r44 



REPORT— 1886. 



It is not surprising that pessimist views sliould sometimes prevail, and that 

 expressions should pass current such as the one which I quote from the public 

 press : ' Some attempt should be made to strike at the over-pressure of population 

 in Loudon, which is, of course, the root of the evil. ... It obviously is the evil 

 which we have got to face. The tendency to drift into cities is one of the curses 

 of all civilised communities, of whatever social stock they may be.' ^ For myself I 

 am not prepared to admit that a tendency which is indisputable, and which is dis- 

 played in ever}' nation in proportion to its enjoyment of peace at home and abroad, 

 has laid the world under so widespread a curse. It is a tendency that is as well 

 marked in nations that are among the least progressive in point of population as in 

 those of most rapid growth. In France, whose population is practically stationary, 

 the rur.il population, which forty years ago constituted three-fourths of the total 

 inhabitants, is now but two-thirds of the whole, showing a transfer or balance of 

 four million souls (including, however, one million of immigrant foreigners) from 

 the country to the towns.- On the other hand, in the United States, whose popu- 

 lation is expanding with a rapidity tliat is proverbial, and whose numbers are 

 doubling themselves every twenty years, as as-ainst an estimated period of two 

 hundred and seventy-one years in the case of France, the increase of urban popu- 

 lation is still more strongly marked. The official figures of 1840 show that in the 

 United States one-twelfth of the population lived in cities of 8,000 and over ; in 

 1850, one-eighth ; in 1860, one-sixth ; in 1870, a little over one-fifth ; in 1880, not 

 much less than one-fourth.' 



In England the same process has been going on simultaneously with the 

 great stream of emigration which has transferred millions of our population to 

 other countries. The phenomenon is too familiar to be insisted on, though the 

 exact extent to which it has been displayed is less clear. The distinction between 

 an ' urban ' and a ' rural ' district is, and perhaps must be, arbitrary, and in many 

 cases unsatisfactory ; it is not always easy to decide, officially or otherwise, who is 

 a townsman, aud who is a peasant. But it is roughly estimated ^ that whereas 

 thirty years ago the population of England supported by agriculture was alx)ut 

 equal in number to that supported by manufacturing industry, the proportions 

 are now approximately as to two-thirds manufacturing, and as to the remain- 

 ing one-third agricultural. Passing over the fact that in many cases a manu- 

 facturing population does not cease to be rural, and bearing in mind that the 

 question is as to the comparative welfare of townsman and peasant respectively, a 

 comparison of the birth-rate and death-rate in town and country does not show so 

 preponderating a balance as is usually imagined to exist. A net normal increase 

 in the English agricultural population of 14'1.35 per thousand as compared with 

 an increase in the towns of 14-030, or a balance in favour of the former of one per 

 thousand, is but a narrow margin of advantage. Nor is it the largest cities that are 

 the most attractive to new immigrants, since we find that the rate of increase 

 varies inversely with their size, and that during the last ten years the population 

 of towns of under 20,000 inhabitants has increased almost exactlj' as fast again as 

 that of towns of 50,000 and over. On the other hand, it is precisely during the evil 



' Observer, Feb. 7, 1886. 



^ La qiiesiiun de la Population en France et a VEt7'a')iger, M. Cheysson, Paris, 1883. 

 ' Pojmlation of the Vnited States : from Compendium of Tenth Census Beport, 

 Introd. p. XXX., and Report p. 8 : — 



Journal of Stat. Sac, June 1836. ' Occupations of the People ' — Chas. Booth. 



