seafaring people.  There is quite as much Norse as Celtic blood in the veins of many of them, and the Norseman’s love of the sea leads them naturally to fishing or navigation.  The herring-fisheries, with liberal encouragement on the part of the government, might be made far more profitable to the fishermen and to the nation.  Besides, the seafaring people of the Highlands and islands “constitute a natural basis for the naval defence of the country, a sort of defence which cannot be extemporized, and which in possible emergencies can hardly be overrated.”  At the present time they “contribute four thousand four hundred and thirty-one men to the Royal Naval Reserve,—­a number equivalent to the crews of seven armored war-steamers of the first class.”  It is surely desirable to foster a population which has been a “nursery of good citizens and good workers for the whole empire,” and of the best sailors and soldiers for the British navy and army.  Public policy demands that every legitimate means be used to better the condition of the crofters and cottars, and to encourage them to remain in and develop the industries of their own country, instead of abandoning it to sheep and deer.  Private interests must be made subordinate to the public good.  Parliament may therefore interfere with the rights of landed property when the interests of the people and of the nation demand it, as they do in this case.

It was on some such grounds that the Royal Commissioners recommended that restrictions be placed upon the further extension of deer-forests, that the fishing interests should be aided by the government, that the proprietors should be required to restore to the crofters lands formerly used as common pastures, and to give them, under certain restrictions, the use of more land, enlarging their holdings, and that in certain cases they should be compelled to grant leases at rents fixed by arbitration, and to give compensation for improvements.  The government is already helping the fishermen by constructing a new harbor and by improving means of communication and transportation, and proposes to greatly lighten taxation in the near future.

The bill which the late government introduced into Parliament does not undertake to provide for aid to those who may wish to emigrate, or for the compulsory restoration of common pasture, or for the enlargement of the holdings.  It does, however, propose to lend money on favorable terms for stocking and improving enlarged or new holdings.  As a convention of landlords which was held at Aberdeen last January, and which represented a large amount of land, resolved to increase the size of crofters’ holdings as suitable opportunities offered and when the tenants could profitably occupy and stock the same, the demand for more land seems likely to be conceded in many cases without compulsory legislation.  The bill defines a crofter to be a tenant from year to year of a holding of which the rent is less than fifty