440 Prevalent dread of «migTation. Population of Europe. THE DEPOPULATION THEORY. " At a time when men are alarmed at every idea of emigration, I wish not to add to their fears by any attempt to depopulate the parent State." This remarkable passage — which appears in Sir Greorge Young's Proposal for a Settlement on the coast of New South Wales, — throws a striking light on the history of the times. The great wars in which England had been engaged for so many years previously, and the prospect of still greater wars in which the country might be involved at any time, probably gave rise to the alarm excited in the public mind by any proposal for free emigration ; the prevalent ideas being that every able-bodied man who went out to settle in a new country was a direct loss to the State, and that the drain on its population entailed by the estab- lishment of a colony might prove a serious public danger in the event of war. The state of public opinion on this subject in 1785 may be better appreciated by a glance at the population tables of the principal European States for the years 1800 and 1880 : — * Country. United Kingdom France Germany Austria Russia Italy Spam 1800. 15,570,000 27,720,000 22,330,000 21,230,000 38,140,000 13,380,000 10,440,000 1880. 34,650,000 37,430,000 45,260,000 37,830,000 84,440,000 28,910,000 16,290,000 population. The depopulation theory dates from a very early period in Eng- Coionies and lish history. Sir Josiah Child, in his New Discourse of Trade, published in 1668, argued strongly against it, contending that colonies do not depopulate the mother country. Adam Smith, whose Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, mentioned in
- Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics. In the IlUtotre des NavifjalioM avx
Terres Amtralea, Paris, 1758, the author mentions 20,000,000 as the sup- posed population of France at that time, but admits that it is not a reliable estimate ; vol. i, p. 25. Voltaire (Dialogue 24t premier entretien) alludes to this estimate as an exact one : — ** II est prouv^ que la France ne contient ?[u'environ vingt millions d'&mes tout aut plus, par le d^nombrement des eux exactement donn6 en 1754." Digitized byCjOOQlC
