§ 65. Mr. NEWMANasked the President of the Board of Trade the number of emigrants from this country for the year ending 31st December, 1912, and for the year 1902, respectively?
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. J. M. Robertson)In the Returns made to the Board of Trade previous to April, 1912, emigrants were not distinguished from other passengers proceeding to countries out of Europe. It has been usual to estimate the volume of emigration on the basis of the excess of passengers of British nationality leaving the United Kingdom for countries out of Europe over the arrivals of British passengers from those countries in the United Kingdom. This excess amounted to 101,547 in 1902 and to 268,486 in 1912. The figure for 1912 is subject to correction when the revision of the lists now in progress is completed; and I may add that in 1902 the Returns were, in part, voluntary, instead of, as now, compulsory (under the Merchant Shipping Act of 1906); they may, consequently, have been to a small extent incomplete.