REDISTKIBTJTION OF MANKIND DICKSON. 



should never be lost sight of. I may venture to suggest that a com- 

 mittee formed jointly by the great national geographical societies, 

 or by the International Geographical Congress, might be intrusted 

 with the work of formulating some such uniform plan and suggest- 

 ing practicable methods of carrjdng it out. It should not be impossi- 

 ble to secure international cooperation, for there is no need to investi- 

 gate too closely the secrets of anyone's particular private vineyard — 

 it is merely a question of doing thoroughly and systematically what 

 is already done in some regions, sometimes thoroughly, but not sys- 

 tematically. We should thus arrive eventually at uniform methods 

 of stock taking, and the actual operations could be carried on as 

 opportunity offered and indifference or opposition was overcome by 

 the increasing need for information. Eventually we shall find that 

 " country planning " will become as important as town planning, but 

 it will be a more complex business, and it will not be possible to get 

 the facts together in a hurry. And in the meanwhile increased geo- 

 graphical Imowledge will yield scientific results of much significance 

 about such matters as distribution of populations and industries, and 

 the degree of adjustment to new conditions which occurs or is pos- 

 sible in different regions and amongst different peoples. Prmiary 

 surveys on the large scale are specially important in new regions, 

 but the best methods of developing such areas and of adjusting dis- 

 tributions in old areas to new economic conditions are to be dis- 

 covered by extending the detailed surveys of small districts. An 

 example of how this may be done has been given by Dr. Mill in his 

 Fragment of the Geography of Sussex. Dr. Mill's methods have been 

 successfully applied by individual investigators to other districts, 

 but a definitely organized system, marked out on a carefully ma- 

 tured uniform plan, is necessary if the results are to be fully com- 

 parable. The schools of geography in this country have already 

 done a good deal of local geography of this type, and could give 

 much valuable assistance if the work were organized beforehand on 

 an adequate scale. 



i But in whatever way and on whatever scale the work is done, it 

 must be clearly understood that no partial study from the physical, 

 or biological, or historical, or economic point of view will ever suffice. 

 The urgent matters are questions of distribution upon the surface of 

 the earth, and their elucidation is not the special business of the 

 physicist, or the biologist, or the historian, or the economist, but of 

 the geographer. 



