CROWDED BRITAIN

Southland Times, Issue 23513, 20 May 1938, Page 6

CROWDED BRITAIN

PEOPLE “SHOULDER TO SHOULDER” CONGESTION ON ROADS The British people stand shoulder to shoulder. Or very nearly so, the “right little, tight little, island is packed so right and so tight, writes John Allan May in The Christian Science Monitor. , Those who would like a practical illustration of just how crowded Great Britain is can get the situation neatly into focus if they view it through an American lens. Imagine 1,350,000,000 persons, about two-thirds of the world’s entire population, dumping themselves on the United States— incidentally, one would think, making things rather uncomfortable for the 130,000,000 already That is, proportionately, how the population question figures in Great Britain. , , , But that is not the whole story by any means. Imagine these billion-and-a-bit immigrants building houses, more than 300,000,000 of them, where the wide open spaces used to be. Then imagine them dividing up the remaining land into 15,000,000 farms. Any space imagination now left may be exploited in trying to picture the combined population of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia and South America hot-wheeling it over the roads of this new America. That shows, again proportionately, just how packed the country of Britain is. ‘ SUPPORT FOR MIGRATION No further stretch of imagination is needed to understand why a deputation of prominent citizens called recently upon Mr Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister, to urge the renewal of large-scale Empire migration. Or why road safety, housing, town planning, and industrial location are questions not merely of the utmost importance in a small island kingdom, but also of the utmost intricacy. The reverse side of this picture is presented by the outcry raised in Britain over the declining birth-rate. Despite the crowds, Britain wishes to stop any big fall in the population. Because in a land so intensively developed, industrially and agriculturally, any sudden population decline would result in economic chaos. For although Britain, with 515 persons a square mile, is not the most highly populated territory in the world —Hong Kong claims 2500 a square mile and Belgium 702—she can rightly claim to be one of the most crowded in the world. Take the roads. In doing so you will only be following the example of 1200 persons who every day drive new vehicles on to the streets to swell the total of 1,650,000 private automobiles and more, than 1,150,000 transport vehicles. There is no accurate figure for the number of bicycles in Britain, but the Automobile Association puts the number as high, as 10,000,000. THE MANY ROADS To carry this dense traffic, Britain has more roads relatively than any other country in the world. There are 178,000 miles of road in the island of Great Britain, town roads, arterial roads, and country lanes. For every mile of these roads there are 14 motorcars and more than 50 bicycles. And for every mile of main road (leaving out the country lanes) the British Road Federation declares there are 63 automobiles. And hbout 230 bicycles. That is some going. Which, by the way, is a fairly accurate description of traffic conditions in Britain. = Some going, and the rest in a traffic jam. Of course, all these road vehicles .are not on the streets at one and the same time. But to those who brave the highways to the sea on public holidays it almost seems as if they are. . . ■ 1 Radiator 'to tail light, the automobiles stream out of ' London, and other large cities, along the new motor roads, at the rate of 4000 an hour. It may be said that these are not normal times. But even in normal times it is bad enough. And in London it is worse. For instance, at Hyde Park Comer 1 , traffic streams by during a normal day at the rate of two vehicles a second, every minute for twelve hours. And it is reckoned that the average for an industrial area is more than 20,000 vehicles every day, while that for an agricultural area is as high as 2500.

The 30 m.p.h. speed limit in urban areas has given motorists a grievance and statisticians a fairly accurate picture of the division of England between towns and countryside. You will see what I mean when you know that 22 per cent, of all British roads run through towns. SEVEN YARDS A MAN If the man in the street really had a claim to a portion of the street, he would have only seven yards to himself, for there are more than 230 persons to every mile of street, which seems a better way of picturing population density than persons per square mile. For instance, it is said that the

population of London and the southeastern country of England totals 13,863,000, which works out at 1313 inhabitants to the square mile. . One gets a clearer idea of overcrowding in this area if one imagines all these people in the streets at once. They would only just be able to stand in single file in all the available streets. The south-east of England is not, however, the most densely-populated district. This title is claimed by Lan-' cashire and'Cheshire, where there are more than 2000 inhabitants to the square mile. Even in the highlands of Scotland, the emptiest of all districts, there are 46 persons to the square mile. What does this mean? It means, for one thing, that there are 10,600,000 houses in Britain, which works out at an average of well over 100 a square mile. Which, in turn, means that the people of Britain have to live fairly close together. As a matter of fact, according to “The Home Market,” a statistical handbook recently issued by Major G. Harrison and Mr F. C. Mitchell, 30 per cent, of the population lives in families of six or more. And since the incomes of 73 per cent, of the British people do not exceed an average of £4 a week, most of the homes these big families live in are fairly small. So let us do what most, of these families would like to. do—go to the country. What country is there left? Although agriculture is still a vast industry in Britain, employing nearly 1,000,000 workers, two-fifths of the farms on which these folk work are less than 20 acres in extent. Further more, there are 85,000- agricultural holdings which are less than five acres in extent, and only 14,000 which are more than 300 acres. MORE CARVING UP Research workers now point out that there is a strong tendency to carve the countryside of Britain into even smaller pieces. City dwellers are moving out of their towns into satellite garden suburbs. Indeed, building of these new country towns has reached such a point that the railways are complaining. When one considers this state of affairs, it is hard to understand why Britain should be one of the most popular countries in the world from the point of view of immigrants. But it is. In 1936, 30,999 persons left Britain to seek their fortunes elsewhere, but 49,026 left other countries to seek their fortunes in Britain. Which give Britain a plus balance of 18,027, about 15 times as great as that of Australia and two and a-half times as great as that of the United States of America. Nobody seems to be very greatly concerned about it. But perhaps they do not realize that there is sufficient telegraph wire in Britain to be wound round the coastline of Great Britain 2666 times. That would make a wire fence 200 feet high if one inch were left between each wind. Such a fence would be very welcome. Because, between you and me and the gatepost, there isn’t much room between you and me and the gatepost.