<2d November> 1820. . . . With regard to the points in question, I think, if I can make myself understood, I should be able to satisfy you; but our mode of holding, or rather of describing property, is so different from anything practised either in England or Scotland, that I suspect it will be necessary to take a very elementary view before I can be sure of succeeding.
In the first place, then, there are no <Manorial rights>, or anything analogous to them, either in the person of Lord Dundas or of any other person. The reason why you have heard his Lordship spoken of as so universal a proprietor in the commons is, that although his is only a third or fourth rate property, it is so much scattered, that there are few commons (scattales or scattholes) in the country in which he has not something to say, <simply, however, as a proprietor>. The Crown is the universal superior, and all the land is freehold. It is true that Lord Dundas lately possessed over all the country, and does still possess over some few estates, the right to the Crown rents. These were the feu-duties exigible from the feued lands, and a payment called scatt, exigible both from Udal and feued land; but this was simply a right to collect the payments, and did not infer any right of superiority. Etymologically, scatt certainly seems to have some connection with <scattholds>, but practically it has none whatever, so far as the receiver is concerned, and is as to him simply a feu-duty. The opinion of the country, however, is so far in favour of the etymological view, that it is generally conceived that all towns (<i.e.> townships) paying scatt have right to a share of the commons, while those who do not have none; but this point has never been settled by any judicial authority.
In the second place, you are mistaken in supposing that tenants pay no rent for the scattholds. Every township its own scatthold, the boundaries of which are, or ought to be, known. I say 'ought to be,' because I believe in many instances a knowledge of the marches has been lost. Any scatthold, therefore, is common merely as respects the township to which it belongs; and it is the exclusive property of the owners of that township, or, more strictly speaking, forms a part of the township itself. Each township consists of a certain number of merks. The following history of the origin of this term (which is our universal denomination of land, both in letting it to tenants and in conveying it from one proprietor to another) may help to explain its nature. It seems, then, to have arisen in the times when rents were fixed by public authority, each township being valued, <in cumulo>, at so many merks of money as it was considered worth. The share of each landlord was then naturally said to consist of so many merks, because the rent was in fact his whole interest, the farmer being, according to the old Danish law, the real proprietor, and the landlord only a sort of lord of the manor. The term, by a very easy change, came, with the changes of laws, to apply to that portion of land which had originally paid a money merk of rent, but did not, and does not to this day, denote any particular spot or measurement, but merely such proportion of the whole township as had been equivalent to one money merk of rent, when the whole was valued at a given number. This hypothesis, for I acknowledge it is little more, at least gives a result corresponding precisely to our present idea of a merk of land, and also accounts for the great variety of contents which we find in merk, since, to be equal in value, they must have been of very different extent in different situations. The number of merks in each town is known from old records and traditions, or, practically, from the sum of all the proprietors. Thus, if in the town of M. 40 merks belong to A., 30 to B., and 20 to C., then is M. a town of 40 + 30 + 20 = 90 merks. It is of no consequence here whether M. contains five acres or five hundred, 40-90ths of the whole belong to A., and 30-90ths to B., etc. And, on the other hand, the number of merks might be double, triple, or in any other proportion, without at all altering the extent or state of the property, except that the interest of each proprietor would be expressed by proportionally higher figures. A. would have 80-180ths, B. 60-180ths, and so forth. In these circumstances, if a landlord lets to a tenant any given number of merks, it is just giving him a fractional share, of which the total number of merks in the town is the denominators, and the number let the numerator. A tenant taking ten merks in the above supposed town of M., would just have right to 10-90ths of the corn land, 10-90ths of the meadow land, 10-90ths of the stinted pasture within the dyke, and 10-90ths of the unstinted pasture, or 'scatthold,' without the dyke. But the rent is charged at so much per merk — <Ergo>, the tenant does pay rent for the scatthold, Q.E.D.!!
I do not, however, allege that the rent thus paid is anything like what it might easily be under a better system.
That the rents were anciently fixed by public authority, is, I believe, an established fact, and there is reason to believe that the practice continued long after the transference of this country from Norway to Scotland, when, of course, it ceased to be law. This practice, and the long period for which both rents and improvements were stationary, had produced so strong an impression upon our habits of thinking on this subject, that, at so late a period as to be distinctly within my own recollection, landlords, in general, had no clear practical confidence in their own right to demand a direct rise of rent, and, under this feeling, resorted, in many instances, to indirect methods of doing that which they had a right to have done openly and avowedly. The sight of this sort of thing, without an understanding of the circumstances and habits of thinking which lie to it, gave superficial observers an idea that much oppression and injustice was exercised towards the tenantry, and produced much of that obloquy (some of which may possibly have fallen in your way) which has been thrown upon the Shetland landholders.
This idea has now, however, completely vanished, and many Shetland proprietors have let their lands at a raised money rent, without reserving any further claim upon the tenants: and if all have not done so, it arises from other causes, and not from any feeling of the kind described above, or from any inclination to take undue advantages.
As to your question why the scattholds remain undivided, the general backwardness of improvement, and want of agricultural skill and capital, are the immediate causes. The present tenantry are so ignorant of the means of turning these commons to any proper account, that the fee-simple of most of them would, under the present management, hardly pay a common land-measurer for surveying them, far less could they bear any litigation. There are, however, many considerable scattholds at present the exclusive property of one or a few persons. Improved management has begun, and will probably take root, first in such situations, and afterwards, when its advantages are seen, and a sufficient number of people trained to practise it has arisen, it will spread over those lands where the difficulty and expense of divisions have to be previously incurred. Your alternative of levying a rent of so much per head of beasts pasturing, would not answer, because, as I have already endeavoured to explain, the tenants, in paying a rent per merk, pay for their scattholds as well as for their other ]and. Your other suggestion, however, numerically limiting the stock according to the rent, or, which is the same thing, according to the moths, would be highly beneficial both to tenants and landlords. If you ask, Why then is it not carried into effect? I can only answer that we have not long turned our attention the way of agricultural improvement, and have only begun to discover that what is difficult is not always impossible.
V. — EXCERPT FROM REPORT OF MR. PETERKIN, GENERAL INSPECTOR OF BOARD SUPERVISION OF THE POOR IN SCOTLAND. <Shop Dealings with Paupers>.—The Board are aware of the constantly recurring reference I have had to make for many years to the tendency of Inspectors and members of Parochial Boards, here and there, over the whole of Scotland, to traffic with paupers, by furnishing them with goods of all kinds, and with lodgings, and intercepting the parochial allowances in payment thereof. On this subject there has, since the institution of the Board, been a constant struggle; for here and there, all over Scotland, in the large towns as well as in rural and remote parishes, the practice prevailed, and was occasionally discovered— generally by accident. The Board long ago expressed decided opinions on the impropriety of the practice. Now in Shetland, it so happens that almost the only persons who are practically the administrators of the Poor Law are more or less directly or indirectly interested in the local trade — in the fish-curing, or in the shops, or in the stores of one kind or another. In one parish the Poor Law is practically administered by these merchants and fish-curers, and to their shops the paupers must of necessity go to make their purchases. In two other parishes nearly the same thing occurs. There is probably no parish in Shetland, where, to a greater or less extent, this is not the case; and to find there persons capable of transacting business, and of acting as members of Boards or Inspectors of Poor, who are not, in some way or other, directly or indirectly interested in a shop, or connected with a shopkeeper, is perhaps impossible. Where the line is to be drawn, when all interest in the business of the shop will cease, is beyond my powers of discovery. Even among the more recent appointments of Inspectors we have one who is personally unobjectionable, having no shop; but his mother keeps "<the shop>" of the district. Another was a shopkeeper; and on his appointment as Inspector he gave up his shop and goods, and with them, of course, it was to be supposed all interest in the business; but he made them all over to his niece, <a girl fifteen>! And the third, having ceased to keep a shop, acts as agent for his brother and his partners, who have shops and stores and curing stations; but at present he sells nothing. These three men seem to me in themselves to be really as competent as can be for their duties, and are, I believe, as good and efficient men as can be found in their respective parishes. In another parish we have as an Inspector the paid shopman or servant of the firm who has "<the store>." In another parish the chairman of the Board has "<the shop>," and his brother has "<the other shop>." In short, everything in Shetland gravitates towards "<the shop>." To it the child takes a dozen eggs in a morning, and obtains for the family breakfast what is called a "<corn o' tea>;" to it the young woman takes her knitted hosiery, and in exchange will receive either tea or some article or material of dress; to it the pauper takes the pass-book, or pay-ticket of the parish, and on that guarantee will get the "<corn o' tea>," or the "<corn o meal>;' and he who supplies the goods over the counter is almost certain to be a member of the Board, or a near relative of one who is, or of the Inspector, — he may even be the chairman of the Board himself.
'I do not pretend to be able to offer any suggestions to remedy such a state of matters, but too rely state the facts as they have come under my observation. I have, however, no doubt that the poors' rates in Shetland are, to a great extent, but the natural results of such parochial arrangements as I have referred to.'