I recently read Tom Johnston's Our Scots Noble Families, published in 1909 which, in the land reform debate, is as much required reading as Andy Wightman's The Poor Had No Lawyers.
Johnston saw that the first step in reform of land laws was to recognize that the privileges, wealth and lands of our noble families had not been justly earned and that the detail of this information should be distributed among social reformers.
Many big landowning families such as Atholl, Buccleuch, Sutherland and Stuart of Bute are included as examples in Johnston's book and do not emerge honourably regarding the acquisition of their land.
The structure of our present land organization has taken centuries to develop and now, as in 1909, it is a major issue . Having just returned from a visit to Canada, I was struck by the comparisons between the First Nations peoples in Canada and land reform in Scotland. For both there is the realization that reforms are not about righting historical wrongs but making modern democratic judgments and encouraging positive reform.
The Canadian experience is that these reforms are a gradual process over many years. One positive aspect of the First Nations peoples is that most Canadians are aware of the issue and recognize that reforms are necessary. The land reform issue has not engaged many people yet.
The land is for everyone. We must be open minded about how land reform might impact on different groups of people. I am a supporter of the right to buy for tenant farmers but I see it as only part of the bigger issue of land reform. It is not simply an issue for tenants and landlords of farm land. The Agricultural Holdings Review must be taken as a significant part of the land reform debate, not as a separate issue. Changing land ownership patterns may involve a much greater degree of community ownership, a rare concept for this country, bringing a new dimension to land reform that may only be loosely connected to the Eigg and Gigha models
Since Johnston's book, the pattern of land ownership has been diversified to an extent, mainly in the first half of the 20th century as estates were often broken up to pay death duties. Despite that, we still have a situation where around 500 individuals or family trusts own more than 50 per cent of Scotland's land. This is without parallel in Europe and most of the developed world. The social justice aspects of this situation are unacceptable in a modern democracy. I give one brief example of the damage caused to economic prosperity by this land ownership pattern. As a dairy farmer in south-west Scotland for 40 years, I watched the large dairying estates such as Stair, Bute and Buccleuch decline due to lack of investment with farm steadings becoming increasingly outdated. The dairying owner occupiers close by have become prosperous businesses with modern buildings. Investment is one of the keys to economic prosperity. Diversified ownership is likely to encourage more investment and prosperity. Diversification will bring a focus on the European Convention on Human Rights, property rights and the public interest. However I do agree with Andy Wightman that " land reform measures will justifiably continue to define property rights in the public interest" .
As Tom Johnston's and Andy Wightman's books superbly show, our land ownership pattern has taken centuries to develop and that development was not always fair as judged by today's standards. Radical change is essential but a gradual approach might be necessary. Perhaps the first step is to encourage more people to take part in the debate and begin to realize that Scotland's land should involve and be of benefit to the many, not the few, as Dr Aileen McLeod, the Land Reform Minister, has pointed out. I hope this will remain the focus as the Government's proposals on land reform take shape.
Stewart Jamieson is a retired dairy farmer whose family were tenants of Buccleuch Estates for more than 50 years before buying the farm from their landlord in 2003.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article