In many parts of Argyllshire the people have been weeded out none the less effectively, that the process generally was of a milder nature than that adopted in some of the places already described. By some means or other, however, the ancient tenantry have largely disappeared to make room for the sheep farmer and the sportsman. Mr. Somerville, Lochgilphead, writing on this subject, says, “The watchword of all is exterminate, exterminate the native race. Through this monomania of landlords the cottier population is all but extinct; and the substantial yeoman is undergoing the same process of dissolution.” He then proceeds:—
“About nine miles of country on the west side of Loch Awe, in Argyllshire, that formerly maintained 45 families, are now rented by one person as a sheep farm; and in the island of Luing, same county, which formerly contained about 50 substantial farmers, besides cottiers, this number is now reduced to about six. The work of eviction commenced by giving, in many cases, to the ejected population, facilities and pecuniary aid for emigration; but now the people are turned adrift, penniless and shelterless, to seek a precarious subsistence on the sea-board, in the nearest hamlet or village, and in the cities, many of whom sink down helpless paupers on our poor-roll; and others, festering in our villages, form a formidable Arab population, who drink our money contributed as parochial relief. This wholesale depopulation is perpetrated, too, in a spirit of invidiousness, harshness, cruelty, and injustice, and must eventuate in permanent injury to the moral, political, and social interests of the kingdom.... The immediate effects of this new system are the dissociation of the people from the land, who are virtually denied the right to labour on God’s creation. In L——, for instance, garden ground and small allotments of land are in great demand by families, and especially by the aged, whose labouring days are done, for the purpose of keeping cows, and by which they might be able to earn an honest, independent maintenence for their families, and whereby their children might be brought up to labour instead of growing up vagabonds and thieves. But such, even in our centres of population, cannot be got; the whole is let in large farms and turned into grazing. The few patches of bare pasture, formed by the delta of rivers, the detritus of rocks, and tidal deposits, are let for grazing at the exorbitant rent of £3 10s. each for a small Highland cow; and the small space to be had for garden ground is equally extravagant. The consequence of these exorbitant rents and the want of agricultural facilities is a depressed, degraded, and pauperised population.”
These remarks are only too true, and applicable not only in Argyllshire, but throughout the Highlands generally.
A deputation from the Glasgow Highland Relief Board, consisting of Dr. Robert Macgregor, and Mr. Charles R. Baird, their Secretary, visited Mull, Ulva, Iona, Tiree, Coll, and part of Morvern, in 1849, and they immediately afterwards issued a printed report on the state of these places, from which a few extracts will prove instructive. They inform us that the population of
THE ISLAND OF MULL.
according to the Government Census of 1821, was 10,612; in 1841, 10,064. In 1871, we find it reduced to 6441, and by the Census of 1881, now before us, it is stated at 5624, or a fraction more than half the number that inhabited the Island in 1821.
Tobermory, we are told, “has been for some time the resort of the greater part of the small crofters and cottars, ejected from their holdings and houses on the surrounding estates, and thus there has been a great accumulation of distress.” Then we are told that “severe as the destitution has been in the rural districts, we think it has been still more so in Tobermory and other villages”—a telling comment on, and reply to, those who would now have us believe that the evictors of those days and of our own were acting the character of wise benefactors when they ejected the people from the inland and rural districts of the various counties to wretched villages, and rocky hamlets on the sea-shore.
Ulva.—The population of the Island of Ulva in 1849 was 360 souls. The reporters state that a “large portion” of it “has lately been converted into a sheep farm, and consequently a number of small crofters and cottars have been warned away” by Mr. Clark. “Some of these will find great difficulty in settling themselves anywhere, and all of them have little prospect of employment.... Whatever may be the ultimate effect to the landowners of the conversion of a number of small crofts into large farms, we need scarcely say that this process is causing much poverty and misery among the crofters.” How Mr. Clark carried out his intention of evicting the tenantry of Ulva may be seen from the fact that the population of 360 souls, in 1849, was reduced to 51 in 1881.
Kilfinichen.—In this district we are told that “The crofters and cottars having been warned off, 26 individuals emigrated to America, at their own expense and one at that of the Parochial Board; a good many removed to Kinloch, where they are now in great poverty, and those who remained were not allowed to cultivate any ground for crop or even garden stuffs. The stock and other effects of a number of crofters on Kinloch last year (1848), whose rents averaged from £5 to £15 per annum, having been sequestrated and sold, these parties are now reduced to a state of pauperism, having no employment or means of subsistence whatever.” As to the cottars, it is said that “the great mass of them are now in a very deplorable state.” On the estate of