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ln reasoning on this subject I have taken for granted that
according to the received ideas, there is a difference arising from
the accumulation of people in the Highlands, and that the expense of
making kelp would be greater if the population should fall, to its natural
level. In this, however, I must he understood as speaking hypothetically;
for I am by no means convinced, that those who have work to be executed in
the Highlands derive any real benefit from the present low rate of wages.
The same circumstances, from which this arises, occasion also
a want of industry and
skill, which is probably more than sufficient to counterbalance the
advantage.
In several parts of the Highlands I have found that
when labour was done by the piece, the prices given were higher than would
have been required for similar work on my own estate; yet in the same
places the wages of a yearly servant were scarcely more than half of those
which an ordinary workman would have procured in the south of Scotland.
With respect to kelp-making, it is difficult to state
so direct a comparison. The shores of the south of Scotland are seldom so
productive as to render kelp an object of general attention, or to lead to
those improved methods of manufacture which will naturally arise where the
quantity is very considerable. The plan upon which the workmen are
employed and paid is different in different places; and even where the
same mode is followed, little instruction can be made from a mere
comparison of prices, because the labour required for making any specified
quantity of kelp is various, according as the situation is more or less
difficult. A comparison in which so many complicated circumstances are
involved, would require a more minute acquaintance with the business than
I can pretend to; but I may venture to state some grounds for suspecting
that there is much fallacy in the ideas commonly entertained on the
subject.
A very intelligent overseer of work in the south of
Scotland, who has had much experience in kelp-making, and is not
unacquainted with the Hebrides, informs me that in situations not less
difficult than most of the shores he has seen there, he could in a good
season make five and a half tons of kelp, and
in the worst season four tons for each workman employed under him. This I
apprehend is considerably more than is generally done on the coast of the
Highlands and Western Isles: at least in those parts I have visited I have
not heard of so great a quantity being usually done. In the Statistical
Account of Scotland, vol. x. parish of Harris, it is mentioned that one
ton is the proportion commonly allotted to each working hand.—In the
account of North and South Uist, this point is not so fully stated; but
circumstances are mentioned which give reason to believe that the
proportion cannot in general exceed two ton.
It is also mentioned in the same work, that the land
rent of these islands is entirely paid away in wages for kelp-making; and
I have heard the same circumstance reported from other authorities. From
the description of these islands it appears, that on their Western coast
there is a uniform range of arable land naturally of a fine quality,
though from the miserable style of agriculture not so productive as it
ought to be. In the island of South Uist, the extent of good land, though
not accurately surveyed, seems to be at least thirty square miles, besides
ten or twelve times as much of moorish pasture, partly improvable. Were
this land well managed, and let at its fair value, it cannot appear
improbable that the rent would exceed considerably the whole price of the
eleven hundred tons of kelp which the shores are reckoned to produce; but
when the use of all this land is given away for the mere expense of
manufacture, at what rate is an acre to be valued, if this be an
economicaI mode of management or where is the profit the landlord
derives from his kelp?
The expenses of making kelp in the western Highlands
and isles are, in various situations from thirty-five to, fifty shillings
per ton: in some few instances as high as three pounds. Where local
circumstances are similar, I do not apprehend the expenses in the low
country of Scotland are much, if at all, inquiring of the same man I have
mentioned above, at what rate he could undertake to make kelp in those
parts of the Hebrides he was acquainted with on the supposition
that he could have no assistance from the inhabitants, and that all his
workmen must be hired in other parts of the country, and conveyed there
for the season, he formed an estimate of prices not very widely different
from those that are at present paid.
Though I am far from supposing that the natural
progress of things in the Highlands will ever render such expedients
necessary, yet this may be sufficient to show how little foundation there
is for the idea that the manufacture of kelp may be totally annihilated by
emigration. |
