We must now pass on to the considerations we have to offer on the situation of the tenant-farmer as to game; and the first question that suggests itself as to his case is this,--Whether the injury suffered by tenants be really so serious and extensive as is represented?
"There is no denying," says Mr Shepherd, in his _Essay_, (p. 12,) "the notoriety of the fact that, _in a great majority of instances_, this excessive power of infringement on the property of the tenant through these laws has been abused. It has been almost _universally abused_." Is this true as regards either England or Scotland? or is it merely one of those vague and reckless affirmations which a man writing for a purpose, and not for truth, is so apt to hazard, in disregard or defiance of the facts before him? One thing we do find to be notorious--that the committee's evidence of game abuses in Scotland was limited _to one solitary case_, that of the estate of Wemyss. And although we may very readily conceive that, with more time and exertion, the agents of the league might have ferreted out other instances, we may, nevertheless, be allowed to express our astonishment that, on the slender foundation of this single case, Mr Bright should have ventured to ask his committee to find the general fact proved, that the prosperity of agriculture "_in many parts of Scotland_ as well as England, is greatly impaired by the preservation of game." We learn at least to estimate the value of the honourable gentleman's judgment, and the amount of proof which an abolitionist regards as demonstration. But the truth is, that the case of Scotland was not examined at all; and the _rejected_ report of Mr Bright and his associates bears on its face the most satisfactory evidence of their utter ignorance that the law on this side the Tweed is a perfectly different system from that of England.