HIGHLAND DESTITUTION.
The appalling horrors with which the Irish famine of last season set in, seemed to exceed any similar scene of national affliction that had been witnessed in modern times. It appeared as if the worst tragedies that had been enacted in sieges and shipwrecks were to be realised in the midst of comparative abundance, and within reach of friendly aid. It was right, however, that the clamant demands for relief, uttered by her starving millions, should not stifle the smaller voice of suffering that issued from our Scottish shores. Nor was this the case: the Christian philanthropy of Britain did justice to the cause of patience and fortitude. The fountains of private beneficence were opened, and Scotland was better protected from the miseries of this visitation by individual exertion, than Ireland with all the aid and apparatus of government interference.
Making every abatement for the natural exaggeration incident to such a calamity, no doubt can be entertained as to the general condition of our Highlands and Islands in the early part of the past year. Great distress was almost every where prevalent, and every day that passed was tending to increase it. A large portion of the food of the people had failed, and the remnant of the preceding year's corn crop was their only means of subsistence. That resource could not long be relied on; and the great problem was, in what manner the destitute thousands of our countrymen were to be fed till the returning harvest should visit them with its scanty and precarious bounty. Too many of them were habitually on the verge of starvation, and the crumbling away of the slender support on which alone they stood, brought them at once to the low abyss of wretchedness in which they would have been left if public generosity had not interposed.
The task of those who undertook to distribute the large relief fund subscribed was attended with great difficulty, and involved a solemn responsibility of the highest kind. They appear to us, on a review of their arrangements, to have proceeded with judgment and good feeling; anxious, on the one hand, to alleviate want, and on the other, to avert those moral mischiefs that follow in the wake of gratuitous or indiscriminate liberality. Their object necessarily was, to do as much good and as little harm as the emergency would permit.
Something has recently been said of the great extent to which the distress in those districts was originally over-stated by the individuals who came forward to rouse the benevolence of their countrymen on behalf of the Highlands. We are by no means prepared to join in this view. It is impossible to describe the consequences of a coming famine with mathematical precision. Besides, the destitution is not yet over. And it is at least clear, even as to the past, that except for the exertions of the proprietors, which might or might not have been so largely made, the destitution would have fully borne out the predictions which were uttered. It could not with certainty be assumed that the smaller and less wealthy proprietors, in particular, would have been able to make the great sacrifices which they have so generously submitted to, and without which the people of Wester Ross and Skye, of Islay and Colonsay, and many other places, would have laid on the relief fund a burden far heavier than it has had to bear.
This at least is certain, that the fund has not been dispensed upon any extravagant views of the existence of destitution. The large surplus that remains on hand, demonstrates the caution and economy with which the distribution has been conducted. The money has not been lavished merely because it had been subscribed; and the difficult object has been accomplished, of keeping in check those demands which were likely to become more clamorous and more unreasonable, in proportion as the means existed of satisfying them.
It would serve little purpose to examine in detail the operations of the Relief Board, which are already
before the public in the reports which they have published from time to time. It is, perhaps, sufficient to say, that they present, in a great degree, the features which might have been looked for in the working of a scheme devised on the spur of an emergency, and destined to be followed out in remote localities, and under influences partaking, in no ordinary degree, of the taint of human frailty. In some parts of the country, the local committees have done their duty conscientiously and respectably; in others we are afraid they are not entitled to the same praise. Yet, on the whole, things have answered better than could have been expected; and undoubtedly the greatest benefit was derived from the able superintendence of the two general inspectors employed by the board, Captain Eliott and Dr Boyter, whose services to the public in this important duty cannot be too highly commended.
It is quite clear, however, that the local machinery, which was necessarily or allowably resorted to at the outset, ought no longer to be kept up, if further operations are required for the relief of destitution. There must now be a more stringent examination of the claims which may be preferred, and a more rigid enforcement of the proper regulations, than could well be insisted for when the field was new and the urgency irresistible. A continuance of any past laxity would now be inexcusable and eminently mischievous, by tending to perpetuate in the Highlands those social evils and anomalies which the present calamity is naturally calculated to expose and extirpate.