NONSENSE ABOUT THE HIGHLANDS.

BEFORE " protection " received its quietus in England, much pa- thos was bestowed upon the impending decay and destruction of our rural population. How many lamentations over the fate of our "bold peasantry, the country's pride " ! how many sighs for the

—"time, ere England's griefs began, When every rood of land maintain'd its man ! "-

as if such halcyon days had ever existed People are better in- formed now. They know that in the present evil days of free trade, large farms, and abundant application of capital to the land, every rood of it goes further to the maintenance of men than it ever did before—in a condition, too, of abundance and comfort which in the vaunted days of " merrie England" was absolutely unknown. i

But though this kind of twaddle is heard no more, there s a kindred description of cant applied to the Scotch Highlands, which, albeit exposed again and again is still from time to time revived. The benevolent and successful efforts of some great Highland proprie- tors to improve their wide domains by introducing arts and habits of industry among their dependents, have, ever since they began been made the subject of unmeasured abuse. The offending laird; have been held up to execration as cruel oppressors, who have driven the people from the land to make way for flocks of sheep and herds of deer. This sort of language often silenced, is once more becoming rife among ourselves. The old cry is revived by the mighty Times, and echoed by some of the smaller yelpers of the press ; and it gains a hearing, becauee we in the South know very little of either the past or the present state of the Scotch Highlands. Our Edinburgh contemporary the Scotsman, how- ever, who knows all about them, has set the question at rest by an article as conclusive as it is seasonable.

"Probably," says the Scotsman, "at this moment nine-tenths of the peo- ple, or at least of the English people, either believe or are ready to believe as soon as told, that Highland proprietors have fallen from their high estate by political and social changes reducing their rental; and that the Highland population, once a whole nation of stalwart warriors, is now reduced to a scattered and starving remnant. We scarcely expect a hearing, when we state that all this is the sheerest nonsense and mistake; that Highland property was never so valuable ; that the condition of the Highland popula- tion, bad though it be is not so bad as it was in the times spoken of by Scotch romancers andLondon journalists ; and especially that it is a fact beyond all question, that the Highlands are at this day more populous than ever, and more populous than is good for the inhabitants, or seems to have been intended by Nature." These propositions the writer completely establishes ; as our read- ers will see. Let us observe, however, in passing, that Walter Scott, the "Scotch romancer" par excellence, is not to be coupled with the London journalists as having misrepresented the condition of the Highlands, or given any countenance to the clamour against their improvement. The reverse might be shown from many pas- sages in his writings but we shall content ourselves with one, which it is really worth while to reproduce at this time. It is from a conversation in Rob Roy, between Frank Osbaldistone, Mr. Owen, and Bailie Jarvie, when the trio are setting out on their expedition into the Highlands. The Bailie, by a statistical process in his own quaint way, shows that, averaging the population of each Highland parish at a thousand souls' one-half of them may

be "employed and maintained in a sort o' fashion some chance of sour milk and crowdie "; "but," adds the Bailie, "I wad be glad to ken what the other five hundred are to do P"

"'In the name of God !' said what do they do, Mr. Jerrie? It makes me shudder to think of their situation.'

"'Sir,' replied the Bailie, 'ye wad maybe shudder mair if ye were living near-hand them. For, admitting that the tae half of them may make some little thing for themsells honestly in the Lowlands by shearing in harst, droving, hay-making, and the like, ye bee still mony hundreds and thou- sands o lang-legged Hieland gillies that will neither work nor want, and maun gang thigging and sorning about on their acquaintance, or live by doing the laird 's bidding, be't right or be't wiling. And mair especially, mony hundreds o' them come down to the borders of the low country, where there's gear to grip, and live by stealing, relying., lifting cows, and the like depredations. A thing deplorable in ony Christian country—the mair espe- cially, that they take pride in it, and reckon driving a spreagh (whilk is, in plain Scotch, stealing a herd of nowte) a gallant, manly action, and mair befitting of pretty men (as ale reivers will ea' themsells) than to win a day's wage by ony honest thrift. And the lairds are as bad as the icons; for if they dinna bid them gas reive and harry, the Dell a bit they forbid them ; and they shelter them, or let them shelter themsells, in their woods, and mountains, and strongholds, whenever the thing's dune. And every ane o' them will maintain as mony o' his am n name, or his clan, as we say, as he can rap and rend means for ;or, whilk's the same thing, as mony as can in

ony fashion, fair or foul, mainteen themsells: and there they are wr gun and pistol, dirk and dourlach, ready to disturb the peace o' the country whenever the laird likes. And that's the grievance of the Hielands, whilk are, and bee been for this thousand years bypast, a bike o' the maist lawlesa unchristian limmers that ever disturbed a donee, quiet, Godfearing neigh- bourhood, like this o' ours in the West here.' "

Such were the Highlands, as painted by Walter Scott, in 1715; and of their state in 1745 we find similar pictures in liliteerbsy. Was it not a good action to raise the people from this state of idle- ness, sloth, vice, and squalid misery, even supposing that the im- provement had been attended with a temporary diminution of their numbers, caused by emigration ? But the Scotsman has shown that the population of the High- lands, during the last hundred years, has been constantly increas- ing. He begins with the fact,

. . . .

"that in 1755, or exactly a hundred years ago, the population of all Scotland was ascertained to be Li. million; while the population of the counties North of Tay is at this time above 1 million,-in other words, the population of the least populous half of Scotland, including the Highland counties, is at present very little short of what was the population of the whole country in the times to which we are referred."

He deals with the assertion that there has been a lamentable decay of the Highland population since the last war-

" This brings us within the period of censuses, and immediately, we find that this popularly-accepted idea is mere delusion. It will be admitted that 1801, the first year for which we have a reliable census, takes us back to a period when the last war was begun and growing, and before the alleged causes of the alleged depopulation had begun to operate ; and we cannot be wrong in taking the counties of Ross, Inverness, and Sutherland, as the most purely Highland or Celtic, and therefore as forming, or at least fairly repre- senting, what is meant when people, in regard to a question like this, speak of the Highlands.' Here, then, is the population of the Highlands at the beginning of the century, at this day, and at each decennial period between then and now.

1501. 1811. 1881. 1831. 1841. 1851. Ross 56,318 60,853 68,762 74,820 78,685 82,707 Inverness 72.672 77,671 89,961 94,797 97,799 96,500 Sutherland - 23,117 23,629 23,840 25,518 24,782 25,793 152,107 162,153 182,563 195,135 201,266 205,000

So that, in the purely Highland counties, there are now, in these days of alleged depopulation, nearly 50,000 more people than there were in those days when Highland recruiting is said to have found materials so much more abundant."

The Scotsman meets the remark which might be made, that, though the Highland districts taken in lump may not be less po- pulous, yet the population has removed from the glens to cluster in the towns. In the island of Skye, where there is no town, the population has increased from 15,788 in 1801 to 22,536 in 1851. " We thus see that the population of this purely rural soldier-breeding district is, even in spite of the recent emigration consequent on the potato failure' greater by 7000 persons, or about 40 per cent, than in the times whose departure we are called on to lament. But, suppose the statement of the Highland population having left the glens for the small towns and vil- lages were true even to the extent represented, what then ? Are not the population still in the Highlands, and still Highlanders? Migration tends

• from thellighlands to the Lowlands, and not vice versa ; so that we may be certain that the increase in the Highlands is an increase of Highlanders, although they may be living in Helmsdale instead of Strathisaver.

The Scotsman lastly establishes a most important proposition, namely, that the population of the purely Highland counties, though it has not kept pace with the increase in Scotland gene- rally, has more than kept pace with the increase in the other agricultural districts.

"Compare the growth of population in the three Highland counties, as above,•=iven, with that which we now show, in the three most purely agri- cultural Counties of the Lowlands.

1841. 1851. 35,886 36,386 34,938 36,297 72,830 78,123

In these counties, there has been nothing in the shape of evictions-no bring- ing in of deer in place of men-and yet the growth of population has been slower than in the Highlands, and, if we were to lay out of account the sea- ports of Dumfriesshire, would be seen to be very much slower. Stating in percentages the comparison between the three Highland and the three Low- land agricultural counties, the increase of population since 1801 has been as follows.

Highlands. Lowlands. Ross 40 Haddington 21 Invernese 83 Dumfries 40 Sutherland 17 Berwick 18 - Average 34 Average 26 The writer thus concludes his argument-

"The increase of population during the half-century being thus greater in the three Highland counties than in those Lowland counties coming nearest them in the character of their industry or means of support, it fol- lows that the talk about Highland depopulation is the merest delusion. But this is far from showing the whole extent of the error. Haddington and Berwick, and even Dumfries have, during the half-century, greatly in- creased their production, i. e. their means of supporting a population ; while, if we except the Lowland portions of Ross-shire, it may be doubted whether the product of the soil in the three Highland counties is greater now than it was in 1801. In point of fact, therefore, when we see that the population of the most improved and fertile counties of the Lowlands has increased less than that of the most sterile and stationary counties of the Highlands, we see either that the Highland counties are overpopulated, or that any com- plaints of depopulation ought to be applied to the Lowlands. But, more- over, there is no necessity to resort to comparisons-the complaint is the positive one that there are fewer men in the Highlands now than at the com- mencement of the century ; and the sufficient answer is, that for every two Highlandmen then there are nearly three now."

1801. 1811. 1821. 1831.

Haddington

29,986 31,050

36,141

35,127

Berwick 30,206 30,893 33,385 34,048 Dinnfries 54,597 62,960 70,878 73,770 114,789 124,903 139,390 143,959 143,154 150,806