( i6 ) 



Suggestion of in- natural fertility, for lie suggests among other things 

 farmer^to Isknd.^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ regularly bred and practical farmer should 

 be introduced into the Island to show the people that 

 the soil on which they were only saved from starving 

 by the extraneous resources of the kelp trade was 

 ** capable of producing returns of which they had no 

 conception." He pointed out, however, that even 

 this measure would be necessarily slow in its opera- 

 tion, since " the general poverty of their circumstances 

 conspired with the general idleness of their habits and 

 the backwardness of their knowledge," to render hope- 

 less the possibility of such examples being followed. 

 jSrece?sity of no Mr. Maxwell had no doubt of the necessity of at least 



less than looo ^^^ remedy. He declared his opinion that not less 

 people emigrating. '' i i i t i - -, 



than one thousand people should be assisted to emi- 

 grate to America or Canada. The people themselves 

 had come to wish it. My grandfather, though averse, 

 had also come to entertain the proposal. But just at 

 that time one of these panics had arisen about the 

 evils of emigration and depopulation which seem to be 

 of periodical recurrence. A committee of the High- 

 land and Agricultural Society, of which my grand- 

 father was president, had sat upon the subject. They 

 had treated emigration as a national calamity. They 

 had recommended every conceivable expedient — each 

 one more absurd than another — for preventing the 

 people from seeking a land of greater abundance. 

 They had advised the making of roads by Govern- 

 ment — the making' of canals by Government— the 

 establishment of Government bounties upon fishing 

 — bounties upon building villages — bounties upon 

 crofting — bounties upon building boats — bounties 

 upon anything and everything that could be thought 



