210 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL 



Depo^pulation of the Rural Districts. 



I now come to what I consider to be by far the most 

 important part of our subject, because it is that with 

 which we are in the closest relation, and which is, I 

 believe, the most direct cause of widespread poverty — 

 rural depopulation. This rural depopulation has been 

 going on for probably a very long time, but it was not 

 seriously noticed till ten or twenty years ago. Before 

 that date many of the counties seemed to be stationary in 

 population, but in 1861 it was noticed that a few counties 

 had not increased, but rather diminished, during the pre- 

 ceding ten years, in 1871 seven or eight had decreased in 

 population, and in 1881 fifteen counties had decreased. 

 But besides this decrease in certain counties, the census 

 returns give very accurate and detailed information as 

 to where this depopulation occurs, and to some extent 

 how it occurs. 



The Avhole of England is divided into registration dis- 

 tricts and registration sub-districts. These registration 

 sub-districts are about two thousand in number, and con- 

 sist of an aggregation of parishes, roughly speaking not 

 very unequal in size, and probably not very unequal in 

 population. In towns they are, of course, much smaller 

 in area. The increase or decrease of each of these regis- 

 tration sub-districts is given in the census, and I took the 

 trouble to go through the tables and take out all the cases 

 of decrease, and I found that there has been a decrease 

 over a very large number of these sub-districts. The 

 general result is, that over about half the area of England 

 and Wales there was actually less population in 1881 

 than in 1871. But you must remember that the popula- 

 tion of the country has been going on steadily increasing 

 all that time. In the ten years the population of the 

 whole country has increased fifteen per cent., and that is 

 exclusive of those who have emigrated, so that the actual 

 rate of increase of the population is somewhat more than 

 that. Then, again, it is perfectly well known that the 

 rate of increase — what we may call the natural increase 



