[page 6]
When, faced with mounting opposition within An Comunn Gaidhealach and series of campaigning articles by Brian Wilson in the West Highland Free Press, Elizabeth. Countess of Sutherland, resigned from the presidency of this year's Mod, she was assured of a good press in the Golspie Advertiser. In the event, it published all her restrnation statement and a long piece giving her its full backing Like much of Sutherland, the Golspie Advertiser is owned by the Countess family.
Since her resignation a stream of letters have graced the columns of the Scotsman, echoing its editorial sentiments that the Countess should not be held guilty for the crimes of her forefathers. Yet the very reason she was selected as president of the Mod by her local branch of An Comunn Gaidhealach was her position as a great Highland landowner rather than her own individual merits or good works.
Sutherland itself is something of a monu- •ment to the power of her family. Towering Fourteen hundied feet above the Dernoch Firth is an effigy of the First Duke of Sutherland, his back aptly turned on those glens he emptied of their inhabitants. Employing ruthless methods learnt the wool and coal industries from which his fortune came, George Leveson-Gower set about improvements" which at their end saw Sutherland's population reduced by two thirds.
Golspie, the host of this years Mod, is itself in the main a product of these improvements", built in the neat style of the last century so admired by the Duke's factors and dominated by nearby Dunrobin Castle. The local branch of An Comunn is similarly dominated by those whose aspirations revolve around the faery turrets of Dye bitching away from Golpie are the straths and glens cleared of their people by fire and, where necessary, the British army. Many of the houses burnt were owned by men soldiering in the Sutherlands own regiment. In parishes and islands throughout the North-West of Scotland whole communities were likewise swept away in front of the sheep.
The result of those improvements" are the Highlands we know to-day. The descendants of those who didn't emigrate are now to be found along the coast in crofts too small and infertile to provide a living on their own. The lands from which their forefathers were cleared are now after years of overgrazing fit only for deer to rest. To make their money the landowners rent out the shooting to West German and Arab businessmen.
Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland, is representative of those thirty-five families, and now companies, who own a third of the private land in the Highlands, As James Hunter, author of a fine recent study of the Clearances C The Making of the Crofting Community "). points out she is part of a system of which "the basic interest ...... is the pursuit of private profit", And as such sho is the worst possible candidate for President of the Mod, a festival designed to foster the Gaelie language and culture, For it was the "improvements" inflicted by her family which rooted out the Gaelic language and it is the landowning system of which she is part which still threatens its existence.
The Sutherlands are sufficiently aware of the resuits of their policies to refuse access by Scotland's leading historians to the records of their estate. Only now are these trickling out, edited by the son of a former factor of the Sutherlands.
The Countess may profess great support for the Gaidhlig language, but she is bitterly opposed to the only possible guarantee of its future prosperity, Techniques now exist which could restore the land which once supported a population which spoke the language. But their implementation would mean the end of the system of private ownership based on the rental of holiday homes and shooting rights. It would mean the expropriation of the Countess and all her kind and the placing of land ownership and fishing rights in the hands of the people.
CHRIS BAMBERY