LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE SUTHERLAND CLEARANCES.
ITo 11111 Esues 0, .SPECTIVE0111.1 Sin,—So little seems to be known either about the motives or about the phenomena of the Sutherland clearances that your readers will, I imagine, he glad to have an account given at a time when the facts were fresh and were being publicly discussed. It occurs in an article in the Quarterly Reviews of March, 1826, entitled "Irish Absentees," which has for text the minutes of evidence of two Parliamentary Committees which reported in that year. The writer begins by speaking strongly of the crying evil of subletting and subdividing
land in Ireland into patches just big enough to feed a family, and admits the necessity of a change in the direction of uniting the holdings into larger unite ; but deplores the removal of large numbers to other countries or into towns, and dwells on the cruelty with which this "dispeopling of the estates" was likely to be conducted if landlords were, as was usually the case, absentees who did not know or could not realize the misery caused by ruthless eviction. In con- trast with this was the way in which the Highlands of Scotland had, within the previous half .century, passed out of the same unhappy conditions into comfort and content. The article proceeds ;—
" We gladly avail ourselves of this opportunity of calling the attention of our readers to the improvements which, within the last five-and-twenty years, have been made by the Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford on their property in Scotland. Down to the close of the last century, the estate of Sutherland, consist- ing of not less than seven hundred and fifty thousand acres of land, was distinguished by the some arrangement of society which formerly existed over all the Highlands of Scotland. ' Few of the lower orders held immediately of their lord: a numerous race of middlemen possessed the land ;and along with the farms which they occupied, the inhabitants wore abandoned to their control and management : services of the most oppressive nature wero demanded: the whole economy of his house, his farm, securing his fuel and gathering in his harvest, was exacted by the intermediate landlord from the dependents upon his posses- sion.'
Hence resulted a state of things very nearly resembling the present condition of Irish estates. The mass of the tenantry was composed of indigent cottiers, racked and oppressed by inter- mediate landlords. Scattered over the various glens and sides of the mountains, they continued to raise, without much labour, a small quantity of inferior oats, of which they made their cakes; and of bear, from which they distilled their whiskey. The cattle which they reared were of the poorest description; they had hardly fodder enough to keep them during the summer, and in the winter they perished in numbers for want of sustenance.
Thenoble proprietors of this vast domain had discernment enough to perceive the real source of the misery and pauperism which prevailed among its occupiers; and they met the evil with a remedy at once efficient and humane ; they resolved to abolish the pernicious system of subletting and subdividing land which had impoverished their tenantry. The land was taken out of the hands of the small occupiers among whom it had been parcelled and clot, in farms of competent size, to enterprising and substantial tenants. But while they were engaged in carrying this salutary alteration into effect, their humane consideration for the tenants whom it was found necessary to remove, never slumbered. Although they had the abstract legal right of ejecting these eottiers when their terms of holding expired, without being responsible for the con- sequences, still they felt bound by moral obligations, which in honourable minds are more powerful than legal ties, to make an adequate provision for the poor occupiers whom for their own good, no less than that of the property on which they had resided, it was necessary to dispossess. Accordingly there has not been a single instance of a tenant being deprived of his ancient holding, 'without having the offer of a cottage with an allotment of land at least sufficient to keep a cow; in most cases, every cottager had two or three acres of land capable of being cultivated, with a proportional quantity of pasture, allotted to him. We venture to state, in the most unequivocal terms, that on the whole of this extensive estate, no district was newly arranged until convenient lots had been marked out and reserved for those who were to be removed.
No means have been left untried to stimulate the industry and excite the exertions of the population of this estate; neither trouble nor expense has been spared in removing the obstacles which had retarded the improvement of the district. Ninety miles of road have been made ; various bridges have been erected ; farm-houses, adapted for the new system of husbandry, corn mills, and inns have been built ; piers and harbours have been con- structed; two fisheries, a colliery, and a salt manufacture, with every necessary accommodation for those engaged in them, have been established ; and immense tracts of land have been drained, inclosed, and planted. It is needless to state that the capital expended in these and various other improvements, much too numerous to be particularly mentioned, has been very great. The hope of the immediate profit, though not neglected, has never been permitted to stand in the way of any permanent advantage; and it must be apparent to those who are at all conversant with such matters, that although in some few instances the returns may be immediate and direct, in others they can only be expected in- directly, through the increased industry and improved habits of the people.
The effects of these vast and expensive improvements are now perceptible over the whole estate. Extensive fields of wheat (some of them drilled after the most approved system of Norfolk husbandry), a large breadth of turnips sown upon the ridge, and well horse-hoed and excellent crops of clover, are now seen where, a very few years since, there was nothing to be found but a few patches of miserable oats and bear, with which the land leas alternately cropped until it was brought to such a state of exhaustion that it would not reproduce even the quantum of seed bestowed upon it, But the advantages derived from the alterations made upon this estate are far from being confined to the higher class of tenants; they are, if possible, more conspicuous in tho augmented wealth and improved habits of that inferior race of occupiers whom it was found necessary to remove, in order to make way for the new arrangements. In their new allotments they have all been made immediate tenants to the proprietor. In lien of personal services and payments in kind, now abolished, have been substituted fixed money rents on a moderate scale. Emancipated by this means from the slavery in which they formerly lived under intermediate landlords, and feeling that they will now reap the fruits of their own exertions, they have adopted with alacrity every improvement in agriculture which their limited means place within their reach. The improvement of their circumstances has naturally kept pace with the increase of their industry ; and their desire of possessing the comforts of life has increased in the same proportion with their means of procuring them. Twenty years ago they were removed from turf hovels into cottages built of rough stone without mortar; these again have gradually given place to neat houses, construoted of stone and lime. Personal and domestic cleanliness begins to be an object of attention; and the cow and the pin' are no longer found the inmates of the same dwelling with the family.
It has, wears aware, been frequently asserted, that the altera- tions made upon this estate have been the means of driving away a great portion of the population of the district. This statement, if not utterly unfounded, is at least grossly exaggerated. No teruiat was driven from the estate—no one was obliged to leave the country because he had not the offer of a lot of land equal to his wants and sufficient for the subsistence of his family. The few (and they were but a few) who left the estate, quitted it voluntarily. In an evil hour they listened to the solicitations and representations of speculators in American land. The melancholy letters which have been since received from those who put faith in the hollow promisee of these transatlantic chapmen show that happy would they now be to be once more at home, and in the occupation of the Iota which they despised. Our readers can scarcely have forgotten with what pertinacity the effects of alterations which have proved in the highest degree beneficial to every class of occupiers residing upon this property, have been misrepresented for the base and malignant purpose of wounding the feelings of its noble owners. To serve some dark and secret ends, they have been held out to the world as selfish and unfeeling landlords, eager after private gain, and utterly regardless of the sufferings which their pursuit of it might inflict upon their tenants and dependents. We therefore feel no ordinary degree of satisfaction in bearing our testimony to the humane and considerate manner in which the whole of these important changes have been carried into effect on the Sutherland estate. We enter- tain no doubt that sooner or latex the owners will derive, in an augmentation of their rents, an ample compensation for the vast MIMS which they have so judiciously expended in the improve- ment of this extensive property. Be this, however, as it may, of one thing we feel quite sure: their generous and humane policy must ever remain deeply impressed upon the grateful recollections of their numerous tenantry."
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