CH. IV. SCOTTISH HIGHLANDERS. 103 The same dissociation of the people from the soil has proceeded in Scotland as in England and Ireland, though this operation has taken place at very different periods and in very various ways. Probably, the great proportion of the agricultural population in the southern lowlands became free labourers at an early period, before the destructive wars with England had driven the country back from its former condition of wealth and enlightenment. In the north, however, the majority were probably emancipated only on the settlement of the country in the middle of last century, when men of wealth and enterprise purchased many of the estates, and introduced capital and agricultural machinery and improvements. Until that period, the miners and salt-workers in the middle of the country were also serfs. In the Highlands, however, the transformation was effected with the greatest amount of hardship; for, as in England, and to a greater degree, in all likelihood, the retainers of the chiefs were unaccustomed to labour. They despised every occupation of a nonmilitary character, and could not, therefore, at once become tillers of the ground. The result was, that the supernumerary population was driven off the soil with great hardships, the remaining numbers becoming tenants or labourers. In no country in the world has the phenomenon of mighty landed properties become so striking, and in none has the amount of suffering experienced by the poorer classes of labourers been greater. It has, however, been a happy thing for them, and for their country, that so many have been able to emigrate to lands where the boldness, hardihood, and self-reliance of the mountaineer have been amply rewarded by better fields for the exercise of these characteristics. Had there been no such outlet for the dispossessed population, the result would have probably been quite as deplorable to the people and country as we have seen it to have been in England. It appears, from the returns of landed property in Scotland, lately published, that there is more than onefourth of the whole country in the hands of only 21 individuals; that nearly one-half is the property of 49 individuals; and that more than three-fourths is owned by 583 persons. And, as Mr. John Bright, speaking at Birmingham, in January, 1876, points out, one proprietor in Scotland holds nearly as much land as three millions of its population. In the same address, Mr. Bright characterises the power exercised by the interest of the great proprietors of the United Kingdom as 'the greatest political power in this country, which is enormous now, and which, whenever it chooses to act together in Parliament, spite of your household suffrage in boroughs, bears down all opposition, and carries everything which it thinks necessary for its own interest.' The influence which this interest has insensibly exercised has divorced the people from the soil; and we cannot doubt that the evil would have been greatly intensified had it not been for the natural advantages which the country possessed in other respects; so that the people thus disinherited were able to open out those channels of trade and commerce by which the nation has attained to a high position of material prosperity. While upon the continent of Europe the great proprietors have found their interest in parting with a portion of their estates in favour of the cultivating serfs, in Britain the same class has retained its hold on the government through its organisation, and their power could not be so readily threatened by the intervention of foreign force. The proprietors now are not, however, the proprietors who saw the serfs living on their land dispossessed; they are men who have generally given the fruits of labour for CH. IV. SCOTTISH EMIGRANTS. 105 the lands they now possess; and were the present system of large ownership, and the laws and usages which sustain that system, perfectly unobjectionable, nothing could be more unjust than to expect the proprietors not to reap the benefits of their investments. Why should land not be dealt with on commercial principles ? why debar the landowner from the enjoyment of the fullest revenue he can obtain? These questions are asked every day, and it is thought a monstrous thing to suggest any change upon the present system. We shall first look at some of the results which flow from the land being in possession of so few hands, or rather from its not being in possession of many; and then we shall seek to discover the direction. in which these results are leading us. The number of Scotch who emigrate from their native land to find a livelihood in other parts of the world has lately averaged about 17,500 persons per annum. There is, besides, an annual emigration from the rural parts of the country to the large and principal' towns of 10,100 persons.1 6 There are thus 27,600 persons who annually find it necessary to leave their homes to seek a livelihood elsewhere a number nearly two-thirds of the total natural increase of the population. Yet the natural increase of the population is, as we have seen it to be in Ireland, somewhat higher in the rural parts than in the towns, and, if we regard the ratio between the births and deaths in either relatively the one to the other, the difference is very marked. Thus, in the portions of the country from which the emigrants come-namely, from the rural dis tricts and the small towns--the births are (for 1873) 68 per cent. above the deaths, while in the towns which 1 This number is obtained by deducting the increase due to the difference between the births and deaths from the actual increase in the towns having upwards of 10,000 inhabitants. absorb so much of the surplus population the excess is only 44.7 per cent. It must be noted, however, that these ratios are affected on the one hand by the country having a low rate of mortality, and by the towns having their populations swelled by immigrants as well as by births. But when we look to the outlying and more completely rural parts of the country, the natural rate of increase of the population becomes more striking. The Orkney and Shetland Islands are remarkable for the vast numbers which they constantly hive off to the mainland and to other countries. In the first group of islands there are fifteen divisions out of the total number of thirty, in the Registrar-General's returns, where the births are to the deaths (in 1873) on the average as 2 to 1, yet the population of these divisions had decreased between 1861 and 1871 by 524 persons. Taking, however, all the islands of Orkney into account, we have a ratio of births to deaths of 156.2 per cent., or a rate of excess of births over deaths to the population of o'9 per cent. per annum, which is almost the same as the ratio of the principal towns of Scotland, although in the Orkneys there is a disproportion between the numbers of the sexes which ought to reduce the ratio, all other things being equal, considerably below the latter, for the females number 118 to every 100 males. Instead, however, of there being an increase of population, in consequence of this excess of births over deaths, there is a decrease, the numbers in 1861 having been 32,395, while in 1871 they were only 31,274. In the Shetland Islands, again, in 16 out of the 27 divisions, the births averaged 222 per cent. of the deaths, yet the population of these divisions had decreased between 1861 and 1871 by 534 persons. But, reckoning all the islands, we have a ratio of births to deaths of 165.5 per cent., which is higher than that of the Orkneys; and this although CH. IV. POPULATION OF THE SHETLAND ISLANDS. 107 there is a disproportion between the numbers of the sexes that ought to reduce the ratio below that of the neighbouring group, for the females number 142 to every 100 males. Yet, notwithstanding, the numbers of the population being in 1861 and 1871 respectively 31,670 and 31,608, show a decrease of 62 persons in the ten years. It is true that the death rate is, as in the west and south of Ireland; in these islands a low one, averaging 149 per cent. per annum of the population, while in the towns it is 2.80 per cent.; for where individuals have little inducement to exertion, they exert themselves little, and where healthful natural influences generally abound, life appears to wear well, and the rate of mortality is low. On the other hand, the want of the prospect of improving their condition keeps thrift at a discount, leads the people to marry improvidently and to produce families, throwing them upon the world without having any assurance as to what their future is to be. The condition of Shetland, the poorest group of the two, is, therefore, with regard to the question of population, in the most unfavourable position. It will be noted, that the inhabitants continue regularly to increase and to emigrate, in a great degree allowing the females to remain behind. The report on the census of Scotland for 1871 contains the following just remarks with reference to the fact and probable consequences of the disproportion of the sexes which exists in the country:- So far as known, there is no country in the globe where the disproportion of the sexes and excess of females is to be found at all approaching that of Scotland. No population can be in a sound and healthy state with a disproportion of 114 females above 15 years of age to every 100 males. Scotland could spare from her population 130,685 females above 15 years of age, being the excess of females above the males between 15 and 60 years of age.' And the |