In reply to Saor Alba:
"Now I will give an example which may or may not gladden the hearts of hon. Gentlemen opposite. Some time ago I tried to get details of a heading which appeared in the last report and accounts of the Board. It was called "Compensation". By devious means I managed to discover, and of course, had to disclose, that certain informal objections, which it was denied by a Minister were technically objections at all, had been lodged by Lord Lovat. In the case of one scheme, the Strathfarrar-Kilmorack scheme, the sum involved was £200,000. I could not have got that disclosure from the Minister, or the Hydro-Electric Board. It came from a mysterious but reliable source, and it turned out to be fairly correct.
There was £100,000 involved, and also indirect compensation. There was involved expenditure on new roads, on the reconstruction of roads, and on general improvements on the Lovat estate, a sum of over £102,000. Thus, the total amounted in cash and in other ways to over £200,000 of material advantage to one alone of the objecting landlords in connection with this Strathfarrar—Kilmorack scheme. This is one example of the lack of disclosure and of a lack of frankness when hon. Members of the House are asked to commit themselves, to commit the Treasury, to commit the Government, the nation, the taxpayer and his wife. Shortly afterwards another landlord said that in respect of the same scheme he had received compensation of £50,000. We still do not know what the full Lovat compensation amounted to. Sir John Stirling then disclosed that he too, had received £50,000 in respect of the project."
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1959/jan/20/electricity-borrowin...
Malcolm Macmillan MP for the Western Isles 1935-1970.
Must admit I recognise this description he quotes elsewhere in Hansard in relation to the goings on...
"Does he recognise the description given a long time ago about the type of obstructionists that I am talking about: It is noteworthy that the nobles of the country (Scotland) have maintained quite despicable behaviour from the days of Wallace downwards—a selfish, ferocious, famishing, unprincipled set of hyenas, from whom at no time, and in no way, has the country derived any benefit whatever. If that was true in the days of Thomas Carlyle it certainly is not any less true or expensive to the community today."