DEPOPULATION OF RURAL ENGLAND 3r>7 



land. If it were to be kept there, it could only be 

 done by encouraging agriculture, and by adopting 

 measures which secured conditions favourable to aori- 

 culture. Side by side with agrarian policy, however, 

 the Government would continue to promote legislation 

 for the benefit of the working classes." At a recent 

 agricultural meeting held in Paris the " 24 million 

 agriculturists" were spoken of as "the ballast of the 

 vessel that carries the fortunes of France."^ 



Another great cause of the depopulation of our 

 rural districts is emigration. The general public are 

 consoled with the theory that emigration is a means 

 of relieving our congested population, and that by 

 sending labourers and others abroad they are dis- 

 posing of surplus people not wanted at home. It is 

 presumed that emigrants, by tilling their own land in 

 a new country, would benefit themselves, and at the 

 same time raise food and create fresh trade for the 

 Motherland. 



Rural England, however, is not a congested country, 

 but the very opposite, large areas being almost a desert, 

 or fast becoming one. But for the evidence contained 

 in the Census Papers, no one would believe the extent 

 to which many of the country districts have been 

 stripped of their population. If we take the rural 

 districts in all the counties of England and Wales, we 

 find that in no less than forty-two of them the popula- 

 tion (men, women, and children) is less than 200 to 

 the square mile ; in twelve of them less than 100 to 

 the square mile ; and in three less than 50. The 

 details are given in the following table : — 



1 Speech of M. Gomot, President de la Socicft^ Nationale d'Encourage- 

 ment h. 1' Agriculture ("La Semaine Agricole," 2 July, 1905). At that 

 meeting the French Minister of Agriculture, in proposing the toast of 

 the Society, coupled with it that of " The Peasantry of France." 



