Derb’s readers posit that the lack of immigration into New England was responsible for its economic torpor. Speaking for my own corner of New Hampshire, my town’s population peaked in 1820, declined until 1940, and even though it’s recovered since then is still not back to where it was 190 years ago.

But that’s because the Yankees were the emigrants — the ones who in the early 19th century fanned out across the continent and settled the west.

And ultimately population decline didn’t matter because we didn’t have unaffordable welfare structures whose costs were predicated on ever growing populations.

That’s the point: a dependence on immigration (as opposed to a preference for it as an attractive multicultural bonus) is always a sign of structural weakness and should be addressed as such.