BENBECULA. HIGHLAND POPULATION. Ill 



rejecting it whenever fresh arrangements in the divisions 

 of land and the improvements of farming, render it an 

 incumbrance. 



Thus far I have only looked to the general circum- 

 stance of migration, and after the numerous and often 

 intemperate debates which have existed on the subject 

 of emigration, I would willingly pass it without notice 

 lest I should entangle myself among the host of con- 

 tending adversaries. The unfortunate connexion which 

 subsists between certain terms and the concatenated 

 trains of prejudices or feelings which they excite, is 

 such, that it is difficult to render the simplest truth 

 acceptable where these are called into use. If we 

 could banish the words emigration, depopulation, en- 

 grossing of farms, and some others equally offensive, 

 from these discussions, they would be attended with com- 

 paratively little difficulty : to divest these terms of their 

 odious attributes is impossible. Yet it is plain to every 

 one in the least familiar with the principles of political 

 economy, that the evils arising from emigration are 

 almost in every instance imaginary, and that to oppose 

 it where there is such a tendency, while it is an evil to the 

 community at large, is no less a grievance to the indivi- 

 duals who would resort to that remedy, than a forcible 

 deportation would be to those who were inclined to stay. 

 It is not too much to add, that the individual, or the 

 government, which protects the liberty of the subject 

 in all the arrangements best adapted both for his own 

 and for the general welfare, is only extending the exercise 

 of its protection when it facilitates such measures by re- 

 moving the artificial or natural impediments that stand 

 in its way. The subject of depopulation is too trite, and 

 the popular terror respecting its evil consequences too 

 groundless, to deserve notice. But I must pass from 

 a subject too interesting for the space which I can 

 afford for it. In the mean time no great difficulty 

 seems to exist in reconciling the apparently discordant 

 opinions of those who have adopted different sides in 



