STORY OF THE ENGLISH LAND 31 



system. M. de Laveleye estimates that at 

 the close of the seventeenth century there 

 still remained 160,000 yeomen, forming with 

 their families no less than one-seventh of the 

 entire population. At the present moment 

 this once powerful class is represented by a 

 few scanty survivors in some of our more 

 remote counties like Westmoreland and 

 Somersetshire. 



The most signal examples of the clearing 

 process came from Scotland. The absorption 

 of small farms and holdings, which has altered 

 the whole condition of land tenure in the 

 Highlands, had one remarkable feature. 

 It was carried out in the midst of a hardy 

 and independent race, which, in spite of the 

 bitter wrongs of earlier days, retains a 

 pathetic loyalty to the chieftains of the clans 

 whose ancestors acted with the most callous 

 disregard of their dependents' welfare. In the 

 great " Sutherland clearings " of 1814-1820 

 some 3,000 families were expelled from their 

 holdings and 800,000 acres of clan property 

 annexed to the ducal domain. Such clearings 

 have been excused on the grounds that the 

 land was fit for nothing but rough sheep- 

 grazing. But facts are too strong for apolo- 

 getic generalities of this kind. A writer in 

 the Economist (Jan. 2, 1886), quoted by M. 



