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In his interesting volume
entitled Reminiscences and Reflections of an Octogenarian Gael, Mr.
Duncan Campbell, for over twenty-six years editor of the Northern
Chronicle, writes as follows with regard to 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 f arm 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 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 evictions 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 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 176o
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 and pulpit 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. |
