204 Anniversary Address. 



I will now say a few words on a subject that interests 

 me much, and may interest you, viz. — the extraordinary 

 difference between the Distribution of the Population 

 over these Islands in the time of the Romans, and at 

 the present day, and whether the causes which have 

 led to this change are now still at work, and what 

 they are, and whether they can be arrested, or it is 

 desirable that they should be ? 



I think from the quantity of British Camps and 

 Villages on all our hills along the Borders, that we may 

 infer, that before and during the Roman occupation of 

 these Islands, the population was nearly as great along 

 the Borders of England and Scotland as it is at the 

 present time, and relatively to the whole ])opulation of 

 Great Britain enormously larger than now ; and that the 

 enormous increase that has taken place since those days, 

 it will not be denied, has occurred chiefly at the mouths 

 or on the course of our navigable rivers, or where coal and 

 iron have been found, or in the most fertile agricultural 

 districts. We see from this, I think, that under a 

 settled government, and in time of internal peace, the 

 population, when left to itself, naturally gravitates to 

 where employment is to be found, and wages are highest, 

 and most money to be made. This leads us to ask, is 

 it likely that the rural population will increase in 

 numbers in the near future, as some well-wishers of the 

 working men desire, and is it desirable that it should ? 

 My own belief is that as long as England possesses coal, 

 and is willing to work it, and to be the chief manufacturing 

 country in the world, the population must leave rural 

 districts and gravitate towards the towns and manufac- 

 turing centres, where constant work is to be found. This 

 keeps up the rate of wages in the country districts, 

 which, with the present low price of corn and live stock 

 of all kinds (the natural consequence of free trade and 

 cheap freights) makes it almost impossible for farmers 

 to pay their rents, and quite impossible for them to lay 



