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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 sweep-
ing 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 Breadalbaue evictions, and that
the only set attack on the Marquis should have
been left to the vainglorious, blundering, Dunkeld coal-merchant, who added
the chief-like word "Dunalastair" 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 Nonintrusionists, 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 them, 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 of 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, Glenylon,
Fortingall and Breadalbane, Rannoch, Strathearn
and Balquidder, sent off swarms to Canada, the
United States, and the West Indies. A large
swarm from Breadalbane, Lochearnhead, and Balquidder went off to Nova Scotia about 1828, and
got Gaelic-speaking ministers to follow them. In
1829 a great number of Skyemen from Lord Maconald'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. |
