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Electric Scotland News
Celebrate Tartan Day
On Saturday 6 April, Argentina, Canada, Scotland, and the United States celebrate Tartan Day, a must-see event celebrating Scotland's heritage and connections with North America and the world.
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Storm Kathleen: Weather warnings as snow, ice and wind to batter Scotland
Parts of Scotland are set to be battered by snow, rain and wind as the weekend arrives bringing risks of flooding and traffic disruption.
https://news.stv.tv/scotland/snow-ic...ather-warnings
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Scottish Studies Foundation
Since 1998, our newsletter has been published under the title of "The Scots Canadian". We are now pleased to have all issues posted online as pdf files. We extend a very big thank you to everyone who has contributed over the years. We are always on the lookout for new material, especially if it has a Scots-Canadian focus, so please contact us with your ideas.
Access their archives at:
https://www.scottishstudies.com/arch...ewsletters.htm
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
Here is what caught my eye this week...
Eat beans and live longer
One reason why many Ikarians live to be 100
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/2...live-to-be-100
Canada's drug decriminalisation test faces scrutiny
Last year, British Columbia (BC) became the first province in Canada to decriminalise the use of hard drugs as part of its efforts to tackle a deadly opioids crisis. But the policy is facing pushback, leaving its future uncertain.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68621012
The West is hardly in decline
In Ukraine and in Israel, the results will benefit western civilization. An article by Conrad Black.
Read more at:
https://archive.is/iq0RX#selection-2049.0-2049.71
Message from His Majesty The King to mark the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force
Today, I would like to offer my most sincere congratulations to the Royal Canadian Air Force (R.C.A.F.) as you celebrate one hundred years of serving Canada, Canadians and the world.
Read this at:
https://www.gg.ca/en/media/news/2024...nniversary-raf
Crannog Centre rises from the ashes three years after fire
Less than three years on, the Scottish Crannog Centre has risen again from the ashes. The site is 12 times the size of the original, further along the loch side in Dalerb in Perthshire.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...ntral-68661012
People die younger in Scotland than anywhere else in Western Europe
Life expectancy improvements in Scotland halted around 2014 to 2016, with the latest data indicating a decline.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...unger-scotland
JK Rowling has exposed the absurdity of Scotland’s Hate Crime Act
The Hate Crime Act creates a new offence of stirring up hatred against a long list of protected characteristics.
Read more at:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...hate-crime-act
Balmoral Castle to open to public for first time as King's retreat announces tours
In a historic move, the royal residence of Balmoral Castle in Scotland will open its doors to the public this summer as part of private tours that will include previously off-limits areas.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/scotla...first-32495121
SNP minister Siobhian Brown warns of hate crime hysteria as Police Scotland receive 3,000 complaints
A senior Scottish Government source told the Record there needed to be a reality check about this law after celebs like Ally McCoist and JK Rowling spoke out against it.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...warns-32499251
The dark history behind Skye's famous Fairy Pools
The Fairy Pools are among Skye's best-known landmarks, but few of those who visit may be aware of its real name - or bloody past.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3gk210j814o
Electric Canadian
Cinema Canada
In December 1989 Cinema Canada published its last issue (#169). It was the trade journal of record for the Canadian Film and television industry for 18 years.
Read the December-January 1976, Third Edition, number 24 (pdf) at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/maga...da-1975-12.pdf
Archives can be read at:
https://cinemacanada.athabascau.ca/index.php/cinema
Fisheries Statistics 1920
Prepared in collaboration with Dominion and Provincial Fisheries Departments (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...csofcanada.pdf
Memories of Canada and Scotland
Speeches and verses by the Right Hon. The Marquis of Lorne, K.T., G.C.M.G., &c. (1884) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...00argyuoft.pdf
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning - the 31st day of March 2024 Easter
By the Rev. Nola Crewe
You can watch this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...ch-2024-easter
Facts on Canada (1963)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...nada00cana.pdf
Electric Scotland
An Old Educational Reformer Dr. Andrew Bell
By John Miller D. Meiklejohn, M.A., Professor of the Theory, History, and practice of Education in the University of St. Andrews (1881) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/educati...iona00meik.pdf
The Henderson Trust Reports
At a meeting held on the 6th March, 1905, the Trustees of William Ramsay Henderson, Esq. of Warriston and Eildon Hall, resolved to devote a portion of the funds at their disposal to the collection of facts likely to be useful in the study of Anthropology, having reference especially to the cranial conformation of man, to the size and configuration of the brain and larger nervous centres, and to other kindred subjects, and to publish from time to time the records of such collections of facts under the designation of The Henderson Trust Reports. (pdf)
You can study this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...00tochrich.pdf
Alturlie
The same being some passages in the life of Simon Stuart of Alturlie, sometime officer in King Louis of France his regiment in Picardy, and later Major of his Britannic Majesty's regiment of Fraser Highlanders. These now edited by H. Robswood Cooke (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/books/p...00cookiala.pdf
Brothers in Mission
Alexander Farquharson of Cape Breton and Archibald Farquharson of Tiree by Margaret A. MacKay, B.A., Dip. Scot. Stud., Ph.D.
You can read about them at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclan...in-mission.pdf
The Hebrides Revival
Rev. Duncan Campbell (audio)
You can listen to this at:
https://www.sermonaudio.com/saplayer...p.asp?SID=5562
Also added this as an embedded link toward the foot of our Religion page at:
https://electricscotland.com/bible/index.htm
Highlanders of Scotland
Being a series of Portraits, with biographical and historical notices illustrative of the principle clans and followings, and the retainers of the royal household at Balmoral in the reign of her Majesty Queen Victoria by Kenneth MacLeay, Esq., F.S.A. (1872)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...ofscotland.htm
Highlands and Islands - A Royal Tour
HRH the Prince of Wales on a tour of the Highlands (1973) and Islands with visits including the Highland stoneware pottery at Lochinver, a woollen mill on Lewis, an electronics factory on Skye and fudge and jewellery factories on Orkney.
You can watch this at:
https://movingimage.nls.uk/film/2380
Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland
By James Murray MacKinlay, M.A.
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/bible/dedications.htm
Book of the Landed Estate
Containing directions for the management and development of landed property by Robert E. Brown (1869) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/agricul...00browuoft.pdf
Agricultural Labourers
As they were, are, and should be in their social condition by The Rev. Harry Stuart, A.M., Minister of Oathlaw; being an address, delivered to a general meeting of the Forfarshire Agricultural Association, June 1853, and published at the request of the Association (1853) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/agricul...00stuagoog.pdf
Blacks's Picturesque Tourist of Scotland
Twenty-eighth edition (1889) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/travel/...qu1840adam.pdf
Story
THE HIGHLANDS AFTER CULLODEN
By W. C. Mackenzie, FSAScot.
The Highlands vanish from the pages of nearly all our history books after the battle of Culloden, and after the exit of the central figure in the last of the Stuart risings. To be sure, the “Forty-five” is a striking episode, capable of picturesque treatment by the historian who deals mainly with political events. But to the sociologist, the fundamental changes which took place in the structure of Highland society as the direct outcome of Culloden, are of even greater interest than the rising itself. That these changes, or some of them, would have happened in the natural order of things cannot be doubted, but the process would have been slow. Culloden accelerated the process by an unknowable period. How easy it is to speculate upon “might have beens”. Who can say what results would have flowed from a successful “Forty-five”. And who can tell what the Highlands would be to-day had Culloden never been fought? For not only was it a battle which forever dissipated the hopes of the Stuarts, but it was a battle which paved the way for an economic upheaval in the North of Scotland.
Rightly to understand the significance of the
POST-CULLODEN CONDITIONS,
it is essential to have a clear grasp of the state of society which preceded the great rising. This, one fears, is frequently misunderstood. It is a common error to suppose that the pre-“Forty-five” era was one of Arcadian simplicity in the Highland glens, and that the clansmen lived in a state of ease and comfort under the fatherly care of their chiefs. This idea has been fostered by certain authors who have drawn upon tradition for their information, instead of studying the accounts of contemporary writers. The latter show clearly that the facts are far otherwise. For nothing is more certain than that the curse of feudalism had cast its blight over the Highlands, making petty tyrants of the superior grades, destroying the independence of the commons, and frequently rendering their means of livelihood precarious, insomuch that they were sometimes compelled to bleed their cattle to help in staving off the ravages of famine.
The whole structure of society was fundamentally unsound. Agriculture was despised and was relegated to the helots of the clan, who stayed at home to till the soil while their superiors went forth to fight their foes. Trade and commerce were held in low esteem; the only trade deemed honourable was that of war. In these circumstances, economic disaster was only averted by observing a comfortable code of ethics, which was equally opposed to the moral law and the law of the land. The strong oppressed the weak, and the weak took shelter with the strong, or became “broken men,” amenable to no laws or clan discipline whatsoever. Food resources being inadequate to the wants of the community, had to be supplemented at the expense of rival clans, or, still better, at the expense of the peaceful and prosperous Sassunach. Cattle reiving was deemed an honourable occupation. To steal a stirk was a petty theft; to transfer a herd of cattle from your neighbour’s borders to your own was a proper act of reciprocity. There was a good deal of casuistry in the Highland conception of morality. An illustration of this is afforded by an incident of the 17th century, when the chief of the Gunns was instigated by the Earl of Caithness to burn the Sandside corn-stalks. Gunn cheerfully undertook to slit the owner’s throat, but indignantly refused to burn his corn, asserting that it was employment unbecoming a gentleman!
There is no doubt that economic conditions played an important part in the
CLAN FEUDS
and the numerous insurrections which bulk so largely in Highland history. It is true that that these provided an outlet for the pugnacity of the full-blooded gentry of the clan, whose chief occupations in life were fighting and hunting. But the larder for a profuse hospitality like theirs required periodical replenishment, and the lust of territory was stimulated by the necessity of making provision for a population whose number exceeded its resources. War and famine were two decimating factors which kept down the population. Had these factors been absent, the pressure of economic conditions must have been such as to drive the chiefs and their hangers-on into channels of industry long before Culloden was fought. From an economic standpoint, the inter-clan feuds had small effect upon the wealth of the Highlands, though its distribution was profoundly modified. What was taken from one clan enriched another, and thus the strong clans grew stronger and the weak grew weaker. Hence the agglomeration of power in the hands of a few clans, and their hegemony in peace and war. At one time this hegemony rested indisputably with the Macdonalds, but on the ruins of the Lordship of the Isles, other clans like the Campbells and the Mackenzies, rose to greatness. Insurrections like those under Montrose and Dundee in the 17th, and Mar in the 18th century, added to the wealth of the Highlands, and that consideration doubtless weighed with the chiefs who participated in them. For there was a great deal of spoil secured in those wars, and whatever happened, the safe deposit of booty in the hills was generally the first consideration. Again and again the fruits of victory were snatched from the hands of their commanders by the tendency of the Highlanders to return home with loot. It was this tendency that made Harlaw a drawn battle, and that nearly broke the heart of Montrose during his brilliant campaigns. The point is, that the wealth of the clans must have been augmented to no inconsiderable extent by these risings; and to the Highlanders, not the least satisfactory feature was, that this wealth was acquired at the expense of their hereditary Lowland foes. These periodical Stuart risings finally culminated in the “Forty-five,” the greatest and least sordid of them all, for nothing can be clearer than the spirit of chivalry which induced the chiefs, after many misgivings, to draw the sword in what appeared to be a hopeless effort. This was primarily an affair of principle and sentiment, and the Highland blood which stained Drummossie Moor was the blood of men who, for the most part, were conscious of fighting for a great cause.
The Government of the day obviously had an extraordinary conception of
HIGHLAND CONDITIONS AND HIGHLAND CHARACTER.
Had it not been for Duncan Forbes of Culloden, who repaired their blunders and worked like a Titan for the Crown, the Hanoverian dynasty must inevitably have fallen. And, parenthetically, it may be said that the conduct of George II. and his Government towards the man who saved both, was shamefully ungrateful. Pre-eminently, Culloden stood for integrity and honesty on the one side, just as Lochiel did on the other. After the rising had been quelled, a certain busybody told Culloden that a General Officer in the Royalist Army had said: “All the President’s (i.e. Forbes’s) services were not worth five shillings.” “I thought,” replied Culloden quietly, “that they were worth three Crowns”; an answer as witty as it was truthful. The Government appear to have altogether exaggerated the influence of the Roman Catholic priests in fomenting the rising. It is true, of course, that the sympathies of the Catholics and the Episcopalians were with the Stuarts, but it is no less true that many of the common Highlanders who followed or were forced out by their chiefs, were nominally Presbyterians. At bottom, religion had relatively little to do with the rising, but it suited the Whigs and Presbyterians of the period to represent it as an undertaking primarily intended to restore absolutism and Popery. There were so many axes to grind in those days, that the student of history has to be on his guard in gauging the accuracy of contemporary accounts, apart from statements of fact.
A contemporary MS. in the Public Record Office which has never, I believe, been printed, describes with an air of intimate knowledge which carries conviction, the various units of a Highland clan, and the relations existing between them at the period of the “Forty five.’ The document, which is dated 4th December, 1747, signed by A. Fletcher and W. Bland, and submitted by them to the Duke of Newcastle, the Principal Secretary of State, contains various suggestions for
DEALING WITH THE HIGHLANDS,
then in a state of prostration after the stunning blow on Culloden Moor. It is of course a strongly Whiggish and anti-Catholic report, but some of its recommendations are of much practical value. The gist of its proposals is as follows:—
1. To get rid of the chiefs who made the common people believe that they were their property. The people are called “poor unhappy creatures,” and are said to be “the tools the chiefs make use of to aggrandize their Highland pride and to enable them to oppress their neighbours.”
2. To purchase at the public expense such of the Highland estates, not already forfeited, as the chiefs were willing to sell.
3. To introduce into the Highlands, settlers from England or the Lowlands, among others the out-pensioners of Chelsea Hospital, and old and discharged soldiers from regiments serving in the Lowlands. These, it was suggested, would be specially useful in the most turbulent parts of the North. Leases to be given to settlers of as much land as they could cultivate and stock with cattle. Prominent among the proposed conditions of tenure were the following:—The settlers to be all Protestants and English-speakers, no one lacking a knowledge of English to be permitted to reside among them. The Highland dress not to be worn by the settlers or by any person connected with them. No one to be allowed to settle among them who had no visible means of livelihood by trade or manufacture, unless incapacitated by old age or infirmities. No tenant to have more land than he could cultivate, and sub-letting to be forbidden. Leases to be for nineteen years or for life, at the tenant’s option. The number of parishes to be increased, and each to have a church and public school. Manufactures (especially that of linen) to be introduced, and fisheries to be encouraged.
A further proposal was that Commissioners should be appointed from time to time, invested with authority to survey the land, grant leases, sue defaulting tenants, and suggest improvements; a record of their proceedings to be kept for the information of the King. A military force to be stationed in the Highlands for some years, for the protection of the settlers, and at each military station a village community to be formed, with a school for English and a school for technical instruction in raising, dressing, and spinning flax, and on the coast, for improving the fisheries.
The concluding remarks of this MS. are not without interest. “It would (it says) be improper to conclude without observing, that the common Highlanders are a sagacious cunning people, are frugal and love money, do not want natural courage. It is their poverty and slavery that engages them in thefts, and their chief motive to rebell is the hopes of plunder: for we see that as soon as they are freed from poverty, and that slavish dependance on their Chiefs, by being inlisted in his Majesty’s Service in the Highland regiments, no private men in the army are more sober and regular in their quarters, more obedient to their officers, and observant of orders, or more faithful when employed as safeguards, or behave better in the day of action than they do; and where any of them reside or are employed in other places of Britain, remote from their barbarous Highlands, or in any of the plantations, none succeed better or meet with more encouragement; so that it is a great pity that this natural genius of theirs, that might by proper care be improved to the advantage of Britain, should, by the misfortune of their unhappy situation and miserable education, be perverted to the destruction of themselves and their country.”
It will be seen that some of the suggestions of the MS. were admirable in their way, and certain of them were in later years gradually adopted. But we hear nothing further about the introduction of Sessenach settlers to swamp the natives, though, in fairness, it must be admitted that what the framers of the document professed to have in view, was a leavening of the community with law-abiding strangers, to lead the Highland commoners into paths of industry and progress. Of course, the objections to the Gaelic language and the Highland dress are easily intelligible. It had always been a cardinal article of faith in the South that Gaelic was the foe of progress, encouraging the spirit of separate insurmountable barrier between the Highlanders and the Lowlanders. For the same reason, but particularly as an emblem of rebellion, the Highland dress was under taboo.
We find very similar sentiments in the MS. published a few years ago by Mr. Andrew Lang, giving a description of the Highlands in 1750. The writer of that MS., also a strong Whig and Presbyterian, paints a woeful picture of the tyranny of the chiefs, and the slavery of the commons. Of course, we must not take these descriptions too literally. We must consider not merely the standpoint of the writers, but also the standpoint of those whom they wrote about. Slavery may be a relative term. The Lowland and Whig observers of the eighteenth century, in their antagonism towards the Tory Chiefs, were apt to write with a somewhat warped judgment. It is no doubt perfectly correct that the power of the Chiefs was absolute, and that their rule was frequently tyrannical, and, from the Lowland standpoint, disgraceful. But the Whig observers did not look below the surface. They could not understand or appreciate the clan feeling which made the people submit without a murmur to oppression, just as an obedient son, while resenting the authority of others, submits, as a matter of duty, to the harshest treatment by an overbearing father. Judged by modern and more democratic standards, this unquestioning submission is pathetic, though not unintelligible. By a seeming paradox, the contradictory statements concerning the social conditions of the Highland people at the middle of the eighteenth century are thus capable of reconciliation. Those who tell us that they were a down-trodden people are perfectly right and those who tell us that they were a happy and contented people may also be not far from the truth. There are tribes and nations at the present day who are sunk in poverty and ignorance, and yet are happy and contented with their lot, because they have known no other. And there are those who gravely argue that, such being the case, the truest kindness is to leave them in that state, on the principle that “where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.” I do not suppose, however, that any of us will seek to apply that argument to the Highlands after Culloden, else it may be pertinently asked whether the Gaelic Society of London, mainly composed as it is of intelligent descendants of regenerated Highlanders, would to-day be in existence!
The writer of Mr. Lang’s MS. emphasised the misery of the people so freely as to confuse sociology with ethnology. In describing Caithness, he says that half of the people were of a low dwarfish stature whom a stranger would hardly believe to be natives of Great Britain. An army of them, he goes on to say, would not be valued or feared. Of course we know very well that there are undersized people scattered throughout the Highlands and Isles, especially on the coast, the descendants, as every body now admits, of a race distinct both from the Celts and the Norsemen. They are the Pets, or pigmies as tradition calls them, and it is significant that these dwarfish people of the 1750 MS. bordered on the Petland or, as it is erroneously called, the Pentland Firth. But our author, if you please, unhesitatingly attributes their small stature to the state of starvation and oppression in which they lived. He does not, however, explain why their neighbours, who were equally oppressed, should nevertheless be tall strong men.
I have no space to devote to the series of suggestions he makes for the social and economic reformation of the Highlands. Broadly speaking, they are on similar lines to those of the 1747 MS., and the proposals of Duncan Forbes to the Duke of Argyll. The Government had an admirable opportunity of conferring real and lasting economic benefits upon the Highlands by a judicious selection from these various recommendations, but its chief concern was the removal of disaffection, not by the introduction of improvements, but by repression unaccompanied by reform. They wounded the Highlanders and left the wounds to heal or fester as circumstances might determine.
We know what actually happened. The outward and visible signs of the Government’s attitude were the Acts passed for the disarming of the Highlands, and the abolition of the national dress. By these measures it was fondly hoped to crush the spirit of rebellion effectively and permanently. The blow struck at the Highland dress was an insidious attempt to destroy racial sentiment, which was recognised as a powerful element of cohesion. Tartan and treason were linked together like cause and effect, and strong efforts were made to carry out the puerile Act which provided for stringent penalties against stubborn offenders. The Highlanders resented the Act, and evaded it with an ingenuity which baffled the Crown. Then a wave of re-action set in. The romantic character of Prince Charlie’s attempt to win a crown, the chivalrous conduct of his Highland supporters, and the story of Flora Macdonald’s heroism, all combined to open the sluices of public opinion in Edinburgh and elsewhere to a flood of harmless Jacobite sentiment. Tartan plaids and gowns became all the rage, even bed and window curtains and pincushions were made of tartan. The Whigs retaliated by dressing up the public hangman in tartan, and thus gave the finishing blew to the craze. It was not, however, until 1782 that at the instance of the Duke of Montrose, and largely through the efforts of the Highland and Gaelic Societies of London, the obnoxious Act, which had become an obsolete irritant, was repealed.
The blow which struck at the very roots of feudalism in the Highlands was the abolition of heritable jurisdictions, by an Act passed in March 1747. This Act applied to the whole of Scotland, but it operated with peculiar force in the Highlands, where the administration of justice was a scandal. These hereditary jurisdictions, secured by the Act of Union, carried with them large emoluments and extensive power which were not relinquished without a struggle, the compensation awarded to the holders by the Government amounting to over £150,000 in satisfaction of claims aggregating nearly £600,000. The appointment of Sheriffs properly equipped with legal knowledge, and imbued with a genuine desire to administer justice, was a long step in advance. No longer were the people at the mercy of the caprices of their Chiefs, or their ignorant and occasionally vindictive bailies, who sometimes applied Jeddart justice by hanging men and trying them afterwards. Under the new jurisdiction the people were no longer haunted by the fear of the pit and gallows, to which, under the old system, they were liable to be dragged at the will of tyrannical superiors.
This, then, was a notable reform which followed in the train of the Culloden disaster. It is very frequently stated that Culloden gave the finishing blow to the Clan system. That is incorrect, the fact being that a foreign appendage, alien to the spirit of clanship, was removed, while the essential features of the system remained intact. Now, it is not possible for any one, from the evidence available, to go back to the beginnings of the Clan system, and state as historical facts the precise conditions which prevailed. Dr. Skene in his “Celtic Scotland,” has dealt very fully with the inception of tribalism in the Highlands, and General Stewart’s “Sketches” give pictures of Clan life, for which it is regrettable that he did not quote his authorities. Skene is dogmatic, as his researches and critical acuteness perhaps entitled him to be, though here again the citation of authorities is scanty on those points which are obscure. But, though direct evidence on the beginnings of the clan system is meagre, the inductive evidence is cumulatively convincing in support of Skene’s general thesis. It is abundantly clear in any case that the system originally rested upon a purely patriarchal basis, and that feudalism, which enormously increased the power of the chiefs, and correspondingly diminished the influence of the commons, was an alien graft upon the system, which produced a crop of evils, culminating in the complete subjection of the clansmen to their hereditary heads. This feudal graft was finally lopped off after Culloden, but the main stem remained. That is to say, clannishness, the family idea, the patriarchal shadow which was always present with the feudal substance, was unaffected by the events of 1746. Indeed, it would be easy to show that those events really paved the way for a system of clanship purged of feudalism which, with modern adaptations, might have approached the supposed original system more nearly than had been the case for centuries. What, after all, was the clan system, properly stated, but the family system? Can it be seriously contended that, under the changed conditions, it was impossible for a renovated patriarchism to rise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of Celtic feudalism? I think not. Rather was an unique opportunity lost of offering to the world a sociological model of families bound more closely together by common misfortune and common interest, instead of a memory in which romance and misery are strangely blended.
It need hardly be said that education has played a part of supreme importance in the formation and development of public opinion in the Highlands. Education was the one thing above all others that those chiefs who were imbued with ideas of despotism desired to keep out of the country, as if it were a plague. For it opened the eyes of the people to many things of which, to the advantage of the chiefs and their own corresponding disadvantage, they had previously been sublimely unconscious. But education was bound to find permanent lodgment, in spite of the obscurantists, and the apathy, or, in some cases, the enmity of the people themselves; and to the Church of Scotland and the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge the credit is chiefly due for the firm hold which its roots gradually took of Highland soil. Parochial schools were planted at the end of the seventeenth century, but it was not until the first quarter of the nineteenth century had come to a close, that determined and successful efforts were made to grapple with the appalling ignorance that still prevailed; and from that period the progress of education has been sure, if not rapid. And it will be of special interest to the Gaelic Society of London to know that it was during the same quarter of a century that the cause of bi-lingualism was fought and won, after an experience which clearly demonstrated its efficacy as a vehicle of instruction. It is now, after the lapse of a century, being fought once more, the tide of reaction having in the interval obliterated the teaching of history.
Another factor of some weight in the sociological changes which followed Culloden, was the wave of lyricism and literary activity by which the second half of the eighteenth century was marked. That was the period of the great Gaelic singers, the poets of nature, like Alexander Macdonald, Duncan Ban Macintyre, Rob Donn and others, who interpreted the emotions of the people among whom they moved, gave expression to their deepest sentiments, and flagellated with caustic wit contemporary vice and sloth; a sure indication of the gradual unshackling of the fetters which had so long bound the people in intellectual and moral darkness. It was the period, too, of the Ossianic controversy which, if it did nothing else, served to stimulate inquiry into Highland literature, and to dissipate the notion that a degree of high culture was incompatible with the rude civilisation of the ancient Gael. But in these days, when Macpherson is so generally discredited, it is wise, perhaps, not to make too much of the Highland claim to a native Homer, fit to rank with the acknowledged giants of the poetic art.
The greatest formative influence of all, after Culloden, was exerted by the Church. The final overthrow of the Jacobites paved the way for the signal and lasting triumph of Presbyterianism in the Highlands over Romanism and Episcopacy, both of which were identified with the lost cause, and suffered accordingly. The Kirk, as already mentioned, encouraged education, secular and religious instruction being co-ordinated. But both kinds of teaching were greatly hampered, not merely by moral but also by physical conditions. Some parishes were as large as certain counties in the south. The distances to be travelled through roadless tracts of the roughest country, left the more sparsely-peopled districts almost destitute of instruction. Difficulties such as these could only be gradually overcome, and it needed a ministry fired with enthusiasm to face them with even partial success; and, generally speaking, the Highland clergy during the last half of the eighteenth century were not remarkable for their fervour. They were often men of culture, as Dr. Johnson and Pennant and other travellers testify, but it is also plain that they liked their leisure and were more at home in their glebes than in their pulpits. Thev looked after the morals of their people sharply enough, and were powerful auxiliaries of the law in the prevention and punishment of crime. But the sympathy existing between them and their flocks was paternal rather than fraternal. The pulpit had not yet been democratised, and the clergy, drawn from the ranks of the ruling classes in the Highlands, retained a good deal of the old governing spirit in their relations with the people. Perhaps this attitude was not altogether unsuited to the stage of educational development which had been reached, but it operated adversely to the people when their interests clashed with those of their landlords. For the latter could always rely on the support of the clergy in any economic disputes. The system of patronage, as well as class feeling, brought the ministers and their patrons into line when the interests of the heritors were threatened. A striking instance of this was shown at the time of the Sutherland clearances early in the nineteenth century, when, with the exception of Mr. Sage, the whole of the local clergy aided and abetted the instruments of depopulation, in perpetrating a wicked act of tyranny. I do not think it would be difficult to show that the attitude of the clergy at this juncture had a good deal to do with the estrangement between them and their people, which culminated in the Disruption of 1843, when, unlike the severance in the south, the Highland parish churches were left with but a fraction of their people.
I have made a passing reference to the notorious clearances m the north, and I do not propose to re-tell a well-known story. But these clearances—which led to the expatriation of many unwilling emigrants—mark a stage in the economy of the Highlands, which forms a middle link between post-Culloden conditions and those now existing. The writer of a recent article in a popular magazine makes the statement that Highland clearances were “an unavoidable outcome of inexorable economic laws.” In a reply to that article, I ventured to call this statement “a meaningless euphemism, to cover one of the most disgraceful episodes in Highland history.” I repeat that assertion. It is not necessary to go to Donald Macleod’s Gloomy Memories for corroboration. I go to the other side and take the evidence of the late Evander Maciver, who, during fifty years of his life, was factor for three Dukes of Sutherland. In his Reminiscences, published during the past year, Mr. Maciver states that the Strathnaver clearances were carried out in a “harsh and ruthless manner by some of the parties who acted for the Sutherland estate”; and he goes on to say that the removals of crofters to make way for sheep “had generated a strong rebellious tendency in the minds of the lower classes in Sutherland against their superiors.” And surely there was ample justification for the “strong rebellious tendency.”
The cattle boom, already described, paled in magnitude before the rush for sheep-farms in the Highlands a century ago. It had been supposed that low country stock would not be able to stand the rigours of a Highland winter, but when, by an accidental discovery, that fallacy was exposed, the Highland hills were quickly alive with sheep. The Napoleonic wars gave an impetus to sheep-farming, and the Highland proprietors raked in the gold of the Lowland farmers, who in turn made large fortunes. It was the people who paid. Driven from the hills to the seashore and the moor, to make room for the more remunerative quadrupeds, they eked out a miserable existence, or emigrated, some to better their condition, but more to sink by the wayside and die brokenhearted. It is a sad story, but an instructive one, and gilding it by fine language like “an unavoidable outcome of inexorable economic laws” will not serve to hide the underlying blackness of the guilt on the one side and the misery on the other. I am thankful to say that it was a chief of my own clan who, when offered double the existing rental by some Lowland sheep-farmers for his Loch Carron property, replied that he would neither let his lands for sheep pasture nor turn out his people “upon any consideration, or for any rent that could be offered.” It is easy to sneer at Lord Seaforth as a sentimentalist who, as it happened, went straight to financial ruin instead of getting wealthy like his neighbours. But there are some who, after all, would prefer to be in the shoes of this noble chief, with nothing but the love and devotion of his people to support him in his hour of trial, than in those of others who, with their riches, secured also the aversion of a sullen peasantry as an offset. In many cases these riches were as quickly squandered as acquired, and the final balance of gain rested chiefly with the canny Lowlanders, who knew not only how to make money but how to keep it.
It need hardly be said that public opinion nowadays would not tolerate clearances or forced emigration, but a silent and far more insidious means of reducing the area under human beings is in progress. Sheep-farming had various fluctuations during the nineteenth century. It suffered depression after the Napoleonic wars and great prosperity during the American Civil War; but since that period, owing to foreign and colonial competition, it has been a declining industry. On its ruins has risen the system of afforestmeht in the Highlands, which is growing at an alarming rate, and threatens, unless checked, to convert the northern counties into a vast playground for wealthy strangers, with only a few oases of industry. It is quite beyond the scope of this paper to discuss deer forests, but it is permissible at least to say that all attempts, so far, to demonstrate their economic relative value to the Highlands have signally failed, and reformers will welcome the day when legislation, based upon the report of the Deer Forests Commission of 1892, becomes an accomplished fact.
It would be equally irrelevant to discuss the modem phases of social and economic life in the Highlands, but it is not difficult to trace their developments from the changes which have occupied our attention. The links in the economic chain stretch from the Duke of Cumberland to the Crofters Commission, and from the desertion of their followers by the chiefs to the appointment of the Congested Districts Board. Until the Crofters Act provided a Magna Charta for the Highland people, the whole record, it is grievous to say, is one of oppression, with some outstanding exceptions. The tacksmen, on regaining some of the power which they lost after the cattle boom, were frequently worse tyrants than the proprietors themselves, while the factors sometimes surpassed them both in grinding the faces of the poor. But relief came at last, and the people are now, within certain limits, free to work out their own destiny. Recent measures, designed to relieve congestion, will give them an opportunity of showing their value as peasant proprietors, and, if the experiments should prove successful, these tentative efforts will inevitably pave the way for measures of far-reaching importance, which will check the growth of afforestment, break up large farms into small holdings, and open a new chapter in the economic history of the Highlands.
END
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you and mind and celebrate Tartan Day on the 6th.
Alastair
Celebrate Tartan Day
On Saturday 6 April, Argentina, Canada, Scotland, and the United States celebrate Tartan Day, a must-see event celebrating Scotland's heritage and connections with North America and the world.
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Storm Kathleen: Weather warnings as snow, ice and wind to batter Scotland
Parts of Scotland are set to be battered by snow, rain and wind as the weekend arrives bringing risks of flooding and traffic disruption.
https://news.stv.tv/scotland/snow-ic...ather-warnings
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Scottish Studies Foundation
Since 1998, our newsletter has been published under the title of "The Scots Canadian". We are now pleased to have all issues posted online as pdf files. We extend a very big thank you to everyone who has contributed over the years. We are always on the lookout for new material, especially if it has a Scots-Canadian focus, so please contact us with your ideas.
Access their archives at:
https://www.scottishstudies.com/arch...ewsletters.htm
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
Here is what caught my eye this week...
Eat beans and live longer
One reason why many Ikarians live to be 100
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/2...live-to-be-100
Canada's drug decriminalisation test faces scrutiny
Last year, British Columbia (BC) became the first province in Canada to decriminalise the use of hard drugs as part of its efforts to tackle a deadly opioids crisis. But the policy is facing pushback, leaving its future uncertain.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68621012
The West is hardly in decline
In Ukraine and in Israel, the results will benefit western civilization. An article by Conrad Black.
Read more at:
https://archive.is/iq0RX#selection-2049.0-2049.71
Message from His Majesty The King to mark the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force
Today, I would like to offer my most sincere congratulations to the Royal Canadian Air Force (R.C.A.F.) as you celebrate one hundred years of serving Canada, Canadians and the world.
Read this at:
https://www.gg.ca/en/media/news/2024...nniversary-raf
Crannog Centre rises from the ashes three years after fire
Less than three years on, the Scottish Crannog Centre has risen again from the ashes. The site is 12 times the size of the original, further along the loch side in Dalerb in Perthshire.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...ntral-68661012
People die younger in Scotland than anywhere else in Western Europe
Life expectancy improvements in Scotland halted around 2014 to 2016, with the latest data indicating a decline.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...unger-scotland
JK Rowling has exposed the absurdity of Scotland’s Hate Crime Act
The Hate Crime Act creates a new offence of stirring up hatred against a long list of protected characteristics.
Read more at:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...hate-crime-act
Balmoral Castle to open to public for first time as King's retreat announces tours
In a historic move, the royal residence of Balmoral Castle in Scotland will open its doors to the public this summer as part of private tours that will include previously off-limits areas.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/scotla...first-32495121
SNP minister Siobhian Brown warns of hate crime hysteria as Police Scotland receive 3,000 complaints
A senior Scottish Government source told the Record there needed to be a reality check about this law after celebs like Ally McCoist and JK Rowling spoke out against it.
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...warns-32499251
The dark history behind Skye's famous Fairy Pools
The Fairy Pools are among Skye's best-known landmarks, but few of those who visit may be aware of its real name - or bloody past.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3gk210j814o
Electric Canadian
Cinema Canada
In December 1989 Cinema Canada published its last issue (#169). It was the trade journal of record for the Canadian Film and television industry for 18 years.
Read the December-January 1976, Third Edition, number 24 (pdf) at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/maga...da-1975-12.pdf
Archives can be read at:
https://cinemacanada.athabascau.ca/index.php/cinema
Fisheries Statistics 1920
Prepared in collaboration with Dominion and Provincial Fisheries Departments (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...csofcanada.pdf
Memories of Canada and Scotland
Speeches and verses by the Right Hon. The Marquis of Lorne, K.T., G.C.M.G., &c. (1884) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...00argyuoft.pdf
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning - the 31st day of March 2024 Easter
By the Rev. Nola Crewe
You can watch this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...ch-2024-easter
Facts on Canada (1963)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...nada00cana.pdf
Electric Scotland
An Old Educational Reformer Dr. Andrew Bell
By John Miller D. Meiklejohn, M.A., Professor of the Theory, History, and practice of Education in the University of St. Andrews (1881) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/educati...iona00meik.pdf
The Henderson Trust Reports
At a meeting held on the 6th March, 1905, the Trustees of William Ramsay Henderson, Esq. of Warriston and Eildon Hall, resolved to devote a portion of the funds at their disposal to the collection of facts likely to be useful in the study of Anthropology, having reference especially to the cranial conformation of man, to the size and configuration of the brain and larger nervous centres, and to other kindred subjects, and to publish from time to time the records of such collections of facts under the designation of The Henderson Trust Reports. (pdf)
You can study this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...00tochrich.pdf
Alturlie
The same being some passages in the life of Simon Stuart of Alturlie, sometime officer in King Louis of France his regiment in Picardy, and later Major of his Britannic Majesty's regiment of Fraser Highlanders. These now edited by H. Robswood Cooke (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/books/p...00cookiala.pdf
Brothers in Mission
Alexander Farquharson of Cape Breton and Archibald Farquharson of Tiree by Margaret A. MacKay, B.A., Dip. Scot. Stud., Ph.D.
You can read about them at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclan...in-mission.pdf
The Hebrides Revival
Rev. Duncan Campbell (audio)
You can listen to this at:
https://www.sermonaudio.com/saplayer...p.asp?SID=5562
Also added this as an embedded link toward the foot of our Religion page at:
https://electricscotland.com/bible/index.htm
Highlanders of Scotland
Being a series of Portraits, with biographical and historical notices illustrative of the principle clans and followings, and the retainers of the royal household at Balmoral in the reign of her Majesty Queen Victoria by Kenneth MacLeay, Esq., F.S.A. (1872)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...ofscotland.htm
Highlands and Islands - A Royal Tour
HRH the Prince of Wales on a tour of the Highlands (1973) and Islands with visits including the Highland stoneware pottery at Lochinver, a woollen mill on Lewis, an electronics factory on Skye and fudge and jewellery factories on Orkney.
You can watch this at:
https://movingimage.nls.uk/film/2380
Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland
By James Murray MacKinlay, M.A.
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/bible/dedications.htm
Book of the Landed Estate
Containing directions for the management and development of landed property by Robert E. Brown (1869) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/agricul...00browuoft.pdf
Agricultural Labourers
As they were, are, and should be in their social condition by The Rev. Harry Stuart, A.M., Minister of Oathlaw; being an address, delivered to a general meeting of the Forfarshire Agricultural Association, June 1853, and published at the request of the Association (1853) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/agricul...00stuagoog.pdf
Blacks's Picturesque Tourist of Scotland
Twenty-eighth edition (1889) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/travel/...qu1840adam.pdf
Story
THE HIGHLANDS AFTER CULLODEN
By W. C. Mackenzie, FSAScot.
The Highlands vanish from the pages of nearly all our history books after the battle of Culloden, and after the exit of the central figure in the last of the Stuart risings. To be sure, the “Forty-five” is a striking episode, capable of picturesque treatment by the historian who deals mainly with political events. But to the sociologist, the fundamental changes which took place in the structure of Highland society as the direct outcome of Culloden, are of even greater interest than the rising itself. That these changes, or some of them, would have happened in the natural order of things cannot be doubted, but the process would have been slow. Culloden accelerated the process by an unknowable period. How easy it is to speculate upon “might have beens”. Who can say what results would have flowed from a successful “Forty-five”. And who can tell what the Highlands would be to-day had Culloden never been fought? For not only was it a battle which forever dissipated the hopes of the Stuarts, but it was a battle which paved the way for an economic upheaval in the North of Scotland.
Rightly to understand the significance of the
POST-CULLODEN CONDITIONS,
it is essential to have a clear grasp of the state of society which preceded the great rising. This, one fears, is frequently misunderstood. It is a common error to suppose that the pre-“Forty-five” era was one of Arcadian simplicity in the Highland glens, and that the clansmen lived in a state of ease and comfort under the fatherly care of their chiefs. This idea has been fostered by certain authors who have drawn upon tradition for their information, instead of studying the accounts of contemporary writers. The latter show clearly that the facts are far otherwise. For nothing is more certain than that the curse of feudalism had cast its blight over the Highlands, making petty tyrants of the superior grades, destroying the independence of the commons, and frequently rendering their means of livelihood precarious, insomuch that they were sometimes compelled to bleed their cattle to help in staving off the ravages of famine.
The whole structure of society was fundamentally unsound. Agriculture was despised and was relegated to the helots of the clan, who stayed at home to till the soil while their superiors went forth to fight their foes. Trade and commerce were held in low esteem; the only trade deemed honourable was that of war. In these circumstances, economic disaster was only averted by observing a comfortable code of ethics, which was equally opposed to the moral law and the law of the land. The strong oppressed the weak, and the weak took shelter with the strong, or became “broken men,” amenable to no laws or clan discipline whatsoever. Food resources being inadequate to the wants of the community, had to be supplemented at the expense of rival clans, or, still better, at the expense of the peaceful and prosperous Sassunach. Cattle reiving was deemed an honourable occupation. To steal a stirk was a petty theft; to transfer a herd of cattle from your neighbour’s borders to your own was a proper act of reciprocity. There was a good deal of casuistry in the Highland conception of morality. An illustration of this is afforded by an incident of the 17th century, when the chief of the Gunns was instigated by the Earl of Caithness to burn the Sandside corn-stalks. Gunn cheerfully undertook to slit the owner’s throat, but indignantly refused to burn his corn, asserting that it was employment unbecoming a gentleman!
There is no doubt that economic conditions played an important part in the
CLAN FEUDS
and the numerous insurrections which bulk so largely in Highland history. It is true that that these provided an outlet for the pugnacity of the full-blooded gentry of the clan, whose chief occupations in life were fighting and hunting. But the larder for a profuse hospitality like theirs required periodical replenishment, and the lust of territory was stimulated by the necessity of making provision for a population whose number exceeded its resources. War and famine were two decimating factors which kept down the population. Had these factors been absent, the pressure of economic conditions must have been such as to drive the chiefs and their hangers-on into channels of industry long before Culloden was fought. From an economic standpoint, the inter-clan feuds had small effect upon the wealth of the Highlands, though its distribution was profoundly modified. What was taken from one clan enriched another, and thus the strong clans grew stronger and the weak grew weaker. Hence the agglomeration of power in the hands of a few clans, and their hegemony in peace and war. At one time this hegemony rested indisputably with the Macdonalds, but on the ruins of the Lordship of the Isles, other clans like the Campbells and the Mackenzies, rose to greatness. Insurrections like those under Montrose and Dundee in the 17th, and Mar in the 18th century, added to the wealth of the Highlands, and that consideration doubtless weighed with the chiefs who participated in them. For there was a great deal of spoil secured in those wars, and whatever happened, the safe deposit of booty in the hills was generally the first consideration. Again and again the fruits of victory were snatched from the hands of their commanders by the tendency of the Highlanders to return home with loot. It was this tendency that made Harlaw a drawn battle, and that nearly broke the heart of Montrose during his brilliant campaigns. The point is, that the wealth of the clans must have been augmented to no inconsiderable extent by these risings; and to the Highlanders, not the least satisfactory feature was, that this wealth was acquired at the expense of their hereditary Lowland foes. These periodical Stuart risings finally culminated in the “Forty-five,” the greatest and least sordid of them all, for nothing can be clearer than the spirit of chivalry which induced the chiefs, after many misgivings, to draw the sword in what appeared to be a hopeless effort. This was primarily an affair of principle and sentiment, and the Highland blood which stained Drummossie Moor was the blood of men who, for the most part, were conscious of fighting for a great cause.
The Government of the day obviously had an extraordinary conception of
HIGHLAND CONDITIONS AND HIGHLAND CHARACTER.
Had it not been for Duncan Forbes of Culloden, who repaired their blunders and worked like a Titan for the Crown, the Hanoverian dynasty must inevitably have fallen. And, parenthetically, it may be said that the conduct of George II. and his Government towards the man who saved both, was shamefully ungrateful. Pre-eminently, Culloden stood for integrity and honesty on the one side, just as Lochiel did on the other. After the rising had been quelled, a certain busybody told Culloden that a General Officer in the Royalist Army had said: “All the President’s (i.e. Forbes’s) services were not worth five shillings.” “I thought,” replied Culloden quietly, “that they were worth three Crowns”; an answer as witty as it was truthful. The Government appear to have altogether exaggerated the influence of the Roman Catholic priests in fomenting the rising. It is true, of course, that the sympathies of the Catholics and the Episcopalians were with the Stuarts, but it is no less true that many of the common Highlanders who followed or were forced out by their chiefs, were nominally Presbyterians. At bottom, religion had relatively little to do with the rising, but it suited the Whigs and Presbyterians of the period to represent it as an undertaking primarily intended to restore absolutism and Popery. There were so many axes to grind in those days, that the student of history has to be on his guard in gauging the accuracy of contemporary accounts, apart from statements of fact.
A contemporary MS. in the Public Record Office which has never, I believe, been printed, describes with an air of intimate knowledge which carries conviction, the various units of a Highland clan, and the relations existing between them at the period of the “Forty five.’ The document, which is dated 4th December, 1747, signed by A. Fletcher and W. Bland, and submitted by them to the Duke of Newcastle, the Principal Secretary of State, contains various suggestions for
DEALING WITH THE HIGHLANDS,
then in a state of prostration after the stunning blow on Culloden Moor. It is of course a strongly Whiggish and anti-Catholic report, but some of its recommendations are of much practical value. The gist of its proposals is as follows:—
1. To get rid of the chiefs who made the common people believe that they were their property. The people are called “poor unhappy creatures,” and are said to be “the tools the chiefs make use of to aggrandize their Highland pride and to enable them to oppress their neighbours.”
2. To purchase at the public expense such of the Highland estates, not already forfeited, as the chiefs were willing to sell.
3. To introduce into the Highlands, settlers from England or the Lowlands, among others the out-pensioners of Chelsea Hospital, and old and discharged soldiers from regiments serving in the Lowlands. These, it was suggested, would be specially useful in the most turbulent parts of the North. Leases to be given to settlers of as much land as they could cultivate and stock with cattle. Prominent among the proposed conditions of tenure were the following:—The settlers to be all Protestants and English-speakers, no one lacking a knowledge of English to be permitted to reside among them. The Highland dress not to be worn by the settlers or by any person connected with them. No one to be allowed to settle among them who had no visible means of livelihood by trade or manufacture, unless incapacitated by old age or infirmities. No tenant to have more land than he could cultivate, and sub-letting to be forbidden. Leases to be for nineteen years or for life, at the tenant’s option. The number of parishes to be increased, and each to have a church and public school. Manufactures (especially that of linen) to be introduced, and fisheries to be encouraged.
A further proposal was that Commissioners should be appointed from time to time, invested with authority to survey the land, grant leases, sue defaulting tenants, and suggest improvements; a record of their proceedings to be kept for the information of the King. A military force to be stationed in the Highlands for some years, for the protection of the settlers, and at each military station a village community to be formed, with a school for English and a school for technical instruction in raising, dressing, and spinning flax, and on the coast, for improving the fisheries.
The concluding remarks of this MS. are not without interest. “It would (it says) be improper to conclude without observing, that the common Highlanders are a sagacious cunning people, are frugal and love money, do not want natural courage. It is their poverty and slavery that engages them in thefts, and their chief motive to rebell is the hopes of plunder: for we see that as soon as they are freed from poverty, and that slavish dependance on their Chiefs, by being inlisted in his Majesty’s Service in the Highland regiments, no private men in the army are more sober and regular in their quarters, more obedient to their officers, and observant of orders, or more faithful when employed as safeguards, or behave better in the day of action than they do; and where any of them reside or are employed in other places of Britain, remote from their barbarous Highlands, or in any of the plantations, none succeed better or meet with more encouragement; so that it is a great pity that this natural genius of theirs, that might by proper care be improved to the advantage of Britain, should, by the misfortune of their unhappy situation and miserable education, be perverted to the destruction of themselves and their country.”
It will be seen that some of the suggestions of the MS. were admirable in their way, and certain of them were in later years gradually adopted. But we hear nothing further about the introduction of Sessenach settlers to swamp the natives, though, in fairness, it must be admitted that what the framers of the document professed to have in view, was a leavening of the community with law-abiding strangers, to lead the Highland commoners into paths of industry and progress. Of course, the objections to the Gaelic language and the Highland dress are easily intelligible. It had always been a cardinal article of faith in the South that Gaelic was the foe of progress, encouraging the spirit of separate insurmountable barrier between the Highlanders and the Lowlanders. For the same reason, but particularly as an emblem of rebellion, the Highland dress was under taboo.
We find very similar sentiments in the MS. published a few years ago by Mr. Andrew Lang, giving a description of the Highlands in 1750. The writer of that MS., also a strong Whig and Presbyterian, paints a woeful picture of the tyranny of the chiefs, and the slavery of the commons. Of course, we must not take these descriptions too literally. We must consider not merely the standpoint of the writers, but also the standpoint of those whom they wrote about. Slavery may be a relative term. The Lowland and Whig observers of the eighteenth century, in their antagonism towards the Tory Chiefs, were apt to write with a somewhat warped judgment. It is no doubt perfectly correct that the power of the Chiefs was absolute, and that their rule was frequently tyrannical, and, from the Lowland standpoint, disgraceful. But the Whig observers did not look below the surface. They could not understand or appreciate the clan feeling which made the people submit without a murmur to oppression, just as an obedient son, while resenting the authority of others, submits, as a matter of duty, to the harshest treatment by an overbearing father. Judged by modern and more democratic standards, this unquestioning submission is pathetic, though not unintelligible. By a seeming paradox, the contradictory statements concerning the social conditions of the Highland people at the middle of the eighteenth century are thus capable of reconciliation. Those who tell us that they were a down-trodden people are perfectly right and those who tell us that they were a happy and contented people may also be not far from the truth. There are tribes and nations at the present day who are sunk in poverty and ignorance, and yet are happy and contented with their lot, because they have known no other. And there are those who gravely argue that, such being the case, the truest kindness is to leave them in that state, on the principle that “where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.” I do not suppose, however, that any of us will seek to apply that argument to the Highlands after Culloden, else it may be pertinently asked whether the Gaelic Society of London, mainly composed as it is of intelligent descendants of regenerated Highlanders, would to-day be in existence!
The writer of Mr. Lang’s MS. emphasised the misery of the people so freely as to confuse sociology with ethnology. In describing Caithness, he says that half of the people were of a low dwarfish stature whom a stranger would hardly believe to be natives of Great Britain. An army of them, he goes on to say, would not be valued or feared. Of course we know very well that there are undersized people scattered throughout the Highlands and Isles, especially on the coast, the descendants, as every body now admits, of a race distinct both from the Celts and the Norsemen. They are the Pets, or pigmies as tradition calls them, and it is significant that these dwarfish people of the 1750 MS. bordered on the Petland or, as it is erroneously called, the Pentland Firth. But our author, if you please, unhesitatingly attributes their small stature to the state of starvation and oppression in which they lived. He does not, however, explain why their neighbours, who were equally oppressed, should nevertheless be tall strong men.
I have no space to devote to the series of suggestions he makes for the social and economic reformation of the Highlands. Broadly speaking, they are on similar lines to those of the 1747 MS., and the proposals of Duncan Forbes to the Duke of Argyll. The Government had an admirable opportunity of conferring real and lasting economic benefits upon the Highlands by a judicious selection from these various recommendations, but its chief concern was the removal of disaffection, not by the introduction of improvements, but by repression unaccompanied by reform. They wounded the Highlanders and left the wounds to heal or fester as circumstances might determine.
We know what actually happened. The outward and visible signs of the Government’s attitude were the Acts passed for the disarming of the Highlands, and the abolition of the national dress. By these measures it was fondly hoped to crush the spirit of rebellion effectively and permanently. The blow struck at the Highland dress was an insidious attempt to destroy racial sentiment, which was recognised as a powerful element of cohesion. Tartan and treason were linked together like cause and effect, and strong efforts were made to carry out the puerile Act which provided for stringent penalties against stubborn offenders. The Highlanders resented the Act, and evaded it with an ingenuity which baffled the Crown. Then a wave of re-action set in. The romantic character of Prince Charlie’s attempt to win a crown, the chivalrous conduct of his Highland supporters, and the story of Flora Macdonald’s heroism, all combined to open the sluices of public opinion in Edinburgh and elsewhere to a flood of harmless Jacobite sentiment. Tartan plaids and gowns became all the rage, even bed and window curtains and pincushions were made of tartan. The Whigs retaliated by dressing up the public hangman in tartan, and thus gave the finishing blew to the craze. It was not, however, until 1782 that at the instance of the Duke of Montrose, and largely through the efforts of the Highland and Gaelic Societies of London, the obnoxious Act, which had become an obsolete irritant, was repealed.
The blow which struck at the very roots of feudalism in the Highlands was the abolition of heritable jurisdictions, by an Act passed in March 1747. This Act applied to the whole of Scotland, but it operated with peculiar force in the Highlands, where the administration of justice was a scandal. These hereditary jurisdictions, secured by the Act of Union, carried with them large emoluments and extensive power which were not relinquished without a struggle, the compensation awarded to the holders by the Government amounting to over £150,000 in satisfaction of claims aggregating nearly £600,000. The appointment of Sheriffs properly equipped with legal knowledge, and imbued with a genuine desire to administer justice, was a long step in advance. No longer were the people at the mercy of the caprices of their Chiefs, or their ignorant and occasionally vindictive bailies, who sometimes applied Jeddart justice by hanging men and trying them afterwards. Under the new jurisdiction the people were no longer haunted by the fear of the pit and gallows, to which, under the old system, they were liable to be dragged at the will of tyrannical superiors.
This, then, was a notable reform which followed in the train of the Culloden disaster. It is very frequently stated that Culloden gave the finishing blow to the Clan system. That is incorrect, the fact being that a foreign appendage, alien to the spirit of clanship, was removed, while the essential features of the system remained intact. Now, it is not possible for any one, from the evidence available, to go back to the beginnings of the Clan system, and state as historical facts the precise conditions which prevailed. Dr. Skene in his “Celtic Scotland,” has dealt very fully with the inception of tribalism in the Highlands, and General Stewart’s “Sketches” give pictures of Clan life, for which it is regrettable that he did not quote his authorities. Skene is dogmatic, as his researches and critical acuteness perhaps entitled him to be, though here again the citation of authorities is scanty on those points which are obscure. But, though direct evidence on the beginnings of the clan system is meagre, the inductive evidence is cumulatively convincing in support of Skene’s general thesis. It is abundantly clear in any case that the system originally rested upon a purely patriarchal basis, and that feudalism, which enormously increased the power of the chiefs, and correspondingly diminished the influence of the commons, was an alien graft upon the system, which produced a crop of evils, culminating in the complete subjection of the clansmen to their hereditary heads. This feudal graft was finally lopped off after Culloden, but the main stem remained. That is to say, clannishness, the family idea, the patriarchal shadow which was always present with the feudal substance, was unaffected by the events of 1746. Indeed, it would be easy to show that those events really paved the way for a system of clanship purged of feudalism which, with modern adaptations, might have approached the supposed original system more nearly than had been the case for centuries. What, after all, was the clan system, properly stated, but the family system? Can it be seriously contended that, under the changed conditions, it was impossible for a renovated patriarchism to rise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of Celtic feudalism? I think not. Rather was an unique opportunity lost of offering to the world a sociological model of families bound more closely together by common misfortune and common interest, instead of a memory in which romance and misery are strangely blended.
It need hardly be said that education has played a part of supreme importance in the formation and development of public opinion in the Highlands. Education was the one thing above all others that those chiefs who were imbued with ideas of despotism desired to keep out of the country, as if it were a plague. For it opened the eyes of the people to many things of which, to the advantage of the chiefs and their own corresponding disadvantage, they had previously been sublimely unconscious. But education was bound to find permanent lodgment, in spite of the obscurantists, and the apathy, or, in some cases, the enmity of the people themselves; and to the Church of Scotland and the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge the credit is chiefly due for the firm hold which its roots gradually took of Highland soil. Parochial schools were planted at the end of the seventeenth century, but it was not until the first quarter of the nineteenth century had come to a close, that determined and successful efforts were made to grapple with the appalling ignorance that still prevailed; and from that period the progress of education has been sure, if not rapid. And it will be of special interest to the Gaelic Society of London to know that it was during the same quarter of a century that the cause of bi-lingualism was fought and won, after an experience which clearly demonstrated its efficacy as a vehicle of instruction. It is now, after the lapse of a century, being fought once more, the tide of reaction having in the interval obliterated the teaching of history.
Another factor of some weight in the sociological changes which followed Culloden, was the wave of lyricism and literary activity by which the second half of the eighteenth century was marked. That was the period of the great Gaelic singers, the poets of nature, like Alexander Macdonald, Duncan Ban Macintyre, Rob Donn and others, who interpreted the emotions of the people among whom they moved, gave expression to their deepest sentiments, and flagellated with caustic wit contemporary vice and sloth; a sure indication of the gradual unshackling of the fetters which had so long bound the people in intellectual and moral darkness. It was the period, too, of the Ossianic controversy which, if it did nothing else, served to stimulate inquiry into Highland literature, and to dissipate the notion that a degree of high culture was incompatible with the rude civilisation of the ancient Gael. But in these days, when Macpherson is so generally discredited, it is wise, perhaps, not to make too much of the Highland claim to a native Homer, fit to rank with the acknowledged giants of the poetic art.
The greatest formative influence of all, after Culloden, was exerted by the Church. The final overthrow of the Jacobites paved the way for the signal and lasting triumph of Presbyterianism in the Highlands over Romanism and Episcopacy, both of which were identified with the lost cause, and suffered accordingly. The Kirk, as already mentioned, encouraged education, secular and religious instruction being co-ordinated. But both kinds of teaching were greatly hampered, not merely by moral but also by physical conditions. Some parishes were as large as certain counties in the south. The distances to be travelled through roadless tracts of the roughest country, left the more sparsely-peopled districts almost destitute of instruction. Difficulties such as these could only be gradually overcome, and it needed a ministry fired with enthusiasm to face them with even partial success; and, generally speaking, the Highland clergy during the last half of the eighteenth century were not remarkable for their fervour. They were often men of culture, as Dr. Johnson and Pennant and other travellers testify, but it is also plain that they liked their leisure and were more at home in their glebes than in their pulpits. Thev looked after the morals of their people sharply enough, and were powerful auxiliaries of the law in the prevention and punishment of crime. But the sympathy existing between them and their flocks was paternal rather than fraternal. The pulpit had not yet been democratised, and the clergy, drawn from the ranks of the ruling classes in the Highlands, retained a good deal of the old governing spirit in their relations with the people. Perhaps this attitude was not altogether unsuited to the stage of educational development which had been reached, but it operated adversely to the people when their interests clashed with those of their landlords. For the latter could always rely on the support of the clergy in any economic disputes. The system of patronage, as well as class feeling, brought the ministers and their patrons into line when the interests of the heritors were threatened. A striking instance of this was shown at the time of the Sutherland clearances early in the nineteenth century, when, with the exception of Mr. Sage, the whole of the local clergy aided and abetted the instruments of depopulation, in perpetrating a wicked act of tyranny. I do not think it would be difficult to show that the attitude of the clergy at this juncture had a good deal to do with the estrangement between them and their people, which culminated in the Disruption of 1843, when, unlike the severance in the south, the Highland parish churches were left with but a fraction of their people.
I have made a passing reference to the notorious clearances m the north, and I do not propose to re-tell a well-known story. But these clearances—which led to the expatriation of many unwilling emigrants—mark a stage in the economy of the Highlands, which forms a middle link between post-Culloden conditions and those now existing. The writer of a recent article in a popular magazine makes the statement that Highland clearances were “an unavoidable outcome of inexorable economic laws.” In a reply to that article, I ventured to call this statement “a meaningless euphemism, to cover one of the most disgraceful episodes in Highland history.” I repeat that assertion. It is not necessary to go to Donald Macleod’s Gloomy Memories for corroboration. I go to the other side and take the evidence of the late Evander Maciver, who, during fifty years of his life, was factor for three Dukes of Sutherland. In his Reminiscences, published during the past year, Mr. Maciver states that the Strathnaver clearances were carried out in a “harsh and ruthless manner by some of the parties who acted for the Sutherland estate”; and he goes on to say that the removals of crofters to make way for sheep “had generated a strong rebellious tendency in the minds of the lower classes in Sutherland against their superiors.” And surely there was ample justification for the “strong rebellious tendency.”
The cattle boom, already described, paled in magnitude before the rush for sheep-farms in the Highlands a century ago. It had been supposed that low country stock would not be able to stand the rigours of a Highland winter, but when, by an accidental discovery, that fallacy was exposed, the Highland hills were quickly alive with sheep. The Napoleonic wars gave an impetus to sheep-farming, and the Highland proprietors raked in the gold of the Lowland farmers, who in turn made large fortunes. It was the people who paid. Driven from the hills to the seashore and the moor, to make room for the more remunerative quadrupeds, they eked out a miserable existence, or emigrated, some to better their condition, but more to sink by the wayside and die brokenhearted. It is a sad story, but an instructive one, and gilding it by fine language like “an unavoidable outcome of inexorable economic laws” will not serve to hide the underlying blackness of the guilt on the one side and the misery on the other. I am thankful to say that it was a chief of my own clan who, when offered double the existing rental by some Lowland sheep-farmers for his Loch Carron property, replied that he would neither let his lands for sheep pasture nor turn out his people “upon any consideration, or for any rent that could be offered.” It is easy to sneer at Lord Seaforth as a sentimentalist who, as it happened, went straight to financial ruin instead of getting wealthy like his neighbours. But there are some who, after all, would prefer to be in the shoes of this noble chief, with nothing but the love and devotion of his people to support him in his hour of trial, than in those of others who, with their riches, secured also the aversion of a sullen peasantry as an offset. In many cases these riches were as quickly squandered as acquired, and the final balance of gain rested chiefly with the canny Lowlanders, who knew not only how to make money but how to keep it.
It need hardly be said that public opinion nowadays would not tolerate clearances or forced emigration, but a silent and far more insidious means of reducing the area under human beings is in progress. Sheep-farming had various fluctuations during the nineteenth century. It suffered depression after the Napoleonic wars and great prosperity during the American Civil War; but since that period, owing to foreign and colonial competition, it has been a declining industry. On its ruins has risen the system of afforestmeht in the Highlands, which is growing at an alarming rate, and threatens, unless checked, to convert the northern counties into a vast playground for wealthy strangers, with only a few oases of industry. It is quite beyond the scope of this paper to discuss deer forests, but it is permissible at least to say that all attempts, so far, to demonstrate their economic relative value to the Highlands have signally failed, and reformers will welcome the day when legislation, based upon the report of the Deer Forests Commission of 1892, becomes an accomplished fact.
It would be equally irrelevant to discuss the modem phases of social and economic life in the Highlands, but it is not difficult to trace their developments from the changes which have occupied our attention. The links in the economic chain stretch from the Duke of Cumberland to the Crofters Commission, and from the desertion of their followers by the chiefs to the appointment of the Congested Districts Board. Until the Crofters Act provided a Magna Charta for the Highland people, the whole record, it is grievous to say, is one of oppression, with some outstanding exceptions. The tacksmen, on regaining some of the power which they lost after the cattle boom, were frequently worse tyrants than the proprietors themselves, while the factors sometimes surpassed them both in grinding the faces of the poor. But relief came at last, and the people are now, within certain limits, free to work out their own destiny. Recent measures, designed to relieve congestion, will give them an opportunity of showing their value as peasant proprietors, and, if the experiments should prove successful, these tentative efforts will inevitably pave the way for measures of far-reaching importance, which will check the growth of afforestment, break up large farms into small holdings, and open a new chapter in the economic history of the Highlands.
END
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you and mind and celebrate Tartan Day on the 6th.
Alastair