23 SEPTEMBER 1911, Page 13

RURAL DEPOPULATION.

[To THE EDITOR 07 Tux "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In your notice of my new book " British Rural Life and Labour " your reviewer asks : " Is the assumption wan anted that a proportionate decrease of the agricultural population is necessarily an evil, and that, if so, it can only be combated by reversing the economic movements of population which at present tends to flow from the badly paid to the better paid industries of the country P "

My answer is emphatically "Yea," and I feel sure that if your able reviewer would give the fuller consideration to the subject that its great importance deserves he would agree with me.

The question demands more space for proper discussion than can be given in a mere "letter to the Editor," but I will just say, very briefly, that the present rate of depopulation, as the figures in my book show, points to a very early " crisis," and unless something is done to stop it—whether by my plan for freehold possession of cultivable land and freehold cottages for our farm labourers, or otherwise—the home-produced food supply of this country will be alarmingly affected at no very distant date.

Unfortunately it is not the worst but the very beat and most enterprising of our farm servants who either migrate to the already congested towns or emigrate to the colonies and else- where, and those who go do not come back ! The colonies will not have any but the best of our men, and it is inevitable that the rural districts should suffer from this " preference." —I am,