. As anyone who will begin backsliding.’84 It is not surprising that Graham Spiers, the Sheriff Substitute in Portree, was casting an anxious eye over the Irish Sea, pondering the coercive policies of W. E. Forster, Gladstone’s chief secretary for Ireland.85 Weighing up the risks of a strong intervention in Braes, he feared provoking an even more extreme agitation, and told the Sheriff Principal of Inverness-shire, William Ivory, that ‘I would rather do anything than have a row with poor innocent fellows, and we had Forster’s example in Ireland!’86 Not only was Skye being described with comparative references to Ireland, the Irish themselves were blamed for a malevolent influence on the crofters.87 Eventually, a Sheriff’s Officer, having been sent to serve removal notices in Braes on behalf of Lord MacDonald, became the victim of a deforcement – his notices were burned and his life threatened. Spiers argued that peace could not be restored without a massive importation of policemen.88 As a result, frantic requests were sent around Scottish police forces seeking 83 84 85

86 87

88

NAS, Ivory Papers GD1/36/1/1. 30 Jan. 1882, Macdonald to MacLennan. NAS, Ivory Papers GD1/36/1/2. 19 Mar. 1882, Spiers to Ivory; Scotsman, 3 Apr. 1882. M. O’Callaghan, British High Politics and a Nationalist Ireland: Criminality, Land and the Law under Forster and Balfour (Cork, 1994), 11–30. NAS, Ivory Papers GD1/36/1/2. 13 Mar. 1882, Spiers to Ivory. Northern Chronicle, 29 Mar. 1882; Glasgow Herald, 20 Apr. 1882; The Times, 23 Apr. 1882; Oban Times, 29 Apr. 1882; Scotsman, 24 Apr. 1882; Fifeshire Journal, 20 Apr. 1882; NAS, Ivory Papers GD1/36/1/3, 24 Apr. 1882. NAS, Ivory Papers GD1/36/1/3. 7 Apr. 1882, Spiers to Ivory.

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assistance.89 The Glasgow force consented to send fifty men, and in spite of Ivory undertaking measures to maintain the secrecy of the mission, the press also travelled in force to Portree.90 The ‘Battle of the Braes’ has been well documented, usually based on the eye-witness accounts of the Dundee Advertiser, with the crofters repelling the initial advances of the police but eventually having to give up several men for trial.91 The events of that day attracted even more attention within the rest of Britain and Ireland from an ever-increasing press corps, and did more than anything else to popularise the cause of the crofters. In the immediate aftermath of the ‘battle’, the Oban Times was unreserved in its censure of the Braes crofters, saying that ‘the Braes struggle can only have one ending . . . the discomfiture of the strikers. These feelings and sentiments must be knocked out of the crofter class.’92 Contrary again to a cautious editorial line, ‘Fionn’ proclaimed that ‘The heather is on fire!’93 * Contemporary police reports described how the outbreak of the disturbances in Braes had coincided with the return of the men from the Irish fishing grounds, notably those off Co. Cork.94 This theory is an attractive one, harking back to earlier fears of the dissemination of revolutionary ideas during the United Irishmen and Fenian periods, noted above.95 In combating the notion of external agitators manipulating biddable peasants it attributes to the crofters a proactive role in events and the idea captured the imagination of contemporaries of all political persuasions.96 Michael Davitt recorded the crofters’ assertiveness with approval in late 1882: This ‘going-in-a-body-to-demand-your-rights’ policy was taught to the crofters by their sons, who were visiting the coast of Ireland, in the fishery trade, during the land league agitation, and had learned that the lessons of ‘organised demand’ was the best way by which to teach landlords and factors their duties to tenantry.97 89

90 91

92 93 94

95 96 97

NAS, Ivory Papers GD 1/36/1/2. 30 Mar. 1882, Ivory to Murray; 4 Apr. 1882, Murray to Ivory; 14 Apr. 1882, Ivory to Clark. MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 42. NAS, Ivory Papers GD 1/36/1/3. 22 Apr. 1882, Report by the Sheriff of Inverness-shire, Elgin and Nairn to the Lord Advocate. Oban Times, 22 Apr. 1882. Oban Times, 22 Apr. 1882. Devine, Clanship to Crofters’ War, 223; T. M. Devine, The Scottish Nation 1700–2000 (Harmondsworth, 1999), 432; J. Hunter, Last of the Free: A Millennial History of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1999), 307–8. See above, 12. Scotsman, 3 Apr., 2 Dec. 1882; Oban Times, 9 Sep. 1882. Irish World, 2 Dec. 1882.

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Irish Nationalist M.P.s took up the issue of the Highland land agitation in Westminster, with Joseph Biggar asking the Lord Advocate, J. B. Balfour, about the origins of the Braes discontent, and also whether the police sent to Skye had been armed with revolvers.98 Although this may be dismissed as opportunism, Biggar was using the reputation of the crofters for passivity to demonstrate the iniquity of Liberal policy in Ireland. By co-opting the Skye crofters into a wider agrarian agitation, it was hoped that the British public would have their eyes opened to the ‘tyranny’ of Gladstone’s coercion. Outside parliament, Michael Davitt hailed Braes as ‘the Scotch Irishtown’, and with confidence, and support, growing in the cities, it was now decided to send an envoy to visit the ‘disaffected areas’ of the Highlands.99 Significantly, Henry George claimed that he had ‘all along advocated the policy of carrying the anti-landlord agitation all through England and Scotland. The times are ever more ripened for that even now.’100 As a well-organised body with healthy finances, the NLLGB took the responsibility, however rather than Angus Sutherland, it was the Ulsterman Edward McHugh who was sent to Skye.101 Before the end of 1882, Michael Davitt would tour Scotland, and Sutherland would step up the agitation in his native county, underlining that this was a radical, rather than an Irish nationalist, mission. They were not aiming solely for a solution to the Highland land issue. These followers of Henry George hoped for similar progress to be made in Ireland, if possible, certainly in lowland Scotland, and industrial Britain in general. While propaganda work commenced in the cities, however, the Highlands and Islands presented a perfect opportunity to keep the land question alive in an rural area which was, at this stage, not distracted by home rule politics. In highlighting the Irish connection, there is little doubt that the Scotsman hoped to stop the spread of sympathy for the crofters, and force those in the Highlands to question their actions. Its analysis of the Glasgow involvement was fair, although in seeking to involve Parnell it misinterpreted the motives of the urban radicals, and failed to identify the tensions present within Irish nationalism: Long before this matter took anything like a definite shape, Highland evictions, and the state of matters generally in these remote parts of the country, were favourite themes with Irish orators after they had secured their object among the peasantry of their own country. The result was drawing into the Irish circles in Glasgow and elsewhere a large number of Highlanders, a considerable portion of these being Skye men; and 98

99 100 101

Hansard, 3rd ser., cclxviii, col. 1245 (24 Apr. 1882); 3rd ser., cclxviii, col. 1565 (27 Apr. 1882); 3rd ser., cclxix, col. 94 (4 May 1882); NAS, Ivory Papers GD1/36/1/2. 30 Mar. 1882, copies of communication from John Cameron, Inspector of Police, Portree. Irish World, 2 Dec. 1882. Irish World, 18 Feb. 1882. Irish World, 27 Apr. 1882.

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the Highland question alternated with the Irish question at the Sunday symposia of the Land League. The opinion of Mr Parnell was taken in reference to the position of the Highland crofters, and it is not only possible, but probable, that the proceedings which have led to the present crisis in Skye were suggested by the leader of the Parliamentary ‘irreconcilables’.102 The Irish perspective was quite different, and the focus of the Freeman’s Journal on the mixed Norse/Celtic heritage of the Skye crofters did not promote the idea of a common struggle: There are elements of the quarrel in Skye which render it vastly different from the cognate struggle in this country. The condition of things as between landlord and tenant exhibits none of the complications to be found here. Landlord and tenant are practically the same in blood and in religion. There are no bitter memories of conquest and oppression and ascendancy rankling by tradition or as a recent memory in the hearts of the islanders. The landlords are not spurred on to adopt desperate deeds by the consciousness that they are a lordly class whose power has been shaken to its base and whose days of supremacy, political and social, are swiftly running out . . . the land system which prevails, or is supposed to prevail, in Skye ought to have been able to prevent such conflicts as that which has now arisen.103 Andrew Dunlop, the Freeman’s special correspondent, arrived in Skye after a tortuous journey.104 He described the islanders as more tranquil than the Irish, and attributed the agitation to repeated bad harvests, culminating in the near-famine conditions of 1879.105 Although he dismissed the part played by the Glasgow radicals, the inspirational role of Ireland and the Land Act was acknowledged: The feeling amongst the people is still somewhat bitter, but they do not use strong expression. They are a law-abiding, genial, industrious people . . . The Skye people talk readily about the land league, and refer to themselves as ‘Leaguers’ although as a matter of fact no organisation whatever exists between them . . . the agitation in Ireland has not been without its influence here . . . the people admit, and admit with gratitude, that anything that has been done for them recently has been indirectly the result of the land agitation in Ireland.106 102 103 104 105

106

Scotsman, 21 Apr. 1882. Freeman’s Journal, 21 Apr. 1882. Freeman’s Journal, 22 Apr. 1882; Celtic Magazine, May 1882. Freeman’s Journal, 24 Apr. 1882. Several Scottish correspondents, and the crofters themselves, noted that the Scottish land agitation, going back to Bernera, pre-dated the Irish Land Wars. John O’Groat Journal, 27 Apr. 1882; Aberdeen Daily Free Press, 3 May 1882; Aberdeen Daily Free Press, 6 May 1882. Freeman’s Journal, 24 Apr. 1882.

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Dunlop’s tone, however, was no more sympathetic to the crofters than that found in several of the English journals, and on a cold, wet day in Trotternish he remarked that ‘I have just been as close to the North Pole as I am ever likely to be and, I may add, wish to be.’107 As a veteran journalist of the Irish Land Wars, Skye left Dunlop distinctly underwhelmed, and the fact that some parts of the Highland press feared that he could be a part of the invading Irish Land League left him somewhat bemused.108 United Ireland seemed more impressed by the agitation, but also felt a need to explain to its readers that the Skye crofters were partly Celts: The cottars of Skye are half-fishermen, half farmers, and are wretchedly poor . . . we do not envy this particular MacDonald his feelings as he lays on his couch after reading the curse hurled by the wives of his tenants at the agent, to wit: – ‘May the red-haired factor find a place in the hottest part of hell.’ There is a Celtic ring in this fierce valediction, and so there should be for these men of Skye are as much Celt as Scandinavian.109 The Irish World provided the most consistent coverage of the Highland agitation, and with dispatches sent directly from Murdoch, McHugh, or Ferguson the overall impression was one of Celts fighting side by side to right historic wrongs and battle absentee landlords.110 Murdoch, in particular, grasped with both hands the opportunity to present the common struggle of the Scottish and Irish Gaels before Irish America: The fact is the Skye people, the Uist and Barra and Lews people, have been hearing all their days about Ireland and the Irish; many of the most polished and interesting ancient compositions are about Irish heroes, kings, queens; and nighean aigh Eirinn is found in the stories likes plums in a pudding. Not only so, but the Skye folks are well aware of the common origin of the branches of the great Gaelic family. Another thing – and one which has helped to preserve this fellowfeeling – is that they are ousted from their lands by a class of anti-Irish and anti-Highland pro-Saxon, by farmers who affect to look down on Gaelic and upon everything Celtic.111 Even in the hope of a united ‘land and labour’ agitation, however, the Irish World’s old editorial prejudices towards Scotland died hard: It is well known that a Scotchman is someone who can only make a poor hand of seeing the point of a joke, but as rent is the farthest thing in the world from a joke, it is to be hoped that he will show a little 107 108 109 110 111

Freeman’s Journal, 27 Apr. 1882. A. Dunlop, Fifty Years of Irish Journalism (Dublin, 1911), 96. United Ireland, 29 Apr. 1882. Irish World, 10 Jun. 1882. Irish World, 15 Jul. 1882.

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smartness . . . if the downtrodden tillers of soil attack ‘rent’ simultaneously in these three island kingdoms, the land-thief will be shaken off while he is mediating his detailed campaign.112 The shock caused by the murders in Dublin’s Phoenix Park of Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Burke, Chief Secretary and Under Secretary for Ireland, respectively, was as strong in the Highlands as elsewhere.113 Like many other British newspapers the Oban Times suggested on several occasions that if the Irish Land League were not directly responsible, there was at least reason to doubt the sincerity of the League’s condemnation of such violence.114 It also pointed out, with a nod to the Skye crofters, that Phoenix Park should serve as a warning of the final consequences should people start to break the law. Soon afterwards, readers were told that ‘Cromwell and King William knew how to rule Ireland.’115 The murders also brought strong, and predictable, caveats from the Northern Chronicle: Nobody, of course, supposes for a moment that anarchy and lawlessness can ever obtain in Scotland anything like the hold they have got in Ireland. The national traditions, and the national characteristics forbid the entertaining of this idea for a moment. In a country like ours the spirit of insurrection moves by slow degrees, and only in response to terrible provocation. Furthermore, if it should be aroused, it would be an earnest and open thing, which brave and honourable men would have no need to blush for. Not a mean, skulking, hedge-back conspiracy, and a moonlight warfare against honest men and helpless women and children . . . Therefore it is to be hoped that the Land League for the Highlands and Islands of Scotland – that is what it really will be though it calls itself by another name – will speedily be ‘boycotted,’ and not be allowed to bring about results of which, like Mr Parnell, it will have to express the utmost repugnance.116 The Chronicle also reasserted its patrician concern for the Highlands, and explained that the Braes crofters had seen the error of their ways, exhibited their ‘best feelings’ for Lord MacDonald after their trial, and regretted any misunderstanding.117 Angus Sutherland had proved adept at championing the crofters’ cause, and spoke, alongside Michael Clarke and J. Bruce Glasier, at a meeting of the Glasgow ‘Michael Davitt’ Land League, directly after the ‘Battle of the Braes’.118 Amidst the frenzy of press activity which followed Braes, the press 112 113 114 115 116 117 118

Irish World, 13 May 1882. For a round-up of press reaction, see Scotsman, 9 May 1882. Oban Times, 13 May 1882 Oban Times, 20 May 1882. Northern Chronicle, 17 May 1882. Northern Chronicle, 17 May 1882. United Ireland, 6 May 1882.

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of the south of Scotland was contrasted unfavourably with the support received by the crofters from Ireland and England. With the establishment of a defence fund for the Skye crofters, the Oban Times’s Liverpool correspondent wrote that ‘it should be noted that many of the best friends we have in the city are Irish . . . the Irish and Scotch Gael have always pulled together in the face of danger in the past, and let us hope that they will always do so in the future’.119 * In spite of Michael Davitt’s claim that the Dublin Executive of the Land League commissioned the envoys, it seems it was the NLLGB who decided on the personnel: Edward McHugh for his persuasive oratory and John Murdoch for his ability to convey the NLLGB’s message to monoglot speakers of Scottish Gaelic.120 McHugh and Murdoch arrived in Portree on Wednesday, 26 April, 1882, and the Irishman proceeded the next morning to Braes, where he began to make enquiries into the situation of the crofters there.121 McHugh remained sensitive to public opinion, especially after Phoenix Park, in advising the crofters to deny any Irish influence. He also stressed at all times the need to respect the law, something which frustrated Spiers, who complained that McHugh ‘keeps within the law and does a lot of harm. He is said to be a tea-totaller so there is no chance of finding him soused and making a row, or he would get sixty days.’122 The presence of ‘land league literature’ on the island was noted by almost all contemporaries, in spite of the apparent inability of the local police to obtain any.123 The literature distributed by McHugh aimed at reinforcing the points he made in dozens of speeches on Skye, with a brief stay in the Uists, between April and July 1882 and, therefore, expounded Georgite principles, rather than Irish nationalism:124 I came here immediately after the ‘Battle of the Braes’ in April on behalf of the National Land League of Great Britain, armed with a bundle of pamphlets: – Dr. Nulty’s letter to Cowen; Report of the Durham Miners’ delegates on the state of Ireland; Democratic Federation Report; Cleveland Miners’ Report; ‘Nationalisation of the 119 120 121 122 123

124

Oban Times, 13 May 1882. Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 228; Scotsman, 22 Apr. 1882; Oban Times, 29 Apr. 1882. Freeman’s Journal, 27 Apr. 1882. NAS, Ivory Papers GD1/36/1/4 31 May 1882, Spiers to Ivory. Glasgow Herald, 24 Apr. 1882; Oban Times, 29 Apr. 1882; Inverness Courier, 2 May 1882; Northern Chronicle, 3 May 1882; Celtic Magazine, Jul. 1882; Irish World, 19 Aug. 1882; Inverness Courier, 4 Nov. 1882; NC Ev., 44463. A. Newby, ‘Edward McHugh, the National Land League of Great Britain and the “Crofters’ War”, 1879–1882’, SHR, lxxxii (2003), 75; Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 96–111; Newby, Life and Times of Edward McHugh, 45–7. For Uist, see Inverness Courier, 27 Jun. 1882; 29 Jun. 1882; NC Ev., 7223.

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Land’, by Dr. G. B. Clark, ‘The Land for the People’, by John Ferguson, ‘The Irish Land Question: What it involves and how it alone can be settled’, by Henry George; and Sexton’s splendid speech, ‘The Land League Vindicated’, etc.125 Although he was able to use local examples as illustrative of broader points, he did not deviate from his demand for land nationalisation and, therefore, his mission can be seen primarily as one of informing a discontented tenantry that alternatives to the Irish Land Act’s moderate provisions were available and worth striving for.126 The pamphlets highlighting the Durham miners’ resolutions again situate the crofters’ agitation in a national workers’ struggle, and the works by Clark, Ferguson, and George appealed to the universal nature of the land question and the need for the abolition of landlordism. The use of Froude, Arnold, and Kay also link McHugh’s mission back to the debates over peasant proprietary in the wider British context.127 Indeed, references in some of the tracts to Land League methods were matched by references to the Biblical justice of land redistribution, and so the claim made by a Bracadale correspondent that McHugh was ‘paid for teaching Fenianism’ is rather misleading.128 The Phoenix Park murders took place while McHugh was on Skye, allowing further press condemnation of Irish lawlessness, and the need to agitate sensitively was a constant concern. Religion was also a potential barrier between McHugh and the Skye crofters, and Malcolm MacDonald, the chief sergeant in Portree, claimed that his ‘Roman Catholicism was very much against him’.129 John Murdoch, on the other hand, believed that a Catholic demonstrating ‘universal truths’ relating to land would serve to unite the Highlanders with the Irish in the cause of social reform.130 Although Irish political agitation was often synonymous in Britain with ‘Rome’, the image of Catholicism in the Highland agitation was more ambiguous. Like their Presbyterian counterparts in Skye and Sutherland, some Catholic crofters in the Outer Hebrides were labelled as ‘Fenians’ for demanding land reform, something which caused local resentment.131 125

126

127 128

129 130

131

Irish World, 12 Aug. 1882. This account supports the similar list described by Lachlan Macdonald of Skeabost, see Celtic Magazine, Jul. 1882. Northern Chronicle, 10 May, 7 Jun. 1882; Irish World, 19 Aug. 1882. Ferguson, Land for the People, 10; Irish World, 10 Sep. 1881, 24 Sep. 1881. For the speeches of Cowen and Sexton, and the report of the Cleveland miners, see Oldham, Greater Manchester, Local Studies and Archives, Oldham coperative Cotton Spinners, D-TU1/2/96, dd–ff. Inverness Courier, 8 Jun. 1882; Martin, ‘The agricultural interest and its critics’, 133–4. Northern Chronicle, 14 Jun. 1882; Irish World, 12 Aug., 19 Aug. 1882; E. A. Cameron and A. Newby, ‘ “Alas, Skyemen are imitating the Irish”: A note on Alexander Nicolson’s “Little Leaflet” concerning the crofters’ agitation’, Innes Review, lv (2004), 87; NAS, Home & Health Papers, HH22/4, Official reports and papers relating to recent disturbances in the Island of Skye, 17–18. NAS, Ivory Papers, GD1/36/1/6, MacDonald to Ivory, 6 Jul. 1882. P. Harding, ‘John Murdoch, Michael Davitt and the Land Question: A Study in Comparative Irish and Scottish History’, M.Litt. thesis (University of Aberdeen, 1994), 89. NC Ev., 10398.

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Although Catholic crofters did have some specific grievances, mainly relating to schooling, confessional differences within the region between Catholic and Protestant did not play as large a role as might be inferred from some of the anti-Irish Catholic rhetoric seen in the Scottish press.132 Perhaps inevitably, McHugh aroused some local resentment and opposition, and reports in the Highland newspapers in the summer of 1882 painted a picture of a bored envoy making little progress among the crofters.133 Murdoch, writing in the Irish World, put this down to the duplicitous Scottish press, which ‘tried to smile with one side of their face while they trembled on the other side; and when they dared, they frowned upon anyone who showed any sympathy for the people’.134 Despite McHugh now being part of a group, including Davitt, who were in many ways set against the Parnellites after the ‘Kilmainham Treaty’, his progress was still being monitored by Nationalists in the House of Commons.135 The parliamentary link was reinforced by Donald Macfarlane, then Nationalist member for Carlow County, who earned himself the sobriquet ‘the member for Skye’.136 He implied an ‘inspirational’ influence from Ireland, based on the passage of the 1881 Irish Land Act and its attendant publicity, but his intervention tended to strengthen the impression of direct Irish action. A Highlander by birth, although a convert to Catholicism, Macfarlane had considerable experience in the Empire, and his commitment to Parnellism was lukewarm. The uncritical acceptance of his Irish credentials has perhaps placed too much emphasis on Macfarlane’s own part in any Irish–Highland co-operation in the 1880s.137 John Ramsay, an Islay landowner and M.P. for Falkirk Burghs, remarked that: It had been said, and it might be so, that it was suitable that an Irish representative should bring the subject before the House, because it had been put forward – and he believed it was correct – that there was an endeavour being made at the present time, by some organisations in Scotland, to diffuse Irish feeling and sentiment throughout the population of the Highlands.138 132

133

134 135

136

137

138

Scottish Catholic Archive, DA66/77, MacColl to MacDonald, 21 Sep. 1883; A. MacDonald, Statement of Certain Grievances of the Catholics in South Uist and Barra, laid before the Highland Crofters’ Commission by the Right Rev. Angus MacDonald, DD, Bishop of Argyll and the Isles (Glasgow, 1883); A. W. MacColl, ‘Religion and the land question: clerical evidence to the Napier Commission’, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, lxii (2000–2002), 393–6. Oban Times, 15 Jul. 1882; Inverness Courier, 8 Jul., 15 Jul. 1882; Northern Chronicle, 14 Jun., 12 Jul. 1882. Irish World, 10 Jun. 1882. Hansard, 3rd ser., cclxxii, col. 1960, 27 Jul. 1882; Irish World, 19 Aug. 1882; Northern Chronicle, 2 Aug. 1882; Fifeshire Journal, 10 Aug. 1882. J. Hunter ‘The politics of Highland land reform, 1873–1895’, SHR liii (1974), 49; Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh,101–2; MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 66. D. Meek, ‘The Catholic knight of crofting: Sir Donald Horne MacFarlane, M.P. for Argyll, 1885–86, 1892–5’, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, lviii, 1992–4. Hansard, 3rd ser., cclxxiii, cols 774–775 (4 Aug. 1882).

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Although he undeniably played a major role in the Highland land reform movement, including the eventual creation of a Highland Land League, extra-parliamentary reformers such as McHugh and Ferguson had much closer links with Ireland, and were committed to a greater measure of land reform than Macfarlane. At the annual convention of the NLLGB at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in August, McHugh gave a ‘very graphic account of the progress of the Land League in the Isle of Skye’, but in spite of an ‘animated’ debate over the promotion of land nationalisation, led by H. M. Hyndman, the convention decided to remain committed to the establishment of peasant proprietary.139 This underlined to McHugh the importance of the agitation in Scotland, and in September, he addressed an ‘enthusiastic demonstration’ of predominantly Irish workers in Broxburn Town Hall. The lecture was a classic exposition of McHugh’s beliefs, and little changed for this audience of urban workers from his addresses to the rural population of Skye.140 In Scotland, land nationalisation was, therefore, presented by McHugh as the ‘doctrine of the league – to have the rent or tax on land paid into the purse of the whole people’. Having explained the benefits of the doctrine for the workers of Broxburn and called for those present to support the agitation whole-heartedly, McHugh again showed his delight at the progress of the land issue in the country he felt was his responsibility: Allow me to express my opinion that the land question is understood by the land leaguers of Scotland than it is even in Ireland, and that the conviction is fast taking hold of the people here that the time is coming when we shall have an agitation in Scotland that will sweep over its whole face. That is the tendency of thought today. Until McHugh’s intervention, there were effectively two strands to the Irish influence on developing unrest in the crofting districts. The external influence was based in the cities and hoped to use the crofters as part of a much broader land and labour agitation. The internal strand aimed at gaining limited remedial legislation for the crofters, possibly based on the 1881 Irish Land Act, and used historicist rhetoric but Irish-style rent strikes and increasing intimidation. Although McHugh’s visit was an attempt by the external to harness the potential of the internal, it was to be Sutherlandshire, rather than Skye, which saw the most intensive effort to link these strands. * In spite of the efforts of Angus Sutherland, there was a great deal of work to be done in breaking traditional loyalties in Sutherlandshire. Having 139 140

Freeman’s Journal, 14 Aug. 1882. Irish World, 30 Sep. 1882.

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striven to overcome its historical association with the clearances, the house of Sutherland was by the 1880s in a position to present itself as a true friend of the crofters, which understood their needs and was willing to provide for them.141 In February 1882, the Master of Blantyre, the nephew of the 3rd duke of Sutherland, spoke in a manner similar to those who had downplayed the need for a land agitation in Aberdeenshire: I wish to say a few words regarding the land question, which directly or indirectly affects us all more or less. A very general idea is that the land is over rented. This doubtless is so in some cases, but it is not by any means the rule, nor is it the chief or even one of the chief causes of the present agitation. We must look elsewhere for the causes, and take a wider range. First and foremost, the unprecedentedly severe seasons which we have been passing through; secondly the uncertain and unsettled state trade has been in, coming at times almost to a standstill; thirdly, the foreign competition, which has hit us hard, taken in conjunction with the bad seasons and the dullness of trade. As to rents, during the prosperous times land was run up to an absurd price; yet surely you cannot blame those owning land in taking what was freely offered. Landowners seem both willing and anxious now to do whatever is in their power to adjust this. Let us have a few good seasons and trade brisk again, the foreign competition and present land agitation will be things of the past and forgotten . . . I have little fear regarding our Sutherland crofters. They will remain a prosperous, industrious and contented folk under our considerate landlord the Duke of Sutherland . . .142 In tandem with McHugh’s efforts in Skye, Sutherland set about radicalising and organising his native county. With the crofters of Kildonan passing a resolution of sympathy with the tenants of Skye and Clyth, in Caithness, it seemed that he was starting to make progress.143 Unlike McHugh and Michael Davitt, who were ‘outsiders’ in the Highlands with many interests in other areas, Sutherland was able to concentrate his attention on one area for a long period of time. Notable by his absence at a Glasgow Sutherlandshire Association meeting on ‘Evictions’, in August 1882, Angus Sutherland, by now a teacher at Glasgow High School, was in fact spending his summer holidays in Helmsdale, speaking out on the land question.144 As was usual by this stage, Sutherland found a reliable ally in ‘Fionn’, who wrote that his colleague’s address to the natives of Helmsdale would ‘do much to encourage the people, and show “the powers that be” that they are 141

142

143 144

A. M. Tindley, ‘The Sutherland Estate, c. 1860–1914: Aristocratic Decline, Estate Management and Land Reform’, Ph.D. thesis (University of Edinburgh, 2006), 77–8, 93–4. Northern Chronicle, 8 Feb. 1882. See also Northern Chronicle, 24 May 1882. For the Master of Blantyre, see Scotsman, 18 Mar. 1895. Aberdeen Daily Free Press, 15 May 1882. Oban Times, 26 Aug. 1882; Northern Chronicle, 23 Aug. 1882.

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being watched by those who are not afraid to expose wrong, even when perpetrated by a Duke or his minions’.145 Sutherland spoke on ‘Evictions in Sutherland’ and in particular on the recent evictions at Muie and Rogart, where common grazing had allegedly been taken away from the people of the village, as well as a more general treatment of the land question.146 ‘Fionn’ continued to give exposure to events in Helmsdale, and was, like Sutherland, keen to stress that the crofters could have great political power as long as they acted together and had the courage of their convictions.147 The meetings of Helmsdale crofters also had repercussions for the Glasgow Sutherlandshire Association, although ones which Sutherland had almost certainly calculated beforehand. Given the attack under which his family was now starting to come, the Master of Blantyre felt that his position as President of the Association was now untenable.148 This is a clear indication of how far the politicisation of the Glasgow Sutherlandshire Association, led by Sutherland, had come, and a further example of an unwillingness to compromise with those who did not agree with his policies. Irrespective of how benevolent the Master of Blantyre had been there was no room for him in Sutherland’s plans. Any increase in democracy and self-reliance among the Highlanders had to come from the people themselves. For too long, he believed, crofters had been misled into following the vested interests of the landowners and, as a representative of this class, Angus Sutherland could not accept the Master as a fit person to be the figurehead of an organisation he hoped would be at the vanguard of a new Highland radicalism. Even prior to this attack on the duke of Sutherland, Angus Sutherland had been a consistent critic of certain individual landlords. Like Michael Davitt and Henry George, however, he preferred to attack the system of landlordism in general, in order to expose what he saw as inherent shortcomings in the system. This allowed for the fact that certain individuals, such as the Skye landlord Lachlan MacDonald, might have had good relations with their tenants, but still insisted that the whole position of the landlord depended on ‘fraud and confiscation’. Upon returning to Glasgow, Sutherland continued his increasingly vociferous agitation at various meetings in the city.149 He also maintained – and, indeed, after the deposition of the Master of Blantyre, strengthened – his prominent position in the Glasgow Sutherlandshire Association.150 He frequently voiced the opinion that great reforms could only be enacted from 145

146 147 148 149 150

Oban Times, 26 Aug., 2 Sep. 1882; A. T. McCall, ‘One community’s stand against the house of Sutherland’, West Highland Free Press, 5 Jun. 1998; J. Macleod, Highland Heroes of the Land Reform Movement (Inverness, 1917), 217. Oban Times, 26 Aug. 1882; Northern Chronicle, 23 Aug. 1882. Oban Times, 2 Sep. 1882. Oban Times, 9 Sep. 1882; Northern Chronicle, 8 Nov. 1882. Oban Times, 20 Sep. 1882. Oban Times, 21 Oct. 1882.

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humble beginnings, and that this was just the start of a much larger movement. At a meeting in Paisley, for example, he stated his belief that there were ‘forces social, political, and moral, the germs of which lie dormant and hidden until the occasion arises which calls them into active life’. He continued: We are expressly told not to despise the day of small things. From very small beginnings great events have frequently shaped themselves. From the slow growth and painful development of human knowledge and human opinion, it would appear that such is the nature of things. From the acorn to the oak; from the germ of rebellion to the achievement of liberty; from the first inception to the final consummation; the order of progress is invariably from the less to the greater.151 The implication was clear. Highlanders had both the ability and the opportunity to force reforms in the system of landholding, and to change landlord–tenant relations permanently. All that needed to be done was to grasp that chance. The same message was carried into Edinburgh at the end of 1882, with an address to the Highland Land Law Reform Association (HLLRA) in Edinburgh.152 The subsequent inauguration of an HLLRA in London, along with the development of the Sutherlandshire Association, provided a sense of purpose, if not unity, between the crofters and their urban advocates. * Davitt’s reaction to the 1881 Land Act, which was passed during his imprisonment at Portland, was that it would flood Ireland with litigation and leave the land question where it was.153 Although he was later to admit that he had underestimated the importance of the Act, and that it passed ‘a sentence of death by slow processes against Irish Landlordism’, its immediate impact was to make him reassess his philosophy on peasant proprietary.154 While the ‘New Departure’ had witnessed an effective fusion of Fenian republicanism, parliamentary action and agrarian agitation, tensions now developed in the alliance, especially between Davitt and Parnell.155 Like Ferguson, Davitt’s advocacy of peasant proprietorship had been superseded by a conviction that landlordism could only be defeated by the abolition of all private ownership in land.156 It has been argued that Davitt’s 151 152 153 154 155

156

Oban Times, 11 Nov., 18 Nov. 1882. Scotsman, 23 Nov. 1882; Oban Times, 2 Dec. 1882. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 448. Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 317. P. Travers, ‘Davitt after the Land League’, in C. King (ed.), Famine, Land and Culture in Ireland (Dublin, 2000), 86. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 374–5, 504; A. O’Day, ‘Revising the diaspora’, in D. G. Boyce and A. O’Day (eds), The Making of Modern Irish History (London, 1996); Sheehy-

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theory of land nationalisation owed rather more to Wallace than George, but it was the American with whom he became closely associated after 1882.157 Unlike George, Davitt suggested that when the state confiscated the land, compensation ought to be given to the landlords. George denied the necessity of reimbursing the landed classes, who had for so many generations held their possessions, in his eyes, fraudulently.158 At the beginning of May 1882, under the so-called ‘Kilmainham Treaty’, Gladstone promised to free Parnell, Dillon, and O’Kelly and also extend the benefits of the 1881 Act in return for Parnell’s pledge to abandon the Land War and support for the Liberals over the home rule issue.159 The radicals in the Irish nationalist movement, however, sought the total abolition of landlordism, and Davitt emerged as their figurehead. As Moody argued, the Treaty ensured not only Davitt’s release from Portland but also ‘his return to Irish politics in circumstances in which he was certain to be opposed to Parnell and the majority of nationalists’.160 Shortly after his release, to Parnell’s chagrin, Davitt chaired a lecture by Henry George in Manchester, where he stated that he would continue the land war even though the Irish Parliamentary Party might be content with peasant proprietary.161 These thoughts were refined at a set-piece event in Liverpool a couple of weeks later. In 1882 Davitt ‘quickly recognised that both Ireland and Irish America were stony ground for his land nationalisation gospel, but for the next few years he continued to preach it in England and Scotland, where he helped to promote the cause of radical reform of the land laws’.162 Although Moody described Davitt as having ‘outgrown the romantic nationalism of his youth’ at this stage, home rule for Ireland remained a constant in his political thought and activity.163 Furthermore, in spite of some theories linking Davitt to this idea of ‘Celtic nationalism’, there were accusations from some of his contemporaries that his new ideal was anti-nationalist, rather it was internationalist and socialist.164 Though the interest of Davitt in the case of the

157 158 159 160

161 162 163 164

Skeffington, Michael Davitt, 75–6; T. N. Brown, Irish-American Nationalism, 1870–1890 (Philadelphia & New York, 1966), 125. For criticism of inconsistency in Davitt’s thinking, see W. E. Vaughan, Landlords and Tenants in Mid-Victorian Ireland (Oxford 1994), 209–11; J. S. Donnelly Jr., The Land and People of Nineteenth Century Cork (London, 1975), 249–50. Barker, Henry George, 367; Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 522. Brown, Irish-American Nationalism, 126. Freeman’s Journal, 3 May 1882; Scotsman, 4 May 1882. Bull, Land, Politics and Nationalism, 99. Scotsman, 6 May 1882; Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 527; T. W. Moody, ‘The new departure in Irish politics, 1878–9’, in H. A. Cronne, T. W. Moody and, D. B. Quinn (eds), Essays in British and Irish History (London, 1949). It also seems that an urban elite amongst the Young Ireland Society in Dublin did favour land nationalisation over peasant proprietary. M. Kelly, ‘Dublin Fenianism in the 1880s: “The Irish culture of the future?”, Historical Journal, xliii (2000), 737–8. The Times, 22 May 1882; United Ireland, 27 May 1882. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 539. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 519; McNeil, ‘Land, labor and liberation’, 22–3. Brown, Irish-American Nationalism, 127; A. Newby, ‘Michael Davitt, Celtic nationalism and land in the British Isles, 1879–1890’, SFKS-Tiedote, v (2000), 10–11.

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crofters has been put in the context of this internationalism, this underestimates the amount of time he spent in urban Scotland and can, therefore, leave his Scottish activity open to misinterpretation.165 Two of Davitt’s colleagues, Matthew Harris and James Daly, had condemned the idea of land nationalisation in no uncertain terms in June 1882. Both were well acquainted with the opinions of Mayo smallholders, and Lee states that ‘the man in the field effectively rejected land nationalisation’.166 T. P. O’Connor also reflected later that Davitt’s policy ‘was not only wrong in principle, but almost insane if preached to a following three-quarters of whom were small farmers anxious to possess their acres’.167 Although the ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ may have left Davitt a ‘diminished political force’ in Ireland, however, there was little doubt in his mind that he could still attract adherents and find willing allies.168 Following Davitt’s announcement that he would carry on the land struggle on the basis of nationalisation, he embarked on a three-month tour of the United States. Although he still received the strong support of the Irish World, the trip was somewhat disheartening. Davitt was forced to spend more time stressing his loyalty to Parnell, and stating that land nationalisation was a personal policy not one he would attempt to force upon the Irish Parliamentary Party, than giving details of his scheme.169 His public support for Parnell was, however, matched by an ever-increasing disillusionment with Irish politics.170 This mood was not helped by Parnell’s rejection of Davitt’s proposed ‘National Land and Industrial Union of Ireland’, although in September they reached a loose understanding that their different interests might be accommodated within a unified movement.171 The support for Parnell shown by ‘the man in the field’ hindered Davitt in his quest for general social change in Ireland, and the cult of Parnell became increasingly irksome to him. In replacing the Land League with the National League after the conference of 17 October, Davitt complained of the eclipse of a semi-revolutionary movement by a purely parliamentary one.172 His later claim that the National League was ‘the overthrow of a movement and the enthronement of a man’ support the notes he made in his diary.173 165 166

167 168 169 170

171

172

173

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 548. Connaught Telegraph, 24 Jun., 1 Jul. 1882; J. J. Lee, The Modernisation of Irish Society (Dublin, 1973), 88; B. O’Hara, Davitt (Castlebar, 2006), 73. T. P. O’Connor, Memoirs of an Old Parliamentarian, 2 vols (London, 1929), i, 128. F. S. L. Lyons, Charles Stewart Parnell (London, 1977), 234. Brown, Irish-American Nationalism, 129. Davitt referred in his diary to Parnell having ‘little backbone’. TCD Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9553, 3 Aug. 1882. United Ireland, 13 Sep. 1882; Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 540–2; Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 371. Scotsman, 18 Oct. 1882; McGee, The IRB, 103; D. Jordan, ‘The Irish National League and the “unwritten law”: rural protest and nation building in Ireland, 1882–1890’, Past and Present, clviii (1998), 146–71. Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 377–8.

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With Ireland reorganising itself into National League branches, therefore, Davitt took his new social gospel to Scotland.174 In John Ferguson, Richard McGhee, and Edward McHugh, Davitt knew that he could find some refuge from the Parnellites, and discuss future plans with like minded Irish reformers.175 The ‘sincere hope’ Davitt expressed that there would be no immediate legislation for Scotland underlines that he wanted a radical and sustained agitation to replace the one in Ireland. That agitation had been cut short by both the 1881 Land Act, and the political calculations of Parnell, and Davitt stated that it would be ‘disastrous’ for the movement in Scotland, ‘inasmuch as some paltry measure would only be passed; and a people inexperienced in practical land reform might (when advised to do so), be ready to accept any – the least – instalment of what is their full right, and what can only be won through an attitude of non-compromising and persevering determination.’176 In his opening speech in Glasgow, Davitt declared ‘irreconcilable war on landlordism in Ireland, England and Scotland’, as well as referring to crofting agitation and joking that landlordism would soon by blown ‘Skyehigh’.177 As a backdrop to this visit, there was a Britain-wide agitation and strike among coal miners, as well as the ongoing troubles in Skye.178 For example, five or six men had descended on the house of a crofter in Kilmuir who had missed a ‘Land League’ meeting, and Graham Spiers was ‘more convinced now than ever’ that a military force was needed to back up the police on the island, after the messenger at arms had been deforced at Balmeanach, in Braes when attempting to serve notices of interdict.179 Although the audiences for Davitt’s initial speeches were predominantly made up of exiled Irishmen, he described the presence of a ‘large number of Scotchmen’ at the Glasgow City Hall.180 In Inverness and Aberdeen, where his audiences were more mixed, Davitt felt less inclination to stress his continued loyalty to Parnell. He was not afraid, however, in any of his addresses to criticise the Irish Parliamentary Party for their recent friendliness with the Government, and the tour in fact ended on something of a low note when he attacked Parnell in the speech at Coatbridge.181 Davitt’s discontentment with the situation in Ireland after Parnell had effectively called off the Land War, served to heighten his enthusiasm for the increasing possibilities in Scotland.182 174 175 176 177 178 179

180 181

182

The Times, 23 Oct., 25 Oct. 1882. Ó Catháin, ‘Michael Davitt and Scotland’, 22. Irish World, 9 Dec. 1882. Glasgow Herald, 26 Oct., 27 Oct. 1882; Freeman’s Journal, 28 Oct. 1882. Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 139–40. NAS, Ivory Papers, GD1/36/1/9; MacVicar to Ivory, 10 Oct. 1882; Ivory to Balfour, 18 Oct. 1882; Spiers to Ivory, 24 Oct. 1882; Report of MacDonald, 24. Oct. 1882. TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9535, 25 Oct. 1882. TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9535, 8 Nov. 1882; TCD Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9535, 29 Oct. 1882. TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9535, 2 Nov. 1882. He warned himself, ‘put not your faith in Irish Parliamentary politics’.

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The progress which had been made in Aberdeen, reported in the summer by McHugh, continued.183 The Aberdeen Free Press reported what Davitt believed was his ‘best speech ever’. He was delighted with the way that the most advanced social doctrines were those best received, and made the wry comment that ‘the landlord party must be delighted on reading such a speech in Scotland, and in particular seeing how it was cheered’.184 For the speech at the Inverness Music Hall, the concerned authorities would hardly have had their minds put at rest by the other men present beside Davitt on the platform. John Stuart Blackie had absented himself with the comment that he did not ‘care for playing the part of an agitator in a matter which must take shape in the heads of practical men and practised politicians.’185 John Ferguson also had to send his apologies, but present were Edward McHugh and John Whyte, who was by now the librarian of the Free Library in Inverness.186 Whyte, who acted as chairman for the meeting, had been under investigation by the Inverness-shire police for his interest in the land question, and an attempt was made to censure him for his conduct in relation to Davitt’s visit. In spite of a bullish response, asking ‘what other political questions currently exercising the public mind I am expected to shun besides that of the land’, Whyte was warned about allying himself with political movements while employed as a public servant.187 The case was reported in Ireland, and in America the Irish World presented the incident as a victory for free thinking Highland radicals.188 It is also notable that Whyte, under his Gaelic name Iain Ban Og, sought to promote Irish–Scottish co-operation at this time in the Dublin-based Gaelic Journal: Tha na Gaidheal Albannach agus na Gaidheal Eirionnach sean-eolach air a cheile; bha latha agus bha malairt agus co-chomunn nach bu bheag eadar iad . . .189 Whether or not Whyte or McHugh had any direct impact on Davitt’s speech, this was a very different lecture from those which he had given in previous days. He realised that he was ‘probably the first Irishman who had ever addressed an exclusively Scotch meeting in the place’, and because he was speaking to a very different constituency, the nature of the speech was altered accordingly, indicating that a local angle may have been necessary if the crofting community was not receptive to the ‘universal truths’ of George, Mill, Nulty, and the other authorities quoted, notably Froude and 183 184

185 186 187

188 189

Irish World, 12 Aug. 1882. TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9535, 28 Oct. 1882; Irish World, 2 Dec. 1882; Oban Times, 4 Nov. 1882; Glasgow Herald, 30 Oct. 1882. Inverness Courier, 7 Nov. 1882. Irish World, 2 Dec. 1882. NAS, Ivory Papers, GD1/36/1/8, Lord Advocate to Ivory, 13 Sep. 1882; Oban Times, 13 Sep. 1882. Irish World, 23 Dec. 1882. Iain Ban Og, ‘Failte A Albainn’, Gaelic Journal, Nov. 1882; United Ireland, 25 Nov. 1882.

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Arnold. The speech included several appeals to Highland or Scottish national sentiment and links with Ireland. Revd David Macrae, of Dundee, albeit in a letter of apology, expressed a hope that ‘the people of Inverness would speak out on the land issue with no uncertain sound, and that Mr. Davitt would unite the Scotch and Irish people as one on this great movement of land reform’.190 Davitt attempted to stoke up the agitation in several ways during the Inverness lecture, while consistently stressing the need for peaceful methods. First, he acknowledged the existence of a Scottish land movement, stating that: Whether it be acceptable to the landocracy of Scotland or not, there is beyond doubt a Scotch land movement in existence. It might not be organised. There might be no connection between the crofters of Skye and those of Caithness; but there was in the popular mind of Scotland a revolt against the idea that the land of this country could continue to be administered on behalf of a privileged class to the detriment of the Scottish nation, and this rebellion of sentiment was the inevitable herald of a moral onslaught of public opinion upon the institution of landlordism in this country. Both of the main Inverness newspapers, the Courier and the Northern Chronicle, ran editorials which spoke out against Davitt, and the criticism in the latter was the most stinging and most personal, accusing Davitt of a continued adherence to Fenianism as well as encouraging ‘a fine crop of agrarian outrages’ in Ireland.191 Recognising the broader implications of Davitt’s speech, however, it also warned readers that: The land-resumption scheme of Mr Davitt is only the thin end of the wedge, or rather the stone, by which the formidable Trade Unionist confederation wish to test the strength of the ice to see whether it will bear the nationalisation of mills, workshops, warehouses, railways, canals, banks, and capital in every shape and form . . . the movement is profoundly anti-Christian . . . Mr Davitt, in a small way, and the English Trades Unionists, in a less observable but far more powerful manner, are now trying to plunge this country into the vortex of allswallowing socialism.192 One of the Chronicle’s regular modes of transmitting Tory opinion was through theoretical Gaelic discussions, an attempt to remind its readers that in spite of class divisions in the Highlands, the crofters were more closely linked to their landlords than to the Irish. The conversations about Davitt continued for three weeks, reminding readers of his Fenian past and 190 191

192

Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 149. Northern Chronicle, 8 Nov. 1882; Inverness Courier, 7 Nov. 1882; Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 151–3. Northern Chronicle, 15 Nov. 1882.

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referring to him as Fear Co-bhann comharraichte sin an Fhearrain, a notorious Land Leaguer, as well as criticising Alexander Mackenzie, and making several appeals to Scripture.193 Even so, Davitt, expressed satisfaction with his visit to the Highland capital. As in Aberdeen, he believed that it was his most socially advanced doctrines that were most appreciated, and he also enjoyed both being able to understand Gaelic and to be understood in speaking Irish.194 He spent a social evening after his Inverness speech with a ‘number of educated Highlanders’, and was delighted to find that they were ‘just the class of men to start a land movement on the right basis. All read Kay, Arnold and some George.’195 He left Inverness promising to ‘keep the ball rolling in the Highlands’, and it was with a great deal of enthusiasm for the Scottish agitation that Davitt left Greenock for Dublin the following Thursday, writing: ‘Believe I have done good work. Certainly I have broken down a good deal of Scottish prejudice against the Irish Land movement and carried the banner of “The Land for the People” into the Highlands! Will it remain there?’196 Davitt upon his return to Ireland seemed somewhat depressed about the Irish Land Question. ‘Arrived in this dead country once again’, he wrote. ‘Oh that I could really rouse it into full throbbing life once more . . . But I fear it is a man-worshipping, begging nation after all. Still, nil desperandum.’ Another part of the ‘good work’ was furthering the process of allying radical Scots with radical Irishmen, as a basis for a Britain- and Ireland-wide social movement.197 Writing enthusiastically about his Scottish trip to the Irish World, Davitt condemned the duke of Sutherland and described ‘the active mind of the Scotch people’, which had spent months, or years, considering the land question from ‘various angles’. Because the land question had not yet assumed the crisis proportions which had been seen in Ireland, it allowed for greater reflection in Scotland, a process also assisted by the nature of the people. When taken with Davitt’s later assertion that the Irish were enemies of landlordism ‘by force of Celtic instinct more than by any process of independent thought or conviction’, he seems to have had greater faith in a land restoration agitation taking root in Scotland.198 Scotland was, like Ireland, a ‘landlord ridden country’, and was, according to Davitt: now ready for a land movement of the most advanced and radical kind. Peasant proprietary finds no acceptance here; neither is the question of compensation to landlords exercising the consciences of the people 193 194 195 196 197 198

Northern Chronicle, 15 Nov., 22 Nov., 29 Nov. 1882. TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9535, 4 Nov. 1882. TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9535, 5 Nov. 1882. TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9535, 9 Nov. 1882. Irish World, 2 Dec., 9 Dec. 1882. Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 164.

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overmuch. They are a logical, hard-headed people, who reason out their position first, and then resolve upon working out the legitimate conclusions, coûte que coûte. The native impulsiveness of the Celt is kept strictly under control by the intermixture of Saxon coolness and calculation, from which union springs a people possessed of qualities that enable them to give a good account of themselves, either where physical courage is required or in the higher moral field of intellectual effort.199 Even without Davitt’s intervention, tension was again rising on Skye. Glendale crofters attacked a shepherd at Waterstein, and a notice threatening a local landlord was displayed, signed by ‘our faithful landleaguer’.200 In Braes, tenants reacted to reports of an impending military expedition by resolving ‘to fight as long as there was a man alive among them’.201 Perhaps most worrying for the authorities was the claim by Broadford’s Church of Scotland minister, MacKinnon, that a good deal of mutual support existed on the island, unwittingly echoing Davitt’s notion of a land movement already being in existence.202 The panic prevailing heightened still further with a death threat against Lord MacDonald and Fraser of Kilmuir. Although it was almost certainly a hoax, the violent language of the notice, evoking ‘St. Patrick and the Blessed Virgin’, and threatening to ‘lay [them] as low as Thos. Bourke [sic] and Sir Fred. Cavendish are at this present moment’ reinforced the authorities’ fears that Captain Moonlight – the generic nickname given to Irish agrarian terrorists – had crossed the North Channel to the Highlands, and that the worst excesses of the Irish Land League would soon be reproduced in Scotland.203 A semi-literate counternotice also appeared: if you was a man you would not show face back here again but take care you will not get your other eye out of you as you are so low as come back here again you will get tucked accordingly you are only a big cow shite you great big Irishman if you think that Glendale people so simple . . . you are in the rong [sic] . . . be wise for yourself and turn where you are or if you stop a night lookout you man of no principle.204 The Portree correspondent of the Oban Times was certainly concerned, and stated categorically that the crofters did not care for home rule for the Irish and ‘did not want to have their cause mixed up in anything revolutionary’.205 The Scotsman, too, warned that: 199 200

201 202 203 204 205

Irish World, 2 Dec. 1882. NAS, Ivory Papers, GD1/36/1/10, MacVicar to Ivory, 9 Nov. 1882; MacLennan to Ivory, 13 Nov. 1882. NAS, Ivory Papers, GD1/36/1/10, MacArthur to Ivory, 18 Nov. 1882. NAS, Ivory Papers, GD1/36/1/10, MacKinnon to Ivory, 23 Nov. 1882. NAS, Ivory Papers, GD1/36/1/10/53, 24 Nov. 1882. NAS, Ivory Papers, GD1/36/1/10/62, MacVicar to Ivory 28 Nov. 1882. Oban Times, 4 Nov. 1882.

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Once the Highlanders as a body boasted in the words of the Gaelic proverb, ‘Cha b’ionnan O Brian’s na Gaidhil,’ (O’Brien was very different from the Gael), but the Skyemen in general, and representatives of them at the Braes in particular, have departed entirely from that position. The course they have followed in reference to their demands has been fashioned after a repulsive Irish model, and they have carried out their plans with the assistance of some of those who are identified with the veiled rebellion which has wrought such a vast amount of mischief on the other side of the Channel . . . During the recent tour of Mr M. Davitt in Scotland, he denied that he or any of his colleagues had any official connection with this movement; but that there was a connection, official or otherwise, is beyond dispute.206 Having finished his tour of Scotland, United Ireland stated that Davitt had been ‘in areas where no Irish agitator had penetrated before’.207 In fact, Edward McHugh had spent much more time among actual crofters than Davitt had managed on this occasion. Just as a Scot addressing a single meeting in Sligo could not have got a complete picture of the state of Connaught, Davitt showed no real appreciation in 1882 of a potential gap between the opinions of those reformers he had met in Inverness, and the crofters ‘on the ground’ in Skye, Caithness, and elsewhere. Though some in Skye were aping the language, and actions, of the Irish Land War, it also appeared that their aims were similar – dual ownership and more land – rather than the more advanced programme as set out by Davitt and McHugh. For such a celebrity of the land agitation as Davitt to come and address crofters’ representatives was a major boost to the Highland land reformers, but it also brought problems, given the general suspicion of all things Irish by a large proportion of the Highland press. It is convenient to see Davitt, the ex-Fenian, coming north to join the earlier Land League emissary in poisoning the crofters’ minds against the evils of London government. This may have been what the Land League had intended in the first place, and may – eventually – have been a by-product of Irish involvement in the Highlands. While Davitt’s main concern always seems to have been selfdetermination for Ireland, however, both he and McHugh were committed to general social reform, and the appeals to Scottish audiences in 1882 were a part of this agitation. In fact, it can be argued that because the Highland land issue was free from the nationalist connotations of the Irish agitation, Davitt enjoyed greater freedom to express himself in Scotland. His frustration with Ireland is apparent from his diary entries in 1882, but his high profile support for such an extreme doctrine as land nationalisation began a more detailed debate on what land reform measures were needed for the Highlands. 206 207

Scotsman, 2 Dec. 1882. United Ireland, 18 Nov. 1882.

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McHugh’s tour failed in that respect that, while he was clearly attempting to base a solution to the land question on universal truths, the crofters still concentrated more on the specifics of Highland history, and their restoration of perceived lost rights.208 When putting their case to the Napier Commission, furthermore, there was not a single request among the Skye crofters for land nationalisation, with almost all of the delegates requesting an amended version of the Irish ‘3 Fs’, including an extra demand for increased holdings.209 While McHugh was important in spreading the land issue around Skye, Davitt’s well publicised visit can be seen as a defining moment in the land issue in the Highlands. In the next few years the region was alive with land reformers and reform movements. Davitt’s speech in Inverness continued the process of countering the conservative messages of the Highland press, and paved the way for Henry George and others in the following years. Although many of these reformers were not Irish, still less connected with the Parnellite wing of the Irish Parliamentary Party, the perceived efforts of the Irish came to be accepted as fact and ensured that support for broader Irish issues – notably home rule, would be well supported in the Highlands of Scotland. After decades, if not centuries, of mutual suspicion, the stage was set for a temporary rapprochement between the Celtic cousins. After many months of carefully worded suggestions regarding a study or a revision of the Highland land laws, the re-eruption of the agitation on Skye gave Angus Sutherland a chance to make an unequivocal statement of aims. While his mentor, John Murdoch, and NLLGB colleague, Edward McHugh, visited Skye to educate the crofters, Sutherland made a plea to the FCS that their organisation should ‘now undertake the guidance and control of the amendment of the land laws’. Although Sutherland claimed that there were ‘a few individuals determined to resist, and to use all the powers conferred upon them by iniquitous laws to crush an awakening people’, he was quite clear that the people should not be cowed by listening to spurious legal arguments on the part of the landowners.210 By the end of 1882, therefore, Sutherland was able to identify real progress in all areas of the Highland land agitation. The most obvious manifestation of the agitation was, of course, the Battle of the Braes and subsequent unrest in other parts of Skye. Though this concentrated the attention of the government, police, and press on that island, more work was going on behind the scenes by the Glasgow agitators. Angus Sutherland had not only been active in Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, he had travelled north to bait the duke of Sutherland on his own territory, and had tried to encourage the Edinburgh Highlanders to join wholeheartedly in the agitation. 208 209

210

For examples, see NC Ev., 888, 1064, 1198, 1297, 1411, 1556, 1824, 1989, 2052, 2143. Taking only the sitting at Uig, for example, very many examples of this can be seen. NC Ev., 1461, 1566, 1771, 1895, 1987. Oban Times, 2 Dec. 1882.

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Referring back to his policy of goading the Highlanders into action, he accused them of not having done enough to win over the press – ‘like other institutions, it is subject to modifying influences’.211 Many figures, not only in government, but also the likes of Sheriff Nicolson of Kirkcudbright, attempted to dismiss the agitation as mere Irish mischief, but Sutherland believed that public opinion was coming to support the crofters. * Davitt’s own tour thrust the divisions between the left-wing Irishmen and the Parnellites into sharp focus. With most Irishmen now concentrating on nationalism, the Highlands enabled Georgites to get a foothold in Scotland, while striving to gain respect in the cities.212 Like the Glasgow representatives of the former NLLGB, Davitt hoped to succeed in the crofting regions where they had failed in Ireland. Davitt’s tour, referred to as ‘The Scotch Campaign’, not ‘Highland Campaign’, by Ferguson, was part of the wider plan to break down suspicion among Scots of Irishmen in the city.213 It is also apparent from this, however, and from Ferguson’s writings, that the Highlands were not considered a place apart in the land struggle.214 The crofting regions, certainly, showed up what were, in the reformers’ opinion, the worst manifestations of the inequitable land system. The other great social questions of the day, however, such as the housing crisis in the cities, and the general trade depression were also uppermost in their thoughts, and were also seen to stem directly from the land issue. If land nationalisation was not eventually accepted by the majority of the crofting population, as it had not been by the Irish smallholders, the region still provided a focal point, and a wealth of anecdotes and parables, for the urban agitatiors.215

211 212

213 214

215

Oban Times, 11 Nov., 18 Nov. 1882. A contemporary comment from Henry George claimed that ‘two-thirds of the population of Scotland now live in towns. It is not until these begin to realise their own direct interest in the settlement of the land question that the movement will reach the strength of which it is capable’. Irish World, 20 May 1882. Irish World, 17 Sep. 1881. The attitude of these men to the Highlands was, essentially, an extension of a belief expressed in Justice! In January 1884, that ‘in the great social struggle which is fast approaching it is essential that Englishmen and Irishmen work side by side for the benefit of both peoples’. Justice!, 19 Jan. 1884. Fraser, Scottish Popular Politics, 105.

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‘The Active Propaganda of Socialist Agitation’: Strands of Land and Social Reform in Ireland and the Highlands The years immediately following the ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ were, for the radical Glasgow Irishmen, simultaneously frustrating and ripe with opportunity. Michael Davitt’s desire to keep the banner of the ‘Land for the People’ flying in Scotland was realised in the years after 1882, but it was not until April 1887 that he returned in person to the Highlands, indicating the importance of the urban agitation to the overall plans of the radicals. Land remained his preoccupation, and in March 1883 he described the growth of the ‘Scotch Land League’ as an offspring of the Irish movement, again highlighting the difference between his private thoughts and his public pronouncements. With the Welsh also stirring he claimed that the fight against landlordism was confined to the ‘Celtic race’.1 McHugh, along with McGhee and Ferguson and the other radicals of the Glasgow branches of the Land League had congregated in the ‘Home Government Branch’ (HGB) of the newly formed Irish National League (INL), and had no intention of letting their agitation subside. The HGB continued to speak out on all manner of social issues, often to the annoyance, and embarrassment, of other Irish groups in Glasgow. The radicals were buoyed by the possible extension of suffrage in Britain and Ireland which, in Henry George’s words, they hoped would ‘end the power of the Parnell combination and give the lead to men of Davitt’s type’.2 There was an increasing antipathy between the ‘Parnellite’ Irish nationalists and the radicals, some of whom appear to have placed their faith more in advanced Liberals such as Joseph Chamberlain, than Parnell. Such tension resulted in frequent, and often unconvincing, assertions of unity within the broad Irish movement, especially from Davitt. By December 1882, with Skye and Caithness in such a volatile state that Michael Davitt called off plans to visit the areas for fear of inciting violence, the appointment of a Royal Commission was becoming widely accepted as one means of dampening down the agitation. Angus Sutherland admitted to a meeting in Edinburgh that a Commission was imminent, but also stated that he had no faith whatsoever in its ability to solve the problems of the 1 2

TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9586, 14 Mar. 1883. NYPL, George Papers, reel 3, George to Thomas F. Walker, 23 Jan. 1884.

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Highlands.3 If Scotland was seen as a way of making up for missed opportunities, the Napier Commission had to be used to best advantage. A parallel was drawn with the Bessborough Commission, which investigated Irish agricultural conditions in advance of the 1881 Act, and which also contained several landowners.4 In spite of the earl of Bessborough’s focus on historical aspects of the land question, and recommendation of the ‘3 Fs’, the radicals considered this an incomplete measure.5 The eventual establishment of a Royal Commission for the Highlands was not greeted with the enthusiasm which the loud demands for its formation might have suggested, the general complaint being that the Commission was too landlord dominated to be useful.6 Davitt had been incarcerated in Richmond Bridewell for using ‘inflammatory language’ at a meeting in Navan in February 1883, but was kept informed by his Glasgow friends of events in Scotland.7 Davitt believed the Commission was flawed, but potentially a step in the right direction, and: The means of accomplishing much good, as the truth which it is eliciting and the publicity which that truth is receiving in simply eviscerating the odious system which is responsible for so much wrong and misery in other lands as well as the isolated glens and stolen pasture grounds of Skye . . .8 On the other side of the spectrum, the Northern Chronicle commented that ‘it is not a Bessborough, but a fair and full inquiry that is desiderated at this time’, perhaps an acknowledgment of the duke of Argyll’s criticism in 1881 that the ‘political necessities of the case outweigh the intrinsic demerits of the Bill’.9 The task of organising the crofters in advance of the Commission became a major feature of the Oban Times, including a bilingual appeal to the crofters to ensure they used the Commission, and support for the work of Alexander MacKenzie and John Murdoch, who visited the townships in order to ensure that ‘the crofters would give expression to their own opinions’.10 The spring of 1883 saw continued agitation on the pages of the Oban Times from Liverpool and Glasgow, and there was a co-ordinated effort to infuse urgency into the crofters as well as break down residual prejudice against Ireland and the Irish land reformers who had been taking an 3 4 5 6

7 8 9

10

Oban Times, 27 Jan. 1883. Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 322. Bull, Land, Politics and Nationalism, 88–9. Oban Times, 31 Mar., 28 Apr. 1883; NLS, MS2635, f.56 (Blackie Papers), Mackay to Blackie, 14 Apr. 1883. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 547. TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9328, Davitt to McGhee, 22 May 1883. Northern Chronicle, 18 Apr. 1883; Scotsman, 3 Aug. 1881; G. D. Campbell (duke of Argyll), The Bessborough Commission. Speech Delivered in the House of Lords on July 1st, 1881 (London, 1881). Oban Times, 12 May 1883; NC Ev., 44503.

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interest in the Highlands. John Murdoch also featured, stressing the importance of agitation and the traditional links between Ireland and the Scots. ‘It is worth remembering’, he wrote, ‘that in Scotland as well as in Ireland, no successful battle has been fought since the Celts of Erin and Albin fought together as at Bannockburn and Clontarf.’11 In spite of this evocative appeal to history, Murdoch’s need to look back over five centuries for an example of Irish–Scottish unity underlined that any form of joint action in the 1880s was far from inevitable. The reference to Bannockburn was ridiculed in print a few weeks later by Reginald Macleod, scion of Dunvegan and Tory candidate for Inverness-shire in the 1885 election, who stated firmly that the Scots ‘won without Irish help at Bannockburn, and will do so again’.12 Despite the efforts of ‘Fionn’, his Liverpool counterpart, and a new, young editor in Duncan Cameron, the editorial line of the Oban Times still more closely reflected moderate Liberal, rather than radical, opinion.13 Opponents of the Irish reformers – who were often, although not always, also opponents of land reform more generally – highlighted the continuing malign influence of Land League veterans, often anachronistically and invariably with little attempt being made to understand the motives of the agitators. The Scotsman commented that: While the more advanced spirits among the Lowland tenants seem to think they could get on very well without any landlords at all, in the Highlands, on the other hand, the cry is for better landlords to help the poor crofters. This crofters’ question has nowhere been defined, and its size has been enormously exaggerated. A few years ago there was positively nothing on the subject in the public mind, except a vague recollection of the Sutherland evictions, and of the great Highland destitutions of 1836 and 1847 . . . Since then nothing of real importance has occurred. The stream of emigration has flowed on with diminishing volume. The movement of population from rural districts to towns and villages has, within the last ten years, become slower . . . Professor Blackie may talk, with the license of a poet, about turning the Highlands into ‘a preserve for John Bull.’ Gentlemen who, like Mr Macfarlane, MP, go yachting in search of oppressed nationalities, may prophesy that in the year 1908 there will be no rural population left in Scotland. Pedestrians, who some fine summer evening stumble on the romantic ruins of a deserted steading, may conclude that such things are common all through the North. But in how many cases has hardship actually been inflicted, and a complaint actually been made? There were the Leckmelm evictions some years ago. Opinion was divided about that case, but it suggested this conclusion, that if the 11 12 13

Oban Times, 20 Jan. 1883. Oban Times, 17 Feb. 1883. Oban Times, 2 Dec. 1882, 27 Jan. 1883; Newby, ‘The Oban Times and the Early Land Agitation’, 13.

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claims now made on behalf of the crofters were conceded, some Highlands estates would become unmarketable. Against the Leckmelm case may be put the recent declaration of Lord Lovat that his crofters are happy and contented. Then came the riots in Skye. In all probability these would not have occurred if an agent of the Irish Land League had not made his appearance in the Isle of Mist. Perhaps, also, the Highland fishermen had picked up some ideas on the coast of Ireland. But whatever spark led to the explosion, it seems clear that in this case the crofters are in the wrong. They may have a moral and historical claim to be the owners of their crofts, but according to their agreements with the present owners (which are not things of yesterday) they are entirely wrong.14 The Scotsman made the explicit assertion that the arrest of three men from Glendale was a direct result of McHugh’s visit to the area in 1882.15 It was also astute in noting that the ‘land league’ interest in the crofters reflected an urban interests: It has been argued that, as the crofters have not enough of the land to live upon, sufficient should be given to them out of the property of their landlord. If that arrangement appears reasonable in Edinburgh and Glasgow, it must seem still more natural and right in Glendale or the Braes, especially in a time of scarcity like the present.16 In spite of highlighting the malign Irish influence in Skye, any signs of agitation in other parts of the Hebrides were deliberately played down.17 Soon after McHugh had been on Skye, Angus Sutherland commenced a similar programme of ‘education’ in his native county, Sutherlandshire.18 As a native Highlander, and one who had been closely involved in the politicisation of urban Gaels, Sutherland, more than McHugh or Davitt, had his finger on the pulse of Highland opinion. He felt that his ambition, to organise and politicise the crofters of Sutherlandshire, could best be fulfilled by carrying an extremely radical message. The single tax movement would never be as strong in the Highlands as in other parts of Scotland, especially the Central Belt, but Sutherland was quite prepared to tackle the hegemony of Dunrobin Castle on a Georgite platform. Although Skye has dominated the historiography, probably the most radical of the crofting counties would come to be Sutherlandshire. Angus Sutherland’s connections both with the Irish Land League and, later, the Scottish Land Restoration League (SLRL), meant that Georgite radicalism was received with more enthusiasm in Sutherlandshire than elsewhere in 14 15 16 17 18

Scotsman, 3 Jan. 1883. Scotsman, 13 Feb. 1883. Scotsman, 14 Feb. 1883. Northern Chronicle, 31 Jan., 14 Feb. 1883. Northern Chronicle, 10 Jan. 1883.

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the Highlands. This was not a quick process, nor was it one which embraced everyone in the county, but by the 1890s the influence of Sutherland’s agitation was obvious. Sutherlandshire seems to indicate that while it was possible for external agitators to have a limited influence on crofter opinion, it required local radicals to spend time building on their work once the outsiders had moved on. His work ‘in the field’ limited his public appearances in the Lowland towns in 1883–84, but those meetings he did address often emphasised the change which had swept through the Highlands. In March of 1883, he spoke of how: Formerly, the Highland people suffered in silence, and allowed themselves to be oppressed without offering any protests, but now they gave expression to their thoughts and were not afraid to take action to defend their rights. There was never a time in which it was more important that the Highlander in the ‘Tir nam Beann’ should feel that they had the hearty support of their brethren in the cities and towns of the lowlands, where they are independent of laird or factor.19 Having apparently ensured the support of the FCS in his political aims, Sutherland spent much of 1883 out of the Glasgow limelight.20 However, far from being idle, he spent his summers in Sutherlandshire, briefing the crofters, organising and – vitally – collecting information he would use when he stood before the Napier Commission in Helmsdale.21 The Commission’s visit to Sutherlandshire was set against reports of a new agitation over grazings in East Clyne, where, it was reported, ‘the crofters have taken the law into their own hands, but how the matter will terminate remains to be seen’.22 Sutherland continued his attacks on the ducal family, hoping to break down the loyalty which was still felt by many of their tenants. Although the duke and duchess were irregular visitors to their Sutherland estates, the Conservative Northern Chronicle was always keen to stress the high esteem in which they were held by their crofters, something which also surfaced occasionally during the Napier Commission.23 As an important part of the British aristocracy, the Irish menace can seldom have been far from their thoughts, and guests at a party held on their English estate included Earl Spencer, ‘who was accompanied from Dublin to Trentham by the Irish constabulary’.24 The third duke and the marquis of Stafford were also central figures in the Stafford House Committee for the Defence of Property in Ireland, which had been established to assist the Irish Property 19 20 21 22 23 24

Oban Times, 24 Mar. 1883. Northern Chronicle, 18 Apr. 1883. Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 182. Northern Chronicle, 12 Sep. 1883. Northern Chronicle, 3 Oct., 31 Oct. 1883; NC Ev., 40380. Northern Chronicle, 18 Jul. 1883; L. P. Curtis Jr., ‘Landlord responses to the Irish land war, 1879–1887’, Éire-Ireland, xxxviii, 3–4 (2003), 162–6.

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Defence League, and support Irish landlords financially during the Land War.25 In spite of Sutherland explaining to the Commission, that he had taken but a ‘subordinate’ position in the agitation, he had spent a great deal of time and energy organising the Sutherlandshire delegates, in the same way as Alexander Mackenzie and John Murdoch had done in other districts.26 The preparation culminated with Sutherland’s presentation on behalf of the people of Loth and Kildonan, before Lord Napier and the other commissioners, at Helmsdale on 6 October, 1883.27 Alongside biographical information, Sutherland’s statements generally comment on society in the county.28 Sutherland provided a copious quantity of evidence to show how sheep farmers benefited from unfairly low rents in the area, and made frequent reference to Patrick Sellar, James Loch and their infamous ‘burnings’.29 Along with attacks on the duke of Sutherland – accusing the current duke of reneging on promises made over land reclamation – Sutherland neatly linked the past with the present.30 His assertion that ‘the system of estate management that burnt us out of Kildonan Strath has been consistent and continuous’ was typical of many of his early public speeches, and was a theme he would continue to exploit. The evocative recollections of the Sutherland clearances led to a stern rebuke from Lord Napier himself, who accused Sutherland of ‘aggravating the intensity of the case’.31 Nothing was made of Sutherland’s prominent role in the Highland land agitation, save from Fraser Mackintosh allowing him to state that his involvement was one of ‘conscience’, and that he had ‘profited nothing by it . . . nothing but opprobrium, and lost [his] time, and means to some small extent’.32 Sutherland’s Irish links were not probed, indicating that Nicolson, Fraser Mackintosh and the other commissioners may not have been aware that Sutherland had been an active member of the NLLGB. It is ironic, therefore, that one of Sutherland’s first actions after returning to Glasgow was to report on the progress of the Highland agitation to local INL branches.33 25

26 27 28

29 30

31 32 33

Staffordshire County Record Office, D593/P/26/5/3 (correspondence and papers of the Stafford House Committee for the Defence of Property in Ireland, Dec. 1881–Jan. 1882); D593/P/26/7/A–B. I am indebted to Annie Tindley for these references. See also Liberty and Property Defence League, Annual Report, 1892–3 (London, 1893). NC Ev., 38345, 9470, 9473, 41058, 41106, 44463. NC Ev., 38217ff. NC Ev., 38215, 38216. His age, given as thirty, was wrong however. He was thirty-five at this point. NC Ev., 38220. NC Ev., 38339. See also C. G. Roberts, ‘Sutherland reclamation’, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 2nd ser., xv (1879), 398. NC Ev., 38224, 38333ff. NC Ev., 38347. Glasgow Herald, 6 Nov. 1883.

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References to Ireland are comparatively scarce in the evidence of the Napier Commission, although Alexander MacKenzie claimed that Irish influence may have been attempted. He did not, however, ‘think it was at all required. I think the people had all made up their minds before anyone from Ireland went among them; and I think the people are more resenting this Irish interference than otherwise’.34 Aside from references to McHugh, the main focus on Ireland related to the ‘inspirational’ affect of the Land Acts, and the apparent passage of legislation as a result of agrarian terrorism.35 With his usual verbosity, Professor Blackie stressed parallels between the cases of Scotland and Ireland: Absenteeism in the Highlands has grown up pretty much in the same way as Ireland, and has produced its natural effects . . . [the Highlanders] must be preserved, as the Irish people have been preserved in Mr. Gladstone’s Bill of 1881 . . . No two cases can be imagined more parallel to than to the economic state of the western half of Ireland and that of our Highlands and Islands; and if there be a Strathnaver in Sutherland, the memory of which, at the distance of more than half a century, curdles the blood of every true-hearted Highlander, there is a Dunveagh [sic] in Donegal that responds to it with a fearful similarity of grim portraiture. In extending to the Scottish Highlanders the generosity and justice which characterise the Gladstonian Act of 1881, we shall not only have the benefit of the Irish experience of the operation of the Act, but we shall have to apply it to a system of legal machinery, which will be at once less costly and more satisfactory than that which could be looked for in Ireland, and to a people as distinguished for reasonableness, as their Celtic brethren on the other side of the channel, suffering under three centuries if a social cachexy, have unfortunately been for the contrary.36 Not for the first time there appeared to be inconsistency in the pages of the Oban Times – not only in the duality of opinion between editor and correspondents, but also within the editorial pieces themselves. While the Napier Commission was followed closely throughout 1883, the editorial line was generally non-committal.37 In spite of support for Highland land reform, editorial antagonism towards Ireland remained strong, complaining that ‘we are heartily sick of the Irish question in general and the land issue in particular’.38 September 1883 saw a piece supporting the Ross of Mull crofters in their stand for land law reform, while still not giving any support to the Irish cause.39 The contrasting receptions given to Michael 34 35 36 37 38 39

NC Ev., 41252–41253. Northern Chronicle, 1 Aug. 1883; NC Ev., 43750, 45065. NC Ev., 45826. Oban Times, 6 Oct. 1883. Oban Times, 23 Jun. 1883. Oban Times, 8 Sep. 1883.

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Davitt and Henry George who, after all, carried very similar messages, support the idea of a continuing resistance to overtly Irish influences. A guarded welcome was given to George, but Davitt was still tainted with Fenianism and was considered too dangerous a person to be promoted at the time.40 The co-operation between urban Highlanders and Irish, so notable in the years leading up to 1882, showed no sign of weakening. J. MacKenzie MacLeod, of the LHA, attended Davitt’s speech on ‘Castle Rule and Country Ruin’ in Liverpool in 1883.41 During the same week, MacKenzie Macleod gave a speech in the city entitled ‘the Land for the People’, and the Liverpool correspondent of the Oban Times expressed a wish that ‘if but the Irish and Scottish people could be brought to look upon one another with closer friendship, English and Scottish misrule would soon be a thing of the past’.42 In Skye, meantime, Irish links were condemned by a Kilmuir minister: Last Sabbath the Rev Mr Grant, Kilmuir, denounced the movement from the Pulpit as a Parnellite one and wished all his friends to take no part in it . . . I see all the respectable parties are now withdrawing from having anything to do with it. I hear a good deal said that it is not right to have anything to do with an Irish scheme. It is just what I thought that it will die away soon.43 Grant was, in fact, condemning the HLLRA for its links with Ireland, and while the radical Georgite columnists of Liverpool and Glasgow may have revelled in their Irish connections, the moderate ‘London Letter’, a voice for the HLLRA, dismissed the claims with indignation: It was interesting to hear from Skye that some landlord or church emissaries had denounced the London HLLRA as a Fenian association. There is no reason why Highlanders should accept help from Irishmen or others in their fight against landlord oppression. The only connection with Ireland is through the President, Mr Macfarlane, MP, who is a Highlander . . . but surely his standing for an Irish constituency does not make us all Fenians.44 The confusion as to terms persisted, therefore. The aims of the HLLRA continued to be ‘fair rents, durability of tenure, and compensation for improvements, with such an apportionment of land as will promote the welfare of the people’.45 In this respect, it called for provisions similar to the Irish Land Act, and mirrored the demands of some Parnellites in 1881.46 Those ‘Land 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 158. Irish World, 29 Dec. 1883. Oban Times, 22 Dec. 1883. HA, KEP D123/2 (e), MacDonald to Fraser, 26 Dec. 1883. Oban Times, 9 Feb. 1884. Oban Times, 29 Mar. 1884. Oban Times, 15 Mar. 1884.

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Leaguers’ of the early 1880s who maintained an active interest in the Highlands – Davitt, Ferguson, McHugh, McGhee and their Scottish allies – were pursuing an agenda which placed Highland land reform alongside a sweeping programme of land restoration for the whole country. By 1884, opponents of the reformers knew that the radicals and the Parnellites were at loggerheads, but continued to emphasise a unity of purpose between them, such was the adverse reaction which Ireland could still provoke in the general public. * The way in which the Irish Land War has, for the various reasons outlined, been presented as an inspiration for the ‘Crofters’ War’ of the 1880s has emphasised the rural aspect of the land agitation in Scotland. Land, however, has throughout history been an issue with an ability to unite reform groups because, as the nineteenth-century theorists constantly explained, no human could survive were it not for the land.47 Thomas Johnston’s interpretation highlighted that anti-landlordism in Scotland was not confined to the countryside: In 1883 [the miners] were agitating and working the ‘wee darg’ for an increase of 6d., and a new note of anti-landlordism, probably the effect of Henry George’s propaganda, begins to be noticeable. One speaker, M’Cowie of Cambuslang, says he works hard ‘producing a ton of dross for 4d., and the Duke of Hamilton, this idle spendthrift, gets 1s. 4d. for it.’ Cries of ‘Shoot the landlords!’ Michael Davitt came to Lanarkshire advocating nationalisation of the coal mines, and his chairman estimated that the Duke of Hamilton took £114, 486 in royalties during 1883. . .48 There seems little doubt that families in Scottish mining communities – many of whom came from rural districts of Scotland and Ireland – retained an attachment to the land beyond the mere fact that their livelihood depended on Scotland’s geology.49 Anti-landlordism as well as hunger can be attributed to the Irish immigrants’ practice of hunting game on lands belonging, for example, to the duke of Hamilton, but poaching in this manner had already been undertaken for generations by ‘native’ Scots miners.50 The period between the ‘Battle of the Braes’ and the 1885 General Election saw unprecedented activity by agitators in the Scottish Highlands, but this dovetailed with an urban campaign. Reformers continued to link 47 48 49 50

Martin, ‘The agricultural interest and its critics’, 128–34. Johnston, History of the Working Classes in Scotland, 348–9. Scotsman, 23 Aug. 1859. J. H. M. Laslett, Colliers Across the Sea (Chicago, 2000), 39; A. B. Campbell, The Lanarkshire Miners: A Social History of their Trade Unions, 1775–1974 (Edinburgh, 1979) 36–7.

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the land question in the countryside with the housing crisis in the cities. The housing problem, which was acute in Glasgow, had led to Government reports in 1882 and 1885, and the general trade depression also became the subject of an inquiry in 1885.51 Henry George was invited back across the Atlantic by several land reform groups hoping to further the progress that had been made since 1879–80, when the publication of Progress and Poverty coincided with the headiest days of the Irish Land War. George arrived on the last day of 1883, and was met at Liverpool by Davitt and McGhee. On the following Sunday, 6 January, he was formally welcomed at Euston Station, London, by a gathering of various reform organisations.52 With George and Davitt at odds with Parnell, and Ireland embroiled in the home rule issue, it seemed prudent to concentrate attention on Britain, especially Scotland. Not only had the Highlands been thrust into national prominence over the land issue, the pre-existing knot of radicals in Glasgow ensured that a level of organisation was already in place. Scotland not only had the correct conditions to give graphic illustrations of the theories of Progress and Poverty, in both urban and rural contexts, its population was apparently less distracted by other political issues. George’s tour took in areas which had been targeted by the Land Reform Union as susceptible to his arguments. He made fifty speeches in Scotland, twenty-three in England and just a couple in Ireland.53 Edward McHugh was the man chosen to prepare the Scottish venues and deal with applications for George to speak. Upon Davitt’s release from Richmond, McHugh and McGhee were keen to involve him as much as possible in the Scottish land movement.54 Davitt continued to lecture in British towns and cities at this time, generally on Irish social problems, but plans to tour Scotland with George were shelved because of the ongoing tension within Irish nationalism.55 When Davitt spoke at the City Hall in February 1884, presided over by John Ferguson, Highlanders took prominent positions on the platform, including John Murdoch who, as usual, sported ‘the Highland costume’.56 The main point of this meeting was to stress loyalty to Parnell as the Irish leader, but it also proclaimed that ‘the real leaders of men were siding with them’. At a further speech, to the Glasgow Young Ireland Society, Davitt impressed upon an audience of 2,000 people the need to influence Scottish public opinion on the Irish land movement. ‘In carrying out that work’ he 51

52 53 54 55

56

Ferguson, Land for the People, 17–25; Mavor, My windows, i, 153; J. B. Glasier, William Morris, 98–9; Justice!, 22 Mar. 1884; Voice of the People, 13 Oct. 1884; Christian Socialist, Sep. 1885. H. George, Scotland and Scotsmen (Melbourne, 1932 edn), Introduction. Frame, ‘America and the Scottish left’, 88–102. TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9521, f.5911, Davitt to McGhee, Nov? 1883. M. Davitt, Stand aloof from injustice: Speech at the meeting in favour of Land Nationalisation, held at St. James’s Hall, October 30th, 1883 (London, 1883); Irish World, 12 Jan. 1884; The Times 13 Feb. 1884; United Ireland, 16 Feb. 1884. Freeman’s Journal, 5 Feb. 1884; Irish World, 15 Mar. 1884.

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said, ‘[I] would impose upon the members the necessity of exercising great care and judgement in all their efforts to inform the public mind of Scotland on the Irish national cause. . .’ Although some of the speech was taken up, inevitably, with the evils of ‘Castle Government’ and the heroic deeds of Young Ireland leaders such as Thomas Davis and John Mitchel, Davitt took the opportunity in what he called ‘the greatest city in Great Britain’ to reaffirm his views on land: Another error to be avoided was the condemning of individuals for the crimes and consequences of the system. He always held that landlords, as individuals, were not morally or politically responsible for the crimes of Irish landlordism. He had occasionally to draw distinctions between the actions of certain landlords of a bad type and those of landlords who were not quite so bad. But at the same time he invariably endeavoured to educate people into the view that bad laws were responsible for the bad actions of individuals who held possession of their property.57 Although not compatible with the views of Parnell and the majority of the Irish Parliamentary Party, Davitt’s analysis was well received in a city which would, in the next month, spawn the Scottish Land Restoration League. With Henry George on Skye at this time, Davitt’s words were of clear interest to crofters, and further explains why Davitt saw Scotland as such a vital part of his long-term plan to convert Britain and Ireland to land nationalisation. An exasperated Davitt reflected privately – in his diary – at the end of 1883 that the Irish Parliamentary Party were ‘idiots’ for not only ignoring the English (and, by extension, Scottish) land and labour movement, ‘but actually to obstruct me in my efforts to help it along’.58 The leadership’s increasing concern that Davitt’s working-class politics were interfering with nationalist aspirations, led to rumours that United Ireland was being used to sabotage the Davitt/George lecture tour.59 Davitt himself, however, was acutely aware of the pitfalls of linking George openly with Irish agitators, and he expressed concern about Edward McHugh being chosen to accompany George around Scotland. Davitt not only believed that McHugh was needed in Glasgow to agitate against the supporters of Parnell, he queried whether it would be ‘politic’ for McHugh to do the work, again showing the sensitivity to public opinion which had characterised the early work of the Land League in Glasgow: Two considerations arise to my mind which cause me to hesitate in asking McH to accept the task: 1st it would take him from a post in 57 58

59

Freeman’s Journal, 11 Feb. 1884; Oban Times, 16 Feb. 1884. TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9536, 31 Dec. 1883; T. W. Moody, ‘Michael Davitt and the British Labour movement, 1882–1906’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser, iii (1953), 62. Irish Times, 12 Jan. 1884; Oban Times, 19 Jan. 1882.

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Glasgow which is becoming daily more important to our principle that one so true and capable should remain at . . . 2nd the George business would only last a couple of months or so after which McHugh would be thrown out of employment . . . would it be politic to have George ‘run’ by an Irishman and a Land Leaguer? I think you had better lay these views before McHugh at once . . . If we could remain in the background while George would be doing our work in England and Scotland it would I think be the wiser action.60 McHugh dismissed such worries, and Davitt stayed away while two of his closest allies were fanning the flames of the crofting agitation. After opening his Scottish tour in Dundee, George headed northwards in order to investigate social conditions of ‘crofters and small farmers’, speaking at several venues in the Highlands and Skye.61 Using his trademark religious imagery, George spoke in Wick and Keiss, in Caithness. In explaining his opposition not to individual landlords but to the entire legal system of landholding, George admitted that if he were himself a landlord he would ‘hang on by the land and rack-rent the tenants’.62 The audience reaction was generally warm, and George himself enthused about the response his ideas provoked, but the local newspaper set about ridiculing both the man and his theories.63 Thereafter, George and McHugh carried land nationalisation back to Skye, where, according to one observer, George’s theories ‘fell like a shower of nectar on his auditors’.64 Combining religion, local issues and broader politics, George told an open-air meeting at Uig that: The land was their own, as much so as the air. None, he said, had a right to exact payment for it. Major Fraser has no such right. He wondered that a religious people, who knew the Bible, should tolerate such great blasphemy . . . let them stand shoulder to shoulder and demand their own, and they would have it, and be no more slaves. The Irish got their desire.65 Although the relationship between religion and the land question, and particularly the actions of individual ministers on the issue, was extremely complex, George hoped that by allying scripture and land he would not only appeal to the instincts of a deeply religious people, he might also deflect public attention away from connections with Ireland and towards a recognition of the social justice of his ideas. George’s intervention in Skye was greeted by the Oban Times with a guarded welcome, claiming that: 60 61 62 63 64 65

TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9521, f.5912, Davitt to McGhee, c. 11 Dec. 1883. Dundee Advertiser, 2 Feb. 1884; Aberdeen Daily Free Press, 5 Feb. 1884. Oban Times, 16 Feb. 1884. John O’Goat Journal, 14 Feb. 1884. Oban Times, 23 Feb. 1884. Oban Times, 23 Feb. 1884.

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someone has stated that either Mr. Henry George is a consummate hypocrite or a noble enthusiast of deep religious conviction. Our opinion is that he is the latter; but we must guard ourselves against being identified with his conclusions, with which we have no sympathy.66 The piece argued that there should be no objection to the landlords as individuals, as long as those landlords fulfilled obligations to their tenants. George was condemned because his theories were ‘all in the air. Good enough for gushy philanthropists but highly impractical in this work-a-day world.’ Conversely, an Oban Times correspondent signing himself as ‘Ratepayer’ from Portree, praised George’s speech to the people of that town in February 1884 as ‘brilliant and telling’. The letter also hinted at the widespread knowledge of George’s ideas by claiming that ‘Progress and Poverty, costs only sixpence and is everywhere read’.67 While the Highland press debated Georgite theory, the man himself looked forward to what he called ‘civilisation’, the urban lowlands.68 Although the Highland speeches were well received, it was ‘to the men of the cities’ that George looked to be the standard bearers for reform.69 Two meetings in Glasgow had the strongest impact on the land movement in Scotland.70 Though not a sell-out, the first lecture drew an enthusiastic response from those who attended, and five hundred people remained afterwards to instigate a Georgite organisation. Michael Davitt wrote to Richard McGhee with encouraging comments, indicating his belief that land and social reform could now best be introduced through the Celtic regions of Britain, rather than Ireland: I have read George’s lecture in Glasgow and I think it is incomparably the best he has yet delivered . . . I am delighted to hear that the organisation is to follow George’s preaching. Build up a Scotch Land League by all means – to be run by Scotchmen, of course, I have already sowed the seeds of one in Wales, having met a deputation of Welshmen in Chester on Wednesday last for that purpose . . .71 As a way of launching the new organisation, the second meeting was held, with George as the chief spokesman, assisted by John Murdoch and William Forsyth, a Glasgow hotel proprietor who became the President. Richard McGhee suggested the body be called the Scottish Land Restoration League (SLRL), although this title had already been in informal use since at least early January.72 George’s son reported that: 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

Oban Times 23 Feb. 1884. Oban Times, 1 Mar. 1884; Oban Times, 5 Apr. 1884. Oban Times, 1 Mar. 1884; Frame, ‘America and the Scottish left’, 92. Frame, ‘America and the Scottish left’, 93. H. George Jr., Life of Henry George (New York, 1900), 433–4. TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9328, f.180/11, Davitt to McGhee, n.d., 1884. NYPL, George Papers, reel 3, John E. Sutherland to George, 6 Jan. 1884.

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Mr. George was at his best, as were all the other speakers . . . In a word, the Scottish Land Restoration League started off with a furore, and 1940 signatures were handed in to the committee for enrolment on the membership list . . . The action in Glasgow was contagious. Similar societies were formed very quickly in Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, Edinburgh, Greenock and several other cities.73 This action on the part of George’s followers did not treat the Highlands as a separate entity, and regarded the whole land of Britain and Ireland as requiring ‘restoration’ via the taxation of land values. The SLRL executive produced an avowedly Georgite manifesto: We hold that the Earth was created by Almighty God, as a dwelling place for the children of men; that it belongs and can belong to no one class or generation . . . He has intended all His creations to be sharers in his bounty, to the end that by the labour in the manner He has ordained, they may provide for the wants of those He has made dependent on them . . . We hold that the denial of this first and most important of all human rights – the equal right to possession and use of the natural elements necessary to life – is the primary cause of the frightful poverty and misery that, in spite of all our advances in civilisation, exist in our country . . .74 In narrowing its focus to Scotland, the statement went on to condemn Scottish landlords for their centuries of ‘usurpation and fraud’, and pointed out the disparity between the affluent few who ‘revel in profuse and wanton luxury’ and the majority who ‘live in poverty or are forced to emigrate’. As well as drawing a line between private rights in labour and private rights in land – the main bone of contention between Georgites and socialists – the manifesto also gave details of their proposed methods of restoring the land to the people: We propose to effect this restoration by the simple and obvious expedient of shifting all taxation onto the value of the land, and finally taking all ground rent for public purposes. As a first step to this end we shall demand of our representatives in parliament a re-imposition of the tax of 4 s. in the pound on the current value of land and whether it is actually rented or kept idle by its owner . . . To a certain extent, the SLRL was an offshoot from the radical branch of the Glasgow Land League, and many former members were on its executive. As will be noted, however, there were also numerous members of the SLRL executive who were antagonistic towards home rule, and this prompted Ferguson and Davitt, in particular, to emphasise their overriding desire for Irish self-determination on numerous occasions. Nevertheless, a 73 74

Freesoiler, May 1884. Scottish Land Restoration League, Address to the People of Scotland (Glasgow, 1884).

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sardonic Northern Chronicle editorial wrote that the ‘leaders [of the SLRL] declare their distinctive cry to be ‘Down With Landlordism’, which is just sufficiently Irish to render the organisation odious in the sight of Scottish people’.75 The inconsistency with which the radicals were attacked is illustrated by reactions to a meeting held by Davitt’s fellow Land League veteran, Thomas Sexton, in late 1883, where the links between Highlanders and Irishmen in Glasgow had been on full display.76 Although the Northern Chronicle might have promoted the link with ‘odious’ radical elements, there was also exasperation at an apparent campaign by other parts of the press to prevent these links from becoming common knowledge. Writing in Shaw Maxwell’s short-lived radical newspaper, Voice of the People, ‘Highlander’ complained that: The conduct of the Glasgow press is notorious for its petty prejudice regarding public meetings. If an Irish lecture on the Land Question takes place, the daily and evening newspapers are busy (showing secret skill) in cooking it to suit the public palate. This week Mr. Sexton, MP, lectured in the City Hall, and on the platform and among the meeting were many Scotchmen – many of them prominent men. To my own knowledge I saw five Scotchmen on the platform who I knew by name, and three of four of them addressed the meeting. But no mention is made by the papers of such men of spirit and courage as Mr. Murdoch, Mr. Sutherland and the Rev. Mr. Webster. The first and last named are omitted by all the papers. The Evening Times curiously says there was one Scotchman only, and one Highlander. The only reason that I am left to suggest for such trickery and petty spite is this – they are afraid lest Scotchmen and Englishmen might be easily influenced to follow the good example of such men; and further, to prevent the masses showing, or having any sympathy with, Irish grievances.77 The implication is that, while some parts of society, and the press – notably the Scotsman – had no hesitation in blaming the influence of Irish agitators for the outbreak of unrest in the Highlands, they had resolved to control this co-operation by depriving it of the oxygen of publicity. The presence of the Unitarian minister, Alexander Webster, at this event also indicates that some interest was being shown in the Highland agitation by the Edinburgh-based Scottish Land and Labour League. This was an organisation which, on the advice of the exiled Austrian socialist Andreas Scheu and Irishman John Mahon, had deliberately identified themselves with the land reform agitation in order to assuage public suspicion of socialism.78 75 76 77

78

Northern Chronicle, 19 Mar. 1884. Voice of the People, 10 Nov. 1883. Voice of the People, 10 Nov. 1883. ‘Highlander’ was John Murdoch’s long-standing nom de plume. Fraser, Scottish Popular Politics, 113; Land, Origins of Modern Irish Socialism, 107; A. Webster, Memories of Ministry (London, 1913), 31.

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Although support in the Highlands for Georgite theory may eventually have been disappointing for the SLRL, they had little to fear from the Land and Labour League, in spite of a veiled threat in May 1884 that a ‘more advanced’ Edinburgh alternative to the Glasgow SLRL was to be established.79 The lack of an industrial proletariat in the Highlands ensured that the focus of Scheu and his colleagues, who included J. Bruce Glasier, never really deviated from more conventional urban labour organisation.80 In summing up his visit to Scotland at the end of March 1884, George wrote that he found Scotland ‘riper on the whole than England’ for land reform.81 Referring to the Highlands, George claimed that it was, in fact, the men of the cities to whom he looked to instigate a radical movement and that the towns ‘must carry the standard of advancement’.82 This echoed the resolutions of the National Radical Conference, a rally consisting of various land reform, socialist and trade union organisations, held in February 1884.83 The conference not only heard calls for a Highland Land Bill, but also remarked that ‘if only the citizens of Dundee, Paisley, Glasgow and other towns in Scotland will only join the crofters in their agitation, it will not be long before the cry of Land Nationalisation will be heard all over North Britain’. The fact that the crofting agitation was being carried on simultaneously with the Royal Commission on working-class housing was not lost on the radicals, and Justice!, ‘the organ of social democracy’, linked the two quite explicitly: In Scotland it is pleasant to hear that the agitation against the great robbers of the clans grows fiercer by the hour, and if the Commission on Housing the Poor fancy they can shield either ground landlords or middlemen in the towns, they quite underestimate the forces working outside.84 Radical land reform was a live issue, therefore, at the time when the Napier Commission published its recommendations in April 1884.85 Even some of the commissioners dissented from some of the recommendations, notably the idea of state-aided emigration and the limited offer to security of tenure to crofters with land valued at £6 or more per annum.86 The Scotsman argued that ‘it is safe to say that those who most strongly urged its appointment will most strongly dissent from its conclusions’, acknowledging the absence of any endorsement even of the HLLRA’s limited aims, and presaging the comments of G. B. Clark in the introduction to his 1885 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

Justice!, 17 May 1884. Scotsman, 18 Nov., 4 Dec. 1884. Oban Times, 29 Mar. 1884. George, Scotland and Scotsmen, 18 Justice!, 2 Feb. 1884. Justice!, 22 Mar. 1884. Oban Times, 3 May 1884; Scotsman, 29 Apr., 1 May, 5 May 1884. Celtic Magazine, Jun. 1884; Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh, 133.

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treatise, The Highland Land Question.87 In providing several volumes of direct testimony from the inhabitants of the Highlands, however, the Napier Commission had a lasting propaganda value in Scotland, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, and the limited nature of the report served to reignite agitation on the ground. H. M. Hyndman wrote that: Happily the movement had gone too far, even before Lord Napier and his commissioners began their laborious attempt to whitewash the landlords . . . and Henry George’s lecturing tour has since roused a spirit throughout the length and breadth of Scotland which it will need something very different from this Report to calm down. Men and women whose fathers and mothers were driven from their ancestral homes by landlord greed to fight for subsistence under capitalist tyranny in Glasgow, Paisley and Dundee have been moved by the cry of ‘the Land for the People’ . . . The recommendations of the Commissioners will indeed, as they say themselves, ‘appear inadequate to those whose imaginations have been familiarised with projects of an exaggerated or visionary character, such as general redistribution of the land.’ We venture to say that this very Report, written as it manifestly is in the interests of the landlords, will do much to bring this ‘visionary’ Nationalisation of the Land directly within the region of practical politics.88 There is some truth in this assessment, in its assertion that the urban agitation was starting to take a hold, and in many respects this helps to contextualise the interest taken by George, Ferguson, Davitt and their allies in the Highlands. Far from being an extension of a rural land agitation in Ireland, the ‘Highland campaign’ was an early step in a social reform movement which, they hoped, would encompass the whole of the U.K. and Ireland. The anxiety which the land restorers were causing among the landed classes was articulated by the duke of Argyll’s attempted rebuttal of Henry George.89 Argyll dismissed attacks on private landlords’ ‘unearned increment’, claiming that investments in estate improvements could be considerable, and poured scorn on the black-and-white caricatures which radicals had painted of landlords.90 George retaliated with a fierce broadside against Scottish landlordism, reiterating the way in which estate polices had emptied the glens and bemoaning the passive nature of the tenants.91 The Birmingham Democratic Federation sent a resolution of sympathy to the Skye crofters at this time, calling for a ‘complete restoration of the land to the whole people’, and it is clear that the crofting agitation had a wider symbolic importance.92 With an agrarian land agitation being 87 88 89 90 91 92

Scotsman, 29 Apr. 1884; G. B. Clark, The Highland Land Question (London, 1885), 3. Justice!, 3 May 1884. Duke of Argyll, ‘The prophet of San Francisco’, Nineteenth Century, xv (1884), 134–55. Argyll, ‘The prophet of San Francisco’, 553–5. H. George, ‘The “reduction to iniquity” ’, Nineteenth Century, xvi, (1884), 146, 154. Justice!, 31 May 1884.

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monitored in Lancashire – a strike against tithes on one of Lord Derby’s estates – it was reported that that, among the Burscough tenants, ‘the movements among the Skye crofters and in Ireland are being closely watched, and having a stimulating effect’.93 Armed with the SLRL manifesto, Shaw Maxwell paid an opportunistic visit to Skye in May 1884, coinciding with the publication of the Report.94 He covered a lot of ground, addressing meetings of crofters in Dunvegan, Waternish, Glendale, Valtos, Uig, Portree and Braes. Some success was seen in Braes, where a branch of the SLRL was founded, and Glendale, where a resolution was passed calling on the HLLRA of London to unite with the SLRL in its efforts.95 It is likely that any unification of the two bodies would have been on the SLRL’s terms, meaning a de facto takeover of the HLLRA into the Restoration League. Henry George had referred to the HLLRA in his Inverness speech as a ‘timid little organisation’, and there was too little common ground between the two bodies to suggest that any form of federation was viable.96 The involvement of Shaw Maxwell and John Murdoch in the Scottish Farmers’ Alliance at this time also suggests a co-ordinated, if unsuccessful, attempt to infiltrate and radicalise that organisation.97 As the crofters had their hopes raised by the advent of the Napier Commission, so the north-east farmers had theirs dashed somewhat by the passage of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act of 1883, which failed to provide either security of tenure or compensation for improvements.98 In these circumstances, the leading lights of the SLRL may have felt justified in seeking to extend their influence still further. Almost simultaneously, in an excellent illustration of the complexities of the broad radical front in Britain, the socialists were hoping to infiltrate the SLRL: Land Restoration Leagues are being formed in various parts of the country. It will be well for Socialists while keeping a firm grip of their own local organisation in connection with the Democratic Federation to lose no opportunity of pointing out alike within and without these new bodies that Land Nationalisation by itself is impossible; and, even if it were possible, useless. Capitalists, especially the great Liberal Capitalists are most anxious to turn the growing social agitation against the landlords alone. They could then rob the workers without having to share their plunder with the landlords.99 93 94 95 96

97

98 99

Justice!, 7 Jun. 1884. Oban Times, 3 May, 10 May 1884; Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 170–1. Oban Times, 3 May 1884. Aberdeen Daily Free Press, 25 Feb. 1884. Indeed, even the HLLRA was split into its ‘London’ and ‘Edinburgh’ factions, with differing views of other political issues such as church disestablishment. Northern Chronicle, 12 Mar. 1884. The Voice of the People, 13 Oct., 20 Oct., 27 Oct., 3 Nov., 10 Nov., 17 Nov., 24 Nov. 1883; Oban Times, 6 Sep. 1884; Scotsman, 25 Feb. 1885. See also, Fraser, Scottish Popular Politics, 104. Fraser, Scottish Popular Politics, 114. Justice!, 24 May 1884.

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In spite of the conspiracy theorist tone of the Democratic Federation, however, and the ever-growing antagonism between socialists and Georgites, it was freely admitted that George’s tours had created a radical energy among the general public in Britain which could help to stimulate an interest in socialism. Indeed, it was almost taken for granted that anyone considering the theories of Progress and Poverty would inevitably progress to socialism: Mr George’s grave economic blunders lie on the surface of all his writings; and no-one who thinks for a moment can believe that the landlord is the chief enemy of the labourer in our modern society. But Mr George has roused the people by his moral earnestness and enthusiasm, and to have done this entitles him to our sincere thanks, whatever we may think of his theories or his ‘remedy’.100 In the Highlands, however, where the landlord could be demonised as the ‘chief enemy of the labourer’, the attention which George’s visit received allowed the SLRL to step up its activities. In a series of letters to the Wick-based Northern Ensign, the League’s Vice-President, J. M. Cherrie, stressed the universality of the ‘Land Question’, claiming that: the Highland crofters, the Irish peasants, the millions of dwellers in one-roomed houses in the large cities, the rack-rented shop keepers and manufacturers . . . will at once be directed to the only course by which they can escape from the oppression which overpowers them. . .101 What Cherrie, along with other advanced liberals such as Charles Wicksteed, hoped to demonstrate was that the HLLRA offered no long-term solution to the crofters’ problems, and that only by rallying behind the SLRL proposals could they enjoy a permanent amelioration of their condition.102 Although the urban land question became central to the SLRL’s plans, the high profile of the crofters’ agitation in the newspapers ensured that the Highlands remained prominent in the League’s rhetoric. The work of George, Shaw Maxwell, and the SLRL undoubtedly helped to keep the crofting question before the wider public, and shifted the focus from whether there should be land reform, to what form the reforms should take. However, it is also true that while the Skye crofters received the land 100 101

102

Justice!, 15 Mar. 1884. J. M. Cherrie, The Restoration of the Land to the State Plainly Demonstrated (London, 1884), 3; Northern Ensign, 22 Nov., 27 Dec. 1883, 24 Jan., 21 Feb., 27 Mar., 29 May 1884. For Cherrie’s death at his residence in Tollcross, Glasgow, see Single Tax, Feb. 1900. J. M. Cherrie, On the Economic Conditions of Land Occupancy, and the Depopulation of the Highlands of Scotland (London, 1884); Glasgow Herald, 9 Feb. 1883; Northern Ensign, 28 Jun. 1883; C. Wicksteed, The Land for the People: How to Obtain it and How to Manage it (London, 1885); Christian Socialist, Dec. 1886.

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restoration message politely during these visits, they eventually returned to Parliament a man, Charles Fraser Mackintosh, who embodied the moderate demands of the HLLRA.103 In this context, the Irish World, criticised the crofters for failing to broaden their limited aims of fair rent, security of tenure, and compensation, in spite of McHugh’s mission to Skye.104 When Alexander MacKenzie travelled to Ireland in October 1884, his expressed intention was to examine the Irish Land Act of 1881 from a Highland perspective.105 To this end, he came down firmly in favour of the Act, implying that its the benefits should be extended to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Arriving in Derry, MacKenzie followed the west coast down to Mayo, and marvelled at the benefits that Gladstone’s 1881 Act had bestowed on one of the poorest parts of the country, writing that ‘the houses bore an outward appearance of comfort and prosperity, out of all comparison with the corresponding classes in the Western Highlands and Islands of Scotland . . .’ The main message from the article was that legislation along the lines of the Irish Land Act was all that was required to improve the condition of the crofters. Taken to task for this stance a few months later, Mackenzie argued that ‘landlordism on its present footing is bad enough in all conscience, but government as a rent or tax gatherer, in name of rent, would be infinitely worse – would be, in fact, for the crofters, jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire’.106 If MacKenzie was sceptical about extending land reform for the Highlands beyond the HLLRA’s demand for more land and the ‘3 Fs’, other parts of the Highland press remained downright hostile to Davitt and other Georgites. The Tory Northern Chronicle, as well as reporting how Lady MacDonald had visited Braes with food and blankets for the needy, spoke of Henry George as a communist, and proudly reported that the American was ‘heartily hissed’ at his Inverness meeting.107 It was even more scathing about the SLRL, and was at a loss to explain the sudden gullibility of the Highlanders in following such organisations. One correspondent wrote: The Land League nuisance crops up in almost every imaginable ‘hole and corner’. The Highlander is supposed to be of highly respectable antecedents, but of late he seems to be doing all he can to prove himself unworthy of the stirring traditions and memories of the past. Ready he is to follow any Fenian quack, even over the rocks of revolutionary ruin, provided he hears the cry of ‘more land’ and seems to see its reflection in the depths into which he is about to plunge.108 103 104 105 106 107 108

Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh, 155. Irish World, 16 Jun. 1883. Celtic Magazine, Nov. 1884, Dec. 1884. Scottish Highlander, 31 Jul. 1885. Northern Chronicle, 16 Jan., 27 Feb. 1884. Northern Chronicle, 19 Mar. 1884.

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Even Queen Victoria, in a letter to Home Secretary William Harcourt, expressed a belief that her beloved crofters had been duped into expressing ‘wild and impossible demands’ by ‘Irish agitators’.109 This was prompted by the duke of Argyll’s claims that: I believe, and I know, that this lawlessness [in the Western Highlands] has not been born among the people of the country. It is the work and the active propaganda of Socialistic agitation. In the Island of Skye, when I was there last year, I heard details which left no doubt whatever that the minds of the people have been poisoned by active emissaries altogether outside the people. Naturally, they are the most tractable, the most loyal, and the most law-abiding people in the world.110 Similarly, the Inverness Courier put the activities of the land reformers in perspective by reporting in detail about the Russian Nihilists and revolutionary movements, and the Socialist agitation in Austria.111 A leading article in the Northern Chronicle bracketed McHugh not only with Davitt and George, as might be expected, but also with Karl Marx and the ‘thoroughgoing Nihilists’: The poor crofters of the Western Isles have been taught to expect impossible gifts from the Government, and some of them have become very different from their former patient selves. They had agitators of the Irish type with them, to whom at first they were not very willing to listen. But when they found that bodies like the Highland Land Law Reform Association of London, and other similar bodies were teaching them similar lessons with MacHugh [sic], although in very different words, they naturally began to think that they could take by violence some sort of heaven in their own overcrowded lands.112 Eighteen months after McHugh’s presence on Skye, therefore, even the Tory press was beginning to fear that he had had a long-term significance, but still failed to recognise that McHugh’s language had not been couched in violent terms – certainly no more ‘violent’ than Henry George, the HLLRA, or any other reformer or reform organisation. The hope still persisted that the NLLGB, though having passed out of existence by this time, could be tarred with the brush of Fenianism, and that Georgite solutions to the land question could be bracketed with more extreme European socialism. * 109 110 111

112

A. G. Gardiner, The Life of Sir William Harcourt, 2 vols, (London, 1923), i, 533. Hansard, 3rd ser. (Lords), cclciv, col. 105 (21 Nov. 1884); Scotsman, 22 Nov. 1884. Inverness Courier, 5 Feb., 16 Feb., 23 Feb., 28 Feb. 1884; See also Christian Socialist, Aug. 1885, which quoted Blackwood’s Magazine’s assertion that the crofting agitation was ‘simply and solely the work of a few crafty revolutionists in England, Ireland and America’. Northern Chronicle, 23 Jan. 1884.

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Michael Davitt’s private contempt for Parnellism remained undiminished, confiding in Henry George that ‘Irish people are too prone to man worship to lead a movement of ideas’.113 Conversely, United Ireland, loyal to Parnell, accused George of ‘toadying to the British’ in his lecture tours, and turning away from Irish problems.114 A couple of month later, at a meeting in Drogheda, Parnell condemned both Davitt’s plans for land nationalisation and his courting of the British working classes in almost mocking terms.115 C. L. Fitzgerald, a prominent member of the Social Democratic Federation in Britain, summed up the way in which Davitt’s followers viewed the relationship between land reform and nationalism: The land of Ireland, so long withheld under alien rule, must return to those whose birthright it is. Irishmen never will be free while the land on which they all must live belongs to a class, whether native born or alien: they will remain in the future, as they have been in the past, wayfarers in the land of their birth. Let no prospect, therefore, of mere political liberty cajole them into submission to economical slavery; unless they are free all round they are not free at all. Let the two agitations go on side by side, and in the end both must succeed.116 Davitt decided to ‘suffer in silence’ after Drogheda, but his fears that the ‘man worshipping’ Irish would blindly follow Parnell seemed confirmed when, in stark contrast to his Scottish lectures in 1884, George’s Dublin address was unenthusiastically received.117 Representatives of the Irish Parliamentary Party boycotted the meeting, and in spite of Davitt’s presence on the platform, ‘the only feeling which seemed to pervade the crowd was curiosity, and the lecturer did not appear to excite any new interest’.118 It is clear, however, that Davitt had sound pragmatic reasons for at least paying lip service to Parnell. Responding to a concerned John Ferguson in 1884, Davitt argued that any attempt to speak out against the ‘retrograde speeches’ of the Parliamentary Party would be crushed at once as an attack on the leader himself.119 113 114 115

116 117

118 119

Frame, ‘America and the Scottish left’, 98. United Ireland, 19 Jan. 1884. United Ireland, 19 Apr. 1884; Lyons, Charles Stewart Parnell, 258; A. Boyd, The Rise of the Irish Trade Unions (Tralee, 1972), 64. Justice!, 26 Apr. 1884. TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9328, Davitt to McGhee, 15 Apr. 1884. For more on George’s 1884 visit to Ireland, see Lane, Origins of Modern Irish Socialism, 86–8. The Times, 10 Apr. 1884. Davitt suggested that it would be wise ‘in my opinion to allow the country to make up of itself to the knowledge that men who have been masquerading as land leaguers are now insidiously apologising for landlordism . . . There is great strength in a well-regulated silence, particularly when ideas are ripening in the popular mind . . . Do nothing to create division, let it come through a defection from principle over the other side . . . to preach ideas and not men, or wait for the victory of the franchise. On these lines, the future is ours,

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Palpable tension was also starting to pervade Scottish radical meetings. At a meeting held in Glasgow to discuss ‘the Highland crofters’ interests’, James Shaw Maxwell was prevented from speaking, leading to uproar among the SLRL members present. In addition, differences between the Irish and Highland case were highlighted. Dr Walter Smith argued that: The people of Great Britain did not want the crofter population of the Highlands driven away to other countries. He took leave to say that they were an extremely interesting element in our social life. They were different from the Irishmen, for whom so much had been done. He said they were different, inasmuch as they were independent. One would not go into an Irish shanty and ask a light for his pipe without being asked before going out whether he had a copper to give [uproar among the Irish, and applause]. He said they might travel over the whole Highlands of Scotland, and they would meet nothing but hospitality and kindness . . .120 Prejudice against Ireland and antagonism towards home rule certainly persisted, but of more immediate concern to the Irish radicals in Glasgow was the discord within their own community. It is clear that Davitt’s supporters in the city were becoming ever more frustrated with the machinations of the Parnellites, and hoped to promote a serious reform movement in Scotland, whether or not Ireland was ready to follow. Davitt himself urged patience: I am more than delighted at the results of George’s work in Scotland, and I am in no way jealous that the Celts of North Britain have outstripped those of Ireland – in the advanced nature of their attack upon land monopoly. We over here have set that ball rolling and we have kicked it across the Channel but we are not going to stop at these achievements I hope. Yes, I agree with you that it was a blessing Parnell’s bill was defeated. They fail to see that the influence which must be organised to pass such a measure will suffice for a much more material and Radical one being passed, but as politicians they are compelled to calculate upon the views of the present holders of the Irish franchise – the tenant farmers . . . The world is not about to indulge a radical change, nor is human nature about to become perfect, or the human mind about to cease its function of thought and inquiry because Henry George has written a book and Scotland has organised a Land Restoration League. The line of toleration must be drawn somewhere.121 The divisions between Parnell and Davitt at this time were reflected within the Irish community in Glasgow, with the HGB passing a vote of

120 121

that is, it will be won by a platform of truth and justice.’ TCD Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9375/992f. Davitt to Ferguson, 25 Jun. 1884. Scotsman, 5 Jun. 1884. TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9328, f.180/13, Davitt to McGhee, 12 Mar. 1884.

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censure on Owen Kiernan, the organiser of the INL in Scotland, for his attacks on Davitt.122 Patrick Shiels’s short-lived Glasgow Irish newspaper, Exile, gave strong support to Parnell and hoped to keep Irish migrants in Scotland from joining non-Irish political organisations.123 As Owen Dudley Edwards argued, ‘it picked up Highland land controversies, but was firmly opposed to radical solutions, giving space to decidedly conservative agitators on the side of peasant proprietary and against the votaries of Michael Davitt and Henry George’.124 The response of these ‘votaries’ was to continue with the promotion of land restoration, with both Davitt and George being invited back to Scotland during 1884. The importance of the work in Scotland was amplified by the submergence of the land question in Ireland beneath home rule.125 The Exile also demonstrated that, if Scottish suspicion of Irish activity in the Highlands remained acute, there persisted a parallel suspicion among the Irish of the ‘Unionist’ strand of Scottish identity: When the prisons of Ireland were filled with the recognised leaders of Irish political opinion, from Mr Parnell down to the local secretaries of the Land League, Scotchmen breathed freely, and rejoiced that the favourite panacea for the ills of Ireland – coercion, was again at its work of repression, but when a number of crofters were immured in Edinburgh prison, for a Sunday riot at one of the northern fishing stations, there was no end to the sympathy that was roused on their behalf. This was right, but why did Liberal Scotland mourn over their incarceration, and petition for the release of these Highlanders, and rejoice at the imprisonment of their Irish fellow-subjects? It must be admitted, however, that the sympathy for the imprisoned crofters was anything but general, while rejoicing for that of the Irish Land League was all but universal . . . They build monuments to William Wallace and cry down Charles Stewart Parnell. They can tolerate a Gibson or a Beresford who roars for the coercion of Ireland, but let Michael Davitt come over to state Ireland’s case truly, and the Scottish Liberal is conspicuous by his absence . . .126 As in Glasgow, links between left-wing Irish nationalists and socialist/ Georgite land reformers in Liverpool were, at least initially, close, with many people undoubtedly assuming both roles. Alongside a firm support for the Irish people, the Oban Times’s Liverpool correspondent stridently advocated land restoration – a measure which never found favour in the editorial columns, and his Georgite tendencies were encapsulated in his statement 122 123

124 125 126

Exile, 4 Oct. 1884; McFarland, John Ferguson, 148–9. O. Dudley Edwards, ‘The Catholic press in Scotland since the restoration of the hierarchy’, Innes Review, xxix (1978), 164. Dudley Edwards, ‘The Catholic press in Scotland’, 164. TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9328, f.180/14, Davitt to McGhee, 15 Oct. 1884. Exile, 18 Oct. 1884.

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that ‘I desire such a union that the owners of the land may be made to compensate both the Highland and Irish Kelt for the plunder and robbery they have perpetrated on the people’.127 A consistent critic of the ‘Liverpool letter’ was ‘JAF’, who condemned Henry George as being no better than a highwayman and, referring to the Liverpool correspondent, wrote that ‘if he is not an Irish land leaguer, he is a very good imitation. With him all landlords are murderers, blood suckers, craven-hearted oppressors &c. This is the usual froth that we are accustomed to hear from the deceivers of the Irish people.’128 This is another example of how public perceptions did not seem to recognise the differences between Irish nationalists and Georgite land restorers. While the strength of conviction on the part of the land restoration devotees disconcerted some, all the leading Liverpool Highlanders advocated the measure and, inevitably, maintained close links with the Glasgow members of the SLRL.129 It was noted that mixed groups of Liverpool-based Irish and Highlanders met with Henry George at the Wellington Hotel upon the American’s visit to the city, and also that ‘several members’ of the Liverpool branch of the SLRL were present at the Irish National Halls in Birkenhead.130 At the latter meeting an address was given by A. MacDonald on the objects of the League, prompting the correspondent to reflect upon how ‘the Irish and Highlanders are fraternising again as in the times of Montrose . . . no wonder their enemies are in dread fear of them coming together again’. As well as Irish co-operation, the LHA consistently emphasised the need to secure the support of the English democracy, mirroring Michael Davitt’s beliefs relating to Irish home rule.131 The need to push the docile Scottish M.P.s into action was also of great importance.132 Although attention has often focused on Skye, an island which hosted McHugh’s NLLGB mission, Henry George (twice), and the Land Restoration Leagues of Scotland and England, activity on the island between these visits seems to have been somewhat haphazard. The different parts of the island, although often passing resolutions of support for each other, did not, generally, act as one. The most extreme radicalism was embodied in John MacPherson, but his influence was generally limited to Glendale, and while the Oban Times was able to report enthusiastically on the progress being made on the island, the only overarching organisation – the HLLRA – ensured that the question of land nationalisation was kept subservient to the 127 128 129

130

131

132

Oban Times, 5 Apr. 1884. Oban Times, 19 Apr. 1884. For the debate with ‘JAF’ and ‘Advance’, see Oban Times, 8 Mar., 22 Mar., 29 Mar., 5 Apr., 19 Apr. 1884. Oban Times, 19 Apr., 10 May 1884. It is notable that, in spite of the existence of an English Land Restoration League, the Liverpool Highlanders still adhered to the Scottish body. Oban Times, 14 May, 24 Dec. 1881, 19 Sep. 1885 (R. MacDougall’s speech at Oban). See also Oban Times, 27 Mar. 1886 for Liverpool support for the Welsh Tithe agitation. Oban Times, 12 Sep. 1885.

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practicality of achieving more basic reforms. The presence of external agitators in the area from time to time was not enough to instil the desire for anything more than the HLLRA programme in most parts of the island, in spite of occasional attacks by the SLRL on HLLRA leaders such as Macfarlane.133 By subsuming the Edinburgh Highland Association in late 1884, it also appeared that the HLLRA, in spite of tension between its London, Edinburgh, and Sutherlandshire factions, was growing even stronger in the Highlands.134 In Sutherlandshire, however, Angus Sutherland continued a vigorous agitation – especially against the ducal family – throughout 1884.135 The Liverpool correspondent of the Oban Times expressed delight that: Many of our people are working like giants refreshed . . . There is Mr. Angus Sutherland, engaging Dunrobin Castle stem and stern at close quarters, as Nelson engaged the huge Orient at the Battle of the Nile . . . Angus is raking the decks fore and aft. His speech to the Sutherland men in the school room at Helmsdale is a piece of political economy which Mr. George might envy.136 In anticipation of an extension of the franchise, Sutherland’s activity in Sutherlandshire increased in intensity after the Napier Commission.137 By returning at regular intervals, Sutherland retained a high profile in the area, and it is also at this time that John MacLeod, a young man from Gartiemore, just outside Helmsdale, began to emerge as Sutherland’s loyal assistant, and would remain a prominent figure in Sutherlandshire and throughout the Highlands for many years.138 Thus, a contrast can be made with Sutherlandshire which, in Angus Sutherland, had not only a native agitator, but one who was a very advanced radical and made his reforming platform unambiguously one of land restoration. As a result, it was Sutherlandshire, not Skye, that witnessed the most concerted agitation in the Highlands for reform beyond the ‘3 Fs’. * With the latest Reform Act only slowly making its way though Parliament, the resignation of Sir Alexander Matheson from the Ross and Cromarty seat in 1884 ensured that the by-election, though fought under the old franchise, ‘had the effect of a dress rehearsal for the general election of 1885’.139 133 134 135 136 137 138 139

Oban Times, 20 Sep. 1884. Scotsman, 26 Nov. 1884, 17 Jan. 1885. MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 98. Oban Times, 23 Feb. 1884. Oban Times, 9 Aug. 1884. Scotsman, 16 Oct. 1884. MacLeod, Highland Heroes, 157. MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 149.

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The emergence of a candidate to fight on a platform concerned predominantly with land reform, Roderick MacDonald, who was sponsored by the London HLLRA, challenged the usual two-party system. For several months MacDonald addressed groups of crofters in the constituency, in opposition to the Liberal candidate, Munro-Ferguson of Novar, and the Tory, Allan Russell MacKenzie.140 With no hope of winning the seat prior to the extension of the franchise, MacDonald did, indeed, use the opportunity to prepare the ground for the next General Election. However, the opponents of land reform also recognised the importance of the overall campaign, rather than just the result of the poll, and Ireland once more became a stick with which to beat the reformist candidate. The Irish angle was given more prominence by the intervention of two Irish M.P.s in the days immediately preceding the vote: D. H. Macfarlane and Richard Power, the M.P. for Waterford, along with the Tory, H. E. Gorst and Professor Blackie, arranged for their yacht to arrive in Stornoway to coincide with the election. The Scotsman admitted that this curious conjunction of interests ‘must excite comment’, but seemed unsure as to what it all meant: Mr Macfarlane, MP, was an ardent follower of Mr Parnell, until the difficulty of being again elected for Carlow dawned upon him. Mr Richard Power is a Parnellite still. Mr Gorst, as everybody knows, is a Conservative, and one of the Fourth Party. If a man is to be judged by the company he keeps, what is to be said of Mr Gorst? He may be a Conservative, but he must also be a Parnellite, or in alliance with the Parnellites; a state of things which is surely full of significance. The bearing of the association of Mr Gorst, Mr Macfarlane, and Mr Richard Power upon their own reputation is, however, of little consequence at this moment. It is of more importance to consider what they are doing at Stornoway. The answer is readily forthcoming – they are meddling in the election, professedly in the interest of Dr Macdonald, really in the interest of Kintail . . . There are other reasons why Mr Macfarlane should not be accepted as an adviser. He is too ready to make a promise that he may secure a seat. He won Carlow by truly Irish performances, and as he cannot hope to retain his seat there, he is endeavouring to find one in Scotland. We do not believe he will succeed, no matter what he promises about land. The Highlanders are pretty shrewd, and they like to have for representatives men of whose trustworthiness they have some proof. They do not usually seek for members of Parliament among those who are strangers; they prefer men of their own blood and their own faith.141 140 141

Scotsman, 1 Mar., 3 Apr. 1884. Scotsman, 18 Aug. 1884. For Gorst, see R. E. Quinault, ‘The Fourth Party and the Conservative opposition to Bradlaugh 1880–1888’, English Historical Review, xci (1976), 315–39.

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The next day, Macfarlane’s motives for becoming involved in the Highlands were again called into question, claiming that his days in Carlow were numbered and that by ‘fostering Parnellism’ in the Highlands he could win a seat in the region.142 When Macfarlane did address the people of Stornoway he not only detailed his own role in the establishment of the Royal Commission, but also seemed to speak in favour of separate representation for the crofters after the failure of the Scottish Liberals to back land reform. Although he did not make any specific comparisons with the Irish Parliamentary Party, he called upon the crofters ‘to send up forty members at the next election pledged to bringing in a Land Act, which would have the support of the Irish party, and they would get what was right and just’.143 It was, in fact, Power who gave a more explicit message: The people of Ireland had no quarrel with the people of England or Scotland, but with the government. He described the efforts made by the Irish party to have land reform carried through in Ireland, and suggested to the meeting to do likewise. They were too quiet and humble, and the consequence was that the government gave no attention to their demands. They should form a separate party of their own, and return Dr Macdonald as their member.144 Although the details of the Redistribution Bill were not yet known, it was clear that the crofting regions of Scotland alone would not be able to return forty members to Parliament, so Macfarlane’s message, if not empty rhetoric, possibly meant to encompass the whole of Scotland. Novar won the by-election by a large majority, with MacDonald, as expected, a distant third in the three-horse race. Novar’s agent in Stornoway, Dr Macrae, claimed that the result demonstrated how ‘Lewis men value independence of thought and free speech too dearly to surrender them at the dictum of a Tory democrat or Parnellite, or even Professor Blackie’.145 John Stuart Blackie, perhaps, illustrates better than anyone the divisions and tensions within the broad land and reform movements in Scotland at this time.146 At a meeting of the HLLRA in Dingwall during the by-election campaign he took on the SLRL, who had recently condemned the weak policies espoused by Macfarlane.147 Blackie described Henry George as having ‘a tongue but not an idea in his head’, and praised the duke of Sutherland as ‘one of their best friends’ who ‘had done much to improve the country’.148 This meeting, furthermore, demonstrated that the 142 143 144 145 146 147 148

Scotsman, 19 Aug. 1884. Scotsman, 19 Aug. 1884. Scotsman, 19 Aug. 1884. Scotsman, 21 Aug. 1884. S. Wallace, John Stuart Blackie: Scottish Scholar and Patriot (Edinburgh, 2006), 283. Oban Times, 20 Sep. 1884. Scotsman, 4 Sep. 1884.

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‘HLLRA’s star was in the ascendant’ over the SLRL, presenting a reform agenda which subsequently became known as the ‘Dingwall Programme’.149 In spite of Shaw Maxwell’s presence at Dingwall, he was powerless to prevent an overwhelming endorsement of a motion calling for security of tenure, land courts, and enlargement of crofts. In being loosely based on Gladstone’s 1881 Irish Land Act, the ‘Dingwall Programme’ tended to reinforce the impression of outsiders that the Highlands was becoming synonymous with Ireland. For the Glasgow Irishmen involved in the Highland agitation, however, and their radical Georgite colleagues, this was a worrying development on the eve of a General Election fought under the new franchise. Henry George’s visits to Scotland in 1884 and early 1885, if not persuading the crofters of the justice of land restoration, had at least awakened a debate on the subject in the Highlands, and had provided a boost to urbanbased agitators who sought to widen the popular appeal of the land question. Indeed, the working-class agitation of the south saw in the crofters a way of spreading a more militant form of discontent, with a well publicised bill proclaiming: ‘Highlandmen! Crofters, cottars, delvers and others! Stand up like men before your oppressors! The oppressed toilers of England and the millions of disinherited people are watching your actions. Their hearts are with you in your battle for rights and liberty. God save the people!’150 As MacPhail stresses, the authors of this bill had little detailed knowledge of the Highlands and Islands (it advocated blowing up railways, for example), but the crofters’ struggle continued to excite southern radicals.151 Michael Davitt told an audience in Southwark, London, that ‘in Scotland, he felt certain that unless the Government dealt with the crofters on lines as radical and just as the so-called settlement in Ireland, things would before long be done in Scotland which he should regret, but which would be justified’.152 The breathing space afforded the authorities by the Napier Commission, therefore, seemed to be coming to an end. The sensationalist reporting in the press at the end of 1884, MacColl argues, ‘encouraged a reluctant Liberal administration to concede to the incessant demands of William Ivory . . . for the deployment of troops’.153 Ivory’s troops were indeed deployed, once more, in attempting to quell outbreaks of lawlessness on Skye, and again the crofters’ struggle was appropriated by 149 150

151

152 153

Hunter, Crofting Community, 147. Scotsman, 10 Nov., 26 Nov., 13 Dec. 1884; Oban Times 15 Nov. 1884. A further example of this English support for the crofters came from the Birmingham Land Restoration League. NAS, Ivory Papers, GD1/36/1/18/10; Inverness Courier, 13 Nov. 1884. I. M. M. MacPhail, The Skye military expedition of 1884–85’, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, xlviii (1972–4), 69–70. The Times, 5 Nov. 1884. MacColl, Land, Faith and the Crofting Community, 130; NAS, Ivory Papers, GD1/36/1/18; Hunter, Crofting Community, 150–1.

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various causes. The Exile, in describing ‘the revolt in Skye’, wrote of having ‘grave apprehensions of an effusion of innocent blood’ on the island, but added that ‘the agitation did not originate on Skye; it is an Irish agitation’154 The approach of gunboats to Skye would have a particular resonance with Irish tenants at this time, after the sinking of the Wasp gunboat off Donegal in September.155 The Exile had written damningly of the Wasp’s part in the Government’s coercive policies: The gunboat Wasp has gone down, with 52 of her crew, on the north coast of Tory Island. It is interesting to know that the ill-fated vessel was engaged in the dirty work of evicting tenants from their homes. When it was struck it was making for Lough Foyle, there to take on board a number of police to drive the poor fishermen . . . from their cabins. What brave work for the naval forces of the Empire. More power to Neptune for siding with the islanders.156 The fears of bloodshed on Skye were unfounded, however, and the troops were expressly forbidden by the Government from assisting in the eviction of tenants. As Hunter has noted, ‘the military presence in Skye [did] nothing to help the island’s landlords enforce their will on their dissident tenantries’.157 Furthermore, the Liberals seemed intent on passing some form of legislation for the crofting districts. With the franchise being extended, 1885 saw large numbers of Highlanders voting for the first time, and also saw a large-scale effort on the part of Highland land reformers to harness the potential of this new electorate. By the same token, although the extension of the urban vote was not so obvious, many of the reformers were well aware that the new franchise could be used to further the cause of labour in the cities. Davitt returned to Scotland in November 1884, which presented him with an excellent opportunity to chart the progress of the land, and specifically the crofting, agitation. With the presence of so many members of the SLRL on the platform, he was not in any great danger of a bad reception from Irish fundamentalists.158 With John Ferguson taking the chair, Davitt spoke of the ‘gallant islanders’ of Skye and Lewis, and James Simpson claimed that ‘the crofters in Skye had received their lessons, not, as had been said, from Mr. Henry George, or from Mr. Shaw Maxwell, but from Mr. Davitt and Mr. Parnell, whose views had been translated into the Gaelic language, and read by the people of the Highlands and Islands’. This implied that while some attempt at Irish-style organisation and tactics had been made, centred around deforcements and rent strikes, the philosophical leap to land restoration had not. Revd Thomas Keane elucidated Simpson’s comments: 154 155 156 157 158

Exile, 22 Nov. 1884. Freeman’s Journal, 25 Sep. 1884. Exile, 4 Oct. 1884. Hunter, Crofting Community, 151. Exile, 15 Nov. 1884.

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The Highlands since the rebellion of 1745 have been utterly prostrate and disorganised, . . . the transformation effected in the Highlands by the example of Mr. Davitt and the Irish Land League is as a change from death to life, and might be likened to what the prophet saw in a vision, when the breath of life blew over the valley of death, stirring up the blanched bones and clothing anew the skeletons with flesh and blood . . . In the same week, Davitt made an explicit link between the urban and rural aspects of the land question before a crowd of miners in Hamilton: Mr Davitt . . . first dealt with the alleged injustices done to all miners in general throughout Great Britain in the exaction of royalties. The remainder of Mr Davitt’s talk was taken up with his views on the land question . . . A series of resolutions were passed agreeing to form a Labour Union, and to send a message of sympathy and condolence to the Skye crofters in their struggle against the landlords and the iniquitous land laws. The resolutions further deprecated the employment of an armed force against a peaceful and law abiding people.159 Even those other men who made up the ‘left wing’ of the Irish movement in Glasgow spoke out on home rule, especially after it became the main political issue in the whole of Britain, as well as Ireland, after 1885. As in 1882, however, Davitt saw Scotland as something of a refuge from ‘narrow nationalism’. And yet, as the British press failed to comprehend, or perhaps wilfully misunderstood, the links between these radicals and the broader land question, the Highland agitation continued to be dismissed as a mere continuation of events in Ireland. Unsubstantiated claims that the Irish were supporting the Highlanders with ‘considerable sums’ of money again circulated.160 It was the programme of the HLLRA – calling for legislation similar to the Irish Act of 1881, allowing for rent strikes and boycotting, and with Donald Macfarlane as its figurehead – which created an impression of Irish co-operation. The reputation of Macfarlane within Irish nationalism, however, meant that his involvement in the Highlands was more likely to draw contempt for the Scottish agitation than support from the Irish nationalists. In one of the few issues to unite Davitt and Parnell at this time, Parnell attacked Macfarlane in the pages of United Ireland, whereas Davitt’s prison diary referred to the member for Carlow County as ‘weak and questionably honest politically’.161 Those Irishmen in Britain who were concerned with the land and social questions did not treat the Highlands as a separate issue, they saw it as a part, albeit one with tremendous publicity potential, of a much broader agitation. At a meeting of the English Land Restoration League in London, 159 160 161

Scotsman, 13 Nov. 1884. Oban Times, 15 Nov. 1884. Oban Times, 15 Mar. 1884; M. Davitt, C. King (ed.), Jottings in Solitary (Dublin, 2003), 151.

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Davitt admitted that, although Ireland had been in the vanguard of the land reform movement, there were, at that time, more possibilities for radical reform in Scotland. He gave begrudging praise to the 1881 Land Act, stressing the agitation that led to it, before giving a wide summary of the situation in Scotland.162 The Glasgow Irishmen, responsible for creating this impression of Irish nationalist interest in the crofter question, used Scotland as a means of continuing a social reform programme while still allowing a superficial public support for Parnellism.

162

The Times, 5 Nov. 1884. Davitt also read a letter of support for the crofters from the Belfast Land Restoration League, Exile, 22 Nov. 1884.

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chapter six

‘A Scotch Parnellite Party’: Land, Home Rule and the Third Reform Act Although the report of the Napier Commission had explicitly rejected a Highland version of the Irish ‘3 Fs’, Gladstone and his ministers encouraged Highland proprietors to propose solutions to the crofting agitation.1 The months immediately following Napier’s tour had witnessed a decrease in agitation among the crofters, perhaps anticipating a legislative solution to their campaign.2 The Oban Times became bolder in its editorial line when the crofting agitation temporarily slackened in 1883, but when it revived in mid-1884 – as the prospect of immediate legislation faded – the paper again preached caution. With rent strikes and boycotts becoming almost weekly occurrences in the Highlands and Islands, it did not want to be responsible for starting a snowball of agitation which could lead to violence on an Irish scale. Even at the end of 1884, when things were so bad that Skye was ‘surrounded by the forces of the government’, the editorial advice was to ‘keep the laws . . . peace will prevail’.3 The Oban Times had become a strong advocate of the crofter cause, and one which had slowly come to sympathise with the Irish tenantry, if not yet Irish home rule. It reflected, and quite possibly influenced, a much more politically aware crofting community.4 The justifiable preoccupation for much of the latter part of 1885 in instructing crofters on how to vote meant a lack of editorial material on ‘non-constitutional’ methods of agitation, and, therefore, any ‘official view’ of the paper on these matters is hard to discern. It is clear, however, that the HLLRA was the main organisational force on Skye, in spite of the visits of George and Shaw Maxwell in 1884, and other occasional interventions.5 Throughout Britain and Ireland, the Third Reform Act – finally enacted in 1884 after several delays, with a redistribution of constituencies following in 1885 – extended the vote to all male householders, and some 1

2 3

4 5

E. A. Cameron, Land for the People? The British Government and the Scottish Highlands, c. 1880–1925 (East Linton, 1996), 35; MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 169; Hunter, Crofting Community, 161. Hunter, Crofting Community, 146. Oban Times, 22 Nov., 29 Nov. 1884; MacPhail, ‘The Skye military expedition’; Hunter, Crofting Community, 150. Newby, ‘The Oban Times and the early land agitation’, 18–19. Glasgow Herald, 13 Nov. 1884; Frame, ‘America and the Scottish left’, 103.

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lodgers, many for the first time.6 The radicals recognised a tremendous opportunity, and had been organising throughout the country in anticipation. The Highlands and Islands witnessed a vast increase in the electorate and the development of a small body of candidates who, with land reform at the top of their agendas, subsequently became known as ‘Crofter M.P.s’.7 * Henry George returned to Scotland at the end of 1884, addressing several meetings which highlighted both the divisions between the reformers and also the continuing opposition from landlords, a hostile press, and bodies such as Edinburgh University Conservative Association, which bemoaned George’s ‘communistic nudity’.8 Signs of George’s frustration with touring the provinces, which had been present in the first 1884 visit, surfaced again when he and McHugh were hissed during a lecture in Peterhead. This led the American to complain that he had come to ‘speak to intelligent people, and not to idiots, buffoons and inebriates’.9 He also lectured in Fraserburgh, Aberdeen, Coatbridge, and Bridgeton before heading to Skye and giving several well-received talks in various parts of the island.10 The Braes and Sconser crofters, in particular, passed several resolutions which reflected Georgite ideals, and one in praise of Gladstone’s Reform Bill.11 A supportive correspondent of the Oban Times claimed that: Mr. Henry George’s visit to Skye forms an important and additional chapter to the history of the crofters’ agitation in the island. It will be remembered that at a meeting at The Braes on the evening of 26th ult. a resolution was passed inviting Mr. George to visit the district for the purpose of addressing the crofters on the all-important question of the land . . . it may be remarked that many question whether it was advisable that the Skye people should at this juncture be addressed by a person of Mr. George’s extreme views on the land question. This view is held by some who, no doubt, are friends of the crofters and their cause, but who are timid and inclined to be trimmers and anxious to curry favour with the landlord and tacksman party.12 6

7 8 9 10 11

12

M. E. J. Chadwick, ‘The role of redistribution in the making of the Third Reform Act’, Historical Journal, xix (1976), 666. Oban Times, 17 Jan. 1885. Scotsman, 20 Dec. 1884, 15 Jan. 1885. Scotsman, 13 Dec. 1884; Lawrence, ‘Henry George’s British mission’, 237. Aberdeen Daily Free Press, 15 Dec., 16 Dec. 1884; Scotsman, 18 Dec., 24 Dec. 1884. NLS, Acc 11765/35, Scottish Liberal Association Leaflet Book, 1885–1891, ‘Resolutions Passed by the Skye Crofters at the Braes, Staffin, Uig and Glendale, at the meetings addressed by Mr Henry George’, 3 Jan. 1885; Oban Times, 10 Jan. 1885; Scotsman, 2 Jan. 1885. Oban Times, 17 Jan. 1885.

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Although it may have seemed at the time to be an ‘important and additional chapter’, the demand for land restoration in Braes was not one which persisted. Within a month, HLLRA branches in many of the districts of Skye addressed by George were reiterating their support for the ‘3 Fs’ and more land.13 George himself seems to have doubted the importance of his second visit to Skye in the space of a year, and while he thought them a ‘splendid body of men’, the SLRL executive infuriated George by their failure to arrange appropriate meetings.14 Although his final evening in Scotland was a triumphant demonstration of the progress of land reform, it was not an endorsement for his own particular theories. ‘Fionn’ reported differences between the agitators, but did so in a manner designed to emphasise that support for root-and-branch reform of landlordism was growing. ‘According to some of the so-called organs of public opinion’, he complained, ‘the land law reformers were working in antagonism to land restoration, and the crofters wished to have nothing to do with anything more advanced than the ‘3 Fs’.’15 This meeting, chaired by William Forsyth, saw the first resolution, moved by John Murdoch, stressing the equality of man in the eyes of God, condemning the dispatch of marines to Skye, and thanking Joseph Chamberlain for his support. The mention of the radical leader brought with it such loud cheering that proceedings had to be temporarily suspended. The event was intended to highlight the land issue, it was not a time for deciding how to solve it – although there was fierce criticism of Fraser Mackintosh, ‘who could not see the landlord interest in danger without rushing to the rescue’.16 Generally, though, the presentation of a united front was allimportant. ‘Fionn’ closed with a summary of where he believed the land issue stood at this point: Mr. George’s visit to Scotland closed . . . with the very remarkable and pleasing demonstration of the oneness of purpose and soul of impulsive men of tradition, sentiment, and song away in the Highlands, as represented by MacCallum, Murdoch and McLardy, with the calculating and inductive men of the south, so well represented by the Forsythes, the Simpsons, the Maxwells and the Cherries, no less than with the kindred McGhees, McHughs, McKeans and Campbells . . .17 There is a gross over-simplification about the crofting agitation being an amalgam of Highland tradition, Lowland acumen, and Irish spirit, but the point is clear. The crofting movement had come to be seen as more than a ‘Fenian conspiracy’, and in spite of there being an Irish dimension (Davitt’s 13 14

15 16 17

Oban Times, 7 Feb. 1885. NYPL, George Papers, reel 3, George to Thomas F. Walker, 7, 10 Dec. 1884; George to Annie George, 27 Nov. 1884. Oban Times, 31 Jan. 1885. Scotsman, 22 Jan. 1885. Oban Times, 31 Jan. 1885.

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name could have been added to McGhee, McHugh, McKean, and Campbell) it was being presented by the radicals as part of a general workers’ agitation. The malign influence of this array of outside agitators continued to exercise the pens of correspondents to the Scotsman, but the differences in aspirations between the urban radicals and the crofters themselves were ignored: In the multitude of counsel there is wisdom, and if wisdom does not shape and determine the final settlement of the crofter question it will not be for want of counsellors, nor of liberality on your part in allowing such a large portion of your space for the expression of their views . . . The crofter can now read and understand his newspaper, and he has been studying Irish modern history for some time back. He sees that Ireland has in many ways been more liberally treated than Scotland, that outbursts of treason, agrarian outrage, and murder have been followed by great measures of justice and reform, and he is content to look at the apparent connection rather than seek for any deeper or other reason which might have influenced the mind of the Government; besides, he has stirring him up the Irish emissary, the Socialist propagandist, and a host of other parasites who follow the trail of every agitation, and in it live, move and have their being . . . It was the simple, artless life and primitive ways of the Scottish peasant that stirred the heart and tuned the lyre of Scotland’s greatest poet; and we know how he would have treated any foreign invader, whether in the shape of a Colorado beetle or a Henry George – the former with the heel of his boot, and the latter with that punishment which fell on the devoted head of ‘Holy Willie.’18 With the home rule question taking on a critical aspect, the policy of ‘loyal opposition’ from Davitt and his followers continued throughout 1885. Scotland was an ideal platform to promote radicalism, and at the same time avoid open conflict with Parnell and his devotees. After the extension of the franchise in 1885, Davitt became even more convinced of the potential strength of the working classes throughout Great Britain and Ireland. In a wide-ranging speech in London’s Hyde Park on 28 June, Davitt called for universal suffrage, state ownership of mines, municipalisation of land, a maximum working day of eight hours, and the abolition of the House of Lords, in addition to calling for home rule for Ireland.19 Later that year, he renewed his acquaintance with Scotland when he campaigned on behalf of the SLRL in advance of the election.20 Davitt praised the work McHugh and McGhee were doing, advising them to continue with the attack on dual ownership and peasant proprietary, but warning against personal abuse of the 18 19 20

Scotsman, 27 Jan. 1885. Freeman’s Journal, 29 Jun. 1885. Moody, ‘Davitt and the British Labour Movement’, 64.

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Parnellites.21 He donated £20 to McHugh’s continuing crusade in the Highlands, adding that: It is only by some such programme of labour on our part as that which you outline that the land movement in Scotland can be kept on the right lines, and the People’s Cause from being attacked by the teachings of landlords’ ministers on the one hand and compromiseproposing parliamentarians on the other . . .22 Although there were signs of continuing bitterness between Davitt and Parnell, especially over the proposed electoral pact with the Tories, Davitt remained faithful in addresses on home rule.23 After a refreshing tour around the Holy Land, returning via Paris, the focus of Davitt’s speeches in British cities during 1885 and 1886 shifted from labour to the home rule.24 At several meetings in Glasgow during October 1885, he also remarked upon the progress that had been made in encouraging Scottish support for Gladstone’s measures.25 * Just as the ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ in 1882 had been anathema to those in the Irish movement who firmly believed in a much wider set of social reforms, Parnell’s electoral pact with the Conservatives in 1885 brought further strife.26 Attempts to promote radical land reform in Scotland continued throughout 1885, and with Great Britain and Ireland on an election footing, McHugh and McGhee approached Michael Davitt once more with a view to winning the considerable Irish vote in Glasgow for the cause of radicalism.27 Davitt was naturally sympathetic to his colleagues, and was indeed collaborating with them at this time on a history of the Irish land reform movement which was designed to counter an ‘official’ Parnellite history, being prepared by T. P. O’Connor.28 Davitt also shared private jokes with McHugh and McGhee at the way Parnell was hoping to arrange his party – planting O’Connor as a Glasgow M.P.29 The decision made by Parnell on 21 November to instruct the Irish of Britain to vote for the Conservative Party further alienated the radicals, for whom voting for the party of landlords and vested interest was unthinkable. Having met secretly with Lord Carnarvon earlier in the year, Parnell came to believe not only that a solid 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29

TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9521, f.5930, Davitt to McGhee, 11 Jan. 1885. TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9521, f.5932, Davitt to McGhee, 11 Jan. 1885. Freeman’s Journal, 6 Aug. 1885; Oban Times, 1 Aug. 1885. TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9544, Notes on Palestine, etc. Glasgow Observer, 31 Oct. 1885. Moody, ‘Davitt and the British Labour movement’, 63. TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9521, f.5937, Davitt to McGhee, 23 Sep. 1885. TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9521, f.5943, Davitt to McGhee, n.d., 1885; MS 9521, f.5944, Davitt to McGhee, n.d., 1885. TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9521, f.5946, Davitt to McGhee, n.d., 1885.

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Irish vote for the Tories could hand the Parnellites the balance of power, but also the Conservative Party might be more inclined to ‘concede a statutory legislature’ for Ireland in the event of an election victory.30 Although Davitt believed that attempting to persuade Parnell to allow support for SLRL candidates would be ‘useless’, he eventually gave in to the wishes of his Glasgow friends and issued a counter-plea: Mr Michael Davitt has telegraphed to Glasgow, strongly recommending the Irishmen to vote for Messrs Greaves, Maxwell, Forsyth, and Murdoch, the Land Restoration candidates on the ground that they are true friends of Ireland, and that the Scottish Land Restoration Association has made a gallant fight in the interests of true land reform, and in preparing the ground for more determined action in the future.31 It was to be a futile gesture. When John Redmond came to address the Irish voters of Glasgow a couple of days later, he spoke of their duty ‘to adhere strictly to the terms of the manifesto of their illustrious leader, and to vote solidly for Conservative candidates’. The resolution was about to be passed when Edward McHugh advanced to the centre of the platform, with a view to putting a question to Redmond: He was received with a storm of hisses and booing. With some difficulty, and at the direct solicitation of Mr. Redmond, the audience agreed to give a hearing to Mr. McHugh, who, addressing Mr. Redmond, asked whether the Irish people were directed to vote against Mr. John Murdoch who, for forty years past, had been working in connection with the Irish movement . . . [Redmond] replied to Mr. McHugh’s question by stating that the only exceptions to the manifesto were those mentioned by Mr. Parnell himself. He might also mention that, since coming to the meeting, he had received a telegram from Mr. Parnell in which he said, ‘I earnestly trust that the Irish electors of Glasgow will keep in line with their countrymen everywhere in Great Britain and vote solidly for the Conservatives.’32 McHugh appealed to the basic nationalist sentiments of the onlookers in order to promote the wider concerns of the ‘advanced’ nationalists. The results of the subsequent election showed the power of Parnell’s opinion, with John Murdoch receiving just one per cent of the vote in Partick.33 Indeed, the most successful of the SLRL candidates, Shaw Maxwell, who 30

31

32 33

Lyons, Charles Stewart Parnell, 283–6; F. S. L. Lyons, ‘The political ideas of Parnell’, Historical Journal, xvi (1973), 765; Jackson, Home Rule, 50–1; L. P. Curtis Jr., Coercion and Conciliation in Ireland, 1880–1892 (Princeton, 1963), 49–54. TCD, Davitt Papers, MS 9521, f.5941, Davitt to McGhee, 23 Nov. 1885; Scotsman, 27 Nov. 1885. Glasgow Observer, 21 Nov. 1885. F. W. S. Craig (ed.), Parliamentary Election Results 1885–1918 (London, 1974).

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polled a respectable fourteen per cent in Glasgow Blackfriars/ Hutchensontown, was said to have received hardly any Irish votes.34 The subsequent recriminations divided the Irishmen in Glasgow into those who gave precedence to social issues and those who continued to champion the national cause to the exclusion of all else. An HGB resolution called for Owen Kiernan to be struck off as national INL organiser for ‘his attack on Michael Davitt . . . calculated to disunite the Irishmen of Scotland’.35 McHugh called for Kiernan to resign when addressing a meeting of the John Dillon Branch of the INL in Tradeston a fortnight later.36 Elements of the Govan Branch also condemned Davitt and the ‘land restorers’.37 The splits in Glasgow were complex but Davitt was perceived by nationalists as having sacrificed his principles on the bonfire of land nationalisation.38 In the Parnellite view, home rule was the overriding, indeed the only, objective to be pursued at this time. For Davitt and like-minded Irishmen, home rule remained a vital goal, but what, they wondered, was constitutional reform without social reform? Therefore, although closely associated with the Irish Party, most of those men supporting the crofters, and land and labour reform in general, were on the fringes of Irish nationalist politics. * Some prominent Highlanders, such as Neil Brown of Greenock, suggested that the franchise extension be used to manufacture a ‘Crofters’ Party’, and like the ‘Irish Patriots’ keep the Liberals and Tories divided, so that they could hold the balance of power.39 This is also something which concerned contemporaries, but the duke of Argyll’s fears that the Third Reform Act would lead to a ‘Scotch Parnellite Party’ in the Highlands was not realised, as the Crofter M.P.s were so disparate in their own personal aspirations, and limited by demographic factors to a mere handful of constituencies.40 Argyll must have been aware of this, and thus his reference to a ‘Parnellite’ party can in part be interpreted as scare-mongering. The use of ‘Scotch’ rather than ‘Highland’, however, also implies a belief that the land question in its 34 35 36 37 38

39 40

Glasgow Observer, 12 Dec. 1885; Moody, ‘Davitt and the British Labour Movement’, 64. Glasgow Observer, 19 Dec. 1885. Glasgow Observer, 2 Jan. 1886. Glasgow Observer, 19 Dec. 1885, 2 Jan. 1886. For Ferguson, see Glasgow Observer, 29 Aug. 1885; For Davitt’s speech in Glasgow prior to the election see Glasgow Observer, 31 Oct. 1885; For Kiernan’s feud with the HGB, which was long-running, see Exile, 4 Oct. 1884; Glasgow Observer, 12 Dec., 19 Dec. 1885, 2 Jan. 1886. H. M. Hyndman remarked that ‘this lofty exclusiveness has drawn a letter from the only Irish leader who supports land nationalisation . . . Davitt’s crime in the eyes of the Irish Parliamentary Party is that he would expropriate a class not to benefit another class but the nation’. Justice!, 16 Aug. 1884. Oban Times, 13 Jun. 1885; Glasgow Observer, 30 May 1885. Hunter, ‘Politics of Highland land reform’, 54.

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broadest sense – encompassing the miners and dockers of urban Scotland, supportive lowland M.P.s, and English radicals such as Joel Picton and William Saunders – may have produced a significant grouping in the House of Commons.41 With an HLLRA-inspired Crofters’ Bill expected to start its progress through Parliament, organisation was key, and the London correspondent of the Oban Times stressed that if even a single Highland constituency failed to return a ‘crofter candidate’, the Bill would be dead in the water.42 By May, expectations were high that legislation would be forthcoming, and J. B. Balfour, the Lord Advocate, attempted to introduce the Bill.43 The Bill was received with some scepticism, with the Georgite ‘Fionn’ and the moderate Fraser Mackintosh both complaining that it did not even provide the ‘3 Fs’, let alone respond to the cry for more land.44 The unexpected fall of the government in June, however, ensured that the Bill fell down the national agenda, although it remained much discussed in Highland circles.45 Indeed, at a Kirkcaldy meeting in the run-up to the 1885 election, Thomas Burt, the miners’ leader and one of the first ‘working men’ to be elected to Parliament, went into greater detail about the wider implications of the crofter agitation: there was one matter, he added, in which the men with whom he was closely associated took a very keen interest, and that was the measure lately introduced by the Lord Advocate to improve the condition of crofters in Scotland. Well, that was only a part of a much larger and wider measure – viz., a measure for the general amendment of the land laws in which they were all interested; and the question that was referred to . . . was also part of that great land question – the enormous amount that landowners received for way-leave, for royalties, and in other ways. He was quite satisfied that they would not take any narrow or selfish view of their own interests, but that they would care for the welfare of the nation as a whole, of which they formed an important part . . .46 While those who have put forward the idea of a coherent party have disagreed as to its composition, MacPhail comes closest to giving a definitive list of the men who, in 1885, stood as ‘crofter candidates’, basing his observations on the Portree Conference in 1885:47 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

The Crofter, 1 Sep. 1885. Oban Times, 14 Mar. 1885. Scotsman, 14 May 1885; Oban Times, 23 May 1885. Oban Times, 23 May 1885; Inverness Advertiser, 14 Aug. 1885; Celtic Magazine, Jul. 1885. Cameron, Land for the People?, 36. Scotsman, 2 Jun. 1885. MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 157; Crowley ‘The “Crofters’ Party”’; McCaffrey, Scotland in the Nineteenth Century, 71; Hunter, Crofting Community, 161; Withers, Gaelic Scotland, 385; Fraser, Scottish Popular Politics, 103; T. C. Smout, A Century of the Scottish People (London, 1987), 72, 75, 253; Devine, Scottish Nation, 301.

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One of the principle resolutions expressed approval of the candidature of six men ‘pledged to vote for a satisfactory scheme of land reform’ – Charles Fraser Mackintosh (Inverness-shire), Donald Macfarlane (Argyll), Dr. Roderick MacDonald (Ross and Cromarty), Dr. G. B. Clark (Caithness), Angus Sutherland (Sutherland) and W. S. BrightMacLaren (Inverness Burghs). These were the first official crofter candidates, to be reinforced soon afterwards by J. MacDonald Cameron, as prospective candidate in the Northern Burghs constituency. These candidates adhered loosely to the HLLRA’s ‘Dingwall Programme’ but in fact there were major differences over land and the relationship between the Highlands and Ireland. Clark, given his earlier membership of the Democratic Federation, support for land nationalization, and perceived anti-imperialism, has been described as the ‘most left-wing’ of the crofter candidates, even though he was the subject of derision in some socialist circles at this time.48 He had also shown strong support for the Irish Land League during the Land War, in contrast to Fraser Mackintosh, and even Macfarlane. It was Sutherland, however, who had the closest personal links with the Irish agitation, through Glasgow, and as a Vice-Chairman of the SLRL he was implicated in a land agitation which aimed far beyond the ‘Dingwall Programme’. Although the SLRL was campaigning vigorously in Glasgow, and was helping to develop an organised labour movement which would, by 1888, be able to campaign independently, electoral success in 1885 was nonexistent. Angus Sutherland, however, while not standing as a ‘Land Restoration’ candidate, was making a bold move in his native county. In spite of a ten-fold increase in the voters’ roll, the task before the Sutherlandshire crofters in selecting a candidate was not straightforward.49 As a reflection of the relatively good reputation enjoyed by the third duke, much of the rhetoric of the moderate reformers focused on the way in which benevolent landowners and suitable laws would be more beneficial to the crofters than more extreme measures. The Edinburgh Sutherland Association meeting in January 1885, attended by prominent public figures such as Professor Blackie and Sheriff Nicolson, saw Ross-shire’s incumbent Liberal M.P. Munro-Ferguson, give a conservative address: There is one other Sutherland man to whom I should like to allude, and that is my friend Lord Stafford. I believe that none in Parliament or out of it, in public or in private life, has a more sincere desire to benefit all classes, especially the crofters of Sutherland, and to improve their position . . . The pilgrimage of Mr Henry George and his satellites to Skye, for instance, is not likely, to my mind, to be productive of 48 49

Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh, 212. I. G. C. Hutchison, ‘The nobility and politics in Scotland, c. 1880–1939’, in T. M. Devine (ed.), Scottish Elites (Edinburgh, 1994), 131; MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 148.

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much good there now, or to promote sound legislative work hereafter.50 This kind of moderate reform ideology was unacceptable to Angus Sutherland, and there was a danger that such measures could gain support and thwart his own ambitions. In response, a series of rallies was arranged to make the Sutherlandshire crofters aware of the extension of the franchise, as well as secure Sutherland’s nomination for the constituency.51 In January, Sutherland and MacLeod of Gartiemore addressed a crowd of approximately 350 at the Old Free Church Schoolhouse in Helmsdale.52 In a strident opening speech, MacLeod advocated extra-parliamentary agitation along Irish lines, as well as the return of a radical candidate for the county, and root and branch reform of the land laws as a basis for all other social reforms. The evocation of the clearances, and the language of ‘class warfare’ which MacLeod employed drew hearty cheers from the onlookers, but it was also calculated to sharpen divisions within the broad reform movement, forcing people to choose between the radical solutions of the SLRL and the more modest proposals of the HLLRA. He also stressed the need for local organisation: To him it was absurd to have the headquarters of the associations formed to ameliorate the condition of the crofters in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London. It was only to be expected that the people who were to be benefited could alone know how and what should be done, and they should therefore have the entire management. They should not be like so many puppets in a row, to jump whenever a quilldriver in Edinburgh or London directed. Let the Highlanders in the Highlands pull the strings themselves . . . Angus Sutherland himself stressed the symbiotic nature of the rural and urban land questions, reminding the Sutherlandshire crofters that they were part of a broader struggle: He had spoken at meetings in large towns to thousands of people on this subject, and they would require to keep in mind that the strength of the movement lay in large towns, for the cause of the poverty there was the injustice of the land laws. The men of the country must live on the land of the country. He was himself the only man he knew who had not changed his mind on the land question in the last fourteen years. In order to liberate the crofters from ‘quill-drivers’ such as Blackie or Nicolson, Sutherland took the initiative in creating an autonomous county association. On 19 February, the twenty-one branches of the Sutherlandshire Association, which previously existed under the auspices of 50 51 52

Scotsman, 10 Jan. 1885. NLS, Acc. 10225 (Sutherland Papers), Policy Papers, 215, McIver to Kemball, 7 Apr. 1885. Scotsman, 12 Jan. 1885.

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the HLLRA, regrouped into a more centralised organisation to oversee operations in Sutherlandshire.53 Angus Sutherland’s initial campaign, to be selected as the crofters’ candidate for the county, was not without problems, with some advocating the candidature of another prominent Sutherlandshire native, John Mackay of Hereford.54 Ostensibly, this was because Mackay had been a successful businessman and would be able to support himself financially if elected to the Commons.55 Although he had been a financial backer of the Highlander, Mackay’s views were never as radical as those of John Murdoch, and Mackay was a more acceptable candidate in 1885 to those with less extreme views on land and social reform. The differences between Mackay and Sutherland were particularly marked on the issue of Ireland, both on Irish home rule and the extent to which crofters should ally with the Irish on the land issue. As early as 1880, Mackay had shown wariness towards Ireland in his writing on peasant proprietorship.56 He denied any personal animus towards the Irish people, but admitted to scepticism of Parnellite nationalism.57 Mackay was, therefore, often a spokesman for those who believed Murdoch and his followers were too close to the Irish land agitation to the crofters’ detriment.58 As well as venting his feelings in the Highlander, Mackay had confided in Blackie at an early stage of the agitation that an independent Highland movement was needed in order to stop the inevitable Irish influence.59 Antagonism with Sutherland, who was intimately involved with the Irish, could scarcely be avoided.60 As will be seen, Mackay not only disapproved of Sutherland’s close relations with the Glasgow Irish, he also rejected the extreme measure of Georgite land reform which Sutherland was expounding.61 The maiden meeting for the crofters’ candidate took place on a night of heavy rain at Bonar Bridge, with Sutherland receiving, predictably, an excellent reception. Those familiar with Sutherland’s political and social views up until 1885 would not have been surprised by many aspects of his speech in Bonar Bridge.62 On the land question, he echoed the general scepticism of the forthcoming Crofters’ Bill: The Lord Advocate’s Crofters’ Bill . . . made no provision for more land, and if they had fixity of tenure it did no good, for what but misery could be expected of holdings no larger than three acres or so? The cry 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

John O’Groat Journal, 29 Apr. 1885. John O’Groat Journal, 29 Apr. 1885; The Crofter, May 1885. The Crofter, Sep. 1885; Scotsman, 12 Jan. 1885. Highlander, 18 Jun. 1880. Highlander, 23 Jun. 1880. Highlander, 18 Jun., 30 Jun. 1880. Hunter, ‘Politics of Highland land reform’, 48. Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 207. Hanham, ‘Problem of Highland discontent’, 63. John O’Groat Journal, 27 May 1885.

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of confiscation, he said, was a hob-goblin argument – a putting up of the red rag to frighten people. As to confiscation, it was the people’s property that had been confiscated, and not the landlords’ . . . the bill was altogether a thing of rags and tatters, odds and ends. It was less than the Irish people got; and even if the Irish bill were now applied to Scotland it would not suffice, as they wanted a redistribution of the land.63 In standing as a parliamentary candidate, however, Sutherland was compelled to express opinions in issues which had, hitherto, not fallen within the scope of his agitating. Thus, he announced that women should have equal voting rights with men, and that he would give full support to reform of the House of Lords from an hereditary to an elected body. Both suggestions met with cheers, as did his advocacy of universal free education, an area in which, as a teacher, Sutherland had a clear interest. A more democratic system of local government was also mooted. Above all, he stressed that ‘every question at the present time paled before the great land question . . . a question that affected not only the Highlands but the large cities . . .’64 The resignation of the Government in June, while new electoral registers were being prepared, ensured that the election campaign of 1885 stretched across half a year. Sutherland, as ever, was keen to portray a previously docile and submissive people beginning to realise their power. Vitally in a situation where his main opponent was the marquis of Stafford, the duke’s son, Angus Sutherland continued in his politicised use of history, attempting to create a strong sense of class division between the crofters and the ducal family. James Innes, a Canadian M.P. and editor of the Guelph Mercury, who was present at one of Sutherland’s meetings in Golspie ‘purely by accident’, wished Sutherland every success and said that he ‘admired his pluck in bearding the lion in his own den’.65 The marquis himself attempted to remain aloof from the personal side of the campaigning but, in order to secure his seat, also lurched towards radicalism. His ideas including a land court, security of tenure, fair rents, compulsory purchase for the enlargement of holdings, the right of tenants to kill deer which strayed onto their land, and the abolition of the House of Lords.66 Although this was seen as a disingenuous move by Sutherland and his followers, it served to blur the distinction between the ‘crofter’ candidate and the ‘landlord’ candidate, and was arguably crucial in winning 63 64 65

66

Scotsman, 21 May 1885. John O’Groat Journal, 27 May 1885. John O’Groat Journal, 2 Sep. 1885. See also G. Ellwand, ‘ “The Mercury Rising”. James Innes: The “Honesty of Purpose and Sound Judgement” of a Victorian Journalist’, M.A. thesis (University of Guelph, 1997). NLS, Acc. 10225 (Sutherland Papers), Policy Papers, 196, Stafford to McIver, 14 Jun. 1885; John O’Groat Journal, 17 Jun. 1885; Scotsman, 11 Nov. 1885.

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the support of several influential Free Church ministers in the constituency.67 By 1885, therefore, the issue of land in the Highlands had moved far beyond the restoration of traditional rights. No longer was it simply a question of landlord against tenant – just a fierce a debate went on between the reformers themselves over which was the best system to supplant the present one. Sutherland was still, at this stage, firmly in the George camp along with his Glasgow SLRL colleagues. Others, such as Charles Fraser Mackintosh or John Mackay, did not go so far, supporting the ‘Dingwall Manifesto’. At a large meeting in Portree, at the height of the election campaign in September 1885, various reformers, including the potential Crofter M.P.s, converged on Skye to discuss the various options open to them.68 James Shaw Maxwell, representing the SLRL, took the opportunity to place the crofting agitation in its broader context: The men of the south were watching the progress of the land movement in Skye with the greatest interest. It was not a crofter question; it was more gigantic than many of the crofters themselves believed it to be. Not only were the crofters liberating themselves, but they were striking off the chains of slavery and thraldom which bind their poor brethren in the cities.69 Ronald MacDougall, of Liverpool, condemned the report of the Napier Commission, especially the recommendations relating to emigration and enlistment.70 The huge crowd also heard a letter from Alexander MacDonald, another of the Oban Times’s Liverpool contributors, acknowledging the role of urban agitators and reiterating in almost shocking terms the problems faced by rural migrants to the towns: There is one point I never lose sight of for a moment, namely, how easy it is for us who are not under the power of the landlords at home to boast of what we can do, and recommend strong measures to the crofters. I never recommend any course of action without asking my own heart the question, whether I would pursue that course if I had a croft and a wife and family depending upon me. Speaking for myself personally, I can swear most solemnly that, if I had a croft, wife and children, I would protect them with my life against the bloodhounds of eviction, and, if I had no other alternative, I would rather kill them all with my own hand than see my daughters turned out to become prostitutes and my sons to become thieves – all of which horrors have 67

68 69 70

MacColl, Land, Faith and the Crofting Community, 163–9; NLS, MS2635, f.56 (Blackie Papers), Mackay to Blackie, 14 Apr. 1883. Oban Times, 5 Sep. 1885, 12 Sep. 1885; Scottish Highlander, 11 Sep. 1885. Oban Times, 12 Sep. 1885. Oban Times, 5 Sep. 1885, 12 Sep. 1885; Scottish Highlander, 11 Sep. 1885; W. Norton, ‘Malcolm MacNeill and the emigrationist alternative to Highland land reform’, SHR, lxx (1991), 16–30.

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overtaken the victims of eviction, to my certain knowledge, in more than one instance.71 Most of the delegates expounded on the land question, but Sutherland and MacLeod focused on organisation, and stressed the need to ensure supportive parliamentary representation.72 However, while many would surely have agreed with that statement, what MacLeod said next must have jarred those who had been disquieted by the authoritarian way in which Angus Sutherland and his allies had earlier politicised the FCS: [He] then referred to the great meeting the crofters had in Sutherlandshire on the previous Friday. The result of that meeting was to make the whole people thoroughly united, which was absolutely necessary in the present critical crisis, and so near the general election. It were better that 100 men were really united on the Land Question than that a vast multitude got together with different views. Let the chaff go. Well, they had a meeting at Golspie, a magnificent meeting, where there was no organisation, for the good reason that the Castle influence of Dunrobin was as baneful as that of Dublin Castle, as far as the reform of the land laws was concerned.73 In addition to equating Highlanders with the Irish, MacLeod was emphasising the distinct nature of the Sutherlandshire Association, and the reference to ‘chaff’ would confirm suspicions among some present, including John Mackay, that there would be no room for dissent within the Association. In the short term, MacLeod’s stridency may well have been counterproductive. Portree seems to have been the final straw for the influential Mackay who, fearful of a radical take-over of his native county, subsequently threw his lot in with the marquis of Stafford. Back in Sutherlandshire, vigorous campaigns by both candidates continued until polling day, ensuring a keenly fought contest.74 Accepting the metamorphosis of the marquis of Stafford into a radical, especially after his own separate Bonar Bridge speech when ‘the width of his views must have been a revelation to most people, and have already spoilt Mr. Sutherland’s popularity to some extent’, Sutherland’s opponents generally took the line that while both men had more or less the same views on the land question, Stafford would undoubtedly have more influence and ability to put the plans into action, than the crofter candidate.75 Sutherland’s cause was, however, assisted by the high profile speech made by Joseph Chamberlain in Inverness in September, a speech in which he set out some of the main points of his ‘Radical Programme’, such as land 71 72 73 74 75

Oban Times, 12 Sep. 1885. Oban Times, 12 Sep. 1885. Oban Times, 12 Sep. 1885. John O’Groat Journal, 2 Dec. 1885. John O’Groat Journal, 24 Jun., 7 Oct. 1885.

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reclamation by local authorities, popular representation by local government, and provisions for fair rent, free sale, and compensation.76 Chamberlain had identified Jesse Collings’s crusade over allotments and smallholdings, which hoped to bring about peasant proprietors owning ‘three acres and a cow’, as a potentially popular political cause.77 Still feted as a radical by many, Chamberlain was, in fact, less than impressed by the SLRL’s manifesto. Indeed, during the Inverness speech he acknowledged that ‘more drastic measures’ than his had been proposed, but cast doubt on their practicality.78 Although neither spoke in Inverness, Sutherland and MacLeod not only took positions on the platform in front of 5,000 people in Bell’s Park, they had also, along with G. B. Clark, taken lunch with Chamberlain that afternoon.79 Although Chamberlain had not been able to accept an invitation to speak at the Sutherland Association’s Golspie demonstration earlier in the month Sutherland’s meeting with the radical leader was sure to help his standing in Sutherlandshire itself, and go some way to countering the accusation that, if elected, he could have no influence in the House of Commons.80 In sending a copy of the meeting’s resolutions to ‘their future Prime Minister, Joseph Chamberlain’, MacLeod clearly believed that they could have influence at the very highest level. The irony of this resolution would however, only become clear in the next couple of years.81 Although Sutherland’s Irish connections in Glasgow, and his sympathy for home rule, had been long established, the issue was not stressed by his opponents during the 1885 election campaign. Just as he was not quizzed by the Napier Commission about any links with Irish Land Leaguers, the issue was given little prominence by the supporters of the marquis of Stafford. For most of the campaign, the emphasis was on local issues, notably the land question, and it was only at a meeting in Golspie in the days leading up to voting that an attempt was made to associate Sutherland with the ‘Parnellites’. Even then, this was done in a somewhat roundabout way, through the candidate’s friendship with John Murdoch.82 Inviting questions at the end of a speech which was ‘taken up chiefly with an exposition of his views on the land question’, Sutherland was pressed for his views in various contentious areas. In spite of Sutherland pledging himself to fight the ‘dismemberment of the British Empire’, he received some hostile questioning: 76

77 78

79 80 81

82

E. A. Cameron, ‘ “A Far Cry to London”: Joseph Chamberlain in Inverness, September 1885’, Innes Review, lvii (2006), 36–53. Offer, Property and Politics, 352. Northern Chronicle, 23 Sep 1885. See also J. Chamberlain, ‘Labourers’ and artisans’ dwellings’, Fortnightly Review, xxxiv (1883), 761–2. Scottish Highlander, 25 Sep. 1885. Scottish Highlander, 4 Sep. 1885, John O’Groat Journal, 2 Sep. 1885. Some radical journals had already commented sourly upon Chamberlain’s self-professed radicalism. See Christian Socialist, Sep. 1885; Oct. 1885. Murdoch had, indeed, spent a good deal of time in 1885 touring Sutherlandshire promoting Angus Sutherland’s campaign, Oban Times, 26 Apr. 1885.

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Has not Mr. Murdoch, who has been advocating your candidature, been a paid agent of the Parnellite party both in America and this country? Did you not in Strathnaver acknowledge Mr. Murdoch as your political father, and does it not therefore follow that you hold his views as a follower of Parnell? Did you not at Melness express your contempt for the English Radical members and your unbounded admiration for the Irish followers of Mr. Parnell?83 Sutherland countered all of these charges. In spite of his friendship with the Irish party later in his career, most of his Irish contacts up to this point were in Glasgow and, specifically, with members of the HGB who were radical social reformers as well as Irish home rulers. The Tory Northern Chronicle also pushed the anti-Irish angle to its readers. It accused Murdoch of calling the duke of Sutherland ‘The Dunrobin Thief’, and of calling the attention of the people to: the manner in which the Irish strengthened the hand of their members in parliament, and constrained attention to their demands, and they were told they must act in a similar manner. They were also asked to join with these Irish malcontents, and make common cause with them, as participating with them in Celtic blood. In short, Mr. Murdoch is one of Mr. Parnell’s friends, and although Mr. Sutherland has been cautious in giving out his real sentiments, there can be no doubt that he, too, is a Parnellite, and that, if returned, he will be a supporter of that anti-British party . . .84 The mayor of Wolverhampton, who had come north to address a meeting in Golspie on behalf of the marquis, also raised the spectre of home rule: Mr. Sutherland is hankering after a union with the Parnellites, to which Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Bright, along with the Marquis of Stafford, were opposed. It would be a bad day for Sutherland if it threw in its lot with that disloyal party. He therefore warned them of the danger of having connections with the Parnellite party and disunion.85 The second prong of the late assault on Sutherland was related to his involvement with the SLRL, which he had played a prominent role in founding. Sutherland’s membership of the SLRL was no mere piece of political opportunism, more a logical progression of his radicalism. Although he never considered standing as an official SLRL candidate, like Murdoch or Shaw Maxwell, Sutherland was none the less a Vice-President of the League. In spite of the claims of some that the marquis of Stafford had ‘Out-Georged Henry George’ with his radical policies, Sutherland faced tough questions 83 84 85

Northern Chronicle, 25 Nov. 1885. Northern Chronicle, 18 Nov. 1885. John O’Groat Journal, 25 Nov. 1885.

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relating to his ideas on land reform at the close of the campaign in Golspie.86 Sutherland expressed support for Henry George in his views relating to private property, and defended the land tax advocated by the SLRL – 4 s. in the pound, eventually raising to 20 s. – as potentially beneficial to Sutherlandshire and a step towards the abolition of landlordism.87 Perhaps aware of the general groundswell of support for the HLLRA in the Highlands, however, he also accepted that peasant proprietorship might be a temporary expedient while a land restoration agitation developed. Mackay of Hereford was diametrically opposed to this view, and his exasperation with the extreme land policies of Sutherland and Macleod was evident in a letter to Blackie a year after the election: The part I took in the Sutherland election of last year, in advising the crofters for their own sakes, to elect the Marquis of Stafford as member for the county, caused me to be ostracised by the radical communities all round, as one dangerous to land law reform, inimical to the doctrines of the Land Restoration League, which at the conference in Portree were permitted to obtain sway, needs to be acknowledged, tho’ at the previous conference in Dingwall, at which you were present, they had been proscribed. I felt the time had come to make a stand on the platform of practicability, and dissent from that which no sane man would advocate, hence my severance from the Impracticables. As a matter of course, as was to be expected, I became a ‘traitor’, a ‘renegade’ . . .88 Therefore, while ideologically set against Sutherland’s land policies, Mackay also felt that a focus on land restoration could result in crofters chasing impossible dreams, potentially dashing hopes for the limited reform measures which he believed necessary. In spite of the hegemony which the ducal house had held for over half a century, and the marquis of Stafford’s attempt to portray himself as a populist and land reformer, the outcome of the election in Sutherlandshire was in doubt until a relatively late stage.89 The morning of the poll saw ‘both sides . . . confidently congratulating themselves on their success’.90 The count began at six in the evening, by which time a large crowd had assembled at Dornoch courthouse, and took two hours to complete. The tension of the campaign led to fears of public disorder, and several policemen were 86 87

88 89

90

Northern Chronicle, 25 Nov. 1885; MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 159. Hanham, ‘Problem of Highland Discontent’, 63, however, blames Sutherland’s defeat on the fact that he was a ‘Georgite’. Kellas also noted Sutherland’s presence at the instigation of the League, albeit as illustrative of the Liberal influence on the organisation. J. G. Kellas, ‘The Liberal Party in Scotland 1885–1895’, Ph.D. thesis, (University of London, 1961), 221. NLS, MS2636, f.315 (Blackie Papers), Mackay to Blackie, 20 Nov. 1886. NLS, Acc. 10225 (Sutherland Papers), Policy Papers, 215, McIver to Lord Stafford, 1 Oct. 1885; The Crofter, 1 Sep. 1885; John O’Groat Journal, 3 Jun., 23 Sep., 21 Oct. 1885. John O’Groat Journal, 2 Dec. 1885.

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on duty, but the worst of the trouble on the day was when ‘youths of the disappointed opposition gave vent to their feelings in groans’. These youths were Sutherland supporters, as the marquis had triumphed by 1,701 votes to 1,058. The decision by Mackay to side with the marquis, made in late November, influenced the election to an extent.91 If some were wavering in their decision, especially given that this was around the time that Sutherland was being denounced as a Parnellite and land reform extremist by the Whig and Tory press, then Mackay’s statement of support could have made up their minds.92 Sutherland’s supporters denied until the last that Church support for the marquis played a major role, especially as his ‘neighbour’ in Caithness, G. B. Clark, overcame larger obstacles, such as accusations of Sabbath-breaking, perceived anti-imperialism and socialism, to gain victory in the election.93 Even with regard to Ireland, it was noted that Clark had given his ‘support to the murderous and rebel portion of the Irish party at a time when the government of Mr Gladstone was grappling with rebellion, murder and outrage in that unhappy country’.94 Thus, there were several concerns in the Sutherland camp after the election, but all of them related to one overriding failure on their part. For all the talk of the campaign, for all the years Sutherland had been politicising and mobilising first the Glasgow Sutherlandshire Association and then the FCS, and finally the crofters of Sutherlandshire themselves, there was a distinct lack of organisation within the Sutherlandshire Association. While they complained that some men were literally shaking with fear as they cast their vote, worried about the possible consequences of voting against the marquis, Angus Sutherland’s supporters realised that the process of education was far from complete.95 After all, Macfarlane had triumphed over William MacKinnon in Argyll, due in no small part to the unequivocal support of the Oban Times. In the run up to the election, readers were treated to a full-page feature, including a large picture, with Macfarlane looking an almost messianic figure.96 Readers were instructed to ‘wrest the seat from the noxious house of Argyll’, who had requested MacKinnon to contest the seat, and were given hints on voting.97 In the week before the election, the secrecy of the vote was emphasised and an ‘example’ voting form depicted with a cross 91 92 93

94

95 96 97

D. W. Kemp, The Sutherland Democracy (Edinburgh, 1890), 43–6. Highland News, 30 Nov. 1885. MacColl argues convincingly that the Free Church influence was vital in Sutherlandshire, and provides an interesting comparison with Argyll. MacColl, Land, Faith and the Crofting Community, 166–7. John O’Groat Journal, 2 Dec. 1885 contains a letter giving thirty-one reasons (plus appendix) not to vote for Clark. John O’Groat Journal, 30 Dec. 1885. Oban Times, 7 Nov. 1885. Oban Times, 21 Nov., 28 Nov. 1885; J. Forbes Munro, Maritime Enterprise and Empire: Sir William MacKinnon and his Business Empire, 1823–1893 (Woodbridge, 2003), 384.

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marked boldly against Macfarlane’s name.98 This can be seen as a bold move on behalf of the paper, for it led to attacks from two sources. Correspondence on the subject of Macfarlane’s Catholicism and Irish nationalist background raged for several weeks, and a meeting of the Scottish Protestant Alliance warned the people not to ‘vote for a Catholic because he offers you crofts’. Not only did the Oban Times risk alienating its mainly Presbyterian readership, it also incurred the wrath of the landed classes. The two issues, indeed, are linked, with the proprietors of Argyll accused of trying to ‘whip up an Orange fury’, and suggestions that the Oban Times was being boycotted by the ‘gentlemen of the county’.99 The success of the candidates supported by the Oban Times and the Scottish Highlander was not lost on Angus Sutherland, and from this point onwards the Inverness Highland News became a vehicle for Sutherland’s renewed parliamentary ambitions. After his eventual election, it became a platform for his views and a means of showing the rest of the Highlands – and Highlanders in the cities – how popular he was among the Sutherlandshire crofting community.100 Touring the area in 1886, Malcolm MacNeill reported to the Government that ‘the Land League appears to have gained a firm hold of the people in Sutherlandshire’, but made no specific reference to the activities of the Sutherlandshire Association.101 In the future, more focus and direction, aided by the Highland News, was deemed necessary. Richard McGhee, the close confidante of Michael Davitt and colleague of Sutherland, Murdoch, and McHugh in the SLRL, attributed the failure in Sutherlandshire to the shambolic state of the electoral roll.102 Thus, instruction on the rights of crofters who had remained disenfranchised in spite of the Third Reform Act would be one aspect of the future organisational effort. Organisation, and a refusal to be downhearted after the election, became key to the Sutherland Association: [Angus Sutherland] reviewed and traced the causes which led to their defeat in the recent contest for the county, and pointed to the lessons which could be learned from it. The Irish had gained their ends by persistency, and though they were first scoffed at, public opinion was now turning in their favour . . . There was political life in Sutherland now even though it had none in the past . . .103 98 99 100

101

102

103

Oban Times, 28 Nov. 1885. Oban Times, 17 Oct., 24 Oct. 1885. The mechanics of the Sutherlandshire Association’s take-over of the Highland News are not clear, other than that MacLeod – still only in his mid-twenties – assumed the editorship at some time around late 1886 or early 1887. Noble, Bibliography of Inverness Newspapers, 36–7, also includes a portrait of MacLeod. NAS, GD 40/16/32, Confidential Reports to the Secretary of Scotland on the condition of the Western Highlands and Islands, Oct. 1886, 18. P. Harding, ‘John Murdoch, Michael Davitt and the Land Question’, 108–9; NC Ev., 38292–38297; John O’Groat Journal, 7 Oct. 1885. John O’Groat Journal, 30 Dec. 1885.

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As time progressed, the Sutherland Association was able to produce the most solid block of radical crofters and workers in the Highlands, more so, for example, than Skye. While Skye received the most attention from the police authorities at the time, and thus from historians subsequently, their tactics did not change very much during the course of the ‘Crofters’ War’. Language seems to have become stronger and violence more frequent, but the basic course of action remained rent strikes or deforcements.104 Skye was organised by local leaders, but had nothing approaching the centralised Sutherlandshire Association organisation. Ivory noted, for example, that: I have considered it necessary to land marines to protect the Sheriff Officers while serving writs in the disturbed districts of Glendale (the head quarter of John MacPherson), Waternish (the head quarter of the Revd. Mr. McCallum), Kilmuir (the head quarter of John Macleod, shoemaker, alias ‘Gladstone’) and Valtos (the head quarter of Norman Stewart, alias ‘Parnell’).105 Several months later, the main voice of the Glasgow Irish community – the Glasgow Observer – described the plight of the Highland crofters and expressed a desire to help them, but also raised what it saw as the main flaw in the crofters’ programme of resistance against the landlords: One mistake the crofters have made, and it is a very great one. They have no organisation. They have no combination. They have adopted the programme of the [Irish] National League without adopting its method of organisation, and, as a hopeless floating mass of units, they are left at the mercy of Sheriff Ivory to be directed into whatever channel his armed force may be pleased to tend them . . .106 Although the crofting agitation remained symbolically important to the urban agitators, and the SLRL held out some hope of being able to influence the Highlands in the future, the election of Roderick MacDonald, Charles Fraser Mackintosh, and Donald Macfarlane in 1885 gave something of a mandate for the HLLRA’s reform agenda in the region. The Sutherlandshire Association was the one branch of the broad reform agitation in the Highlands to attempt a level of organisation approaching that seen in Ireland during the Land War, and, as a result, became a divisive presence in the overall movement. If land restoration was still on the agenda for Angus Sutherland in 1886, however, national politics ensured that home

104

105 106

NAS Home & Health Papers, HH1/4, Macrae to McHardy, 31 Aug. 1886; Chisholm to McHardy, 30 Aug. 1886; HH1/18, MacLeod to McHardy, 15 Sep. 1886. HH1/75, Ivory to Balfour, 17 Oct. 1886. Glasgow Observer, 20 Nov. 1886.

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rule submerged all other considerations in the coming months and years. In spite of the ‘loyal opposition’ towards Parnellism shown by the Glasgow radicals, they were to find that their advocacy of the crofters, more than anything else, had assisted in developing a block of home rule sympathisers in the Scottish Highlands.

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chapter seven

‘Two Tribes which Sprang from the Same Stock’: Celtic Solidarity and Political Realignment in the Highlands, 1886–1895 Not only had they arrived in parliament a year too late, but sheer lack of numbers ensured that the much vaunted ‘Scotch Parnellite Party’ was unable to influence the revived Crofters’ Bill and, indeed, the Oban Times warned against expecting too much of the Crofter M.P.s during their early weeks in Parliament.1 Individual Irish Nationalist M.P.s, notably Pierce Mahony and Joseph Nolan, did take an interest in the bill, although it has been claimed that ‘they were unlikely to indulge in any action which would endanger the vulnerable Liberal administration, which held out the prospect of home rule for Ireland’.2 Even this limited support had some propaganda value, however. The Liverpool correspondent of the Oban Times, consistently supportive of linking the Highland and Irish agitations, claimed that Parnellites had ‘supported every amendment of the Bill designed to help our people . . . let us in future remember our proven friends’.3 With the marquis of Stafford composing his own version of the bill, and Angus Sutherland preaching land restoration, the proposals of the new Crofters’ Bill, put forward by J. B. Balfour and the new Scottish Secretary, G. O. Trevelyan, were met with some scepticism in Sutherlandshire.4 Fraser Mackintosh also criticised its inadequacy, and Macfarlane referred to it as a ‘miserable skeleton of a Bill’, which had to be ‘clothed with flesh and blood’ to make it suitable for the crofter.5 In contrast to the long-term economic plan envisaged by Lord Napier in 1884, the provisions of the 1886 Act seemed to respond to the specific political situation of the time.6 As a result, it is unsurprising that the new Act was be set out along Irish lines, granting fixity of tenure on payment of a rent to be decided by a peripatetic Crofters’ 1 2

3 4

5

6

Oban Times, 16 Jan. 1886. Cameron, Land for the people?, 37; Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 235; Hansard, 3rd ser., cccviii, col. 976 (31 Aug. 1886); cccx, col. 1592 (15 Feb. 1887). Oban Times, 17 Apr. 1886. Northern Chronicle, 10 Feb. 1886, 17 Feb. 1886; Scottish Highlander, 19 Feb. 1886; Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 225–6; Tindley, ‘The Sutherland Estate, c. 1860–1914’, App. B, 343–6. Oban Times, 13 Mar. 1886; Northern Chronicle, 17 Mar. 1886, 12 May 1886; John O’Groat Journal, 24 Mar. 1886. Devine, Clanship to Crofters’ War, 230.

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Commission, as well as compensation for improvements.7 The very limited possibility for groups of crofters to apply for extra grazing land provoked outrage among crofter representatives, and ensured that the land agitation would continue into the 1890s, but in time, Hunter claims, the Crofters’ Commission was ‘held almost in reverence’ as a result of its ability to reduce rents and cancel arrears. More importantly, he argues, the dual ownership regime equated closely to the crofters’ ‘traditional beliefs about the nature of their stake in the land’.8 The failure to provide more land allowed the agitation in the Highlands to continue after 1886, particularly among the cottar population. Irish and radical groups maintained an interest in the Highlands, continuing to offer advice to, and make claims on behalf of, the crofters and cottars. The growth of urban land and labour organisation in Scotland, along with the gradual realisation that the crofters, like the Irish smallholders, were likely to settle for a form of dual ownership, meant that radical interventions were less frequent and less direct than previously. The issue of home rule, however, fundamentally altered the nature of Irish involvement in the Highlands. * The Home Rule Bill came before Gladstone’s cabinet on 26 March, 1886, precipitating the resignation of the two leading radicals, Joseph Chamberlain and G. O. Trevelyan, along with some other junior ministers.9 On 8 April, Gladstone introduced the plan to the public in a long speech to the Commons. Its intention was to establish a Parliament and executive in Dublin, which would have power to legislate over all subjects which were not ‘reserved’ by Westminster.10 Ironically, John Ferguson believed that Chamberlain would have been a more useful ally than ‘that windbag of intimidation’, Parnell, in his land reform campaign, and had tried to retain his sympathy.11 Although the likes of John Ferguson, Michael Davitt, and Edward McHugh were clearly out of step with the Irish Nationalist leaders, the rejection of home rule by some prominent members of the SLRL forced them to assert their nationality.12 Moody wrote that Gladstone’s attempt to get a 7 8 9

10 11

12

Cameron, Land for the People?, 41–61. Hunter, Crofting Community, 179. For Joseph Chamberlain’s resignation letters to Gladstone, see C. H. D. Howard (ed.), Joseph Chamberlain: A Political Memoir, 1880–1892 (London, 1953), 194. Jackson, Home Rule, 53–4. McFarland, John Ferguson, 172; H. M. Hyndman, ‘The radicals and socialism’, Nineteenth Century, Nov. 1885, 835; TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9374/ 983–987, Davitt to Chamberlain, 6 Aug. 1903; Chamberlain to Davitt, 8 Aug. 1903; Glasgow Observer, 24 Apr. 1886. Glasgow Observer, 29 Aug., 12 Dec., 19 Dec. 1885, 2 Jan. 1886.

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home rule Bill through Parliament in 1886 had convinced Davitt of his integrity, and that Davitt thereafter ‘regarded the Liberal party as entitled to generous support’.13 In Ireland, the Tories’ ‘Ashbourne Act’ of 1886 facilitated the purchase of farms by the tenants through government loans.14 Having denounced it as a ‘Landlord Relief Bill’ this Act served to strengthen Davitt’s conviction that the Liberals alone could grant home rule and radical land reform.15 Scotland was now forced to confront the complex relationship between land and national questions, particularly in relation to Ireland. Underlying tensions within the Highland reform movement were forced to the surface, and the Irish social reformers in Glasgow, having previously underplayed the Irish involvement in Scotland, began to use their links in order to promote Scottish support for Irish home rule. At a meeting in Rutherglen, Bernard Kelly, M.P. for Donegal South, claimed that ‘the Irish party had many friends and allies hailing from Scotland, and among them many men who assisted with them in the cause of the poor crofters’.16 Davitt also visited Scotland in advance of the 1886 General Election, speaking in Glasgow and Galashiels in order to promote the ‘case of Ireland before the Scotch people’.17 Again, many Highlanders and Scots were present at his Glasgow speech, notably Sutherland, Murdoch, Cherrie, and Shaw Maxwell, and old friends McHugh and McGhee. He made no reference to the crofters, leaving this for John Murdoch to address, but rather to the general ‘democracy’ of Great Britain, and argued that home rule could provide a firm base for all the other social reforms they desired. After taking part in many other home rule speeches prior to the General Election, Davitt spent the second part of 1886 in America.18 * Still notionally a Georgite, the years following Angus Sutherland’s election as an M.P., in 1886 saw him increasingly attempting to achieve land reform through amendments to the Crofters’ Act. In addition, the changing priorities of the Gladstonian Liberals meant that Sutherland became known predominantly as a home ruler. At least until after Michael Davitt’s visit to the Highlands in 1887, however, Sutherland was known as an advocate of land restoration and, through the Highland News, the Georgite movement would have continued representation in Sutherlandshire for many years. 13 14

15 16 17 18

Moody, ‘Davitt and the British labour movement’, 65. Bull, Land, Politics and Nationalism, 109; Jordan, ‘The Irish National League and the “Unwritten Law” ’, 157–8. Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 485; Jackson, Home Rule, 51. Glasgow Observer, 19 Jun. 1886. Glasgow Observer, 24 Apr. 1886. Glasgow Observer, 6 Feb., 13 Feb., 20 Feb., 5 Jun., 12 Jun., 3 Jul. 1886; The Times, 22 Feb., 17 Mar. 1886.

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In June 1886, the news broke that the marquis of Stafford was not to recontest his seat. Explanations range from him feeling that, as the landlord’s son, he was in an invidious position, to disillusionment with Gladstone’s Irish policy.19 His retirement, however, presented Angus Sutherland with an obvious opportunity.20 At a meeting of the Sutherlandshire Association, held a week after MacLeod’s address in Helmsdale, Sutherland was adopted once more as the ‘crofter’ candidate for the county. The different tone of this election immediately became apparent: In regard to Ireland, he was in favour of Home Rule, and the state of that country was in many ways similar to Scotland, so Home Rule was needed here. If they had Home Rule for Scotland, they would not be overborne by the squires of England. The Irish members had ever stood by them, and in a great measure speaking the same language. The Irish had made themselves a party in the House because they stood firmly together and fought as one man. As he would ere be long around the county, he would be able to explain his views on these questions.21 The creation of the Scottish Home Rule Association (SHRA) further complicated the representation of attitudes towards Ireland, with demands for a Scottish parliament generally being made within a Unionist– Imperialist framework.22 Charles Fraser Mackintosh, in coming out as a Liberal Unionist, was reminded by indignant constituents on Skye that ‘Irish members have been the best friends of the Highland people’.23 And yet Fraser Mackintosh was also one of many Vice-Presidents of the SHRA, believing that any devolution experiment could be carried out more safely in Scotland, rather than Ireland.24 Sutherland, however, insisted that Irish and Scottish home rule must proceed together, and later claimed that he ‘was about the first, if not the first, Parliamentary candidate who publicly advocated Home Rule for Scotland’.25 Hostile elements of the press instantly seized upon Sutherland’s outspoken support for the Irish cause, with the John O’Groat Journal writing that they expected ‘this young man [to] join the Parnellites’.26 Of all the 19

20 21 22

23 24

25 26

MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 160; Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh, 214; Crowley, ‘The “Crofters’ Party”’, 120; John O’Groat Journal, 2 Jun. 1886; Highland News, 31 May 1886; Northern Chronicle, 9 Jun. 1886. Highland News, 31 May 1886; Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 228–9. Highland News, 21 Jun. 1886. Scotsman, 25 May 1886; G. Morton, Unionist Nationalism (East Linton, 1999), 196–7; G. Morton, ‘The first home rule movement in Scotland, 1886–1918’, in H. T. Dickinson and M. Lynch (eds), The Challenge to Westminster: Sovereignty, Devolution and Independence (East Linton, 2000), 116–77. Oban Times, 31 Jul. 1886. Scottish Home Rule Association, The Union of 1707 Viewed Financially (Edinburgh, 1887); Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh, 167. Highland News, 15 Sep. 1888. John O’Groat Journal, 30 Jun. 1886.

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candidates in Highland constituencies, Sutherland’s relationship with Ireland – through the Glasgow Land League – had been the strongest and most consistent. Oppponents attempted to obfuscate nationalism and Catholicism, and a letter from ‘Huistean Caoil’ presented an extreme example: If the people of Sutherland are really prepared to go in with hand and heart for Home Rule for Ireland, then let them vote for Mr. Angus Sutherland (who openly declares himself in favour of that measure) to a man, but, if not, it becomes time to weigh up the matter very seriously; for, in my humble opinion, there was never a more serious question before the constituency. What, the people of Sutherlandshire returning a man who is prepared to argue Home Rule for Roman Catholics! A man on the same errand coming to the same county thirty years ago, would quickly be told to go about his business. If there is anything on earth that should gladden the heart of the Pope of Rome more than any other, it must be to see the people of the Highlands of Scotland advocating Home Rule for Ireland . . .27 Although a ‘Unionist’ candidate was found to fight the seat, there seemed little conviction that there would be a serious contest, and Sutherland’s victory was comprehensive.28 Antagonism towards Ireland, and the personal animosity towards Angus Sutherland which had existed through the 1880s, did not fade away with this victory, and was a constant issue in the constituency throughout Sutherland’s tenure. The months immediately after Sutherland’s election to the House of Commons revealed him to be a very active advocate of his constituents, and a member who had interests in a wide number of issues.29 He had apparently not prepared for his first contributions, and claimed he would not have spoken at all if he had not been goaded by a previous statement from Arthur J. Balfour, the new Secretary for Scotland.30 In appealing to the House for an amendment to the Crofters’ Act, Sutherland believed that it was ‘unnecessary to appeal to our Irish friends’, and alluded to the home rule issue, attempting to cement the support of the Irish nationalists for the crofters: The similarity of the condition of affairs in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland has created a lasting sympathy between the two peoples. You will find that the people in the Highlands have not the slightest 27 28

29 30

Northern Chronicle, 7 Jul. 1886. NLS, Acc. 10225 (Sutherland Papers), Policy Papers, 216, McIver to Kemball, 12 Jul. 1886; John O’Groat Journal, 14 Jul. 1886; Northern Chronicle, 14 Jul. 1886; Highland News, 12 Jul.1886. Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 232. Cameron, ‘Communication or separation?’, 648.

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difficulty in understanding the Irish question, simply because the condition of the people in Ireland is exactly the same as that of the Highlands . . .31 * The election had been fought against a backdrop of renewed agitation among the crofting community in Sutherlandshire, and the lawlessness persisted even though the attention on the Highlands at this time generally focused on Skye and Tiree.32 A dispute over the farm at Greenhill on Tiree, which the duke of Argyll had let to a single crofter even though the island’s HLLRA had resolved to raid and redistribute the land, dominated the Highland news in the summer of 1886. Unaccompanied police had been sent by the Liberals and, upon the accession of the Tory Government, Arthur Balfour sent not only fifty policemen but also two hundred marines to crush the disturbance. Eventually, eight crofters were given custodial sentences, leading to widespread outrage.33 Throughout 1886, the Glasgow Observer reported events in the Highlands with interest, especially the police and military interventions in Tiree and Kilmuir. In the summer, an editorial had claimed that ‘the movement inaugurated at Irishtown in 1879 by Michael Davitt and his colleagues, is slowly, but surely working out the ruination of landlordism in Scotland’.34 When the expedition on Tiree was met by a force of passive resistance, the Observer told its predominantly Irish readers that ‘the inhabitants looked silently on and laughed, a significant mode of combat which the old Irish Land League must get the credit for having initiated’.35 The revival of a rural agitation in Ireland during the autumn of 1886, known as the ‘Plan of Campaign’, led to rather unflattering judgements being made on the crofters’ ardour.36 The failure of the crofters to take matters to the extremes of Ireland was strongly criticised: The crofters have been adopting of late the tactics of the Irish tenant farmer without, we regret to say, either the vigour or the earnestness which characterised the Irish agricultural revolution . . . Their ‘ticket’ is that the interests of the Crofters should be first and the landlords after . . . they have borrowed their doctrines from the Irish Land 31 32

33

34 35 36

Hansard, 3rd ser., cccviii, cols. 873, 964 (31 Aug. 1886). John O’Groat Journal, 2 Jun. 1886; Highland News, 14 Jun. 1886, 21 Jun. 1886; Northern Chronicle, 9 Jun. 1886. Hunter, Crofting Community, 163–5; Oban Times, 24 Jul. 1886–28 Aug. 1886, passim; Scottish Highlander, 12 Aug. 1886; NAS, HH1/12: Resolutions of a meeting of farm servants and cottars held near Thurso on 14th Sep. 1886. Glasgow Observer, 31 Jul. 1886. Glasgow Observer, 7 Aug. 1886. United Ireland, 23 Oct. 1886; L. M. Geary, The Plan of Campaign, 1886–1891 (Cork, 1986), 14–20.

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League, and in their own interests it is to be regretted that they have not followed them to a conclusion.37 This echoed the reports of the Oban Times’s Liverpool correspondent. Just before the 1886 election, the correspondent related a chat he had had with a pair of Nationalist M.P.s, who told him that the Highland members were not highly regarded because they were too easily led and did not ‘carry the fight to the gate’.38 The weekly meetings of the INL also provided a forum for debate on the crofters, with the HGB, as usual, to the fore. In the autumn of 1886, for example, both Cherrie and Shaw Maxwell addressed the branch, and it would have been remarkable if they had not mentioned the land struggle going on at that time in the Highlands.39 The general attack on the landed interest also allowed the urban aspect of the land agitation to be placed alongside the Tiree case. A large miners’ rally in Motherwell, addressed by Bradlaugh and members of the SLRL, was asked: Why should the Duke of Hamilton charge [mining royalties]? Had Almighty God given him a royal patent by which he had a prerogative to charge upon the coal? An honourable gentleman in the House of Commons had said he considered the Duke of Argyll was a thief and a robber by law – a shameless thief and a shameless robber – so he (the speaker) declared that the Duke of Hamilton, in taking the mining royalties from the people of this country for allowing coal to be taken from the bowels of the earth, was as shameless as the Duke of Argyll in starving out his crofters and bleeding them to death.40 In addition, Shaw Maxwell and John Ferguson attempted to speak to a wider audience, debating land nationalisation before the Glasgow Young Ireland Society.41 At a large meeting of Glasgow Irish and Highlanders a week later, Ferguson gave a classic exposition of his views, displaying the cost to the towns of rural depopulation and appealing to Scottish history by comparing Sheriff Ivory with Claverhouse. He echoed the sentiments of the Glasgow Observer in demanding that the crofters stand their ground firmly.42 In addition to these urban meetings, a large convention at Bonar Bridge sought to strengthen the reform movement within the Highlands, and reach out to the wider Celtic community.43 The pan-Celtic element of the meeting was, in fact, rather spoiled by absence of the Irish representatives who, according to G. B. Clark, were making ‘a last appeal to the British 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Glasgow Observer, 20 Nov. 1886. Oban Times, 1 May 1886. Glasgow Observer, 28 Aug., 30 Oct. 1886. Scotsman, 6 Sep. 1886. Glasgow Observer, 18 Sep., 25 Sep. 1886. Glasgow Observer, 13 Nov. 1886. P. Jones-Evans, ‘Evan Pan Jones – Land reformer’, Welsh History Review, iv (1968–69), 153.

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Parliament to avoid a long and bloody war in Ireland’.44 The conference was, therefore, a predominantly Highland affair, with the additional presence of some influential Welshmen, but it retained a symbolic importance.45 This was one of the very few occasions outside the House of Commons that most of the ‘Crofter M.P.s’ were found together. With Donald Macfarlane out of Parliament for the time being, Sutherland, MacDonald, Clark, and Fraser Mackintosh all turned out at Bonar Bridge. The legacy of the meeting was in its ratification of the plan for a Highland Land League (HLL) – supposedly unifying the HLLRAs of Edinburgh, London, and Sutherlandshire – and for its serious commitment to a ‘Celtic League’.46 In prevaricating on the issue of unifying the reform bodies, Sutherland and MacLeod arguably showed their reluctance to relinquish any of the power they had built up within Sutherlandshire by subsuming the Association into a centralised body. Having recently denounced the Crofters’ Act as an ‘abortion’, Sutherland also remained to be convinced of the benefits to the crofters of dual ownership.47 After being threatened with suspension from the meeting the Sutherlandshire delegates finally accepted the new Association.48 In retrospect, therefore, the Bonar Bridge conference marked not a new Celtic dawn, but the point at which divisions in the Highland reform movement could no longer be hidden by expressions of unity. With Clark and the radical Welshman, E. Pan Jones, calling for land nationalisation in the face of a general support for the ‘3 Fs’, continuing division over Ireland and the disestablishment of the Church of Scotland, the first years of the HLL would witness a great deal of discord in the Highlands and Islands.49 * Bonar Bridge, if hinting at the fragmentation of the Highland reform movement, also demonstrated that the long-standing anxiety about public support for Ireland in Highland affairs had partly been overcome. Angus 44 45

46 47 48

49

Scottish Highlander, 7 Oct. 1886; Oban Times, 2 Oct., 9 Oct. 1886. Both Davitt and G. B. Clark took part in the land agitation in Wales in 1886, where many similar themes to those seen in Scotland can be discerned. See Graham Jones, ‘Michael Davitt, David Lloyd George and T. E. Ellis’, 460–70. Glasgow Observer, 15 Jan. 1887. Hansard, 3rd ser. cccviii, col. 968 (30 Aug. 1886). The objects of the new organisation were stated to be: first, to restore to the Highland people their land on equitable conditions, and to resist, by every constitutional method, the depopulation of the Highlands by eviction, forced emigration, or any other means; secondly, to abolish the game laws; thirdly, to amend the laws relating to sea, lake and river fishing; fourthly, to restore to the people their foreshore rights; fifthly, to reform the administration of the law, and generally to promote the welfare of the people throughout the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Hunter, ‘Politics of Highland land reform’, 67.

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Sutherland spent the winter of 1886–7 lecturing on home rule for Ireland and Scotland, as well as on land reform and the need for amendments to the Crofters’ Act.50 In Parliament, too, after it had reconvened, Sutherland spoke not only of land reform for the Highlands, but likened the rule of law there to that in Ireland, and warned of similar social and political consequences if the situation remained unchanged.51 This reiterated what Angus Sutherland had been saying since he first emerged as an agitator, but it put the point over to a larger audience and reinforced the parallels between the two communities. While the tension within the Highlands clearly mirrors the events of four or five years previously, when many resented the increasing politicisation of the FCS, there were other external factors which would naturally have fostered suspicions of, or grudges against, Sutherland and MacLeod at this time.52 It was a meeting of the SLRL, rather than any Highland body, for example, which decreed in March that there should be ‘one grand Scottish Land League under the convenorship of Angus Sutherland’.53 Among those who thought this a necessary step were John Ferguson, David McLardy, and Revd James Cruickshank, all staunch Sutherland allies and unequivocal supporters of George and land restoration.54 * The beginning of 1887 had been a particularly busy time for Michael Davitt, promoting land reform as well as home rule, but he was cheered by the progress that Irish propaganda had made in the minds of the British people.55 He made two short visits to Scotland, addressing the Conference of the Scottish Liberal and Radical Associations in February.56 Although Davitt did not discuss the crofters in this speech at the Edinburgh Literary Institute – instead defending the Plan of Campaign as ‘preferable . . . to the plan of the blunderbuss and the revolver’ – he did repeat calls to the ‘democracy’ of Scotland to support the Irish people.57 The Glasgow Observer believed that ‘Scotchmen are finding [Davitt] is not only a man of great ability but also of great moderation, and that they can listen to no more worthy instruction on the Irish Question’.58 The Glasgow Observer underlined how the home rule crisis had forced Gladstonian liberalism and 50 51 52

53 54 55 56

57 58

Scottish Leader, 20 Jan. 1887. Hansard, 3rd ser. cccx, col. 1592 (15 Feb. 1887). John O’Groat Journal, 9 Mar., 16 Mar. 1887; Highland News, 12 Feb., 19 Mar., 31 Mar., 7 Apr., 20 Jul., 27 Jul., 27 Nov. 1887, 31 Mar, 7 Apr. 1888. Highland News, 12 Mar. 1887. For Cruickshank, see Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 246. Glasgow Observer, 5 Feb. 1887. TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9612 f8–8v; Freeman’s Journal, 8 Feb. 1887; Scottish Leader, 9 Feb. 1887. Scotsman, 9 Feb. 1887. Glasgow Observer, 12 Feb. 1887.

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Parnellite nationalism closer together, and explained that a home rule campaign ‘would be conducted under the auspices of the Scottish Liberal Association, and will embrace every centre where education on the crisis is needed, from Montrose to Dalbeattie’.59 P. J. Power, M.P. for Waterford East, gave a home rule address to a crowd of 1,000 people in Arbroath, and was joined subsequently by former Land League activist William Abraham. After speaking in Edinburgh, Davitt went to London for a conference with Parnell, and headed for a couple of weeks on the continent.60 His next activity in Scotland, a month after his Edinburgh speech, was a mini-tour of the Clyde area, intended initially to promote unity between the workers of Britain and Ireland. Plans were put in place for Davitt to speak to the miners of Lanarkshire and the Highlanders of Glasgow, a link nurtured by Ferguson, but events in Ireland forced a change of plan.61 The set-piece St. Patrick’s Day address in Glasgow, therefore, detailed the history of English oppression in Ireland, although Davitt admitted that: If the condition of things were not what they were in Ireland at the present time, it would be a pleasant duty to devote my remarks this evening to the crofter question, but I have to content myself with stating that this triumph in Ireland over landlordism and Castle Rule would herald a victory for the crofters of Scotland and the artisans of Great Britain.62 In donating the proceeds of the event to the ‘Crofters’ Fund’ – a fund overseen by John Ferguson, Angus Sutherland, and David McLardy – any loss of publicity was counterbalanced. After Davitt, Revd James Cruickshank, the long-time friend of Angus Sutherland, spoke equally passionately on Irish and Highland matters, prompting the Freeman’s Journal to liken him to ‘some trusted Irish soggarth standing on a Munster hillside’.63 In the days following this meeting, Davitt continued up the Clyde coast, with a strong pro-home rule message.64 As if to underline the point of Davitt’s speeches, the Highland News celebrated the fact that ‘old prejudices against the Irish had totally disappeared’.65 * In April 1887, Davitt made his only trip to the crofting districts of Scotland, in pursuit of the fallen radical hero, Joseph Chamberlain. Although 59 60 61 62 63 64

65

Glasgow Observer, 16 Apr. 1887. The Times, 4 Mar. 1887. Glasgow Observer, 26 Feb. 1887; Scotsman, 14 Mar. 1887. Glasgow Observer, 26 Mar. 1887. Glasgow Observer, 26 Mar. 1887; Freeman’s Journal, 22 Mar. 1887. TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9612 f.13v., f.14; Helensburgh and Gareloch Times, 30 Mar. 1887; Dumbarton Herald, 30 Mar. 1887. Highland News, 26 Mar. 1887.

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Chamberlain’s tour was a long time in the planning, his motives were rather vague. His expressed desire was to improve the lot of the toiling crofter and to lead them into a constitutional agitation. Additionally, he seems to have been genuinely concerned that the Highlands was becoming too influenced by Irish politics.66 It was the Sutherlandshire Association which, upon hearing of Chamberlain’s tour had decided to invite Davitt north, and it exerted a great influence on the Irishman’s choice of venues.67 In addition to countering Chamberlain, Davitt remained keen to prevent Scotland settling, as he believed Ireland had done, for mere tinkering with the land laws. The 1886 Crofters’ Act, if accepted without amendment, would have meant that more radical solutions of Davitt, Ferguson, and McHugh would be thwarted once more. Above all, however, the visit of the ‘Father of the Land League’ to the Highlands and Islands in 1887 can be seen in the context of Angus Sutherland’s continuing efforts to create a solid radical block in the region, centred around the county which he now represented in Parliament. The thought of Joseph Chamberlain and his fellow radical, Jesse Collings, touring the Western Highlands and Islands on behalf of the Liberal Unionist cause would have created unrest in the minds of both Michael Davitt and Angus Sutherland. Sutherland in particular – his organisation of the Sutherlandshire Association increasingly based on support for both land reform and home rule – had reason to feel wary. While visiting the crofting townships, Chamberlain spoke little of the Irish question, although he did warn the crofters not to follow the example of the lawless Irish tenants. His set-piece speeches, however, were a different matter. In Stornoway he encapsulated all the main themes he had set out during his visit to the region, tackling the land issue and warning the crofters that their agitation would be all the better for staying within the law. In direct contrast to the Irish smallholders, he claimed, the crofting agitation had the sympathy of the whole kingdom.68 He also expounded his own theory of ‘Home Rule All Round’, in effect an increased form of local government which would have left Imperial power with Westminster but would have devolved local issues to regional assemblies.69 Chamberlain also referred to the redistribution of deer forests and sheep-walks, but it was a further three months before he came up with any concrete proposals in the form of a ‘Crofters and Cottars Migration and Relief Bill’. It was met with indifference in the crofting community, and with hostility from Liberals 66

67

68 69

J. L. Garvin, The Life of Joseph Chamberlain, 2 vols. (London, 1932), ii, 307; NAS, Ivory Papers, GD1/36/1/50, 10 May 1887, Chamberlain to Ivory; The Times, 19 Apr. 1887; Northern Chronicle, 20 Apr. 1887; MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 181; Howard, Joseph Chamberlain: A Political Memoir, 281, 284, 297. TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9612, f.14v.; North British Daily Mail, 23 Apr. 1887; Scottish Leader, 23 Apr. 1887; Freeman’s Journal, 23 Apr. 1887; Glasgow Observer, 30 Apr. 1887. Northern Chronicle, 27 Apr. 1887. Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 264.

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who may have supported his ideas but were not yet ready to forgive the author.70. In general, Chamberlain was greeted politely by the crofters, but before he had even left Stornoway, Davitt and Sutherland had launched their counter offensive. * That Davitt’s tour was not official Parnellite or Gladstonian strategy, and more a personal idea of Angus Sutherland, was emphasised by Roderick MacDonald. When Chamberlain complained that he had ‘no doubt that every effort was made by the Irish Party and their allies to prejudice me with the crofters’, MacDonald countered by saying that ‘you are mistaken that the Irish Party . . . have in any way troubled themselves to interfere with your progress in the north. Mr. Sutherland got Michael Davitt to accompany him there, but I am not aware that the Irish Party, as a party, had anything whatever to do with Mr. Davitt’s tour’.71 It is itself surprising that an Inverness Courier correspondent wrote that the people were ‘surprised to see Mr. Sutherland stomping around the country’ with Michael Davitt.72 Not only would Angus Sutherland have railed against Chamberlain’s unionist philosophy, and fully supported the boost Davitt could give to the anti-landlord movement in the Highlands, he had a very personal reason to counter Chamberlain and his followers. Reports indicated that Chamberlain was determined that his own nominees should fight the seats currently held by Clark, MacDonald, and Sutherland at his own expense.73 Davitt arrived at Wick on the evening of the 23 April, and the visit aroused a great deal of interest in Ireland. In contrast to the 1870s, when it praised the benevolence and rationality of the Sutherland estate, the Freeman’s Journal explained in some detail the history of the clearances, linking them to the contemporary agitation.74 The tour saw a constant assault on Chamberlain’s personality and politics, with the Local Board scheme condemned as typical of ‘England’s perfidious policy – to divide and conquer. If Scotland and Ireland became split up into rival parts, it would be an easy matter for Brummagem statesmen, Tory landlords and London soapboilers to stamp out our natural rights as men, and stamp out the national aspirations of Scotland and Ireland . . .’75 The land nationalisation and anti-emigration theme remained prominent throughout Davitt’s visit, sometimes presented, as above, in terms 70

71 72 73 74 75

Garvin, Life of Joseph Chamberlain, ii, 308; MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 181; Howard, Joseph Chamberlain: A Political Memoir, 270. Highland News, 28 May 1887. Inverness Courier, 10 May 1887. Scottish Highlander, 12 May 1887; Glasgow Observer, 14 May 1887. TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS 9612 f.14v.; Freeman’s Journal, 26 Apr. 1887. Scottish Highlander, 5 May 1887; Glasgow Observer, 7 May 1887; Freeman’s Journal, 3 May 1887; Invergordon Times, 28 Apr. 1887; John O’Groat Journal, 27 Apr. 1887.

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specific to the locality involved, and sometimes in generalities.76 The Northern Chronicle mocked their efforts to imbue the principles of Henry George into the crofters: Michael Davitt and his showman advocate nationalisation of the land. They give themselves wide speculative scope, like wise professionals whose profitable vocation consists in keeping up perpetual discontent and always being Adullamite leaders. But do the applauding crofters and fisher lads know what nationalisation of the land means? Mr. George does not understand all it means himself.77 Davitt’s wish, as he expressed it to the Invergordon crofters, was for the ‘Straths and glens and mountains to re-echo to the slogan “Land for the People’’’, and Angus Sutherland boasted at Dingwall of the how the Highlanders kept ‘the bible and Progress and Poverty in close proximity on their bookshelf’.78 His gratitude for the ‘warm Highland welcome’ Davitt expressed at every meeting, usually on behalf of the whole Irish nation. He told his audience at Wick that the hearty support received from the north of Scotland would drive on the land reformers and home rulers back in Ireland, as well as promising the ‘generous and unstinting support of eightysix Irish representatives for any measure that might be introduced in parliament for their [the crofters’] condition’.79 At Bonar Bridge he backed this up by hoping that the ‘Celts of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales would soon succeed in completing the overthrow of landlordism’.80 In the midst of rhetoric which emphasised the common cultural heritage of the Highland and Irish Gaels, and their shared struggle for the land, Davitt’s first trip to Skye seemed to leave him with the impression that there was no strong desire on the part of the local crofters to go beyond the 1886 Act: I am disappointed in the Skye people. They appear to me to be a mean and cowardly crowd, who will take any one or any party up from whom they may get something. They have neither the pluck nor the intelligence of the Crofters on the east coast. They are full of rotten Bible prejudices . . . Chamberlain has captured them beyond a doubt. I am not going to trouble myself much about them while here. If they obtain a 30% reduction from the Crofter Commissioners you will here no more of agitations on Skye.81 If general Highland support for the policies of the SLRL seemed to be further away than ever, Davitt’s visit did demonstrate that support for home 76 77 78 79 80 81

Scottish Leader, 28 Apr. 1887; Scottish Highlander, 5 May 1887. Northern Chronicle, 4 May 1887. Scottish Highlander, 5 May 1887. Scottish Highlander, 28 Apr. 1887. Scottish Highlander, 5 May 1887. Ó Catháin, ‘Michael Davitt and Scotland’, 24.

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rule in the region was no longer the preserve of eccentric radicals. Resolutions passed at the meetings that the local HLL branches were in favour of uniting the Irish land and national question with their own concerns.82 The crofter representatives at Skye welcomed Davitt, the ‘martyr patriot of Ireland’ as a ‘harbinger of a bright day for the sea-divided Gael’, before resolving that ‘we deeply sympathise with our long suffering and much enduring brethren in Ireland’. Arthur Balfour’s shuffle from Scottish to Irish Secretary in March 1887 allowed Davitt to link events such as the Tiree expeditions directly to the current coercion in Ireland, and as a local landlord – Davitt’s train travelled through his Strathconon estate en route from Dingwall to Strome – Balfour could also be included in the general anti-landlord tone of the speeches.83 This rhetoric can also be linked in with the temporary flowering of a panCeltic consciousness after Bonar Bridge, and the Glasgow Observer’s comments about the ongoing land agitation in Wales echoed its Highland coverage, claiming that ‘the Welsh are a peaceful folk enough, but when Taffy is roused his ire knows no bounds’.84 Likewise, the anarchist journal Freedom proclaimed ‘all honour to the heroic Kelts of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, who are leading the land war, and setting at naught that bogey of law which is the formulated injustice of society’.85 It is clear that this tour had finally convinced large sections of the Irish press that the Scottish Highlands were supportive of Irish political aspirations, although the value of this support was questioned.86 Despite the often effusive rhetoric, there never seems to have been any real prospect of Davitt being offered the chance to fight for a Highland constituency in Parliament as has been claimed.87 The symbolic importance of the tour was widely recognised. Irish America, through the pages of the Irish World, celebrated the fact that Davitt’s ‘recent tour of the Scottish Highlands was everywhere received with an enthusiasm that could not be excelled even in his own county of Mayo’.88 In Mayo itself, members of the INL were monitoring his progress around Scotland. An address to Davitt from the county claimed that: the great accession of democratic sympathy which the Irish cause has gained in England and Wales is also largely traceable to your indefatigable exertions in these countries. We also allude with pleasure to your recent triumphant march through Scotland bearing aloft the ‘fiery cross’ of truth and justice, dispelling the clouds of prejudice, scaring 82 83 84 85 86

87 88

Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 273. Scotsman, 15 Mar. 1887; Scottish Highlander, 5 May, 12 May 1887. Glasgow Observer, 11 Jun. 1887. Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Jul. 1887. Glasgow Observer, 7 May, 14 May 1887; Scottish Leader, 9 May 1887; Hunter, ‘Gaelic connection’, 187; Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 275. Hunter, ‘Gaelic connection’, 187–8; Gallagher, Glasgow: The Uneasy Peace, 67. Irish World, 14 May 1887.

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and banishing the wolf of calumny and winning for Ireland the sterling support of the Highland crofters and of all foes of oppression . . .89 Following Davitt’s well-received appearance in Portree, the tour ended in a contretemps between Sutherland and the crofter representatives of Lewis, which led to Davitt staying on board The Clansman at Stornoway harbour rather than giving a speech in the Outer Hebrides’ largest town.90 The ensuing debate about the causes of the Stornoway debacle, and complaints that the tour had been an ego-trip for Angus Sutherland, bypassing the major centres of Inverness, Beauly, and Oban, highlighted sharp divisions in the Highland reform movement over both land policy and home rule.91 In fact, Oban had been part of the itinerary but a late arrival put paid, temporarily, to Davitt’s plans to speak in the town.92 The major event in Davitt’s life between leaving Oban in May and returning in July had been witnessing evictions at Bodyke, Co. Clare, in June 1887.93 Having been evicted as a boy from the family holding in Straide, seeing families in a similar situation some four decades later deepened further his feelings of antipathy towards landlordism.94 In contrast to 1882, however, by 1887 there were plenty of newspapers ready to praise Davitt’s actions, and condemn not only the Bodyke landlords, but landlordism in general.95 The chairman, Duncan Cameron, editor of the Oban Times, prefaced this speech by backing both Irish home rule and also similar measures for Scotland. Cameron claimed that: Highlanders owe a great deal to Ireland, and to Mr. Davitt, who was the Father of the Land League. Had it not been for the firm stand made by the Irish people, the question of land law reform in the Highlands would never have come to so successful an issue. Davitt, in turn, appealed for the support of the Scottish people for his revised call for ‘rational resistance’. In many respects, Davitt’s visit proved a high-water mark for the radicalism of the Oban Times, and the paper’s writing subsequently reflected the general feelings of those in the Highlands, rather than the urban agitators who contributed to its columns. In 1888, it was described as ‘a paper which for radical and socialist views was worse than any nationalist paper in 89

90

91 92 93 94

95

Straide, Co. Mayo, Michael Davitt Memorial Museum. F. Hannon to M. Davitt, 22 May 1887. (facsimile). For a full discussion of the Stornoway incident, see Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 278–83. Scottish Highlander, 12 May 1887. Oban Times, 14 May 1887. North British Daily Mail, 13 Jun. 1887; Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 547. Freeman’s Journal, 3 Jun. 1887; The Times, 4 Jun. 1887, 11 Jun. 1887; Scotsman, 4 Jun. 1887; Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 547. Christian Socialist, Jul. 1887; Glasgow Observer, 11 Jun., 18 Jun. 30 Jul. 1887.

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Ireland’, but as land and home rule issues faded in the Highlands in the 1890s, radicals in Argyllshire began to talk of the paper’s ‘apostasy’.96 After Oban, he headed for Glasgow and Dumfries to proclaim that passive resistance must give way to ‘rational resistance’.97 Sutherland, Davitt, and Cruickshank then accompanied John Ferguson at a miners’ meeting in Kirkintilloch, where Sutherland condemned the ‘the present social arrangements by which the wages of such necessary and useful labour of miners are only 14 s. per week, while a man who does no service to society, such as feudal owners of land and mines, are in receipt of £150,000’. The invidious position in which Davitt found himself in 1887 – a link between Parnellites who could see no value in the developing labour movement, and radicals who deprecated the narrow nationalism of the Irish parliamentarians – continued for several years. The contempt with which this ‘left-wing’ was held by the ‘mainstream’ nationalists is encapsulated in a quotation from the Catholic Herald in 1887, which wrote patronisingly of Davitt, ‘Poor Michael, since the Irish nationalists of the genuine type found it necessary to cut his company, he has been wondering in the mazes of political error’.98 Sutherland’s political journey seemed to be taking him in an opposite direction, but although his involvement with the SLRL undoubtedly lapsed, even as late as winter 1888 he was being mooted as the likely chairman for Henry George’s upcoming Glasgow speech.99 His increasing stature within Gladstonian liberalism was confirmed by his involvement at official functions and on several Liberal committees.100 * In August 1887, Angus Sutherland visited Dublin as part of a delegation of radical M.P.s. Despite his close association with the Glasgow Irish community, this was apparently Sutherland’s first trip to Ireland, and his arrival coincided with the proclamation of the INL by the Government.101 Although this was only a brief visit, Sutherland returned to Ireland just a month later as part of another group of ‘English’ M.P.s. Sutherland and his colleagues arrived in Dublin on the night of 22 October. They were met at Amiens St. Station by a high-powered reception committee including ten Irish M.P.s, notably John Dillon and William O’Brien. After proceeding to their hotel, the Imperial on Sackville Street, 96 97

98 99 100

101

Newby, ‘The Oban Times and the early land agitation’, 13; Highland News, 15 Aug. 1903. TCD, Davitt Papers, TCD MS9612, f.35v.; Dumfries and Galloway Standard, 9 Jul. 1887; Glasgow Observer, 9 Jul. 1887. Quoted in Glasgow Observer, 28 May 1887, emphasis in original. Highland News, 24 Nov. 1888. Hansard, 3rd ser., cccviii, 1479 (7 Sep. 1886); 3rd ser., cccxi, 171 (21 Feb. 1887), 1568 (8 Mar. 1887); 3rd ser., cccxiii, 1113 (18 Apr. 1887); 3rd ser., cccxxiv, 717 (9 Apr. 1888); Highland News, 5 Mar., 12 Mar. 1887. Highland News, 23 Jul., 13 Aug. 1887. Highland News, 27 Aug. 1887.

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several speeches were given from the balcony. Angus Sutherland, following Gilbert Beith, was introduced as a representative of the ‘Scottish crofters’.102 Given such an opportunity, Sutherland attacked Joseph Chamberlain and stressed Scottish support for home rule: He said that they had come to Ireland in an open, straightforward manner. They were not ashamed, nor were they afraid to come to Dublin; and that was the difference between them and certain other political acrobats whom he knew. The Scotch crofters and the Irish had a greater community than that of race, or blood; and that was the community of misfortune. He was not proud of his countryman, Mr. Balfour. He was a Scotsman, but he had been unable to find a constituency in Scotland. But if Scotland was supplying the poison, Scotland was also providing the antidote in the person of Mr. Gladstone. They intended to see for themselves the state of Ireland, and the branches of the National League would afford them facilities for getting that information. He hoped that this was not the last occasion on which they would meet. Sutherland’s standing within the Glasgow Irish community had been high for many years, and he had forged links with Irish Nationalist M.P.s since 1886. Davitt’s tour of the Highlands raised Sutherland’s profile in Ireland, and the reception afforded him by the Nationalists of Dundalk underlines the fact that he was known, by this time, as a home ruler first and a land reformer second: We avail ourselves of this opportunity, which your passing through our town affords us, to offer you and your countrymen our heartfelt thanks for the services you have rendered and are rendering to the cause of Ireland. The support afforded by you and your colleagues to Mr. Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill, and your persistent opposition to the brutal policy of coercion, place the Irish people under obligations that they can never hope to adequately discharge. At the present time, at all events, they can only tender you the expression of gratitude with which their hearts are filled. We confidently look forward to the not distant day when the representatives and justice loving people of Scotland and England will hurl the present government from office, overthrow the infamous, iniquitous system under which our country is now ruled, and 102

Highland News, 29 Oct. 1887; Scotsman, 24 Oct. 1887. Gilbert Beith was born in Kilbrandon, Argyllshire in 1827, the son of a Free Church minister. An advanced Liberal, he advocated home rule and was a loyal supporter of Gladstone’s policies, especially regarding disestablishment in Scotland. He was also a high ranking, if honorary, member of the Edinburgh HLLRA. Beith sat for the Central Division of Glasgow from November 1885 until July 1886. He then returned to Parliament for Inverness Burghs in 1892 and sat until his retirement in 1895. M. Stenton and J. Lees (eds), Who’s Who of British Members of Parliament, Vol. 2, 29; Northern Chronicle, 12 Mar. 1884; G. Beith, The Crofter Question and Church Endowments in the Highlands, viewed Politically and Socially (Glasgow, 1884).

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restore to Irishmen the right to make and administer their laws in their own country. When that blessed day arrives a real union will be established between the people of the three kingdoms, a union not brought about by fraud and corruption like that of 1800, but one based on justice and calculated to bring peace and happiness for the Scottish, English and Irish people.103 Therefore, the reputation which Sutherland had built up in Scotland, amidst much resentment of his links with Ireland, afforded him the opportunity to reinforce those links among the Irish themselves. Ironically, after years of opposition to the presence of ‘Irish agitators’ in Scotland, it seems that Scottish ‘home rule agitators’ in Ireland could also provoke indignation among some Ulster Protestants.104 * As Sutherland spent more time in his constituency and on official Liberal business, the radicals of the HGB in Glasgow continued to address both Irish and broader social issues, with the crofters a recurrent theme alongside miners and other labourers.105 For most of the Glasgow radicals the broad labour question, rather than any notions of Celtic solidarity, was becoming all-consuming. The link was again recognised by J. A. Froude, who claimed that the ‘agitation against rent in Ireland will develop and spread to London, Newcastle and all other towns, where the owners of house property will yet be made to shake in their shoes. That is certainly what the socialists believe . . .’106 In 1887, miners’ agent and journalist James Keir Hardie had announced that the miners were prepared to begin their own political organisation, and in 1888 a by-election in Mid-Lanark meant that he would have the chance to stand against the Liberals and Conservatives as an independent ‘Labour’ candidate.107 As in 1885, the officials of the Irish Parliamentary Party rejected any suggestion of supporting the labour interest, and demanded a strong vote for the Liberals, who still promised home rule on their return to power. Concomitantly, the Irish vote largely went to John Wynford Philipps, the Liberal candidate. Morgan has argued that ‘even if all of the Irish had voted for him he still would have come in third’, but Hardie himself made a great effort to win Irish support in Mid-Lanark, and he did this through the HGB.108 Reflecting the European phenomenon of socialism fusing with nationalism, Hardie claimed, at this stage, that the interests 103 104 105 106 107 108

Highland News, 5 Nov. 1887. Scotsman, 29 Oct. 1887. Scotsman, 5 Dec. 1887. Glasgow Observer, 3 Dec. 1887. K. O. Morgan, Keir Hardie: Radical and Socialist (London, 1975), 27–43. Morgan, Keir Hardie, 27.

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of Ireland and Labour were one, and that he would vote with the Irish members on Irish issues even if they were against the Liberals.109 At a meeting of the HGB soon after the election, Hardie’s letter thanking the branch was read out, and Edward McHugh moved a resolution condemning United Ireland’s advocacy of Philipps and thanking those electors who voted for Hardie in Mid-Lanark. Even the members of the HGB were not receptive to this proposal, however, and a direct negative to McHugh’s resolution was moved and carried by four votes.110 Hardie’s words in the letter which the branch heard that night expressed something of how the radicals viewed the relationship between labour and home rule: They [members of the HGB who voted Labour] have proved themselves genuine friends of Ireland by endeavouring to make friends between the democracies of the two countries, as only thus is Home Rule possible. They have also shown that with them, Home Rule means more than a bit of sentiment, that it is after all only a means to an end – the end being the amelioration of the lot of the common people . . . Probably your countrymen at home may then learn who were their real friends in the Mid Lanark contest – the Home Government Branch or the Official Leaders.111 The activities of the HGB, likewise, continued to focus much more on labour than nationalism.112 In addressing a crowd in Toome, Co. Antrim two of the HGB’s leaders, Ferguson and McGhee, claimed that the time for discussing Ireland’s nationhood had passed, implying the inevitability of the ‘old green flag of the nation’ once again flying ‘over the old house on College Green’. It was the subsequent development of a self-governing nation, they claimed, which should be the main concern, and that inevitably involved ‘making the state the owner of the land, to whom the economic rent of should be paid in the form of taxes . . . the land tax would relieve the burden of the people who were at present bowed down by taxation . . .’113 Back in Glasgow, Ferguson chaired the St. Patrick’s Day speech in 1888, and was accompanied by Davitt and R. B. Cunninghame Graham.114 The chairman’s address illustrated how far these men had diverged from 109

110

111 112 113 114

NLS, MSS 1809, f.71, Keir Hardie to Secretary, Home Government Branch, 24 Mar. 1888; S. Berger, ‘British and German socialists between class and national solidarity’, in S. Berger and A. Smith (eds), Nationalism, Labour and Ethnicity 1870–1939 (Manchester, 1999), 42–3. Glasgow Observer, 19 May 1888; NLS, MSS 1809, f.72, Keir Hardie to Secretary, Home Government Branch, 8 Apr. 1888. NLS, MSS 1809, f.72, Keir Hardie to Secretary, Home Government Branch, 11 May 1888. Glasgow Observer, 11 Feb. 1888. Glasgow Observer, 18 Feb. 1888. Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 298.

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mainstream nationalism, when he stated that ‘St. Patrick was a social reformer. He came to Ireland not to establish a nationality – there was a nation there when he came.’115 Although home rule and coercion dominated the early parts of his keynote speech, Davitt asserted that: the second article of faith in our national political creed is clear and unmistakable. We demand the land of Ireland for the people of Ireland. We will have no peddling with this great social question . . . this Irish movement had precipitated a social as well as a political issue in the three countries . . . Does the Lanarkshire miner, who risks life and limb every day for a few shillings, get as fair or just a reward as does the nobleman who walks off with £100,000 a year without soiling a finger or risking a single hair of his ducal head?116 The actions of the HGB underline how the early involvement of its members in the Highland land agitation was a social quest, not an attempt to further Irish nationalism, and that it was only a rural manifestation of a general land problem. The formation of the Scottish Labour Party (SLP) in the summer of 1888, it has been noted, ‘was one of many organisational experiments which took place in labour politics in the period’.117 Although not without ideological problems for the radical home rulers, many of whom refused to accept the SLP as a final break from the Liberals, they increasingly came to be viewed as pariahs among the Glasgow Irish for their advocacy of labour, either through the single tax, or through socialism.118 Manifestations of potentially violent agitation among the crofters persisted. Sutherlandshire witnessed deforcements at Clashmore, and on Lewis there were riots at Aignish and deer raids at Park, all of which were well covered in the Glasgow Observer in 1887 and 1888 as a Scottish offshoot of the ‘Plan of Campaign’.119 These events, however, flared up as a result of particular local grievances, generally disputes over grazing land, and in spite of lukewarm attempts to appropriate them for various causes, had little impact on the continuing land reform debates.120 * The way in which home rule had supplanted land as the major issue in the Highlands was highlighted by two major speeches in Inverness in 1887 and 1888. That two of the most prominent Irish Nationalist Parliamentarians of the 1880s – John Dillon and T. P. O’Connor – should travel to Inverness in order to advocate home rule indicates that the Highlands was considered 115 116 117 118 119 120

Glasgow Observer, 24 Mar. 1888. Glasgow Observer, 24 Mar. 1888. McFarland, John Ferguson, 204. F. Reid, Keir Hardie: The Making of a Socialist (London, 1978), 102–26. Glasgow Observer, 14 Jan., 21 Jan., 28 Jan., 3 Mar. 1888. MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 127–45, 201–10.

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an important political battleground and not peripheral to mainstream British politics. The absence of any references to the Highlands, or the land issue, in the speeches – in marked contrast to earlier speeches by Irishmen in Scotland – is once more suggestive of a shift in political focus. Dillon and O’Connor were both concerned with a single issue, and made little attempt to tailor their speeches to a local audience. Although Sutherland and O’Connor had been acquainted since the Parnell’s Glasgow speech in 1881, Dillon had not shown any interest in the Highland land question prior to this visit. Through parliamentary contacts with the Irish Party, Angus Sutherland claimed a reasonably close friendship with Dillon.121 The Inverness Music Hall was packed for Dillon’s speech, with hundreds unable to gain admission.122 At the very outset of the evening, these representatives of the Sutherlandshire Association presented Dillon with an address which underlined the call for a ‘closer and more real union of the hearts and minds of the people of Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland’. As Sutherland had generally attacked local landlords for their policies in the Highlands, the pointed references to ‘English laws’ and ‘English landlordism’ contained in the address was notable in that he was using the language of Irish nationalism over analysis of the land agitation. Dillon’s speech itself was concerned entirely with Ireland, and, in the words of the Highland News editorial, exposed the ‘utter hollowness of the Liberal Unionist and Tory case’. Amidst fierce criticism of Liberal Unionism, and statistics showing rural depopulation in Ireland and details of government coercion, Dillon received a rousing reception from the Inverness crowd. Nowhere, though, did he make any references to Highland support. Other than the opening address, however, the main assertions of Highland support for Irish self-determination came from Highlanders: the Free Church minister, Revd Dr. Mactavish, and Angus Sutherland himself. Mactavish announced that he had long been a home ruler: He wanted Home Rule for Scotland many years ago. He was not particular which country got it first, but in the meantime the Irish question blocked the way; and he thought that it was in their own interest that they should have the land question settled speedily and satisfactorily . . . If there was any proposal made that would tend to the disintegration of the Empire – that it would separate Ireland from this country – he would oppose it to the utmost of his power.123 This rather reiterated the rhetoric shown by many home rule supporters, including Angus Sutherland, prior to the 1885 election, that Irish home 121

122 123

Glasgow Observer, 7 Jul. 1888. Sutherland was also a vice-president of the Tradeston (John Dillon) Branch of the Irish National League. Highland News, 19 Nov. 1887. See also E. Cameron, ‘Minister was a blunt instrument of God’, Inverness Courier, 5 Jan. 1999.

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rule would be the only way of strengthening the union, rather than destroying it.124 Although the Sutherlandshire crofters had already developed a strong sympathy for the Irish cause, Dillon’s speech in particular made a further impression on the area. His subsequent imprisonment in April 1888 instigated a cult of Dillon not only in Ireland, and among Irish abroad, but also among Scottish home rulers and radicals.125 After the death of John Mandeville, a leading Co. Cork agitator, in prison under the Coercion Act, A. J. Balfour was wary of creating any more martyrs. With a notoriously weak constitution, many supporters of the Irish cause emphasised the possibility that Dillon would die in jail, hoping to precipitate his release.126 At Lord Rosebery’s keynote address in Inverness, June 1888, Sutherland supported a resolution calling for Dillon’s release.127 Local branches of the Sutherlandshire Association, from Cape Wrath to Clyne, passed resolutions in support of Dillon, home rule and the ‘Plan of Campaign’.128 T. P. O’Connor travelled to Inverness a year after Dillon. The meeting, in the Assembly Hall, was chaired by Sutherland, who took the opportunity to give a very long opening speech. Met by a ‘tremendous outburst of cheering’, Sutherland expressed a wish to expose the ‘Irish policy of the present Government’.129 Although not referring to landlordism, some of Sutherland’s early rhetoric managed to come through, referring to the legal issues surrounding constitutional rearrangement, and exhorting the Government to listen to the ‘people of England, Scotland and Wales’, who were ‘decidedly of the opinion that the present relations of Great Britain and Ireland should be altered’. He also identified an historical demand for home rule in Scotland, claiming that: what the Covenanters then fought for was freedom from London rule which was being forced upon them. They took up such weapons as they could lay their hands on, and placed their backs against the eternal mountains of their native land, and they conquered.130 124 125

126

127 128

129 130

Highland News 19 Nov. 1887. Glasgow Observer, 21 Apr. 1888 for arrest of Dillon and O’Brien. See especially the remarkable speech made by Revd David Macrae, Glasgow Observer, 18 Aug. 1888, where he sang a song to Dillon to the tune of ‘John Brown’s Body’. Glasgow Observer, 11 Aug. 1888. For Mandeville, see Donnelly Jr., Land and People of Nineteenth Century Cork, 343–7; Warwick-Haller, William O’Brien and the Irish Land War, 108–110. Highland News, 16 Jun. 1888. Highland News, 14 May, 11 Jun. 1887, 21 Jul., 28 Jul., 15 Sep. 1888; John O’Groat Journal, 15 Jun., 29 Jun. 1887. Highland News, 6 Oct. 1888. Finlay notes that, in 1888, the 250th Anniversary of the National Covenant, ‘the whole of Scotland was awash with celebrations’. R. Finlay, ‘Heroes, myths and anniversaries in modern Scotland’, in Scottish Affairs, xviii (1997), 108.

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O’Connor also contented himself with attacking Tory and Liberal Unionist policy in Ireland, and did not refer to Scotland. Indeed, his only concession to the audience was a reference to the ‘Scotch brethren’ of the Irish people, who contributed more than their fair proportion in building up the British Empire. The land question was, by this time, truly subservient to considerations of home rule in the national consciousness. When Parnell spoke in Edinburgh in July 1889 in response to his being granted the freedom of the city, the Sutherlandshire Association was again in attendance.131 While there were over 150 addresses presented to Parnell on this occasion, the one presented by the Sutherlandshire Association was notable for its powerful assertion of Gaelic co-operation: It is highly appropriate that the GAEL OF SCOTLAND should sympathise with the GAEL OF IRELAND, two tribes which sprung from the same stock, and which are still in great measure one in language and in those native and national aspirations so long suppressed by the oppressive treatment of their rulers . . . This type of rhetoric was seen throughout the event, reaching its apogee in the singing of an amended version of Scots Wha Hae, now proclaiming ‘Scots Wha Hae wi’ Gladstone Fought!’132 Outside of such emotionally charged events, though, Parnell’s attitude to Scottish home rule was, even in the most optimistic assessment, ambivalent, and encapsulated in the alleged statement that ‘Scotland has ceased to be a nation’.133 As a result of this attitude, the SHRA had protested to Parnell in strong terms in 1888 over his stance during the Mid-Lanark contest, worried that ‘Irishmen did not care one pin-point for Scotch national feeling’.134 The address to Parnell from the SLRL stood out amidst the obsequiousness, with its usual uncompromising message: In later times, induced by your party politics and the idea of obtaining Home Rule from one or other of the two great parties that hitherto have controlled this Empire, you gave our ‘Social Reform’ some serious and most ungrateful blows. We hold that this was an error even in your party politics. It was the Democracy that compelled the Liberal Party to take a wise relation towards Ireland. It is the Democracy that will compel the full measure of your just demand. But we are aware this will not be so apparent to you as it would be to a more democratic leader; therefore we have no fault to find with those acts of yours which were injurious to Scottish Land Restoration and to Scottish Home Rule. 131

132 133

134

Highland News, 17 Jul. 1889; A. C. I. Naylor, ‘Scottish Attitudes to Ireland, 1880–1914’, Ph.D. thesis (University of Edinburgh, 1981), 35–45. Naylor, ‘Scottish Attitudes to Ireland’, 38. ‘Home Rule for Scotland’, The Scots Magazine, vii (Jun.–Nov. 1891), 36–7; Hunter, ‘Gaelic connection’, 187. Glasgow Observer, 28 Apr. 1888.

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As men of principle we help all reformers, whether they help us or no . . .135 As with the speeches by Dillon and O’Connor, no mention was made of the Highlands, and yet these events were reported in the region in terms of the greatest importance. Many of those crofters in Sutherlandshire, Skye and elsewhere now felt intimately involved and united with the Irish smallholders not only over land reform, but also over home rule. Thus, the earlier ambition of William Carroll and some American Fenians that the Scottish Highlands could be won over to the Irish cause had, by a circuitous route, been partially realised. While the post-famine migration had helped to develop Irish communities in Britain with considerable political potential, the strong support for home rule from the Highlands, a region without any significant Irish migrant population, represented a significant propaganda success for Irish nationalism. Although Skye was seen to be pro-home rule, as were other districts in the Highlands, the crofters there did not have quite the focus and leadership of the Sutherlandshire crofters. The HLL was responsible for such a large area that it would be virtually impossible to find a policy which would be acceptable to everyone – even on the land issue alone. Within Sutherlandshire, it was much easier for Sutherland to carry the majority of his constituents, although even here support for the M.P. was not universal. Along with allegations of Government coercion, a second cause célèbre of the Irish movement at this time was the attack on ‘Parnellism’ by The Times newspaper. The Times had published a forged letter purporting to link Parnell with the Phoenix Park murders of 1882, leading to the establishment of a special investigation.136 In February 1889, under crossexamination, Richard Pigott confessed that the incriminating letters were forgeries and Parnell was vindicated.137 Bizarrely, Sutherlandshire also became implicated in the ‘Parnellism and Crime’ trial, after the appearance of a hoax letter implying the presence in Helmsdale of ‘two Irishmen’ with a connection to the murders of Burke and Cavendish.138 Angus Sutherland himself continued to champion the Irish cause, and his high profile in Glasgow increased still further as a result. At a large indignation meeting to protest against the imprisonment of David Sheehy, M.P. under the Criminal Law Amendment (Ireland) Act of 1887, accompanied by James Shaw Maxwell and David Macrae, Sutherland spoke strongly against the Government.139 His continued loyalty was recognised by the INL 135 136 137 138 139

Naylor, ‘Scottish Attitudes to Ireland’, 44. McFarland, John Ferguson, 210. Lyons, Charles Stewart Parnell, 420–2; Jackson, Home Rule, 72–4. Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 310–11. Glasgow Observer, 2 Feb. 1889. The Act is often known as the ‘Coercion Act’. Sheehy’s arrest in Glasgow was condemned by T. D. O’Sullivan, M.P., in a further home rule rally in Inverness, as ‘an insult to the Scottish people’. See Highland News, 2 Feb. 1889; Scotsman, 22 Jan. 1889.

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in the city. In addition to his Honorary Presidency of the Tradeston (John Dillon) Branch of the League, Sutherland was nominated to a similar position in the Anderston Branch.140 Although William O’Brien was elected, the fact that Sutherland was even considered – alongside fellow nominees O’Brien, Sheehy, and Revd James MacFadden of Gweedore, Co. Donegal, all of whom were in prison under the Coercion Act – shows the regard in which he was held as an ‘advanced nationalist’.141 The pro-Sutherland, pro-home rule stance of the Highland News, brought it into a certain amount of conflict with the other Inverness-based crofters’ paper, the Scottish Highlander. The Scottish Highlander, edited by Alexander MacKenzie, was as much in favour of Fraser Mackintosh, as the Highland News was for Sutherland.142 With Fraser Mackintosh – though not MacKenzie – taking a Unionist stance over Ireland, tension between the papers ran high, with the Scottish Highlander even taking to calling its rival the ‘Highland Nuisance’.143 Again, this is symptomatic of the divisions throughout the Highlands over the home rule issue, and these continued until after the 1892 General Election. * Adding to the atmosphere of division and tension among groups which had previously shown a united front, Henry George upset many allies, including Davitt, by attacking Social Democrats in the U.S.A.144 George’s 1889 tour of Scotland, it has been argued recently, ‘proved that whatever work [he] and his followers had done during the 1880s had been assimilated into the wider reform movement by the end of the decade’.145 His meeting in Edinburgh contained a blend of radical Liberals, trade unionists, and Scottish home rulers, and the memory of the American’s Irish tour in the early 1880s still allowed opponents to make simplistic links with Parnell.146 The location of the ‘Crofters’ War’ within a much broader workers’ agitation in Scotland, and perhaps a recognition of the Highlands’ continued reluctance to embrace land nationalisation, was confirmed in 1889 as two of the men most prominent in publicising the crofting agitation became 140 141 142 143 144

145

146

Glasgow Observer, 2 Mar. 1889. ‘Radical Unionist’, What Scotchmen Think of Socialistic Home Rulers (Dublin, 1888). Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh, 156. Scottish Highlander, 22 May 1892. The Times, 22 Nov. 1886; Christian Socialist, Sep. 1887; Glasgow Observer, 16 May 1888; Barker, Henry George, 471–2; Lawrence, Henry George in the British Isles, 63; Frame, ‘America and the Scottish Left’, 112; H. Schiffrin and P. K. Sohn, ‘Henry George on two continents: a comparative study in the diffusion of ideas’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, ii (1959), 94. Frame, ‘America and the Scottish Left’, 107; Lawrence, ‘Henry George’s British mission’, 241. Scotsman, 25 Apr., 27 Apr. 1889; The Standard (New York), 25 May 1889.

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leading lights in the phenomenon of ‘New Unionism’.147 Edward McHugh and Richard McGhee were invited by Keir Hardie and his fellow trade unionist, James Havelock Wilson, to become General Secretary and President, respectively, of the newly formed National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL).148 The recruitment of two of Henry George’s closest friends at the head of the new union was a considerable triumph for the Georgite movement. McHugh also stood as a ‘working man’s’ candidate in the Glasgow municipal elections, failing to take the thirteenth ward but winning the praise of Cunninghame Graham, who again demonstrated that conflicting social reform ideologies could co-exist, at least temporarily: I am glad to hear you are standing for the Council . . . your advocacy of the cause of the dockers, the crofters, of Home Rule for Ireland, and the eight-hour day should entitle you to the suffrage of those who live by labour . . . Needless to say I agree with it all, except in one point and that is the Single Tax. You know I am not a Georgite, but a Socialist; and I fear that your Single Tax would throw more power into the hands of the capitalists than they have at the present. My opinion of them is, as you know, that they are just as tyrannical as landlords, and ten times more hypocritical. Wishing you success in your venture, and hailing you as a sort of Columbus amongst the working class of Glasgow, I know that in your first voyage on the seas of labour politics you will find your Indies.149 The ideological differences between Georgism and socialism seem to have been quite clear when set out in debates or on paper, but in the practical application of these doctrines it was still possible to confuse the two, and it was not at all clear to outsiders where the sympathies of McHugh and McGhee lay. Indeed, even Henry George expressed the fear that his allies had become socialists, perhaps as a result of McGhee’s dalliance with the Knights of Labor.150 Although the lines of tension between Georgites and socialists were becoming more apparent, the two groups were still perfectly capable of working together for radical reform. Henry George himself, in 1890, referred to Keir Hardie as ‘one of our most effective workers’, showing the blurred distinctions between the groups.151 During 147

148

149 150

151

J. Havelock Wilson, My Stormy Voyage Through Life (London, 1925), 132–9; W. Kenefick, ‘Rebellious and Contrary’: The Glasgow Dockers, c. 1853–1932 (East Linton, 2000), 192; Newby, Life and Times of Edward McHugh, 88–112; J. W. Boyle, The Irish Labour Movement in the Nineteenth Century (Washington D.C., 1988), 108. E. L. Taplin, ‘Irish leaders and the Liverpool dockers: Richard McGhee and Edward McHugh’, North West Labour History Society Bulletin, ix (1983–4), 38; E. L. Taplin, Liverpool Dockers and Seamen, 1870–1890 (Hull, 1974), 81. Evening Times (Glasgow), 31 Oct. 1889; Newby, Life and Times of Edward McHugh, 108–9. NYPL, George Papers, reel 5: George to Henry George Jr., 22 May 1891; H. Pelling, ‘The Knights of Labor in Britain, 1880–1901’, Economic History Review, New Ser., ix (1956), 322. The Standard (New York), 1 Jun. 1889; J. Rae, Contemporary Socialism (London, 1884), vi; K. Coates and T. Topham, The Making of the Transport and General Workers’ Union: (i) The Emergence of the Labour Movement, 1870–1922, 2 vols (Oxford, 1991), i, 110.

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the spring and summer of 1889, speakers including Cunninghame Graham, Prince Kropotkin, and Shaw Maxwell were invited to address the HGB, and Henry George’s own newspaper featured a spirited debate between himself and Cunninghame Graham over the relative merits of the doctrines.152 Still nominally an Irish body, the main debate in the branch was over the best method of superseding peasant proprietorship – land restoration or communalisation of both land and capital – and the Parnellites were condemned in strong terms for their own timid solutions to the land question: ‘they desired to abolish the present landlord system and for what? To establish a greedy, avaricious, and reactionary class, who through time would prove as big a curse’.153 In the hope of clarifying some of the main issues, Glasier addressed the Scottish Socialist Federation on ‘Irish Nationalists, Radicals, and Socialists: Where they agree and where they differ’.154 Michael Davitt’s short-lived newspaper, the Labour World gave support to the crofters as part of a general workers’ agitation, and Davitt himself sent money to support the Park Deer Raiders in 1888, but the nation wide demands of a labour movement meant that fewer agitators were able to focus on the Highlands as clearly as they had in the early 1880s.155 George himself gave several ‘sermons’ in Glasgow, some of which were later published in pamphlet form by the SLRL, and at a packed Temperance Institute, Bridgeton, he expressed the feeling that ‘being in Bridgeton is like being in the house of my friends’.156 He was delighted with the general response and the progress of radicalism in Scotland.157 While the Georgites among the Glasgow Irish had been marginalised, not least by the increasing antipathy shown towards them by the Glasgow Observer, they continued to speak out for their beliefs: The Home Government Branch of the Irish National League has in its time cut some strange capers. Its reputation for doing queer things should possibly protect it from the criticism which would apply to utterances or acts as a body composed of ordinarily sane men, and in treating it as being so composed we are perhaps laudably magnanimous, but rather unwise.158 It was hoped that George’s tour of the industrial lowlands would 152

153 154 155 156

157

158

Glasgow Observer, 16 Mar., 30 Mar., 20 Apr., 8 Jun. 1889; The Standard (New York), 22 Jun. 1889. Glasgow Observer, 11 May 1889. Scottish Leader, 7 Oct. 1889. TCD MS 9545, 14 Jan. 1888; Labour World, 27 Sep., 18 Oct. 1890. H. George, The Single Tax Faith (Glasgow, 1889). See also A Sermon by Henry George in The City Hall, Glasgow, on Sunday 28th April, 1889 (Glasgow, 1889). The Standard (New York), 11 May. 1889; Barker, Henry George, 529–31; George Jr., Life of Henry George, 518. Glasgow Observer, 14 Dec. 1889; T. W. Heyck, ‘Home rule, radicalism and the Liberal Party, 1886–1895’, The Journal of British Studies, xii (1974), 67–8.

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win groups of miners over to the cause by exposing the amount of money landlords made through royalties on the backs of the workers. The Labour movement had already begun to crystallise its ideals along the lines of socialism, rather than Georgism, and so the hopes were not to be fulfilled.159 Nevertheless, Glasgow remained a shining beacon to Georgites all over the world, especially after John Ferguson’s election to the Council on a land value taxation programme in 1893.160 George was also satisfied that trades unionism had sound local leaders in McHugh and McGhee, writing that ‘wherever McGhee or McHugh have taken a hand in organising working men the Single Tax seed is sown’.161 George’s disciples in Glasgow were by this stage firmly embedded on the radical wing of the Liberal Party, albeit with relatively frequent interaction with the fledgling SLP.162 The Scottish Liberal Association included men like Angus Sutherland and John Ferguson who, along with fundamentalist single-taxers like David McLardy and J. M. Cruickshank, managed to pass regular resolutions along Georgite lines.163 * If the Glasgow radicals became increasingly involved in urban affairs and municipal politics in the 1890s, Sutherland and MacLeod continued their work in Sutherlandshire. The HLL was already being dismissed in some quarters, with the Tory Oban Telegraph writing that: Very little is now heard of Land Leaguism: this was to be expected. Nothing violent can possibly last long. It is now very generally agreed that the people did not benefit by the agitation . . . during the years the land league agitators and their dupes were dreaming of the good times that were fast approaching them, they sadly neglected their work . . . The Land League has greatly enriched some merchants; it has given a great deal of notoriety to some very obscure and insignificant persons; it has sent men to parliament who would be much better employed elsewhere; it has provided sumptuous dinners and fulsome flattery for some of the sheerest ignoramuses the Highlands can produce; it provides travelling expenses for a number of busybodies who went around the Highlands and Islands doing nothing better than misrepresenting everything they had seen or heard; it helped to send to prison a number of guileless people who, if left alone, would never have transgressed the law of the land; and it opened an impassable gulf between 159 160 161 162 163

Frame, ‘America and the Scottish Left’, 114; Webb, Socialism in England, 7, 30. McFarland, John Ferguson, 247–9. The Standard (New York), 1 Jun. 1890. Frame, ‘America and the Scottish Left’, 107. NLS, Acc. 11765/2, ‘Scottish Liberal Association, Minute Books, 1881–1893’, 127–31, 143–4, 151–2 (SLA meetings of 22 Oct. 1889, 22 Nov. 1889, 8 Oct. 1891, 5 Apr. 1893).

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people who used to be on the best terms. Any good it may have done can scarcely be counterbalanced by the evil.164 Angus Sutherland’s continuing efforts to hone organisation in Sutherlandshire ensured that ‘Land Leaguism’ was to be a major force in the 1890 County Council elections, the first to be held under a new ‘democratic’ franchise.165 These elections marked a further assertion of an independent political spirit in Sutherlandshire and other parts of the Highlands, and caused a huge amount of consternation among the local estate management.166 For the last ten weeks of 1889 Sutherland undertook yet another comprehensive tour of his constituency, organising the voters and stressing the importance of turning out for the ballot.167 Emboldened by their experiences in 1885 and 1886, and the promptings of Sutherland, MacLeod, and the Highland News, the ‘democracy’ of Sutherlandshire returned more councillors amenable to the Highland Land League, and home rule, than any of the other crofting counties.168 The years following the Bonar Bridge convention in 1886 witnessed fissures appearing in various parts of the Highland agitation: lack of consensus over home rule, or even the settlement of the land question, as well as issues like disestablishment and temperance, and the apparently overbearing London-based leadership threatened to submerge the movement.169 Ever since 1881, when he had been the prime mover in the politicisation of the FCS, Angus Sutherland courted controversy, and was a relatively easy target for those who accused him of self-promotion and attempting to foist his radicalism on less advanced crofters. This provided the stimulus for the intervention of John Mackay on behalf of the marquis of Stafford in 1885, and for Mackay himself standing against Sutherland in 1892. Between these dates, however, Sutherland faced opposition from various quarters. As would be expected, he continued to be criticised by 164 165

166

167

168

169

Oban Telegraph, 29 Mar. 1889. Hansard, 3rd Ser., xxxcccviii, 171 (11 Jul. 1889), 299, 337 (12 Jul. 1889), 431ff. (15 Jul. 1889), 575 (16 Jul. 1889); Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh, 183–5; Cameron, ‘Communication or separation?’, 664. NLS, Acc. 10225 (Sutherland Papers), Policy Papers, 217, McIver to Wright, 26 Dec. 1889; Policy Papers, 217, McIver to Wright, 21 Jan. 1890. Cameron, Life and Times of Fraser Mackintosh, 183–5, has a preliminary discussion. Highland News, 26 Oct., 16 Nov., 7 Dec., 14 Dec., 21 Dec. 1889; NLS, Acc. 10225 (Sutherland Papers), Policy Papers, 217, McIver to Wright, 26 Nov. 1889. NLS, Acc. 10225 (Sutherland Papers), Factor’s Correspondence, 1486, Box to Duke of Sutherland, 4 Dec.1889; Factor’s Correspondence, 1963, McIver to Gordon, 7 Feb. 1890; NLS, Acc. 10225 (Sutherland Papers), Policy Papers, 217, McIver to Wright, 7 Feb. 1890. Delighted, the Highland News gave a glowing assessment: ‘Sutherland county is altogether democratic; Inverness-shire contains a substantial majority of Radicals and Land Reformers; Caithness and Ross have a small Liberal majority. Argyll – due to want of organisation and Tory representation in Parliament – is a landlord majority.’ Highland News, 15 Feb. 1890. Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh, 180.

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Unionist and Tory newspapers and politicians, but he also became the victim of a whispering campaign within the Sutherlandshire Association itself, emanating, ironically, from Glasgow.170 As irritating as this dissent was for Sutherland, it does not seem to have dented his standing within the constituency. Indeed, the self-confidence and self-reliance which the Sutherlandshire Association had developed reinforced Sutherland’s popularity. This gives further proof of the success Sutherland achieved in awakening the politically dormant Sutherlandshire crofters from his base in Glasgow, and within the space of five years having them so confident that they would resent attempts from the same city to influence them as ‘outside interference’. Although Fraser Mackintosh had voted against Irish home rule in 1886, leading to criticism from various quarters, he was still able to forge a common cause in Parliament with other Highland M.P.s on some issues. The sustained criticism of the M.P. for Inverness-shire in the Highland News from 1886 to 1892, however, was hardly calculated to ensure good relations between him and Sutherland.171 The Scottish Highlander retaliated by highlighting Sutherland’s lack of progress with regard to integrating the Sutherlandshire Association within the broader HLL.172 This tension was exacerbated in 1892 when MacLeod acted as election agent for Dr Donald Macgregor, Fraser Mackintosh’s opponent for the Inverness-shire seat, and it is notable that, at a meeting in Barra, MacLeod advocated an alliance of crofters, south of Scotland agricultural labourers, east-coast fishermen and Irish smallholders.173 The result was a demonisation of Sutherland’s ‘political factotum’ in the pages of the Scottish Highlander.174 After Macgregor had ousted Fraser Mackintosh from Parliament, there was unbounded gloating from the Highland News.175 As an enthusiastic home ruler, of course, this was one area in which Sutherland was sure to make enemies among Unionists. His popularity within Liberal circles ensured that this particular enmity transcended the Highlands, and indeed Scotland. His activity in Parliament, the Highland News boasted in 1892, caused him to be ‘cordially hated’ by the Unionists.176 Although his SLRL activity had lapsed by this stage, and he had no part in the agitation which led to the birth of the SLP in 1888, his identification with home rule politics still allowed Sutherland to be vilified as an extremist.177 170 171

172 173 174 175 176 177

Newby, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, 313–14. The Highland News was Charles Fraser Mackintosh’s most vociferous critic. Unease and anger was also expressed by his constituents in Skye. Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh, 186, 194; Scottish Highlander, 29 Jul. 1886. Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh, 180. Scottish Highlander, 11 Feb., 3 Mar. 1892; Highland News, 5 Mar. 1892. Scottish Highlander, 24 Mar. 1892. Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh, 8, 194–5; Highland News, 16 Jul. 1892. Highland News, 2 Apr. 1892. Highland News, 27 May, 12 Aug. 16 Sep. 1893.

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It was Unionism, and the belief that there should be some voice for the effectively disenfranchised Unionists of Sutherlandshire, that led to the 1892 election being contested in the county.178 Unlike 1885–6, when candidates tended to be divided over the land question, the Highland constituencies in 1892 were contested between candidates with an inclination towards home rule, and ‘Independent Radicals’.179 John Mackay of Hereford was initially adopted as an ‘Independent Radical’ at a meeting in Lairg, but as time progressed he was universally seen as a Unionist candidate.180 His address, which spoke of the integrity of the Empire, the extension of local government, and safety for Ulster Protestants served to reinforce the Unionist tag.181 Sutherland, on the other hand, showed signs of his increasing reliance on his constituents as his main source of political support by concentrating entirely on local issues in his manifesto.182 His confidence – both in his own popularity and the effectiveness of the political machinery in Sutherlandshire – is also shown by the fact that he waited until the last moment before heading north to canvass. However, apart from the poor reception generally afforded to Mackay, there was little outright bitterness in this rather lacklustre campaign.183 Sutherland’s position among his own constituents was so strong that there was little chance of a change in representation.184 Indeed ‘home rule’ candidates swept the board in the Highlands, with Clark holding Caithness, Donald Macfarlane re-taking Argyll, Fraser Mackintosh losing out to Macgregor in Invernessshire, and John Galloway Weir taking over from the retiring Roderick MacDonald in Ross-shire.185 * In many respects, the years following the Third Reform Act presented tremendous opportunities for the reformers – Ferguson, Davitt, McHugh and their colleagues – who had invested so much time in the crofting question over the previous decade. The complicated relationship between land 178

179 180 181

182 183

184

185

NLS, Acc. 10225 (Sutherland Papers), Policy Papers, 205, Wright to McIver, 18 Feb. 1892; Factor’s Correspondence, 1964, McIver to Gordon, 26 Feb. 1892. Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh, 198. Scottish Highlander, 2 Jun. 1892, 30 Jun. 1892. NLS, Acc. 10225 (Sutherland Papers), Policy Papers, 217, McIver to Wright, 7 Jun. 1892; Factor’s Correspondence, 1964, McIver to R. Morrison, 20 Jun. 1892; Scottish Highlander, 7 Jul. 1892. Highland News, 11 Jun. 1892. Highland News, 18 Jun. 1892, 2 Jul. 1892; Scottish Highlander, 11 Feb. 1892; NLS, Acc. 10225 (Sutherland Papers), Policy Papers, 205, Wright to McIver, 5 Mar. 1892; Policy Papers, 217, McIver to Wright, 2 Mar. 1892; Policy Papers, 217, McIver to Wright, 7 Jun. 1892. NLS, Acc. 10225 (Sutherland Papers), Policy Papers, 205, Wright to McIver, 13 Jun. 1892; Highland News, 16 Jul. 1892; Scottish Highlander, 14 Jul. 1892. Cameron, Fraser Mackintosh, 197–19.

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and home rule politics ensured, however, that any successes were not immediately obvious. Having hoped to prevent the crofters from settling for ‘Irish-style’ dual ownership, the Crofters’ Act of 1886 was a disappointment similar to the 1881 Irish Land Act, and yet it must be borne in mind that the radicals, both Georgites and socialists, believed that the general land question would be settled in the major centres of population rather than the countryside. As the realities of the limited aims of the crofting agitation dawned on them, there were nevertheless plenty of reasons to be hopeful about the urban land question. McHugh and McGhee were being given the opportunity to link the land to ‘New Unionism’, and both Glasgow Trades Council and the SLP were becoming more involved in national and municipal politics. Bailie John Burt brought the question of land value taxation before Glasgow Town Council for the first time, a seed which would come to fruition in the 1890s.186 It is a paradox that the interventions in the Highlands made by the Irish radicals in the preceding years ensured the support of the crofting community for Irish home rule after 1885. While Ferguson and Davitt always held home rule close to their hearts, it was their disillusionment with Parnellism after 1881 which ensured that they maintained a keen interest in the Highlands as part of a general Scottish agitation. The way in which the Glasgow radicals were able to co-opt the crofters as part of a local ‘new departure’, fusing land, home rule, and coercion in a concerted fundraising effort, was testimony to the way in which the Irish had been perceived as the ‘best friends’ of the crofters, but also the way in which Irish popular opinion had come to see Scotland as a kindred nation. The vital importance which was given to these issues by reformers had helped to keep some of their internal tensions under control, but diverging opinions over the solutions to the land and social questions, and the very way in which the claims of land and home rule competed for Government attention, created splits on several levels. Splits within Irish nationalism were papered over, temporarily, as the left-wing rallied over the national question, but the divisions in Glasgow remained serious. This, in turn, created another area of tension within the radical groupings – already split between Georgite land restorers and Socialist nationalisers – in which the Irish radicals had to argue the importance of home rule against those who believed in internationalist socialist theories. Finally, the Highland reform movement, which had contained diverse opinions since the 1870s, was forced to confront its relationship with both the urban radicals and Ireland, ensuring that the HLL would have a fractious and relatively short-lived existence.

186

Land Values, May 1905.

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chapter eight

‘The Highlands have Reaped what Michael Davitt has Sown’: Legislation and Agitation to the Great War As a persistent critic of historicist interpretations of the Highland land question, the report of the Deer Forest Commission in 1895 gave the 8th duke of Argyll a further opportunity to put forward his views:1 Why, then, does not this Report tell us plainly what it proposes to do with the congested population of Lewis? Is it not simply the moral cowardice which shrinks from a word which has become unpopular among the ignorant – emigration? I had once the same problem to confront, only on a smaller, though still a very formidable, scale . . . But I had two great advantages. First, the people were naturally of a high intelligence, and wholly uncorrupted by agitation. Secondly, the date was one long before what I call the Hibernian epoch – the epoch, namely, when Irish ideas have really so stupefied the minds of men that it seems to be widely thought that the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, can be suspended as a special favour to Irishmen and to other men of Celtic birth. No such illusions existed in 1847.2 The suspension of the ‘laws of God’ seen in the legislation of 1881 and 1886, if offensive to Argyll, also caused problems for those who had hoped that Highlanders would embrace the root and branch abolition of landlords. Attempts to bring crofters and Irish smallholders to support any form of land nationalisation were undermined by the tenants’ own reluctance, and – possibly more importantly – by the continuing efforts of successive governments to treat Irish and Highland rural land questions as separate from the rest of the country. Ironically, perhaps, it was the Conservatives who, in the first decade of the twentieth century, dabbled in land nationalisation in the crofting districts. As a result, the agitation which aimed at securing the taxation of land values took on a much more urban aspect. The ‘land question’, even if it might have been perceived as such by those who associated it with rural 1

2

E. A. Cameron, ‘The Scottish Highlands as a special policy area, 1886–1965’, Rural History, viii (1997), 198; J. W. Mason, ‘The Duke of Argyll and the land question in late nineteenth century Britain’, Victorian Studies, xxi (1977–8), 167–9. Scotsman, 20 Apr. 1895.

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poverty, was no longer simply an issue for the Celtic periphery, but for the whole country. The return of the Liberal Party to power in December 1905, after nearly eleven years of Conservative rule, saw a new impetus given to the campaign for land value taxation, underpinned by rhetoric which often adopted the same tone of anti-landlordism which prevailed in the 1880s. The attempt by the Labour Party after 1909 to ally the causes of the Highland crofters and cottars with the urban proletariat also mirrored some of the earlier efforts at combination, and, like the antecedent movements, was probably doomed to failure. * MacPhail identified the 1890s as a ‘decade of peace’ in the Highlands, with a general rise in living standards, a preparedness to accept the benefits of the 1886 Act, and a disengagement of the urban Highland societies from political issues.3 The HLL crumbled in the face of internal splits and remedial Tory legislation, and the other radical threads which were entwined for a period in the 1880s unravelled. Sporadic unrest persisted in some parts of the Highlands and Islands, but this has been attributed to the existence of ‘a large and dissatisfied cottar population’ requiring more land, rather than the work of any external agitators.4 With Irish nationalism in a state of flux after the O’Shea divorce scandal and Parnell’s unexpected death in October 1891, there was minimal interest in the Highlands from Irish politicians.5 The occasional manifestations of unity between Irish and Highlanders, such as the North Leitrim M.P., P. A. McHugh’s address to the HLL Convention in Inverness in 1895, occurred as a result of a shared proximity to Gladstonian liberalism.6 The Liberal years of 1892–95 witnessed a few final salvoes from the HLL, and increasing participation within the League of the Glasgow single taxers, but Hunter noted correctly that ‘as a movement with any pretensions to political independence, the Land League did not survive the events of 1895’.7 The Royal Commission (Highlands and Islands), which became known as the Deer Forest Commission, was the first manifestation of the new Liberal Government’s Highland policy, established in late 1892 to identify sporting or grazing land which might usefully be occupied by the crofters or other small tenants.8 The Liberals claimed that as they had already decided to give more land to the crofters, the task of the commission was to decide which land it should be. The reaction to the membership of the commission, 3 4 5 6 7 8

MacPhail, Crofters’ War, 222–3. Hunter, Crofting Community, 181. Jackson, Home Rule, 80. Scotsman, 26 Sep. 1895. Hunter, ‘Politics of Highland land reform’, 61, 66. Cameron, Land for the People?, 77; Highland News, 4 Feb. 1892; Report of the Royal Commission on the Highlands and Islands, [PP] 1895, XXXVIII, v.

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which included Angus Sutherland and John MacLeod, was a neat reversal of that which greeted the Napier Commission in the previous decade, and a ‘wholesale attack on the property rights of landowners’ was predicted.9 Conversely, however, this negative reaction probably also meant that the expectations of the crofters became unattainably high, given the limited scope of the commissioners’ remit. While the commission gathered evidence from around the region, the Highland News, under MacLeod’s editorship, maintained a single tax agitation.10 Through the Highland Society for the Taxation of Land Values, local single taxers could feel part of an increasingly important global movement, though they were somewhat marginalised within the Highlands.11 Glasgowbased veterans such as John Ferguson, David McLardy and, inevitably, John Murdoch, retained an interest in the HLL, but this involvement tended to distance the League from those who were resident in the Highlands. The Eleventh Annual Convention of the HLL took place in Glasgow, in September 1893, and the delegates list was a roll-call of the previous decade’s radicalism: John Ferguson, Michael Davitt, John Murdoch, William Saunders, G. B. Clark, and John MacPherson were all in attendance. Less charitably, the Scotsman described how: The League . . . had secured the services for the day of as strange and miscellaneous collection of actors as ever took part in a variety entertainment. There were crofter martyrs from the Highlands and Socialist philosophers from London, Irish Nationalists and Scottish Home Rulers, secretaries of Gladstonian clubs and Trades Council officials. Every man who had a political bee in his bonnet or a political axe to grind appeared to have answered the call of the League.12 A great deal of time was spent discussing the bona-fides of the delegates, and the land question was discussed in general terms, albeit with lip-service paid to the particular problems of the Highlands.13 There was a rift over how best to respond to the Deer Forest Commission, and it was this which caused the most obvious tension. In the immediate aftermath of this convention, with G. B. Clark admitting that the League ‘had lost their money, lost their influence, and the agitation was now on the wane’, the split in the Highland reform movement was formalised. The reconstitution of the HLLRA was announced, under Donald Macfarlane, but unsurprisingly this move did not bring back the spirit of the 1880s.14 Less than a decade earlier, the 9

10 11

12 13 14

NLS, Acc. 10225 (Sutherland Papers), Policy Papers, 217, McIver to Wright, 30 Nov. 1892, 17 Oct. 1893; Cameron, Land for the People?, 78. Single Tax, Feb. 1896. The Highland News also helped to establish groups for the detailed study of George’s works. Highland News, 11 Jan. 1913. Scotsman, 22 Sep. 1893. Scotsman, 21 Sep. 1893; Highland News, 16 Sep., 23 Sep. 1893. Scotsman, 23 Sep. 1893.

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involvement of Macfarlane in the Highlands had led to alarmist cries of ‘Fenianism’. By 1893, however, the presence of delegates from, in the Scotsman’s words, ‘the bogs of Ireland’, were simply one component of an extremist mélange considered so deluded as to be quite harmless. In the meantime, outwith the Highlands the SLRL had gone from strength to strength. After a pioneering, but unsuccessful, attempt by Glasgow Town Council in 1889 to raise a bill in favour of land value taxation, the SLRL had amalgamated with several other bodies the following year to form the Scottish Land Restoration Union.15 While not wishing to ‘abandon’ any particular part of the country, the level of progress made by the land restorers in urban Scotland dictated that financial and human resources should be channelled there. George himself had noted in the 1880s that the promotion of land restoration should go on in the Highlands until the towns were ready to embrace the measure, and by the 1890s it appeared that their time had come. Both Glasgow Town Council and the London County Council petitioned Gladstone’s Government in favour of the taxation of land values, which had made an expression of support towards the adoption of such a measure in its 1892 manifesto.16 John Ferguson’s prominence at the HLL convention can be seen in the context of his election campaign on a single tax platform for Glasgow Town Council, which reached a successful conclusion in November 1893.17 Subsequently, ‘during the next two years he was incessant in bringing the question of the rating of Land Values before the council in all kinds of ways’.18 In spite of the Liberals’ hint at the possibility of radical land reform legislation, the Georgites were eventually ‘bitterly disappointed’ with the governments of 1892–95.19 Gladstone’s time was taken up largely with the second Home Rule Bill, and no attempt was made to tax land values.20 The home rule issue also caused anti-Irish sentiment to develop within the labour movement, which perceived Irish M.P.s and Liberals as conspiring against the party’s progress.21 The SLP announced that ‘it is of minor consequence to the people of this country, and not to be compared with social legislation or the interests of the unemployed’.22 15

16

17

18 19 20

21

22

Bridgeton Single Tax Review and Advertiser, 2 Aug. 1890; McFarland, John Ferguson, 248; B. Short, Land and Society in Edwardian Britain (Cambridge, 1997), 13–14, 311. A. J. Peacock, ‘Land Reform 1880–1919: A Study of the Activities of the English Land Restoration League and the Land Nationalisation Society’, M.A. thesis (University of Southampton, 1961), 94–7. North British Daily Mail, 8 Nov. 1893; Land Values, May 1905; McFarland, John Ferguson, 249–53. Land Values, Jun. 1915. Peacock, ‘Land Reform, 1880–1919’, 97. D. A. Hamer, ‘The Irish question and Liberal politics, 1886–1894’, Historical Journal, xii (1969), 529–30. Hamer, ‘Irish question and Liberal politics’, 527; M. Davitt, ‘Fabian Fustian’, Nineteenth Century, (1893), 851. Fraser, Scottish Popular Politics, 130.

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Though support for Irish home rule lingered in the Highlands, the confident assertions of Celtic unity seen in the later 1880s were generally absent. With the HLL having placed its faith in the Liberals, the very limited response to the Deer Forest Commission’s report saw the League ‘finally and completely swept away from the political scene’.23 Much of the land in question was unsuitable for cultivation by crofters, either because of infertile soil or altitude, and although the Commission did recommend that large amounts of grazing and some arable be given over to the crofters, these recommendations were not taken up by the Government.24 The HLL’s Twelfth Annual Convention returned to Sutherlandshire, specifically Bonar Bridge, in September 1894.25 John Ferguson claimed that ‘what the Highland people wanted was not merely reductions of rent, not allotments with a heavy purchase price to the landlords, but that the land should be restored to the people to whom it had belonged, and from whom it had either been stolen or usurped’, but the Convention generally lacked the fiery speeches of the 1880s, and confirmed to Ferguson that progress on the single tax was more likely in Glasgow. In his Oban Times column, ‘Fionn’ kept up the Georgite agitation, quoting Ferguson in extenso, but any hopes that the Highlands would embrace the single tax were looking forlorn.26 In the wider political arena, Gladstone’s retirement was far from unexpected, being by then eighty-five years of age, his sight and hearing failing, and his Second Irish Home Rule Bill having been thwarted by the House of Lords.27 As a result, ‘Liberals and Irish nationalists drifted towards the General Election campaign of July 1895 united in their disarray’.28 MacLeod, having been returned unopposed as Sutherland’s successor in 1894, held his seat relatively easily in 1895, as did Clark in neighbouring Caithness, although both would be routed in the ‘Khaki Election’ five years later.29 Inverness-shire, however, along with Inverness Burghs, Northern Burghs, and Argyllshire, were now represented by the Conservatives, reflecting a nationwide swing against the Liberals.30 The 1895 HLL Convention was dismissed by the Scotsman as having attracted ‘one of the smallest musters on record’, to Inverness. Its editorial attacked the confusion between the different demands of the participants: Apparently the Land Leaguers do not know that nationalisation of the land, both as to the principle on which it rests and the outcome which it contemplates, is directly antagonistic to the claim that the land of the 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30

Hunter, Crofting Community, 182–3. E. A. Cameron, ‘The political influence of Highland landowners: a reassessment’, Northern Scotland, xiv (1994), 33. Highland News, 15 Sep. 1894; Single Tax, Oct. 1894. Single Tax, Sep. 1894. Highland News, 10 Mar. 1894. McFarland, John Ferguson, 256. Scotsman, 25 Jul. 1895, 12 Oct. 1900. Scotsman, 22 Jul., 24 Jul., 26 Jul. 1895.

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Highlands belongs by hereditary right to the present race of crofters. The Leaguers are blind leaders of the blind. Fortunately . . . people are finding them out, and refusing to follow them longer.31 In spite of John Gunn Mackay’s claim that ‘not only was [the Land League] not dead, it was not even asleep’, life continued to ebb away from the movement.32 * The Scotsman continued to have fun at the expense of the HLL. The Stornoway Convention in 1896 continued its decline, with John MacLeod the only M.P. present, and further mockery from the Scotsman, which claimed that there was ‘a time when the Highland Land League could bring together all the firebrands of the north, and when its meetings might cause timid landlords to tremble in their shoes. But firebrands, like thieves, are apt to fall out among themselves.’33 The truth of this accusation was apparently confirmed by H. M. Hyndman, who in refusing to debate the single tax with Richard McGhee had styled the Ulsterman as a ‘third or fourth rate hack of the capitalist Liberal Party’. In McGhee’s defence, the Single Tax journal called Hyndman a ‘fifth rate’ writer on the ‘dismal science’.34 After the comprehensive Liberal defeat in the 1895 General Election, the Tories continued the ‘Hibernian epoch’ by implementing legislation for the Highlands based on their Irish policies of 1886–92, and extending the legislation which had started in 1892 under the terms of the Allotments (Scotland) Act.35 The Congested Districts Board (CDB) for Scotland, created in 1897, followed on from the instigation of a similar Irish body six years earlier, and was established to administer a fund of money set aside by the Government for the benefit of communities which were deemed ‘congested’.36 In spite of Angus Sutherland’s prominent position on the new Board, the Scotsman welcomed the CDB’s creation.37 Although 1897 saw the sudden death of Henry George, the movement he had helped to develop continued its progress.38 In March 1897, Glasgow Town Council had decided to prepare a Bill which would call on Parliament 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38

Scotsman, 26 Sep. 1895. Scotsman, 26 Sep. 1895. Scotsman, 24 Sep. 1896. Single Tax, Jul. 1896. Hunter, Crofting Community, 187. T. W. Freeman, The congested districts of western Ireland, Geographical Review, xxxiii (1943), 1–2.; C. Breathnach, The Congested Districts Board, 1891–1923 (Dublin, 2005); Cameron, Land for the People?, 100–1; E. A. Cameron, ‘Politics, ideology and the land question, 1886 to the 1920s’, SHR, lxxii (1993), 60–79; D. Mackay, ‘The Congested Districts Boards of Ireland and Scotland’, Northern Scotland, xvi (1996), 154–7. Scotsman, 14 Sep. 1897. Barker, Henry George, 618–19; Newby, Life and Times of Edward McHugh, 153–5.

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to adopt the single tax, and with an increasing number of supporters on the Council, it was passed by a narrow majority in October, 1898.39 The ‘Glasgow Bill’ called for a tax of four shillings in the pound per annum on the value of land, and was taken on by many Liberals, John Morley and Henry Campbell-Bannerman being prominent among them.40 John Murdoch, in spite of failing health, assisted the movement in gathering statistics for propaganda purposes until his death in 1903.41 Davitt also followed Ferguson’s activity in Glasgow closely, and in complaining that the ‘trades unions are tinctured with Socialism and seem blind to their own interests’ he demonstrated that the broad labour movement remained divided over land reform.42 Although he remained a vice-president of the Land Nationalisation Society Davitt apparently confessed himself ‘a single tax man’ in 1897.43 By 1902, however, he finally appeared to have lost faith in ever seeing Ireland accept land nationalisation: I must, I deeply regret, admit that a plan of Land Nationalisation will not recommend itself to the people of Ireland. I tried in four or five years of patient and uphill propaganda in the early eighties to recommend such a settlement to the country . . . I still hold fondly and firmly to this great principle, and I believe a National ownership to be the only true meaning of battle cry of the Land League – the Land for the People – but there are some faiths which cannot move Irish mountains, and I have to confess that mine has proved to be one of them.44 Since 1881, Davitt’s land policies had encountered general apathy in Ireland, something which mystified many Georgites. In words reminiscent of Hardie’s plea to the Glasgow Irish in 1888, Henry George Jr. confessed that: He did not see why the Irish should oppose the movement; such an alliance would do more for Home Rule in Ireland than anything else, because it would carry behind it the great moral support of the American people, who did not require to be agitated over Home Rule. To him, as an American, it seemed the simplest thing in the world to give not only Ireland, but also England, Scotland, and Wales as well, each a parliament to manage local affairs.45 Irish nationalism, through the advent of the United Irish League (UIL), continued to recover from the bitter aftermath of the Parnell split.46 Even 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

Peacock, ‘Land Reform, 1880–1919’, 105. Peacock, ‘Land Reform, 1880–1919’, 107. Land Values, Mar. 1903. McFarland, John Ferguson, 255. Single Tax, May 1897; Report of the Land Nationalisation Society, 1894–5 (London, 1895). M. Davitt, Some Suggestions for a Final Settlement of the Land Question (Dublin, 1902), 8. Scotsman, 1 Jul. 1898. F. J. M. Campbell, Land and Revolution: Nationalist Politics in the West of Ireland, 1891–1921 (Oxford, 2005), 1–84.

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though landlordism remained a target of the UIL, however, its main focus was on land purchase, and along with its pursuit of home rule, this ensured that Irish interests remained in competition, rather than co-operation, with land value taxation for the Liberals’ attention.47 One consequence of the UIL’s agitation over land purchase was the passage of a new Irish Land Act – often referred to as the Wyndham Act – in 1903, which Bull claims finally ended landlordism ‘as historically understood in Ireland’.48 The Act allowed for advances to be made by the Land Commission to tenants in order to allow them to buy their holdings, but only in cases where the landlord’s entire estate was put on the market.49 In a passage relevant to the Tory experiment in the Highlands a year later, Davitt wrote that: The tenant would be coerced, in a sense, to buy his holding (a strange Tory proposal in the light of past English policy in Ireland!) by a pressure that would deprive him of some existing advantages under the Gladstone law of 1881, should he refuse reasonable terms of purchase offered to him from the land commission. Special commissioners were to be created for the quicker working of land purchase, with the view of the final solution of the Irish land problem in the buying out of all the landlords and putting in the tenants as the occupying owners of soil in the country . . .50 With the Wyndham Act hailed for its ‘abolition of dual ownership’ the Tory administration made a limited attempt to achieve something similar in the Highlands.51 The crofters, however, seemed contented with the system of dual ownership set out in 1886, and were reluctant to abandon the hardwon privileges of the 1886 Act, which as owner-occupiers they would have to do. Eventually, only the crofters of Glendale, on Skye, purchased their holdings, and the remaining estates of Syre (Sutherlandshire), Northbay (Barra), Vatersay and Kilmuir (Skye) preferred the status of CDB (or, subsequently, Board of Agriculture for Scotland) tenants.52 While these peasant proprietary and (default) nationalisation schemes had been implemented by the Tories in Ireland and the Scottish crofting districts, some Liberals remained opposed to the intrusion of the state in society as a fundamental betrayal of the party’s beliefs. Until December 1905, when the Liberals returned to power at Westminster, high politics had 47 48 49

50 51

52

McFarland, John Ferguson, 276–7. Bull, Land, Politics and Nationalism, 177. Bull, Land, Politics and Nationalism, 152–3, 159. T. A. M. Dooley, ‘Landlords and the land question, 1879–1909’, in C. King (ed.), Famine, Land and Culture in Ireland (Dublin, 2000), 130; T. W. Guinnane and R. I. Miller, ‘The limits to land reform: the Land Acts in Ireland, 1870–1909’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, xlv (1997), 596. Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 705. C.F. Bastable, ‘The Irish Land Purchase Act of 1903’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, xviii (Nov. 1903), 1–21. C. Stewart, The Highland Experiment in Land Nationalisation (London, 1904), 3–4; Cameron, Land for the People?, 97; Hunter, Crofting Community, 186; Scotsman, 5 May 1904.

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been dominated by the Boers, the Irish, and issues surrounding free trade and protectionism.53 It was left to individuals like McHugh to promote the taxation of land values on a local level, and for radical Liberal M.P.s such as Charles P. Trevelyan, Sidney Buxton, James Caldwell, and John Burns to keep the issue alive in the House of Commons.54 A cynical view of the new popularity of land value taxation focused on the need of the radical Liberals to find a new cause: Home Rule is dead or dying. Disestablishment has either died or gone to sleep, and the power and influence of ‘the trade’ combined with the unreasoning bigotry of tea-totallers, seem for the present to have put temperance without the range of practical politics. Accordingly, as a youthful Radical MP recently remarked, it was necessary to get up something new, and ‘Taxation of Land Values’, it was thought, answers the purpose.55 Land had remained prominent in constituency politics since 1895, however, and with the Conservatives having dealt separately with Ireland and Highland Scotland during their administration, the land question as it affected the rest of the country was now perceived as having three solutions.56 These solutions were land nationalization, the single-taxers’ policy of complete absorption of landlords’ ‘unearned increment’ by taxation of twenty shillings in the pound, and more moderate advocates of site value taxation (as opposed to the total value of the hereditable property demanded by the single-taxers).57 Although agitators like Ferguson and McHugh aimed at the second solution, they were prepared to accept the third, more moderate, method of site value taxation as a stepping stone, and by 1906 over 500 local authorities petitioned Campbell-Bannerman advocating such a measure. * Spring 1906 saw the premature deaths of both John Ferguson and Michael Davitt, but in relation to the Highland land question, a new wave of agitation was brewing on the estates of Lady Gordon Cathcart. The Scotsman, almost wearily, set the raids in the context of the 1880s: 53 54

55 56

57

D. Judd, Radical Joe: A Life of Joseph Chamberlain (Cardiff, 1993) 250–6. I. Packer, ‘The land issue and the future of Scottish liberalism in 1914’, SHR, lxxv (1996), 55; Peacock, ‘Land Reform, 1880–1919’, 109; A. P. Dudden, Joseph Fels and the Single Tax Movement (Philadelphia, 1971), 141. J. Edward Graham, ‘The taxation of land values’, Scottish Review, Jan. 1900, 106. P. Readman, ‘Conservatives and the politics of land: Lord Winchelsea’s National Agricultural Union, 1893–1901, English Historical Review, cxxi (2006), 25–6. Short, Land and Society, 13–14; R. Douglas, ‘God gave the land to the people’, in A. Morris (ed.), Edwardian Radicalism 1900–1914: Some Aspects of British Radicalism (London, 1974), 148–61.

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Is the ‘Vatersay Raid’ the portent and prelude of another Hebridean crofters’ storm? The story that comes from Castlebay describes methods of land acquisition and settlement suggestive of the old descents of the Vikings and the Fife Adventurers on the Outer Isles rather than the prosaic customs of the present day. But it is also unpleasantly reminiscent of the hornblowing in Glendale that heralded and followed the work of the Napier Commission of 1883; the war waged by the men of Tiree against police and marines and other agents of authority in 1886; and the raids of the Lews crofters on the lands they coveted as additions to their holdings – raids which were not suppressed until vessels of war and a military force had been summoned to the spot; and until blood had been shed and property destroyed, and a serious stain placed upon the reputation of the West Highlanders as a law-abiding people.58 Having purchased a small portion of land on the island of Vatersay, the CDB hoped to remedy recurrent land raids by Barra crofters in cooperation with the proprietrix.59 Thus, with a new round of land agitation gathering strength, the Highland News used the occasion of Michael Davitt’s death to renew its cry of ‘organisation’: The Highlands, too, have reaped, and will yet reap, what Michael Davitt has sown. His Land League was imitated in the crofting counties of Scotland, an institution which agitated and won the Crofters’ Act with its attendant benefits. The Land Question is only beginning to be touched upon. Organisation is again required in the Highland counties, and the value of concentrating attention on one main issue may be learned from the successes and failures of Davitt’s career. First get the people back to the land – give the land back to the people – then the other points may be taken up.60 Perhaps a veiled criticism of Davitt’s wide-ranging interests, the implication was that it was necessary to focus on one issue at a time. Securing more land, it was felt, would be the reform from which all others could flow. The new Government of Henry Campbell-Bannerman maintained the radical rhetoric of their years in opposition, and it is notable that the sixty Liberals and two Labour candidates who were elected to the seventy Scottish seats had pledged themselves to some form of land value taxation.61 Again, however, initial legislation was based on dual ownership, with the new Scottish Secretary, John Sinclair (later Lord Pentland), setting out a Bill which was a ‘direct repudiation’ of the Conservatives’ 1897 attempt at land purchase, and which would extend the provisions of the 1886 Act to the rest 58 59 60 61

Scotsman, 8 Feb. 1906. Cameron, Land for the People?, 107–22. Highland News, 2 Jun. 1906. Short, Land and Society, 310; J. Brown, ‘Scottish and English land legislation, 1905–1911’, SHR xlvii (1968), 72–85.

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of Scotland.62 The bill faced widespread criticism, and the Scotsman used it as a stick with which to beat the new administration: A land tenure system which has broken down in Ireland, and which has had to be got rid of at the cost of £120,000,000, is to be imposed on Scotland. This is not the wild idea of Mr Weir or Mr Morton; it is the deliberate proposal of the Secretary for Scotland, The genesis of the policy furnishes a fair measure of the levity with which the Government plunge into the most difficult questions.63 In tandem with Sinclair’s bill, the Scottish municipalities sponsored the much anticipated Land Values Taxation (Scotland) Bill, or ‘Glasgow Bill’, as it was known, which was introduced in order to discover the rating value of all land in Scotland, only to have it rejected by the House of Lords in both 1907 and 1908.64 This pattern – initial success and frustration in the Lords – would become a familiar one for the single taxers over the next few years. Twenty-two years after a teenage David Lloyd George spoke alongside Michael Davitt at Blanaeu Ffestiniog, he had become Chancellor of the Exchequer, immediately identifying land as a source of revenue to head off the ‘danger that threatened the government from pensions and battleships’.65 Both in 1909, in his ‘People’s Budget’, and in the ‘Land Inquiry’ after 1913, Lloyd George identified land, and specifically an attack on landlords, as a basis for increased state revenue. The extent to which Lloyd George’s own rural Nonconformist background influenced his land campaign has been questioned, but his early contact with Davitt and the influence of John Hobson and other Liberals on the post-1906 administration who were themselves interested in Henry George’s ideas, does at least provide some continuity with the campaigns of the 1880s.66 Another constant was the campaigning vigour of Edward McHugh. Since returning from the U.S.A. to his Birkenhead home in 1899, McHugh had become one of Britain’s leading advocates of the single tax, undertaking a seemingly unending campaign of public speaking, pamphleteering, and 62

63

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65

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Cameron, Land for the People?, 127; M. A. Sinclair, Lady Pentland, The Rt. Hon. John Sinclair, Lord Pentland: A Memoir (London, 1928), 69–72; Packer, ‘The land issue and the future of Scottish liberalism’, 54. Scotsman, 30 Jul. 1906. James Galloway Weir succeeded Roderick MacDonald as M.P. for Ross-shire, 1892–1911. Alpheus Cleophas Morton had taken Sutherlandshire in 1906. Spectator, 31 Mar. 1906; Dudden, Joseph Fels, 141; B. B. Gilbert, ‘David Lloyd George: Land, the Budget, and social reform’, American Historical Review, lxxxi (1976), 1060–1; I. Packer, Lloyd George, Liberalism and The Land: The Land Issue and Party Politics in England, 1906–1914 (London, 2001), 59. Gilbert, ‘David Lloyd George: Land, the Budget, and social reform’, 1060–1; Graham Jones, ‘Michael Davitt, David Lloyd George and T. E. Ellis’, 464–6. J. A. Hobson, ‘The influence of Henry George in England’, Fortnightly Review, 1 Dec. 1897; I. Packer, ‘Lloyd George and the land campaign 1912–14’, in J. Loades (ed.), The Life and Times of David Lloyd George (Bangor, 1991), 143; H. V. Emy, Liberals, Radicals and Social Politics (Cambridge, 1973), 105–14.

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lobbying of local and national politicians. The radical M.P. Josiah Wedgwood, referred to McHugh as his ‘philosophical grandfather’, and having been a close friend of Henry George – and a pall bearer at the American’s funeral – McHugh had a strong influence on the new generation of Liberal single taxers.67 In the company of his old friend Richard McGhee and Alexander Ure, the Solicitor General for Scotland, McHugh spent most of 1908 touring Great Britain on behalf of the United Committee for the Taxation of Land Values (UCTLV), and some twenty-six years after he had first set foot on Skye, McHugh returned to the Hebrides and Highlands to lecture on the land question.68 This time, there was no talk of ‘Fenian conspiracies’ or violent insurrections, in spite of the prevalence of land raids in the Hebrides since the turn of the century.69 At this stage, the Highlands were thoroughly integrated in a concerted Liberal campaign which took in all parts of Britain. In a rare example of direct Irish political involvement in the Highlands and Hebrides, McHugh was accompanied to Barra not by a Liberal, but by John Gordon Swift Macneill, the long-standing Nationalist M.P. for Donegal South. Land Values praised McHugh’s ‘acumen’ in bringing Swift Macneill to the Hebrides, and Barra, the seat of the Macneill clan, with its historical and cultural ties to Donegal, gave an ‘inspiring’ welcome for both Ulstermen.70 Conferences which McHugh attended in Inverness and Oban, where he was able to give the benefit of his experience during the previous few weeks on Barra, echoed many of these themes, and on returning to the island he condemned the policy of the CDB at ‘one of the most representative and enthusiastic meetings ever’ in Castlebay.71 His reference to the CDB policy of compulsory purchase as ‘a fraudulent service for continuing the wholesale plundering of the existing system’ not only underlined McHugh’s opposition to any mere tinkering with the land laws, it ignored the fact that it was the crofters themselves who, with the exception of Glendale, had rejected anything approaching the abolition of landlordism. It also brought about the irony of setting McHugh in direct opposition to his former Land League colleague, Angus Sutherland, who remained a member of the CDB for Scotland.72 Sutherland was himself still capable of radical soundbites to support his actions, and at a meeting of the Glasgow Sutherlandshire Association in 1906 he had condemned emigration and rural depopulation, arguing that, as a member of the CDB, he was doing his utmost to prevent both.73 67 68

69 70 71 72 73

Newby, Life and Times of Edward McHugh, 163–79; Birkenhead News, 7 July 1909. Land Values, Oct. 1908; ‘Scotsman’, ‘The Right Honourable Alexander Ure, KC, MP: A short study in political depravity’, National Review, Sep. 1909–Feb. 1910. For Ure’s career, later as Lord Strathclyde, Scotsman, 3 Oct. 1928. Cameron, ‘They will listen to no remonstrance’, 50–5; Scotsman, 12 Jun. 1908. Highland News, 19 Sep. 1908. Land Values, Nov. 1908. Cameron, Land for the People?, 108. Glasgow Herald, 24 Feb. 1906.

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Proceeding from Barra to Glendale, the scene of some of the best received speeches on his initial visit, he was able to meet once more John MacPherson, ‘The Glendale Martyr’. Although they had taken up the CDB’s option of land purchase, MacPherson claimed that the position of the crofters and cottars of Glendale had once more deteriorated to a position ‘indistinguishable from that of 1882’.74 From Scotland, McHugh travelled to Portsmouth, and then Wales as part of the national campaign in support of land value taxation.75 CampbellBannerman’s retirement through ill-health had caused some nervousness within the UCTLV when the new leader, Asquith, initially refused to commit to the Valuation Bills.76 In response, the UCTLV decided to campaign for a Land Tax Budget, something which would force the Government’s hand and, it was presumed, prevent interference from the Lords. The frustrations that were being felt over the Liberals’ procrastination seemed to be over when, on 11 November 1908, Asquith committed himself, before a group of Liberal and Labour M.P.s, to a land value tax to be included in the next Budget.77 * Lloyd George introduced the Budget on 29 April 1909, and it was received enthusiastically not only by the Liberals, but also by the Trades Union Congress, and even by John Redmond, who stated that it was ‘great and courageous’.78 Its proposals included seven new forms of taxation, four of which were duties on land, and another being the ‘super tax’ of six pence on incomes of over £5,000.79 Although the land clauses had been relatively modest, the Conservatives were outraged, with one newspaper speaking of ‘Red Flag Proposals’ and using the slogan ‘Lloyd George – Henry George’, demonstrating the symbolic fear which the American still held for the landed classes.80 Asquith claimed that it was ‘the land taxes and perhaps still more the proposed valuation of land which set the heather on fire’, and Lloyd George himself admitted that the Budget’s land clauses had been a means of commencing the complete revaluation of land throughout the country – a ‘twentieth century domesday book’.81 Although the proposals 74

75 76 77 78 79 80

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Cameron, Land for the People?, 97; Land Values, Nov. 1908; Highland News, 19 Sep. 1908; Inverness Courier, 22 Sep. 1909; MacLeod, Highland Heroes, 154. Land Values, January 1909, May 1915. Peacock, ‘Land Reform 1880–1919’, 205; Spectator, 31 October 1908. Peacock, ‘Land Reform 1880–1919’, 207. Packer, Lloyd George, Liberalism and the Land, 61; Peacock, ‘Land Reform 1880–1919’, 213. Short, Land and Society, 19. Daily Express, 30 May 1909; Dudden, Joseph Fels, 141; Short, Land and Society, 19; H. V. Emy, ‘The land campaign: Lloyd George as a social reformer’, in A. J. P. Taylor (ed.), Lloyd George: Twelve Essays (London, 1971), 43–4. Short, Land and Society, 21; Gilbert, ‘David Lloyd George: Land, the Budget, and social reform’, 1063–4.

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fell far short of the Georgite ideal of ’20 s. in the £’, it seemed that the social revolution was about to begin, with the Government accepting the principle of land value taxation. With reservations, the Georgites fought to ensure that the ‘People’s Budget’ was passed. The Spectator mocked the single taxers by saying that because they were ‘in sight of the Promised Land’, they were willing to ‘accept, and even to praise, taxation proposals which, according to their creed, are not only inadequate but absolutely illogical’.82 The Lords were so furious at Lloyd George’s assault on landlordism that they were prepared to provoke a constitutional crisis by taking action, unprecedented for two centuries, and reject the Budget. Landlordism could, therefore, be bound up in the question of Lords reform, and the strain of anti-landlord feeling which existed within Scottish Radical and Labour politics. McHugh’s visit to the Hebrides in 1908 may have inspired local responses, such as the formation of a land league in Barra, but 1909 witnessed an attempt to recreate a nominally independent Highland agitation. The new Highland Land League, dismissed as ‘one of the less significant effects of these controversial years’, proposed an alliance of crofters and cottars with the urban proletariat, but in failing to treat the Highlands as a region with distinct grievances it lacked support from the crofters themselves.83 With G. B. Clark as president, and Thomas Johnston as vice-president, the new League explicitly attacked the proximity of its antecedent to the Liberal Party, but it was as distant from the crofters in the Highlands as had been some of the socialist movements of the 1880s.84 Thus, Hunter has argued, the revived League ‘can safely be left out of a history of the crofting community’.85 The continued demonisation of the landed interest by the HLL, however, had relevance beyond the crofting districts, and demonstrated the extent to which radicals still believed in the power of landlordism to emote and mobilise. Johnston’s series of articles on the Scottish aristocracy, which initially appeared in Forward! and were later published in 1909 as Our Noble Families, fulfilled a role similar to that of MacKenzie’s History of the Highland Clearances in 1883.86 While the author may have had a specific political aim in mind, the material was used by various different groups, and it helped to keep the general assault on landlords in the public consciousness. Unlike MacKenzie, however, Johnston explicitly noted that many of the families described were as implicated in lowland and urban social problems as they were in the more notorious Highland Clearances.87 The foreword by 82 83 84

85 86 87

Spectator, 12 June 1909. Cameron, Land for the People?, 141–2; Hunter, ‘Gaelic connection’, 195. Scotsman, 20 Sep. 1909; Highland News, 4 Sep. 1909; Fraser, Scottish Popular Politics, 146–7; G.B. Clark, The Land Question in Scotland (Glasgow, 1911). Hunter, Crofting Community, 186–7. Packer, ‘The land issue and the future of Scottish liberalism’, 64. T. Johnston, Our Scots Noble Families (Glasgow, 1909); Short, Land and Society, 310; D. Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (Yale, 1990), 9.

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J. Ramsay Macdonald also made absolutely clear the link between past and present: For such men to speak of land taxation, compulsory land purchase, and the other items of a socialist land programme as injustice, is nothing but impertinence and hypocrisy, which ought to be characterised as such in the plainest of language, both inside and outside the House of Commons. We are not on the defensive; we have no call to apologise. We are on the offensive, taking back from the men who stole, withdrawing from classes that expropriated, the wealth that originally belonged to the community, that has been made valuable by the community, and that must, if ever justice is to reign, be enjoyed by the community.88 Predating the new, Labour-affiliated HLL, by three years, John Wheatley had formed the Catholic Socialist Society in Glasgow in 1906, an exclusively Catholic organisation and one which, unsurprisingly given its constituency, had a strong focus on urban, rather than rural, land issues.89 As such, it was hardly an heir to the HGB’s earlier radical activity. The Highlands, like Ireland, remained a compelling cause for some radicals, however, and there was much in the Red Clydeside rhetoric of John Maclean which recalled the earlier speeches of Shaw Maxwell and especially J. Bruce Glasier, who like Maclean had ‘Highland blood’, right down to their ultimate disappointment in the reluctance of the crofters to take stronger collective action against their perceived oppressors, and embark on a programme of cooperative land cultivation. As Howell has noted, the new HLL: had a limited membership, and was attractive especially to some with Highland connections who had moved south and had made links with rural grievances and the politics of the labour movement. This shift was reflected in the history of Maclean’s own family, and it is therefore not surprising that he proclaimed the need for such an alliance: ‘the peasants, like the farm servants, must be taught that their only friends are the toiling industrial slaves.’ Even this hope presented the peasantry as recipients of a wisdom developed elsewhere. Maclean seems to have shared many conventional Second International assumptions about the frequently reactionary political role of peasants.90 Maclean’s aspirations were reminiscent of Angus Sutherland’s earlier claim that ‘every Highlander was a born agitator’, but like Sutherland he found that it was far easier to raise a socialist agitation among urban Highlanders than in the crofting districts themselves. 88 89

90

J. R. Macdonald, ‘Preface’, in Johnston, Our Scots Noble Families, iv. G. C. Gunnin, John Wheatley, Catholic Socialism and Irish labour in the West of Scotland, 1906–1924 (New York, 1987), 108–49; Glasgow Observer, 20 Oct. 1906. D. Howell, A Lost Left: Three Studies in Socialism and Nationalism (Manchester, 1986), 167–9; L. Gouriévidis, ‘The Image of the Highland Clearances, c. 1880–1990’, Ph.D. thesis (University of St. Andrews, 1993), 251–5.

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* The ‘People’s Budget’ passed through, eventually, in 1910, and the introduction of national land valuation seemed to pave the way for further reforms. Packer assesses the situation optimistically, writing that land taxation ‘seemed generally to be popular in 1910. It remained a real possibility for a future Liberal government and the events of 1909–10 seemed to have assured land taxation in the first place in the Liberal approach to the land question.’91 While the Liberals only retained power at Westminster in January 1910 with the support of Irish and Labour M.P.s, they carried an overwhelming majority of Scottish seats, and as a result were less likely in Scotland to reach electoral accommodations with Labour candidates.92 Labour was concerned at their apparent inability to locate themselves as the anti-landlord party, and a report to its NEC in 1911 noted that ‘the Land Question in Scotland dominates everything else. Scotland has stood by the Liberal government so solidly because it hates the House of Lords and the landlords.’93 Consequently, Gilbert claimed that: The bundle of legislation and legislative proposals usually taken as the Lloyd George welfare program did, in truth, arise from political challenge, but it was a political challenge from the right, not the left. The alternative to Liberal Radicalism was not a Labour Socialism but demagogic Toryism, and the Liberal enemy was not the ghost of Karl Marx, not even of Henry George, but of Joseph Chamberlain.94 As a result of the continuing support for the Liberals in Scotland – in the December 1910 election they gained thirty-three of thirty-nine county seats – the party needed to ensure that their existing supporters were accommodated, which meant that ‘dual ownership’ was used as a legislative response to the land problem.95 Along with the Lords’ attacks on Lloyd George’s Land Clauses, the Small Landholders’ Bill, which had been introduced by Sinclair in 1906, had been subjected to long delays.96 It finally received consent in 1911, but in spite of the support for land value taxation which has been noted among some Liberals, the new Act was a continuation of the 1880s ‘dual ownership’ legislation, indeed an extension of the Crofters’ Act’s provisions to the rest of Scotland. 97 In spite of a notional ability to 91

92 93 94

95 96 97

Packer, Lloyd George, Liberalism and the Land, 64; N. Blewett, The Peers, The Parties and the People: The General Elections of 1910 (London, 1972), 407. McCaffrey, Scotland in the Nineteenth Century, 118. Packer, ‘The land issue and the future of Scottish liberalism’, 64. Gilbert, ‘David Lloyd George: land, the Budget, and social reform’, 1058; P. Lynch, The Liberal Party in England, 1885–1910: Radicalism and Community (Oxford, 2003), 192–218. Packer, ‘The land issue and the future of Scottish liberalism’, 57. Cameron, Land for the People?, 139. Cameron, Land for the People?, 142.

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force landowners to create new smallholdings, these powers were seldom used, and by 1918 only 500 new holdings had been created, leading to a great deal of dissatisfaction with the Board of Agriculture for Scotland.98 * The ‘Land Inquiry’, however, launched in 1912 as the second stage of Lloyd George’s land and social programme, seemed to promise a more thoroughgoing reform of land than the 1911 Act, and it was generally well received in Scotland.99 In relation to the Highlands, Lloyd George believed that in spite of the Deer Forest Commission’s findings to the contrary, there was plenty of land with the potential to be broken down into smallholdings. After being on the receiving end of a salvo from the Chancellor, the duke of Sutherland offered 200,000 acres of land to the government at the rate of £2 per acre, a rate he subsequently reduced still futher.100 The move was reminiscent of the clamour by Irish landlords to sell-up after the Wyndham Act, although it did not prevent Sutherland’s continued vilification by the advanced Liberals. The Highland News, an isolated exponent of radical land reform in the Highlands, tried to increase the volume of anti-landlordism by linking the agitation with ongoing centenary commemorations of the Sutherland Clearances, and the immediate pre-war period witnessed explicit attempts to link contemporary land discontents with the misdeeds of a century earlier.101 It is also notable that the resolutions passed by the Braes crofters during Henry George’s speech in 1885, one of the very few occasions where the crofters themselves gave an unequivocal expression of support for land restoration, were highlighted in the Highland News during the Land Inquiry discussions.102 With home rule once more starting to dominate the political agenda, the visit of Richard McGhee – by now the Nationalist M.P. for Tyrone North – to the north of Scotland in order to promote Ireland’s cause witnessed a final direct link to the 1880s. McGhee reminded his audiences that he had ‘worked with a band of other Irishmen who had sympathy with the Scottish crofter and their well-known friend, John Murdoch’.103 The veteran trade unionist, Robert Smillie, however, showed little faith in the Liberals’ ability to come to terms with landlordism, dismissing Lloyd George’s celebrated speech at Bedford by reminding his audience of the dashed hopes of the 1880s: 98 99 100

101

102 103

Cameron, Land for the People?, 163; Fraser, Scottish Popular Politics, 147. Packer, Lloyd George, Liberalism and the Land, 83–7. Scotsman, 3 Nov., 4 Nov. 1913; Tindley, ‘The Sutherland Estate, c. 1860–1914’, 315–19; Cameron, Land for the People?, 159. Highland News, 20 Apr. 1912, 8 Aug. 1914. For an alternative interpretation, see Scotsman, 12 Nov. 1913. Highland News, 8 Aug. 1914. Highland News, 13 Jan., 10 Feb. 1914.

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Robert Smillie, President of the Miners’ Federation in Bradford last night, alluding to Mr Lloyd George’s land campaign, said it reminded him of Henry George’s campaign twenty-five years ago, when Liberals in Scotland were roused as never before. They unanimously passed resolutions in favour of nationalisation and sent it to the National Liberal Federation, but it had not since been heard of. A land campaign to be successful must come from the people, and he urged the Socialists not to expect too much of Mr Lloyd George’s campaign. Land was held by Liberals as well as Tories, and Mr Lloyd George would have the biggest task of his lifetime to carry his own party with him.104 The conclusions of the Land Inquiry were published in rural and urban reports in October 1913 and April 1914, respectively, but the distinctive conditions of Scotland were recognised in a separate report, finally published in July 1914, which outlined several criticisms of the 1911 Act.105 With the Irish crisis looming large, and internal divisions growing more pronounced, the Liberals’ internal problems were exacerbated by the failure to incorporate the land proposals in the 1914 budget:106 Like the Irish problem, the suffragette movement and the endemic labour unrest which belie Edwardian Britain’s retrospective aura of prosperity and tranquillity, the growing discontent among the Highlands’ landless population was submerged in the wider and more awful violence of the European war which broke out in August 1914.107 Martin has disagreed with Hunter’s analysis, at least in an English context, claiming that the First World War ‘was probably not the decisive force behind the decline of the land reform movement’.108 As in England, there was an issue for radical Liberals to address in relation to landlordism in Scotland, in deciding how to demonise the landowners without extending the principles expounded to the communalisation of all property. The first post-war Labour manifesto made the familiar demand for the ‘complete restoration of the land of Scotland to the Scottish people’, something which was calculated to appeal to the urban and rural ‘toilers’, and yet in relation to the Highlands, the Scotsman was still able to proclaim that:109 The Socialistic theories of Clydeside do not thrive in the Northern air, and it is not surprising therefore to find that only one distinctively 104 105

106

107 108

109

Scotsman, 13 Oct. 1913. Scotsman, 15 Oct. 1913, 2 Apr. 1914, 13 Jul. 1914; Scottish Land Enquiry Committee, Scottish Land: The Report of the Scottish Land Enquiry Committee (London, 1914); Packer, ‘The land issue and the future of Scottish liberalism’, 55–6. B. B. Gilbert, ‘David Lloyd George: the reform of British landholding and the Budget of 1914’, Historical Journal, xxi (1978). Hunter, Crofting Community, 195. D. Martin, ‘The agricultural interest and its critics, 1840–1914’, in J. R. Wordie (ed.), Agriculture and Politics in England, 1815–1939 (Basingstoke, 2000), 141–2. Howell, A Lost Left, 208–9.

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Labour candidate is being put forward – namely, in North Aberdeen. The Land League is not dead, but it is significant that there are only three exponents of the old agrarian doctrines which used to stir bitter animosities in the Highlands and Islands. The Land Leaguers have in each case tacked on the Labour label.110 Thomas Johnston, John Maclean and other urban agitators, however, found it just as difficult to integrate the crofting community into a panBritish workers’ movement as had the likes of George, Davitt, and McHugh in the 1880s. They had linked the landlordism of the Clearances with the landlordism which exploited the miners, and found a willing audience in the cities, but failed to impose their radicalism on the crofting community itself.

110

Scotsman, 10 Dec. 1918. The three were Ross and Cromarty, Inverness, and Western Isles.

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chapter nine

Conclusion Michael Davitt’s retrospective summary of the ‘Crofters’ War’, presents an excellent illustration of the difficulties inherent in examining the nature of its Irish dimension. Written in 1904, and dedicated to the ‘Celtic Peasantry of Ireland and their kinsfolk beyond the seas’, Davitt’s Fall of Feudalism in Ireland. Or, The Story of the Land League Revolution was was written for an audience which expected to be regaled with tales of the Land League. It would, he explained in the introduction, ‘tell the story of an Irish movement which sprang without leaders from the peasantry of the country. . .’1 Thus, the Highland land agitation was presented as an extension of the Irish Land War: Steps were likewise taken to carry the Land-League propaganda into the Highlands in order to stir up a crofter revolt against Scottish landlordism. Mr Edward McHugh, then of Glasgow, a man of remarkable ability and an ideal propagandist to any just cause that captures his adhesion, was commissioned by the League executive in Dublin to make a tour of the island of Skye and other Highland districts as an emissary of the anti-landlord movement. Mr McHugh, being able to converse in Gaelic, performed his task with marked success. In a short time the mission showed results in the formation of a Highland league, which, although independent in its organization and government from that of Ireland, was allied in a bond of sympathy and purpose to the movement in the sister Celtic country.2 Davitt’s later career helped to cement the idea that his concern for the crofters was based on a general sympathy for ‘oppressed’ peoples. This argument is tenable up to a point, but in Davitt’s own analysis during the 1880s, the Lanarkshire miner, or indeed English factory worker, was just as oppressed as the Highland crofter. The importance to Davitt’s career of the period 1879–1882, the ‘Land League Years’, in much of the subsequent historiography ensured that attempts to link him with the Scottish land agitation inevitably connected him with rural interests. It should also be noted that the eventual failure of the radical land reformers to have their solutions accepted in the Scottish Highlands meant that the subsequent presentation of the ‘Crofters’ War’ as a logical postscript to the Irish agitation, complete 1 2

Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, xi. Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 228.

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with a similar legislative solution through the 1886 Act, was a means of saving face. The Fall of Feudalism also highlighted John Murdoch as a direct link between the Irish and Highland agitations. This is undeniable, but again it is necessary to guard against overly simplistic presumptions based on theories of a shared Celtic identity and an overwhelmingly rural support base. Both Murdoch and Davitt had far more complex motives for their interest in linking the land and social questions of Ireland and Scotland, and given their broad sympathies it is more realistic to locate their interest in the Highlands as part of an integrated ‘four nations’ approach to ameliorating the conditions of all workers, and not just those of the ‘Celtic periphery’. * It has been stressed that any co-operation between the Irish and the Highlanders over the land question was unusual in the context of Scottish–Irish antagonism both before and after the ‘Crofters’ War’ period. Moreover, the alleged ‘direct’ Irish intervention in the Highlands was the work of a handful of radical Irishmen, based in Glasgow, and was undertaken with the close co-operation of migrant Highland Gaels in the city. These Irishmen often had to face a great deal of opposition from within their own community, which generally failed to understand their social reform ideals, and perceived them at best as an irrelevance, but at worst as a hindrance to the main political goal of home rule. On the wider political stage, this reflected the divisions between Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell, and ensured that Michael Davitt spent a great deal of time in Scotland after Parnell called off the Irish land agitation in 1882. The splits within nationalism are not the only complicating factor in seeking to understand the Irish involvement, however, and debates surrounding the relationship between the respective agitations caused a great deal of tension within the crofting community, especially after home rule had taken over from land as the main political issue in 1886. In addition, their very adherence to Henry George caused the radicals to be mistrusted not only by many crofters, but also by socialists who believed that land nationalisation without a wider programme of nationalisation would concentrate power in the hands of capitalists. Several ironies, therefore, present themselves. Although the Irish Land War eventually won legal protection for the smallholders centred on the ‘3 Fs’ in 1881, and the Parnellites maintained a loose commitment to a peasant proprietary, the ‘Irish’ presence made itself felt in the Highlands, and Scotland in general, because they felt there was little chance of maintaining a radical land agitation in Ireland. Whether or not he could speak Gaelic, there was little disagreement among contemporaries that Edward McHugh was a ‘man of remarkable ability’, but his visit to Skye was to prevent the crofters settling for this kind of ‘Irish’ legislation. Along with his exhortations

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to keep within the law, it was hoped that his ‘universal truths’ would prevent an early suppression of the crofting agitation and give the radicals enough time to put the case for root and branch land reform to the crofters. As part of a policy which has been described as ‘loyal opposition’, Davitt’s visits to Scotland gave him an opportunity to condemn the blight of landlordism in the Scottish towns and the countryside, and allowed him to criticise Parnell for his subordination of land and labour issues below self-determination for Ireland.3 Furthermore, in assessing the motives and reception of the external agitators in the Highlands during the 1880s, it is vital to underline the diversity of backgrounds among the reformers so readily dismissed as ‘Irish’ by opponents. This group was not at any time composed of a majority of Irishmen, something which John Ferguson noted with pride, and there seems no doubt that this Scottish contingent was vital in allowing the branch to become more than simply a maverick offshoot of the Land League.4 It should be added that some of the external agitators were more external than others. Some of the prime movers, such as John Ferguson, were based in Scotland, but did not venture into the crofting districts at all. Others, particularly Angus Sutherland, but also John Gunn Mackay and the Whyte brothers, made their livings in the cities but were Highlanders by birth, and maintained close links with their ancestral homes. Edward McHugh, Henry George, and James Shaw Maxwell all visited the crofting regions, but hailed from Ireland, America, and Glasgow, respectively. Michael Davitt made one tour among the crofters, in 1887, but otherwise received his information on the region either though the press or, more directly, from Ferguson, McGhee, and McHugh. Therefore, in spite of the equation of Ireland with agrarian disorder, this radical group was neither wholly Irish nor concerned exclusively, or even predominantly, with the rural land question in Scotland. Ferguson and McGhee, both Ulster Protestants, were businessmen who stressed the link between urban and rural prosperity. Ferguson, in particular, always claimed to base his theories on the ‘highest authorities’ of political economy, notably Mill and Cliffe Leslie. This, he hoped, would bring respectability to a movement which Ferguson claimed sought to ‘shoot ideas into people, not bullets . . . to expand men’s brains, not scatter them’, but it also ensured that his land reform theories transcended any sense of regional particularism.5 Edward McHugh had been born into a rural Ulster family, but had been forced to leave his native Tyrone at an early age.6 His upbringing in Greenock, where he witnessed a great deal of deprivation among Irish emigrants, but also had brief experience of being a casual dock labourer, 3 4 5 6

King, Michael Davitt, 41–5. Irish World, 10 Sep. 1881. Ferguson, Land for the People, 31. Newby, Life and Times of Edward McHugh, 1–8.

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ensured that he became a student of the land question in its widest sense. His presence in Skye in 1882, even though he was the organiser of the Land League in Scotland, must be seen in this context, and the context of his later trade union activity and lifelong advocacy of Henry George’s theories, rather than as an Irish nationalist mission. After the formation of the NLLGB, which enjoyed more autonomy from Dublin that its predecessor, the Glasgow radicals felt more able to pursue their own social agenda. It was this body, strongly influenced by Ferguson, which sent McHugh to Skye in 1882. As the organisation evolved into the INL, the members of the Home Government Branch remained the most reliable outlet for radicalism in Glasgow, even though many of its members were also involved with the SLRL and even in the birth of the Scottish Labour Party. It was their support for Henry George which linked these reformers in the 1880s, as much as their Irish credentials. This, in turn, alienated them somewhat, not only from mainstream Irish nationalism but also, eventually, from the crofters, who generally settled for dual ownership after 1886. The general publicity surrounding both George and the crofting agitation, when combined, created a potent news story, and the Georgites, along with others on the left, appropriated the crofter cause as part of a much broader suite of social reform groups. This led to a situation whereby the radicals played down the Irish impact when speaking to predominantly Scottish or British audiences, stressing the separate nature of the Highland agitation, but talked up the links when speaking to America or Irish nationalist audiences in Scotland or Ireland. George himself was quite explicit in his assertion that the Highland agitation was a stop-gap, designed to keep interest in his theories alive until the main centres of population were ready to embrace them. This was an extension of his beliefs as expounded in Progress and Poverty, and his interest in the Irish land question as a practical example of his theories led many of his contemporaries to ignore the fact that much of his philosophical development was based on the inequitable distribution of land in large cities, such as New York and San Francisco. * Although the ‘inspirational’ effect of the Irish Land War on the Highlands was noted with alarm by many contemporaries, it has allowed the crofters to be seen as the instigators of their own independent land reform movement, rather than as dupes of Irish agitators. In this analysis, therefore, it was the timing and the tactics which were said to be influenced by Ireland, rather than strangers creating an agitation ex nihilo. G. B. Clark claimed in 1885 that: The dissatisfaction of the small tenants in regard to their position is of native origin, but it is fomented by external influences. The land movement in the Highlands, even if it were not spontaneously maintained

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by the people themselves, would be aroused to further action by other forces: it is impelled by the democratic and social aspirations prevalent among various classes at home, and will probably enlist the sympathy of Highlanders in all parts of the world.7 In ‘copying’ the tactics of the Land League – mainly deforcement of process servers, disturbance or mutilation of livestock, and limited boycotting campaigns – the crofters hoped to win redress of their own specific grievances. The Highland newspapers, in common with the local press throughout Britain, devoted many column inches to Imperial and ‘British’ matters, including the state of Ireland. The very ubiquity of Ireland in the British press, which in spite of general condemnation gave detailed descriptions of the methods of the Land League, was perhaps the most important mode of transmission of ‘Irish ideas’ into the crofting community. The impact of Irish–Highland interaction in the Irish fishing grounds is, as Hunter has noted, ‘impossible to estimate’, and the extent to which the crofter-fishermen witnessed at first hand ‘the conflict raging in the Irish countryside’ is equally debatable.8 Moderate Liberal opinion was so perturbed by the images of Ireland that it attempted to separate crofting reform from the Irish case. Some, most notably Alexander MacKenzie and John Mackay of Hereford, stressed that any land reform movement needed to be free from Irish involvement, not only to avoid the reputation of the loyal Highlander being compromised, but also because the Highlands had very different grievances to the Irish tenants. Ireland inevitably seeped into the rhetoric of these ‘moderate’ reformers, but usually because they wanted to question why, in Blackie’s memorable phrase, the violent Irish should ‘get lollypops, while the quiet Highlanders got stripes and nothing else’.9 It is true, therefore, that the crofters received a great deal of conservative advice in relation to land reform. Conversely, the fact that the crofters were prepared to use some of the rhetoric and methodology of the Irish agitation, and tailor it to their own specific demands, gives support to the idea that this was an agitation essentially maintained by local communities themselves, albeit within the general umbrella of the HLLRA. The way in which the crofters used their agitation to promote the ‘Hibernian Epoch’ of specific remedial legislation was completely the opposite of what radicals like Davitt and Ferguson had promoted, and was, in fact, more reminiscent of the Irish smallholders’ rejection of land nationalisation.10 * 7 8 9 10

Clark, Highland Land Question, 14. Hunter, Crofting Community, 134. NC Ev., 45888. Cameron, ‘The political influence of Highland landowners’, 27.

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In the decades immediately preceding the ‘Crofters’ War’, there was little to suggest that there would be any kind of common cause forged between the Gaels of Ireland and Scotland. Certainly, Scots landlords were as implicated in the post-famine consolidation of holdings into larger ranches, and the supine integration of Scotland into the British system was often given as the kind of outcome the Irish wished to avoid for their nation.11 Although John Murdoch had attracted some attention in the 1870s, there was generally little expectation that the home rule cause would win support among the ‘Celtic brethren’ in Scotland.12 By the time of the Battle of the Braes, there was sympathy for the crofters apparent in some of the Irish press, but no more so than in the Liberal press throughout Britain. Both the Freeman’s Journal and United Ireland, for example, felt the need to explain that the crofters were not of completely Scandinavian origin, but were partly Celtic, which hardly suggests that there was a great groundswell of sympathy based on a perceived common heritage. It should also be noted that Andrew Dunlop, as a veteran reporter of the Irish Land War, believed that the organisation and overall intensity of the ‘Crofters’ War’ barely stood comparison with the allegedly analogous events in Ireland. Even by late 1886, when the crofters’ support for Irish home rule was generally reported with gratitude, the Irish press continued to damn the Highland land agitation with faint praise. In comparison with the ‘Plan of Campaign’ the crofters were seen as badly organised and unwilling to take their supposed anti-landlordism to the extremes of Ireland.13 In spite of this patronising disdain from some of the Irish press, and a general lack of interest from the majority of the Parnellite M.P.s, the idea that the Irish nation stood ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with the crofters in their struggle for reform of the land laws took hold so quickly in the Highlands that relatively recent antagonism was temporarily swept away in a torrent of pan-Celtic rhetoric. The failure in many parts of the press to present the Irish nationalists as anything other than a menacing, monolithic political bloc, meant that in spite of it being a left-wing, anti-Parnellite group which had attempted to convince the crofters of the righteousness of Georgite land reform, the whole Irish nationalist movement seemed to receive the gratitude of the crofters for their support in the land reform agitation. This, in turn, fed support for Irish home rule among the crofters which, though far from universal, was extremely conspicuous in a British context. By 1886, Ferguson, Davitt and their colleagues were coming to accept that the Highlands was no more likely than the urban lowlands to be in the vanguard of radical land reform. Yet, the Glasgow radicals gladly promoted the willingness of their compatriots to co-operate in the Scottish land and home rule movements. Indeed, Davitt’s private disappointment that the Skye 11 12 13

Davitt, Fall of Feudalism, 68. Nation, 2 Sep. 1876. Quoted in Legg, Newspapers and Nationalism, 100–1. Glasgow Observer, 20 Nov. 1886.

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crofters were apparently willing to accept the 1886 Act was entirely hidden by the enthusiasm for Irish home rule on the island, a remarkable transformation in the nature of Irish–Highland relations. The Oban Times, itself a symbol of this change in attitudes, described Davitt’s reception in poetic terms: Irishman and Scotchmen may at last congratulate themselves on having overcome the fierce and brutal prejudices of the past. Mr. Davitt, one of ablest and most persistent of Erin’s patriots, has received a welcome in the Highlands which augurs well for the future of the people’s cause. The day of social freedom in the north west has at last dawned; and instead of only a few unprejudiced men a few years ago who would receive the Irish patriot in a worthy spirit there is now a whole people ready to accord him the most enthusiastic welcome as a fellow sufferer and pioneer in the cause of democracy. We are moving fast in these times; and it is pleasant to mark that the progress among the people is towards freedom, large heartedness and mutual toleration . . . [Davitt] is one of those enduring children of Eirinn in all ages who have sought out that ‘sacred shrine where rested in sunshine and in gloom the secret voice of freedom of suffering and the tomb’; and Albin’s Gaels rejoice in his advent among them.14 With Parnell’s fall from grace in 1890, the increasing focus on the urban agitation, and the failure of the Second Home Rule Bill, the expressions of Celtic togetherness disappeared almost as quickly as they had developed. * From the very outset, political considerations of the various groups with an interest in the Highland land question obfuscated the extent and nature of any ‘Irish involvement’. There was, beyond any doubt, an ‘inspirational’ stimulus from Ireland, as the crofters could easily make comparisons between the Irish and their own grievances. Although the Highland Land League never remotely matched its Irish namesake in its mass membership, organisation, or wider political aims, there was a genuine fear in Britain that the Irish Land War would spill over into Scotland. In Scotland itself, this fear extended to advocates of moderate land reform measures, crofter advocates such as MacKenzie and Mackay, who did not want the crofters to have any associations with the ‘revolutionary’ Irish agitation. In response to these fears, the Glasgow Irish radicals deliberately downplayed their own involvement when dealing with Scottish audiences, or writing in the British press. The American-Irish readers of the Irish World, however, were entertained with stories of a common Celtic struggle against English coercion, and of the reawakening of a shared culture which would 14

Oban Times, 14 May 1887.

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inevitably weaken the union of Britain and Ireland. Such rhetoric, if useful for fundraising, was a red herring. It is quite clear that Davitt, Ferguson, and McHugh believed that Scotland generally provided more fertile ground for a Georgite agitation than Ireland. In disassociating the movement as much as possible from Ireland they hoped not only that it would avoid both Government repression, but also that it would appeal to potential adherents for whom the Irish question had become a tiresome sideshow to more important political and social reform issues. The bulwarks of the landed interest sought to highlight the radicals’ Irish links as part of a wider subversive conspiracy, in spite of the antipathy which existed between George and Parnell, and their respective camps. Subsequent events demonstrated that, for the Glasgow radicals, the ‘Crofters’ War’ was no mere extension of the Irish Land War. It presented an opportunity to promote the type of thoroughgoing land reform apparently rejected by the Irish. Stripped of any Irish nationalist connotations, much of the rhetoric was appropriated by radical Liberalism in the first decade of the twentieth century. Outrage on the part of the landed classes remained, but without the interrelated issues of Irish land and nationalism as distractions, a deeper debate into the nature of the use of land was possible, and it is in this context that ‘Irish’ intervention in the ‘Crofters’ War’ should be seen.

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Index Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, 36, 60, 61, 72, 77, 78, 80, 118, 188 Aberdeen Free Press, 78 Adair, J. G., 17 Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act, 102 Allotments (Scotland) Act, 175 Amnesty Association, 30 An Comunn Gaidhealach Ghlaschu, 21 Anti-Corn Law League, 12 Argyll, duke of, 29, 52, 86, 101, 105, 123, 144, 170 Argyllshire, 11, 12, 153, 168, 174 Arnold, A., 23, 56, 69 Ashbourne Act, 140 Asquith, H. H., 182 Balfour, A. J., 1, 38, 142, 143, 151, 154, 159 Balfour, J. B., 64, 124, 138 Bannockburn, battle of, 87 Banffshire, 60 Barra, 66, 167, 177, 179, 181, 182, 183 Begg, J., 42 Beith, G., 154 Bernera, 25, 26 Bessborough Commission, 3, 86 Biggar, J., 20, 41, 64 Birkenhead, 109, 180 Blackie, J. S., 2, 5, 31, 37, 78, 87, 91, 111, 112, 125–7, 193 Blantyre, master of, 72–3 Board of Agriculture for Scotland, 177, 186 Bodkye, 152

Bonar Bridge, 127, 130, 144–5, 150–1, 166, 174 Bradlaugh, C. 46, 144 Braes, 1, 61–4, 67–8, 77, 81, 83, 88, 93, 102, 104, 118–19, 186, 194 Bright, J., 13 Bright-Maclaren, W. S., 125 Brown, N., 123 Buccleuch, duke of, 40 Bull, P., 18, 176 Burke, T., 67, 81 Burns, J., 178 Burns, R., 120 Burscough, 102 Burt, J., 169 Burt, T., 124 Butt, I., 19, 20, 30 Buxton, S., 178 Caird, J., 18, 19 Caithness, 5, 79, 82, 85, 96, 168, 174 Cameron, D., 87, 152 Campbell, G., 18 Campbell-Bannerman, H., 176, 178–9, 182 Campbeltown, 12 Carlow, 70, 111–12, 115 Carnarvon, lord, 121 Carroll, W., 38–9, 161 Catholic Herald, 153 Catholic Socialist Society, 184 Cavendish, F., 67, 81, 161 Celtic League, 145 Celtic Magazine, 28 Chamberlain, J., 85, 119, 130–2, 139, 147–50, 154, 185

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Chartism, Chartists, 8, 9, 12–14, 23 Chase, M., 23 Cherrie, J. M., 103, 140, 144 Clan na Gael, 38 Clark, G. B., 2, 20, 32, 54, 69, 100, 125, 131, 134, 144–5, 149, 168, 172, 174, 183, 192 Clarke, M., 45, 47, 67 Clearances, 9, 10, 17, 18, 31, 72, 87, 90, 91, 126, 149, 183, 186, 188 Cliffe Leslie, T. 13, 57, 191 Clontarf, battle of, 87 Coal, Coal Miners, 24, 40, 68, 77, 93, 115, 120, 124, 144, 153, 155, 157, 165, 187–9 Coatbridge, 77, 118 Cobden, R., 13, 14, 43, 57 Collings, J., 131 Congested Districts Board (Ireland), 175 Congested Districts Board (Scotland), 175, 177, 179–82 Connaught Telegraph, 3 Corn Laws, 12 County Council elections (1890), 166 Covenanters, 159 Cowen, J., 23, 46, 53, 68 Crofters’ Bill, 124, 127–8 Crofters’ Commission, 139, 150 Crofters’ Holdings (Scotland) Act, 138, 140, 145–8, 169–70, 179, 190 Cromwell, O., 35 Cruickshank, J. M., 35, 146–7, 153, 165 Cullen, L. M., 6 Culloden, battle of, 9, 35, 115 Cunninghame Graham, R. B., 156, 163–4 Curtis, L. P., 15 Daly, J., 3, 76 Davis, T., 95 Davitt, M., 2, 4–6, 8, 20, 30, 37–8, 40, 49, 50–1, 55–8, 63–4, 68, 70,

72–85, 88, 91–9, 101, 105–9, 113–16, 120–3, 135, 140, 143, 146–54, 156–7, 162, 164, 168, 169, 172, 176–80, 188–91, 193–6 De Laveleye, E., 20, 43, 57 Deer Forest Commission, 170–3, 186 Deer Forests, 21, 170–1 Democratic Federation, 50, 54, 101–3, 106, 125 Derby, lord, 102 Derryveagh, 17–18, 91 Devoy, J., 3 Diggers, 8 Dillon, J., 37, 39, 75, 153, 157–9, 161 ‘Dingwall Programme’, 113, 125, 129 dock labourers, 58, 124, 163, 191 Donegal, 16–17, 114, 181 Droghega, 106 Dublin, 1, 19, 22, 29, 31, 34, 54–5, 58, 67, 80, 89, 130, 139, 153–4, 192 Dudley Edwards, O., 108 Dundas, H., 12 Dundee, 9, 50, 79, 96, 100–1 Dundee Advertiser, 63 Dunlop, A., 65–6, 194 Dunvegan, 87, 102 Edinburgh, 15, 37, 54, 74, 83, 85, 88, 99, 110, 118, 125, 145–7, 160, 162 Edinburgh Sutherlandshire Association, 125 Education Act (1872), 21 Egan, P., 55 English Land Restoration League, 115 Exile, 108, 114 Famine, 7, 9, 10, 14 Farmers’ Alliance, 34–7, 60–1, 102 Fawcett, H., 51

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Federation of Celtic Societies, 34–5, 49, 54, 130, 134, 146, 166 Fenians, Fenianism, 9, 12, 19, 21, 25, 38–9, 63, 69, 74, 78, 82, 92, 161, 175, 181 Ferguson, J., 5–6, 8, 13–14, 19–23, 30–1, 34, 38, 45, 47–51, 55–9, 66, 69, 71, 74, 77–8, 84–5, 93–4, 98, 101, 106–7, 114, 139, 144–8, 153, 156, 165, 168–9, 172–4, 178, 191–4, 196 Fifeshire Journal, 10 ‘Fionn’ see Whyte, H. Fishermen 1, 12, 23, 34, 56, 63, 88, 167, 193 Fitzgerald, C. J., 106 Ford, P., 38 Forster, W. E., 62 Forsyth, W., 97, 119 Fraser, W., 50, 54, 80, 96 Fraser Mackintosh, C., 29, 90, 104, 119, 124–5, 129, 136, 138, 141, 162, 167 Freeman’s Journal, 16–17, 30, 34, 65, 147, 149, 194 Froude, A. J., 2, 69, 78, 155

58–62, 65, 72, 77, 84–90, 92, 94–5, 97–101, 107–8, 113, 115–16, 121–2, 132, 137, 140, 144, 147, 153–8, 163–7, 169, 173, 175–6, 180, 189–91, 194, 195 ‘Glasgow Bill’ see Land Values Taxation (Scotland) Bill Glasgow Observer, 59 143, 146, 151, 157, 164 Glasgow Sutherlandshire Association, 35, 72, 73, 134, 181 Glasgow Young Ireland Society, 94, 144 Glasier, J. B., 49, 59, 67, 100, 164, 184 Glendale, 1, 62, 81, 88, 102, 109, 136, 177, 181, 182 Glenveagh, 17 Golspie, 128, 130–3 Gordon Cathcart, Lady, 178, 179 Gorst, H. E., 111 Grant, J. Grant of, 12 Greenock, 10, 80 Grierson, A., 17 Guelph Mercury, 128 Gweedore, 17, 162

Gaelic Journal, 78 Gaelic Union (Dublin), 48 Galloway, 7 George, H., 4, 13, 31–3, 35, 38, 44, 46–7, 49, 51, 57, 61, 64, 68–9, 73, 75, 78, 80, 83, 85, 88, 92, 94–8, 100–9, 112–14, 117–20, 125, 129, 132–3, 146, 150, 153, 162–5, 169, 173, 175, 180–3, 185–8, 190–2, 194, 196 George Jr., H., 97, 176 Gillies, H. C. 52 Gladstone, W. E., 2, 18, 22, 29, 38, 51, 57–9, 62, 64, 75, 91, 104, 117–18, 121, 132, 134, 139–40, 146, 153–4, 173, 177 Glasgow, 5–6, 9, 14, 17, 19–21, 23–4, 28, 30, 35–6, 40–52, 55–6,

Hamilton, 115 Hamilton, duke of, 93, 144 Harcourt, W., 105 Hardie, J. K., 155–6, 163 Harris, M., 76 Havelock Wilson, J., 163 Healy, T. M., 50 Helmsdale, 72–3, 89–90, 110, 125, 141 Hibernophobia, 15 Highland Land Law Reform Association, 74, 92, 100, 102–5, 109–13, 115, 117, 119, 124–7, 133, 137, 143, 145, 172, 193 Highland Land League, 6, 145, 151, 161, 165–9, 171–5, 195 Highland Land League (1909), 183–4, 188

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Highland News, 135, 140, 147, 162, 166–7, 179, 186 Highlander, 21, 23, 26, 28, 34, 39, 41, 43, 48, 54, 127 Hill, G., 16 Hobsbawm, E. J., 6 Hobson, J. 180 Home Government Association, 19– 21, 27, 30 ‘Home Government Branch’, 4, 59, 85, 107, 123, 132, 144, 155–7, 164, 184 Home Rule (Irish), 1, 15, 38, 45, 94, 98, 108–9, 120–2, 136–42, 146–50, 154–5, 157–62, 167–9, 174, 178, 195 Home Rule (Scottish), 15, 140–1, 146, 148, 158–62, 167–9, 174, 178, 195 Howell, D., 184 Hunter, J., 51, 114, 139, 171, 183, 187 Hyndman, H. M., 33, 50, 71, 101, 175 Hypothec, 13, 19 Innes, C., 48 Innes, J., 128 Invergordon, 150 Inverness, Inverness-shire, 5, 50, 77–80, 83, 102, 104, 130–1, 152, 157–8, 162, 168, 174, 181 Inverness Courier, 5, 79, 105, 149 Irish National Land League, 1, 2, 3, 5, 20, 31, 34, 38, 40–7, 48–57, 189–91; see also National Land League of Great Britain Irish National League, 4, 76–7, 90, 108, 123, 136, 144, 151, 154, 161–4, 192 Irish World, 23, 26, 38, 44, 55, 66, 70, 76, 78, 80, 104, 151, 195 Irishman, 34 Irishtown, 34, 57–8, 64, 143 Ivory, W., 62, 113, 136, 144

Johnston, T., 24, 93, 183, 188 Jones, E., 14 Kay, J., 3, 56, 69, 80 Keane, T., 114 Kelly, B., 140 Kidd, S., 21 Kiernan, O., 108, 123 Kilmainham Gaol, 46 ‘Kilmainham Treaty’, 4, 70, 76, 85, 121 Kilmuir, 50, 55, 77, 81, 92, 136, 143 Kincardineshire, 60 Kinsale, 1, 63 Knights of Labor, 163 Kropotkin, P., 164 Lalor, J. F., 2, 22 Lamont, J., 36 Land Act (1870), 2, 18, 19, 20, 30, 51 Land Act (1881), 2, 4, 48, 51, 57, 60, 65, 69–71, 74–7, 86, 91–2, 104, 113–16, 169–70, 177 ‘Land Inquiry’, 180, 186–7 land nationalisation, 4, 19, 31–4, 49, 56–7, 68, 71, 75–6, 80, 82, 84, 100–6, 109, 120, 125, 145, 149, 156–7, 169, 174, 176–7, 191, 193 Land Nationalisation Society, 176 ‘Land Plan’, 13, 23 land restoration, 4, 19, 32, 57, 95, 97–9, 102, 107–10, 119–22, 133, 136, 146, 157, 160, 164, 169–76, 178–86, 191 Land Tenure Reform Association, 19 Land Values Taxation (Scotland) Bill, 173, 176, 180 Leckmelm, 35, 41, 43, 47, 87–8 Leitrim, lord, 30 Levellers, 8 Lewis, 25–6, 37, 51, 66, 114, 148–9, 152, 157, 164, 170, 175, 179 Liverpool, 21, 36, 58, 68, 75, 86–7, 92, 94, 138, 144

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Index Liverpool Highland Society, 36, 109 Lloyd George, D., 180, 182–7 Loch, J., 90 London, 23, 38, 74, 82, 92, 94, 102, 105, 110–11, 113, 120, 145, 155, 166 Lothian, 18 Louden, J. J., 54 Lovat, lord, 88 McCallum, D., 136 McCarthy, J., 55 MacColl, A., 3, 113 McCombie, W., 13 McCombie, W., of Tilllyfour, 13, 36 MacDonald A., 36, 109 MacDonald, J. Ramsay, 184 MacDonald, L., 73 MacDonald, lord, 62, 67, 81 MacDonald, M., 69 MacDonald, R., 111, 112, 125, 136, 145, 149, 168 MacDonald Cameron, J., 125 Macdougall, R., 36, 129 MacFadden, J., 162 Macfarlane, D. H., 70–1, 87, 92, 110–12, 115, 125, 134–8, 145, 168, 172 McGhee, R., 21, 45, 77, 85, 93–7, 120–1, 135, 140, 156, 163, 165, 169, 175, 181, 186, 191 Macgregor, D., 167–8 McHugh, E., 1, 5, 8, 10, 20, 30–3, 38, 45–50, 52–5, 59, 64, 66, 68–72, 77–8, 82–3, 85, 88, 91–6, 104–5, 109, 118, 120–3, 135, 139–40, 148, 156, 163, 165, 169, 178–83, 189–91, 196 McHugh, P. A., 171 McIlvanney, L., 14 Mackay, J. (‘Hereford’), 5, 127, 129–30, 133, 166, 168, 193, 195 Mackay, J. Gunn, 35, 47, 55, 175, 191 Mackenzie, A., 2, 5, 33, 39, 42, 80, 86, 90–1, 104, 162, 193, 195

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Mackenzie Macleod, J. (‘Lochbroom’), 36, 47, 92 MacKinnon, D., 22, 81 MacKinnon, W., 134 McLardy, D., 146–7, 165, 172 Maclean, J., 184, 188 Macleod, J. (‘Gartiemore’), 110, 126, 130, 131, 141, 146, 165–7, 172–5 Macleod, J. (‘Gladstone’), 136 Macleod, R., 87 Macmillan, J., 41–2 MacNeill, M., 1, 135 MacPhail, I. M. M., 21, 25, 113, 124, 171 MacPherson, J., 109, 136, 172, 182 Macrae D., 79, 161 MacTavish, Dr., 158 Mahon, J., 99 Mahony, P., 138 Mandeville, J., 159 Martin, T., 187 Marx, K., 32–3, 105, 185 Matheson, A., 110 Matheson, J., 26 Mayo, 2, 4, 16, 104, 151 Mid-Lanark by-election (1888), 155–6, 160 Mill, J. S., 14, 19, 27, 32, 57, 78, 191 Mitchel, J., 2, 16, 95 Mitchell, M., 9 Moody, T. W., 4, 75 Monsell, W., 18 Morgan, K. O., 155 Morley, J., 176 Morton, A. C., 180 Munro, D., 26 Munro Ferguson, R., 111, 112, 125 Murdoch, J., 5, 8, 14, 21–2, 25, 27–30, 33–41, 43–4, 55, 66, 68–70, 83, 86–7, 90, 94, 97, 99, 102, 119, 122, 127, 131–2, 135, 140, 172, 176, 186, 190 Murray, J., 17

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Naas, lord, 18 Napier Commission, 22, 38, 83, 85–6, 89–91, 100–2, 110, 112–13, 117, 131, 138, 179 National Land League of Great Britain, 1, 49–50, 53, 59, 64, 68, 71, 83–4, 90, 105, 192; see also Irish National Land League National Land and Industrial Labour Union of Ireland, 76 National Radical Conference (1884), 100 National Union of Dock Labourers, 163 Navan, 86 ‘New Departure’, 30, 45, 94 ‘New Domesday Book’, 23 Nicolson, A., 84, 90, 125–6 Nolan, J., 138 Northern Chronicle, 5, 48, 61, 67, 79, 80, 86, 89, 99, 104–5, 132, 150 Northern Ensign, 26, 103 Nulty, T., 42, 56, 58, 68, 78 Oban, 152–3, 181 Oban Telegraph, 165 Oban Times, 23–4, 28, 33–4, 36, 39–40, 44, 48, 55, 63, 67–8, 81, 86–7, 91, 96–7, 108, 110, 117–18, 129, 134–5, 138, 144, 152, 174, 195 O’Brien, W., 153, 162 O’Connell, D., 15 O’Connor, F., 13 O’Connor, T. P., 41, 50–2, 76, 121, 157–61 O’Donovan Rossa, J., 39 Ogilvie, W., 12 O’Kelly, J. J., 75 Orkney, 60 Orr, W., 21 O’Sullivan, C. P., 45 Packer, I., 185 Paine, T., 12

Paisley, 74, 100, 101 Pan Jones, E., 145 Parnell, C. S., 49–52, 57, 59, 64–7, 70, 74–7, 83–5, 92, 94–5, 106–7, 114–16, 120–2, 132, 139, 141, 147, 149, 153, 158, 160–2, 171, 176, 190–1, 194–6 peasant proprietary, 3–4, 6, 20, 30, 37–41, 44, 46, 56, 58, 69, 71, 74, 80, 82, 108, 120, 127, 133, 164, 177, 190 Pentland, Lord see Sinclair, John ‘People’s Budget’ (1909), 180, 182–5 Philipps, J. Wynford, 155, 156 Phoenix Park Murders, 54, 67–9, 161 Picton, J., 124 Pigott, R., 161 Pirie, A. C., 41–2 ‘Plan of Campaign’, 38, 143, 146, 157, 194 Portree 1, 61, 63, 68–9, 81, 97, 102, 124, 129, 152 Power, P. J., 147 Power, R., 111 Prince Edward Island, 37 Queen’s County, 17 race, racism, 10, 15 Ramsay, J., 70 Red Clydeside, 184, 187 Redmond, J., 20, 122, 182 Reform Act, Third (1884–5), 110, 113, 114, 117, 118, 123, 135, 168 ‘Revolt of the Field’, 23 Ricardo, D., 32 Roman Catholicism, 7, 15, 23, 54–5, 69–70, 135, 142 Rosebery, lord, 61, 159 Ross-shire, 5, 9, 26, 41, 110, 125 Royal Commission (Highland and Islands) see Deer Forest Commission

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Index Russell Mackenzie, A., 111 Ryan, R., 14 Rylett, H., 54 Saunders, W., 54, 124, 172 Scheu, A., 99–100 Scotsman, 5, 10–11, 15, 19, 21, 23–5, 29, 34, 37, 39–41, 44, 53, 56, 64, 81, 87, 99–100, 111, 172–5, 178 Scottish Highlander, 135, 162, 167 Scottish Home Rule Association, 141, 160 Scottish Labour Party, 157, 165, 167, 173, 192 Scottish Land and Labour League, 99–100 Scottish Land Restoration League, 88, 95, 97–100, 102–3, 107, 109–13, 119–22, 125, 129, 132–3, 136, 139, 146, 150, 153, 160, 164, 167, 173, 192 Scottish Land Restoration Union, 173 Scottish Socialist Federation, 164 Sellar, P., 90 Sexton, T., 99 Shaw Maxwell, J., 21, 45–7, 49, 59, 99, 102–3, 107, 113–14, 117, 122, 129, 132, 140, 144, 161, 164, 184, 191 Sheehy, D., 161–2 Shiels, P., 108 Simpson, J., 114 Sinclair, J., 179–80 Skene, W. F., 23 Skye, 50–5, 61–2, 64–8, 70–3, 77, 79, 81–3, 85–6, 88, 92, 95–6, 101–2, 110, 113–15, 117–19, 125, 136, 143, 150–1, 161, 177, 179, 181, 189, 192, 194 Skye Vigilance Committee, 54–5 Sligo, 46, 82 Small Landholders’ Act, 185–7

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Smillie, R., 186–7 Smith, G., 15–16 Smith, W., 107 Smout, T. C., 6 Social Democratic Federation see Democratic Federation Socialism/Socialists, 1, 5, 32–3, 46, 50, 59, 75, 79, 85, 98–100, 102–5, 108, 120, 152, 155, 157, 163–5, 169, 184, 187 Spectator, 183 Spence, T., 12 Spencer, earl, 89 Spiers, G., 62, 68, 77 Stafford, marquis of, 128–34, 138, 141, 166 Stewart, N. (‘Parnell’), 136 Stornoway, 25–6, 111–12, 148–9, 152, 175 Sullivan, E., 22 Sutherland, Angus, 2–3, 21, 30–1, 35, 43–4, 47, 49, 53–4, 64, 71–4, 83, 85, 88–90, 99, 110, 125–42, 145–55, 157–61, 165–8, 172, 174–5, 181, 184, 191 Sutherland, duke of, 3, 31, 40, 58, 72–3, 80, 83, 88–90, 110, 112, 125, 186 Sutherlandshire, 71, 73, 87–90, 110, 125, 126–36, 141–5, 159, 161, 165, 168, 174, 177 Sutherlandshire Association, 74, 126, 134–6, 141, 145, 148, 158–60, 167 Swift Macneill, J. G., 181 Swordale, 27 Taxation of Land Values see land restoration Times, 39, 41, 60, 161 Tiree, 143–4, 151, 179 Torley, J., 53 Trevelyan, C. P., 178 Trevelyan, G. O., 138 Tyrone, 10, 186, 191

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Valtos, 50, 52–5, 60, 102, 136 Vatersay, 177, 179 Vaughan, W. E., 17 Victoria, Queen, 105 Vogel, U., 4 Voice of the People, 99

Wallace, A. R., 2, 32, 51, 56, 57, 75 Waternish, 102, 136 Webb, S., 46 Webster, A., 99 Wedgwood, J., 181 Weekly Freeman, 28 Weir, J. Galloway, 168, 180 Westminster Review, 10 Wheatley, J., 184 Whyte, H. (‘Fionn’), 21, 35, 45, 47, 52, 54, 63, 72, 87, 119, 124, 174, 191 Whyte, J., 21, 35, 78, 191 Wick, 149–50 Wicksteed, C., 103 Wyndham Act, 177, 186, 191

Wales, 15, 23, 50, 85, 97, 145, 150, 151, 176, 182

Yeats, W. B., 38 Young Ireland, 22

Uig (Skye), 96, 102 Uist, 66, 68 United Committee for the Taxation of Land Values, 181–2 United Ireland, 28, 66, 82, 106, 115, 156, 194 United Irish League, 176, 177 United Irishmen, 12, 16, 63 Ure, A., 181