136 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
In 1911 the birth-rate in the towns of England and Wales was 
higher than in the rural areas, and the Registrar-General’s Report states 
that even when these figures are corrected for the movement of the 
people the rural districts would only have increased at the same rate as 
the country at large, adding that ‘ these facts are worth noting in view 
of the assumption, sometimes loosely made, that the population of the | 
towns would cease to increase if it were not recruited from the country.’ 
In this connection it should also be noted that the proportion of 
London residents who are London-born has steadily increased from 1881 
onwards. 
The growth of our towns is no longer haphazard, but has entered 
on the stage of planning. 
A great abatement of the contamination of town air by smoke has 
been shown to be practicable, and it is largely in the matter of smoke 
and crowding that towns have been hygienically inferior to the country, 
for country cottages are often as bad in themselves as slum houses, 
and their water supply much inferior. Moreover, the hygiene of towns 
has always been dependent on the circumstance that here the health of 
many people is affected by the carelessness of a few, and it follows that 
the hygienic conditions of urban life are capable of immense improve- 
ment when scientific knowledge becomes general. The experience of 
the War has shown that the popular notion of the inferior moral of 
townsmen was unduly pessimistic, for our urban regiments not only 
showed intelligence, but exhibited a sustained valour which has seldom 
been surpassed in the long annals of military history. 
That emigration to the Dominions ‘brings some economic benefit 
to the home country cannot be. gainsaid, for trade returns show that 
an emigrant to the Dominions buys as rnuch here as eleven emigrants 
to the United States, and therefore as much as many foreigners; but 
those who fear additions to our people also fear the moral effects of 
emigration. They say that emigration will take the best and leave the 
worst, and so produce a disgenic effect in the home country.. But the 
individual emigration of to-day differs in this respect from the group 
migrations under political compulsion, or for conscience sake, which 
inflicted eugenic loss upon Spain, France, and England in bygone 
days. The best lad for the Dominions is not necessarily the best for 
the home country, and an Empire which comprises urban as well as 
rural States requires young men whose business tenacity is sufficient to 
resist the restlessness of youth not less than those who are instinct with 
the spirit of the frontiersman. 
That a relative increase of female migration would benefit national 
character cannot be gainsaid, for at present the Dominion frontiers lack 
the due weight of feminine influence, whilst in Great Britain many 
women are denied the full development of their character which some 
natures only attain by wedlock and motherhood. The Census of 1911, 
unaffected by War losses, shows an excess of about 1,300,000 females 
in Great Britain and a deficiency of about 750,000 in the Dominions. 
The inequality of distribution as between Great Britain and the 
Dominions limits the possible marriage-rate, and therefore the total 
births, in a way to which no other nation is equally subject. If the 
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