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24 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
Some correction of these figures would be necessary
in the earlier years for foreigners included, and in the
later years for persons returning home, but the cor-
rection in the present view would make no material
difference. If these people had not emigrated, and
had increased as the rest of the population has done
at home, the existing population in the United King-
dom would now be many millions more than it is.
The difference made by the emigration to the United
States alone must be a good many millions. (
The influence of the United States and other new
countries has been greater still. On a rough calcula-
tion about 12 millions at least of the people of the
U rtited Kingdom live on imported food, and a certain
part of the populations of Germany, France, Belgium,
and Holland also live on imported food-the importa-
tions being mainly from the United States. These new
countries therefore not only have permitted an increase
of population in a century, till it is sixteen times the
population at starting, but a much larger increase. To
.take the United States alone, we cannot estimate its
contribution to the support of foreign populations at
less than an amount equal to the support of a -popula-
tion of J 0 millions, similar in character to that of the
United Kingdom. Its exports of bread-stuffs and pro-
visions are now about 90 million pounds annually, at
the value as they leave the United States; and at £9
per head, corresponding approximately to a value in
the United Kingdom of £ I I per head, which is about
our consumption of agricultural products per head, this
would be equal to the support of 10 million persons.
In other words, then, the United States, from sup-
porting 3 millions of people a century ago, are now
supporting at least 60 millions-virtually an increase
of twenty times the original number. The growth of
population thus becomes more astonishing than ever.
Altogether there must be about 15 millions of people
in Europe supported by the produce of the new coun-
tries; and adding together the populations of Canada,