150 THE HIGHLAND CLEARANCES. 



initiating the movement." Whether that initiation will prove 

 a credit or the reverse, the reader will not be surprised if, in 

 the circumstances, we shall watch the proceedings of the 

 Commission with more than ordinary interest. 



The Government having resolved to grant a Royal Com- 

 mission, they surely ought to have paid some deference in 

 arranging its composition, to those who have been chiefly 

 instrumental in impressing upon them the necessity for such 

 a great concession. But how have they acted ? They have, 

 in the face of many and urgent recommendations from 

 representative societies and individuals, whose position and 

 knowledge fully entitled them to proffer advice, appointed a 

 Commission which has been universally condemned by every 

 Association, every individual, and by almost every news- 

 paper throughout the country that advocated its appoint- 

 ment. In that condemnation, after the most full and careful 

 consideration, and fully alive to the responsibility involved 

 in such a step, we are compelled to join ; and we do so 

 with the greater reluctance from the high respect which we 

 entertain for all the members of the Commission as indi- 

 viduals, apart from the duties which in this case they have 

 been called upon to perform. Nothing will satisfy the 

 public short of making the cruel evictions of the past, im- 

 possible in future in the Highlands, by giving the people a 

 permanent interest in the soil they cultivate. That a 

 recommendation to that effect can emanate from a Royal 

 Commission composed as this one is, is scarcely conceiv- 

 able. Nor is it to be expected that they can rise so far 

 above the common failings of humanity as to be even 

 anxious to procure evidence which will lead to legislation in 

 that direction. Are Sir Kenneth Mackenzie and Lochiel, 

 for instance, at all likely to recommend the modification of 

 their own present rights of property, or the abolition or 



