SOCIAL AND ECONOMICAL ASPECTS 181 



case of the Parliamentary committee, the report was 

 unanimous, and signed by the whole of the Com- 

 missioners. 



On this occasion an important change took place 

 in the attack on deer forests. The investigation 

 undertaken by the Royal Commission was one which 

 affected crofters, and it was this class and their friends 

 who now took up the attitude assumed by sheep- 

 farmers in the inquiry by the Select Committee above 

 referred to. Greater difficulty was consequently ex- 

 perienced in sifting the evidence. The sheep-farmers 

 examined by the Committee were a highly intelligent 

 body of men, and certainly quite able to take care 

 of themselves under cross-examination. Their case 

 was so feeble that it collapsed, but they made the 

 most they could of it. With the crofter witnesses it 

 was different. These, from their imperfect acquaint- 

 ance with the elementary rules of political economy, 

 their want of knowledge on matters affecting Highland 

 interests beyond those in their own immediate dis- 

 tricts, their ignorance of the English language an 

 interpreter being frequently employed and their dis- 

 inclination to discuss the subject generally, made our 

 task laborious, and had we not been assisted by those 

 who, though not crofters themselves, claimed to repre 

 sent them to some extent unsatisfactory. 



