CHAPTER XXIII
THE DEER FORESTS OF SCOTLAND*
The report of the Committee of which Sir John Stirling Maxwell was chairman, appointed in 1919 to enquire into the economic condition of the land devoted to deer forests, has lately been published. The enquiry seems to have been conducted in a more business-like manner and at less expense than is often the case in similar enquiries; and though there has been from time to time a good deal of demand from crofters, and from political agitators, for the restriction of deer forests, the Commission has found little cause to condemn the present use of the very large areas in which deer are preserved for purposes of sport; and their recommenda¬ tions are agreed to and signed by all its members.
I do not find any allusion in the report to a very remarkable book on Public Administration in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland , by J.P. Day, University of London Press, 1918, in which the difficulties met with by the Government at various periods in attempts to improve the condi¬ tions of the crofters by giving them more land and by assisting emigration are given in great detail. Nothing can be more disheartening than the general results of these well-meant endeavours. They seem to show that the want of energy, industry and perseverance of the crofting population, especially in the islands, makes them a very difficult people to help. These weaknesses of character are no doubt due to three primary causes. First, overcrowding, which has produced fatal results and has led to the migra¬ tion of many of the men who had any real desire for better conditions; secondly, bad climatic conditions; and, thirdly, race, which together have produced the same effects in the West of Scotland as in the West of Ireland, I quote the following from the book in question (pp. 502-204): “Of the land of the crofting counties, over one-half (54 per cent,) is mountain and heathland used for grazing; about a third (32*5 per cent.) is devoted to deer forests and grouse moors; only about one-eighth of this is under 1,000 feet above sea-level.” . . . “ Deer forests appear to have existed in Northern Scotland from very early days, and documents of the early seventeenth century show that some at least were then strictly preserved; but the practice of Highland proprietors letting the rights of shooting over their estates began in the early years of the nineteenth century.” Lord Malmesbury’s Memoirs give 1833 as the first year deer forests were “ made and rented.” “This new branch of trade or commerce,” states a writer in the Inverness Courier of 1841, “has added greatly to the rental of many Highland estates. Instances are not rare of the shooting letting as high as the grazing of a mountain district. The yearly marketable value of the sport over a Highland property may at present be reckoned at something like the following rate, grouse being the unit or standard of value, viz.:
Reprinted from The Scotsman of May 27, 1922, by kind permission of the Proprietors.
