and exposed, and the claims of mere average labor, as opposed to
those of the capitalist, were in general language reduced to their true
dimensions. I supplemented this volume by a criticism in _The Quarterly
Review_ of Henry George's celebrated _Progress and Poverty_, and Henry
George himself when he came to London told Lady Jeune (afterward Lady
St. Helier), without knowing that I was the author of it, that this
criticism was the only reply to himself which was worth being considered
seriously. I was conscious, however, of my own limitations, these
relating mainly to matters of statistical fact, such as the exact
proportion borne in a country like the United Kingdom by the aggregate
rental of the landlords to the aggregate income of the capitalists on
the one hand and that of the mass of manual workers on the other. I was
conscious of being specially hampered in attempting to deal minutely
with the statistical fallacies of Bright.

I was still in this state of mind a year after my first visit to Dorlin
when I received a letter from Lady Howard asking me to come to them
again. I went, and all the charm of my first visit repeated itself; but
repeated itself with this difference--that it was no longer undisturbed.
The possibility of a revolution in the Highlands had now become a
matter of audible discussion even in the remote Macdonald country. The
temper of the sparse population was there, indeed, not very violent, but
the thought that some sort of disaffection was even there actually alive
would often disturb my previous sense of peace, while the Glasgow and
Edinburgh newspapers, whether by way of attacking the established order
or defending it, were pelting one another with statistical statements in
respect of which each party seemed to contradict itself almost as
recklessly as it contradicted its opponents. My own growing ambition was
to get at definite and detailed information which would either support
the agitators or else give them the lie, and would also provide
otherwise comprehensive and specific illustrations of the general
principles which I had formulated in my late volume. But as to the means
by which comprehensive information of this specific kind could be
collected I was still more or less at a loss; and from the vague and
conflicting character of the statistics adduced it was evident that
other people were in the same or in a worse condition. That the required
information existed somewhere in the form o