Joni Buchanan, in an extract from her book, examines the bitter battle over crofters' rights to their lands Raiders OF THE Lost Land

It was due to the obstructions created by Leverhulme's predecessor as owner of Lewis, Major Duncan Matheson, that the farms which became the subject of post-war controversy were not already occupied by crofters. If the Board of Agriculture had been allowed to fulfil its commitments to the Lewis people, the large farms would have been broken up into crofts even before the commencement of hostilities in 1914. Every legal obstacle had been placed in the way of the board which, once the country was at war, had more urgent priorities.

The scheme would probably have been abandoned altogether if had not been for the dire conditions which existed in Lewis. The board's chairman, Sir Robert Greig, wrote to the Secretary of State of the certainty that ``agrarian troubles would inevitably follow'' if the break-up of the farms was abandoned. Therefore, postponement until after the war was the compromise agreed to.

By then, however, a whole new dimension had been introduced. Duncan Matheson, whose father had bought Lewis in 1843, was in the process of selling the island to William Hesketh Lever, first Viscount Leverhulme, founder and controller of the huge industrial empire, Lever Brothers. When the island passed into his hands in May 1918, Leverhulme wrote: ``My object with the Isle of Lewis is not business, but to find a delightful home in a beautiful island and among people whom I greatly admire and respect and who will, I am certain, prove most charming friends and neighbours.''

None of this was the concern of the survivors from the Great War. They had fought for their country and were to be rewarded at last with land and homes to call their own. As far as they were concerned, the matter was urgent and straightforward. The schemes for the acquisition and division of land should now proceed in time for the ex-servicemen to commence spring work on the new crofts. By the end of 1918, their demands to the Scottish Office were becoming desperate.

Leverhulme, however, had different ideas. Crofting had quickly become anathema to him. His declared intention of abstaining from business in Lewis had almost immediately been replaced with grand plans for industrialisation. Fish canning was to be the principal industry and by August 1918 he had lodged his plans with the Ministry of Food. He wanted the farms around Stornoway for the production of milk, to supply the newly industrialised population of Stornoway. He had settled on the opinion that crofting was the root cause of the island's economic misery.

In much the same way, a few years earlier, he had condemned traditional methods of agriculture in British West Africa and the Congo, where he also held huge tracts of land. All he saw in these countries was waste, inefficiency and idleness. ``Natives,'' declared Leverhulme, ``should be treated as willing children; housed, doctored and moved from place to place as required. Above all they should be taught the value of regular habits and of working to time.'' These sentiments summed up precisely his attitude towards the proprietorship of Lewis.

The island awoke on New Year's Day, 1919, to the unspeakable tragedy of the Iolaire disaster. Hundreds of men who had survived the horrors of war were drowned when the ship which was carrying them on the last leg of their journey home hit rocks at the entrance to Stornoway harbour, while their loved ones waited on the pier to greet them. Amid the general atmosphere of grief, despair and poverty, work started on Leverhulme's schemes during the weeks which followed. In a stunned island, they provided the focal point for a rare shaft of hope and optimism. Mac Fisheries, conceived of as the vehicle for marketing the fish landed and canned at Stornoway was incorporated in February.

Up to this point, there had been no public indication of Leverhulme's determination to create a showdown around the future of Coll and Gress farms, which he had decided must not be broken up. Within the Scottish Office, however, alarm bells were ringing. Thomas Wilson, the Board of Agriculture's representative on Lewis, was alarmed by the new proprietor's hostility to crofting and reported: ``I found it necessary firmly to inform his Lordship that the condition he found the Lewis crofters in was very largely the result of the neglect of the former proprietors of Lewis.''

Wilson doubted Leverhulme's understanding of the Lewis economy and its people. ``His whole life has been industrial and I question if his experience of three months among the Lewis people has taught him their sentiments and desires. He does not realise that they will never feel satisfied until the farms in Lewis are divided and given to them.'' Unknown to virtually anyone on Lewis, Leverhulme had formally requested that the resettlement plans should be abandoned. But the Secretary for Scotland, Robert Munro - the son of a Free Church minister from Easter Ross - was personally very much on the side of the crofters and also knew the dangers of reneging on promises made before the war.

By March 1919, Leverhulme's intentions were out in the open and the time for conciliation had run out. The disputed farms were raided and the tenant farmers' stock driven off. The police report stated: ``It would appear there is a solid determination to use the land and retain it for their own use. At Coll, the villagers of Back and Coll started cultivating the field to the rear of the farmhouse. Soon lots were pegged out throughout the farm. Men tilled the soil while women carried creels of seaweed from the shore to fertilise the land......''

Leverhulme decided to meet the raiders on their own ground. More than 1000 men and women assembled at Gress bridge. Leverhulme stood on an upturned barrel to address the crowd with carefully chosen words: ``So great is my regard for Lewis and its people that I am prepared to adventure a big sum of money for the development of its resources and its fisheries.'' He told them of his plans to spend more than #5m on a great fishing fleet, a large fish-canning factory, railways, an electric power station. Stornoway would become a beautiful garden city. There would be steady work and steady pay ..... another great fleet of cargo boats, and so on.

It took a brave man to intervene, but Leverhulme was dealing with people as articulate as himself. One of the ring-leaders, Alan Martin, interrupted the landlord's fine flow and addressed the crowd in Gaelic: ``Seo, seo fhearaibh! Cha dean seo an gnothach......'' Leverhulme's interpreter translated: ``Come, come men! This will not do! This honey-mouthed man would have us believe that black is white and white is black. We are not concerned with his fancy dreams that may or may not come true. What we want is land and the question I put to him now is, will you give us the land?'' Leverhulme replied that he would not.

Again he was interrupted, this time in English by another of the raiders, John MacLeod: ``I would impress on you that we are not opposed to your schemes of work; we only oppose you when you say you cannot give us the land, and on that point we will oppose you with all our strength. You have bought this island. But you have not bought us and we refuse to be the bound slaves of any man. We want to live our lives in our own way. Poor in material things it may be but at least it will be free of the fear of the factory bell; it will be free and independent.''

The raiders left the farms in the autumn of 1919, to allow negotiations to be conducted in a less confrontational atmosphere. But Leverhulme would make no concession. His biographer, Nigel Nicolson, recognises that the issue of milk supply was ``a bogey'' and ``an untypical lapse in his sense of proportion''. Nicolson wrote: ``The farms were important but not so important that their retention against the Government's policy was worth the sacrifice of all else. He dwelled on the milk supply as if it were a matter of great principle, when it was nothing more than a matter for administration and compromise.''

The MP for the Western Isles, Dr Donald Murray, was probably Leverhulme's most outspoken critic, apart from the ex-servicemen themselves. A former Medical Officer of Health on Lewis, he understood the deep importance of the commitment to land resettlement and rejected the idea that islanders were opposed to industry. Speaking in the House of Commons, he declared: ``There was always a large floating population in Lewis ready to engage in industry in any part of the country. I would be the last person to discourage any man or woman under these schemes. But as far as I can see there is no necessary antagonism between the old civilisation and the new. There is room for both.''

For many Lewismen, in a period of intense economic hardship, there was a great attraction in Leverhulme's apparent offer of prosperity. To most, like Murray, there was no conflict between that sentiment and sympathy for the stance of the raiders since it was only Leverhulme who insisted that his schemes depended upon access to these particular farms for dairying. Only the editorial column of the Stornoway Gazette and a coterie of the town's powerful bourgeoisie gave Leverhulme unqualified support.

He entertained lavishly at Lewis Castle and a leading businessman told a meeting in Stornoway: ``I believe that in the person of Lord Leverhulme, humanly speaking, the redeemer of our island has come among us.'' By August 1919, upward of 3000 people had attended one of his fetes in the castle grounds. Leverhulme had become Grand Master of the local Masonic Lodge. All of that had some effect in gaining support for his ambitions. At the very least it divided loyalties.

As early as October 1919, little more than a year after he had become proprietor, Leverhulme was threatening to pull out of Lewis altogether unless he got his own way over the farms and a 10-year moratorium placed on land resettlement schemes. When the raiders re-occupied the farms early the following year, he hit back by laying off from his employment all men ``from districts where farms have been raided''. The move was designed to foster resentment against the raiders among the unemployed of their own communities.

At the same time, Leverhulme went still further with his plans for Stornoway. It was to be entirely re-planned as a model industrial town. It was Leverhulme's ``dearly cherished desire to make Stornoway the finest city in the west of Scotland''. On April 12, 1920, however, The Glasgow Herald noted: ``The lack of immediate interest in the Leverhulme schemes is probably due to the fact that today most of them are, practically speaking, as much `up in the air' as they were a year ago.''

Leverhulme used the columns of the Stornoway Gazette to inveigh against socialism, bolshevism and anarchism. By early 1920, the newspaper was blaming ``person or persons of influence either within the island or outside it'' for the raiders' ``unreasonable'' behaviour. When the Glasgow communist, John MacLean, made an excursion to Lewis and expressed support for the raiders, the coalition opposed to them hailed it as vindication of their claims. ``Bolshevist in Lewis,'' proclaimed the Stornoway Gazette. In fact, as The Glasgow Herald reported, there was not a shred of evidence to support the claims of outside interference. Indeed, such political intrigue must have seemed light years away from events of the ground, for the crofting year was in full swing.

Interdicts had been served on the raiders but, to Leverhulme's great fury, the Scottish Secretary, Robert Munro, made clear that he had the power to release the men if legal action led to their imprisonment. To general astonishment, all proceedings against the raiders were halted. Leverhulme complained bitterly of Munro's refusal to support the raiders' removal but did not risk the humiliation of pressing for the men's imprisonment only to see them released again on Munro's instructions.

His response was petulant and designed to provoke further hostility against the raiders within Lewis. It was announced that there was to be an almost immediate cessation of all his works. This caused great dismay and succeeded in deepening divisions within the island. A deputation of unemployed workers was dispatched to meet with the raiders and pleaded with them to ``recognise the wisdom of Lord Leverhulme's plans''. The Provost of Stornoway pleaded with Lord Leverhulme to ``stay his hand in the meantime'' until public opinion could be rallied behind him. But Leverhulme ignored this plea and told the Scottish Secretary that the schemes would only resume if the raiders withdrew and he was given possession of the farms.

He wrote to the raiders in terms which illustrate how the issue of the farms had grown completely out of proportion: ``The policy you have selfishly adopted will force other landless men to emigrate to Canada and elsewhere. You are condemning them to be exiles from their own native lands ..... Your actions can only result, in a year or so, in your crops being raided and the fruits of your industry being taken by midnight thieves. This is always the case. The act of theft which you have committed will encourage other acts of theft. Your crops will not be safe, and finally your wives and children and your own lives will not be safe. You will get neither happiness or comfort from the crops you have taken.''

The raiders' reply did not miss its target: ``In the course of your long tirade you make frequent appeals to us to observe law and order, forgetting that our record as law-abiding citizens will compare not unfavourably with yours. To you, law and order evidently means liberty to starve us and our wives and children by witholding from us the land created not by yourself, but by a greater Lord for the use of His people.'' Their letter concluded: ``How can you be entrusted with the administration of this island if you are to exercise your great power so arbitrarily?''

That was a question which a great many must have pondered; not least, perhaps, Robert Munro when he so crucially refrained from giving Leverhulme the backing he demanded. During the months which followed, however, Munro was confronted with increasing evidence of public support on Lewis for Leverhulme's schemes while the raiders again vacated the farms. In January 1921, Munro finally agreed to a ten-year moratorium on the compulsory take-over of land for crofting. Crucially and presciently, Munro wrote to Leverhulme, that if the schemes did not proceed ``the hands of the Government will of course be free''.

By that time, Munro knew of the financial pressures which were closing in on Leverhulme and that therefore the 10-year moratorium, to be suspended if the schemes failed to proceed, was less dramatic a change of position than it appeared. The financial difficulties had nothing to do with his Lewis operations but resulted from the problems of the Niger company which were threatening to bankrupt the whole Lever empire.

In response to Munro's change of heart, there was no resumption of work; in fact, even the remaining employees were laid off. This move caused even William Grant, editor of the Stornoway Gazette, to warn that the dismissals ``would undo the whole of the good work among the people of Lewis which your Lordship's friends and well-wishers have striven to do during these critical times''.

The ex-servicemen saw no further reason to hold back and raided the farms for a third time. Again, Munro refused to guarantee not to rescind their imprisonment if Leverhulme took action against them. Increasingly suspicious that Leverhulme was looking for an excuse to pull out altogether, the raiders withdrew for a third time. In August 1921, the proprietor returned to the island, raising some hope of a change of heart on his part among those who still looked to him as a saviour.

For them, there was only more disappointment. Leverhulme announced his last and by far the most bizarre plan for the island. In a speech which he delivered to Stornoway Agricultural Show, he suggested that the people ought to keep goats and sell heather. The island children were instructed to bring sack-loads of heather to the new, but empty, canning factory where it was to be boxed and sent to MacFisheries shops throughout the country. Needless to say, the plans came to nothing; the supplies of heather which completely filled the canning factory were later used for horse-bedding.

There was no resumption of Leverhulme's work schemes on Lewis. At the end of what proved to be his last visit, he admitted: ``No one regrets more than myself that the canning factory, the fish products and the ice companies cannot be opened for work. But the conditions of supply and demand in these industries make it impossible to do so. The business could only make losses, heavy losses, if operated at present. We must wait patiently for the world markets to be cleared of surplus stocks before the prices will adjust themselves to the cost of production.''

So when Lord Leverhulme pulled out of Lewis it was for reasons of economy and market conditions. Robert Munro wrote to Leverhulme stating that the Government was now free to take over the farms and break them up into crofts. He brushed aside a last attempt by Leverhulme to disqualify raiders from being among those allocated the crofts. Eighteen Gress raiders and eight of those who had seized Coll were among those who were granted the newly-formed Board of Agrculture crofts.

The persistence of the raiders had finally prevailed. If Lord Leverhulme had succeeded in his aim, not only would Coll and Gress have remained as farms but the whole principle of crofting tenure would have been called into question, first in Lewis and then inevitably elsewhere. The raiders had faced up to the relentless weight of establishment opinion and the natural ambivalence of a population which desperately needed work. There were many extraneous factors which eventually determined the outcome of the conflict. But, fortunately for future generations, the test of will between the raiders and their landlord was decided in favour of crofting communities.

n.Lewis Land Struggle: Na Gaisich, by Joni Buchanan will be published on Friday by Acair at #14.99.