tendency to congregate in towns seems strongest in Anglo-Saxon countries. For instance, the proportion of townsmen in the United States (22·5 per cent in 1880)[1] and in Australia (25 per cent) is very large, though in both of these countries the area of land is considerable, and there is a great deal not taken up.
Now, if we inquire into the causes that attract population to towns, we shall find them very various, and for the most part sufficiently simple. One is, that the discoveries of science in many cases enable the farmer to substitute machinery for hand-labour. The steam-plough, or common ploughs of improved construction, reapers and binders, and threshing-machines have now come largely into use in all highly-developed countries, and the result is that a few well-trained and well-paid labourers are substituted for a great many poorly paid. Then, again, the gradual evolution of macadamised roads, canals, and railways has enormously diminished the proportion of men engaged in the transport of produce, and has also diminished the need of over-production. Formerly, there might be a famine in Gloucestershire when corn was rotting in Kent,[2] because communication between the different parts of England was so difficult and costly, and then every district had to keep corn stored, or to sow
- ↑ United States Census for 1880, p. 8. Mr. Bryce, excluding the small towns, makes the urban population only one-seventh; but raises it to one-fourth if towns of 8000 inhabitants are reckoned.—American Commonwealth, vol. iii. pp. 45, 676.
- ↑ Thus in 1261 the Annals of Bermondsey say, that the quarter of corn (frumentum) was sold for 24s. in London, and all over England. The average for England, however, according to Professor Kogers, was only 4s. 3d. to 9s. 9d. "The prices from Oxfordshire," says Mr. Rogers, "are exceedingly low."—History of Prices, vol. i. pp. 187, 226.
