VI. The Emigrations of the Highlanders intimately connected with the progress of National prosperity: not detrimental to Manufactures, nor Agriculture.

EMIGRATION has also been thought prejudicial to the public interest, as depriving the country of the hands requisite for carrying on its agriculture and manufactures. How far this idea might be just if the people who went away were industrious workmen, is not the question; but in the case of the Highlanders, the effect of emigration on the commercial prosperity of the kingdom is directly the reverse.

Emi

To give a just view of this subject, the great change that has been described in the general management of the Highlands, must be considered as one connected event. gration is a part of the general change: it is one result, and cannot in fair reasoning be abstracted from the other concomitant effects. If the national prosperity is essentially promoted by the causes from which emigration necessarily ensues, this their effect cannot be considered as pernicious.

The same change in the state of the country, which we now see going on in the Highlands, took place in England under the Tudors. In the reign of Henry VII. the authority of the crown was firmly established; the power of the great barons was broken; their retainers, being found to be useless, were dismissed. In the same progressive manner the rents were then raised, by turning the lands into more profitable modes of management, and letting them in larger farms; the same odium was excited by dispossessing the small occupiers, and by the prevalence of pasturage; the very same complaints were made of the sheep having driven out the men*. No one, however, now entertains a doubt, that from the æra of this change the prosperity of England as a commercial country is to be dated: and can it be supposed that an arrangement, of which the beneficial consequences in England have been so remarkable, will have an opposite * See Appendix [G.]

effect when extended to the Highlands of Scotland?

After all the declamation that has been excited by the depopulation of the Highlands, the fact in reality amounts to this; that the produce of the country, instead of being consumed by a set of intrepid but indolent military retainers, is applied to the support of peaceable and industrious manufacturers. Notwithstanding the marks of desolation which occasionally meet the eye of the traveller, impressing him with melancholy reflections on the change which is going on, it cannot be doubted, that the result is ultimately favourable to population, when we take into account that of the whole kingdom, balancing the diminution in one district by the increase in another.

In former times, when a great population was maintained in the midst of these mountains, their produce was almost entirely consumed on the spot. The number of cattle which at any time found their way to a distant market was inconsiderable, in proportion to the value of produce sent away under the new system of grazing. This produce is an addition to the supply of the manufacturing districts; and, in proportion as it augments their means of subsistence, must tend to the increase of population. Supposing, therefore, that the produce of every farm under the new mode of management, were of the same total amount as under the old, the effect of the change would only be, to transfer the seat of population from the remote valleys of the Highlands, to the towns and valleys of the South, without any absolute difference of numbers*.

It is agreed, however, by the best authorities, that the produce is not merely changed in its kind, but augmented, by the improved management which has been introduced. No doubt can be entertained as to the augmentation of pasturage produce; but it may be questioned, whether this is not balanced by the diminution of tillage. On the other hand, the land which is still kept in tillage will certainly be much better ma* See Appendix [H.]

1

naged; and, perhaps, from a smaller number of acres the produce may be nearly as great*.

Besides this, the diminution of tillage in the Highlands will probably be followed by an increase in the Southern parts of the kingdom. It is well known, that in England a great deal of arable land is kept in grass, for rearing young cattle and sheep : but there will be the less necessity for this, when the mountains furnish a greater supply. Many of the arable pastures will then be broken up, and, in all probability, their produce will far exceed that of the fields hitherto cultivated in the Highlands, as the soil and climate are both so much better adapted for the production of grain. In this, as in many similar instances, motives of private interest appear to lead to the same general arrangements, which the most enlarged views of public advantage would dictate†.

Even if the question were limited to the Highlanders alone, it is an undeniable fact, that an increase in the productive industry * See page 36, and Appendix [C.] † See Appendix [1.]