nothing so close as the observation of an economist of the Duke's school, who, in an account of a visit to Scotland a generation or so ago, spoke of the pleasure with which, in a workhouse, he had seen 'both sexes and all ages, even to infants of two and three years, earning their living by picking oakum,' or as the expression of pride with which a Polish noble, in the last century, pointed out to an English visitor some miserable-looking creatures who, he said, were samples of the serfs, any one of whom he could kick as he pleased!

'Thousands and thousands of acres,' says the Duke, 'have been reclaimed from barren wastes; ignorance has given place to science, and barbarous customs of immemorial strength have been replaced by habits of intelligence and business.' This is one side of the picture; but unfortunately there is another side-chieftains taking advantage of the reverential affection of their clansmen, and their ignorance of a foreign language and a foreign law, to reduce those clansmen to a condition of virtual slavery; to rob them of the land which by immemorial custom they had enjoyed; to substitute for the mutual tie that bound chief to vassal and vassal to chief the cold maxims of money-making greed; to drive them from their homes that sheep might have place, or to hand them over to the tender mercies of a great farmer.

'There has been grown,' says the Duke, more corn, more potatoes, more turnips; there has been produced more milk, more butter, more cheese, more beef, more mutton, more pork, more fowls and eggs.' But what becomes of them? The Duke must know that the ordinary food of the common people is meal and potatoes; that of these many do not get enough, that many would starve outright if they were not kept alive by charity. Even the wild meat which their fathers took freely, the common people cannot now touch. A Highland poor-law doctor, whose district is on the estate of a prominent member of the Liberal party, was telling me recently of the miserable poverty of the people among whom his official duties lie, and how insufficient and monotonous food was beginning to produce among them diseases like the pellagra in Italy, when I asked him if they could not, despite the gamekeepers, take for themselves enough fish and game to vary their diet. They never think of it,' he replied; they are too cowed. Why, the moment any one of them was even suspected of cultivating a taste for trout or grouse, he would be driven off the estate like a mad dog.'

Besides the essays and journals referred to by the Duke of Argyll, there is another publication, which any one wishing to be informed on the subject may read with advantage, though not with pleasure. It is entitled Highland Clearances, and is published in Inverness by A. McKenzie. There is nothing in savage life more cold-bloodedly atrocious than the warfare here recorded as carried on against the clansmen by those who were their hereditary protectors. The burn

ing of houses; the ejection of old and young; the tearing down of shelters put up to protect women with child and tender infants from the bitter night blast; the threats of similar treatment against all who should give them hospitality; the forcing of poor helpless creatures into emigrant ships which carried them to strange lands and among a people of whose tongue they were utterly ignorant, to die in many cases like rotten sheep or to be reduced to utter degradation. An animating scene truly! Great districts once peopled with a race, rude it may be and slavish to their chiefs, but still a race of manly virtues, brave, kind, and hospitable-now tenanted only by sheep or cattle, by grouse or deer! No one can read of the atrocities perpetrated upon the Scottish people, during what is called 'the improvement of the Highlands,' without feeling something like utter contempt for men who, lions abroad, were such sheep at home that they suffered these outrages without striking a blow, even if an ineffectual one. But the explanation of this reveals a lower depth in the 'reduction to iniquity.' The reason of the tame submission of the Highland people to outrages which should have nerved the most timid is to be found in the prostitution of their religion. The Highland people are a deeply religious people, and during these evictions their preachers preached to them that their trials were the visitations of the Almighty and must be submitted to under the penalty of eternal damnation!

I met accidentally in Scotland, recently, a lady of the small landlord class, and the conversation turned upon the poverty of the Highland people. Yes, they are poor,' she said, but they deserve to be poor; they are so dirty. I have no sympathy with women who won't keep their houses neat and their children tidy.'

I suggested that neatness could hardly be expected from women who every day had to trudge for miles with creels of peat and seaweed on their backs.

'Yes,' she said, they have to work hard. But that is not so sad as the hard lives of the horses. Did you ever think of the horses? They have to work all their lives-till they can't work any longer. It makes me sad to think of it. There ought to be big farms where horses should be turned out after they had worked some years, so that they might have time to enjoy themselves before they died.'

'But the people?' I interposed. They, too, have to work till they can't work longer.'

'Oh yes!' she replied, but the people have souls, and even if they have a hard time of it here, they will, if they are good, go to heaven when they die, and be happy hereafter. But the poor beasts have no souls, and if they don't enjoy themselves here they have no chance of enjoying themselves at all. It is too bad!'

The woman was in sober earnest. And I question if she did not

fairly represent much that has been taught in Scotland as Christianity. But at last, thank God! the day is breaking, and the blasphemy that has been preached as religion will not be heard much longer. The manifesto of the Scottish Land Restoration League, calling upon the Scottish people to bind themselves together in solemn league and covenant for the extirpation of the sin and shame of landlordism, is a lark's note in the dawn.

As in Scotland so elsewhere. I have spoken particularly of Scotland only because the Duke does so. But everywhere that our civilisation extends the same primary injustice is bearing the same evil fruit. And everywhere the same spirit is rising, the same truth is beginning to force its way.

HENRY GEORGE.

THE SURRENDER OF EGYPT.

FROM the statement made by Mr. Gladstone in explaining to the House of Commons the terms of the proposed agreement with France, it seems that a few weeks ago a conviction dawned upon the minds of Her Majesty's Government that the time had arrived when they ought to move either forward or backward in Egypt. No more damaging criticism has ever been passed on the whole of the Ministerial policy in Egypt than that contained in this confession. For the last two years the Government have been unable to make up their minds either to move forward or go backward. In spite of protests, warnings, remonstrances from all sides, they have refused to look facts in the face. Their one desire has been to avoid the necessity of coming to a decision. Every advance has been followed by a corresponding retreat; every declaration has been counterbalanced by a retractation; and it was only when they were brought face to face with a question of hard figures-not to be dealt with by explanations which explained nothing and despatches which evaded the point at issue that they suddenly woke up to the conviction that the time had arrived to go forward or backward. The plain truth is that what has at last forced the Government to take action has been the absolute necessity of meeting a financial deficit. According to a wellknown Yankee saying, Solomon was a wise man, Samson was a strong man, and Jacob was a wily man; but Solomon and Samson and Jacob all together could not pay a dollar when they had only fifty cents in their breeches-pocket. The truth contained in this homely aphorism was exemplified in the present instance. Egypt has to find eight millions, or, rather, her protectors have to find it for her; and all the declarations, despatches, and oratorical displays in which Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues are past-masters are utterly unavailing to turn a deficit into a surplus. In itself, the solution of the difficulty was eminently simple. England, which occupies Egypt—which, in fact if not in name, governs Egypt, and which is bound to defend Egyptcould with perfect ease have done by herself what her Government now proposes to do with the sanction of Europe, that is, advance the sum required out of her own resources or on her own credit. Had this been done, there would have been no necessity for a Conference at all.

This solution, however, laboured under the objection that its adoption would have compelled the Government to recognise accomplished facts, and to admit that the Power which has to protect Egypt by her armies is also the master of the country. Unfortunately, the objection was fatal. Mr. Gladstone had pronounced against a Protectorate; and this fact, in the opinion of the Ministry, precluded all further discussion.

It was determined, therefore, to meet the financial difficulty by modifying the Law of Liquidation. The Government were warned beforehand, and warned, too, by their own most trusted advisers, that any attempt to modify this law would necessitate European intervention in the affairs of Egypt. The warning fell upon deaf ears. The Powers were invited to meet in conference, and the country was assured by the Government, in the most distinct and explicit terms, that its deliberations would be absolutely confined to the financial aspects of the Egyptian question. The declaration was, I have no doubt, made in perfect good faith; but the fact that it should have been so made speaks volumes for the utter incapacity displayed in the whole conduct of the Egyptian question. As a matter of course the idea that the finances of Egypt could be discussed without entering upon the consideration of the relations between that country and England proved utterly chimerical. Our Government was informed that, before the idea of the Conference could be entertained, an understanding with reference to Egypt must be arrived at between Paris and London. France, in plainer words, was put forward as the representative of Europe to discuss the terms on which England could be permitted to obtain the consent of the European Powers to the holding of the Conference. Our Government in fact were given the choice of either abandoning the idea of the Conference or of coming to terms with France. They elected to adopt the latter alternative, and by so doing they made France mistress of the situation. Until the full history of the negotiations is known it is impossible to say how much may have been demanded at the outset, or what efforts were made to obtain less onerous conditions. All we are concerned with now is the net outcome of the concessions we have obtained on one side and given on the other. The statements of the Ministry are so confused and imperfect that we cannot feel convinced we yet know all, but the general purport of the agreement seems to be as follows:

On her side, France agrees to abandon formally all claim to the re-establishment of the Dual Control; to bind herself, in case our troops are withdrawn, not to send a military expedition to occupy Egypt without our consent; to admit in principle the idea of the ultimate neutralisation of Egypt, and to take part in the Conference, reserving therein perfect liberty for herself to accept, reject, or modify any proposals England may make for the settlement of the