effect and the best success of the thorough education of the Hebrides". Consequently, on the other hand "There is still a prejudice among some of the old people against any but Gaelic education, because they see that it gives their children wings with which they can fly away from the family nest". In the immediate aftermath of the famine government resisted arguments that it should subsidise a railway to Oban in order to reduce the isolation of the Hebrides. Only in 1880 did the Caledonian Railway eventually reach Oban as a purely commercial venture. In 1867 the inhabitants of Stornoway got their mail via a twice-weekly steamer from Greenock . Consequently, it took 74 to 132 hours for letters to reach Stornoway from Edinburgh or London, and any reply had to wait half a week for the next steamer. Complaints that Stornoway was worse served than some other islands were denied by their inhabitants; letters posted in London took as long to reach Barra as they would to reach Bombay. Services to Skye and Lewis improved when the Dingwall and Skye Railway reached Stromeferry in 1870 and began steamer services from a pier there. More generally, better steamships and more frequent services eventually allowed better communication, and the recovery of fishing and cattle-rearing and the greater ease of temporary migration for seasonal work eventually allowed the crofting economy to move from self-sufficiency to one in which enough cash was generated to allow the purchase of imported grain. In the 1880s, the technical issue of how to avoid future famines or seasons of destitution in the Highlands became submerged in the political question of how to address the grievances of crofters and cottars (agricultural labourers without land). Landlords had taken to heart McNeill's comments on the need to prevent uncontrolled population growth in crofting areas by preventing sub-division or multiple occupancy of crofts; they had taken much less notice of his view that crofters should be granted secure leases. Consequently, there was growing resentment amongst the crofting communities. In 1882 there were failures of both the potato and cereal harvests in the Hebrides (because of blight and wind damage, respectively); this led to widespread destitution in 1883. There was also unrest among the crofters and formation of a Highland Land League which took its inspiration from the Irish Land League. The Gladstone Government set up the Napier Commission (a "Royal Commission