40 The Census of 1891 and Rural Depopulation. 
revealed in its full extent tlie mischief which had been working 
for several years. It is, then, a task of curious, and it may well 
be of melancholy, interest to attempt to detect traces of the 
depression in tlie returns of the Registrar-General ; and the 
point which demands the closest attention is the extent to which 
the figures confirm complaints of depopulation of the rural 
districts. For there can be little, if any, doubt that among 
the causes to which this phenomenon may be plausibly attributed, 
in England at least, agricultural depression occupies an impor- 
tant place. 
The inquiry may have its encouraging side ; for it is often the 
case that a popular notion, brought to the test of unimpassioned 
figures, is compelled to modify, if not to transform, its expres- 
sion, and becomes far less formidable on careful examination 
than vague surmise or alarmist prediction has represented. In 
fact, a danger appears not infrequently to arise in the opposite 
direction, and the careless observer, astonished to find his 
gloomy anticipations inadequately realised, is prone to conclude 
that no reason exists for his previous alarm. It would be diffi- 
cult for a careful student to fall into any such mistake after 
examining with a moderate measure of attention the census 
returns of 1891. And yet comments in not a few organs of the 
press on an article contained in the January number of 
the National Review 1 afford an apt illustration of the ease with 
which such a comforting error may be disseminated. 
Few topics in connection with English agriculture have occu- 
pied a larger space in the public mind during recent years than 
the influx of rural labour into the towns. No doubt the magnitude 
of this immigration has been often exaggerated. No doubt an 
experience, repeated in several places, of those who have known 
of instances among their own acquaintance that have swelled 
the volume of immigration has been multiplied by imaginative 
rumour into wholesale abandonment of the country for the 
attractions of the town. No doubt the wider interest which has 
been naturally taken by politicians and others in the condition, 
movements, and aspirations of the agricultural labourer since he 
received the parliamentary franchise has caused enthusiastic 
investigators to bestow upon him a microscopic observation, 
which may sometimes have magnified, and sometimes have dis- 
torted, what had escaped notice before. No doubt the increased 
attention devoted to certain social problems in the towns has 
given greater prominence to the competition of new-comers, 
whether, like Jews, they find their way in from abroad, or, like 
1 “ The Decline of Urban Immigration,” by Edwin Cannan. 
