Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Mr Millar appeared to support the judgment of the Commissioners on the grounds—(1) that the manufacture of kelp afforded no profit in itself, and was carried on solely as a means of employing tenants on the estate, who otherwise would be without occupation, and unable to maintain themselves and their families, or to pay rent for their possession; (2) that the ware from which kelp is manufactured does not grow upon the rocks, but is drifted from the ocean by spring tides, and is a moveable, changeable subject; (3) that the preparation of kelp being a manufacture, the profits yearly derived from it by Mr Gordon were not returns from lands or heritages in the sense of the statute, or in any sense; (4) that if any return on account of kelp could consistently with the provisions of the statutes, be entered in the valuation roll, the value of the ware or raw material, being that which remained after the wants of the estate for manure and other purposes were satisfied, was all that could reasonably be stated; and (5) that no such entry having been made in previous years in the valuation roll, and there being no new circumstances to justify the proposed change, the past practice ought to be adhered to, and the proposed entry in the valuation roll omitted.

In the adjusted case prepared for the opinion of their Lordships, it was stated on behalf of the assessor that his attention had been directed to Colonel Gordon's estate of South Uist, and by an advertisement of its sale, from which it appeared that, in addition to the land rent, the free annual return received by Colonel Gordon from kelp, on an average of the last five years, had been £1353. That sum was accordingly included in the gross rental of the estate before making the usual deduction of public burdens; and he added that, having surveyed the ground and made inquiry on the spot, he believed £1000 was a fair and just estimate of the subjects in question. He further submitted that the subjects formed pertinents of the estate of South Uist, and were capable of actual occupation; that although kelp shores are not specified in the interpretation clause of the Act, yet that the seaweed which grew upon the shores and rocks in South Uist was part of Colonel Gordon's immoveable estate, and must therefore be held to fall under the term “heritage” in the Act.

The Commissioners having sustained the objections on behalf of Colonel Gordon to the assessor's entry, their Lordships to-day pronounced an interlocutor reversing the commissioners' decision, finding that the subjects should be valued at such sum of yearly rent as may be reasonably expected to be paid, year by year, by a tenant, to whom might be let the right of gathering and appropriating the ware growing and cast on the shore in question, together with the use of the shore for manufacturing kelp from the said ware, and remitting to the commissioners to proceed accordingly.