Emigration 1s always regrettable when it is a necessity, but it is doubtful if its effects on the homeland are quite so definitely bad as the habitual pessimist would have us believe. It takes a lot of emigration to bring about serious depopulation. This is borne out by the annual report of the Registrar-General for Scotland, just published. The population "in the middle of the year 1922 was estimated at 4,90,- 458, showing an annual increase of nearly 22,000. Between the middle of 1921 and middle of 1922, Scotland lost 24,669 people by emigration, but the excess of births over deaths was 46,628. These figures do not, of course, dispose of the fact that we are losing more skilled workers than we oan afford. Here is the real tragedy of this period of depression. Not that -the skilled workers are leaving us, but that, for lack of work, there can be no training of young men to take their places. The one embarrassment is temporary; the other may not be righted for many years to come.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.