Pay of the English Soldier. (See supra, p. 30.)
The following extract gives a very fair estimate of the military as compared with the civil labour market in England and Scotland.
"Let us now shortly examine the state of the facts with regard to the actual terms we offer. We engage to give every recruit 7s 7d a week, and certain prospective advantages of good conduct pay and pension, with lodging, fuel, light, and medical attendance. I purposely exclude from this estimate certain articles of clothing which we have to give soldiers gratis, and certain articles of food which we supply to him on peculiar advantageous terms, as the sum which he must still expend on food and clothing, notwithstanding these advantages is equal to that which food and clothing would probably cost him in civil life." ....
"We buy the man out and out for the period of his service. We require him to give up in a great measure his ordinary civil rights, place him under a severe discipline, force him to serve, even in time of peace, two-thirds of his time abroad in climates which are often of great severity, forbid him to marry, and expose him to risks and discomforts to which no walk in civil life affords any parallel. It cannot be said that this bargain is to us a hard one. Nay, is it not evident that relatively to the present enhanced price, even of unskilled civil labour, it is a most advantageous one for the employer?"
Emigration from the Scotch Highlands. (See supra, p. 21.)
The following conclusions arrived at by the Duke of Argyll and Sir John McNeill with respect to the Emigration from the Highlands of Scotland, are very apposite to the topics considered in the foregoing chapter:—
"I will now shortly restate to the Society the facts and conclusions which can, I think, be satisfactorily established in regard to the past and present economic condition of the Highlands:—
1. That before the end of the last of the civil wars, the condition of the population was one of extreme poverty and frequent destitution.
2. That on the close of those wars, and the establishment of a settled Government, there was, during half a century, a rapid increase of population.
