THE EARL OF FIFE AND HIS TENANTRY.
THE young Earl of Fife, who came into possession of his estates last autumn, is the owner of about 120,000 acres in the north-east corner of Scotland. They bring in, on an average, some fifteen shillings a-piece ; for his rent-roll in Banffshire is only £40,000, while from the out-flanking shires of Aberdeen and Moray he gets no more than £20,000 each. Time out of mind the estates have been exceedingly well managed. No doubt, for the better part of half a century they have been managed by trustees. The grand-uncle of the present Earl ruined himself in the expensive days of George IV., and spent afterwards a long life of repent- ance and solitude. The late Earl, who succeeded, passed a weary period in the undesirable character of a man with great expectations who possesses small means. He never had freedom to do as he listed with what was nominally his own. He was tied hard and fast by a multi- plicity of law-fastenings, some of them very irksome and almost incredible ; and (it may be said without discussing his private character) that had he enjoyed the utmost liberty, the pith and sagacity were wanting that would have enabled him to give a new resolution to common subjects, or set a great ex- ample to all his fellows in the land-owning class. This his son has done. We saw, in some of the Scottish journals the other day, that Sir William Harcourt was sneered at because, in connection with the late electoral contest for Morayshire— the seat for which was rendered vacant by the elevation of Viscount Macduff to the Peerage—he passed a compliment to the young man as a rising politician. Perhaps the critics are now aware that Sir William did not speak without book.
For well-nigh a dozen years his Lordship has borne an influential part in the direction and control of whatever was done that had an important character, in connection with the estates. It was the knowledge of this fact, and of his well- known leanings as regards the farmer, which enabled him with such ease to wrest the representation of Morayshire from the Tories, with whom it had been a possession for many years prior to the passing of the first Reform Act, as it had been continuously afterwards down to 1874. In the course of that electioneering campaign, he developed powers of public address which found no fit expression in the House of Commons, except upon one occasion, the debate over Mr. Chaplin's motion as to agricultural distress. He then delivered a speech that lifted the dis- cussion out of the groove in which it had run, brought in pertinent considerations of wide reach, and raised the whole Question of how farmers and landlords should be related to each other. That in uttering himself as he he did, he was not carrisd away by any mere enthusiasm of partisanship, of oratory, or of conceit, has now been made evident. His words were the words of a man who was both sincere and sagacious, firm-minded and clear-seeing; and he has vindi- cated his good-faith by giving them practical effect. The Scottish Chamber of Agriculture could do nothing better for the purpose in aid of which it exists, than to take the new " regulations and conditions of farm tenancy," which have been framed for the Fife estates, present them to every landowner in Scotland, and ask whether he is ready to endorse and accept them. There are at least two great nobles, both in their private character liberal and fair men- the Duke of Buccleuch in the south, and the Duke of Rich- mond in the north—who would think it due to their dignity to sniff and refuse ; but all the rest, and they as well, will be obliged, sooner or latter, to follow suit, so that over this new code there might be inscribed the preface,—" Here beginneth the story which relates the downfall of feudalism in Scotland." Lord Fife has innovated in four respects upon law and usage. For a long series of years, Scottish farmers have been exercised about "hypothec" and game. The word "hypothec" has a barbarous sound to ordinary English ears, though of course every lawyer, Continental as well as English, knows what it means,—that it is the equivalent for the English law of distress. Though largely modified of late years in its incidence, this law is still capable of being carried out with a harsh austerity not permissible South of the Tweed. Lord Fife, by formal contract, abandons unconditionally the right to its exercise, putting himself in his proper place, as on a level with every other creditor of a falling or bankrupt man. Ground game he allows all his tenants to shoot as they like, leaving it to themselves to settle with the Excise as to times and seasons. Winged game he reserves, but with the proviso that if the birds do more damage than the farmer may fairly reckon upon—five per cent. on the value of the crop is the figure suggested—compensation will be allowed, its amount being fixed by arbiters chosen by both parties. This is a step in advance of any Game Bill applicable to Scotland hitherto introduced to Parliament. A like stride forwards is marked in the rule that compensation will be awarded for all true improvements executed at the tenant's cost, even should he have to be evicted for non-payment of rent ; in other words, there is to be no seigniorial power of punishing failure by confiscation. Most important of all, per- haps, is a recognition of the right to pursue the course of tillage that is likely to pay best, the only exceptions being that it is prohibited to reap two white crops in succes- sion ; while it is enacted that, upon the expiry of a lease, the land must be left under some regular rotation of cropping, so that the new tenant shall not be subjected to a disadvantage. To those who know how, from generation to generation, con- ditions as to cropping have been copied by lawyers from " Books of Style "—ancient rules being thus perpetuated in the most absurd way—this innovation will appear the greatest of all. Safe-guarded as it is, the reasonableness of it can hardly be questioned.
If it be a strange thing, as surely it must be accounted, that one great landholder has the power not only of becoming a law to himself in the control of his property, but of anti- cipating, and so of forcing—as we are persuaded will be the case here—a legislative movement in favour of making that law universal and compulsory, it is still more odd that we should have had to wait so long for a step as necessary as it is significant. Exactly a hundred years have passed since Paley propounded these two rules as of imperative obliga- tion in regard to the management of landed property,— the first, " to give the occupier all the power over the soil that is necessary for its perfect cultivation ;" the second, " to assign the whole profit of every improvement to the persons by whose activity it is carried on." The strong- headed Archdeacon was eminently right in his general prin- ciples, though the particular instances to which he applied them—tithes, common-rights, manorial claims, &c.—have long since lost their importance ; but there remains great scope for their application. Even Lincolnshire, most favoured of English counties though it be in respect of that " custom " which has the force of law, may learn something from Banff. Lord Fife has put his tenants into a better position than those of Lord Yarborough ; and if our farmers are to be men of intelligence and capital, scientific artisans, enlightened chemists—men who know best how to manufacture bread and meat—the advance must be sustained, and may even require to be improved upon. Meantime, all Scotsmen interested in farming ought to be profoundly thankful.
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