EXPATRIATION IN SCOTLAND.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 5487, 4 December 1884, Page 2

EXPATRIATION IN SCOTLAND.

Few Englishmen even now seem to be aware, notwithstanding all that has been written on the subject, that not very long ago, in many instances within the memory of living men, most of the Highland counties were the scene of evictions on a wholesale . scale, compared with which the forced . '. emigration of the Irish peasantry ainka into insignificance, Entire communities, from the patriaroh of two generations down to the newly-born babe, were banished en o&rc to Canada, and thrown there on their own resouroeß to establish new home* or to starve, as the case may be. And although the people, except in a few oases, submitted to expatriation quietly, if unwillingly, where - they did manifest any reluctance to accept ' their fate their houses were burned down over their heads, and they themselves were , turned adrift on the bleak hillsides and on ' the wild and inhospitable seashores of that , northern region to subsistance as best they could. Until 1745, the year of Cuiloden, the clan system of Und tenure prevailed in „ the Highlands, under whioh the ground ; belonged not to the ohief alone but to the v , community, A oltnaman oould not be diK ' , possessed of his holding by hJs ohiof. After . ;

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lHti KoiweV^, tna EagUehsyßtemwaafetto. dueed. The claw 1 that had remained loyal to ttie Crown, as well as those that had • thrown in their lot with Pfinoe Charles, had their lands practically confiscated. The ' Highland ohiefe, in Bhort, were assimilated ito position to Kntfish landlords. They were by the Central Government invested with 1 the fee-simple of the land Whioh was once held by the laird and the clansmen in com. nlon, and so a great wrong, amounting to a national crime, was done to the Highland population.-— Nineteenth Century.