200 



FOREIGN OFFICE REPORTS. 



[Sept. 1895. 



consumed in the country and the balance exported. The figures 

 mentioned do not inckide the transit trade in eggs, which, in 

 1893, amounted to 300 millions. 



The importation of eggs from the United Kingdom shows a 

 considerable decrease. In 1893, over three millions of eggs 

 reacbed Belgium from England, but in the following year that 

 number went down to one million ; on the other hand in 1893, 

 28 million of eggs were shipped to Great Britain ; and in 1894, 

 30 million eggs went in the same direction. 



Eggs are sold wholesale in Belgium by weight, the current 

 price at present being 5d. per lb. A case of 1,440 eggs weighs 

 approximately 120 lbs. The price varies according to the time 

 of the year, the most favourable period being in the spring and 

 autumn. 



Eggs for the Antwerp market from foreign countries are 

 usually packed in long cases containing each 10 gross, which are 

 allowed to enter Belgium free of duty. 



Rural Depopulation in the United States. 



Ill a report published by the Foreign Office on the trade of 

 the consular district of Chicago for the year 1894, Colonel J. 

 Hayes-Sadler, Her Majesty's Consul, states that the drift of 

 population and immigration towards cities and towns, with a 

 comparative decrease in rural population, have for some years 

 been more or less marked features in all the States of his 

 district. This movement, which has lately been accentuated by 

 the financial crisis and the condition of the labour and produce 

 markets, is attributed to modern inventions, the establishment 

 of new industries in cities, and to the greater inducement to 

 energy and the greater chances of advancement there offered 

 than on the farm. The fancy for city life, together with the 

 depression of agricultural interests, has led to the overcrowding 

 of large cities, particularly in their poorer quarters. Notwith- 

 standing the great increase of population in the State of Illinois; 

 the rural population decreased by 114,000 from 1880 to 1890, 

 even counting small town of 200 inhabitants in that denomina- 

 tion, while the urban population during the same decade 

 increased 862,529, or more than 66 per cent. As in each 

 successive year there is less public land remaining in the west 

 for occupation, the competition for employment in the cities 

 becomes greater, and this may eventually lead to a lower 

 standard of wages. Although labour unions may have, up to 

 the present time, been able to maintain the scale for their own 

 members, it is considered doubtful whether the tendency is not 

 towards a general fall, which they may be powerless to control, 

 unless a change should occur in prospective conditions. 



