54 MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY 



affords for this branch of industry. Those 

 theorists, however, entirely overlook the effect 

 which such a scheme would have, when reduced 

 to practice, upon the manufacturing industry 

 of England, and the results which that effect, 

 recoiling back, would produce upon Ireland. 

 They further overlook the notorious fact, that 

 the Highlands of Scotland is already a peace- 

 ful country, the most quiet and pacific province 

 of the British empire, affording more facilities 

 for commercial and manufacturing industry 

 than perhaps any other country in the world. 

 This was more particularly the case previous to 

 the introduction of steam and its application 

 as a moving power to machinery. The water- 

 power of the Highlands is immense, tenfold 

 more than that of its inhabitants, who might 

 have entered the field with England on the 

 most advantageous terms which commercial 

 ambition could have desired. But instead of 

 Highlandmen taking advantage of the natural 

 wealth of their country, they fought for the 

 profitless peculiarities of patriarchal times, and 

 never thought of enlisting in the warfare of 

 modern industry, until it was too late to enter 

 the lists with any prospect of success. Ire- 



