|
From
'Reminiscences and Reflections of an Octogenarian Highlander' by Duncan
Campbell. Inverness 1910.
THE BREADALBANE
EVICTIONS.
As second
Marquis, "the son of his father," contrary to all prognostications,
became, as soon as expiring leases permitted it, an evicting landlord on a
large scale, and he continued to pursue the policy of joining farm to
farm, and turning out native people, to the end of his twenty-eight years'
reign. But like the first spout of the haggis, his first spout of evicting
energy was the hottest. I saw with childish sorrow, impotent wrath, and
awful wonder at man's inhumanity to man, the harsh and sweeping Roro and
Morenish clearances, and heard much talk about others which were said to
be as bad if not worse. A comparison of the census returns for 1831 with
those of 1861 will show how the second Marquis reduced the rural
population on his large estates, while the inhabitants of certain villages
were allowed, or, as at Aberfeldy, encouraged to increase. When such a
loud and long-continued outcry took place about the Sutherland clearances,
it seems at first sight strange. that such small notice was taken by the
Press, authors, and contemporary politicians, of the Breadalbane
evictions, and that the only set attack against the Marquis should have
been left to the vainglorious, blundering, Dunkeld coal-merchant, who
added the chief-like word "Dundonnachie" to his designation. One reason —
perchance the chief one — for the Marquis's immunity was the prominent
manner in which he associated himself with the Non-intrusionists, and his
subsequently becoming an elder and a liberal benefactor of the Free
Church. He had a Presbyterian upbringing and lived in accordance with that
upbringing. His Free Church zeal may therefore have been as genuine as he
wished it to be believed; but whether simply real or partly simulated, it
covered as with a saintly cloak his eviction proceedings in the eyes of
those who would have been his loud denouncers and scourging critics had he
been an Episcopalian or remained in the Church of Scotland. The people he
evicted, and all of us, young and old, who were witnesses of the
clearances, could not give him much credit for any good in what seemed to
us the purely hard and commercial spirit of the policy which he carried
out as the owner of a princely Highland property. Such of the witnesses of
the clearances as have lived to see the present desolation of rural
baronies on`the Breadalbane estates can now charitably assume that had he
foreseen what his land-management policy was to lead up to, he would, at
least, have gone about his thinning out business in a more cautious,
kindly, and considerate manner, and not rudely cut, as he did, the
precious ties of hereditary mutual sympathy and reliance which had long
existed between the lords and the native Highland people of Breadalbane.
It is quite
true that in 1834 the population on the Breadalbane estate needed
thinning. The old Marquis had made a great mistake in dividing holdings
which were too small before, in order to make room for Fencible soldiers
who were not, as eldest sons, heirs to existing holdings. In twenty years
congestion to an alarming extent was the natural result all the old man's
mistaken kindness. There was indeed a good deal of congestion before that
mistake was committed, although migration and emigration helped to keep it
within some limits. Emigration would have proceeded briskly from 1760
onwards had it not been discouraged by landlords who found the fighting
manhood on their estates a valuable asset; and when not positively
prohibited, emigration was impeded in various ways by the Government, now
alive to the value of Highlands and Isles as a nursery of soldiers and
sailors. Although discouraged and impeded, emigration was never wholly
stopped, and after Waterloo, Glenlyon, Fortingall and Breadalbane, Rannoch,
Strathearn and Balquhidder, sent off swarms to Canada, the United States,
and the West Indies. A large swarm from Breadalbane, Lochearnhead, and
Balquhidder went off to Nova Scotia about 1828, and got Gaelic-speaking
ministers to follow.them. In 1829 a great number of Skyemen from Lord
Macdonald's estate went to Cape Breton, where Gaelic is the language of
the people, pulpit, and the "Mactalla" newspaper to this day. The second
Marquis of Breadalbane would have won for himself lasting glory and honour,
and done his race and country valuable service, if he had chosen to place
himself at the head of an emigration scheme for his surplus people,
instead of merely driving them away, and further trampling on their
feelings by letting the big farms he made by clearing out the native
population to strangers in race, language, and sympathies. He was rich,
childless, and gifted, and he utterly missed his vocation, or grand chance
for gaining lasting fame among the children of the Gael.
At a later
period of my life than this of which I am now writing, I looked into many
kirk-session books, and found that those of the parishes of Kenmore and
Killin indicated a worse state of matters in Breadalbane than existed in
any of the neighbouring parishes. Pauperism was increasing at a rapid
rate, although it was a notorious fact that rents there were lower than on
other Highland estates. The old Marquis was never a rack-renter Other
proprietors, when leases terminated, took more advantage than he did of a
chance to raise rents, and when once raised they strove ever afterwards to
keep them up. But I do not wonder that his son thought that if things were
allowed to go on as he found them on succeeding to titles and estates, a
general bankruptcy would soon be the result. Without ceasing to regret and
detest his methods, I learned to see the reasonableness of the second
Marquis's view of the alarming situation.
The population
had simply outgrown the means of decent subsistence from the carefully
cultivated small holdings which were the general rule. Had it not been for
the frugality and self-helpfulness of the people, the crisis of general
poverty would have come when the inflated war prices ceased, or at least
in the short-crop year of 1826, when the corn raised in Breadalbane,
although the hillsides were cultivated as far up as any cereal crop could
be expected to ripen in the most favourable season, did not supply meal
enough for two-thirds of the people. But the "calanas" of the women,
especially as long as flax-spinning continued in a flourishing condition,
brought in a good deal of money; and for many years "Calum a Mhuilin" (Calum
of the Mill), otherwise Malcolm Campbell, road contractor, Killin, led out
a host of young men to make roads in various parts of the country, and
these returned with their earnings to spend the winter at home. These
sources of profit were beginning to dry up when the old Marquis died.
What came of
the dispersed? The least adventurous or poorest of them slipped away into
the nearest manufacturing town, or mining districts where there was a
demand for unskilled labourers. There some of them flourished, but not a
few of them foundered. The larger portion of them emigrated to Canada,
mainly to the London district of Ontario, where they cleared forest farms,
cherished their Gaelic language and traditions, prospered, and hated the
Marquis more, perhaps, than he rightly deserved when things were looked at
from his own hard political-economy point of view. |
