The Soap Man

by Roger Hutchinson

  Good morning, everybody! Have you noticed that the sun is shining this morning? And that [a masterly stroke, for no-one else was counting] this is the first time it has shone in Lewis for ten days?

  I regard that as a good omen. This is going to be a great meeting. This is going to be a friendly meeting. This meeting will mark the beginning of a new era in the history of this loyal island of Lewis that you love above all places on earth, and that I too have learned to love. So great is my regard for Lewis and its people that I am prepared to adventure a big sum of money for the development of the resources of the island and of the fisheries.

  Do you realise that Stornoway is right in the centre of the richest fishing grounds in the whole world? The fishing which has hitherto been carried on in an old-fashioned, happy-go-lucky way is now to be prosecuted on scientific lines. Recently at Stornoway I saw half of the fishing boats return to port without a single herring and the remainder with only a score of crans between them. That is a poor return for men who spend their time and risk their lives in a precarious calling. I have a plan for putting an end to that sort of thing.

  Colin Macdonald recorded that the last two sentences were greeted respectively by ejaculations of assent and expressions of eager interest. Leverhulme pressed on,

  The fact is, your fishing as presently carried on is a hit or a miss. I want you to make it a hit every time. How can I do that? Well, every time you now put out to sea you blindly hope to strike a shoal of herrings. Sometimes you do. Oftener you do not. But the shoals are there if you only know the spot – and that is where I can help you.

  I am prepared to supply a fleet of airplanes and trained observers who will daily scan the sea in circles round the island. An observer from one of these planes cannot fail to notice any shoal of herrings over which he passes. Immediately he does so he sends a wireless message to the Harbour Master at Stornoway. Every time a message of that kind comes in there is a ‘loud speaker’ announcement by the Harbour Master so that all the skippers at the pier get the exact location of the shoal. The boats are headed for that spot – and next morning they steam back to port loaded with herrings to the gunwales! Hitherto, more often than not, the return to port has been with light boats and heavy hearts. In future it will be with light hearts and heavy boats!

  A century after the event Lord Leverhulme’s ballooning plans for Lewis seem simply hyperbolic; the aerial castles of an old man playing out his final fantasies. They sounded no different at Gress bridge in 1919. Having proposed the ingenious conversion of the Great War’s spotter planes to herring reconnaissance duties above the North Atlantic, he returned to well-worn ground. He intended to spend £5 million on Lewis. There would be a great fleet of fishing boats. There would be a great fleet of cargo boats. There would be a huge fish-canning factory. There would be railways. There would be an electric power station. Stornoway would become a garden city. There would be steady work, steady pay and beautiful houses with every modern convenience and comfort . . .

  ‘Seo seo, fhearaibh!’ Alan Martin, a prominent raider who had attended the previous day’s meeting in Back and who was by the Wednesday forenoon clearly tired of this yellow brick road, interrupted his feudal superior and addressed his neighbours. Leverhulme stood, quietly uncomprehending, throughout the Gaelic interposition.

  ‘Cha dean seo an gnothach!’ said Martin. ‘Bheir am bodach milbheulach tha ’n sinn chreidsinn ort gu bheil dubh geal ’s geal dubh! Ciod e dhuinne na bruadair aige, a thig no nach tig? ’S e am fearann tha sinn ag iarraidh. Agus ’s e tha mise a’ faighneachd an toir thu dhuinn am fearann?’

  In Colin Macdonald’s account Alan Martin’s stand at Gress bridge around high noon on Wednesday, 12 March 1919, marked the turning point of the meeting, in which case it may also have signalled the water-shed of Lord Leverhulme’s proprietorship of Lewis. Martin’s comments were greeted by ‘frenzied cheering’ from the crowd, and by understandable bewilderment from Leverhulme atop his beer barrel. ‘I am sorry,’ he was heard to be saying as the applause died down, ‘I am sorry . . . perhaps my interpreter will translate for me . . .’

  The interpreter did so. ‘Come, come, men,’ he pronounced in stirring Anglophone rendition of Alan Martin’s interjection. ‘This will not do. This honey-mouthed man would have us believe that black is white and white is black. We are not concerned with his fancy dreams that may or may not come true. What we want is the land – and the question I put to him now is: will you give us the land?’

  It may have been a mistake to call immediately, albeit in a second tongue, for a repetition of Martin’s categorical demand. The cheering erupted once more and some wit called out: ‘Not so bad for a poor language like the English.’ Leverhulme repossessed himself, fixed ‘a cold-steel look’ on Alan Martin, and said in clipped, staccato tones: ‘You have asked a straight question. I like a straight question, and I like a straight answer.

  ‘And my answer to your question is NO! I am not prepared to give you the land.’

  Colin Macdonald would later remember some protests at this from the crowd, which Leverhulme dismissed with ‘a compelling hand-wave’ before expounding: ‘. . . not because I am vindictively opposed to your views and aspirations, but because I conscientiously believe that if my views are listened to – if my schemes are given a chance – the result will be enhanced prosperity and greater happiness for Lewis and its people. Listen . . .’ and off he went again, ‘the indomitable little artist.’

  The Lewis historian Joni Buchanan has identified the next local man to speak at Gress bridge as John MacLeod,31 in which case he was probably the returned serviceman from Vatisker with the sawn-off bed whom Leverhulme will have remembered from the previous day. He was described by Colin Macdonald as ‘a clean-shaven aesthete – a crofterfisherman’ speaking slow, polite English in a strong Lewis accent, ‘each word set square like a stone block in a building’.

  ‘Lord Leverhulme,’ said MacLeod, ‘will you allow me to intervene in this debate for a few moments?’

  Leverhulme signalled his assent.

  Thank you. Well, I will begin by saying that we give credit to your lordship for good intentions in this matter. We believe you think you are right, but we know that you are wrong. The fact is, there is an element of sentiment in the situation which it is impossible for your lordship to understand.

  But for that we do not blame you; it is not your fault but your misfortune that your upbringing, your experience, and your outlook are such that a proper understanding of the position and of our point of view is quite outwith your comprehension. You have spoken of steady work and steady pay in tones of veneration – and I have no doubt that in your view, and in the view of those unfortunate people who are compelled to live their lives in smoky towns, steady work and steady pay are very desirable things.

  But in Lewis we have never been accustomed to either – and, strange though it must seem to your lordship, we do not greatly desire them. We attend to our crofts in seed-time and harvest, and we follow the fishing in its season – and when neither requires our attention we are free to rest and contemplate.

  You have referred to our houses as hovels – but they are our homes, and I will venture to say, my lord, that, poor though these homes may be, you will find more real human happiness in them than you will find in your castles throughout the land.

  I would impress on you that we are not in opposition to your schemes of work; we only oppose you when you say you cannot give us the land, and on that point we will oppose you with all our strength. It may be that some of the younger and less thoughtful men will side with you, but believe me, the great majority of us are against you.

  Lord Leverhulme – you have bought this island. But you have not bought us, and we refuse to be the bondslaves of any man. We want to live our own lives in our own way, poor in material things it may be, but at least it will be clear of the fear of the factory bell; it will be free and independent.

  Colin Macdonald noted that ‘the loudest and longes
t cheers of that day’ greeted John MacLeod’s speech. Leverhulme counted the moments before indicating that he would appreciate silence in which to reply and – ‘in moderated, cajoling tones’ – coming out for Round Three.

  Will you allow me to congratulate you? To thank you for putting the views of my opponents so clearly before me? I did know that sentiment lay at the back of the opposition to my schemes, but I confess I had not adequately estimated the strength of that element till now. My friends! Sentiment is the finest thing in this hard world. It is the golden hand of brotherhood. It is the beautiful mystic thing that makes life worth living . . . and would you accuse me of deliberately planning to injure that beautiful thing? No! No! A thousand times, No!

  Then is there, after all, so very much between your point of view and mine? Are we not striving after the same thing? By different roads it may be, but still, for the same goal? We are both out for the greatest good of the greatest number of people on this island. You have admitted that the young men may believe in my schemes. May I again congratulate you? The young people will – and do – believe in my schemes. I have in my pocket now quite a number of letters from young men in different parts of the island, and I have received a great many more of the same kind, all asking the same questions: ‘When can you give me a job in Stornoway?’ ‘When can I get one of your new houses?’

  These young men and their wives and sweethearts want to give up the croft life; they want a brighter, happier life . . . My friends, the young people of today will be the people of tomorrow. Are the older ones who have had their day going to stand in the way of the young folk? Are we older fellows to be dogs-in-mangers? No! The people of this island are much too intelligent to take up so un-Christian an attitude.

  Give me a chance – give my schemes a chance – give the young folks and give Lewis a chance! Give me a period of ten years to develop my schemes and I venture to prophesy that long before then – in fact in the near future – so many people, young and old – will believe in them, that crofts will be going a-begging – and then if there are still some who prefer life on the land they can have two, three, four crofts apiece.

  They cheered him, of course. They cheered him not because, as would be suggested later, Lewis crofters were at heart possessed by ‘fervid admiration for an aristocracy’. They cheered because they were good-natured people, because they were amused by the prospect of being offered three or four crofts apiece, because they appreciated the performance if not the message, and because a landowner who was prepared to engage in open debate was a rarity, and they did not want the courageous little soap man to leave Gress thinking that in coming to talk to them he had wasted his time.

  Perhaps sadly, that was not the way Lord Leverhulme interpreted their cheers. He raised his hat to the huge assembly and proclaimed that ‘the sun did not shine for nothing! This has been a great meeting. This will be a memorable day in the history of Lewis. You are giving me a chance. I will not fail you. I thank you. Good day.’

  And he walked back through the gathering to his car to another round of cheers.

  Somewhere on the edge of the crowd Colin Macdonald was being mobbed by Leodhasaich eager to know: ‘When will the Board be dividing off the land?’

  ‘You do not want the land now,’ he said.

  ‘Want the land! Of course we want the land, and we want it at once.’

  ‘But you gave Lord Leverhulme the impression that you agreed with him.’

  ‘Not at all. And if he is under that impression you may tell him from us that he is greatly mistaken.’

  ‘But why did you cheer him?’

  ‘Och well, he made a very good speech and he is a very clever man, and we wanted to show our appreciation – but the land is another matter.’

  In his written report to headquarters Macdonald would advise: ‘from the Gaelic remarks which I overheard and from statements the men made to me subsequently I am satisfied that their acquiescence was more apparent than real.’

  Shortly afterwards Colin Macdonald was able to engage Leverhulme in the privacy of a nearby estate building. The man from the Board of Agriculture found the proprietor in high spirits, and ‘began the task of disillusioning him’. He became downcast and muttered darkly of ‘double dealing’. Then he perked up again.

  ‘Anyhow, that was a great meeting,’ he said. ‘They are an intelligent people and I never give up hope so long as I have an intelligent opposition to deal with. Besides, there is not the same enjoyment in things that are easily won. I am enjoying this fight and I shall win them over yet.’

  ‘I am very sorry to have to resort again to the cold-water jug,’ said Macdonald. ‘But if you could see the position as I see it you would be less optimistic – unless you are prepared to compromise on the question of the land, which I venture to think you could do without material hurt to your schemes.’

  Leverhulme’s reply was emphatic. ‘I shall not compromise,’ he said.32

  So commenced the Milk Wars which were credited by Leverhulme at the time and by almost every subsequent chronicler with scuppering his plans for Lewis. His concern about the Stornoway milk supply, although it arrived at the van of his thinking late in the day, had a small element of validity. While the majority of the population in rural Lewis had access to the produce of a milking cow (and were accustomed to consuming very little dairy food), little of this produce was sent for sale in Stornoway, which consequently imported most of its milk from Aberdeenshire. This process usually took a day and a half. The milk imported on Fridays would frequently still be on sale the following Monday.

  But Aberdeenshire is and was dairy herd country, which Lewis has never been. The milk which arrived at Stornoway from the mainland was refrigerated and sterilised and only marginally more expensive than elsewhere. The urban people of the Hebrides had been long accustomed to buying and eating imported groceries. Very few of their vegetables and fruits were grown in Uig or South Lochs. Self-sufficiency was a remote aspiration to most individual crofters, who had to supplement their incomes and their family’s diet in a variety of ways. For the islanders of Lewis as a whole, self-sufficiency had been left behind in the seventeenth century when they ceased to depend on oatmeal and fish.

  Yet Lord Leverhulme, who prided himself on commercial realism, seemed determined to make a massively increased population of Lewis self-sufficient in at least one product. All of the good pastureland on the west coast of Broad Bay would be devoted to dairy cattle, despite the fact that many of the men and women whom he would depend upon to staff his Stornoway operations wanted to build houses and smallholdings on that very land. It was an entirely unnecessary, even a frivolous point of principle, as Colin Macdonald had dared to point out. It became the breaking point only because he elevated it beyond reason. Stornoway could have continued to import – and as things turned out, did continue to import – its milk from mainland Scotland without hazarding the health of its infant population. If Stornoway were to grow so swiftly in size as Leverhulme had projected, it would arguably have been well advised to invest some of its newfound prosperity in an increased trading exchange with the lush green meadows of Aberdeenshire. The dairy farms at Gress and Coll were not essential to a huge industrial fishing fleet, to the pilots of spotter planes, to the labourers at peat-fired power plants and Mac-Fisheries canning factories, to the engine drivers and the railway stationmasters, the pickers of soft fruits and the women and boys in the commercial herb meadows of Barvas Moor.

  John MacLeod had been correct. The people had no animus against those projects – in so far as they could credit what they were hearing, they welcomed them. But long after Lord Leverhulme had left the Hebrides for one destination or another, John MacLeod and his neighbours would still be there. When that day came they wanted a living space large enough for a full-size bed and enough land to keep them alive. They had achieved security of tenure on crofts just thirty years, or half a lifespan, earlier. They now required crofts to be secure upon.

  Leverhulme
made a telling admission to Colin Macdonald in their conversation after the meeting at Gress bridge. He found the cut-and-thrust of adversarial dispute stimulating. He was exhilarated by the very wit-sharpening process of testing his resolve and his articulacy against ‘an intelligent opposition’. To most of the people of rural Lewis this politicking was merely tiresome. Their future and their livelihoods and their native land were not grammar school debating points. They had been engaged in the argument for generations, and had thought it won.

  But having reopened the whole, old, blood-soaked box, having engaged himself however unnecessarily in the desperate, blind-alley contention of the land issue, Lord Leverhulme could not be seen to lose. He could never be seen to lose. He ‘scorned to change or fear’. He would not – as he had told far too many people for anybody’s good – he would not compromise. If a dairy farm at Gress was claimed to be an integral, non-negotiable element of his momentous scheme for sextupling the population of Lewis, then integral and non-negotiable it would stay. A thousand people, including many of his employees and the man from the Board of Agriculture, had heard him say, on that sunny March day a few miles north of Stornoway, ‘I will not give you the land.’ How could he possibly recant?

  The Board of Agriculture and the Scottish Office found themselves squirming inelegantly on the horns of a dilemma. Had Lewis not been sold, or had Colonel Matheson found almost any other purchaser, they would have progressed as rapidly as the land court allowed with an extensive crofting programme on the island. Many, from Colin Macdonald to the Scottish Secretary himself, believed still that the continuation of such a programme was not only honourable and correct, but inevitable. The magnate from Port Sunlight was however offering to pump riches beyond reason into the depressed economy of the north-west of Scotland, and it was surely the function of government to encourage rather than dissuade such investment. Macdonald’s superior, Thomas Wilson, the Board of Agriculture’s senior sub-commissioner for the region, had reported to his chairman the essence of their difficulty following a meeting with Leverhulme in the autumn of 1918: