316 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



' ' 1 know a glen, now inhabited by two shepherds and two game- 

 keepers, which at one time sent out its thousand fighting men. And 

 this is but one out of many that may be cited to show how the 

 Highlands have been depopulated. Loyal, peaceable, high-spirited 

 peasantry have been driven from their native land as the Jews 

 were expelled from Spain and the Huguenots from France to make 

 room for grouse, sheep, and deer. A portly volume would be 

 needed to contain the records of oppression and cruelty perpetrated 

 by many landlords, who are a scourge to the unfortunate 

 tenants, blighting their lives, poisoning their happiness, and 

 robbing them of their improvements, filling their wretched 

 homes with sorrow, and breaking their hearts with the weight 

 of despair." (The Highland Crofters of Scotland. 1878.) 



Here, then, we have reviewed the results of our land 

 system. Persistent pauperism in the midst of boundless 

 wealth in England largely due to the great farm system 

 so dear to English landlords and agents, to the consequent 

 driving of labourers to the towns to seek a subsistence, to 

 the utter divorce of the labourer from any right in his 

 native soil, and to land and building speculation, making 

 it the interest of landlords and speculators that people 

 should be driven to live crowded together in towns rather 

 than be scattered naturally and beneficially over the 

 country. 



In Ireland we see agrarian war, chronic famine, arid 

 a degraded population, while by the cruel evictions and 

 forced emigration, and the long-continued robbery of the 

 Irish peasant's improvements, a deadly enemy to our 

 country has been established in the United States. 



In Scotland, a religious, patient, educated peasantry have 

 been forcibly driven from their native soil, while those 

 which remain are pauperised, discontented, and famine- 

 stricken. 



Beneficial Results of Small Holdings. 



In the preceding pages I have given a brief outline 

 of the effects of landlord rule in England, Ireland, and 

 Scotland, and I cannot but express my amazement that 

 a writer like Professor Fawcett, who must have been fully 

 acquainted with the whole of the terrible facts I have here 

 only been able to hint at who nearly twenty years earlier 

 wrote so strongly on the pitiable condition of the British 



