412 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



^Gxxtsptsniituct. 



THE DRIFT OF POPULATION IN 

 FRANCE. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



Sir: My article entitled Has Immigra- 

 tion increased Population ? having been sent 

 to you two years ago, contains some observa- 

 tions the force of which has been greatly 

 modified by time, and would have been omit- 

 ted or expressed very differently if I bad 

 been writing now. I had corrected them on 

 the proofs, but the corrections unfortunately 

 failed to reach you before you were obliged 

 to go to press. Waiving consideration of 

 the lesser errors which have thus arisen, I 

 write you this letter as my only means of 

 correcting the one of greatest importance. 

 In speaking of France, I said that it could 

 not be used as an example to show that ad- 

 vanced civilization lessens the rate of in- 

 crease of population, because, although " the 

 French annual rate of increase sank very 

 low during the four or five years previous to 

 the Prussian War, being only seven per thou- 

 sand inhabitants in 1870, it has since then 

 steadily risen and in 1890 was thirty-seven 

 per thousand." 



At the time I was writing, the statistics 

 obtainable in this country seemed to bear me 

 out in the above assertion. But since then 

 we have the French statistics down through 

 1893, which show that the population has 

 again declined. It is rather strange, by the 

 way, that some of these statistics should be 

 so uncertain. For example, some authorities 

 tell us that in 1890 the French population in- 

 creased 38,446, and others tell us that in 

 that year it diminished by that same figure. 

 But, nevertheless, the statistics taken as a 

 whole seem to show a decided falling off 



since 1890. This, however, does not alter 

 my main argument, and if my corrections 

 had been in time the passage above quoted, 

 and the paragraph in which it occurs, would 

 have been replaced by the following : 



" But civilization is a broad term and has 

 different meanings in different countries. 

 While it may be true that the form of civili- 

 zation which prevails in France, or certain 

 ideas and habits of the French people, may 

 cause a decrease in population, it does not 

 necessarily follow that civilization in other 

 countries has that effect ; and as a matter of 

 fact it does not." 



I should also have inserted this : 

 " More than one hundred years ago 

 Franklin noticed that countries many of 

 whose people migrate are not thereby de- 

 populated, but on the contrary often increase 

 their population much more rapidly than 

 would be expected. His observation has 

 been confirmed by later experience (Mayo- 

 Smith's Statistics and Sociology, pp. 319, 336). 

 The emigration merely makes room for a 

 greater number of births, so that population 

 increases as fast as it otherwise would, if not 

 faster. It is the country to which the emi- 

 grant goes that is more likely to suffer. Im- 

 migrants take the place which would other- 

 wise be filled by the natural increase of the 

 natives. The pressure of the immigration 

 decreases the size of the native families ; and 

 in the case of the United States, although 

 the foreigner may, under many circumstances, 

 have a higher birth-rate, yet the mortality 

 among his children is so much greater than 

 among the children of the natives that there 

 is no gain in population." 



Yours truly, Sydnky G. Fisher. 

 December 1, 1895. 



%tXxtox's TnUc. 



PAUSE, PEEHAPS, NOT REACTION. 



IT is freely alleged in various quar- 

 ters, occasionally with regret but 

 more frequently with more or less ex- 

 ultation, that the present is a period 

 of intellectual reaction. Science, it 

 is said by some, has been moving too 

 fast and has not made good its more 



advanced positions. It has attacked 

 questions that were beyond its grasp, 

 and has had to retire in discomfiture. 

 It has made promises to mankind 

 which it has not fulfilled, and which 

 evidently it is not going to fulfill. Its 

 watchwords have lost their power 

 so we are assured and the comfort- 



