SCOTLAND 587 



service estimates for pensions for 1911-12 were 12,350,000 and for 1912-13 12,135,000 

 (decrease 215,000), the pension committees in addition costing 65,000. 



Hospitals, etc. Memorials to King Edward VII have given an impetus to the building 

 or extension of hospitals, and among other schemes the following have been reported. A new 

 infirmary at Bristol, erected at a cost of 70,000, was opened by the King and Queen on 

 June 28, 1912. The citizens of Birmingham have raised a fund out of which will be provided 

 a new building in Ladywood Road for the Children's Hospital, in addition to a statue of 

 King Edward by Albert Toft, R.A., a native of Birmingham. As a Warwickshire memorial 

 a sanatorium on Binton Hill near Stratford-on-Avon was decided on- the Worcestershire 

 memorial takes the form of an enlargement of the sanatorium for consumptives at Knight- 

 wick. The North Wales counties joined the scheme of national sanatoria for the treatment 

 of tuberculosis; the Shropshire memorial took the form of a sanatorium; Cheshire's memorial 

 fund was apportioned to existing hospitals; and Chester and Stockport embarked on infirmary 

 extensions costing respectively 40,000 and 10,000. A subscription was promoted at Leeds 

 to raise 150,000 for the reconstruction and extension of the General Infirmary, and, two- 

 thirds of this sum having been received, the work was started in 1912. This also involves an 

 extensive street improvement, undertaken by the City Council, in the neighbourhood of the 

 Town Hall, clearing away a considerable amount of slum property. 



Among other institutions, the erection of a home for consumptives, on a site between 

 the Lickey and the Clent Hills, was started in 1912 at a cost of 14,000 by the Birmingham 

 Hospital Saturday Committee as a memorial of the late Alderman Sir William Cook, who 

 was chairman of the Committee (also of the Health Committee of the Corporation) for many 

 years. To perpetuate the memory of Edwin James Gates, his sisters have presented 10,000 

 to Halifax towards an open air school and a convalescent home. There was opened at 

 Crewe (Dec. 18, 1911) a railway orphanage built and endowed out of the residue of the 

 estate of the late Mr. F. W. Webb, chief mechanical engineer, L. & N. W. Railway. The 

 Berkshire Hospital has considerably enlarged its building, and now provides 200 beds and 

 is one of the best equipped in the country. The Radcliffe Infirmary at Oxford has also 

 begun some new buildings at a cost of 20,000. 



Portsmouth was the first municipality in the United Kingdom to start a tuberculin 

 dispensary (1911), with treatment for out-patients, an open air hospital, and a stock of 

 shelters, disinfecting appliances, etc., lent to patients visited at their own homes, the inclusive 

 cost being 1000 a year. 



[For the above sections on England and Wales, the collaboration of the following local 

 correspondents is acknowledged: R. W. Brown (Northampton), J. B. Cornish (Penzance), 

 T. A. Davies (Cardiff), Rev. P. H. Ditchfield (Berks.), W. H. Garbutt (Birmingham), Sir 

 G. L. Gomme (London), j. E. Hooper (Norwich), E. Howarth (Sheffield), J. Jamicson (New- 

 castle-upon-Tyne), P. H. Maggs (Portsmouth), F. W. Parker (Chester), F. P. Pointon 

 (Nottingham), .A. E. Reynolds (Salisbury), C. Wells (Bristol). The general statistics have 

 been compiled from official sources by Harold Macfarlane.] (O. J. R. HOWARTH.) 



SCOTLAND 1 



I " i , : 



Population. The most significant feature in the recent economic development of 

 Scotland is the progress of the country in industrial enterprise and its gradual decline in 

 agricultural activity. The townward trend of the rural population, which has been in 

 progress for many years, is emphasised by the latest census returns. The population 

 of the country in 1911 (details of which are furnished in Tables A and B) was 4,759,445, 

 and of this total (of whom 2,302,865 are males and 2,446,808. females) about 77 per cent 

 live in towns, and 21 per cent .in the country. Scotland, like other parts of the United 

 Kingdom, has felt the effect of a slackening birth rate, and in the last census year the 

 number of births registered was smaller than in any year since 1873, the year 1890 except- 

 ed, and the birth rate was the lowest recorded since 1885. The total increased population 

 was less than at any census since 1861. The falling birth rate has of course a vital bear- 

 ing on the comparatively moderate increase of the population generally, but the dwin- 

 dling of rural communities cannot be wholly attributed either to it, or to the call of the 

 towns. Scotland has suffered seriously within recent years from emigration. In 1911 

 alone 57,417 passengers of -Scottish nationality left Scottish ports, in itself a disquieting 

 enough fact. But in order to appreciate the effect on the country of the drain of emi- 

 gration, it is necessary to take a more distant view. Going back a period of the 

 years it is found that 354,056 Scottish people left their native shores for permanent 

 residence abroad, and against that there was an immigration of 66,921. In other words, 

 within the period mentioned Scotland was depleted by 287,135 persons. The cities, 



1 See E. B, xxiv, 412 et seq., and articles on the various counties, towns, etc. 



