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against their own countrymen.” (George Ensor: “An Inquiry Concerning the Population of Nations.”
Lond,. 1818, pp. 215, 216.)
30
When the present Duchess of Sutherland entertained Mrs. Beecher Stowe, authoress of “Uncle
Tom’s Cabin,” with great magnificence in London to show her sympathy for the Negro
slaves of the
American republic — a sympathy that she prudently forgot, with her fellow-aristocrats, during the
civil war, in which every “noble” English heart beat for the slave-owner — I gave in the New York
Tribune the facts about the Sutherland slaves. (Epitomised in part by Carey in “The Slave Trade.”
Philadelphia, 1853, pp. 203, 204.) My article was reprinted in a Scotch newspaper, and led to a pretty
polemic between the latter and the sycophants of the Sutherlands.
31
Interesting details on this fish trade will be found in Mr. David Urquhart’s Portfolio, new series. —
Nassau W. Senior, in his posthumous work, already quoted, terms “the proceedings in Sutherlandshire
one of the most beneficent clearings since the memory of man.” (l. c.)
32
The deer-forests of Scotland contain not a single tree. The sheep are driven from, and then the deer
driven to, the naked hills, and then it is called a deer-forest. Not even timber-planting and real forest
culture.
33
Robert Somers: “Letters from the Highlands: or the Famine of 1847.” London, 1848, pp. 12-28
passim. These letters originally appeared in
The Times. The English economists of course explained
the famine of the Gaels in 1847, by their over-population. At all events, they “were pressing on their
food-supply.” The “clearing of estates,” or as it is called in Germany, “Bauernlegen,” occurred in
Germany especially after the 30 years’ war, and led to peasant-revolts as late as 1790 in Kursachsen. It
obtained especially in East Germany. In most of the Prussian provinces, Frederick II. for the first time
secured right of property for the peasants. After the conquest of Silesia he forced the landlords to
rebuild the huts, barns, etc., and to provide the peasants with cattle and implements. He wanted
soldiers for his army and tax-payers for his treasury. For the rest, the pleasant life that the peasant led
under Frederick’s system of finance and hodge-podge rule of despotism, bureaucracy and feudalism,
may be seen from the following quotation from his admirer, Mirabeau: “Le lin fait donc une des
grandes richesses du cultivateur dans le Nord de l’Allemagne. Malheureusement pour l’espèce
humaine, ce n’est qu’une ressource contre la misère et non un moyen de bien-être. Les impôts directs,
les corvées, les servitudes de tout genre, écrasent le cultivateur allemand, qui paie encore des impôts
indirects dans tout ce qu’il achète.... et pour comble de ruine, il n’ose pas vendre ses productions où et
comme il le veut; il n’ose pas acheter ce dont il a besoin aux marchands qui pourraient le lui livrer au
meilleur prix. Toutes ces causes le ruinent insensiblement, et il se trouverait hors d’état de payer les
impôts directs à l’échéance sans la filerie; elle lui offre une ressource, en occupant utilement sa
femme, ses enfants, ses servants, ses valets, et lui-même; mais quelle pénible vie, même aidée de ce
secours. En été, il travaille comme un forçat au labourage et à la récolte; il se couche à 9 heures et se
lève à deux, pour suffire aux travaux; en hiver il devrait réparer ses forces par un plus grand repos;
mais il manquera de grains pour le pain et les semailles, s’il se défait des denrées qu’il faudrait vendre
pour payer les impôts. Il faut donc filer pour suppléer à ce vide.... il faut y apporter la plus grande
assiduité. Aussi le paysan se couche-t-il en hiver à minuit, une heure, et se lève à cinq ou six; ou bien
il se couche à neuf, et se lève à deux, et cela tous les jours de la vie si ce n’est le dimanche. Ces excès
de veille et de travail usent la nature humaine, et de là vient qu’hommes et femmes vieillissent
beaucoup plutôt dans les campagnes que dans les villes.” [Flax represents one of the greatest sources
of wealth for the peasant of North Germany. Unfortunately for the human race, this is only a resource
against misery and not a means towards well-being. Direct taxes, forced labour service, obligations of
all kinds crush the German peasant, especially as he still has to pay indirect taxes on everything he
buys, ... and to complete his ruin he dare not sell his produce where and as he wishes; he dare not buy
what he needs from the merhcants who could sell it to him at a cheaper price. He is slowly ruined by
all those factors, and when the dirct taxes fall due, he would find himself incapable of paying them
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without his spinning-wheel; it offers him a last resort, while providing useful occupation for his wife,
his children, his maids, his farm-hands, and himself; but what a painful life he leads, even with this
extra resource! In summer, he works like a convict with the plough and at harvest; he goes to bed at
nine o’clock and rises at two to get through all his work; in winter he ought to be recovering his
strength by sleeping longer; but he would run short of corn for his bread and next year’s sowing if he
got rid of the products that he needs to sell in order to pay the taxes. He therefore has to spin to fill up
this gap ... and indeed he must do so most assiduously. Thus the peasant goes to bed at midnight or
one o’clock in winter, and gets up at five or six; or he goes to bed at nine and gets up at two, and this
he does every day of his life except Sundays. These excessively short hours of sleep and long hours of
work consume a person’s strength and hence it happens that men and women age much more in the
country than in the towns] (Mirabeau, l. c., t.III. pp. 212 sqq.)
Note to the second edition. In April 1866, 18 years after the publication of the work of Robert Somers
quoted above, Professor Leone Levi gave a lecture before the Society of Arts on the transformation of
sheep-walks into deer-forest, in which he depicts the advance in the devastation of the Scottish
Highlands. He says, with other things: “Depopulation and transformation into sheep-walks were the
most convenient means for getting an income without expenditure... A deer-forest in place of a sheep-
walk was a common change in the Highlands. The landowners turned out the sheep as they once
turned out the men from their estates, and welcomed the new tenants — the wild beasts and the
feathered birds.... One can walk from the Earl of Dalhousie’s estates in Forfarshire to John O’Groats,
without ever leaving forest land.... In many of these woods the fox, the wild cat, the marten, the
polecat, the weasel and the Alpine hare are common; whilst the rabbit, the squirrel and the rat have
lately made their way into the country. Immense tracts of land, much of which is described in the
statistical account of Scotland as having a pasturage in richness and extent of very superior
description, are thus shut out from all cultivation and improvement, and are solely devoted to the sport
of a few persons for a very brief period of the year.” The London Economist of June 2, 1866, says,
“Amongst the items of news in a Scotch paper of last week, we read... ’One of the finest sheep farms
in Sutherlandshire, for which a rent of £1,200 a year was recently offered, on the expiry of the existing
lease this year, is to be converted into a deer-forest.’ Here we see the modern instincts of feudalism ...
operating pretty much as they did when the Norman Conqueror... destroyed 36 villages to create the
New Forest.... Two millions of acres... totally laid waste, embracing within their area some of the most
fertile lands of Scotland. The natural grass of Glen Tilt was among the most nutritive in the county of
Perth. The deer-forest of Ben Aulder was by far the best grazing ground in the wide district of
Badenoch; a part of the Black Mount forest was the best pasture for black-faced sheep in Scotland.
Some idea of the ground laid waste for purely sporting purposes in Scotland may be formed from the
fact that it embraced an area larger than the whole county of Perth. The resources of the forest of Ben
Aulder might give some idea of the loss sustained from the forced desolations. The ground would
pasture 15,000 sheep, and as it was not more than one-thirtieth part of the old forest ground in
Scotland ... it might, &c., ... All that forest land is as totally unproductive.... It might thus as well have
been submerged under the waters of the German Ocean.... Such extemporised wildernesses or deserts
ought to be put down by the decided interference of the Legislature.”