VALUERS AND UMPIRES 22 1 



rid of two out of the three paid persons, except at the 

 formal meeting." 



Mr Forster's evidence on this point is suggestive. 

 His experience is that the umpires appointed by the 

 Board of Agriculture are always land agents, whose 

 living depends upon the landlords. The landlord 

 always insists on referring it to the Board of Agri- 

 culture. 



" We take any unobjectionable man instead." " What 

 we want is an impartial person to act in all cases 

 through the county." 



Mr Hope, in his two reports, seems to express the 

 general opinion of the ablest farmers in Scotland that 

 " many of the arbiters who at present administer the 

 statute fail to do so in the spirit of the Act, and there is 

 the greatest dissimilarity and irregularity in the awards 

 made by them." 



Mr Druce thinks that "many of the existing arbi- 

 trators are unsatisfactory ; I do not think they are quite 

 as good men as they ought to be, therefore troubles 

 arise from land agents being so often umpires and 

 valuers ; they cannot help themselves from being on the 

 side of the landlords. The farmers think that it is not 

 a fair tribunal." 



" I want the person who determines the question of 

 compensation to be as strong and as well qualified a 

 man as possible, and to get rid of the class of valuers 

 who have had no education, and very often no practice." 



The almost universal demands are that (i) cases 

 under the Act should be decided by men of a higher 

 status, of more knowledge, more responsibility, and of 

 more independence ; and (2) that procedure should be 

 cheapened and simplified by having cases decided by a 

 single arbitrator. 



Some^witnesses are still of opinion that the present 

 system of having two referees and an umpire is satis- 

 factory and should be maintained. Many farmers 

 believe it necessary to have their own valuer to represent 

 them. 



But the great majority of witnesses are clearly in 



