Had the ‘land tax’ embedded in the 1707 Treaty of Union been sustained, the Highland Clearances would not have occurred. These articles examine how Westminster’s substitute arbitrary taxes on work and enterprise could not be afford at the economic periphery. Resources and people were (and are) sucked inexorably to the economic centres. It was a government choice to sustain high unearned incomes for London site owners at the expense of peripheral UK society and culture.
