Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 67, No. 416, June 1850Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 67, No. 416, June 1850
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Mr HUGH WATSON, Keillor, N.B., considered it a high compliment to
the farmers of Scotland, that he, as representing that body, should
be called upon to take a part in the business of this great meeting
by seconding the resolution, so ably moved and introduced, for which
purpose he now rose. He had come there as one of a deputation from
the Protective Association of Scotland, and could answer for his
brother farmers in the North, that in heart and soul they were with
them. The farmers of Scotland had been accused, perhaps justly, of
being a little slow in the Protection movement; but if they were so,
it was not for lack of good will, but from motives of expediency or
prudence. Although we had not made any great public demonstration in
the North, we had, thanks to a valuable portion of the periodical
press in Scotland, been enabled to express our feelings. To this
influential organ of public opinion, which was not to be bought or
sold, we owed a debt of deep gratitude, for it had stood by us in our
adversity as well as in former prosperity. He was sorry that he was
not able to tell that things were better in Scotland than they were
in England. The tale that he might have related to them, was one of
as great misery as any they had been called upon to listen to that
day. At this late hour of the meeting, he would not go much into
detail. The experiment now being made has nearly ruined the farmers
of Scotland--a large portion of the arable land must go out of
cultivation--and confiscation of property had this year extended to
more than the gross rental of that kingdom. But, though the farmers
felt they were grievously oppressed, they were not yet subdued.
(Loud cheers.) There was a time when the interests of the landlords
and tenantry of Scotland were regarded as inseparable; but, he was
sorry to say, that feeling was not now so strongly entertained as
formerly. Delusions and deceptions had been practised which had, in
some cases, weaned the affections of the one class from the other;
he could see, however, a growing disposition to return to the path
in which they had formerly trod. He would say to his brother farmers
of England, that some apology was due to them from the farmers of
Scotland, for the unfounded aspersions which had been cast upon them
by a few empirical pretenders, who, from their insignificance, only
deserved their contempt. Let them be assured that the farmers of
Scotland were not so ignorant of the modes of farming, the management
of stock, and the general economy of well-managed English farms,
or of the intelligence of English farmers, as to try and deceive
them by any fine-spun theories of high-farming, or any such humbug.
(Cheers and laughter.) They might depend upon it, that the parties
who thus attempted to deceive them, or their landlords, were not
those sterling farmers of Scotland we have been accustomed to look
to during the last forty years. (Hear, hear.) One subject, which had
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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