ABSTRACT
The volume of emigration declined in spite of fact that the population of England and Scotland continued to increase. The general and more or less gradual waves of increase and decrease of population, find that certain definite areas have at times become overcrowded and so given an impetus to local emigration. The type of man who suffers most under this inequitable system of levelling up wages with parish funds is the small farmer, whose land and residence came within the jurisdiction of one of the overcrowded “open villages.” The process of amalgamating small farms is not confined to Ireland. The emigration, it reports, is due to the landowners changing the “Economy of their Estates,” and a law should be enacted forbidding the lairds from lessening the people on their lands below a given proportion. The report dealing with the agricultural disturbances tells that some thousands of small farmers, possessing a little capital, took part in the outflow from England.
