a fairer prospect for success in the struggle for life and advancement. Many of them would undoubtedly be far better off if they could emigrate under favorable conditions. The descendants of many of those who were forced to leave their homes by "cruel and heartless Highland lairds," and who suffered terrible hardships in getting to this country and founding new homes, have now attained such wealth and influence as they could not possibly have acquired among their ancestral hills. The Royal Commissioners recommended that the state should aid those who may be willing to emigrate from certain islands and districts where the population is apparently too great for the means of subsistence. The crofters are, however, strongly attached to their native hills and glens, and they claim that such laws can and ought to be enacted as will enable them to live in comfort where they are. The present, it is urged, is a particularly favorable time to establish prosperous small farmers in many parts of the Highlands where sheep-farming has proved a failure. The inhabitants of the coasts and islands are largely a seafaring people. There is quite as much Norse as Celtic blood in the veins of many of them, and the Norseman's love of the sea leads them naturally to fishing or navigation. The herring-fisheries, with liberal encouragement on the part of the government, might be made far more profitable to the fishermen and to the nation. Besides, the seafaring people of the Highlands and islands "constitute a natural basis for the naval defence of the country, a sort of defence which cannot be extemporized, and which in possible emergencies can hardly be overrated." At the present time they "contribute four thousand four hundred and thirty-one men to the Royal Naval Reserve,--a number equivalent to the crews of seven armored war-steamers of the first class." It is surely desirable to foster a population which has been a "nursery of good citizens and good workers for the whole empire," and of the best sailors and soldiers for the British navy and army. Public policy demands that every legitimate means be used to better the condition of the crofters and cottars, and to encourage them to remain in and develop the industries of their own country, instead of abandoning it to sheep and deer. Private interests must be made subordinate to the public good. Parliament may therefore interfere with the rights of landed property when the interests of the people and of the nation demand it, as they do in this case.