212 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL 



The Effects of the Depopulation. 



Now let us consider what are the results of this migra- 

 tion from the country into the towns. The greater part 

 of those people who have migrated are not necessarily 

 agricultural labourers. About one-third are agricultural 

 labourers, and the remainder are what you may call 

 villagers people who carried on trades and occupations 

 of various kinds in villages and small towns. The causes 

 that led to the labourers migrating affected them also, 

 and they migrated to a still larger extent, and the result 

 is to be seen in a most striking fact which has been 

 brought forward among others to prove the prosperity of 

 the country, and that is the enormous increase in the 

 import of certain articles of food. Most of you know at 

 all events it is a well known fact that country labourers 

 and many other rural inhabitants are fond, when they 

 have the chance, of keeping pigs and poultry, growing 

 potatoes and other vegetables. Now it is a most singular 

 thing that if we compare the years 1870 and 1883 there 

 is an enormous difference in the imports of these articles 

 of food. It is so great that it seems almost impossible ; 

 but the figures are taken from official papers. In 1870 

 we imported less than a million 860,000 cwts. of bacon 

 and pork, whereas in 1883 it had risen to 5,000,000 cwts. 

 Of potatoes there were imported 127,000 cwts. in 1870, 

 and 4,000,000 cwts. in 1883; of eggs in 1870, 430,000,000, 

 and in 1883, 800,000,000. Now 1870 was in the midst 

 of our period of prosperity ; we were supposed to be all 

 well off; wages were high, and men were all in full 

 work. But 1883 is in our period of depression and dis- 

 tress, and it is actually maintained by Mr. Giffen and 

 other statisticians who put forward these figures to show 

 the prosperity of the country, that we consume enor- 

 mously more when our trade is depressed than we did 

 during the period when it was most prosperous ! It 

 appears to me, on the contrary, that these facts are due 

 to a decreased production of food, caused in part by the 

 continuous emigration of people out of the country into 



