We have a strong impression that a change of this kind, if prudently brought about without deranging local agriculture, will of itself do a great deal for the permanent relief of those localities where distress now prevails. Labourers thus obtained may in some respects be inferior, from want of skill, and even from want of strength. But our Highland countrymen have recommendations in their sober and orderly habits, which are not to be found in some of their competitors in the labour-market. Even railway contractors, though not likely to be swayed, except by economical views, are beginning to tire of the scenes of disorder and disturbance too frequently exhibited by workmen from other quarters. If the natives of the Scottish Highlands can be fairly roused to exertion, at a distance from home, their characters will be improved, and their views enlarged. They will begin to taste the benefits of better subsistence, and of some command of money; and their frugal habits, as well as their kindly affections, will communicate the advantage and spread the example among their suffering countrymen whom they have left behind. This resource, then, must be pressed by the Board with the whole force of their influence, upon all the able-bodied in the distressed districts who can with propriety be required to leave their localities; and we should not quarrel with a very strict administration of wholesome compulsion to effect so essential an object. 5. The most difficult and delicate duty which the Relief Board will have to discharge, regards the selection of works to be undertaken or sanctioned by them, as affording employment for those destitute persons whom they must relieve on the spot. It must here be kept in view, on the one hand, that the permanent improvement of the Highlands is no proper or direct object of the subscriptions received. On the other hand, it will clearly be necessary, after every attempt to remove labourers to the south, that some work should be provided in each locality, on which those persons may be employed who cannot be so removed, and who yet stand in need of relief. It would be mischievous and wasteful to relieve such persons without exacting labour from them, and just as reprehensible to employ them in digging holes and filling them up again, or in any other occupation equally useless and unproductive. If their work is to be obtained, it should be directed into some channel that will benefit themselves and the community. Public roads, harbours, piers, breakwaters, and the like, appear an obvious outlet for the labour thus placed at the command of the Board; and we are not even averse, within certain limits, to admitting their exertions in the improvement of their own crofts, provided, at least, the benefit thence arising be secured to the occupant by some reasonable tenure, and that no continuance is thus effected of an improper system of occupation. It seems no objection to such