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Of this fact we have among many other proofs, a strong
testimony from Mr. Irvine.—’In some val leys
the population is so excessive, that it is a question with many discerning
people, how the one half of the inhabitants could subsist, though they
should have the land for nothing. Those who would be tenants are so
numerous, and the land fit for cultivation so scanty, that all cannot be
satisfied. The disappointed person, feeling himself injured, condemns the
landlord, and seeks a happy relief in America. The tradesmen are in the
same predicament; they cannot be all equally well employed, because they
are not all equally deserving; because there are too many of them, and
because customers are too few. They curse their country, and make haste to
abandon it.
In some spots with which I am acquainted, there may be
from ten to twelve inhabitants, in some places more, to an acre of arable
land. Most of them have no trade. They apparently live by the produce of
the place and making every allowance for the scantiness of the fare, their
patience of hunger, and trifling importation of necessaries, it is to me
inexplicable how they subsist. To equipoise population they spread
themselves begging.
With all this the reverend author is an enemy to
emigration and this too is the country which, according to the Highland
Society, is fast approaching to the point of
complete depopulation. |
