terms is indispensable where a landlord wishes his tenantry to thrive. The want of milk, and the absence of cattle-manure, are two terrible privations which I often sorrowfully noticed in the Highlands. Many other much required boons will readily occur to a benevolent landlord, who once sets out in the path of effectual improvement. I only offer humble hints, grounded upon observation, aided by reflection. I am, however, fully alive to the distressing fact, that there are proprietors in the Highlands whose estates are so fatally encumbered, as to leave not a shadow of hope that they can ever recover the power of improving their own condition or that of their dependants. In such melancholy cases the plain truth must be honestly told-the sooner all such estates are submitted to sale, the better for all parties. Every hindrance to sales, occasioned by the still subsisting subtleties of the Law of Entail, should be finally swept away by a simple statute creating a paramount power of sale for the benefit of creditors. Thus land would no longer be locked up in bankrupt unprofitableness, and the nominal possessors would be freed from burdens which harass and degrade them. The analogous condition of embarrassed landed property in Ireland, incited me to shape out a plan which I publicly addressed to the Earl of Clarendon-and the principle of which, with most of the details, became, by felicitous coincidence, the basis of the Irish Encumbered Estates Act. I heartily wish it may be my lot to render a similar service to Scotland, and that a fearless remedy may be quickly applied to an acknowledged evil, by abolishing even the faintest vestiges of the Law of Entail. I am, sir, your obedient servant,

Inverness, Dec. 21. 1849.

THOMAS MULOCK.

77

PART IV.

THE HIGHLAND DESTITUTION RELIEF BOARD'S OPERATIONS.

THE HIGHLAND DESTITUTION RELIEF BOARD: EDINBURGH AND

GLASGOW SECTIONS.

To the Editor of the Inverness Advertiser.

SIR,-From the moment that I resolved to devote my attention to a close and impartial inquiry into the true state of the Highlands, I fully made up my mind to examine, pari passu, the proceedings of the Highland Destitution Relief Board, to whom the enormous sum of £200,000 had been confided, by the public bounty, for the purpose of succouring the famine-stricken peasantry of the North of Scotland. But it occurred to me to be absolutely necessary that the way should be cleared for an examination of the acts of the board, by a previous exposition of the condition of the peasant population, as tenants and tillers of the soil. This involved the relation of proprietor and landholder, in fact the whole social system of the Highlands, exhibiting a state of things in which destitution was so frightfully prevalent, as to present but the alternative of charitably-supplied subsistence, or death by starvation. That the failure of the potato was the proximate cause of this dreadful destitution cannot admit of a doubt; but in the Highlands, as in Ireland, the proprietors of the soil had long given, for their own sordid purposes, an undue encouragement to the culture of the potato, so as to render the lowest species of food the staple subsistence of the people. Instead of enlarging the sphere of agricultural industry and improvement, and promoting, as far as possible, an increased corn-cultivation, sheep-farms and deer-forests became the chief objects of solicitude with the great majority of Highland proprietors. The peasantry were more and more driven from cultivable land to wretched patches of rocky, or mossy ground, where the ordinary growth of the potato nourished augmenting numbers, but left them, year after year, in the same hopeless, unfriended condition, without generous guidance or encouraging example. The old clannish affinities, which had softened superiority, and made servitude endearing, no longer existed

in the Highlands. The Celtic chiefs were metamorphosed into mere rent-exacting landlords, and their following of claymored adherents was merged in a tenantry of serfs. In short, Mammon became lord of the ascendant, and feudality and fealty were numbered among the vanished peculiarities of past ages. But let it not be supposed that the prosperity of Highland proprietors was increased, while the welfare of their dependants was diminished. By an unalterable law of justice, as well as of love, the inequality of conditions still implies mutuality of interests; and where the poor are oppressed, the rich can never thrive. The Highland landlords (we speak of the greater number) neglected the comfort and progressive improvement of the peasantry, from whose fruitful toils the subsistence of the community is designed to spring; and the ostentatious lavishness of the aristocracy was painfully contrasted with the multiplying privations of the poor. And just as the rich were themselves becoming poor-their estates loaded with incumbrances, whilst pride and luxury forbade all expectation of retrenchment-the mysterious potato blight struck at the foundations of a false system of society, by bereaving the peasantry of the cheap food which enabled them to live as rent-paying paupers. No political revolution ever effected such thorough social changes as the potato failure will assuredly accomplish-for society is now smitten at its base; whereas all political changes among nations are assaults aimed against the aristocracy, which, after a period of persecution, is sure to revive again. But, in blasting the ignoble food of the Irish and Highland pariahs-the cruelly-used cultivators of the soil-a more consummate calamity was in reserve for the negligent possessors of landed property. Their true position of exalted pauperism was to be laid bare-their resourceless embarrassments were to be divulged to clamorous creditors-and their vain prestige of presumed reality of property was to vanish into thin air. Such was the actual and advancing state of things in the Highlands, when the public sympathy of the British empire was largely roused in behalf of the famishing Highlanders. Meetings were held-subscriptions were entered into-Scottish bounty was specially appealed to in every part of the globe, and the result was the realisation of funds in the hands of several committees, to an amount quite commensurate with a most extensive administration of relief. Still, it was alleged that the great end to be sought for was best attainable by a central board, exercising

comprehensive powers, and allocating diffusive aid to sufferers in all distressed districts. Such a board was accordingly organized; and the immense contributions already raised were placed at its despotic disposal. As guiding rules for their responsible proceedings, the board immediately adopted a series of binding resolutions, which professedly contained the principles of their relief operations, and which turned mainly on the determination to exact labour in return for food. The reasons assigned for this decision were sound and salutary, and as they are briefly expressed in the 4th resolution, I give it in the Board's own words-" Their primary object in so requiring labour in return for food supplied is, to foster and encourage habits of industry and self-exertion, to improve the condition of the people, and to develope the resources of the country, and especially by increasing the productiveness of the distressed districts, so far as in them lies to prevent the recurrence of so great a calamity, and convert the sufferings of the people into the germ of their future amelioration." It is worthy of remark that the board admit, in one of their published reports, (First report, 1848, p. 17), that "the great mass of the funds now in the hands of the committee were transmitted to them after these resolutions were passed." I am not aware of any public revocation of the foregoing rule ever took place; so I shall keep it steadily in view as the governing canon of all distributive charity of the board; and if they shall be shown to have swerved most widely, mischievously, and even inhumanly, from their own regulations, they must be content to bear their proper blame, instead of imputing malicious motives to impartial censurers.

From the perusal of the board's reports (courteously communicated to me by Mr Skene, their secretary), it soon forced itself upon my mind that their administration of the vast funds confided to them was not only a frustration of the public bounty, but a palpable departure from their own self imposed regulations. But, clear as my convictions were, I felt it necessary to verify my views by means of personal local inquiry, before I ventured formally to arraign the misconduct of a respectably constituted body, whose usefulness mainly depended on their continued enjoyment of public confidence.

I have now visited Ross-shire, Skye, the Long Island, Barra, and some parts of the country where Relief operations have been less systematically carried on; and the conclusion at which I have

conscientiously arrived is this, that the temporary succour which imperial benevolence meant to have ministered, was never adequately applied by the board; and, secondly, that so far from having prepared the way for the permanent amelioration of the Highlands, I am solemnly persuaded great and indelible injury has been inflicted by the utter perversion of all just principle on the part of the Highland Destitution Relief Board. These are bold and seemingly harsh averments, but I feel strong in the truth of my allegations, and I shall proceed to prove them with candour and cogency.

I preface my strictures with a repudiation of all desire to urge vulgar charges of corrupt and criminal malversation of the public funds entrusted to the Highland Committee; or of taunting them (as has been lately done) with collusive co-operation in promoting compulsory emigration. I do not know any facts which would justify me in raising any such railing accusations; and therefore, I continue to dissociate myself from many complaining parties, whose vehement zeal is more conspicuous than their fairness or command of proof. Nothing so much weakens a just cause as the interloping admixture of random allegations with solidly sustainable criminations; and it was with this impression that I recently volunteered to vindicate the Highland Destitution Board from the aspersions of Dr Begg, although I feel certain that, on the general question of the pernicious proceedings of the board, I should uninterruptedly concur with the reverend rebuker.

The grand point on which I rest my plea against the Highland Relief Board, is their adoption of what they style the Labour Test, as the only mode of ministering to the necessities of a famishing population. That work should be exacted from all who were able to work, was a useful and reasonable principle; for it was among the really labouring classes that the field of the board's operations lay, inasmuch as the sick, the disabled, and the superannuated were legally entitled to (although they rarely receive) adequate relief from parochial funds. The course, therefore, to be pursued by the board was not burdened with any extraordinary difficulty-all that the exigency required was to scrutinize the cases of persons alleging themselves to be destitute, because unprovided with work—to find employment for those who wanted work, and were willing to work-and to remunerate all such persons according to the just value of the work actually performed.