Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/70

Rh 3. That this increase was out of all proportion to the means of subsistence.

4. That the introduction of potato cultivation increased the evil of a rapid increase in population, without any corresponding increase in skill or industry.

5. That the emigration of the Highlanders arose as a necessity out of this condition of things, and was in itself the first step towards improvement.

6. That the introduction of sheep farming was a pure gain, not tending to diminish the area of tillage where tillage is desirable, and turning to use for the first time a large part of the whole area of the country, which was formerly absolute waste.

7. That for the old bad cultivation of small crofters there has been substituted for the most part a middle class of tenantry, thriving, holding under lease, and exhibiting all the conditions of agricultural prosperity.

8. That the displacement of population by the introduction of great capitalists holding farms of very large value, has not taken place in the Highland counties to an extent nearly equal to that in which it has taken place in some of the richest counties of Scotland.

9. That the process which has been going on in the Highland counties, of a diminution in the population of the rural districts, is the same process which has long ago been accomplished in the other counties of Scotland and in England.

10. That in their case it was also deplored under the same economic fallacies—fallacies which are now applied only to the Highlands because the process is not yet completed.

11. That the prosperity of the Highlands will only be complete when the process shall have been completed also.

12. That no part of Scotland, considering the late period at which improvement begun, has advanced so rapidly, or given within an equal space of time, so large and so solid an addition to the general wealth of the country."

Extract from the Duke of Argyle's Pamphlet on the Condition of the Highlands of Scotland, p. 534.

"Any one acquainted with the county of Argyll will at once perceive that this progressive diminution in the proportion of paupers to population corresponds closely with the diminution in the proportion of the population depending for subsistence on the produce of small crofts, and that the proportion of paupers increases as we recede from the districts in which the old crofting system has been superseded, and the system of the more advanced parts of the country has been established."

Extract from Mem. by Sir John McNeill, K.C.B., President of the Poor Law Board in Scotland.