RUINED TRADES.
[TO THE EDITOR OP TRH "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—Your correspondent, "A Yorkshire Squire," in his letter in the Spectator of August 29th makes the following astound- ing statement:—" During the last thirty years more than seven million acres of arable land have been converted into grass or gone out of cultivation; that means at least twelve million labourers with their families migrating to the towns." Seven labourers for every hundred acres of arable would be a very liberal allowance. With the help of a little elementary arithmetic this makes a displacement of four hundred and ninety thousand labourers instead of twelve million ; but perhaps your correspondent arrives at his tale of exiles from the land in the same fashion as stage armies are presented— by marshalling the same men in a continuous round—and multiplies the four hundred and ninety thousand, or some smaller number, by the thirty years. But beyond this there has not been a displacement in the last thirty years even of the figure I have given. Unfortunately I have not by me the division into classes of the 1871 Census, but in 1881 the Census gives the number of persons in England and Wales over ten years of age engaged in agriculture as 1,183,184, and in 1901 as 1,152,496, showing a diminution of 30,688 in twenty years,—i.e., at the rate of about 1,534 persons per annum. Even i the rate diminution to h been double bl d during
Since
supposing t e rate o have n ou e u g
labourers, of whom many would be too young to have wives and families. I believe many persons labour under a mis- apprehension as to the number of persons who have been deprived of employment by conversion of agricultural land into pasture, and that consequently the statements of "A Yorkshire Squire" should not be allowed to pass unchallenged.
—I am, Sir, &c., J. C. T. STEWARD. Empshott Grange, West Liss, Hants.
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