NORTH U1ST. KELP MANUFACTURE. 125 



the landlord who is proprietor of the land as well as 

 the kelp, would lose on one side what he might gain 

 on the other. It is plain, that if the two properties were 

 separate, the kelp maker would have a correct view, of 

 his own interest at least, in wishing for a crowded 

 population, which, as far as they are separated, he actually 

 has. Whether the proprietor of both has or has not 

 is a mere question of contingency. In him, the practice 

 of crowding the population, admitting it to be a fact, 

 is a mere commercial speculation in which he sacrifices 

 a given sum in the shape of rent, for the contingent ac- 

 quisition of another in the shape of profit on kelp. He 

 cannot well be so blind as not to perceive that he is 

 paying the price of labour in two distinct shapes, and 

 it is clearly his interest to ascertain the price at which 

 he is the manufacturer of the merchandize in which he 

 deals. If his avarice or his ignorance are such as to 

 render him a loser by his speculation, it is scarcely a 

 subject for the interference of others : like other spe- 

 culations it has a natural tendency to rectify itself if 

 wrong, and must be left to that freedom which ought 

 alone to direct all the movements of commerce. It will 

 I believe be admitted by many of those who are ac^ 

 quainted with these islands, that there are tracts of 

 land now occupied by small tenantry at an inadequate 

 rent and under inefficient management, which if well 

 managed would return a considerably greater profit to 

 the landholder, and possibly exceed that which under 

 the present system he makes by his kelp. But the 

 changes required for this improved management of the 

 land are such as cannot occur under the present state 



if it were not every where apparent, would be proved by the increase 

 of rent which has followed the consolidation of small farms, or, 

 a diminution of competitors, such as these small competitors are. 

 It is besides obvious, that the landholder who would increase his 

 population for these ends, can only do it by offering his land on 

 better terms than his neighbours, 



