Letter: Highland exodus

So THE Highland Clearances circa 1843 were due to the wickedness of the Act of Union of 1707 (Letters, 14 March)? Quite a delay involved! Perhaps the real reasons can be adduced by looking outside the UK.

On 4 July, 1825, the sloop "Restaurationen" sailed from Stavanger to New York with 52 persons on board, marking the beginning of the Norwegian exodus to the United States; since that date, 900,000 Norwegians emigrated to North America.

This is a higher proportion than anywhere in Europe (excepting Ireland), and has nothing to do with Acts of Union, toff landowners, English interference, forcible ejection and all the rest of the victim-mentality rhetoric which attaches so readily to this subject.

The pre-eminent cause for these migrations is the search for a better life than offered by subsistence agriculture; at a time when mortality rates were improving, and creating overpopulation relative to resource.

Peter Smaill

Currie Mains

Borthwick, Midlothian