Problems of Emigration

The Board of Trade returns for 1912 state that emigration is drawing population from the United Kingdom at the rate of approximately three hundred thousand per annum : ¹ in other words, one person out of every hundred and forty is destined to leave the Mother Country and settle within the Colonies or under the flag of a foreign Power. Most of these people are selected for their capacity for labour and high standard of health; they are mostly of an age when their economic worth is at its maximum, and they nearly all possess a certain amount of capital. A question of supreme importance is : “ Can the Homeland afford to spare, in ever-growing numbers, these valuable members of its community ? ”