DEPOPULATION OF RURAL ENGLAi. 395 



— who after all are the State — has been dealt witn 

 in previous chapters, and should cause the public to 

 hesitate before they give sanction or support to a 

 proposal for the wholesale deportation of the choicest 

 of our working classes. For a Government to support 

 the scheme would be an act little short of criminal in 

 its character. 



Two arguments are often used in favour of this 

 emigration, first, that it will increase the ties between 

 the colonies and the motherland, and, secondly, that 

 it will develop and strengthen our empire over-sea ; 

 but our great empire will remain sound, strong, and 

 undiminished in size so long, and only so long, as 

 its heart and centre abide strong and sound. That 

 strength and soundness can be retained not by the 

 riches of this country, but only by the quality of its 

 manhood. 



In the eighteenth century there was a far-seeing 

 French statesman, of whom it is stated that his 

 reforms, if they had been carried out and not been 

 frustrated by the " classes," would have either hindered 

 the great revolution altogether, or at least made it 

 less violent and ungovernable. Bearing on the ques- 

 tion under consideration this eminent man wrote : — 



" Is it not evident that the only real wealth of the 

 State being the yearly productiveness of its land and 

 the industry of its inhabitants, its wealth will be at 

 its greatest when the produce of each acre of land 

 and the industry of each individual shall be carried 

 to the highest possible point ? And is it not evident 

 that each proprietor has more interest than any other 

 person to draw from his land the greatest possible 

 return ? " ^ 



^ " Life and Writings of Turgot," by W. W. Stephens. Longmans, 

 1895. 



