But the movement is by no means confined to the densely-populated countries of Europe. If we turn to the "new world" we find it illustrated still more remarkably. In the United States of America, long before the population approached its present height, and while large tracts of fertile land still remained to be parcelled out, the towns began to absorb more and more of the population. The following diagram will show this movement to have been continuous, and with a gathering momentum as the century moved on:—
GROWTH OF CITY POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES.
What holds of the United States holds also of the newly settled countries with small populations, as New South Wales, Victoria, Canada, and even Manitoba,[273] Argentina, and Uruguay. Nearly one-third of the whole population of New South Wales is resident in Sydney, and a fourth of the population of Queensland in Brisbane. Victoria presents the most striking case. In 1881 its four largest towns contained more than two-fifths of the whole population, Melbourne alone holding one-third.
In Canada there is the same diminution of rural and growth of town population. New Brunswick contains 14 counties; in the decade 1871-81 only one of these showed a slight diminution, but not less than 7 in the decade 1881-91. The 18 counties of Nova Scotia all showed an increase in 1871-81, 8 showed a decrease in 1881-91. Quebec contains 61 counties, 10 of which showed a decrease in 1871-81, 26 in 1881-91. Ontario has 48 counties, only 4 of which showed slight decrease in 1871-81; 20 showed a much more rapid decrease in 1881-91.
The following table shows that the accelerating decrease of the rural parts is accompanied by a correspondingly accelerating increase of the chief towns:—
| 1871. | 1881. | 1891. | |
| Kingston[274] | 12,407 | 14,091 | 19,264 |
| London | 15,826 | 26,266 | 31,977 |
| Ottawa | 21,545 | 31,307 | 44,154 |
| Hamilton | 26,717 | 35,961 | 48,980 |
| Toronto | 56,092 | 96,196 | 181,220 |
| 132,586 | 203,821 | 325,595 |
The portentously rapid growth of the largest cities is of course not wholly attributable to economic causes. To form the capital cities of the New World, political and social influences have co-operated with industrial. Nor can these causes be ignored in explaining the rapid growth of certain European capitals, especially Berlin, Paris, London, and Vienna. But the effective operation of these forces is largely dependent on the modern machinery of transport, and in the main these great centres must be regarded as manufacturing and commercial towns.
Though the lack of any common statistical basis prevents us from being able to trace with exactitude the comparative pace of this movement in different countries, we know enough to justify the general conclusion that this centralising tendency varies directly with the degree of material civilisation attained in the several countries by the mass of the population. In England, France, United States, Australia, where steam engines, electric light, newspapers, and all the most highly elaborated mechanical contrivances are available in towns, the growth of town life is most rapid; in Russia, Turkey, India, Egypt, where mechanical development is still far behind, the townward march is far slower. As the area of machine-industry spreads, so this movement of population will become more general, and as towns grow larger so it would appear that this power to suck in the rural population is stronger and more extensive.
§ 3. These facts and figures do not, however, of themselves justify the conclusion that a larger proportion of the world's population is moving into towns. In all the advanced industrial countries a smaller proportion of the population is engaged in those extractive and domestic industries which belong to rural life, a larger proportion in the manufacturing and distributive industries which belong to towns. But this movement is made possible by the fact that an increasing proportion of the food and the raw materials of manufacture used in these countries is drawn from the labour of the more backward countries. The increase of the area of the industrial world is effecting such a division of labour as hands over an ever-increasing proportion of the agricultural work to the inhabitants of those countries which do not rank as civilised industrial countries. The known growth of certain large trading centres in India, China, Egypt, South Africa, etc., does not justify us, in the absence of careful statistical inquiry, in assuming that an increased proportion of the inhabitants of these and other more backward portions of the globe is passing into town life. Unless agricultural machinery and improved agricultural methods are advancing more rapidly in these great "growing areas" than we have a right to suppose, it would seem that there must be some increased demand for agricultural and other rural labour which shall, partially, at any rate, compensate for the diminished demand for such kinds of labour in the more advanced industrial communities. For although a large number of the industries subsidiary to agriculture, the making of tools, waggons, gates, fencing, etc., have now passed from the country to the towns, while the economies of machinery and improved cultivation have advanced so far that it is alleged that three men working on soil of average quality can raise food for one thousand, still the growth of population with a constantly rising standard of material consumption seems likely to prevent any net diminution in the proportion of labour engaged upon the soil in the industrial world. So long as modern methods of production and consumption in civilised countries require an ever-increasing quantity of raw materials, it would seem à priori unlikely that a smaller proportion of the whole industry of the world should be devoted to agricultural and other extractive industries, and a larger amount to the manufacturing and distributive industries, where the chief economies of machine-production are so largely applied.