those who are unable to get regular work at decent wages, that the
influence of machinery is most questionable. Violent trade fluctuations,
and a continuous displacement of hand-labour by new mechanical
inventions, keep in perpetual existence a large margin of unemployed or
half-employed, who form the most hopeless and degraded section of the
city poor, and furnish a body of reckless, starving competitors for
work, who keep down the standard of wages and of life for the lower
grades of regular workers affected by this competition.




Chapter III.

The Influx of Population into Large Towns.



§ 1. Movements of Population between City and Country. The growth of
large cities is so closely related to the problems of poverty as to
deserve a separate treatment. The movements of population form a group
of facts more open than most others to precise measurement, and from
them much light is thrown on the condition of the working classes. That
the towns are growing at the expense of the country, is a commonplace to
which we ought to seek to attach a more definite meaning.

We may trace the inflow of country-born people into the towns by looking
either at the statistics of towns, or of rural districts. But first we
ought to bear in mind one fact. Quite apart from any change in
proportion of population, there is an enormous interchange constantly