These industrial recruits from a rural background become part of an
advanced industrial proletariat. By nature and by upbringing they are
foreign to the industrial society that uses them. Their political
outlook is far different from that of the loyal trade-unionists beside
whom they work. They are much less liable to be impressed by appeals
for union solidarity and Labor Party support. They accept the benefits
of the Welfare State, but they are not of it. The economic Marxism of
the orators in the constituency labor parties is beyond them; besides,
have they not been warned that Marx is of the devil? The incorporation
of this group into the Socialist proletariat poses a question for Labor
politicians of the future.
Despite the lack of large-scale migration into Britain during nine
centuries, national strains remain virulent. Noisy and stubborn
Welsh and Scots nationalist movements give young men and women in
Cardiff and Edinburgh something to babble about. London boasts many
local associations formed of exiles from the north or west. Even the
provincial English manage to make themselves heard in the capital.
Few winter nights pass without the Loyal Sons of Loamshire meeting to
praise the glories of their home county and drink confusion to the
"foreigners," their neighbors.
If the urbanization of the country has not broken these barriers
between Scot and Londoner or between Lancashire and Kent, it has
changed the face of England out of recognition. And for the worse.
The empty crofters' cottages around Inverasdale and elsewhere in
the Highlands are exceptions, for Britain is crowded. The area of
the United Kingdom is 93,053 square miles--slightly less than that
of Oregon. But the population is just under 51,000,000, including
44,370,000 in England and Wales, 5,128,000 in Scotland, and 1,389,000
in Northern Ireland.
Since the end of the last century the population has been predominantly
urban and suburban. By 1900 about three quarters of the British people
were living within the boundaries of urban administrative areas, and
the large "conurbation" was already the dominant type of British
community. This ugly but useful noun describes those areas of urban
development where a number of separate towns, linked by a common
industrial or commercial interest, have grown into one another.
For over a third of a century about forty per cent of the population
has lived in seven great conurbations. Greater London, with
a population of 8,348,000, is the largest of these. The other
conurbations and their centers are: southeast Lancashire: Manchester;
west Midlands: Birmingham; west Yorkshire: Leeds and Bradford;
Merseyside: Liverpool; Tyneside: Newcastle upon Tyne; and Clydeside:
Glasgow. Of these the west Midland area is growing most rapidly.
Southeast Lancashire has lost population--a reflection of the waning of
the textile industry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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