Applicant having no title to claim right to the enlargement, as he was not the proprietor thereof. We thought this result was consistent with the equity of the situation from the tenant's point of view, as the granting of the crave would have left the 80 acres of pasture unattached to any steading or equipment. This tract of pasture could only be utilised in conjunction with the original croft which possessed the buildings and in the absence of a dwelling house or steading, would probably become derelict. It was, however, impossible to reconcile the interests of both parties, as the hardship to the small proprietor remained, because he was kept out of the personal occupation of his property, through no fault of his own, but merely from the nature of his inheritance and through the operation of the Statute. We endeavoured to bring about an arrangement between the parties but were unsuccessful.

We have thought it right to comment upon these cases, as they raised questions of law, but a perusal of the appendix will show that in the majority of cases, the statutory requisites had been fulfilled, and resumption consequently fell to be granted.

COMMON GRAZINGS.

During the year, new Regulations were enacted for 16 Townships in which no Regulations for the administration of Common Grazings had been previously enacted, and in 2 Townships old Regulations were superseded and a new set of Rules substituted. Fifty new Committees were appointed by the Court under their statutory powers on failure of the respective Townships to elect Committees on the expiry of the triennial period, while in 30 cases Grazings Constables were appointed in respect that the Townships concerned had failed to elect new Committees in terms of the Acts. During the year, 130 new Committees were appointed by the Townships concerned, the necessary statutory formalities having been observed in each case. The large number of Committees appointed by the Townships themselves shows that increased interest is being taken in crofting communities in the management of their Common Grazings, and is probably accounted for by the fact that the Court's Secretary circularised every Township which appeared to have no validly appointed Committee, and forwarded to them forms of notice of meetings and of certificates of publication. There are now over the whole of the Mainland districts of the Highlands, the Western Islands and Orkney and Shetland only 89 Townships with which we have been unable to make any progress with regard to the appointment of Committees, but it is hoped that in course of the coming year a considerable number of these may be satisfactorily dealt with.

The Grazings Officer has conducted enquiries in Skye, Shetland, Barra, Lewis and Argyllshire. In Shetland, where, during the war, nothing could be done in the way of organising the various Townships interested in the Common Scattalds, he was able to deal with practically every district which required attention, and validly appointed Committees or Constables are now in office for nearly all the Scattalds or Common Grazings in that County. In Shetland alone the Grazings Officer visited over 60 Townships.

We have had occasion during the year to invoke the assistance of the Procurator Fiscal for the purpose of enforcing our Regulations. In the Staffin District in Skye some of the tenants were prosecuted for contravening Regulations by grazing stock in excess of their authorised soumings. Convictions were obtained in 4 of the cases and fines ranging from 30 to 40/ imposed.

We also found it necessary to report to the Fiscal for prosecution a a Landholder from Ardfernal in Jura, for persistently contravening the Regulations for that Township. The case was heard at Dunoon and the accused was found guilty on both charges libelled against him. He was fined £3 with the option of 20 days' imprisonment.

It is only by taking extreme steps of this sort that we can support the Committees and Constables who find themselves being defied, but these convictions have undoubtedly had a salutary effect all over the Highlands upon persons inclined to be obstructive, or intent on making private gain at the expense of the interests of the community. The procedure for enforcement of the Regulations, however, is cumbrous, and it is again urgently represented that some method of direct control should be vested in the Land Court.

This suggestion, which has been already made in previous reports, is not, as might at first sight appear, at all repugnant to the spirit of Scots Law, and there is ancient precedent for it, in the powers which the Burghs of Scotland possessed of enacting regulations for the administration of their common pastures, which lay outside the burghal area, and of enforcing observance of their rules of souming, etc., by the imposition. of the fines enacted in such regulations. Hume Brown's Scotland in the time of Queen Mary. Charters and Documents of the Burgh of Paisley (Metcalfe) 1598-1604.

The Court in the last three years have been endeavouring by strenuous exertions to place the administration of Common Grazings all over the Highlands and Islands on a systematic footing, on which it can be worked smoothly and equitably and as the experiment is a unique example of an attempt to constitute a form of self government by regulating rights in common property by means of Committees consisting of members of the communities concerned, anything which tends

to support the speedy and effective enforcement of fair and equitable administration of such communal undertakings should commend itself to Parliament.

SUB-TENANT.

A strenuous effort was made to draw a distinction between a Sub-tenant holding under an Agricultural Lease of ordinary duration and a sub-lessee holding under a Long Lease falling within the provisions of the Registration of Long Leases Act, 1857. While it was admitted that the former class were excluded from the provisions of the Landholders Acts, and that there was express authority to that effect, the position of a Long Leaseholder was attempted to be assimilated to that of a proprietor, with the consequent result that the sub-tenant holding from him would be in the same position as a principal tenant and entitled to the benefits of the Acts. This was maintained on the ground that such sub-tenants were recognised by implication under the Agricultural Holdings Acts, and that they must, as being a specially favoured class of sub-tenant, be admitted to the privileges of the Landholders Acts. In the case of Elliot v Mitchell's Trs., we entered into a full discussion of the whole question, and came to the conclusion that the provisions of the Landholders Acts being concerned with the granting of permanent rights, terminable only by statutory methods, necessarily forbade the inclusion of any class of sub-tenant, and that this was supported by the reasoning of the judges in the Court of Session in Livingstone v Beattie, 18 R. 735, which proceeded on the footing that it was the fact of sub-tenancy which excluded sub-tenants, and not any special distinction with regard to the nature of the subtenancy held by any particular class of sub-tenant.

CASES FROM LEWIS.

We spent upwards of three weeks in the Island of Lewis in early Spring, and in the course of these sittings, we disposed of practically all the cases then outstanding in that Island. A remarkable feature of these cases was the number of disputes we were called upon to decide with regard to questions of boundaries between neighbouring holdings, and these cases illustrate the peculiar aptitude of this Court for the decision. of such disputes on account of the unique power which the Court possesses of visiting and inspecting the locus. In most, if not in all the cases, it would have been impossible on the evidence alone without an inspection to decide with any degree of certainty where the merits of the case lay, as the controversy as a rule involved minute distinctions of line of march, which were well-nigh impossible to define accurately by verbal description, but which became perfectly plain when

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the disputed marches were seen on the ground. Even with the aid of plans, which of course are out of the question in these cases on account of expense, other Courts which do not possess the power of visitation would have been at a great disadvantage in deciding these cases, and could not further have settled the boundaries in a permanent fashion by fixing at inspection, as the Court did, the boundaries by setting up march stones or utilising some natural feature to define the boundaries for all time.

We also disposed of a case of resumption which marked a new departure in the attempt to solve to some extent the crying evil of congestion of population in the Lewis. The proprietors applied for resumption of 131 acres forming part of the common pasture belonging to the Township of Lower Bayble, for the purpose of feuing the same to the Board of Agriculture who proposed to give out this area in lots of 3 acres or thereby with the view of providing building sites and pasture for a cow for certain cottars and squatters. The evils of squatting are particularly marked in this neighbourhood, and the Application, while primarily for the benefit of the proposed new holders, would also incidentally benefit the members of the Township themselves by relieving the latter of some of the surplus population which in the form of cottars or squatters overcrowds their land and prevents the Landholders getting the best out of their holdings. As practically all the suitable building ground in the district forms part of the common pasture of one or other of the crofting townships, it was necessary for the proprietor to crave resumption in order to satisfy the demand for building sites. made in the interests of public health, by the Local Authority, acting along with the Board of Agriculture. We were satisfied that the exigencies of the requirements of the congested population demanded the sacrifice of a portion of the township pasture, and that the sites proposed were more suitable for the purposes in view than any other part of the pasture and could be conveniently given off without interfering with the access of the members of the Township to the rest of their pasture, and without unduly injuring any of the remainder thereof. We accordingly found that the purpose of resumption was reasonable within the meaning of the Statutes and granted the Application, but in doing so we laid down stringent conditions for the erection of fences to prevent trespass, for the construction of access roads and for the settlement of compensation to the Landholders who were. deprived of this portion of pasture.

The Landholders of two Townships also applied to us for the individual apportionment among each of them of a portion of the common pasture of the Township for the purpose of converting it into arable ground. In the case of the Township of Leurabost, the Application affected 161 acres of

common pasture, which fell to be apportioned among 61 holders of full crofts, and in the case of Steinish, 26.334 acres were divided among 14 holders. The division of these rights was somewhat complicated, but the whole of both apportionments was staked off on the ground, and, with the assistance of our Surveyor, laid down on plans before we left the Island.

REASONABLE OBJECTION TO A STATUTORY SMALL TENANT.

By Section 32 (4) of the 1911 Act, it is provided that a Statutory Small Tenant is entitled on any determination of his lease to a renewal thereof unless on the Landlord objecting, the Land Court find that there is a reasonable objection to him as a Statutory Small Tenant. The Court has on various occasions previously refused to renew a tenant's lease when it was proved that he was not cultivating his holding properly. In the case of Grant Seafield's Trs., objections were taken to the renewal of the tenant's lease on the ground that his conduct as a tenant in his relations with his Landlord, with his neighbours, with the Landlord's shooting tenants, and with the public was so objectionable as to constitute an objection barring renewal. While fully recognising that it was not our province to criticise purely personal conduct, or to act as censors of morals or character, we considered it our duty in exercising the delicate discretion committed to us under this Section, to take into consideration actings which had a direct connection with a tenant's use of and conduct in the holding, and which affected his character as a tenant. We conceived that it would be contrary to the declared policy of the Act to sanction the continuance of a tenancy in circumstances where the fact of an individual occupying a farm prevented or rendered more difficult the letting of neighbouring land, and interfered with the general administrative work of an Estate. We took the view that the theory of the legislature was that, having given the tenant a right of renewal beyond the period of endurance

contracted for, and thus imposed a new term upon the

contractual relations between Landlord and tenant, they thought it was not right to make the claim to renewal absolute without providing some safeguard, which would enable that relationship to be brought to an end when its continued subsistence was contrary to natural rights, and that such safeguard was provided in the discretion of the Court to refuse renewal. On a very anxious consideration of the facts proved in this case, we came to the conclusion that, in the exercise of our discretion, we could not sanction the continuance of a tenancy which seemed to us to set at defiance all the ordinary rules which govern the relations between Landlord and tenant, and made the continuance of the contract impossible in the real interests of the parties.