BENBECULA. HIGHLAND POPULATION. 113 



authority in politic^ economy, but the subjoined passage 

 is not inapplicable to the subject.* 



There is yet another question connected with the 

 state of the insular population, of a political nature and 

 of no small importance ; arising from the nature of the 

 present tenures and the extreme division of farms in 

 the unimproved islands. This seems limited to a narrow 

 space as a question of government, and had this radical and 

 proper basis of the argument so often and so -acrimoniously 

 contested among the numerous disputants, been suffi- 

 ciently regarded, less time would have been occupied 

 by the controversy. There is no doubt that the popu- 

 lation of any country like this will be greater under 

 such a system than under one which shall convert 

 many small pastoral farms into a Iarg one, or which, by 

 uniting in a similar manner the small arable farms, shall 

 dispense with the numerous incumbents who under such 

 an improved system would find no employment on the 

 soil. But in these cases the same quantity of the given 

 manufacture, cattle or corn, is produced by fewer hands, 

 or the agricultural machine is more perfect. And as the 

 perfection of agriculture, as of manufactures, is that state 

 in which the greatest produce is obtained at the least 

 expense, it would be difficult to admit the principle 

 that this perfection in the first of all arts was advan- 

 tageous in a general view, while in the details it was 

 injurious. Where each cultivator can only produce suffi- 

 cient for his own maintenance he can pay no rent :: 

 where he can produce but little more he can pay but 

 little rent, and thus rent is in some measure the criterion 

 of agricultural improvement. But where he produces 

 no more than he consumes there is no surplus produce ; 



* " Dans e cas il faudroit que la terre rendit le double de ce qu'elle 

 rend, ou qu'il y auroit le double de pauvres, ou qu'il faudroit avoir le 

 double sur 1'etranger, ou envoyer la moitie de la nation en Amerique, 

 ou que la moitie de la nation mangeat 1'autre." 



VOL. I. I 



