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reach it by touching the prison-house that binds me, and finding in the touch that it is a prison-house. In those bars that resist me I learn that I am bound; in my effort to overcome their resistance I learn that I have a right to be free. It is the knowledge of nature that is the basis for my faith in the supernatural; it is through the study of the known that I learn the presence of the unknown. Mysticism is no longer, as with the Gnostic, the beginning of knowledge, but it is still the end of it. We seek not any more to fly from physical nature in order to bury ourselves in the life of the Infinite; we come to physical nature as the very necessity of our being. Yet, sitting at the feet of this prosaic monitor, we shall get back our poetry, our reverence, our faith, and the marvel which men sought in the flight from visible things shall at last be found again in their service and in their science.

ART. VI. THE FUTURE OF THE HIGHLANDS.

WE

E have in a previous paper considered the present condition of the Highlands, and endeavoured partially to account for it, and we now desire to point out how the normal progress of the country towards a more satisfactory condition of prosperity is to be facilitated, without any unnecessary subversive measures.

When money was scarce and distance serious no doubt the most natural and easiest mode of utilising the vast tracts of the north-as of Australia-was the introduction of sheep and sheep capitalists; while when money became plentiful and sport fashionable, it was equally natural for sporting or impoverished landlords to foster deer preserves. But the rail is a distance-devourer, so that it is no longer a 'far cry to Loch Awe,' but only a Sabbath day's journey; while public opinion is equally rapid in its progress, and the thousands of clear-headed, energetic visitors from the south have commenced by asking why these wilds are untenanted by their natural inhabitants; and are now proceeding to declare, in no uncertain tones, that, as burghers of many toiling cities, their

fellow men claim more of their sympathy than the stag of ten in

the corry.

We will not discuss the deserving character of those upon whom this sympathy is expended, nor ask whether laziness has partially permitted their birth-right to slip through their fingers, or if it has been stolen from them. Enough that the belief is strong that the Highlands are in hands that have not of late done their duty by them, and that it is high time stronger hands and less onesided intelligencies were exercising some controlling iufluence over them; nor are we so full of sentiment as to care greatly whether the native or the stranger utilise and populate the land, so long as we are satisfied that the native and the land alike get justice.

It may not perhaps be anticipated that the wild and barren portions of the country, however beautiful and romantic, will be utilised economically and commercially while important resources are still undeveloped in the richer lowlands; and yet life has frequently a tendency to display itself vigorously at the extremities of a constitution with a good circulation, to the neglect of portions nearer the heart. It is therefore by no means unreasonable, judging from analogy, to expect a rush of financial blood to the north, more especially if it is thought that there is scope for monied Teutons to reap rich harvests neglected by the dreamy, poverty-stricken, or oppressed Celts? But even calculating that local enterprize, with occasional external stimuli, should alone grapple with their industrial development, we may safely calculate that a magnetic disturbance is passing north, of such a vigorous character that the present social molecules will be disturbed and re-arranged. Nothing but good need ultimately be the outcome of such a commotion, and the marked attention at present directed to the Highlands is of itself matter for the keenest satisfaction.

It appears to us to be almost a reason for regret that we are unable to pose as a colony, and start a great Highland, as we would a Colonial, loan, thereby absorbing some of the superabundant wealth of England, accumulating in hands without the skill and judgment to apply it advantageously. We are daily told that this, that, and the other enterprize will not pay to conduct, because we are not satisfied with less than 5 or 6 per cent.

for our money, and not to be tempted with less than 10 per cent. plus a rotten security! Could the north have absorbed some of the thousand million sterling absolutely lost in foreign loans within a limited period, we think the country, the capitalists, and the people would all have benefited by the development of our resources, even although we had only been able to pay 1 per cent. thereon. But in fact there is ample scope in the north for the employment of a vast amount of capital in legitimate enterprizes, which would return liberal percentages if wisely conducted, and whose origination and organisation would introduce and develop social and economic changes of the most beneficial character.

The first thing desirable is to have the country opened up to new industries and new ideas, and to introduce that capital so constantly scoffed at by penniless adventurers and comfortable dreamers, who would support themselves with talk and the people with sentiment. Not until opportunity be given for the growth of a working class by fostering something to work at, will idle tongues stirred by empty stomachs be stilled, or drowned in the sound of hurrying feet and busy hands. It is not our intention to enter specially into the crofter question, which must ultimately be settled by the national tribunal along with the claims of other agricultural tenantry; but the grievances and troubles of the cottar class may be summed up in the statement, that they have not enough to do, and consequently not enough nourishing food to eat. Such a statement made about our own people at home, where, too, undeveloped resources are awaiting the labour alongside, does not say much for our wise conduct in substantially aiding every impecunious and misgoverned state that can place a loan on our markets, often with funds drawn from the very districts that are gasping for capital.

The greatest lever in the modern movement in the Highlands is the railway, and we quite agree with those who hold that this is only in its initial stage. The net work that has been laid over the Lowlands at enormous cost, can be, and ought to be, spread through the Highlands at a minimum of expenditure, and in this we must sooner or later take a lesson from our American cousins, if not from common sense. Those who are best qualified to judge are strongly of opinion that our antiquated notions of what a rail

way ought to be, whether for the environs of London or the heart of the hills, must be radically changed, and the necessities of position and surroundings duly considered, ere demands are made upon the originators wholly incommensurate with any possible results. If American lines through great stretches of uninhabited and almost uninhabitable lands had required a double line of fencing, almost equal to the cost of the permanent way, and numerous crossings totalling the cost of the viaducts and bridges, most of them would never have been constructed.

Now, what we especially desire to inculcate is, that the nation's money is freely expended in opening up lines through the barren lands of many foreign countries, although the Spanish proverb, 'money like oil sticks to all the hands through which it passes,' is amply exemplified in these cases; and yet it is doled out in niggardly fashion towards schemes that are honestly fostered by reliable men, to the immediate employment of their own countrymen, the improvement of the comfort and welfare of their own surroundings, and the eventual enrichment and advancement of their own land. There seems to be a strange fascination in foreign adventure to the average English mind, and if it would but come to look upon the wilder regions of Scotland as a foreign land, mayhap its purse strings would be loosened, and the required capital would be forthcoming to open up districts isolated at present by wild hills and wilder waters.

As an example of what we look for, let us take the Island of Lewis, whose peaceful, amiable and hardy, if also thriftless and somewhat lazy, sons are forced unhappily to lean on the charity of the South to-day. The crofter population has multiplied to such an extent that it has become practically in many respects a cottar one, only to be supported by extraneous funds brought from their own or the mainland fisheries. Without the refuse from their fisheries the crofts that encircle the seaboard would be unable to raise the crops they do, and the voluminous statements as to what might be done by dividing the greater farms and central lands into crofts, will be valued according as the reader desires to see a few decent farm houses and a handful of industrious farmers, or a swarm of pig-styes and a good-humoured, lounging, dissatisfied army of pseudo-husbandmen. For agri

culture in the Lews must always be most subsidiary, and a pastoral race demands extensive bounds, and cannot properly be crowded into townships. But if the opening up of the Long Island be gone about boldly and wisely, we do not doubt that the population and its natural increase would very soon be self-supporting, to a degree quite beyond the bounds of possibility under present conditions. We observe that the Fishery Board, aided by the proprietor, has resolved upon building a secure harbour at Ness, and if this be soundly constructed, it will no doubt prove a blessing; but why stop at this? Into this harbour will be brought daily important supplies of fresh fish, such as would fetch large prices in the Southern markets, but they will all be salted and dried so as to reduce their value, at considerable extra cost of labour and 'stock.' It may seem chimerical to many who have not given the matter due thought, but a railway from Ness down the West Coast to Garynahine, and thence to Stornoway, could be constructed at a cost of perhaps little more than £50,000, on the principle of the pioneer railways; and at perhaps under £200,000, if unfenced and simply constructed. This would mean doubling to the fishermen the return for their catch, and would put energy and life into the country. Then the line would pass down the Western Coast, touching all the fishery ports on the These western fisheries, conducted in open boats from Uige, Carloway, Barvas, &c., are merely touched with the point of the finger at present, as for want of suitable large decked craft and the skill to handle them, the many rough days of this exposed coast are wholly lost to the fishermen; and yet Carloway Bay would hold a British fleet in safety, and the fisheries of St. Kilda and even Rockall could be readily reached therefrom, were proper communication with the South established. Added to these are the salmon fisheries, which in certain seasons are of considerable value in the west. Altogether only proper boats and skill, with the facilities created by a line of rail, are wanted to found another and a greater Wick, with a safe and commodious harbour ready, on the Atlantic Coast of the Lews.

way.

At this present moment the fishing industry of Wick is the backbone of that branch of the Highland line, and the loss of the Stornoway fishing traffic was a vital matter to the Skye Railway,

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