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THE UTILITY OF COMMON STATISTICS 37
improvements in agriculture, which will have practic-
ally the same effect as an increase of the quantity of
new land available. Possibly we may have the rate of
growth of population itself checked. But with the
change of one condition others must change, if the
masses of European people are to· remain at their
present level of prosperity. If there is no change, the
nature of the difficulties that will arise is obvious:
the masses of labourers will have to contend under
incre:sing difficulties 1 against a fall in the scale of
living.
But while I refrain from indulging in general specu-
lation, I may, perhaps, be allowed to point out some
of the more immediate consequences which are likely
to follow from an approach to complete settlement in
the United States, of which we seem to be within a
measurable distance. First of all there will probably
be a diversion of a larger part of the stream of emigra-
tion from Europe and the Eastern States of the Ame-
rican Union to the north-west provinces of Canada.
Here there are probably about 400,000 square miles
of territory available for settlement, equal in quality
to the best land in the United States West. As there
is no such field in the United States itself, the stream
must apparently be to the new land. 2 The second im-
mediate consequence I should look for would be an
increase of manufactures and of town population in the
United States. The agricultural outlet becoming less
tempting, and agricultural wages tending to fall, the
population will inevitably be more and more largely
drawn into manufacturing. 2 And a third consequence
will probably be a check to the tid~ of emigration from
older countries, a greater demand upon the agriculture
of those countries, or at least a mitigation of the ex-
treme competition it now sustains. from virgin soils,

1 See "Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly
Expounded." By J. E. Cairnes, M.A. Macmillan and Co., 1874.
Pp. 33 2-334.
• These anticipations are now being fulfilled [1903-4].