the middle class, and holdings between 20l. and 100l. to the class of small farms, all below 20l. to the crofting class. Now here we are upon ground where the facts can be clearly ascertained, and can be represented in statistical returns, which are not only authentic but authoritative, and are accessible to all. The valuation roll of the counties in Scotland, made up under the provisions of the law, and upon which all county assessments are raised, shows the actual value of every holding in the county, and the aggregate value of the whole. I have had the valuation roll of all the four counties in discussion examined, and the following is the result:

In Argyleshire there are 5,095 occupiers of land, and of this number only 62 pay above 500l. a-year, leaving no less than 5,033 tenants, all belonging to the middle or lower classes of occupations. Of these again no less than 1,882 belong to the middle class properly so called, that is, tenants paying a rent between 20l. and 500l. And of these again 796 lie between 100l. and 500l. I may farther add, from my own knowledge and observation, though I have not the precise return, that a very large proportion of the farms between 100l. and 500l. are really farms under 300l. Below 20l. there are still no less than 3,151 crofter occupiers in the county of Argyll.

The total rental represented by the tenants above 500l. is 45,2471., showing an average of between 700l. and 8ool. a-year. The rental represented by the crofting class is 22,334. The rental represented by the classes above them is 262,899l. So that, in fact, if we took as our standard the state of occupancy in some of the Lowland counties, we might fairly say that the whole county of Argyll is held either by the small class, or by the middle class of farmers.

In the county of Inverness the results are not dissimilar. The total number of tenants is 4,951; and of these again only 63 belong to the great capitalist class, paying upwards of 500l. a-year; 491 are between 100l. and 500l.; 978 are between 20l. and 100l., whilst 3,419 belong to the crofting class. It thus appears that by far the largest portion of both counties are held by a middle class of occupiers properly so called. In Inverness the rental represented by the 3,149 crofters is only 25,1917., whilst the rental represented by the three classes above them is 197,5137.

In Ross-shire the figures stand thus: total number of tenants 6,095. Of these only 40 are above 500l. rent; 333 pay between 100l. and 500l.; no less than 591 between 20l. and 100l., and 5,131 less than zol. representing the crofting class. The total rental of the county is 193,000l., and the crofters pay of this only 25,4917.

Compare this state of occupancy with that of East Lothian, long considered, and with truth, the very garden of Scotland. The agricultural rental is 173,000l., and this great rental is paid by the com

paratively small number of 376 tenants; of these there are only 41 under 20l.; between 20l. and 100l. there are 63; between 100l. and 500l. there are 119; and above 500l. there are 153; so that in one of the Highland counties (Argyll) of which Professor Levi says there are very few middle class tenants, there are no less than ten times the number of that class that are to be found in East Lothian.

These figures prove conclusively that it is a delusion to suppose that the old crofting class of tenantry has been sacrificed in order to make way only, or even principally, for great grazing capitalists. They prove that the bulk of the Highland counties are being possessed by a middle class of tenantry, with holdings accessible to men of small capital, and actually held by many of the old inhabitants of the country-almost all of them above 100l. having the usual Scotch tenure of a nineteen years' lease.

Whilst on this point I may notice an observation which fell from Mr. Mill, in one of the late discussions on the Irish Tenure of Land Bill. Mr. Mill referred to the fact that Britain is the only country in the world where land was held almost exclusively in large estates, occupied by a class of capitalists selected by competition, and with the labouring class for the most separated altogether from either the ownership or from the occupancy of land. Now this involves I think a very erroneous conception of the facts—or at least a very partial and incorrect representation of them. It is indeed quite true that the labouring classes are for the most part separated from the ownership of land; but it is a great mistake to suppose that they are separated from the occupancy of land. The occupation of land by great capitalists, selected by competition, is indeed the condition of those counties and districts, especially in Scotland and the north of England, where agriculture is most advanced: but this is a wholly incorrect description of the class which chiefly occupies land over a great part of very thriving districts both in England and in Scotland.

It is of course not easy to give a strict definition of the labouring classes, and the mere fact of being in possession of a bit of land as a tenant still carries with it, especially in the Highlands, a social standing and position which is highly valued. So far as this mere social feeling is concerned there is a clear line, though not a very tangible one, between a labourer and a tenant. But I should say of the whole body of tenantry having farms under 300l. or 400l. a-year, that they are emphatically working men. They take a principal part in the labour of their own farms; they help to shear the corn, to carry the corn, to thatch the stacks, and their sons and often their daughters contribute the most efficient labour they employ. I know no position which combines in so eminent a degree. some social consideration with continuous, active, and honourable

labour as the position of the small farmers, who pay the great bulk of agricultural rent in all the western and northern counties of Scotland. And here I stop for a moment to say, that I regard this class of small farmers,-that is of farmers belonging essentially to the labouring classes,-as a valuable link in the social chain. I should deeply regret to see the West of Scotland tenanted, as a great part of the East of Scotland is, exclusively by a class of great capitalists, and with no holdings of land which are accessible to men of comparatively limited means. There is a natural tendency in this direction, because small farms involve increased expense in the number of farm buildings. But I am satisfied that there are other advantages which economically make up to proprietors for this difference; and there is the immense satisfaction of seeing a more numerous, and at least an equally industrious, tenantry. In Scotland the more permanent and costly improvements are generally executed by the landlord; but I am sure that we owe much to this class of tenants, in that steady increase in the value of land which has been so remarkable in Scotland, and nowhere more remarkable than in the Highlands.

And here I would remind the Society that the Highlands, as much as any other part of Scotland, are far in advance of the greater part of England in respect to sound principles of tenure. As a general rule, all agricultural tenants above 50l. of rent, hold under leases of ample duration, to secure to them the fruits of their industry and their outlay. In no part of Scotland is there less sympathy than among Highland proprietors, with the feeling so prevalent among proprietors in England, that to grant long leases to agricultural tenants is to part with a discretion and a power essential to the enjoyment of property. I recollect, not long ago, asking an English proprietor who had purchased a considerable property in the Highlands, how he liked it, and whether he often went there. "Oh," he said, "I have nothing to do with it now." I thought he must mean that it no longer belonged to him, and observed that I had not heard of its having been resold. "Oh," he said, in explanation, "I've not sold it—but I've let it on that abominable Scotch system of yours-on a lease for nineteen years; and of course "I can't take the same interest in it as before; I consider that "I have parted with the property, so far as regards my personal "pleasure in it, for the term of the lease, and as I don't expect to "outlive it, I've virtually parted with it for my life." There is no such feeling-irrational feeling as I must be allowed to call itamong Highland proprietors. And here I cannot help saying that this feeling is founded on customs and associations which I am satisfied are even more injurious to proprietors than they are to tenants. The truth is, that as regards the mere personal interests

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of tenants, the objections made to tenancies at will are very often exaggerated. It is perfectly true that in almost all old estates in England the tenants are, in a sense, as secure against being turned out as if they held under lease. Custom, and the position and character of landlords, make it morally impossible for them to make unjust and arbitrary changes, and, as a matter of fact, I am told that some of the most improved parts of England are so held. But as regards the interests of proprietors, I have never had a doubt that the operation of leases is all in their favour. Under tenancies at will no time ever comes when as a matter of course the bargain between landlord and tenant is revised. To revalue farms held from time immemorial, and to impose an entirely new scale of rents, is a step which must be gratuitously undertaken by the landlord, and is often considered a hardship by the tenant. But the termination of a lease is of necessity a time for reconsideration of terms and for revisal of rents. When a proprietor has let his land for a period so long as nineteen years, he feels that he has a right at the end of it to realise any increased value which may belong to that land, whether that increase of value arises out of improvements to which he has contributed, or to the natural rise in the value of its produce. Accordingly, whether that value is brought to the test of open competition, or whether it is estimated by the judgment of valuators, a readjustment of rent is always the result, and this is a result which being periodically repeated at the end of every lease, tends to raise the rental of land and to keep the methods of agriculture up to the newest measures of knowledge and of skill.

I am satisfied that this is the real cause of the higher rental of land in Scotland as compared with England-a difference which as regards a great part of England is very observable, but does not exist in the case of those border counties where the Scotch system of leases prevails.

I must observe, however, that the good effect of leases can only arise in the case of tenants who not only have industry and some capital, but whose holdings are of a kind and of an extent which, under the local conditions of soil and climate, and of markets and produce, are sufficient to exercise that industry to advantage. To give leases to tenants whose knowledge and whose industry were such as you have heard described as prevalent in the Highlands eighty years ago, would be simply to perpetuate a system of agriculture incompatible with any improvement whatever. Even when habits of industry have improved and, have become established, holdings which are too small to support or to give room for an improved husbandry, ought of course not to be kept up under the protection of leases. It must always be a local question, where and under what conditions small crofts can be permanently held with advantage.

In the east of Ross-shire there is a thriving class of crofters who, I am informed, hold generally under nineteen years' leases, and where extensive improvements have been effected by this class and by a class somewhat higher. And in this lies the great mistake made by those who advocate either fixity of tenure, or any step towards fixity of tenure indiscriminately for all tenants, and especially for the cottier tenantry of Ireland, where a very low standard of living is the standard of the people, and no want is felt for the comforts of civilization. Where skill and knowledge and capital are alike unknown security of tenure does but increase and perpetuate the worst evils in the condition of an agricultural population. The truth is, that the miseries and starvation of the cottier tenantry of Ireland have arisen under a system of very long leases, for indefinite terms of lives, held by middlemen, who subdivided their farms to a population contented if they lived at all on a few potatoes and a little milk. And be it remembered that every tenant becomes a middleman who has a holding capable of being subdivided, that is, capable of containing a few more hovels and a few more potato rigs. Long leases under such conditions of society have been, and must always be, the prolific source and origin of evils which it may take generations to remedy. I believe that the emigration which so many are now deploring in Ireland, is nothing but the remedy which nature affords for a long continued disregard of her economic laws. I shall not believe that emigration to be excessive till wages in Ireland rise to a higher level, nor until the scramble for potato grounds among a pauper tenantry gives place to legitimate competition among a class of farmers who have some knowledge and some capital, and whose scale of living compels them to demand a reasonable profit. To them let leases be given in all cases, and we shall then see in the West of Ireland, what we have already seen in the West of Scotland-an improving agriculture and a thriving people.

But we may well be asked, after the account I have given of the Highlands, how it happens that the world has heard so often of Highland distress, and has been appealed to for pecuniary aid in relief of that distress? My answer is, that this distress has existed, and has existed only, in those districts of the Highlands where the old conditions of society have not yet given way before the advance of sheep farming or of dairy farming, and those changes in the occupation of land which are a necessary step towards an improved husbandry. It has arisen exclusively among the old class of small crofters, which still exists along the west coast, and especially in the Islands. The best way of bringing this home to the mind of the Society, will be to exhibit a map of the Highlands, showing where that distress existed during the last period in which it attracted general notice, viz., during the years of the potato famine. It will be